Confessions of a Cuddler

I rock my son to sleep...
He's almost three...
There...I said it. It's out there. *GASP*

I don't mind one single bit either. I am happy to get him to go to bed happy and safe, and cuddled. I like feeling his nearly forty pound self cuddled up with his head on my shoulder, left hand gripping my hair. I like feeling that little jerk of his body when he finally goes to sleep. I love laying him down in his crib and covering him up. I am happy to get this cuddle time with the squirmy wiggly boundary testing hard to hold toddler.

I don't know how many nights I have fallen asleep in that chair...lets see...he's almost three...so over a thousand nights probably. My butt print is ingrained in that cushion.

And I don't mind a bit. Not at all. Nada.

My husband left for Iraq (I had left out the 'for Iraq' part and then re read it...that makes it a whole new scenario when you leave that out) when he was less than a week old. He had issues with silent reflux, ear infections, bronchitis, the whole nine yards. He slept with me propped in the Bobby Pillow or in the Bouncy Chair for nearly a year.

I'm labeled an Attachment Parent. Or an Aware Parent. Whatever. I'm doing my job. My parents did theirs. I slept with them off and on until I was five. They resorted to putting my crib mattress on the floor beside their bed. I'm not sleeping with them now...so it eventually ended.

I never could do the Cry It Out sleep training. He was sick all the time. If I had left him alone in his crib to just scream it out, he would have been miserable. He was letting me know that he couldn't sleep (he had apnea due to enlarged adenoids), he wanted comfort. That's my job, as a parent, to comfort. This is the way we did it...the way many generations before us did it.

I carried him in a baby wrap...a lot. It was nice. He wanted held. I didn't mind. It was better than the alternative of him fussing and screaming in another room while I attempted some sort of housekeeping.

My SIL is pregnant. I've given her some advice and sent her a few things already. My email to her yesterday was pretty basic...but I felt I needed to tell her to never ask me about sleep training, cry it out, or any of the new methods of teaching a child to self soothe. Self soothe...now what the hell is that supposed to mean? I don't even self soothe...I want comfort when I am upset. Letting a baby figure out how to comfort themselves is the most absurd thing I've ever heard of. Really?

Yes...the CIO method works...sometimes...but you get to repeat that sleep training everytime something new in their life interrupts their schedule. Doesn't sound too promising to me.

I'm just happy to have that time. Yes, it takes time. I spent 24 hours in labor waiting on my husband to get to the hospital. Everything takes time.

Believe me, I will not be cuddling him on my lap when he is 18. This too shall pass.