Nesting: the night I learned to embrace our bedtime routine
It happened at lunch one day as we were getting to know each other better; we had spent a few lunch dates together before this one. She asked me if we were planning to have children, and in her naturally forthright way, she indicated that I’d better get moving, at my age (38, at the time). She asked me if I had a good ob/gyn and I said yes and then started to blush at her line of questioning.
We had discovered that I was pregnant a few days before.
“Well, I – see, the thing is –"
“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” she said.
I’m no good at poker, and my face showed it all.
After my son was born, my new friend brought me a chicken pot pie and handed me an “infant management book” that was extremely popular. Translated-into-16-languages-popular, that is. I read it, dutifully. Before I knew that I was suffering from postpartum anxiety, this book fueled my interest in parenting and baby sleep books, and I bought several more and read them at every possible moment – probably when I should have been sleeping. None of them helped. None of them matched my instincts, even though friends swore the methods worked very well for them. My head started to spin from the sheer volume of advice.
A few weeks later, when I was about to lose my mind from confusion and sleep deprivation, I took the whole pile of books and shipped them to a friend who was pregnant and looking for information.
Take them all, and don’t worry about sending them back, I dashed off in a note, desperate to get rid of them, like a sleep-training-book exorcism.
Once my anxiety started to abate and I became more confident in my mothering, I relaxed into the rhythm of a kid who, as it turned out, never became a great sleeper.
He slept snugged in the car seat for hours at a time (luckily, I didn’t know much about torticollis, or it would have added to my worry and anxiety).
He was a tiny Houdini escaping from a poorly-wrapped swaddle blanket at four weeks.
He slept in the pack and play for naps and he slept in the swing – even with it turned off– for eight hours straight at night, so we stuck with that until he was nearly four months old. I seriously considered having a swing made that would accommodate his growing size. Only an upcoming trip motivated me to practice in his crib more often.
Later, we even tried the gentlest of sleep trainings – but after a few minutes of crying, I couldn’t take it anymore and gave up and switched to part-time co-sleeping, and began the next few years of getting kicked in my sleep by a restless toddler about halfway through the night.
At some point in the process, he became proficient at putting himself to sleep in his own crib. We could put him in the crib and he would laugh himself to slumberland without a problem.
And then one day, I came back from a business trip, and I learned that my husband decided to lie next to our son as he fell asleep to comfort him while I was away. That was the end of our son talking himself to sleep; he learned that having mom or dad next to him was preferable.
That was probably two years ago, and my son is now five. For the first several months of this new process, I was resentful. Where was my ME time? Why can’t he just go back to the old way of going to bed? I am wasting my time lying here! I would seethe in frustration.
It dawned on me after many nights of frustration and snappy “Go to sleep!” admonitions that I was missing something major: He wanted to hold my hand. He wanted to tell stories and hear my lullabies and share our thankfulness for our family and friends together. This time was gold.
And I was wasting my time resenting it.
I have one child, and it's an easy decision to make: I can spend this time with him, because he wants me there. The day he wants me to leave him alone to sleep will come soon enough.
Now, it’s my favorite time of day. It still cuts into my evening time, but I don’t mind nearly as much. This small boy asks me to tell him a story, and I always start with “Once upon a time” and I always end with “…and they lived happily ever after”, even if the princess was defeated by the dragon. He repeats and revises my stories and turns them into his own, developing his voice and his creativity. I get to witness it.
Most nights, he says, “Mom, will you hug me?” which means that he wants me to hold him as he falls asleep. The privilege of holding this child as his body relaxes into the tiny quakes that mean that he has crossed into sleep is one that I want to be very mindful of. When he decides to push me away, that he doesn’t need me any more, I will remember. I will have the muscle memory of his small body curled into mine, nesting.
Nesting. I like that. Like a mama bird.
Until he’s ready to fly, without me beside him, into his dreams.
 |
| Photo by Ashley White at Tsavodesigns.com |
Postscript:
All parents should know that they shouldn’t be judged for teaching their babies to sleep in whatever way works best for them, whether it’s safe co-sleeping or Ferber or swaddling or the swing or some other method. The important thing is that everyone gets the rest they need.
Love,
Kristin