so he didn’t disturb my partner’s rest. Now our lodger has moved out, my step-daughter is in the second bedroom and I can again use the sitting room at night.’
Clare
You and Your Baby’s Needs
Part of the job of becoming a family is to discover what you all need. Some parents meet their own needs vicariously by letting their baby’s needs come first. This is how Pauline and leremy, parents of Hannah, Joshua and Martha, like things,
‘Martha has three or four stories and then one of us sits beside her bed until she is asleep, or outside her room, depending on her wishes.’
And Caroline, mother of four, says:
‘I didn’t have my children to ignore them. The health visitor just didn’t understand that. She kept saying “What about you, what about you?” Well, I’m sorry, but my children come first.’
Other mothers recognize that they need to meet their own needs first. Ruth, mother of less, four, and Alice, two, knew she needed her sleep:
‘I knew I had to work so they had to sleep. My going to work is not negotiable and I cannot function if I haven’t slept. Both of my children have slept through the night from four to six weeks. From very early on I’ve put them down awake – from five, six, seven weeks. You could always rely on feeding them to sleep, but I decided I wasn’t going to do that any more. I take them upstairs and I’m down in 15 seconds. A kiss and in the cot. I don’t believe that any child needs to be fed and comforted every hour-and-a-half, and I’d be very unaccepting of a child like that. I believe there’s a range of needs, but I don’t believe that a baby has needs in the middle of the night. I think the lack of ambiguity is crucial – if they feel that they can stay awake then they will.’
If you know you can’t manage on five hours interrupted sleep a night, and want to do something about it, you shouldn’t feel guilty. On the other hand, if your own needs are met by being available for your baby through the night then there is no reason that you should feel that those who choose a different method are doing a better job.
Certainly your baby needs to feel secure before he can sleep. But his security comes in part from your loving, relaxed predictability – not just from your presence. You don’t have to be there when he goes to sleep and you don’t have to leave him either.
What is essential is that you communicate your needs clearly, negotiate ground rules and stick to them. Don’t try to be nice or to please. If you have to grin and bear it, something’s wrong.
Discovering Boundaries
In the early days many mothers find that they love the enveloping closeness of their relationship with their baby.
‘When I fed Rachel and she sucked and slept a little and then sucked some more I didn’t ever want it to end I just felt so complete – like we were still a part of each other and that Rob was some protective giant.’
Kate
For others, unclear boundaries are more difficult.
‘The first months with Bryana were shattering and confusing. I’d waited so long to have her, but somehow it didn’t feel right. I couldn’t connect with what I felt I should be feeling as a mother. All the time I was sitting and “calmly” feeding in my mind I was frantically thinking how to be off doing something else.’
Rose
After the first few weeks or months many mothers feel ready to put a little more space between themselves and their baby and many fathers are equally ready to develop an increasing sense of their place in the relationship. Many babies move from sleeping in their parents’ room to sleeping alone at this time. Yet sometimes, and especially when you haven’t found becoming a parent a smooth ride, it’s hard to find comfortable new boundaries between you, your partner and your baby. Sometimes it can feel almost impossible either to put your baby in his cot and leave him to sleep or to have him in your bed without feeling guilty.
Saying goodnight to your baby can stir up ambivalent and powerful feelings, which may be difficult to face.
Sleep Problems May Occur When…
• You feel anxious
• You feel isolated
• You have postnatal depression
• You hadn’t planned this baby
• You don’t love this baby
• You feel as though you are abandoning your baby
• You haven’t been able to grieve for a loss, maybe even a loss that is unconnected to the baby
• Your baby seems to need you to be there
• You have marital problems, or there is a lot of tension in your home
• Something from your childhood still bothers you
• You have been sexually abused
• You work outside the house during the day and feel that your baby is missing some important closeness which makes night-time separations harder to bear
• You feel that you ought to pick up your baby every time he cries, though sometimes you don’t feel like it
• Every time you leave him he cries, and you can’t bear to hear him cry
Most sleeping problems do not hide deeper problems, but where they do, a little bit of soul-searching and a lot of honest and open discussion may help. Talk to someone you trust. And be kind to yourself; ambiguity and confusion are often part of the journey to the most rewarding of relationships.
Some parents find that talking with a child psychotherapist helps. Child psychotherapists understand that relationships can affect sleep and that sleep disturbances can sometimes arise from unreconciled losses in the parents’ lives. Sleep is a form of separation – a temporary loss – and can be a powerful reminder of other losses or separations which still affect us. Such reminders can hamper your ability to let your baby go. (If you would like to find out more about brief psychotherapeutic therapy for sleep problems see the resources section on page 149.) You neither need to hang on to your baby nor push him away. Sleep becomes an example of how you can love him and let him go.
Loving and Letting Go
If you would like your baby to go to sleep alone but find it hard to get out of his room, you may find that listening and talking to yourself and your baby in a certain way helps.
Why Should I Talk Out Loud to my Baby?
• Because sometimes you and your baby both need to hear how you’re both feeling
• It helps you clarify what you want to say
• Things said out loud seem more real
• It can stop the same old thoughts going round and round in your head
On putting him down to sleep, try tuning in to how you are feeling and acknowledge that out loud. It’ll sound funny the first time you do it but if you talk directly to your baby it may seem less crazy. If you want to laugh – go right ahead, it could be part of the medicine.
Describe How it Feels
To begin, think about how you feel as you are ready for him to sleep. You may feel confused, scared, angry, exhausted, or a hundred other emotions. Put a name to it. Tell your baby. Start your sentence with ‘I feel…’ rather than ‘I feel like…‘. So, ‘I feel … tired and scared’ rather than ‘I feel like … I could sleep