We matter. Our babies matter. We need change.
You matter. From the moment we give birth to our firstborn, it can feel like we’re discarded. It can feel like we no longer matter. There’s no more caring for us, our primary role is to sustain the life of our baby. And to do it perfectly. But, there is no perfect and expectations to be able to do it “perfectly” can crush us.
We matter.
I mainly see two camps with regards to night-time parenting. The ones who have been made to believe that they must sleep train their babies for their babies and their sake, or the ones where they must sacrifice themselves to be responsive to their babies and children 100% of the time at any cost to our personal wellbeing and there is no room for discussion on why there are the problems that they are having.
I want to speak carefully here because I do believe that we need to be responsive to our babies. Day and night, there should be no difference in our responsiveness. However, sometimes there needs to be some kind of intervention to help support our babies and children in their transitioning to sleep time and in supporting them to sleep well (and I am not saying “through the night” because no one sleeps through the night and babies certainly shouldn’t).
When we are being told by those people who supposedly have authority over their advice to us regarding our babies sleep, and we disagree, it can make us want to bubble up and protect our children from the people given bad advice. Paediatricians are not trained in biological normal infant sleep, they are not trained in supporting normal and healthy sleep practices for babies. When they give you advice, that’s from their personal viewpoints, AND the amount of time it takes to investigate why your baby is waking hourly or why they are struggling to transition to sleeping and beyond it more than what they can schedule into their workload. It’s a profession in itself. They’ll give you the quick and easy answer that they have come to believe is true: sleep training.
I’m here to say that you matter, your experiences with your baby matter and your baby matters. We have a bond with our babies and they have an attachment to us. It goes against our instincts to not respond to our babies and I’m sorry that when you turn to someone you trust for help with your baby’s sleep because there is or seems to be a problem, that often the only option you are given is to sleep train.
Babies communicate their needs and it’s hard when they don’t talk the same language as us. Maybe they struggle with bedtime as they are overwhelmed or overtired. Maybe they are struggling because they are under-tired or that they are uncomfortable, or because they don’t know what we are expecting them to do (rest and fall asleep). Maybe they are waking because they have reflux or because of another medical reason. Maybe they are too hot or too cold or the building opposite empties their bins at 4am every morning. Maybe they haven’t built enough sleep pressure in the day and they think they have awoken from a nap. Maybe their circadian rhythm hasn’t quite developed yet. Maybe they were overwhelmed, or bored the day before and that has affected their sleep. Maybe they don’t feel safe and they need contact. I could go on and on because there are so many reasons as to why there might be difficulty with sleep. Or, maybe our expectations of when, how or for how long they should sleep aren’t reflective of their individual needs. We have been surrounded by pretty toxic values in regards to babies, children and their sleep and to see beyond the messages that we have been receiving everyday for our entire lives, requires a whole new angle of viewpoint.
These are all fixable and or supportable. And you matter. When you are sacrificing every inch of yourself to give to responding to a baby or child who has a problem that you don’t know how to fix, it can affect you so much.
It is painfully common for mothers to have postpartum depletion, postpartum mood disorders, milk supply issues, memory loss, delayed responses (a friend of mine had a car crash exactly for this reason), digestive issues, headaches and migraines, neurological issues, mental health issues and sometimes to just be so depleted that they pick up every bug going around. These aren’t all to do with lack of sleep, I’d say that a vast majority of it is to do with the very fact that we are doing too much with no or little meaningful support. But you matter. Your happiness matters, your health matter, your memories matter. I am not talking about in the first few months after birth, I am talking about YEARS of issues. You matter!
Let’s try to fix this. Together, we can do it.
As my mentor, Dr Greer Kirsenbaum said “This is The Nurture Revolution”. We matter, our babies matter, we need change.
