February was a rough month for our family.
Besides all of us getting hit with a terrible cold (that lasted 3 weeks!), our two-and-a-half-year-old son went through a major sleep upheaval that left us horribly exhausted and emotionally spent. We’re still not sure what triggered the change, but in short, our toddler went from sleeping soundly for twelve hours throughout the night to coming in our room and waking us up every hour. I’m not kidding. Every. Hour.
By the end of February, neither my husband or I felt like we could function properly. Life just hurt.
I was avidly reading about toddler sleep training methods and talking to every toddler mom I knew for help. We were just desperate to get our son sleeping again.
The first week was like a military boot camp. We just kept marching our son back to his room whenever he appeared, while trying to have as little conversation as possible. Discipline was often enforced during those night sessions along with very firm commands to stay in his bed and not come back out.
Well, that didn’t work at all.
The next week, my husband and I took turns sleeping on the floor in our son’s room. This seemed to help our son, but it was no good for us. I’m 7 months pregnant and I just could not handle all the back and belly pain from lying on the floor (and I wasn’t really sleeping either). Even my husband starting complaining of back and shoulder pains. This was clearly not a long-term solution.
By the third week, we were so exhausted that when our son came rushing into our room, we sometimes just didn’t even wake up. Not on purpose, mind you. Those long nights had just finally taken their toll. We were emotionally, physically and mentally defeated, and were just too plain tired to keep waking up every hour.
But then, perhaps because of our exhaustion, we experienced a breakthrough one night: our toddler came running into our room crying, and neither of us really woke up. I just remember hearing cries and then all went silent. Happily, I went back to sleep until morning, whereupon I discovered that my son had slept soundly for 8 hours on the floor of our bedroom without a peep (no pillow, no blanket or anything!).
That’s when it hit me: my son is not being rebellious or behaving badly; he just wants to be near us. His cries throughout the night were not for attention, but rather for comfort. His repeated trips to our bedroom were not born out of a need to assert his will, but rather because he was in need of extra affirmations of love and nearness.
Once we realized that, we completely changed our approach to the situation. The very next night, we moved his toddler bed into our room, and low and behold he went right back to sleeping soundly and happily through the night! It felt like a miracle. The behavioral issues that we had been dealing with throughout those long February days also disappeared. He was happy again, and we were too.
Now, granted, at first the adjustment was hard. Our bedroom is no longer a place that my husband and I can unwind. We only sneak back in when we’re ready to fall asleep lest we wake our son.
On the one hand, this new sleep solution feels like a huge inconvenience to our former routine. But, on the other hand, I am also realizing that this approach is very much in line with my Indian heritage, and there is something very good and communal about it.
In India (as well as much of the Eastern hemisphere), it’s very common for a whole family to sleep in one room together. Children and babies alike never sleep apart from their mothers. The whole “co-sleeping” idea is just the norm there. That was the case for my mom and her family as well as many of my other relatives and friends.
And with this sort of Indian-style sleep solution, parents never have to master the “cry it out” method or worry about disciplinary issues for wayward toddlers throughout the night. Their kids are lying right by their side and receiving all the comfort, love and protection that that nearness affords. I know this is not a very American perspective, but I’m beginning to see and appreciate its merits all the more through this new season with my son.
I can now say with all confidence that I feel both happy and content with our family’s new sleeping arrangement. Our baby girl is due in early June, and we are thrilled. It’s also very possible that all four of us will be sleeping together in our master bedroom when she arrives (despite having three bedrooms total). And I’m just fine with that.
