He sleeps with us. That's the bottom line. We have plans for him to sleep on his own, in the beautiful cherry wood crib given to us by Grandma A, which we'll put the room that used to be our work room. But it hasn't happened yet, and it may not for awhile.
Parents we've talked to about where the baby sleeps seem split along two lines. There's the "teach him to self-soothe" camp whose babies sleep alone and the more casual, "do what works for you" camp who sleep with their baby.
Some say do what works. You sleep with your baby just like millions of people across the world have done for millenia out of lack of space or need of heat. Let's face it--the setting aside of a distinct baby room is a privilege of rich people (relatively speaking) with big houses. If you have an especially big family you're probably even more likely sleep with the kids. Babycenter calls this "sleep sharing." About 13 percent of families with a kid PC's age do this, and, for us, it has worked pretty well. He typically does not wake up much at all, and hasn't since he was a couple months old. And waking up to him smiling at me is really, really great.
The majority group is a vocal and passionate set of parents who advocate an early habit of putting him in the crib (say at a couple months) to avoid having to teach him to sleep apart from his parents down the line. Apparently, it is much more difficult to teach them to sleep on their own, away from their parents, when they get older. This group tells some scary stories about how difficult it can be to train your child to sleep alone and self-soothe, but these dedicated parents fight each night until it works or until they have run out of patience.
There are dozens more alternatives beyond these two, for sure. And lots of opinions, theories, and books to read. But in any case, what we have going right now works and it is in the clear minority for some good reasons. By most accounts, we will be dealing with a very unhappy, crying baby each night once we begin to train him to sleep on his own. Yuck.
This would be a good time for him to be Perfect In Every Way--to prove all the conventional wisdom wrong. They say that rules are defined by the exceptions, right?
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4 comments:
I don't know if I really adhere to the Cry It Out method, but I do know that we have big sleeping problems. V ends up sleeping with us at some point during the night. She always starts in her crib, though.
It's like the hardest thing in the world to learn how to get them to sleep alone. Co-sleeping is much easier, though there are obvious down sides.
This past weekend, my mom told me that I slept w/ my parents until I was 4. She thought this was just fine, but I was scared that this was going to be my future. 8 months old is one thing. Four years old? That's a whole other can of worms.
Thanks for this, Jenny. Your posts were obviously one impetus for blogging about sleeping a little. I hope it improves for you and V -- and I hope PC can be easily trained to sleep on his own (fingers crossed). Hope hope hope--I suddenly sound like Obama.
We have sleep issues too...J goes to sleep in his crib, but ends up in bed with me at around 3 am. He didnt even "meet" his crib until he was 7 months old :).
Anyway, I am in no position to offer advice (at 16 months he has only slept through the night a handful of times). But getting him to his crib was a rough few nights, but he got used to that idea relatively quickly. Most importantly, I just wanted to say I am glad someone else proudly admits to co-sleeping (sometimes I think people think that I am harming J)...When I face those rough nites, I just remind myself that one day I will miss the days when my baby boy wanted nothing more than to snuggle with me at 3 am. There are, after all, worse things. (I say this after not having a full night's sleep in nearly 2 years, absent 3-4 different nights, so I could be insane :) )
Hey,
Isaac sleeps with us most nights too. When he's not in the bed, he's in the bassinet right next to us. I'm firmly in the "do whatever works" camp. I've read so damn much that I feel like Dr. Karp and Dr. Sears are my freakin' next door neighbors...
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