Engage in Nighttime Parenting – Page 14

Using presence to raise independent children

Editor’s note: This post was originally published on Oct. 22, 2008, but it carries a timeless message of the payoffs of giving presence to our children, allowing them to develop independence on their own developmental timeline.

By Kayris Wall of The Great Walls of Baltimore and Mommy, What’s For Dinner?

One day, when my son was a baby, I took him to the grocery store. He started to cry, and as I lifted him out of his car seat, a strange woman walked by. “If you do that every time he cries, he’ll never learn to be independent,” she said over her shoulder.

I was a brand-new mom and hadn’t developed my laser-like Mind Your Own Business stare yet, so I mumbled something about him being hungry. As I watched her walk away, I thought to myself, Is she kidding? He’s only 2 months old. He’s not supposed to be independent!

That baby just turned 4 years old recently, and has been joined by a sister, now almost 2 years old. Sometimes I still think about that stranger in the grocery store. I wish I would run into her again so I could show her my independent, friendly, confident little boy and tell her, “See this? It’s because I’ve always been there for him.”

I’m not claiming to be a perfect parent by any means. I have my strengths and my many, many weaknesses. The most difficult one by far is controlling my quick temper and being patient instead. It’s something I struggle with daily. But if there is one thing that I’m absolutely confident that I’m doing right, it’s that my children know that I’m there for them when they need me.

Until recently, I was primarily a stay-at-home mom. In the beginning, I provided the most basic needs to my infant son. I breastfed him when he was hungry, changed him when he was wet, rocked him to sleep when he was tired. I spent hours just holding him, and he went everywhere with me. It was fun. He was my little buddy. Two years later, our duo expanded when I had another baby, and my son was always there when I nursed, rocked and changed his sister.

Sometimes it was lonely and I felt isolated a lot, but seeing the end result makes it worth it. Beyond feeding and changing and snuggling, I was there when my son brought me an acorn and asked, “What’s this thing?” I was there to bandage their wounds when they fell, help them learn to climb steps, to tie shoes and wipe noses. There were a lot of times when they didn’t need me, but I was there on the sidelines in a benign fashion, just in case they did. When they are grown and look back to the early years of their lives, I hope they’ll always see my presence, even if it’s just as a shadowy figure around the outskirts.

In the past year, I picked up some daytime hours at my part-time job. While I’m working, my mom stays with my children. This past September, my son started preschool three days a week. Both transitions went smoothly; in fact, the separation was harder on me than it was on my kids! But I am convinced that these first years, those times in which I was never far away, helped shape them into independent, adaptable little people and that is why they were just fine was I was suddenly not there. They knew that I would come back.

I’m not advocating that all mothers quit their jobs to become stay-at-home parents. I enjoy my time away, I’m good at my job, and I like what I do. And as my children grow and parenting them becomes more complex, I find that working outside of the home helps make me a better parent. This is partly because I can interact with other adults and gain perspective from other parents, but also because the time that I do have with them is that much more precious. It makes it that much easier to put aside my to-do list and to focus 100% of my attention on them.

My son is thriving in school, and I’m so impressed with the program he is in that I may sign my daughter up for the 3-year-old program next fall. Eventually, both will be in school full time, both will make friends, play sports and not need my presence in the same way that they do now. But it’s okay, because they will both be prepared to go out into the world, knowing that they are loved and cherished. They will be ready. And I will be ready, too.

Someday you will miss this

It’s 4 a.m. My baby is awake again. She has nursed and fallen asleep…and then woke up again the second I tried to move her. Now she is wide awake, eyes open and smiling at me. I am exhausted — beyond exhausted. And I have to be up in a few hours to take my son to school.

I really feel like I can’t handle this much longer. I just want to sleep.

Then suddenly a thought pops into my mind: Someday you will miss this.

I know that it’s true. Someday I will sleep again — full nights without interruption — and in a strange way, I will miss this moment.

I won’t miss this feeling of being so, so tired, but I will miss the feeling of my baby’s small body snuggling up against my chest and how soft and chubby and warm she is. I will miss how, once she finally falls asleep on my chest, it feels so comfortable and perfect.

Someday I will no longer nurse her and cosleep with her, she will be too big to lay down my body, and she will not need me to put her to sleep at all. And I will miss having this sweet, warm baby who loves me more than anything.

I try to remember that, in the middle of the night when I feel like I simply do not want to be doing this anymore. I try to use it as an opportunity to enjoy her and to let her know how much I love her by hugging her, covering her fat cheeks with kisses and meeting her needs.

It’s easier said than done, especially when I’m half-asleep, but it definitely helps to change my attitude: Instead of thinking about how much I hate being awake, I make an effort to focus on how much I love this time with just my daughter and me.

Was Attachment Parenting worth it?

For the last few days, my son has been hunched over an application for a summer program at NASA. I’ve been helping him, shoulder to shoulder, when he needs it, and I find myself staring at him when he’s not looking. It’s his junior year, and he’ll soon be filling out college applications.

How did we get here?

My son was “that” kid. The one who shrieked in anguish when another child got the green cup. The one who hid under the table screaming with his hands over his ears when party-goers sang “Happy Birthday.” The one who completely disrobed when a drop of water touched his clothes. The one who yanked the dump truck out of the hands of an unfamiliar toddler at the park sandbox.

He was also the one who had hour-long meltdowns several times a day…every day…for months, sometimes until he’d lose his voice. He was the one who would wake with night terrors about being abandoned in the woods, even though I was sleeping next to him. He could have been the poster child for “The Spirited Child.”

He had a difficult childhood. It started when we was born 14 weeks premature — a micro-preemie who should have had all sorts of health issues, a 2-pounder who couldn’t even be stroked or held until he was a week old. But he was a fighter, and he never even had to be on oxygen. The NICU staff called him the Miracle Baby. (They also called me the Dairy Queen, but that’s another story!)

So how did we get here?

All I can think of is the hours upon hours of holding, rocking, singing, carrying, cosleeping and loving that my husband and I did — thousands of hours. I gave him Kangaroo Care for 4 hours at a time in the NICU, until they made me put him back in his warmer. I carried him in a baby backpack as soon as he could hold his head up while I did housework and made dinner. My husband and I cuddled him through his screams and walked him long into the night.

So here we are.

…looking at the beginning of the end: The beginning of his adulthood, as a strong, confident, self-assured man. And the end of the difficulties of a childhood with a rough start, a complicated middle and a promising finish.

Were all those hours of holding, cuddling and crying together worth it? You bet. I wouldn’t trade a minute of it.

Will I be sad to see him go off to NASA (if he gets in) and then to college? Sure. But that’s what we work toward, right?

I stare at the back of his head, with his ginger hair, and he speaks to me in his dad’s voice. “Mom, do you think this is good enough?” Oh yeah, I do. And then some, kid. And then some.

Q&A: Toddler fights bedtime

Q: My 2-year-old son doesn’t calm down easily for bedtime, and my wife and I need some ideas. We’ve always coslept with him and my wife breastfeeds him, and we’re keeping to a bedtime routine, but a few months ago, our son began to really fight bedtime, even when he is very tired. I really need some help as it’s really hard to not lose my cool when I’m still up at midnight trying to get my child to sleep!

A: That sounds like my 2-year-old daughter! If it makes you feel any better, our pediatrician said fighting sleep like that tends to be a sign of intelligence!

It still often takes us an hour or so to get her down, but here are some things that helped us manage better and get her to sleep at 9:00-9:30 p.m. instead of 10:00-11:00 p.m.:

If she’s not up from nap by 3:00 p.m., there’s no way she’ll get to sleep before 10:00-11:00 p.m. So we ended up moving lunch to an earlier time, so that she is able to start naptime sooner in order to be done with her nap before 3:00 p.m.
If, for whatever reason, she hasn’t started her nap in time to be awake by 3:00 p.m., we skip nap and put her to bed for the night earlier than usual, say around 6:30 p.m. We cosleep, too, so when we skip naptime, I watch for the second she starts to stir — around 10:00-11:00 p.m. — and nurse her back down before she fully wakes up. That tends to prevent her from treating early bedtime as a nap.

Even still, it can get really hard trying to get any toddler to sleep at bedtime.

If I start to get annoyed with my daughter, my husband will take her and walk her or read her a book while I do something to relax. Then he brings her back to bed and goes in the living room to unwind. Doing it in shifts like that helps us both have a bit of a break, so we can cool off by ourselves if we start to get upset.

I’ve also noticed that if we wait for our daughter’s sleepy cues, it’s too late. I think kids who fight sleep, often don’t show them until they’re on the verge of a second wind. I’ve tried to notice when she tends to look sleepy, and then I try to get her in bed about 15 minutes before that.

If she starts rubbing her eyes or yawning, we have an easier time if we skip routine and just go right to bed.

A: It sounds like a second wind and an over-tired kiddo.

Instead of trying to manipulate your nap and bedtime, how about waking earlier? Then naptime can be moved sooner and bedtime as well.

Also when my child has a difficult time getting to sleep, we go into complete quiet time. There is no verbal communicating other than a soothing “ssshhhhh” sound. Lights are out, and white noise is on.

Another thing I recommend is keeping a journal of your days and sleep patterns for a couple weeks and see if there are any patterns with the easy nights and the rough ones. Some children react this way due to food sensitivities, changes in routine and other external factors that are not always apparent until we begin to notice a pattern.

We can do this in our sleep!

Editor’s note: This post was originally published on Oct. 14, 2008, but so many parents through the years since and in the future can relate well to its message.

Nighttime has confronted us with some of the most challenging parenting moments we’ve faced so far, but being present for our now 14-month-old daughter at 3:00 in the morning is just as important as it is at any more reasonable hour.

Though it isn’t always as easy, or as pleasant, as engaging her in a silly song, or reading Counting Kisses again, she doesn’t stop needing us when the sun goes down.

Our nighttime parenting has evolved in response to our daughter’s needs — and our fumbling attempts to meet them.

The day she was born, she never left our arms until after midnight, when we laid her carefully in the plastic bassinet the hospital provided before turning in ourselves. As we gazed down at our brand-new baby girl, she spit up a little — and we froze at the terrifying idea that she could choke while we slept.

Without further ado, I scooped her up and climbed into the bed, where she slept in my arms, nursing on and off the rest of the night.

When we brought her home the next day, we carefully attached an Arm’s Reach Cosleeper to our bed, eager for her to sleep close to us. We were aware of the benefits of sleeping in close proximity from reading Dr. Sears’ resources — including decreased risk of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) — and the Cosleeper made us feel more comfortable about sleeping next to a newborn.

But the first time we lowered our sleeping infant onto its thin mattress, she awoke immediately, howling in protest. We tried again, gently easing her from our bodies to this space where we had intended for her to sleep, but she made it clear she had other ideas.

And so the Cosleeper was relegated to serving as a makeshift nightstand, until its eventual relocation to the storage units Boise, and we began the process of trying to determine how to help our baby sleep.

As a newborn, she slept best semi-upright on our chests. When she was 5 weeks old, we discovered she was suffering from reflux, which explained her profound discomfort at lying flat on her back. But even after she outgrew the reflux at about 4 months, we still couldn’t seem to coax her to sleep for any significant length of time.

We made sure she wore comfortable PJs, was clean and dry, and had a belly full of breastmilk before bedtime each night. We tried putting her down in her crib and in her swing, with white noise and without, swaddled and unswaddled, on her back and on her side, with the nightlight on and off. And each time, about an hour after she succumbed to sleep, she’d wake and we would go try again.

We also tried cosleeping, hopeful that being close to us would provide her some comfort, but found that such proximity only stimulated her to fight sleep in order to nurse frantically all night. I awoke more than once to a find a puddle of my milk pooled under her head. So we’d try variations of other arrangements again, which would allow her to sleep more peacefully, if not for long.

We didn’t expect her to sleep through the night at 6 weeks, or even 6 months, understanding that night-waking is normal. We were more than willing to attend to her in the wee hours, and I was happy to nurse her more than once overnight.

But months of hourly — and occasionally more frequent — waking was wearing us down. Frustrated and exhausted, we stumbled through our days and nights, and desperately searched books on baby sleep for a solution. The mainstream consensus was clear: Our baby should be sleeping through the night by now, and if she wasn’t, we should “help” her by leaving her to cry it out.

We considered that advice but quickly concluded that cry-it-out methods weren’t compatible with the Attachment Parenting approach in which we believed.

Editor’s note: Parents, especially first-timers who are overwhelmed by the conflicting advice of well-meaning family members, doctors and popular parenting sources, need research-based safety information to help them make decisions for their family. Attachment Parenting International (API), in consultation with many experts in the area of infant sleep, has this information in the form of an Infant Sleep Safety Guidelines brochure and wants to get it into the hands of parents everywhere to ensure that all babies can be safe during sleep, at night and at naptime, regardless of whether you share sleep in the same bed, use a cosleeping bassinet, or use a crib.

At some point, we accepted that there probably wasn’t a silver bullet for our sleep struggles. The answer to the question of what to do for our daughter, a restless sleeper with high nocturnal needs, was simple and one we’d known all along: When she cried, we would respond. Every time.

Sometimes I nursed her as soon as she stirred. Sometimes her Dada snuggled with her or patted her bum softly until she drifted back into slumber. We continued to bring her into our bed, and finally, one night when she was almost 11 months old, she finished nursing, rolled over and went to sleep. It was the first night she’d actually slept next to me without nursing for a few hours, and she hasn’t been back in her crib since.

Cosleeping feels right for us.

Though she still stirs often throughout the night, just being beside us seems to lengthen each stretch of snooze. Finally we can comfort her without waking ourselves! And when she does arouse, if she isn’t easily soothed back to sleep, she nestles next to me and nurses, and we doze off together again.

Of course there are nights when we find ourselves exasperated at the fact that we haven’t enjoyed a night of unbroken sleep for over a year, but we are committed to giving her our presence even when it isn’t easy to do so. And when the sun comes up on her sweet face between my husband and me, I wouldn’t want any of us to be anywhere else.

Disclaimer: API urges parents to use good sense regarding the safety of their children. API publishes this information knowing that parents are engaged in the use of cribs and cosleeping in all its forms, and as such, API is committed to keeping children safe and healthy by providing the most current safety information available. API, its Support Groups, its sponsors and its partners assume no liability in the event of infant, child or parent harm and are held harmless from any harm, loss or legal arising from information they provide.

Our story of adoption and Attachment Parenting

“I love you.”

Three little words that I whisper into their small ears throughout the day. I look into their eyes and say, “You are special and strong.”

A few years ago, my husband and I met our first son in a crowded, busy hospital lobby. He was just 3 days old. His dark eyes peaked out from under his hospital cap and mesmerized us. It was a long ride home, but once we were there, we held him close and rarely let him go.

After a few years, we were ready to grow our family again and were overjoyed to meet our second son, 2 days old, several states away.

It is difficult to imagine our lives without these boys or the connections we have with their birth mothers and first families.

Families formed through adoption sometimes face challenges in understanding, communicating and connecting with one another. Prenatal stressors, trauma of separation and hardships endured in first families can affect our children and how they respond to us and the world around them.

My husband and I realized fairly soon after adopting our first son that we needed to parent differently than a lot of friends and acquaintances around us. For example, nighttime cry-it-out methods, unfamiliar babysitters for parents’ night out and even the use of timeout for perceived misbehavior were not going to work for us.

We were navigating the adoption realm and still trying to figure out what was right for us as parents and for our children. As I read and studied about parenting approaches, I learned about Attachment Parenting and discovered that this model seemed to support our parenting goals by encouraging connection with our children while communicating love, safety and respect.

Forming a strong attachment with our sons became our goal, and before long, we were busy savoring skin-to-skin moments among other elements of Attachment Parenting.

When our first son was about 6 months old, we found our cosleeping groove and ability to connect throughout the night. We have been bedsharing ever since and now have both of our sons with us overnight. Cosleeping helps foster a bond between my sons and I that wasn’t necessarily formed in the womb but can be made strong now as it allows us to relax, sense and trust one another.

As our boys get older, we are constantly learning and looking for resources that will foster our parenting skills and allow us to maintain connection while trying to understand how our children are feeling.

So now when my 3 year old cries, throws himself on the ground and refuses to comply with whatever I have just asked of him, I have tools beyond threatening words or actions that will let him know that he is safe, his feelings are valid and heard, and I am going to work with him to find resolution.

Along the way we have had to make lifestyle changes that affect our personal social lives. Not everyone understands why we parent this way, and that is okay. We parent in the best way we can for our boys.

For us, that means striving for a connected family. Attachment Parenting International‘s Eight Principles of Parenting support us in raising confident children…purposefully connected and loved within our family.

The truth about dads and Attachment Parenting

Like many bedsharing parents, I’ve had conversations where I let people assume my daughter sleeps in a crib.

While I love our family bed, sometimes I just don’t want to get into the details of why I’m not afraid of suffocating my child and when and where I have sex. So I smile and nod when strangers refer to a crib that does not exist.

My husband doesn’t do this. Anyone who assumes our daughter sleeps in her own room gets immediately corrected and, if they question our choice, engaged in a lively debate.

I love this about him. It’s dads like him who break down misconceptions about Attachment Parenting (AP) and gender.

One of the most common criticisms of Attachment Parenting is that it undermines women’s place in society by demanding too much of mothers, forcing them to abandon any interests and identity outside of motherhood. But women who self-identify as feminists are more likely to practice Attachment Parenting than women who identify as non-feminist. The disconnect between criticism and reality comes from critics’ own assumptions about AP families: They assume Mom is doing it all.

Enter the AP Dad.

Maybe he is feeding the baby a bottle of pumped breast milk, with love and respect of course, while mom is at work. Maybe he’s running errands with an infant cuddled up to him in a sling. Or maybe he’s snuggling up with a toddler in bed at the end of the day.

When Mom is out of the house, he’s not “babysitting” — he’s parenting.

The assumption that he’s not, hurts all of us. This misconception about Attachment Parenting leads families away from a parenting approach that may be better for their children. It places undue pressure on mothers through a societal assumption that they are doing all the parenting. And it’s disrespectful to dads who take on their fair share of parenting responsibilities.

Even those of us in families where fathers pull their own parenting weight expect other people to assume that they’re not. As an API Leader, the most common question I’m asked is, if dads are allowed at API Support Groups. Dads need parenting support, too, but the societal expectation that Mom is doing all the parenting is so strong that we hear “parenting support group” and think “mothers’ support group.”

It is within this zeitgeist that my husband is brave for being a proud bedsharing dad. When people hear a man sleeps in a family bed, there’s often an assumption that his wife made him do it, that he was against it and that he’s never going to have sex again.

They discount the possibility that a father-to-be would research parenting options, discuss them with his partner and together they would make a decision on the sleep arrangements that they feel are best for their family.

In reality, this is how almost every family I know operates. The more apparent it becomes that a couple operates as a team, the less Attachment Parenting appears to put an undue burden on mothers.

So be proud, AP Dad! You’ll be helping out AP families everywhere. Plus, you get to end your day with snuggles.

How do you cosleep?

Editor’s note: Attachment Parenting International (API) advocates for a parenting approach rooted solidly in research, and continuing research further validates and builds upon API’s foundation. API is excited to collaborate with Salem State University in the development of this opportunity for AP parents to share how they practice Attachment Parenting (AP) in their home, specifically regarding cosleeping:

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I have been involved in Attachment Parenting research for many years, both as a practitioner and as a researcher.

I am currently conducting a study about families who are continuing to cosleep with children at a variety of ages and may either be considering transitioning the child to their own bed or room, or have already gone through this transition.

I would also like to hear from parents who can’t imagine this as of yet or even ever.

As such, please complete the survey and share the link with others who may be interested. Access the survey link through the API Forum. (You will need to use your forum login; if you don’t have one, it’s free to join.)

The survey is a little bit long at 41 questions, but this information hasn’t been collected anywhere, so it would be great to have it out there!

This study has been approved by Salem State University’s IRB.

I may be reached at pmiller@salemstate.edu with any questions. I would love hearing from you!

Thank you very much,

Patti Miller, Salem State University