A body gets tired, a body falls asleep: That seemed logical to me before I had children.
I expected that my children would rely on me for many valuable life lessons, like the proper order of vegetables in a stir fry, which foods can safely be consumed past their expiration date, and why you should never bother with the complicated “rabbit goes around the tree” business of shoe-tying (my “make two bunny ears” method has gotten me through life just fine). All of these I was ready, and excited, to teach. But I figured babies would come home from the hospital with the basic bodily functions — sleeping, eating, pooping — pretty much down pat.
Everyone out there reading knows how wrong I was. Our first child was staring down the beginning of her second year before my husband and I realized that not only did something need to be done, something should have been done long before we got to that point. Here’s the hint we finally took: Both of us were greeting each and every day with an angry, exhausted expletive.
We couldn’t, however, agree on just what needed to be done. My take on the matter: “It’s time for that kid to figure this sleep thing out on her own. I have done all I can do.” My husband’s: “My heart will tear itself out of my ribcage if I have to listen to her cry for more than five seconds.”
A man named Marc Weissbluth helped us claw our way back to sanity, but it was a long, long haul. He’s the author of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and — if I may make a personal endorsement — my favorite of the six prominent sleep experts we write about on page 14. Most importantly, he helped us get off on the right foot when baby number two came around. (Does that mean eight hours of sleep every night from day one? Far from it. And anyone promising that to parents is worse than a snake-oil salesman.)
The demands of modern life and parenting still intrude on my husband’s and my sleep, but, generally speaking, when they do, our kids are snoring in their own beds, practicing the very first practical skill we ever taught them.
