Today it feels really, really weird to think -- let alone write -- about anything not election-related. I feel jittery and anxious. I feel excited and opinionated. I feel better informed than I have in most elections of the past. Puh-lease, country, don't let me down.
But I'm sick to death of hearing about the election and I'm guessing everyone else is too. I feel like writing about the second thing that's dominating my thoughts today: how to get a baby to sleep.
Back in the summer, sometime starting in late July, I believe, Elaine seemed to have mastered the fine art of putting herself to sleep. I give a heap of credit for this to Mom, who was here taking care of Elaine while I was at work. When it was time for Elaine to nap or go down for the night, I would nurse her for a few minutes until she seemed like she'd had enough. I would talk to her a little, then set her in her crib, from where she'd look up at me and smile and coo, and I'd excuse myself from the room and listen to her sing and chatter to herself for a few minutes before everything would go silent. That was that. Pure bliss. We thought we were soooo smart, and lucky.
But over the last few months, we seem to have slid backward. It's taking longer, and longer, and loooooonger to get Elaine to settle down and go to sleep, especially at night. This has coincided with her having a new sitter during the day. It has also coincided with her figuring out how to roll onto her tummy, then laying there getting enraged because she can't fall asleep that way. We don't know what has caused us to lose so much ground. We wait for a few minutes, listening to her shriek and hoping she'll get herself settled down, and she doesn't, and Brandon and I start to grit our teeth and exhibit jerky movements, until finally one of us goes back in there and scoops her up and rocks her to sleep. Sometimes she'll fall completely asleep in our arms, and then when you oh-so-carefully set her back into her crib and tiptoe out, she starts screaming again. This cycle has repeated itself as many as four times. It's excrutiating.
You can read all over the place that you need to let the baby cry it out. That it teaches them independence, self-sufficiency, and prevents a lifetime of struggles at bedtime. You can also read all over the place that letting the baby cry is nigh unto torture. That they feel abandoned. That they need to know they can trust you and that you'll come when you're needed.
HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO?? We have let Elaine cry for as many as 45 minutes without success. And as every single other parent can attest, that would have to be the longest 45 minutes of our lives. It's pure torture. Every cell in my body, every iota of instinct in me is lurching out of itself, feeling guilty and frustrated and confused and insufficient. There are other times I only let it continue for about 2 minutes because my nerves are so raw from the battles I literally cannot bear to hear her cry. Then I feel guilty and frustrated and confused and insufficient because I think I'm positively reinforcing her behavior so that she'll scream her head off in bed every night until she's in college.
On a basic level, I trust my mothering instincts, and feel like if suppressing my instinct to go in and soothe my baby is taking every ounce of self-control I can possibly muster, it's probably a wasted effort. But I also am self-aware enough to know that my parenting instincts probably tend toward the overly squishy, coddling, protective. I'm less concerned about Elaine's ability to establish her independence than my own: I may need to rip the Band-Aid off for both of our own good.
I know that many much more difficult decisions are going to come our way as parents, and that's what is so unsettling. This isn't even the tip of the iceberg. This is a little (chilly) flea sitting on a grain of sand on the tip of the iceberg. I should probably get used to the feeling of total bewilderment, and a sense of pending doom if I choose the wrong method, or path, or preschool. Or the wrong presidential candidate.
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