Don't Worry Your Child Will Not Be Nursed to Sleep in His Dorm Room

People are quite curious of our sleeping situation which right now is a queen mattress on the floor next to a twin mattress on floor, but we still all usually end up on the queen mattress.  And, for the most part I nurse my baby to sleep, or sometimes he nurses a little then takes a pacifier to sleep (the baby likes to suck more than he likes to drink).  It's really working for us, and is convenient for night time elimination communication when I'm able to do it.

What I hear from other people who have kids is usually full of fears and worries and wondering when it will all be better.  People are WAY too freaked out about sleep.  There is this idea going around that if you don't somehow figure out how to get yourself to sleep and stay asleep all night by the time you are six months old you will have sleep problems for ever. 

I nurse my six-month-old in the middle of the night sometimes.  This is something several people and books have told me he DOESN'T NEED, "stop doing that, or he'll get used to it and need it... FOREVER."  Get rid of the pacifier too pretty soon or you'll never get rid of that.  But for God's sake keep him in diapers at LEAST two years... maybe even 3 or 4. 

Can you see that there might be some cultural biases happening here?

People usually ask me if we have a plan for getting him into his own bed.  Last time, my husband answered this, "uh I guess before the next one comes..."  No, we don't have a plan.  We aren't the planning type.  If something comes up later that makes this arrangement not work, then we will change it.  We changed it once.  We used to have a queen bed next to a co-sleeper, but the baby got too mobile for that arrangement by 5 months, so we minimized the falling out of bed risk by putting the mattress right on the floor.

I'm really not buying into the idea that my child will need to learn how to fall asleep on his own and that this is somehow something I will need to plan out and teach him.  I didn't teach him anything else he knows.  He's close to crawling, but I didn't teach him how to do it.  I didn't teach him how to do the cooing/babbling he does.  I didn't teach him to smile or laugh.  These are things that the vast majority of children do, eventually, but no one plans it out.  And they all do it at different times.  Some babies are barely a month when they smile, some don't smile until three months.  Some children are crawling at 4 months, some aren't crawling until after a year. 

I really have to remind myself sometimes that our sleep situation is great.  We are all getting enough sleep.  I have to remember that contrary to what some might say, even if I'm still nursing him to sleep when he's two or three, I won't be be nursing him to sleep in his dorm room. 

I think it is a fallacy that we have that much control over when and how our kids grow up.  All we can do is give them a nurturing environment and let them grow up how and when they would like.  The more we push and turn things into a struggle, the more struggles we will have.  All children grow up, even in less than ideal circumstances.  Let's all try to accept the kids we have today.