“He’s going to be spoiled.”
“Don’t baby him.”
I thought of these little tidbits of advice as I got my son ready for my shower this morning. Yeah, you heard me. That wasn’t an ambiguous piece of writing on my part. See, the thing is, my son likes to be where I’m at. That means if I’m putting away dishes, he’s rocking out to Justin Bieber in the kitchen with me. (And yeah, you read that right, too.) If I’m putting away laundry, he’s marching around the bedroom, proudly banging 2 plastic hangers together. And although I don’t have enough hands to take my rowdy child into the shower with me, that doesn’t mean he can’t be in the bathroom with me. Because, you see, if he’s not, he cries.
I tried just gating him up, hoping that he would find something to entertain himself while I showered, but nope - he just hung onto the gate screaming “Mamamama no no no!” He’ll be fine, I told myself. It’s 15 minutes. He’ll be fine.
“You’ll be fine!” I would yell over the sound of the shower, but no, he told me, in a hundred different ways, he was not fine.
“You’re okay, son,” my husband would say as Junior began to cry the moment I left the room. He’s okay, I would tell myself. But Junior insisted he was not.
So…he goes into the bathroom with me. And because we have a shower curtain rather than a shower door, there’s much pulling back of the curtain by both of us…he wants to play peek-a-boo, I want to know what he’s laughing about…or, even more ominous, being quiet about. The bathroom floor gets soaked, my son gets soaked…so, now we have a routine. I get all my stuff gathered up (clean clothes, etc.) and put them outside the door. Then I take yesterday’s towels and place them strategically around the floor to catch the water mess. I latch the oh-so-fascinating toilet. I put all no-nos (toilet cleaner, wastepaper basket, toilet paper roll) out of reach. And then I put my son in his water-proof windbreaker, hood on, and roll the sleeves up…that way, when he gets soaking wet (since I know he will), I just take that off, and ta-da! Dry baby. So, yes, it takes 15 minutes to prepare for a 15 minute (if I’m lucky) shower. Yes, it means an extra load of laundry. And yes, my bathroom is usually littered with trucks and blocks. And yes, half the time, despite the waterproof gear, my son gets soaked, which means another outfit change and more laundry.
All this so he doesn’t cry. And trust me - this is just one example of how my daily routine revolves around my son. So…Am I babying him?
I heard these are things over and over, particularly in regards to my embarrassing sleeping arrangement that lasted 8 months. See, Junior slept great as a newborn, and by that I mean he slept for about 2-3 hours at a stretch in his co-sleeper at night, or swaddled peacefully in “chill zone” on the couch between my husband and me in the evening, or in his baby swing after a nursing during the day. I had no expectation for him to sleep through the night for quite awhile, and I certainly wasn‘t ready to put him in his crib, in his own room - I was waaaay too much of a baby-breath checker to even consider that. He rarely even cried at night…he was right next to me in the co-sleeper attached to my side of the bed, and as soon as he started to stir, I’d scoop him up, nurse him, and lay him back down. Easy-peasy.
When my son was about 2 months old, we went in for a round of vaccinations. He ran a temperature, which we knew was a possibility. He was also very cranky - also a known possibility. He was pretty much attached to my boob all day. I rocked and snuggled and nursed him. He was fine as long as I was holding him. So I wasn’t surprised when he began to shriek when I laid him in his co-sleeper. I rubbed his tummy, I stroked his cheek, I inserted and re-inserted his beloved bink…all to no avail. My husband is a patient man, and a wonderful daddy, and tried to soothe him as well. But he also had another 10-hour shift beginning in 8 hours, whereas I, on the other hand, would have the freedom to nap the next day, so I bade my husband good night and took the baby into the living room, dragging the co-sleeper behind me. I nursed him to sleep, I laid him in his co-sleeper, he cried, I picked him up, I rocked him, he fell asleep, I laid him in his co-sleeper, he cried…you see where this is going.
So, I picked him up, lay down on the couch with him on my chest…and we both slept. Not only did we both sleep, we both slept for like 6 hours….the longest stretch of sleep I had in about, well, two months.
The next night, I fully intended it to be business as usual. I was not going to co-bed with my son.
Let me add here that there is a difference between co-sleeping and co-bedding. Co-sleeping can be as simple as having your child’s crib in your room, or buying a co-sleeper that attaches like a little side-car to your bed, giving your infant his own safe, secure spot but allowing you easy access and viewing for those middle-of-the-night “is he breathing?” checks and nursings. Co-bedding, on the other hand, is actually having your child in your bed. The American Academy of Pediatrics is against co-bedding, saying that it increases the risk of SIDs (whereas co-sleeping decreases it) and is a major suffocation hazard for infants. But you can find just strongly-worded arguments for co-bedding, as well. It’s a major tenant of attachment parenting or gentle parenting. As a moderate mama, I had opted for the co-sleeping option. I wanted my infant to be close, to be reassured, to never need to cry if I could help it. Co-bedding, on the other hand, was not something my husband and I were willing to do. For one thing, to do it correctly and safely would mean putting our mattress on the floor and stripping it of all suffocation hazards (no 3 pillows and comfy down quilt for me). Secondly, although I was sure that I would always be aware of my baby’s placement, I had doubts about my husband. Thirdly, we only have a full-sized bed. My husband is a Marine veteran and pretty good-sized and I, myself, am - ahem - plump. Adding a squirmy baby to the mix was not what I wanted, and neither did my husband.
So, the next night, I put Junior in his co-sleeper, and he began to scream. We soothed and comforted, but any parent can tell you that listening to your child’s crying is heart wrenching, especially when you know you can fix it. “He still feels warm to me,” I said to Justin. “He doesn’t feel well and you need to rest.” That was my excuse for taking him back into the living room, where we promptly fell asleep, again for a stretch of 5 to 6 hours.
Fast forward 7 months, and yes, my son and I were still camping out on the couch. Not only was I co-bedding, which I said I would never do, I was co-bedding on a sofa, another big no-no, and I was doing it reactively. I wasn’t doing it because of any belief I had about bonding or nurturing, I was doing it because it was the only way I could get Junior to sleep…and to get any sleep myself.
He was still nursing about 3 times a night, and he was no longer a 12-pound infant slumbering on my chest. He was a 16-pound squirmy baby. I had to nurse him to sleep for his nap, and was sometimes able to lay him down on the couch by himself, but then I was glued to the living room, at the ready for the first sign of wakefulness so he wouldn’t fall off of the couch. We tried several times to get him into his crib (by this time, he was way too old for his co-sleeper, since he could pull himself up). The first time we tried, at 5 months, he cried for one hour and 43 minutes before we caved. “He’s too little,“ I said. We waited a month, and tried again. Three hours and 17 minutes he cried, and we caved, feeling inhumane for letting him cry that long, and feeling inhumane for letting him cry that long and still failing. “He’s teething,“ was my excuse for that go ‘round. Everyone, even his pediatrician, kept telling us to toughen up, let him cry. “Even if he cries for an hour,” websites would say…but none of them could tell me what to do when he cried for 3 hours and then vomited. If I stayed in the room with him, then he screamed harder. If I did the whole “wait 10 minutes and check on him,” the moment I entered the room, he quieted, and then wrenched it up another level or 2 when I left.
At 9 ½ months, we decided to try it again. We researched. We encouraged each other. I took Junior into his beautiful nursery, which had been used as nothing more than a diaper-changing station, and played with him in there. We scheduled a start-date and made sure we had nothing going on. We had a plan and had decided to follow Elizabeth Pantley’s The No-Cry Sleep Solution.
And we did it. I could tell you how it went, but I’ll just sum it up and say I don’t think there is such a thing as a “no-cry sleep solution” but there is a way to make the transition as gentle as possible...but your baby is probably going to cry regardless. The first night was bad, the second was horrible, and the third was unimaginable…but the fourth? Ten minutes. Ten minutes of tears before the little dude laid himself down and went to sleep.
Two weeks later, he was sleeping through the night, from 8:30 to 5:30 and he was napping in his own crib, at 10:30 and 3:30. We had naptimes. We had a schedule. When Junior wakes up at 5:30, I jump out of bed, eager to get him, to change his diaper and snuggle down with him on the couch and nurse him while we watch the news. I’m well-rested. He’s well-rested. And I get to sleep next to my husband again. I don’t stay up until 1 a.m. because I get those 2 beautiful breaks a day, and at 8:30, Daddy and I have some time together.
I consider myself a pretty gentle parent. I firmly believe that you shouldn’t let your baby cry, and that‘s a pretty major tenant in gentle or attachment parenting, but I‘m also a pretty moderate mama. I’m okay with my son crying if there is a reason for it. I hate taking my son in for vaccinations, but I believe they’re for the best, even though I know he’s going to cry. He cries when I don’t let stand in the bath tub or play with electrical cords, too. And I firmly believe that letting him cry for those 3 awful nights were also for a reason. He needed to learn to put himself to sleep (images of me sneaking into his dorm room and nursing him to sleep haunted me), and to sleep safely in his own crib. It has made him a better baby, and it has certainly made me a better mama…and a better wife.
So, this morning, as I zipped Junior into his windbreaker, and he toddled after me into the bathroom, I wondered…am I spoiling him? I pondered this as I simultaneously shampooed my hair and exclaimed, “Peek-a-boo!” for the umpteenth time and was rewarded by a huge grin on my son’s damp, shiny face and I listened to his squeal as he jerked the curtain closed to go for round number umpteen + 1. Sure, there are days that I would love to take a 30-minute shower (and shave more than part of one leg), but at some point, my son is not going to want to stop whatever he’s engaged at to follow me. And I will miss that. I know I will. And if it takes me extra time and work to accommodate my son, oh well. I didn’t give birth to a human in order to have him fit somehow into my schedule, my lifestyle. It’s my job to accommodate his…within reason.
And if it is babying him by accommodating my life to his, well, duh. He’s a baby, after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment