Today, the debate over where your kid sleeps is exacerbated by social media ‘sharenting.’geargodz/Getty Images
I didn’t think I was going to be able to write this column. Not for the controversial subject matter, but because I’m tired. No, I’m exhausted. No, I’m in a state of wild fatigue, bordering on delirium. My brainy no worky.
I expected this level of sleep deprivation in the newborn phase, but I’m nearly five years in with a kid who seemingly is down for all-night ragers, with three or four nightly visits at my bedside. The experts call her ‘low sleep needs’. I have other descriptors.
Master of the jump-scare, for one. Like a tiny ninja, she sneaks into my room before loudly exclaiming the reason. “I need water!” “I need a hug!” “I need socks.” “I don’t like these socks.” “I don’t know why I’m here!”
Thankfully, my other daughter is a champion sleeper, out for at least 12 hours the second she gets wind of a mattress. Otherwise, I might take this sleep fail personally.
The amount of mom-shaming over kids’ sleep issues – perhaps more so than any other subject – is no joke. From the jump, how well your child sleeps independently is a measuring stick for how good of a baby they are. And co-sleeping with your young child is viewed as a failure, or risky, even though it’s been done for centuries and throughout the world. Health Canada warns that bed sharing with babies can be hazardous. Nonetheless, an estimated one third of Canadian moms say they do it anyway.
It’s an age-old debate that resurfaces with every generation of parents. Pediatrician Richard Ferber, author of the 1985 book Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems, became well-known for advising parents to leave their babies to cry at increasing intervals if they wanted them to sleep through the night. It was a hot-button topic for years, though Ferber has since updated his advice and said children can sleep well in many different settings.
Today, the debate over where your kid sleeps is exacerbated by social media ‘sharenting.’ According to the internet, I’m either not being hard enough on my bad sleeper: she should never be allowed in my room, much less in my bed. Or I’m not being soft enough: they’re only young once! She should always be sleeping in your bed! Embrace the season!
In his recent viral video with 1.8 million views, family and lifestyle content creator Rabeeh Moudallal confessed that he and his wife sleep in separate beds for survival with their two young kids. Commenters were promptly in two camps: empathy or judgment. “We’re allllllll in the same boat, hun! (But not the same bed!)” said one sympathetic commenter. “You’re doing it wrong. All wrong … It’s stories like these that affirm how grateful I am to have trained all three of my babies on how to sleep,” wrote another.
For me, when there are three or four nights in a row with hourly visits from my daughter, I invite her to a sleepover in my bed and boot my husband to the guest room. She sleeps soundly when she is next to me, so we get a chance to rest and reset – before we try sleeping in separate beds again.
Jenn Cerson, a certified sleep and well-being specialist who runs her own business called Heartfelt Slumber in Toronto, says one reason kids wake up and need their parents during the night is simply that they miss them.
“These young kids in kindergarten, they are away from their primary caregiver for the majority of their day,” she said. “And then nighttime comes, it’s the biggest separation of their day, and we ask them to be even more separated. I don’t really believe in ‘afraid of dark.’ It’s more like afraid of separation.”
For my husband and I, Cerson says the solution is likely trying to connect more with our daughter during waking hours so she is more comfortable being apart at nighttime.
She says many parents are stepping away from strict sleep training techniques and instead trying to uncover the root causes of wakings – which can range from mouth breathing to vitamin deficiency to screen time.
For Carolyn McPherson, a Toronto mom of one strong-willed three-year-old, embracing what worked for her family was key after her daughter stopped being an “angel sleeper” more than a year ago. “I have a big job and I can’t be up all hours of the night,” she said.
When her daughter calls for her every night around midnight, McPherson brings her into her bed and her husband sleeps in the spare room. “It wasn’t admitting defeat, but more so finding acceptance that this is our reality. She just feels safest, cuddled up in the arch of my back. And we all sleep soundly, so what could be better?”
This sounds divine, and I nearly doze off just thinking about it. But try as I might to convince my husband into a sleep divorce, he is just not having it. He argues that if we go down that path, he won’t sleep in his own bed until our daughter is a preteen.
My solution – I pray to the sleep gods – will arrive in four to six weeks: a bigger bed for my kid. That way, I can sleep with her when she really needs me. I’m hoping it’s our family’s happy medium between encouraging independent sleep and nurturing a little girl who is trying her best. And then, we can all – finally, hopefully, at long last – have a restful night.
