things more important than sleep

People tell me I should lay you down while you’re awake and walk away, because otherwise you’ll “never learn to fall asleep on your own.” They tell me that you shouldn’t sleep with daddy and me, because if you do, you’ll still be sleeping with us in college. They tell me that babies need to self-soothe and that it’s necessary to train you to sleep through the night. They tell me that if I don’t let you fuss that you’re being manipulative.

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They never told me the intensity of the conversation you can have with your newborn at 2 am, how crying with you and talking to you in the middle of the night when you’re only a few days old could help me understand and process your birth. They never told me how I would never get tired of watching your eyes droop until they closed, how you would lay your head against my chest, so peaceful and safe, while I walked you to sleep. They never told me how magical it is to hold a sleeping baby and how much I would miss you when you slept for 7 hours.

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I thought I had a clue how sleep deprived the early years of parenthood can make you, but I really didn’t understand. For me it started in pregnancy which was even worse than the newborn stage. Sheer exhaustion can steal your sanity and make you a level of desperate you didn’t even know existed. So I understand now the parents who choose not to co-sleep or who want to teach their baby to sleep through the night from an early age. I even understand the level of desperation that could lead a person to decide to let their baby cry- it-out, though I will never agree with that practice.

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A few years ago I was so sick that no matter how much I slept I was tired all the time. It was a different kind of tired than this but it taught me that I can get through the tired. Nothing is for forever and these late night moments of comforting my baby will be gone in a blink and I remember as I sing and walk and nurse and pat and parent my baby to sleep, that I will miss this.

So I lay my hand on your chest as you lay beside me and I smile with the rise and fall. I hope that you will learn that your needs are valid, that you can trust me to be here for you, that you don’t have to go it alone.

And I remember these things that are more important than sleep, even though sometimes my tears outnumber yours when I am so tired I just want to sleep and you are not sleeping. I think about the days that will come all too soon when you will be off living your own life and I only am a part of your life instead of being your whole life. I know that very soon, you will not need me so much, and it will be both easier and harder.

And even though today is a very tired day, I am not in a hurry to rush you into independence and grown-up-ness. I decide, even in my tired, that I will cherish every fleeting moment of your babyhood.

Even the ones at 4 am that involve me crying because I want you to be sleeping so I can sleep.

written mostly on my iPhone laying next to a sleeping babe
participating in The Extraordinary Ordinary‘s “Just Write” prompt