Strange Bedfellows
When you think of hot topics that bring out the worst in people on public parenting forums, most people tend to think breastfeeding or circumcision or spanking. But if you ask me, the most debated topic by parents – both new and more experienced – is how the hell to get an infant to sleep. Parents will try anything to get their infants to go down. They will even go against their own better judgment to get just a few hours of shut-eye. (I mean, how many people actually let their infants sleep in the baby bucket longer than the recommended amount of time?) Most parents of newborns would kill for that one tried and tested method that will get every infant to drift off to La La land, but there isn’t one – and therein lies the problem.
Every child is different, and every parent must find out what works best for their particular situation. But that doesn’t stop people from advocating for their own preferred method of choice. And nothing bothers me more than when someone says their chosen method is the only way to go. In a world full of billions of people who sleep on their fronts and backs and sides, why is it so hard to accept that babies are the same way? They all like something different, and someone telling you what they did with their child (or children) is great, but it may not do a damn thing for your child. Why people can’t accept that is beyond me.
There are co-sleepers and bed-sharers and cry-it-outers and Ferberizers and No-Cry methoders, and each wants to tell you it’s their way or the highway. What kind of parenting is that? Just because something works on your first child, who says it will work on the second or the third or the fourth, let alone some stranger’s kid half way around the world?
My daughter’s never slept in my bed for one night, and god forbid I suggest it to her now at the age of 2- she’d kick me out of her princess bed! And my son’s only 10 weeks-old, and he’d do almost anything to be held all day and night. Different kids, different needs, requiring different approaches.
You want to share your bed with your babies? Fine, but don’t tell me that’s the only way to sleep with your child – catalogues from millions of baby stores around the world selling millions of dollars’ worth of bassinets and cribs suggest it’s not working for everyone. And what about the number of books written worldwide on this topic? It must be in the thousands…hundreds of thousands…millions? Are they all written about just ONE method? Hardly. It seems everyone has an opinion (note the word ’opinion’) about the best way to get a baby to sleep restfully. And they can’t all be wrong, can they?
Look, if it were up to me, people wouldn’t have to defend their parenting choices to the death, daily. We all parent differently for our situations. Is that so hard to realize? Every child is unique. Is that so hard to understand? If you want your child to sleep in your bed because it allows you both to sleep, more power to you. If you want your baby to sleep in a crib because it allows you both to sleep, I think that’s great, too. If you need to try every method that doctors and scientists and psychologists and desperate parents have come up with in the last 100 years, I’m behind you each and every step of the way. But if you try to tell me there is only one method, one approach, one best school of thought for getting my baby to sleep through the night? I’m going to punch myself in the face, repeatedly, to save myself the pain of having to listen to you drone on and on and on about how native tribes around the world did it, or how Doctor Spock said you should do it, or Ferber or Weissbluth or Anthony Robbins. I’m glad it works for you. I’m glad YOU like it. Thanks for loaning me your copy of this “great” manual, but I’m not joining your cult-ure of believing that there is only one way of doing something. I liked lots of variety when I was trying to bring a child in to the world, why shouldn’t I celebrate a variety of choice now that I’m raising a few?
I’m not judging you for having your kid sleep in your bed till he’s six, seven, eight or nine. I’m not judging you for letting your kid sleep in the baby bucket or baby swing or product that was recalled because 600 people worldwide didn’t realize if you don’t clean your child’s bedding it can grow mold. I’m judging you for judging other people who just want their kids to sleep in a way that makes sense to them. I’m judging you for being self-righteous and pulling out ridiculous arguments to make your point. I’m judging you for defending your position like an angry mob during the Spanish Inquisition. I’m judging you because you make ME tired, but not in a ‘put me to sleep’ kind of way.
For parents, SIDS is scary, the prospect of never sleeping again is scary, a crying baby that never stops crying is SCARY. But what is scariest of all is that we cannot support other parents in their sound parenting decisions simply because they are not our own. That’s frightening to me.
My friends, when it comes to a newborn (and I have one currently), I have one “opinion” and one opinion only: “Whatever gets you through the night, ’salright, ’salright.” (John Lennon, Apple Records, 1974).
If you don’t like it, well, let’s just agree to disagree.
The father of two young children and an advocate for the “New Dad,” Adam Dolgin is the founder/creator of Fodder 4 Fathers – a movement that champions today’s involved fathers. Since the inception of his blog in December 2010, Adam has quickly become an outspoken voice against anyone who treats a caring dad as a ""secondary"" caregiver.
