Last night I has trouble going to sleep… Maybe it was the Coffee that I took mid afternoon that I am just no longer used to having (DH and I stopped drinking Coffee regularly because we don’t want the addiction) Anyways… I stayed up and checked Homeschooling sites… I am still debating with my self about how I want to homeschool but keep on reminding myself that it is ds that will take the lead and show me how he wants to be taught…
Anyways… I finally went to bed and was starting to fall asleep when Colin woke up… Dh got up (without even waking up I think) went to get him and brought him into bed… I nursed him and fell asleep right away… Something about being cuddled to a little ball of warmth just makes me relax completely… I don’t know what we would do if we didn’t co-sleep… I can’t imagine if at that moment I would have had to physically get up and get Colin back to sleep.. How do parents do that? Why do they do it?
Someone on a newsgroup I read mentioned something that really made sense to me… It is not our children that have sleep problems… it is the parents… the kids are getting enough sleep even if they wake up during the night, it the parents that are the ones losing out on sleep because they go to sleep later, and they get up at night and wake themselves up completely in order to get their kids back to sleep….
A friend of ours has two micro-preemies… born at 27 and 28 weeks (11 months apart)… her daughter born at 27 weeks is a very bad sleeper… she wakes up many times a night and they have lost so much sleep… they have tried everything to have her sleep better and longer and nothing has woked… The leave her CIO, they rock her, they have sleep therapy, drugs etc but have never brought her into their bed… I wonder sometimes how much sleep would have actually been saved if they would have done this… Why is it a bad habit for so many people? Why do people expect a newborn, or even a toddler to be in their own room in the dark and alone while they are snuggled next to the one they love… Why do they expect their children to be so independent….
Don’t get me wrong… I know that co-sleeping is not for everyone… but it is not a bad habit! It is a great tool… there are some nights that Colin wakes up quite frequently especially during a growth spurt and I don’t lose more sleep because of it… I just give him the breast without even really waking up and both of us are back asleep within seconds… Call me lazy or call me brilliant but I am just not able to accept that I have to get up during the night to tend to the needs of my children… I would rather do it from the comfort of my own bed….
Ramblings…. About Sleep….
About the Author: melissa
I am "a hippie with a minivan". A mom of four who has chosen to take the less travelled roads in parenting. We are a unschooling family and learn through life without punishments or rewards. I am a Needle Felting Artist, I love being in the Kitchen, and love to share my passion of Natural Parenting through Workshops and Mentoring. We have a big dream of living on the road and we are in the process of converting a bus!
i hear a lot about this on message boards, thier babies are only waking up 1-2 times a night and they’re ready to sell them on eBay. my son wakes up a lot more often than that and i’m not half as exausted as those women say they are. and i’m a woman who NEEDS 10 hours of sleep a night or i’ll be cranky all day the next day.
but then i think, if i had to get up, walk across the cold house, make a bottle in the kitchen and get to the baby’s bedroom all the while hearing my child screaming, yeah i’d have a hard time getting back to sleep as well.
they’re complaining about all that sleep lost but WE’RE the family with sleep issues just because we all sleep in the same bed?
and when yoru send your dh to the couch to sleep, its because you’re punishing him, but when you send you child to the other room, they’re supposed to be happy about it, sleeping better and longer waking up more rested. Ha!
now you got me going, your annoyance is contagious…