On Cosleeping
As part of our nighttime routine, The Little Empress usually enjoys a half-hour or so of playtime in her bedroom before getting ready for bed. It is a great way to help her wind down and allows us to do the essentials such as pick out her pajamas, etc. She’s been playing pretend a lot more frequently now and one night last week, I asked her to “pretend to go night-night.”
To my surprise, TLE happily climbed up into her toddler bed, tucked herself in and made a dramatic show of closing her eyes.
“Are you sleeping?” I asked. TLE’s eyes remained shut. “Okay, Mommy will leave you now,” I said. “Good night.” TLE didn’t make a move. I turned off her light and walked out of the room, closing the door behind me. Not a peep.
I was amazed. Until very, very recently, leaving a room that TLE was in meant that TLE would run behind me, usually wailing. But I did not hear a cry nor even a stir. For a few moments, I was somewhat conflicted — should I let her sleep, for the first time, alone in her room? She seemed ready. After thinking it over and noting that she still needed her evening diaper change, I opened the door and turned on the lights.
TLE seemed mostly okay with her pretend sleep being disturbed but when I told her that we were going to go night-night in our big bed, she protested. She had a taste of independence and it seemed that she wanted more.
I brought up TLE’s “pretend night-night” with The Hubs ™ and we discussed the possibility of moving TLE to her own room. I was surprised at how sad I was at the idea of TLE sleeping away from us. While I know it will happen eventually, I figured that we were still years from that day. Now it seems that the day we no longer share a bed with TLE will come sooner rather than later.
Like our decision to always have a stay at home parent, the decision to cosleep was made long before we ever got pregnant. Both of us came from cosleeping families; it seemed to us that the most natural place for a small child to sleep would be with their parents. Practically speaking, cosleeping was a lifesaver for us. As a newborn, TLE refused to sleep in her Arm’s Reach co-sleeper, only wanting to sleep in the bed beside me. Cosleeping made breastfeeding at night blissfully easy. While I was working, cosleeping allowed TLE to reverse cycle, allowing her to continue to nurse and allowing me to keep the milk flowing.
As she got older, cosleeping has gotten more difficult. As she’s gotten bigger, she takes up more room. (I never knew that a 22lb toddler could take up so much room on a Cal King bed!!) She is a mobile sleeper, thrashing about and kicking off covers. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve woken up with a toddler foot (or butt!!) in my face. And when she’s awake, she’s awake and makes for a very loud, screeching alarm clock.
Even so, the idea of not sleeping with her makes me sad. Cosleeping has meant some lost sleep here and there but it also means that I’ve gotten to wake up to the sweetest babbling in the morning. Ever wake up to baby babble or toddler cuddles? They’re the best.
For what it is worth, TLE hasn’t balked at cosleeping since then. I may try to introduce the concept of sleeping in her toddler bed for her naps before transitioning to fulltime sleeping in her own bed. I know that eventually, she will demand her own bed and when that time comes, she will get it. Until then, I can only hope that I can continue to enjoy our family bed for just a little while longer.
Ms. Independent
As The Little Empress’ 2nd birthday draws ever closer, it seems that she is growing exponentially more independent by the day. She started walking and standing around her first birthday. Around this time, she also began to refuse to be spoon fed. Rather than fight about every meal, I would simply cut her food into manageable pieces and put them on her tray for her to feed herself.
A few months after that, as she became steadier on her feet, she began to balk at being worn despite having been worn nearly every day of her life prior to that. She was insistent on being allowed to walk and explore for herself. As she gained more mobility, she began to balk at being put in her high chair. We ended up selling off her high chair, allowing her to sit in a booster seat. The booster seat didn’t last long as she realized that the adults in the house didn’t use boosters. For at least the past few months, she has been sitting at a regular chair, just like the adults. (Unfortunately, she also insists on sitting in regular chairs at most restaurants which, as you can probably imagine, is troublesome.)
These days, she’s asserting her continued growing independence by successfully thwarting baby gates and insisting on going down steps on her own. She’s been climbing up the steps for quite awhile but climbing down them, and throwing herself onto the floor if we try to carry her, is a new thing. She now insists on being allowed to walk and explore when we go shopping rather than be content to sit in the shopping cart.
The change in her in just a year has been incredible. She’s gone from an almost excessively clingy baby who screamed incessantly when approached by strangers to this insatiably curious, gregarious and social toddler. She still has her shy moments but for the most part, she’s happy and well adjusted.
The Hubs remarked recently, “With all this breastfeeding and co-sleeping and such, she may be independent but hopefully, she’ll always know that she can come back to us.” And that’s when I remembered that this is why we’ve chosen to parent the way we have. Our goal has always been to meet her physical and emotional needs, no matter what they are. We have always sought to nurture her self-esteem, to let her know that she’s always loved, cared for and adored. The idea is that if she knows that she will always be unconditionally loved and cared for, she will have the self-esteem to explore and learn about her world without worry, knowing that we’ll always support her and that we are always here for her when she wants to check in.
And when The Little Empress begins to negotiate the stairs, she peers to the side and smiles as if to say, “Hey Mommy, look at me! I’m doing it all by myself!” before returning to the task at hand. She is not afraid. She has confidence in herself and knows that I am there to cheer her on.
I smile back and think to myself, “Huh, I guess this whole attachment parenting thing is working out after all.”
Attached
When I was pregnant, I made up my mind to be a hands-on parent. I promised myself that I would make myself available to my child as much as humanly possible during her tender, formative early days. From the day she was born, I did everything possible to make sure she didn’t cry for very long. I always picked her up and began to soothe her as soon as she began to cry. A devoted babywearer from the very beginning, I’ve worn her almost every day of her life in some type of carrier, usually a meitai or a wrap.
Of course, my practice of holding and carrying The Little Empress whenever possible has raised a lot of eyebrows amongst my family and friends. Seeing me frantically rush to pick up and hold my daughter the instant she began to cry when she was just days old, my parents sagely advised me to not be so quick to hold her, otherwise she’d come to expect it. To which I huffed and puffed and began to quote all the literature I’d read about why crying it out was bad and my daughter’s self confidence would later suffer.
While I breastfeed, babywear and co-sleep, I don’t consider myself a classic Attachment Parent. We didn’t become AP parents for the sake of living a natural, holistic lifestyle. We simply did what made sense to us.
To be quite honest, in my mind, the phrase “attachment parenting” conjures up the image of a crunchy granola family, perhaps a Berkeley or Santa Cruz vegan, who perhaps homebirthed their child in a warm pool and whose accessories of the moment include carrying an organic hemp bag, filled with organic cotton diapers. Which, I’m sure, could describe a few AP parents but by no means all. It is clearly an unfair image but still, that’s my own stereotype.
While I may not be an AP poster mama, neither am I a classic mainstream parent. I chose breastfeeding not only because it was the best, most nutritious choice for my child but also because I am TOO DAMNED LAZY to get up in the middle of the night to fix a bottle. I just figured it would be easier to pull down my shirt and hook baby to boob. Which, for the record, it is. I don’t understand the concept of sleeping separately from your child, especially when breastfeeding, for the aforementioned reasons. The Little Empress has never ridden in a stroller; she has been worn since she was five days old.
At four months old, all this breastfeeding, co-sleeping and babywearing seems to really fostered that inexplicable bond between mother and child. I can barely bear to be without my baby. And right now, she prefers me to the exclusion of everyone else, including The Hubster whom she will at least tolerate for a few minutes before wailing to be reunited with me. When I returned to work when she was 12 weeks old, we hoped that she would adjust to the change in caregivers. Long story short, she never acclimated to my being gone. In fact, she ended up reverting to the point that she not only rejected bottles with breastmilk in them, she rejected bottles with formula in them which meant she would only nurse. I’m now back on leave and seriously exploring other options as far as working goes.
While this bond is wonderful and I wouldn’t trade it for the world, there is a minor drawback: she refuses to be comforted by anyone else other than Mommy. I know that the time she’s so attached to me will be so short in the grand scheme of things but even so, right now the demand on my time is just a little bit problematic. I find myself having to wear or carry or nurse her pretty much around the clock. Something as simple as showering can be a challenge because I never know if she’ll remain calm without me around long enough for me to take a shower. While I’ve been able to do things like work with relative ease thanks to babywearing (which allows me to nurse hands free and in turn, soothes her), things like housework have had to take a backseat.
There are times that I’ve found myself worrying about whether or not I am spoiling The Little Empress. She does expect — if not outright demand — that it be Mommy to hold her, comfort her, soothe her. But I knowo that this is because she knows, no matter what, that Mommy will be there for her. Even at this young age, she knows that, no matter what, I will find my way to her.
I know that there will come a time that her cries will have to be reasoned with but I know that now is not yet the time. As clingy as she is now, I know that some day, she may run away from me, eager to explore the world on her own. I can only hope that the when that day comes, that some part of her will remember the days that she cried for me and that I was there, and that through that knowledge, she will remember that Mommy will always be here for her to return to.
About
My name is Michelle. I write, I shoot and I mom, not necessarily in that order. I'm aware that 'mom' isn't widely accepted as a verb but I think it should be.I'm a self-professed geek and caffeine addict. (Some may argue that the latter is a requirement of the former.) I live with my husband and our daughter in the California Delta.
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