I didn't sleep with my parents when I was young, and I know that they
were of the "cry it out school (at least my dad was, so that meant my mother
went along," so it was already ingrained in me that I was taking a
considerable risk in being rejected if I went to them at night. In the few
times that I did after a nightmare, I don't remember my mother ever turning
me away though. But I had insomnia all through my childhood, until the day
I got married and this is what decided it for us when our four week old son
couldn't seem to sleep in his bassinet, and made sense when he slept
wonderfully with us.
I did get an aspect of the family bed though. My brother and sister
were considerably older than me, and in the five or six years that they were
still at home while I was growing up, it was not uncommon for me to be
sleeping with one or the other of them. It provided a wonderful argument
when my father said Chris needed to learn how to sleep alone. I never
learned to sleep alone, and they never had a problem with me sleeping with
my brother or sister. Chris doesn't have a brother or sister, although he
is going through sibling rivalry with the dog ( :
As far as extended breastfeeding goes, I actually got my mother to be
incredibly supportive of that, and of the whole package. I think that if my
father had not been so rigid, she would've been a much more responsive
parent. I explained to her how many moms I knew said that attachment
parenting makes the terrible twos so much easier. My mom has said before
that she loves babies, but she didn't know what to do with us when we
started having different ideas and the twos were awful (of course, being
non-compliant in a controlling home magnifies the twos, I'm sure). Besides
that, the parental crisis for me and my sister was that we both sucked our
thumbs into junior high. Chris's teeth aren't perfect, but he's never
sucked his thumb. Of course, that doesn't mean that breastfeeding insures
against that since some kids want to suck without getting anything, but the
example helped with my mom!
Lora Horn
Pasadena, CA
Mom to Christopher, almost 3 (gasp)! and still nursing and sleeping in our
bed, but getting too heavy for the sling
very part time marriage and family therapy student who hopes to do some of
that attachment parenting research that they mentioned several times isn't
there!
__________________________________
"What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of
the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult."
-S. Freud
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