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Tuesday, September 28th, 2010
Once upon a time, there was a frightened little girl. With a vivid imagination and a heaping dose of genetic paranoia (courtesy of her father), fed by a steady diet of Unsolved Mysteries, she found many things to fear, especially as she lay in the darkness of her bedroom at night.
The house could burn down. Aliens could kidnap her. Robbers could break in, or worse, murderers, or worse …
Spiny creatures (for example, the ones from the 80s campy horror flick Critters) might live under her bed, waiting for their chance to shoot her in the neck with their spines.
In the darkness, she could almost convince herself the red light on her stereo was a glowing demon eye, or the squirrels skittering in the attic were intruders hiding out and waiting for dark to sneak up on the sleeping household.
She slept on her back, so she could keep an eye on the room until she fell asleep. She surrounded her neck with stuffed animals. She told herself her father was right down the hall, and he had a gun, and no one was in the attic, and there were no Critters under the bed. She wound up her teddy bear’s music box and tried to will herself to sleep before the cheerful tinkling of “Just a Spoonful of Sugar” stopped.
All this went on for a very long time, long after other little girls were no longer afraid of monsters in the closet. Even her younger sister was braver, only afraid of real creatures like scorpions waiting to be stepped on in bathrooms.
Then one day the girl went away to school. There, she lived in a single room with a sink in the corner, two narrow twin beds, a deadbolt on the door, and – best of all – a roommate. There, she could see the whole room in a glance. There were no hiding places. There were alarms on the building doors, too, and a building full of other girls. She felt safe.
She began sleeping on her stomach. She no longer hurried past dark rooms. Even when she moved away from the single room to a real apartment, she was no longer afraid.
She got married to a man who sometimes worked late at night, and even when she was alone she was not afraid. They moved to a big house with many rooms, and she moved through them at night in the dark, not bothering to turn on the lights. She knew the shapes and sounds of the house, and even if there were strange sounds, she shrugged and blamed them on the house’s creaking age or the cats mischief.
Then one day, the girl had a little girl of her own, a beautiful baby with round cheeks and long lashes, and she loved this baby so much that she began to be afraid. Afraid that something would happen to the baby, or to her, or to her husband, and then the baby would be alone and unprotected.
When her husband was sometimes gone at night, she lay in the dark, and now when the house creaked or the cats rattled the doorknob, she lifted her head and froze there, listening. Her skirt hanging on the shoe rack began to look like a dark, menacing shape. The white noise of the fan began to contain a thousand hidden, mysterious sounds.
In these times, the baby seemed very far away in the adjacent bedroom. Though the baby’s smallest whimper could still jolt her into wakefulness, she worried about what would happen if someone broke in or flames shot up in the night. Would she have time to get to the baby; would she have time to protect her?
So then one night at bedtime, she hesitated with the baby in her arms and then quickly, furtively, feeling small again, put the baby in the bed beside her. It was something she’d said she wouldn’t do, but here she was, and she didn’t care. Here, the baby, swaddled in white, was bright even in the darkness. She could watch the white bundle move up and down with the baby’s breaths. She could touch the baby’s warm head.
At first, she still listened hard to hear beyond the fan, but only for a few moments, and then she fell asleep.
In the night, the baby rolled onto her side and nestled again her mother, breathing loudly and stroking her mother’s arm with her tiny fingers, and in this way, neither of them felt alone, and they both felt safe again.
I was never afraid of flying until I had children. That first flight with my oldest when he was a baby was so very nerve-wracking!!
Don’t be ashamed =) I do it too. In fact at 15 months my daughter still sleeps in my bed. Every night I tuck her in after nursing her to sleep and every morning I wake to a smiley child. I think waking up with her instead of waking up with a pounding heart at three am wondering if she is okay is much healthier!
That being said! We bought a bed rail from one step ahead. She sleeps between me and the bedrail just in case Daddy is extra tired and rolls over!
Best wishes with bed sharing and everything else. I’ve been reading your blog for awhile, we live in a 1910 bungalow. I’m so happy for the three of you!
I loved flying. Until I had my first child. Now it terrifies me.
Babies in bed….all mine have shared my bed, right through toddlerhood. I did it because it was right for us and the most natural thing in the world. Funnily enough, all the research is showing that (breastfed!*) babies are programmed to sleep nestled up to mum. Turns out, it really is the most natural thing in the world. ;-) So, no guilt, no shame, no secrecy!
Now, it’s late and I need to take my 15 mos. old up to bed. Little stinker woke up this evening and can’t sleep.
*No criticism of bottle-feeding mums here. It is just becoming more apparent that sleep-sharing accidents occur nearly always with bottle-fed babies and/or someone else other than mum sleeping with baby. Human infants are born expecting to breastfeed and sleep next to mum and they behave in very specific ways which keep baby safe while sleeping with mum. These very particular behaviours are absent when baby is bottle-fed or sleeping with someone else other than mum, because baby is oriented towards mum’s breast which, for a variety of reasons, keeps baby safe.
T, I never really understood how you could sleep with a baby and not accidentally roll over or hit them with your arm or something. But I don’t fear those things at all. I’m completely aware of her at all times when she’s beside me. It’s hard to explain, but I just know where she is. I think I sleep lighter, too.
Kristin, I felt the exact same way before I had my first baby. No WAY was I going to sleep with my baby. I mean, I’d get no sleep and the baby would be in danger, right? ;-)
Yes, you are aware of her at all times. I discovered with my babies that I actually woke in the night a few moments before my babies did so that when they began to stir, I could latch them on and we’d both go back to sleep without so much as a peep from my babies. At first, I thought it was a fluke, but it happened time after time, baby after baby. It’s not a fluke, it’s the way breastfeeding mom and baby pairs work. Ruby is such a lucky girl. :-)
Regards for this rattling post, I am glad I discovered this website on yahoo.