Sometimes The Method Doesn't Matter (AKA This Is Not A Parenting Post)
(c) Omer Abdullah
When my kids were very young and they wouldn’t sleep at night by themselves (which was a lot), my wife and I would worry about what we needed to do to get them to sleep a) in their cribs and b) through the night.
As is our way, we’d read articles and we’d read books on the different methods that are out there to ensure your child gets a sound night’s sleep. There was the Weissbluth Method (or leave your child in the room and let them cry themselves to sleep) versus the Ferber Method (same thing but you come back in the room periodically to console the crying child). There’d be prescriptions to play music to them (Andrea Bocelli was a favorite of my son’s) versus leave them in silence so that they aren’t distracted. Method after method, expert guidance after expert guidance, all with their own nuances and directions and prescriptions.
We studied and tried them all. Some wouldn’t work at all, others would work for a while then not. All caused plenty of aggravation as we debated whether we should keep at specific methods or if we should give in and let our kids sleep in our beds. It was mission critical - after all, their future well being and sanity and maturity as adults depended on this!
Only it didn’t. The thing is, kids will go through what they go through. Some will respond well to specific approaches and others won’t. Our kids didn’t and so they ended up sleeping in our beds with us. (Yes, we were those parents. Judge away.)
What we realized, was that there are far worse things in a child’s development than your child wanting to sleep in your bed with you. So long as they slept and we slept, then we were all good. I was also pretty sure that they wouldn’t still be in our beds when they became teenagers, so I figured this was a temporary problem. (A correct assumption, by the way.)
And you know what? I don’t regret it one bit. I don’t regret being able to hold my kids at night. I don’t regret being able to watch them fall asleep next to me. I don’t regret waking up with them pushed right up against me, as I lay huddled on one extreme end of the bed - usually without the blanket.
No, I don’t regret any of it, and oftentimes, even miss those days.
So, I guess sometimes the methods don’t matter, and you don’t need to follow the “expert” guidance, or conventional wisdom. Sometimes, you just need to go with your gut.
The point is, you have to do what’s right for you, what feels right to you.
It usually turns out fine.
