Almost six months ago, I had my first baby. Ever since, I’ve been excited about sleep: how long; how deep; whether it’s happening in a automotive, on a walk, in a lap. And I’ve been excited about find out how to achieve that sleep faithfully, honoring each the dignity of my baby and my duty as a mom.
For many latest parents, sleep is an issue, a series of decisions that open you as much as criticism. Some parents put their baby in bed with them. (Dangerous!) Others go for a bassinet. (Cold-hearted!) Some use a pacifier. (Problematic.) Others don’t. (Equally problematic.)
In the newborn months, night feedings are vital. The controversial faith-based program Baby Wise, promising full nights of sleep at only seven weeks, has subsequently been condemned by pediatricians. But at the same time as their babies grow, some parents proceed to reply to every whimper. Loving, they proclaim. Unrealistic, say their opponents. And ultimately, not good for the infant!
Others decide to “sleep train,” putting their baby down awake in order that they’ll learn to go to sleep on their very own. This often involves crying. Worth it, parents insist. Selfish, say their critics. And ultimately, not good for the infant!
If you’ve cared for an infant in 2024 and successfully avoided sleep debates, I commend you. I even have not. In part, due to Instagram. Also, because I needed information. My baby seemed drained on a regular basis, and yet his eyes simply wouldn’t close. How could I help him rest?
I read some curriculum; I watched some videos; I browsed blogs; I talked to friends. Over time, I learned some strategies. We sang lullabies. We purchased blackout curtains and overnight diapers. We used a swaddle, then a “sleep suit,” then a “sleep sack.” Everything helped.
As for sleep training? Ultimately, we adopted a hybrid approach—putting the infant down “drowsy but awake,” tolerating some fussing but continuing to comfort. He took most of his naps within the crib. His eyes weren’t red anymore. Sometimes he slept the entire night through. For this blessed development, I had the sleep experts to thank.
And yet: Sometimes, sleep still made me anxious. When the infant went down for bed half-hour too late, or took one other too-short nap, I frightened I’d ruined his schedule. I wasn’t being disciplined enough. When the infant complained at 3 a.m., I lay in bed, watching the monitor, wondering if I used to be being too withholding, if I shouldn’t just gather him into my arms no matter “the plan.”
Adopting the sleep techniques is one thing. But what hasn’t worked for me are the philosophies undergirding either side of the controversy: the regimented and strategized versus the freewheeling and improvised, and what they assume about human nature.
For the sleep training experts, kids are codes to be cracked. Put a baby right down to bed at the identical time each night—not more than quarter-hour too early or too late. Rocking or feeding to sleep can create a dreaded bad habit that may break an excellent sleeper immediately. The science of REM and a table of nap times can tell us most all the pieces we want to find out about find out how to take care of our kids, they are saying.
It’s correct that infants respond well to routine, and that typically developing kids follow a certain predictable trajectory. But spend time with a baby and also you’ll realize that they’re so far more than a machine, preset to roll, babble, and eat solid foods because the months progress. Each child has her own temperament. Each will buck the rules in his own way. Each is “fearfully and splendidly made,” utterly distinct, not a prefab copy (Ps. 139:14).
The sleep training literature does offer caveats. Some babies don’t reply to the methods. Many babies experience temporary regressions. Babies get sick and grow teeth and sometimes get inexplicably cranky. The caveats feel more descriptive than the norms. Why did the infant get up 3 times? Ultimately, explanations are futile, an try to understand a baby’s needs inside an adult rationale.
But what if adult rationale is getting in the way in which—in parenting and in the remainder of my life as a Christian? Jesus asks us to return to him as children, guileless, lowly, utterly honest in our dependence on him.
The sleep trainers, with their charts and protocols, sometimes underemphasize the goodness of this sort of relationship, the wonder in pure, unruly, inexplicable need. When my baby wants me within the night, that’s not a failure of a system. It is the system.
Rather than trying to elucidate my baby—why he loves his fox toy, why he drinks bottles three ounces greater than the rules, why he sticks his legs through the bars of the crib—what if I simply beheld him, content with a measure of mystery? What if I allowed my baby to return to me as Jesus invites us to return to him, through a Holy Spirit that understands groanings we ourselves can’t comprehend (Rom. 8:26)?
Yet I don’t think the “attachment” types have all of it right either. For these mothers—the co-sleepers and the snugglers—babies are ultimate authorities. Your child desires to suck for five minutes every half an hour? He’ll sleep only while touching you? Let him; he knows what’s best for himself. He’ll eat only until he’s full, and he’ll only cry when he has a must be met.
But this doesn’t feel true either. “I don’t understand what I do. For what I would like to do I don’t do, but what I hate I do,” writes Paul to the Romans (7:15). He’s speaking about sin. In a fallen world, this tension—doing things that run counter to our greatest nature, wanting what’s bad for us—is present from our earliest days, willed or otherwise (Ps. 51:5).
Babies wish to stick their hands of their diapers, then into their mouths. They hate automotive seats. They hate socks. My job as a mother isn’t simply to let my child lead, even when he’s small. It’s to lift him up in the way in which he should go. It’s to set parameters, to put some plans, even in the event that they should be adapted along the way in which.
Being a mother, I’m learning, isn’t a lot in regards to the strategies and techniques, in spite of everything, whether it involves sleeping, or eating, or the more complicated tasks to return: discipline, education, spiritual formation.
This isn’t only a matter of eschewing two camps for some sort of “middle way.” It’s rethinking the very idea of “camps” in any respect, understanding parenting less as a philosophy we adapt and more as a calling we answer, at times stuffed with confusion, inconsistency, and improvisation.
God, in spite of everything, doesn’t call us to be experts, to read another product review or research study, or to know all of the answers upfront. Instead, we’re simply called to be smart, which has more to do with attention than information, more to do with end goals than tactics.
Wise individuals are authorities who depend upon the final word Authority, asking questions of God, depending on and submitting to him at the same time as our kids depend upon and undergo us. That’s my prayer this Mother’s Day, my first with a baby in my arms: wisdom. And more sleep.
Kate Lucky is senior editor of culture & engagement at Christianity Today.
