Rock A Bye Baby

From the day Bean was born, people began talking to us about sleep. Are you getting any? How is she sleeping? What time does she go to sleep? When does she wake up? Is she napping? How many times a day? For how long? It seems to be the number one obsession among parents these days, despite the hundreds of other trials one goes through with a child. And rightly so. I am a huge sleep advocate. I believe that, in a child, sleep is as important as food. We always promised ourselves that we wouldn't have a chronically overtired child, and I think for the most part we have succeeded. But as I look back on my three years as a parent, I have come to the conclusion that I have spent a ridiculous amount of brain cells on how to best get my child to sleep. I have friends that co-sleep until their kids are in grade school, and I have friends that believe you should let your kids cry it out until they vomit to teach them how to self soothe. But there seems to be very, very little middle ground.

Personally, co-sleeping is not for us, which by default puts us in the other camp. For the most part, there seems to be this "movement" of parents who insist kids must be taught to put themselves to sleep (which I fully agree with) at any cost (which I don't agree with). When Bean was going through her sleep troubles (which she still does, on occasion), the majority of parents we talked to insisted that we HAD to let her cry. That she would never learn unless we did. That we should not, under any circumstances, ever rock her to sleep or we would be teaching her to manipulate us.

I admit, we have let Bean cry it out many, many, many times. And every time we do, I end up in the bedroom, sobbing, with my head in my hands, because every cell within my being wants to run to her and hold her, but I've been told it's the wrong thing to do. So I cry right along with her, as my sweet, ever-so-gentle and sensitive young daughter's cries eventually subside into little hiccups, then sighs, then sleep.

So when do we follow our instincts and when do we follow our heads?

I would like to argue that we follow our instincts 100% of the time, and I would like to make another admission. I have rocked Bean to sleep for her nap every day for at least the past year (I will pause here for all the gasps of horror...) Bean used to go right to sleep for her naps, without any problems, until she was almost two years old. But suddenly, something changed. It wasn't that she cried, she just wouldn't go to sleep. She would chat, laugh, sing, play for over an hour, and then I'd just get her up. Oh, she may have fallen asleep eventually, I know, I know, but I'm a busy mom and I don't have time to wait two hours for my daughter to fall asleep for then another two to three hours.

So one day, after we read our books, and turned off the light, I just held her. I held her so tight. I said little prayers in her soft ear. I breathed on her little forehead and drank in the sweet smell of vanilla cookies that seems to ooze from her every pore. She was asleep in three minutes. I watched her there in the dark, her sweet little face, so peaceful and perfect, her round little lips parted just so, the twitch of her soft hand as she sank into dreams, and I thought, why oh why, would anyone not want this experience? Why would anyone think this is such an undesirable state? Why would anyone trade this sweet and precious moment so that they could smugly say, "Well, we never rock our child to sleep," (and there was a point when I was this parent) as if it warrants some sort of medal? That I cannot answer.

I do recognize that our situation is probably unique. Even though we rock her to sleep for her naps, she still goes to sleep on her own at night without any problems and I know there are parents who indeed have probably had the whole "rocking to sleep" thing backfire on them. In fact, one parent I spoke to has to rock her son to sleep for over an hour. I get that. I understand that each child is different, and just because Bean responds this way doesn't mean that every child will. But don't make the mistake I did. Don't allow others to make you feel sad, guilty and ashamed for living in a moment that is so memorable, precious, and impossible to get back once it's gone. Don't assume that the "cry it out" extremists know what's best for your kid. They certainly didn't know what was best for mine.