A Day in the Lives of the Urbans

When I was expecting my first child a little over 10 years ago I read a parenting book that told me how to get my baby to go to sleep by himself and stay asleep during the night. It told me that my baby would be much more pleasant during his waking hours, because he would be well rested, and that he would learn to soothe himself at night instead of demanding that I come rock him back to sleep if he woke up. The catch was, I had to let him cry himself to sleep EVERY time without exception. If I got him into the habit of being rocked or nursed to sleep he would become spoiled and expect the same ritual for every bedtime.

I tried, really I did. But this theory, which made perfect sense before he was born, went against every maternal instinct in my being afterwards. So eventually I threw the book out the window, and rocked every one of my children to sleep after that. Did we have sleep issues throughout the years? Yes. Did my children ever sleep through the night before they were 2 or 3? Not that I remember. Do a couple of them still crawl into bed with us in the middle of the night? Occasionally. Would I change anything? Not at all.

So when we adopted Ava I was really torn. I knew she had not been rocked to sleep a day of her life, she had never felt the comfort of falling asleep in her mother's arms. She slept soundly, peacefully all night, and went to her crib as happy as a lark. But I just couldn't lay her down in that crib without holding her, singing to her, rocking her, laying and snuggling with her, it just didn't seem right. On the other hand I was afraid to ruin a good thing.

Well guess what? I ruined a good thing. The little girl who, 3 months ago, would have layed happily in her little crib, isolated from the world for hours at a time....now cries ever so pitifully when I lay her down. She doesn't want to take a nap, doesn't want to go to bed (thinking of all the excitement she will miss out on, I'm sure). But when someone lays with her, she drifts right to sleep (after giggling for a few minutes, that is). As you can see the excitement of having a little sister has not worn off, the kids are still arguing over who gets to sit with her, who gets to push her in her buggy, or "put her to sleep". Tonight two of them shared the task.