Slumberless stalemate
My son and I spent months in a stalemate. I wanted nights of continuous sleep and he wanted me when he woke every night. As far as I could tell these were fundamentally incongruous objectives.
Somewhere around 18 months no amount of soul searching had been able to shift me from one unalienable truth: I do not stop being his mother when it is dark. Naturally I did most of my thinking about this conundrum in the dark, when I’m least rational.
The night relationship began when I rocked my boy in my arms for a few gentle minutes of winding down before I tucked him into his bed. I admit this time was a much for me as it was him. Secretly, I think it was my way of reminding myself of my love for him and his sweetness, his very human needs and his innocence. I believe I needed to feel these things before he went to sleep because the next time I would hear from him I would not feel so forgiving.
I snuggled into bed with my husband and felt like I plugged-in to recharge my batteries. I am rejuvenated by our physical closeness and always fall easily to sleep happy and content. I dreamily imagined 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
I was jarred from my sleep when I heard Michael cry; there was nothing sleepy or passive about his expression. It was a clear cry for attention: mine. I told myself on my way down the steps that it would be only a moment and I would shortly return to my warm nest and my dream. But when I felt his wet cheeks and his insistence that he touch me, hold onto me and caress my hair I was pulled fully to consciousness. I could not sleep through this one. I had to mother him. As I settled him, I told him he could sleep until first light, that I was just upstairs and I would be here in the morning.
When I returned to bed the internal debate raged.
You’re coddling him by attending to his cries in the night. You need to leave him to cry and so he will learn to settle himself down, my left right brain chided. But if you ignore his call for attention, you’re telling him that you will ignore his needs at night and that message is never ok, my intuition warned. But next time he cries he’s going to want milk and he’s too old to really need milk in the night. You need to break him of that habit. That was my body, which was really voicing both my need to stay in bed and a quiet belief that he can suck it up and wait ’til dawn for milk. But if you ignore his cries, he’ll climb out of his crib and hurt himself falling in the dark.
I could not win these debates. This meant I would not sleep until his body was ready to sleep through the night without milk or me (really it’s the same thing: nurturing), a midnight stroll to my bedside or a grounding touch. I despaired. I felt sorry for myself. I reminded myself that I signed up for this. I prayed for patience before his next cry in the dark.