The first dirty little secret of parenting is that a full-term pregnancy is TEN months, not nine. I remember when I found out. I was a giddy prospective parent, reading the first of many pregnancy books, even before we were ready to start down the parenting road. I came across the phrase “40 weeks.” I did the math in my head. It was like finding out Mexican Martinis are made with O’Douls.

That lie was just the first of many we’ve come to uncover. But the biggest, by far, has been all the “sleep through the night” business.

Liar, Liar, Sleepless Quagmire

The medical definition of a baby who sleeps through the night is sleeping five uninterrupted hours. Since when is sleeping from 8:00 pm to 1:00 am “through the night”? C’mon, medical community! How much harder would it be for all you nurses and pediatricians to switch to asking if our little ones are “sleeping five hours straight”? It’s the same number of words, way more specific, and would make us poor sleepless schleps feel less of a failure.

But it would be unfair of me to blame just the medical folk. Our fellow parents propagate this one too. You know the parents who say their sweet little angels have been sleeping all night, every night—without waking up once—since the age of 2 months? I think they’re probably lying to us. Could be they have very selective memories, or they drink to forget.

Either way, we don’t have to like them very much.

To be fair, though, when I’ve swallowed my pride enough to probe for more information when talking to one of these parents, I find out to them, the nights of dealing with sickness and teething don’t count. Kind of like having sweets during the holidays isn’t really cheating on your diet.

And don’t forget the growth spurts! During these most magical of times when your baby’s brain doubles in size and years are shaved off your life due to lack of sleep, charming junior will all but sit back and laugh as you desperately cling to the life preserver of your trusty bedtime routine. Think I’m kidding? This is 16-month-old Abby awake at 3 in the morning.

Your Turn: Did you go into parenthood knowing the truth about a typical baby’s sleeping habits? Or, like us, did you think after a few hard months at the beginning, you’d start getting a full night’s sleep every night thereafter?

More Where That Came From

Tomorrow, check back for part 2 of 3 in this Sleepless Quagmire series. I’m probably going to piss off a lot of people. It will be pretty awesome.

But to make up for my insensitivity, the final post in this series will include 12 concrete, practical tips anyone can use to cope with baby’s night wakings. Stay tuned!

Photos by Evil Erin and me.