Sleep Training in the Age of COVID
By: Sachi Ezura
Tags: Quarantine, Baby, Parenting, Sleep Training

The week after I gave birth, I was like I must write down my birth story. I have time, I like to write, something crazy has happened to me and my body, so I will write it all down. If not for the rest of the world, then at least for me. But I didn’t. Because everything people say about a baby is true. It is relentless and frustrating and joy-filled and it sucks everything you had out of your life until there is just you and the baby and the profound isolation of early motherhood.

The same could be said for this virus and its resulting quarantine, which started when I had two weeks left on my maternity leave. So I was used to the loneliness, the boredom, the constant churning repetition of chores (dishes, laundry, take out the trash, replace the trash bag, repeat). Luckily, my husband is now forced to live it all with me. Lucky for me, not so much for him.

I have no idea whether I’ll go back to work in two weeks as I’m supposed to. But I do want to have a record of this time and how it felt. So I am going to try to write at least once a day. Even if you don’t read it, writing it here will keep me accountable.

For the most part, having a newborn in all this has been a godsend. My old boss Ethan asked on Facebook the other day what age was the best age kids to have at home with you in this quarantine, and I think three months is pretty great. She’s old enough to be giving us a well-needed chunk of sleep at night, but not attentive enough to know when we plop her down in a bouncer and do work for an hour. She’s learning every day, how to smile and hold things and reach and kick. She smiles at certain stimuli: her dad’s voice, the sheep on her mobile, when I shake my hair across her face (my mom calls this “car wash”).

She is entertaining in a way that no Netflix show could be right now. Rewarding and unpredictable and funny. And her schedule makes the long stretch of indoor time feel manageable. Up at 9, pump, feed, nap, pump, feed, nap, pump, feed, feed, pump, bedtime.

We started sleep training two days ago, which might seem crazy. Why would you want to pile on to a national pandemic with one of the hardest things parents have to go through? But as long as we are trapped here, Jake and I were dying for a couple hours of her asleep where we could watch a movie or cook dinner or regain some sense of normalcy.

I’ve spent the last two months reading everything I could get my hands on re: infant sleep: Weissbluth, Ferber, Bringing Up Bebe, Taking Cara Babies, Happiest Baby on the Block, Baby 101, What to Expect in the First Year, etc. etc. I have always been the kind of person who researches endlessly, reading Yelp reviews before I choose a meal off a menu. Unfortunately, as far as parenthood is concerned, there are no right answers. And honestly, as much as everyone talks about Weissbluth’s and Ferber’s books, they are NOT user-friendly. There is no easy to follow chart of what age makes the most sense to sleep train, no answers for what to do when your baby spits up in the Snoo or breaks free from her swaddle or if you can’t really see her well enough on the monitor to know whether she’s just cry-coughing or choke-coughing or, God forbid, COVID-coughing.

After all of my research, what I could ascertain is that Weissbluth’s full extinction worked the fastest and provided the easiest rules for us to follow. Yes, it was as heartbreaking as every mother says it is. The first night, we were exhausted and frustrated enough that we just stared blankly at each other as she wailed. But the second night, knowing what she and I were both in for, I cried as we went through our bedtime routine… diaper change, Goodnight Moon, the lullabye version of Toy Story 2’s “When She Loved Me” on Spotify. I told Ellie about all the fun things we’d do tomorrow and that I’d be just in the next room, knowing she wouldn’t understand any of it. And then as her eyes began to well up and her little lip began to quiver, I snuck out of the room.

Five minutes later, she was asleep! Jake and I couldn’t believe it. It worked! It worked! Little victories, in the age of COVID.

Then ten minutes after that, she was up again and scream-cried for another 40 minutes. So much for that… But eventually, she tired herself out and slept for NINE AND A HALF HOURS IN HER CRIB. So we’re getting there.

Today is Jake and my 10 year anniversary. 10 years ago today, I had a quick dinner for my friend Alison’s birthday at Cafeteria and told my friends I was going to meet an industry boy at Comix. We spent the rest of the night together, drinking at the Comix bar, watching the March Madness show, heading to Billy Marks for part 2 of Alison’s birthday party, and then searching for a pretzel along 9th Avenue. I never would’ve thought that night that we would end up here 10 years later, with a baby and a Trump presidency and a virus sweeping the globe, but here we are, and I couldn’t think of a better man with whom to be quarantined. Happy anniversary!

If you’re looking for something to keep you occupied on your own quarantine, might I recommend his newest piece with my mother-in-law for the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. More tomorrow…