My three year old, Greer, emerged from the womb a great sleeper. A terrible nurser, a grumpy waker, but a great sleeper. She slept in four hour stretches right off the bat. We had maybe one newborn night where we couldn’t get her to sleep.
Around six months, her wakings had become what I will now call a mild irritation and thus we chose to sleep train. Two nights later, she slept for 12 hours straight, never looking back. I was so proud of her. Proud in that absurd way that one is proud of every tiny thing one’s child does. I was also proud of myself. Sleep training was clearly the right parenting choice and we had figured that because we were such great parents.
Cut to three months after her second birthday when Greer served me up, not her first, but by far her biggest slice of humble pie. She all but stopped sleeping between ages two and three. I shudder to recall. It was “Our Terrible Year of No Sleep.” The lack of sleep that we suffered permeated every crevice of our lives. It was a bone-crushing sleep deprivation the likes of which I’d never known in her infancy.
Greer was exhausted to the point of fairly significant behavioral issues. One might argue that I was, too. Some of my darkest, most shameful parenting moments came during this time when we were all so, so tired. In her worst moments, Greer would sleep for no longer than 20 minutes before waking to launch into a violent fit requiring physical restraint to prevent self-injury. These episodes lasted anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours and occurred 2-4 times per night. Every night. For months. In my worst moments, I would scream, sob, and beg her to stop, hoping that being louder might startle her from her state of dissonance. Tears were shed, doors were slammed, and there may have been an OK-To-Wake clock shattered. Austin was, more often than not, at work during these nights when I was a broken parent. I carry significant guilt over these times.
I don’t say any of this for sympathy. I say this because I know I’m not the only one who has had dark and shameful parenting moments. I say this because the mother I was before children would have widened her eyes in judgment at this story. She would have shaken her head and said “I’d never do that.” The mother I was before children would have dealt with this in a way that was calm and effective. That mother was a trained Speech Pathologist with additional experience in psychology and applied behavioral analysis. She had read and contributed to many a detailed behavior plan for children with very severe behavior disturbances. Her own children would be angels. The moment they misbehaved, she would extinguish the behavior through planned ignoring and positive reinforcement.
You know what else?
The mother I was before children would NEVER be induced into labor. She would exclusively breastfeed. Why even bother registering for bottles when she wouldn’t need them until she went back to work? And when she did bottle feed, it would only be from a glass bottle. She wouldn’t DREAM of formula feeding. She would cloth diaper, because she loves the environment. She would practice the perfect balance of attachment parenting while also fostering independence. Her child’s pacifier would be gone by age one AT THE LATEST. She knows what extended pacifiers can do to dentition, let alone speech and language development! She would practice baby-led feeding (not weaning, because she would never wean her child until the child was ready). She would never sleep co-sleep. She would never allow her child to watch a screen before age two and would absolutely never allow more than an hour of screen time per day, regardless of age. She would never allow her child to play on her phone, especially in a restaurant. She. Would. Never.
She was self-righteous and quietly judged parents, making mental notes about how she would do better.
And then she had a baby and that mother slowly—somewhat sheepishly—disappeared to be replaced by me. The mother that I ACTUALLY am. Flawed, impatient, easily irritated, but also completely enamored by my child. A mother who is much less judgmental of other parenting choices. There certainly were parenting choices that I adhered to- with success, even. But rather than feeling smug in these choices, I recognize that the success was likely more related to my child’s personality than my chops as a parent. I also recognize that at any moment I may find myself with another large slice of humble pie that I inadvertently ordered.
Every so often, I’ll think back on a conversation I had with a couple of coworkers over lunch shortly after we’d moved to Kansas City. Somehow, we ended up on the topic of pacifiers and I admitted that Greer still used hers, despite being older than one. Mistake number one was admitting this to a group of speech pathologists who were neither mothers, nor my friends. Mistake number two was letting their judgment cloud mine. Even now, with Greer’s pacifier long gone, I fight the urge to defend my choice to let her use it until she was nearly two. At other times, I’ll find myself on the verge of a defensive diatribe about why I formula fed. But really, these things don’t matter. It doesn’t matter how we choose to feed, diaper, discipline, or birth our children. According to this fascinating Freakonomics episode, these choices likely carry much less weight than we are taught to believe. As it turns out, they don’t really matter. What matters is teaching kindness, offering forgiveness and showing love. What matters is that we are all just parents, trying our best.
It turned out that “Our Terrible Year of No Sleep” was all thanks to a bad case of enlarged tonsils and sleep apnea. A tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy restored much needed peace to our household. Our daughter is a pretty good sleeper again, and I am much less sanctimonious. Through therapy, I am learning to be mindful of my thoughts and that when I find myself in a place of judgment, I must move to a place of observation. When I do notice my eyes widening, I remind myself that whatever concern I am giving to another parent’s choices are a drop in the bucket compared to the thought and worry that parent has devoted to their own child. I remind myself that we are all just parents, sometimes failing, but always trying our best.
