Just a little follow-on from my last post, and taking the lead from my lovely wife and her blog (a link to which can be found on the left of this page), I'd like to declare myself firmly against sleep training. Sleep training can kiss my finely toned arse.
Allowing your baby to sit alone in their cot for any length of time while they scream at the top of their lungs because they think they're alone and because they really are almost completely helpless is heartless and cruel. I know parents will do it with the best of intentions and will feel terrible while doing it, but it's still cruel. It was cruel when my wife and I tried it one night. All I wanted to do was comfort my baby. I knew that if I went in there and comforted her she would be asleep within five to ten minutes. As it was, it took forty five minutes of constant screaming before she fell asleep. Neither my wife nor I felt accomplished or in any way validated. I felt like a shit. I felt like I'd failed as a father.
Given the choice between a slightly easier life, where I don't have to hold my little one until she falls asleep after a week or more where she has 'learned' she can fall asleep by herself, and a life where I may get less sleep or be on my feet for longer, I'll take the less sleep option please. My daughter is my priority, that means unless I'm about to fall unconcious from lack of sleep or back pain, unless my tiredness places her at risk, I'm comforting her and making sure she grows up knowing she is loved by her Mum and Dad, and that she is never, EVER alone.
Thank you. I shall put my pedestal away with my high horse now.
Wednesday 22 June 2011
Baby Sleeps
I never thought I'd be one of those people that bitch and moan about how tired the are, and so far I'm still not! But only because I'm too bloody exhausted to do it. It's the one thing everyone tells you about before you have a baby, and it's one of the (many) things you hear people say that makes you want to shout obscenties in return (well I did - perhaps I was just overly tired at the time). Our baby is due soon you'd say, cue smug and all knowing smile:
"Enjoy sleeping while you can!", "Oh, you're in for some rough nights", "You know you'll never sleep through the night again".
Until recently I've been fortunate, Carys has slept very nicely only waking every couple of hours for a feed, and only once a night for any extended period of time. I say until recently because she seems to have unilaterally decided that she quite likes the night time and would very much like to be awake, thank you very much. I had baby sleeps all through the night on Monday. Baby sleeps, much like baby steps are small interims of sleep between bed time and morning. I was awake at 10pm, 11pm, 12am, 2am, 3am and finally 4:30am at which point I went and slept on the sofa because I needed more than an hour of sleep before I had to get up and work, at 6am. (I didn't abandon the baby by the way, my wife stayed with Carys and told me to go sleep on the sofa, which is the same as me deciding to do it). This has continued to happen the past few nights, only she wakes for HOURS not moments now. Which leads me to one important questions that all those people didn't answer while telling me how to enjoy my lack of sleep. What the fuck happened?! The answer is of course, there is no answer, it just happens and you have to roll with it. Tired or not.
Incidentally I was tired before this. What no one really mentioned (to me at least) was that even if you have an angelic baby who sleeps for hours at a time during the night and has random bouts of narcolepsy during the day, you'll still feel tired. It's not so much the missed sleep that makes you tired, it's the all work we do during the day that does it. That's what's really tiring, whether you're in an office or are a full time Mum, you'll have so many other things on the go you just feel exhausted. At the end of the day having a baby is tiring, emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually and any other way you can think of. You have to pour your life into theirs because they need you more than you need rest, food, sleep, relaxation, sex, friends, work, you name it. So I'm going to enjoy the baby sleeps while I can, I'll catch up on any missed sleep when Carys is a surly teenager and is embarassed by my slowly decaying existance, not to mention my naff jokes.
"Enjoy sleeping while you can!", "Oh, you're in for some rough nights", "You know you'll never sleep through the night again".
Until recently I've been fortunate, Carys has slept very nicely only waking every couple of hours for a feed, and only once a night for any extended period of time. I say until recently because she seems to have unilaterally decided that she quite likes the night time and would very much like to be awake, thank you very much. I had baby sleeps all through the night on Monday. Baby sleeps, much like baby steps are small interims of sleep between bed time and morning. I was awake at 10pm, 11pm, 12am, 2am, 3am and finally 4:30am at which point I went and slept on the sofa because I needed more than an hour of sleep before I had to get up and work, at 6am. (I didn't abandon the baby by the way, my wife stayed with Carys and told me to go sleep on the sofa, which is the same as me deciding to do it). This has continued to happen the past few nights, only she wakes for HOURS not moments now. Which leads me to one important questions that all those people didn't answer while telling me how to enjoy my lack of sleep. What the fuck happened?! The answer is of course, there is no answer, it just happens and you have to roll with it. Tired or not.
Incidentally I was tired before this. What no one really mentioned (to me at least) was that even if you have an angelic baby who sleeps for hours at a time during the night and has random bouts of narcolepsy during the day, you'll still feel tired. It's not so much the missed sleep that makes you tired, it's the all work we do during the day that does it. That's what's really tiring, whether you're in an office or are a full time Mum, you'll have so many other things on the go you just feel exhausted. At the end of the day having a baby is tiring, emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually and any other way you can think of. You have to pour your life into theirs because they need you more than you need rest, food, sleep, relaxation, sex, friends, work, you name it. So I'm going to enjoy the baby sleeps while I can, I'll catch up on any missed sleep when Carys is a surly teenager and is embarassed by my slowly decaying existance, not to mention my naff jokes.
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