Attachment parenting: the most time consuming, exhausting, rewarding thing Mikey and I have ever done. As happy as I am that we have chosen this parenting “philosophy” and as natural as it feels, I’ve wondered approximately fourteen million times if Hazel is EVER going to stop sleeping in our bed. Is she EVER going to stop nursing? Is she ever going to be the independent little girl who decides things for herself – the very thing that attachment parenters of years past always swear is the result of a well-attached baby? It seems so contrary – a toddler who has been in a stroller twice in her life and has spent the rest of the time riding around on mom or dad, who has never spent a whole night sleeping by herself, who has nursed whenever and wherever she wants from her first moments of life, who has never been left to “cry it out”… how is she ever going to be independent? We aren’t sure, but it has always felt right to us so we keep doing it. We see it working for our like-minded friends. So far, we’ve been rewarded with an extraordinarily happy little girl.
All of a sudden, it’s happening. Two weeks ago I was at the end of my rope with Hazel’s newfound love of all-night nursing marathons. Seriously, just call me Jersey – all I was good for was milk. I felt like crap and none of us were getting enough sleep. I read in a book that sometimes the problem (for a baby who is just pacifying and not nursing for nourishment) is that the mom keeps offering – of course this has occurred to me, but I didn’t know how to NOT offer. So, I just didn’t. I wasn’t trying to wean her, necessarily, because I want her to have some say in it, but seriously – we just needed to sleep. So that night when she rustled around at midnight, spit out her binky and started rooting around, I just… popped her binky back in her mouth. She went back to sleep and didn’t try to nurse again until the sun was up, when I happily obliged and she got some breakfast. Aside from last night, which was horrible for unknown reasons (I haven’t gotten a good look in her mouth yet, but I suspect a 4th molar), she has not nursed between when she goes down for the night and about 8 a.m. for two weeks. I never fathomed this would be so easy. On a day when she doesn’t fall on her face or get overstimulated to the max and doesn’t need to nurse for comfort, she nurses three times. First thing in the morning, before nap, and before bed. That nighttime refusal when she wasn’t even awake was all she needed to realize that she can put herself back to sleep. We still have a long way to go until she can soothe herself back to sleep any time she wakes up in the night, but I’d much rather lay beside her working on a new high score on LineUp on my iphone while she figures out how to fall asleep than have her nurse me to death. Most nights when I put her down for the night, she nurses till she’s done and then rolls away from me and goes to sleep – will wonders never cease? I never thought I’d be so amazed at the sight of my child laying with her back to me, going to sleep. As much as this is all a relief in some ways (and I feel MUCH better physically, and we are all getting better sleep), I am a little sad that our nursing dyad is obviously in the beginning stages of weaning.
At this point, for most of her life, she has been pretty clingy around most other people except very immediate family and friends. She is friendly and flirty, but must have us nearby or she goes into meltdown mode, especially if she is overwhelmed by lots of other little kids (eg, Turner House). She’ll warm up to any situation eventually, but is very, very cautious. Last night we were out with Angie and Luca having dinner, and after she was done she Wanted Down Right Now Please and Thank You. I plopped her onto the floor and she took off. She just walked away from me, with not a glance back. For twenty minutes while we waited for Mikey’s takeout order to be finished, she ran laps around Black Blear, chatting and shaking her head and gesturing and flirting with total strangers, peeking very closely at the little kids in every single high chair, and never once… not once did she look to see if I was trailing along behind her. I don’t know if she trusted that I was, or if she just didn’t care. Either way, it was like a switch was flipped in our little peanut’s brain. We’re going to a friend’s birthday party tonight and I’m eager to see if this confidence in a crowded room repeats itself.
It is such a huge relief to place total trust in such a small person and then see her do things all by herself when she is good and ready. I don’t want to force her into anything she isn’t ready for and I don’t want her to have to learn things or be comfortable by a standard of “when we think she should.” I think now I might be able to stop asking “is __________ ever going to happen??”
