Tasmiya

I guess you could say I’m a scientist. I come from a family with a very “scientific” background. I’ve read of the leaps humans have made in the name of science but with human’s quest for knowledge comes significant drawbacks – We discard our intuiton and think things through way too much. We want to know everything about everything. We try to classify things – usually it’s into the dichotomy of “normal” or “abnormal” when things often don’t fit into such crude classes.

This baby sleeping through the night is just one example : It *may* be normal for your baby to sleep through the night at 3 weeks of age. It may be normal for most babies over 6 months of age not to want to have a feed during the night. That doesn’t mean I should *expect* that of my babies and it certainly does not mean I should refuse them what they so obviously have woken up for.

If I hear my baby cry – my first instinct is to go to him, to calm him, to soothe him. This is quite simply what mothers *do*. They don’t do it because science has told them to – this is something so innate, it’s a feeling so completely natural it’s beyond description. If somebody tells you to do something that goes against this, chances are – it’s wrong.

I don’t know what made me go against my instincts when it came to controlled crying. The more I think of it, the more I realise I didn’t go with my intuition with a lot of things when it came to my first child. I am grateful I had the support of the child health nurses and the 24- hour parenting and breastfeeding hotlines but I can’t help but wonder had I been thrown in the deep end with little or no support, I might have faired better. I feel I relied too much on this support network and because it was so readily available to me, didn’t give my motherly instincts a chance.

I don’t doubt significant progress has been made in terms of understanding child development and child behaviour and I’m certain there are some very knowledgable experts in these fields. But mothers -listen to your instincts for surely *you* are the expert when it comes to your baby.

Umm Zaynab’s blog entry has stimulated me to write a bit of my experiences as a first time mother & how I was encouraged not to rely on my instincts because science has found a “better” way. I’m very sure this was not the intention of the well meaning clinic nurses and people on the other end of the parenting helpline that I phoned whenever I felt overwhelmed. I’m also not trying to lay blame on anyone, either. This is just my experience and my take on it :

My entry into motherhood was mashaAllah smooth and free of complications. My little boy was gaining weight and seemed content. I was tired but very happy and proud. I would take him to the health clinic every week to have him weighed and to discuss with the nurses things that may have been bothering me. I was regularly asked about his sleeping habits. When I mentioned he was still waking up during the night for a feed, I was told, “No, no, no – after baby reaches 6 months of age he doesn’t *need* your milk during the night! When he wakes up, just refuse to breastfeed him. He’ll soon figure it out and then he won’t wake up the next night. Then they spoke at length about controlled crying, how this could be done from the time they were very young.

I was stunned – this was something I had never read about, and it didn’t really fit with what I believed being a mother was all about – I was *supposed* to sacrifice sleep, food, maybe even sanity! for my child. I thought about it – yes, I was exhausted and yes, very irritable – if I did what they suggested maybe I’d be a little bit easier to live with? They had done “extensive” studies and apparently this was proven to help my child sleep by himself. In fact, I was told children who were subjected to controlled crying never ever had trouble sleeping as adults. Insomnia in adulthood apparently was due to relying on mothers to put you to sleep. Imagine that – a baby actually relying on his mother to soothe him off to sleep. What a novel concept!

I am ashamed to admit it – we went the controlled crying way. The first night he cried for 10 minutes. I literally pulled my hair out for the full 10 minutes, my husband comforting me & all the while my child was screaming for *me* to comfort *him*. The next night he cried for 5 minutes. The next night he didn’t cry at all. In theory it was a huge success. I enjoyed a full night’s sleep for the next year.

We travelled to visit my in-laws and it was then in the evenings, he would wake up and climb into our bed. It was beautiful, to open my eyes and see my little boy sleeping soundly and so securely in between his parents. I remembered how safe I used to feel sleeping in my parents’ bed (even if they did eventually leave the bed to sleep on the mattress because I was kicking too much!) How could I have denied him this when he was so much younger? I feel guilty even now when I think about it.

After coming home, we rethought our putting-to-sleep routine. One of us now stays with him while he falls asleep and when he awakens in the middle of the night, he climbs into our bed. If this is what keeps our little boy feeling safe and secure, this is what we will do. We would never have it any other way. InshaAllah we will be buying a bigger bed soon, so 10-month-old can join us too .

More on this tomorrow inshaAllah