Sleeping It Off

Since the day Sugar was born he has slept in someones arms.

It was tough that first night with him to picture putting this sweet little bundle in his big scary bassinet, but the second night, that bassinet was just as scary, as well as the third night and so on. Then during the daytime, he would either fall asleep being rocked by one of this grandmothers, or on me as he was being fed.


This grew to be frustrating to both us Oats.
We thought that Sugar had to be 'put down' to sleep. That it was important for us to be 'hands free'. That we weren't doing any favors for ourselves or for Sugar by constantly holding him.

We read books with methods and tips for coaxing babies toward sleeping independently. We talked and talked about implimenting these plans and then got upset with each other and with ourselves when things didn't work out properly - or when we'd opt to just let Sugar sleep in our arms for the sake of letting the poor lil guy get some sleep.

We felt defeated, frustrated, and helpless.

Then suddenly, unexplainably things began to change.

We sort of gave up trying to follow the advice of books and friends - maybe it was partly because of feeling defeated or partly caring more to let our lil guy sleep than caring about how he slept.

Then we finally identified where the frustration was coming from, and why those negative feels started to change without the situation changing.


For these first 6 weeks of Sugar's life, we've bought into the idea that Sugar HAS to sleep on his own and that we Oats ought to be able to pick up life where we left off: Our afternoons to ourselves and our bed remaining JUST our bed.

This idea was what was frustrating us. We weren't living up to that standard, we were failing at a goal we never set for ourselves! It was never the situation that frustrated us, it was the goal that we had allowed to be imposed on our family.

Fact of it is, Sugar just needs us! People, closeness, warmth, comfort and how can we deny him these simple and wonderful necessities of life? Especially when we are happy to comply!

Sugar spent 3 hours sleeping on Daddy yesterday morning before he came back to me. Daddy Oat informed me that even though he disliked having to inturupt his own sleep to help get Sugar back to sleep - once they were cuddling together, he cherished the time.

After that, Sugar spent almost 4 hours with me sleeping in the baby carrier...that's when it hit me, how much I loved having him close and that his lil head resting on my chest, his lil eyelashes flicking against my skin, his breaths and sighs keeping me warm...none of these will last forever. I'm going to miss this, and so is Daddy Oat.


After we identified where our problem had come from, and talked about how we were feeling about the actual situation, we felt better - we were both on the same page, had the same goal, and when all three of us laid down for bed that night, it was blissful.

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We know there'll come a day when Sugar is too big to sleep in our arms or in our bed and we will have to break him away. But it really is a trade off, Sugar almost NEVER wakes up crying, we never spend hours trying to 'get' him to sleep, we're never pacing the living room floor, or rushing back into the nursery to attend to his wails.

The day will come, we know, but by then, we're confident that the struggle will no longer come out of Sugar's NEED to be with someone, rather it will come out of Sugar's WANT to be with someone to sleep...and that makes all the difference.

We're just hoping that day doesn't come too soon.

* * *

What have been your sleep experiences with your lil ones? Were there goals you felt you had to achieve in order to be good parents?