Paige is two days from 10 months. In these last 10 months, she's slept through the night only a handful of times. Flukes, I say.
In my life, I've always written to help me understand, to flesh out my feelings on any given topic, from guacamole to my relationships. (At least, I've orally examined my evolved feelings about guacamole.) Now, here I am, 10 months into motherhood, and I've written very, very little. I've also understood very, very little, but I've recorded most of that confusion in the Notes app on my iPhone in a note simply titled "Baby Timeline." When will that note become more evolved? I don't know, but it's been my handy journal to mark the milestones. And those questions I've had can be traced in my google searches. Most of the time, I'd read enough that I'd settle on an answer and not need to find my own place in it.
But sleep. That's a different story.
Paige cries if I even hint at putting her in her crib for a nap or bedtime. She wants to be nursed to sleep each time. If she wakes, she stands--now that she can. And this week when she wakes in the night, she wants to nurse and she wants to sit. She wants to be awake. She wants to be held. She wants to be with me.
But I need sleep. And Paige needs sustained sleep. So I read. I read about crying it out, about fading out, about no tears methods, about sleeping through the night as a developmental milestone like walking that can't be rushed, about the fact that babies can't form bad habits and about the fact that if babies don't learn good sleep habits they will be affected for life. Our pediatrician said to try fading it out, where you put her down and let her cry but go in every few minutes (in increasing duration) to pat her back and eventually she'll go to sleep and won't need you. We tried for three nights and made no progress.
Every answer is right, and every answer is wrong. Do we know too much science? Do we have too many theories? What is the ancient wisdom, I want to know. I want to know what a mother instinctually knew before she was told what science knows. Before the internet, what did a sleep-deprived mother do? In the middle of the prairie, how did a native mother soothe her child so as not to draw the attention of predators?
A quick google search says that preventing crying in the first place is the goal (and ancient wisdom).
Here's more wisdom: Feng Shui (and many other holistic traditions) tell that diffusing a balanced blend of six drops each of pure lavender and pure chamomile essential oils into the nursery at night will provide not only a pleasing scent but will calm and quiet baby too. Of course that same blend can be added to a quarter cup of olive oil and massaged on the bottom of baby’s feet to get that same serenity producing support. The trick here is to massage from sole to toes in flat, firm strokes. This will appease the autonomic nervous system and will pacify a persnickety little one.
