There are days when I make my peace with the fact that this is the way it is and it will return to normal eventually, and then there are days I take to the internet in search of some hope out there for my increasingly darker under the eye circles. And here is what I found.
We are as polarized in parenting approaches as we are in politics! What a strange world we live in. There are the "attachment theories" that will tell you that it's totally normal for babies to wake up during the night and that the answer to this is clearly just to put them in your bed where they can have access to you and your breast whenever they please. This is really the only right choice for your baby and it doesn't matter if you can't sleep with a baby constantly whimpering and latching on to whatever body part is nearby. You chose to be a parent. Now you must accept the reality that mi casa es su casa, mi bed es su bed, mi nipple es su nipple...until baby, toddler, child, college graduate decides otherwise.
I just can't get on board that train. I love Sam more than anything, but dear Lord I just need to be able to sleep in my own space.
So next I re-read through my copy of Baby Wise and my new copy of The Sleep Lady. Surely these tried and true experts have the answer! Well I learned something very important. There is a war going on in America nightly and babies are the little manipulative conspirators. Apparently, my Sam knows exactly what he is doing and wants to keep things just as they are. He loves to wake me up at night because he wants me to know who's the boss. There is a hierarchy at play here and I'm falling for it nightly folks. In fact, by going in and tending to his needs, I'm allowing him to take over my home and the world. I am sincerely sorry for not realizing this sooner. I am so sorry for populating the world with yet another manipulative sociopath created simply by responding to what I thought were innocent cries for mom during the night.
And don't get me started on Dana Obleman, whoever she is. She has a quiz you can take on facebook to tell you why your baby doesn't sleep well, and in a weak moment in the middle of the night I put my email address in and took the quiz. Now I get harassing emails from her daily that say things like "how you're sabotaging your infant's ability to live a happy life." Dear Lord! Did you know that nursing your baby to sleep would result in their ultimate demise? Actually, I heard it was what really caused the fall of many great civilizations.
Call me crazy or maybe it's the sleep deprivation, but I feel like there has got to be some middle ground somewhere. I think I might write the shortest parenting book called "Your Baby Will Sleep," and it will just simple say one word inside: eventually. Because in my heart of hearts I know that Sam will sleep eventually. It may be that at some point, I get so tired that I can handle letting him cry or it may just be that at some point he will developmentally get to a point that he will sleep through the night. Or it may be that he'll outgrow his reflux and won't be in pain anymore. I don't know. But I do know that he will eventually sleep.
Or maybe they're right. Sam did say "mama" today for real. Maybe he sensed that I was preparing myself for the crying stage of this battle and he upped his ante a bit. No wonder the child has an abnormally large head! He's using those brains to slowly take over the world!
