Ahhh. Sleep. The thing we fight when we are young children, can’t get enough of when we are teenagers, alternate between too much and not enough during the college years, and covet when we are parents.
Parenthood has its seasons of decent sleep, but the overarching feeling in my experience is craving the ease of a good night’s sleep.
There are the newborn parent seasons of “oh my goodness I haven’t slept more than an hour at a time for weeks and I don’t know what day it is today” sleep. The toddler parent season of “transitioning to a bed that they can now climb out of at any point in time so I’m sleeping with one ear always listening” sleep. The preschool parent years can be good if you have later sleepers – mine liked to sleep until about 8:00, but my friends had children who woke at the booty crack of dawn no matter what day it was or how late they stayed up the night before. There’s a good run and routine in the elementary school parent years with fairly consistent sleep. And then just when you think you’re about to hit the sleep jackpot you hit the sports and activities parent season. That season can have you up before the sun, traveling to unknown places in order to cheer your child on in their current passion. And then the teen years change your sleep again, where you learn to tolerate reality TV while waiting for them to get home, and still have to get up early the next morning.
To be fair, I wouldn’t trade any season. They were all beautiful and amazing and slightly exhausting in their own ways. And somehow all of humankind has survived all the tough seasons of sleep.
For me I think I was a very different nighttime parent. Especially when they were young. During the day, I had the energy, patience, and presence of mind to talk through things we were working on and behaviors we were encouraging. But at night, I would do anything to get my kids to go back to sleep.
For me that meant co-sleeping with my babies/toddlers. I didn’t start out with that plan. I set up a crib for my first, with sweet soft honey colored bedding to match our classic Winnie the Pooh nursery. And I think he probably slept a grand total of 27 minutes in it.
It meant co-sleeping, and mattresses on the floor next to our bed. It meant toddlers and preschoolers piling into bed with us in the middle of most nights. At first they came every night. And then many nights, and eventually those stretches between visits got longer and longer until they only came to us when they were sick or scared.
So if you are a mama, who like me will do anything to eek out just a little more sleep and anything to get them to go back to sleep at 2 in the morning – I see you, I feel you, and I promise you it will get better. They will eventually sleep more and sleep on their own. But in the meantime rest assured that you are making them feel safe, and special, and heard.
And some day when you are rounding the corner from parenting into grandparenting like I am, you will actually look back fondly on those days of pulling those warm footie pajama clad babes into bed with you to snuggle.
Trust yourself. Give yourself permission to just choose sleep. Safe sleep of course, but sleep any way you can get it. You can safely sleep with your little ones if you choose to do so. I’ve included the La Leche League’s information about safe sleep here as promised in our podcast episode about newborn sleep.
And if you choose not to co-sleep, know that you are doing what is best for your child, your family, and you. You know what works for you and that is what matters for your family.
