Dear Tristan: when the going gets hard

Dear Tristan,

The last couple of days have been really hard. I think you’re going through the growth spurt that happens around six months. Or maybe it’s just that your brain refuses to settle down from all the connections it is making as you try to learn how to crawl. Whatever the reason, you haven’t been napping well and last night it took more than three hours to get you to bed…and then you didn’t sleep well all night. Today, you’ve been pretty grumpy and have only had a few very short catnaps. As I write this letter, daddy is upstairs taking a turn at getting you to sleep – we’ve been trying to get you down for 2.5 hours. You are exhausted and frustrated. You go to sleep, and then we try to lay you down and leave the room. You wake yourself up, usually by getting up on your hands and knees. I’ve heard about babies practicing crawling in your sleep. I think that’s what your body thinks you’re supposed to do when you’re on your tummy, which is where you sleep best. After you wake yourself up, the cycle repeats.

When this sort of thing happens (and it happens a lot – you really fight sleep, even on a good night) – I sometimes get really frustrated. I am frustrated because I know you would stay asleep if I could keep holding you, or if I could curl my body around yours and let you stay there all night. But when you need to go to sleep at 7 pm, that’s not possible. And though I’m the world’s biggest advocate of co-sleeping, I can’t sleep all night without moving…and lately, every little movement has been waking you up, so most nights you are sleeping on your floor bed in our room. You’ve really seemed to like sleeping there, until this growth spurt/developmental leap/thing.

This is when being a mom is most hard. I am not willing to put you in bed and leave the room to let you cry yourself to sleep in order to “learn” good sleep habits. There are other things you would also learn that I don’t want for you. But I can see the allure of books that promise that your baby will sleep through the night, that basically say that if you follow their system you’ll be baby-free for 12 hours a day while baby sleeps.

I suppose some babies can do this, but not most, and not you. And I am committed to meeting your nighttime needs as much as your daytime needs.

But it’s hard. Really, really hard. I think I cry more than you do. Your needs are very intense, and it is hard to be needed so much.

But then I look down at your soft, sweet face, and I kiss your chubby cheeks, and I remember that these days will be gone in a blink and I will miss the days of long nighttime snuggles. The sleep deprivation will fade and I will only remember how much my baby boy loved to be with mama.

At least that is what I tell myself on nights like these.

I tell you this in order to say…Life will surprise you. Sometimes the thing you most wanted, like love or marriage or motherhood, will turn out to be the hardest thing you ever do. These things will test your resolve. You may be tempted to buy into the “quick fix”, the snake oil that promises to solve all your problems. Don’t believe it. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If it’s worth doing, it will probably be hard. No – scratch that. If it’s worth doing, it WILL be hard. Those things that are most worth doing will be the most hard. That’s just kinda how life works. Don’t shy away from doing hard things, and don’t always look for the easy way out…you’ll probably miss some of the best things life has to offer. It sucks sometimes, but when you realize that those things worth doing are the hardest things, you can stay true to what you know in your heart is the right thing to do, even when it’s hard.

Especially when it’s hard.

love,
mama

other letters in this series:
on failing to live up to ideals
on curiosity
on intrinsic motivation (and why we won’t do sticker charts)
on disagreements and choosing a different path
on being open
you are not what you do
on perspective taking
on the most important thing

Daddy’s letters:

I love you
I’m sorry
Be Yourself
Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be
Be Powerful
Be…just be
Do it for you
On Rewards and Punishments