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Anyone who uses the expression, “I slept like a baby,” has surely never had the firsthand experience of trying to get a baby to sleep. Unless, of course, they meant that they needed someone else to rock/nurse/pat/shhh/hold/swaddle them to sleep, and then only slept for 45mins (sometimes less) or up to 2 hours if they were lucky, before needing help to fall back asleep again! As most parents know, babies do not tend to sleep very well, which is why there are so many books and articles with techniques and advice on the subject.
I’d never heard of the term, “Accidental Parenting” until I was looking for solutions online in a desperate attempt to help my baby sleep better. I stumbled across the “Baby Whisperer” books and several articles based on Tracy Hogg’s teachings specifically concerning baby sleep. It was here that I learned that everything I had done with my firstborn, and everything I was doing with my current baby was “Accidental Parenting,” which felt generally frowned upon because I was using “props” to settle my children. Apparently, I was taking the most convenient route to get my baby to sleep, but according to the Baby Whisperer, my quick fixes were creating long term problems by not helping my son to settle himself to sleep, an important skill for any child, and adult. I remember that I was actually “Accidental Parenting” sitting in the dark with my baby in my arms as I read about it on my phone, and as I realised that this is what I’d been doing, I felt a wave of guilt and shame wash over me.
“I’m a terrible mother,” I thought, as if there wasn’t already too much in my fragile mind to worry about; my baby had barely passed his first 12 weeks and I was already on my knees from sleep deprivation and tiredness, the likes of which I had never known before.I think that in some ways, prior to having second baby, I was a little overconfident because I’d gone through it all before with our firstborn, but I didn’t factor in how much more energy, patience, and strength I would need to care for two little ones at the same time. Nor was I prepared for my hubby making me feel as if I had a third child, who I like to refer to as “my stroppy teenager”, often creating more stress for me when he’d return from work and not being the relief I was hoping for after dealing with the kids on my own while he was away. I was in no physical, mental, or emotional state to be dealing with the revelation that I was Accidental Parenting, and that I was teaching my children to be dependent on me (for things like falling asleep) FOR-E-VER! Well, that’s what it felt like in that moment.
With our first child, we weren’t comfortable with using any methods that involved a lot of crying, in fact, we were quick to respond as soon as we heard even a peep come out of him! So we used several methods to help him fall asleep; rocking, swaddling, dummy/pacifier, and breastfeeding. Having experienced the effects of not sleep training our firstborn, which was essentially making a rod for our own backs, I was determined to do things differently with our second child; he was going to be the good sleeper, he was going to be able to fall asleep on his own, he was going to sleep in his cot and not co-sleep with us in our bed. I invested in new swaddle sleeping bags, a white noise cuddly toy, and a couple of different sleep programs that I found via Facebook ads which “miraculously” (ahem) popped up in my newsfeed. I tried to implement their advice over the weeks that followed, religiously sticking to a napping and bedtime routine, which sometimes meant that I’d skip a meal (or shower), and had to deal with the guilt of neglecting my older son (who had decided that he no longer liked Daddy’s company), and was constantly telling our poor boy to, “shhh, don’t wake the baby!”
Perhaps a better question to ask is, “did I achieve everything that I had set out to do?” And my answer to that would be: NO! Not even close. However, I gave it my best shot given our circumstances; for example, we tried the Cry It Out method, which actually made me feel very hopeful on my first attempt when he fell asleep within 10 minutes of crying, but that was for his morning nap, and was the only successful attempt. I feel that it is important to mention that it was a morning nap (the easy nap), because I had only prepared myself for the initial “falling asleep” part and not for the several night wakes, during which he’d have to learn to settle himself back to sleep.
We live in a small apartment, a one bedroom that feels more like a studio as we don’t have a hallway, so each room runs into another with only a door to separate, and noise is always an issue to manage. If it had only been my husband and I with baby, I think that we would have had a better chance with the sleep training, but our chances were significantly reduced having our three year old to deal with too. I considered moving the cot (and even the three of us) into the living room for a few nights, but that wouldn’t have worked because the sound really does travel in our home, plus my husband starts getting ready for work at 3am and uses the living room to get ready in to avoid waking the rest of us up. So in terms of letting our baby cry it out during the night for anything from three days to a couple of weeks, it really didn’t seem like an option in our situation and I abandoned that plan after trying it for a few days. The thing is, and I could be wrong, but I feel that because we tried the Cry It Out method and didn’t follow it through, our baby had only learned to cry louder and that being SUPER LOUD was the only way to communicate.
I gave up trying to train our baby boy to sleep or self settle and went back to the default mode of doing whatever worked, which is pretty much just nursing to sleep, except that it’s more like “comforting” to sleep.
I still stuck to the sleep schedule that I’d learned from the better sleep program that I purchased (the other one was a total waste of money and time), but the suggested laying on his side (swaddled) with white noise while patting/shunting him on his bottom just wasn’t working out, it only seemed to annoy him and he would wriggle and arch his back a little too aggressively for my liking. So I was to resume my role as a human dummy/pacifier for baby number two, who had suddenly started to reject anything that we tried to put in his mouth that wasn’t my breast, several types of bottles and several types of actual dummies. Although thinking about it now, I’m not sure if this was a blessing in disguise or not! Only time will tell…
However, if our baby would have taken to other sleep aids or “props” I most definitely would’ve used them at this point. Anything to get the kids to fall asleep and stay asleep is what I’m aiming for these days, and you probably already guessed it, but we all co-sleep in one big bed with the cot attached to it sidecar style.
In retrospect, I was unintentionally Accidental Parenting to begin with, but now it’s a conscious choice that I’m making. I have been stumbling through my motherhood journey so far, trying to make as many well-informed decisions as possible, far from perfect, but all with good intentions and always from the heart. I look even further back and realise that I have pretty much been stumbling through my entire life, making many beautiful mistakes along the way that have all led to the place I am standing in right now.
Perhaps I have chosen to deprive my children of the important skill of learning to sleep independently, perhaps this means a few years of me having an early bedtime with them and giving up the pleasure of some Netflix with a hot chocolate, and perhaps this might sound like hell to you. I admit that there have been times that I long for a nice and quiet moment to myself in the evenings, but I try my best to remind myself that these little boys won’t be little forever; there will come a day when they will no longer be okay with me smothering them with hugs and kisses and won’t want to hold my hand or sit on my lap anymore. From my vantage point now, I see two happy and healthy little boys who can’t get enough of me, and literally light up with joy wherever I return home from work or even from a short trip to the corner shop. I must remember to cherish this part of my journey because nobody knows what tomorrow will bring, and I don’t want to waste another second worrying about Accidental Parenting.
It’s not that I disagree with the Baby Whisperer as I know her methods have helped many families (including several celebrities), but just like there are so many different books and methods out there for us to choose from, we as parents are all so different, different individuals from different families, with different challenges, and different children, who have their own individual and unique personalities, with different needs. So many variables. There isn’t a “one size fits all” solution to anything.
All (good) parents love their children and only want what is best for them. I would like to encourage us all to stay open (“the plan” should include the possibility of things not going to plan), and to go easy on ourselves, we are all doing the best that we know how, and we are all still learning.
“Do the best that you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better,” ~ Maya Angelou.
The expression, “I slept like a baby,” should be changed to, “I slept like a cat.” Now there’s a furry little animal who doesn’t need any assistance with sleep!
Thank you for reading my post and much love to you.
To read more of my writing please visit Bump and Beeyond.
