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Welcome to familywisdom.com, a website dedicated to informing and inspiring couples and families. Each week you will find a new article, story or essay about parenting, marriage or life. Suggestions for articles and questions to Ellen Terich are welcome. You can contact her at e.terich1@verizon.net |
TIME FOR A NEW LESSON FROM SEAN 2003-04-01 Sean will soon be a big brother and his parents decided it was a good time to move him out of his crib and into a twin bed. They did this not only to make a place for his little sister, but also to help Sean sleep through the night. My daughter asked Sean's pediatrician about the advisability of moving Sean to a twin bed and the doctor suggested it would be better to wait until Sean learns to sleep consistently through the night in his crib. Ever since his birth, Sean has had periods when he wakes in the middle of the night and doesn't go readily back to sleep. His parents have tried letting him cry, but he has cried for hours. Sometimes my daughter or her husband walk with him and sometimes he comes into their bed. Since he has this pattern, the pediatrician thought Sean might wake up, get out of his new bed and wander around the house in the middle of the night. This, everyone agreed, would not be a good thing. My daughter and her husband thought it over and decided not to follow the pediatrician's advice. While they respect her experience and knowledge, they believed they knew what was best for their son and they didn't think he would get up in the middle of the night and endanger himself. My daughter, particularly, felt that Sean would sleep better in a twin bed. Her intuition told her that Sean never really liked sleeping in his crib (he never liked taking a nap there either) and that moving him into a twin bed might be a solution. Psychologists would undoubtedly say that by getting up with him in the middle of the night, and especially by bringing him into their bed, Sean's parents reinforced him and thus trained Sean to wake up and call for them, and there may be some truth to that. However, what happened when Sean got his own bed tells a different story. Sean has not slept with his parents since he began sleeping in a twin bed. He has awakened a few times and one of his parents has gone in and soothed him back to sleep. On the first night in his new bed, he woke up crying and when he didn't go quickly back to sleep, his daddy asked if he wanted to go into mommy and daddy's bed, but he said "no." Since then, he has slept through the night nearly every night. We can probably conclude that his mother was right and he didn't like sleeping in his crib. Whether it was uncomfortable, or too closed in, or too different from mommy and daddy's bed we will never know, but we do know that a new bed made all the difference. My daughter's decision to heed her intuition has paid off. She will have a couple months of restful sleep before the new baby is born. While it may be a gamble to ignore the experts, such as pediatricians, psychologists and educators, the fact is that no expert understands a child like his or her parents. Certainly in medical matters, a pediatrician has the expertise, but in behavioral matters, nothing can match a mother's intuition. |