Week 39....Beyond Ready...by Liimu

So, this is it. My last post before the newest McGill makes his appearance in the world. I have to admit, there is a part of me that is more excited about not being pregnant anymore than anything else. Don't get me wrong, I cannot WAIT to meet my son, and I'm sure that will overshadow all else as soon as he gets here, but right now, with the numbness in my hands and feet, the swelling everywhere including my face, the heartburn and the wheezing, I just feel like a hot, hot mess. I'm just ready to be on the other side of the peak of pregnancy discomfort, on the road to recovery and back to my sassy self. That's part two of this journey readers, coming back to myself - better than before.

The other thing I wanted to talk about - in the context of being beyond ready - is a little Aha moment my husband and I had with our eight year old. We thought we were ready, she and I. I bragged to friends about how she had decided to move into the baby's room because she wanted to be there to help in the middle of the night. "No backsies!" I joked. And a joke it was because she was terrified to be in her own room after having had someone in her room since her younger sister was born just 16 months after her. So, this week, we blew up the air mattress and put it on the floor of her old room, now her sisters' room, and that is where she will sleep until she's feeling brave enough to try again.

My husband was torn and inclined to tell her to suck it up. But I have been terrified of the bumps in the night, and I know that there are times you need to suck it up and times you need to change the situation to address the fear. Because she wasn't wanting to sleep with us, her sisters wanted her in the room with them, and she is generally a sweet and adaptable young lady, I fought hard for her to get to change her mind and go back to the safety and security of sleeping with her sisters. So far, so good. We thought we were ready before. Now, we are beyond ready. We are ready to admit mistakes and learn from them, and that (I have found) is the most important factor in really being ready for parenthood. Because the only thing I have found that I knew for sure each time I had a child was that nothing at all is certain.

Resolve and Compassion -- By Laura Houston

I’m testing my resolve as I type this. We have decided it’s time to have the boys sleep in their own cribs. Up until recently, my husband and I have been fans of co-sleeping. It served our family well. Our boys are deeply bonded to us, and we are to them. We attribute their easy going natures, self assuredness, and happy dispositions to co-sleeping, and we also found that it helped reduce our stress level as well because if they woke up in the middle of the night, we could easily get them back to sleep. It’s pretty much a win/win situation. However, there are two downsides to co-sleeping: when we are ready to end it and when the child is not.

So right now my husband is attending to Lyle who is wailing away in his crib. Lyle is the twin who wants to sleep with us the most. He insists on it. Wyatt, however, is pretty mellow. He figured out how to self-soothe a few months ago, and he has been sleeping just fine on his own ever since. The only reason he sleeps with us now is because we feel guilty – all of us in one bed – Wyatt all alone in his.

The crying has been going on for 45 minutes. Dave and I have been alternating “compassion duty” every five or ten minutes. This is when one of us stands over Lyle’s crib and pats and soothes him and tries to reassure him everything is OK. We are using a few different techniques suggested by other parents, as well as a popular sleep manual sold on Amazon.com. The book says not to pick the child up. Don’t look him in the eye. Just be sweet. Sing softly. I went through a few rounds of four different lullabies before I could feel my resolve weaken, so I left the soothing to my husband. I know it’s hard for him. I can hear him in there whispering to his son. I know he wants to pick him up and hold him more than anything.

This method we are trying is a little too close to the Cry-It-Out Method used by many American moms. It is not at all popular in Europe. I am not a fan of the Cry-It-Out Method for babies. I cannot believe it is an emotionally healthy thing to do to an infant or small child. Quite frankly, there is not an animal on the planet that lets their babies cry it out except for the two-legged ones. I don’t believe in letting a human being cry alone in the dark, waiting and wanting for someone to come help. Especially when that someone is me, and I have the power and the ability to do something about it. I believe it is my responsibility as a parent to help my child learn to soothe himself and others by offering him kindness and compassion when he needs it or when he asks for it.

I know people practice Cry-It-Out in order to change a behavior such as getting the child to sleep through the night. Or eliminating a 2am feeding. I understand people do it because they have jobs, and they need sleep, and they want the child to learn to do it for the good of the family. I get that. I get how tiring it all is. I just can’t do it. I know it would forever break the deep, natural trust between my child and me.

I think it is time for me to go back in and practice another round of standing over the crib until my back and arms are screaming with aches, so my husband can find relief. But just when I hit “save” and got up from the desk, the crying stopped. My husband came out of the room with a heavy heart and a sorrowful face. He did it. He helped Lyle find his way into a deep sleep, but I think it cracked my husband’s soul a little.

Tomorrow it will be my turn. I will have to go in there a little more prepared. Maybe a CD of lullabies. Maybe a different light, a fresh blanket, or warm milk. But right now for the first time in a long time, I am going to go into our childfree living room, curl up on the couch next to the man I am crazy about, and watch a movie we have been trying to watch now for two weeks. And we will watch without interruption. And without a child between us. We have to take this time to just be. Together. It's important for our marriage and our friendship. But it feels selfish. Picking a movie over our son. Yeah. I'm going to have to sit with that. But we both agree it is time. Our kids are shoving us out of our own beds and out of our precious intimacy. And intimacy between parents we believe is the best gift we can give our kids. So here we go.

Sure. We’ll both feel guilty and slightly distracted as we listen for the sound of sobbing, but one of us will ease Lyle back into his dreams if he cries. And in turn our son will forever know that no matter what happens he can count on his parents to always, always come for him. I wish for the entire human race that very feeling.