Hush Little Baby…Please Go to Sleep!

No one truly appreciates the value of sleep until they have children.

Shush!

As I fondly look back at my pre-kid years of blissful slumber, I wonder how I’ve been managing to get through my parenting days with roughly 6 hours of sleep a night. Mind you, that is not always 6 consecutive hours of sleep. That would be manageable. No, my sleep stages are sometimes peppered with little interruptions from the Monkey. There are nights when he will sleep peacefully through the night. But then, as most parents experience, there are nights when it is a battle to get to the Delta zone.

We all hear from parents who claim that their children have slept through the night since they were 2 months old. Unless you CIO, Ferberize, or do some other form of sleep-training that involves crying-it-out, infants that sleep through the night are not typical. I had heard about CIO and Dr. Ferber way before I had a kid. I had been educated and trained in behavior modification, so this was nothing new to me. However, I had never actually attempted to personally modify the sleep behavior of an infant, especially my own infant. To say it was much more difficult than I anticipated would be a huge understatement.

Like many desperately tired and cranky new parents, I tried CIO. I would listen to my baby cry for up to 3 hours. It was the most awful sound to hear, not because I was tired but because my child was distressed and needed comforting. After a few nights of attempting CIO, it became painfully obvious that it was not for us. Not only did it not work, but we were all exhausted, frustrated, and upset. The Monkey simply slept better when he co-sleeped with us or was at least in the same room. I also couldn’t help but wonder if his cries of distress would leave some indelible mark upon his fragile little psyche. I didn’t want to find out.

None of this is to say that I think CIO or the Ferber Method is wrong. All parents will meet advocates of these methods who will say that it worked wonders for their family. I have no doubt about that. However, just like any other popular parenting theory, what works for one family might not work for another.

The Monkey has been sleeping very well in his own room for about a year. He pretty much just grew out of needing us to rock him to sleep or lie by his side. For the most part, he sleeps through the night but there are still nights (like last night!) where he wakes up and walks into our room. He doesn’t usually cry out in distress unless he is teething or had a nightmare. He usually just needs a hug or wants us to put him back to bed. It’s pretty obvious that, just like anyone else, there are days (and nights) when he just needs a little extra love.

Proponents of strict sleep-training methods might say that I’m an enabler or that my kid will never learn to sleep properly. Not true. It’s perfectly normal for infants, toddlers, and children to periodically wake up through the night or simply have trouble going to sleep. We all know it’s fairly common for adults, too, hence the supply and demand of sleep medication on the market. There will always be nights when your kid needs a little extra comforting, for whatever reason. I don’t see the harm in that. Letting your child know that you’re there for them when they need you is never a bad thing. I actually really don’t mind being a little tired the next day if my Monkey needs one more hug in the middle of the night or for me to wrap him up in his blankie. One day, he won’t need me as much, and I’ll be looking back on these tired days with fondness. I might be more well-rested in the future, but there’s a good chance I’ll be waking up with a wish to hug my little boy to sleep…just one more time.