Natural Parenting

"...for many of us, parenting has been filled with struggle. There is a better way. You don't have to learn it. You already know it. You only have to trust it." ...William Martin, The Parents Book of Tao Te Ching

Nighttime Parenting

For nine months I carried this child in my womb. I felt every tiny movement. I took comfort in the fact that he was embraced safe and sound within my body. For nine months he floated in my womb, dark and warm. He came to know the rhythms of my body, my heart beat, my breath, my voice. All his needs were met. Then one tremulous day he was squeezed out of that safe warm place and we were separated. The closest we can come again to that feeling of oneness we shared is in our family bed.

Babies sleeping in cribs, like artificial breast milk, is a relatively new trend in child rearing. Only during the past two centuries have children been forced out of their parents beds to sleep alone, without the reassuring comfort of their mothers warm body. Even today this practice exists only in countries where the majority of the public can afford separate bedrooms for every child. In most third world countries children are still sleeping with their parents.

Why is how a baby sleeps such an obsession in our society? The first question most new mothers get asked is "Is he sleeping through the night?" Have you ever counted the number of books on 'sleep problems' that clutter the shelves of the Family section of your favorite bookstore? How many child development "experts" have addressed the subject of how to get your baby to sleep? I can't help but wonder if these concerns would exist if the crib had never been invented.

It has been my experience (and the experience of many other families) that babies and small children sleep better when they are allowed to sleep next to their parents or with an older sibling. Is it any wonder? I don't like to sleep alone, do you? Think of it from your baby's point of view. He just spent the past nine months inside of you, listening to your heartbeat, your breathing - constantly nourished by your body. Is it fair to expect him to sleep alone, in a little cage, in a separate room where mom and dad simply cease to exist for eight hours at a time? What kind of message does that send to a child? Do we stop being parents when the sun goes down? Do our children need us any less when it's dark out?

Crib in Sidecar There are many different ways to welcome your little ones into bed with you. If you are fortunate enough to have a king (or even a queen) size bed already you can probably fit your baby in bed with you pretty comfortably, at least until he starts sleeping sideways! If you don't have a big bed, or can't afford one, there are some other options. Put two beds next to each other - before we got our queen bed (when Alex & Josh were still in our bed) we used a twin bed next to a double bed - you can use any size beds you currently have and it's much cheaper to buy a twin bed then it is to go out and buy a king size bed. If you have a crib which isn't being used (maybe because Jr. won't sleep in it) you can do a "sidecar", we used this arrangement with Alex between the ages of one and two and a half. All you have to do is remove one side rail from the crib and push it up against your bed. Make sure that you adjust the crib mattress so that it's level with your bed. In addition, you will need to attach the crib to your bed with bungee cord or something to make sure it doesn't slide away from your bed and create a dangerous gap that baby could get stuck in or fall through. If you haven't invested in a crib yet there is a product on the market now that is designed to attach to your bed, it's called the Arms Reach Bedside Co-Sleeper (see link below). Currently we have a toddler bed next to our queen bed, Josh even sleeps in it occasionally! They do leave when they are ready - Alex has been in his own room since we moved into our new house (just before his fifth birthday).

Did we always have a family bed? No. When I was pregnant with Alex we bought a second hand crib and borrowed a bassinet from a friend of my mom. I spent hours making a gorgeous white, double tiered, ruffly, eyelet trimmed liner for the bassinet - imagine the rejection I felt when Alex didn't want anything to do with it! For the first several weeks of his life I tried desperately to get him to sleep in that bassinet. I would nurse him to sleep (about 30 minutes), then wait for him to reach that deep sleep phase (about 20 minutes), then I would slowly rise up out of our chair and take him into the bedroom where I would ever so gently & slowly lay him down in his bassinet (about 5 minutes) only to have him wake up and scream bloody murder the second my hands left his little body and have to start all over again. After about a week I did manage to get him to the point where I could lay him down and he would stay asleep, but only for about 20 minutes (if I was lucky). At that point I moved the bassinet from the end of our bed to right next to my side of the bed. I would try to pat him back to sleep but it was no use, so up we would get and out into the living room to sit in our chair and nurse back to sleep (I hadn't figured out how to nurse him lying down). When Alex was two weeks old I stopped going out to the living room, instead I sat propped up with pillows in bed and nursed him back to sleep. Several more weeks of this and I was a walking zombie (as you can well imagine). Then, one day when Alex was about six weeks old we went out of town and spent the entire day Christmas shopping. When we finally got home that evening I was exhausted! I laid down in bed with Alex and started to nurse him...eight hours latter we both woke up in about the same position we fell asleep in, Alex was still latched on and I was well rested for the first time in months! The rest, as they say, is history.

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Natural Mothering: Nighttime Parenting Page
First on-line: 6/28/1996