"So how do we be "nice", and still convey that sleeping through the 
night is
a wrong-thinking selfish grown-up desire, and it is absolutely not in 
the
best interest of the baby."

Corrine - 

Someone else will probably remember who said this - it was either the 
husband of one of the LLL Founders, or one of the early medical advisors to 
LLL.  He was/is a physician.  Anyway, the basic quote was something along 
the lines of, "If a grouchy old man like me can get up in the middle of the 
night and go to the hospital to care for a sick patient, surely a parent 
can get up in the middle of the night to care for her own child."  As I was 
in the middle of my own medical residency when my first, very fussy/high-
need/non-sleeping baby was born, this statement really rang true for me.  
How many times had I answered a page in the middle of the night, left my 
husband and my nice warm bed, traveled in the cold and dark along 
treacherous roads to care for one of my patients?  Yes, that was my job - 
and now motherhood is my job, and I get out of bed (or in my case, just 
roll over!) to attend to my infant.  I also get up in the middle of the 
night to change a wet bed, bring a drink of water, or soothe a child who 
had a nightmare.  This is the job of parenting.  It's not always easy, or 
fun, and it's rarely convenient.

At LLL meetings, I do my best to convey the joys of mothering through 
breastfeeding.  But I also strive to show new mothers the reality of life 
with babies and children.  I often recommend Dr. Sears' Nighttime Parenting 
book because it does a great job of explaining why babies are not designed 
to sleep through the night - how they are physiologically different than 
adults.  We talk about the challenges of nighttime parenting, and 
brainstorm ideas to help everyone get more rest (and there are many!) 
Sometimes, just hearing from other mothers that their babies wake and nurse 
frequently is helpful to a tired mom - as well as hearing from others that, 
in time, all children do sleep longer stretches, make the transition to 
their own beds, etc.

Karen Pogge, MD, LLLL
(Who woke up this morning with a husband and a five year old on one side of 
me, an eight year old on the other side, a baby kicking in my belly, and 
the cat on my pillow!  What in the world would the AAP say about that!)

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