it's not me, it's you

I've had a revelation lately which has been helpful to me. It has come with the fact that Eleanor sleeps through the night. She has done it enough times now that I actually believe it. She'll sleep for 6 hours at a go, and the last two nights she slept from 10:30 pm - 6:30 am. It is unbelievable, absolutely. Now the thing is, Sophia did not sleep through the night when she was a baby. Maybe she did once or twice, but what I remember is that she woke up every 2-3 hours regularly until she was at least a year old. The thing is this - we don't do anything differently with Eleanor than we did with Sophia, she's just a different kid.

Now the reason why this is so massive to me is that I was convinced that Sophia sleeping (or not) was something to do with what we did or didn't do. As a first time Mum, I was pretty sure I knew what I wanted to do for my baby, but I felt so much insecurity in so many ways, especially around whether or not I should let Sophia 'cry it out'. There are tonnes and tonnes of books written, Mum's discussion groups around this, and theories abound - and honestly, the dialogue IS helpful when you just don't know what to do with your kid. I know so many people who swear that "c.i.o." was good and fine for their kids, and we did eventually do a a limited form of 'cry it out' with Soph, but I also know people whose children did not respond to c.i.o. and who were actually really, really traumatized by it.

Yet there remains a thought (and I think it is actually pretty symptomatic of our whole society) that WE have control and that we can do something (about everything to do with our kids, pretty much). Which as a new Mum, I found really hard...surely my baby didn't sleep because it was MY fault. Then, when I decided to co-sleep with her and just nurse forever, I still felt insecure about that choice at times b/c it wasn't always the norm, and I like everyone to think I do things exactly the right way all the time. But it worked well for us, and we got more sleep that way and all was well, it was just not the norm.

SO Eleanor sleeps, and we haven't done anything differently than we did with Soph, and I realize she is JUST A DIFFERENT KID! This simplistic statement releases me from guilt and worry in many ways - sometimes, it's not me, it's not what I do, it's not a magic formula I figure out, it's just them.

Now, don't get me wrong, I know obviously who I am as a mother is immeasurably important to my kids and who they are, that they are being shaped by me every day. But I think that's the point. Sophia and Eleanor are much more affected by me being kind, merciful and understanding (or not) than they are by whether I rocked them to sleep, or if they started eating solids on time. Yet the latter are the things I think it is easiest to obsess over if I don't watch out. Then I become seriously the opposite of kind, merciful and understanding. Especially if I don't sleep well...hey, sleep deprivation, incessant screaming, nipple twisting, these things all describe torture practices as well as mothering.

You think I would have learned this so may years ago in YWAM, where you can pour your heart out to a student or other staff member, and sometimes they change and grow and become the butterflies you envision they will be and sometimes...they don't. And while it has A LOT to do with you as a leader, on the other had, it's really just them. You think I would have figured that out by now, but when it's your own kids it's even more personal. Which is terrible, in the most awful and the most holy senses of the word.

So...hurray! I am sleeping more now than I have in years, and celebrating the fact. I am not holding my breath about it, if Eleanor stops sleeping through the night, I know I'll miss it, but other than checking my diet and her diaper, I won't wear myself worrying about whether or not it was something I did.