And up go the arms and everyone takes a position, holds on tightly and justifies their every action and success as being the sole result of whatever trend in parenting contention is circulating at the moment.
I've learned to keep myself out of the debates where there is no need for a winner, but this time, I found myself coming to a new realization and it didn't have anything to do with sleep but a larger question about our general attitudes towards parenting and children.
What is the message that we are sending about children's needs?
I don't actually know much about sleep-training. We were "lucky" in that we had a "good sleeper" (and we did all of those other responsive, attachment parenting type things that I wouldn't dare try to credit with my child's sleep success, so let's just stick with "we were lucky" and leave it at that) and did not have any incapacitating sleep deprived moments during the first year.
But I assume from other friendly accounts that most typical kids can be sleep trained in a few days and that it doesn't normally involve prolonged or continuous crying with rising stress levels over sustained periods of time - so I get what Dr. Heather from Babyshrink was saying about there being no brain damage, but I'd contend that crying for release is still very different than crying in distress and I disagree that the latter is completely innocuous or beneficial or necessary to produce independence or self-soothing behaviors.
Leaving a baby to cry is a personal choice.
It would be hard on any parent and the parents who have the fortitude to do it have the right to make choices that are based on their personal ability to cope and their perception of their child's ability to tolerate the experience.
Crying (behavior), to me, is a communication and represents a need to be acknowledged, not a manipulation, defect or some immaturity that needs discipline to be fixed or managed. I believe crying is always appropriate and important and yet, I can see that good people sleep-train their babies without any apparent problems and no ill intentions.
This is why there are no winners in this debate. It's personal.
Are there benefits to it?
Is it harmful if we always do it?
For me, it isn't about whether a bit of crying here and there is damaging, it's about what we are saying about the emotional needs of children.
I think most parents can see the difference between abuse and sleep choices but to suggest that babies thrive under controlled crying strikes me as perpetuating more than a personal choice based on the best interests of the individual family. It is evocative of an attitude that promotes dismissing a child's emotions for discipline's sake - that it is for their own good - and ours! As if this somehow grants us permission to claim some peace and quiet that we could not before.
Don't we already deserve some proper alone time and adequate sleep?
Does meeting our needs have to depend on our children's behavior?
Sleep for children is not a challenge in independence as we might strive to achieve in academics or life. Sleep is a primitively controlled basic need that demands that a set of expectations by the child be met by the caregiver - or development alters.
How does it serve us to demand how and when children sleep, especially as infants?
If we can't adjust our lives to consider each family member's challenging times and unique patterns of development, then what's the point of having a family?
We brought them into this world. Can we not give our babies the freedom, especially in the first year, to adapt to this world with our full, uninterrupted support - sleeping close by if necessary (because they're wired to have us do so) and attending to every call for comfort so that they develop a certain kind of unshakable belief that the world is safe and that they are worth having their needs met?
I believe we can.
What do you think?
Post you Comments below or join me on the Facebook Page
1 comments:
My son used to wake up every hour when he was 18mths and could not go back to sleep without my assistance either through feeding/soothing etc. This was in no way beneficial to anyone. I tried everything and eventually decided he is just going to have to learn to sleep unaided. It took 3 nights and lots of crying but from then on he has slept really well. Children who do not sleep well are irritable, not content, don't eat as well, can't cope at school. They need sleep for their brains to develop and their bodies to recover. My son is now 7 and for anyone to suggest that those 3 nights 6 years ago have caused issues is just crazy (he also cried on quiet a few occasions while in his car seat while I was driving on the freeway..should I have pulled over on the hard edge just in case it caused him brain damage as well???) He has friends who still have poor sleep habits who are hyper, have problems concentrating and other signs of over-tiredness. I have had another two children since and have also insisted they have good sleep habits because I know that it is actually cruel to not insist. It's unfair to allow your child to feel irritable, unhappy and miserable because you don't want to deal with their sleep issues. First time mums go on about this sort of stuff because they don't have experience or the foresight. Other mums realise that their baby will be in school in 5 years and most of the stuff you were worrying about was all so irrelevant.
Post a Comment