Guilt is a sticky, tangled web and fear, the paralyzing spider.
The importance of making decisions that have no foundation in fear or guilt probably ranks higher than just about anything in my life and yet, since becoming a mom, I’ve found myself trapped into bad decisions (or the avoidance of any.decision.at.all) so often.
The words “sleep training” literally send chills down my spine. I hated sleep training with Little Man and, since Little Hiccup’s birth, I’ve dreaded the inevitable. I love the idea of family bed but, for some reason, that hasn’t worked for us with either of my boys. It inevitably leaves me overtired and slightly insane off balance. BUT, so does the transition to the crib.
I’ve talked about how I felt about choosing between CIO (Cry It Out) vs. family bed here. I hate feeling like it’s all or nothing. The world isn’t black and white and the decisions I make as a parent shouldn’t be either. The only thing I do exclusively is breastfeed and that’s only because I can. If a situation ever arose where it was necessary, I’d use donated milk or formula.
Since LH’s birth, I’ve done everything in my power to ease the crib transition. Which is something I didn’t do with LM. I thought, if the transition was gradual enough, we could avoid letting LH cry at all. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with soothing a baby to sleep and I definitely believe a child can learn to fall asleep on their own without CIO. The idea that they can’t is just bollox! No, I’m not British. Yes, I said that with a British accent.
The thing is, fear of letting my child cry at all created a monster. The past few months were miserable for me and LH. I mean true misery. And then I read this post by Suchada from Mama Eve. I love her blog, by the way. What really hit home for me was this sentence: “But if parenting has become a chore because you’re not getting enough sleep, or depression is setting in, or you find yourself cranky and yelling all the time, then making gentle and respectful changes to sleeping arrangements are going to make your relationship with your child better, not worse.” AMEN.
I’ve been trying to adhere to a routine for a few months now, but the routine alone wasn’t working. Here’s what was happening:
- hour long bedtime routine ended with LH asleep
- five hours of sleep
- LH wakes up crying
- At least one FULL hour to put LH back down
- four or so more hours of sleep
I could handle five hour stretches of sleep. Believe me, that’s a HUGE improvement from what LM did at the same age. The problem, for me, was the hour or more it took for me to put him back to sleep in the middle of the night. It left us both sleep deprived and unhappy. So I clicked over to Suchada’s other post and read and made some changes.
The web of guilt over needing more sleep and the paralyzing fear of being a bad mother caused me to live on the edge of depression for too long. Suchada’s post set me free. I ended up letting LH cry a little and really listening to his cry to respond as needed. I also started reading more about RIE (Resources for Infant Educarers) and found that a) I already follow that “method” in many aspects and b) I now know where to look for ideas when I find myself at a loss (a frequent occurrence) from now on.
So what did I learn? Fear and guilt are never great feelings to rely on when making decisions. Especially when it comes to my kids. I want them to face the world with confidence, not fear, and I need to show them how to do that. Listening to words of wisdom from other mothers has made an empowering difference in my life.
Jonas still shares the bed with me. I was never for CIO when he was younger, and the few times I allowed myself to try it, it never went remotely well. The fact that he is still (just turned 3) breastfeeding at night and I am trying to work on convincing him it is time for that to be over makes things even more difficult.
I’ll have to check out the sites you mentioned – maybe I can find some practical advice there. I am so glad you’ve found some encouragement.
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Yeah, whenever we tried true CIO with LM, it never went well for us either. I’m a little jealous that you’ve been able to co-sleep so long! Once we moved LM out of the bed it was impossible to get him to calm down when we did try to let him sleep with us.
Thank you 🙂 I hope you can find some practical advice there, too. I don’t know if you’ve ever read this blog, but Code Name: Mama also has some great extended breastfeeding, gentle weening tips.
Good to read about it! I think we are so scared to try the CIO because first, no one wants to let their baby cries and second, we are sometimes scared to be juged as bad moms by other moms and dads.
The co sleep never worked for us but we were up all night to rock ME for the first few months. Exhausted, I really couldn’t take more of all night rocking, so decided to try CIO at 4mo but I gave up as it was too hard to hear him cry for that long. Then we decided to give the CIO another chance when ME was 5 mo and after 3 days, it went from crying for 1h to 10 min to 5 min… After 1,5 weeks, I was able to put him down to sleep and he could fall asleep on his own. He was a happier baby and I was definetly a better “maman”.
Hope you’ll enjoy your sleep!
Emilie
Now that I experienced it, I would definetly do it the same way if we had to.
Thanks Emilie! It’s nice to hear that other moms have had similar experiences. I totally agree with you: “I think we are so scared to try the CIO because first, no one wants to let their baby cries and second, we are sometimes scared to be juged as bad moms by other moms and dads.” The fear of judgement by other parents is so hard.
So glad that you’re taking the steps you need to in your role to be the happiest and healthiest you can be. To be rested and calm, I think that’s the biggest gift we can give our children. It makes everything else so much easier to deal with. Hugs mama!
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Thanks Alexia! I think it’s so easy to lose sight of our own needs as caregivers, or downplay them, but you’re so right. The first lady actually said something along those lines in an interview once. I totally agree. We don’t do our children any favors by neglecting ourselves. It’s hard to have patience when I’m totally fried 🙂 Hugs.
Oh sleep. Elusive sleep. I was spoiled rotten by my first three kids. They all slept great. And I never felt like we were pushed with CIO – they would fuss a little or stir, but basically just go right back to sleep. Not. So. Much. with #4. He’s up and screaming. 2-4 times a night now and he’s almost two. Ugh. Drool on keyboard. So tired. But I do love that little boy! Trying to pray through whether to actually try to ‘intervene’ in the ‘routine’ in any way. I’ll be away next weekend, so nursing at night won’t even be an option. I’m hoping that helps. It’ll either be good or awful – for my husband. We’ll see. I’ll be having fun at my cousin’s bridal shower and trying not to think about it while pumping. 😉
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