Am I a Bad Parent?
I ask this as I just finished rocking my 15-month old son to sleep for his nap. There are so many theories and books out there on sleep and how to put your child to sIeep. From the Ferber Method to Baby Wise to The Baby Whisperer, I have read them all. If I could afford $10,000 for the Baby Whisperer to come to my house to train my son to sleep I would have. Trust me. But, I had to figure this one out on my own…and in the end, I went the “rock him to sleep” route. Not the most popular method out there.
Somewhere around 12 months my son decided that he didn’t want to be rocked. It was great! I could finally just lay him in his crib and after about 5 minutes of fussing, he was asleep! Viol-ah! I was SO happy and for selfish reasons felt so “free”. It no longer took 30 minutes to an hour of me rocking, singing, or dancing around his room with him to have him fall asleep. Yeah!
Fast forward to today. Without knowing what I am doing, I find myself rocking him to sleep even though I know he doesn’t need it. I think I rock him partly because I know that the more he grows the less he will want to “cuddle” so I am taking advantage of the time I have now. But by me doing this, and not being consistent with his sleep method, am I creating for him a mess of psychological problems that will surface years from now? I like to think I am just sending him a message that his mamá loves him and wants to hold and cuddle him…I will never stop wanting this.
-Victoria
Tags: baby, rocking, sleep method
January 15th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
You are a great parent and just trying to hold on to the precious few moments that fly by. I prefer the attachment parenting method, or co-sleeping (babies in bed with you). Don’t tell me about rolling over them and smothering them I think that rumor was started by the crib manufacturing industry to get parents to buy cribs.
January 16th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Don’t worry Victoria, they still and will need our “cuddles” for the rest of their lives, doesn’t matter how old they are. I still cuddle our little ones from time to time and they enjoy our time together as much as I do.
February 11th, 2009 at 7:34 am
Hi Victoria! Found your blog from Leticia’s Facebook page. Good to “see” you. Funny reading your post about rocking your baby to sleep. I had a similar thought last night, but I was rocking my 3 year old to sleep. I have no idea when she’ll be able to put herself to sleep. For now, I feel called to meet her right where she is, and mostly that means I end up lying down with her or rocking her to sleep. Big hugs to your baby boy! Congrats on your beautiful family!