“If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, change it.” Words of wisdom from my friend and colleague Sylvia Otvos.
Sylvia recently hired me on to work as a doula with Rock the Cradle. Once a month, along with our other doula, Yvonne, we host the Montreal Pregnancy and Birth Circle. It’s a place for parents to come meet and chat, in the company of three experienced doulas and often a guest speaker. These meet ups are themed, and we love when people come out multiple times.
Our last circle was about sleep! Our guest was Shawna Rose, of Destination Sleep. She’s a sleep consultant, which in my mind has always translated to “sleep trainer.” I was refreshed to hear her speak. She is someone you could hire to help with sleep training, but her hope seems to be that when we nurture good sleep habits from the get-go, sleep training doesn’t even become part of the conversation.
Between Shawna, Yvonne, Sylvia and myself, there are nine kids, all of whom were super different sleepers. As moms, we responded differently to the needs of those particular human beings
At the meetup and afterwards, I found myself with a lot of time to reflect on sleep and how it’s going at my place and how it went when Babe and Bug were littler. To be honest, much of that is now a blur.
What is sleep for us now? We still stay with the kids until they fall asleep. In bed, we read them stories until they fall asleep. If we’re tired of reading, they get a heads up and then we lay there and listen to soft music. Babe stopped nursing ages ago. Big still nurses, but never long enough to fall asleep while doing it. They are so NOT dependent on me to fall asleep that I’m able to attend births again, and I even went away for four nights on a yoga retreat! The other magical thing is we have a good rotation of babysitters who can also get the stinkers to sleep. That’s something I never imagined. I don’t find it convenient to lay there with them until they fall asleep. No one did it for me. But I do it, and as Sylvia advises, if it becomes a problem, I’ll find a way to change it.
What I know through experience, is even if you “let” your baby fall asleep with a nipple in the mouth, one day, this will no longer be necessary. It doesn’t take training, manipulating or orchestrating to break this thing some people call a bad habit. It takes time, patience and acceptance.
So many moms I know, many postnatal yoga moms or postpartum doula clients, are worried about letting their baby fall asleep nursing. What I think is that it’s normal and natural. It’s comforting. Which means it will continue until the child is ready to stop of his own volition or the parent is willing to make a change. For the most part, a child isn’t going to wean or stop nursing to sleep until he or she is… Older. Different for everyone. Not everyone is okay with a baby nursing to sleep month after month and year after year! And that’s okay too.
Generally speaking, I was more resistant with Babe and her sleep stuff. I fought it more because I thought I was supposed to. A seasoned second-time mom, I see how everything sorts itself out. I accept and surrender. But if something isn’t working for our family, I work toward change–we work toward change, being honest and open.
When I was in the thick of it, everything seemed hard. It was hard. Sleep deprivation is a form of torture. I tell stories of how nursing two kids all night long, lead me to crack (aka postpartum depression). Then I started to set boundaries. We easily “nightweaned” Babe for a second time. Eventually I did the same for Bug, though the whole thing was way less stressful or dramatic.
Now both my kids sleep through the night. They’re three and five. I don’t know when it happened. But it wasn’t when they were two months old. Or even a year old. I think we need to let go of the expectations our friends and society might set up. I believe in following my child’s rhythm, but after 5+ years of being some version of an attachment parent, I have more self-respect. I honour my needs more and make decisions based on love and wisdom, not fear or guilt.
No truer words have ever been spoken… Follow your own heart, do what’s right for your kids and for yourself.
