The Quiet Moments
Cathy A. DeRaleau
Elma NY USA
From NEW BEGINNINGS, Vol. 17 No. 4, July-August 2000, pg. 120
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When my son David was born,
the stream of advice that came from well-meaning friends and strangers
overwhelmed me. I was told about a number of methods that were "proven"
to lead to a happy, healthy baby and best of all, one who would sleep
through the night!
As David grew, I started
to hear the question, "Is he sleeping through the night yet?"
over and over again. At three months, David was still waking once, sometimes
twice, a night to nurse. When I talked about this, I noticed looks from
experienced mothers that suggested I was doing something wrong. Then,
all the suggestions designed to help David sleep through the night came
flooding in. They ranged from, "Let him cry it out" to "Try
giving him some cereal at night to fill him up before he goes to sleep."
The one bit of advice I never
received was to enjoy those quiet moments of middle-of-the-night nursing.
When a child is born your
life changes and you no longer sleep in large blocks of time, but rather
in snippets here and there. For many mothers, it almost becomes a race
to get your baby to sleep through the night so you can return to your
"normal" habits.
Nursing is obviously best
for the baby and is supposed to be very relaxing for the mother. I have
to say that during the daytime, I just don't experience this. During
the day, we face a multitude of distractions, and nursing sometimes
seems like one more in a long list of tasks to accomplish. There is
always something else that needs to be done or somewhere to go, if only
this child would just hurry up and finish.
In the middle of the night,
something magical happens. These distractions just melt away.
I admit, I was on the path
to resenting those 2 AM feedings. Why Couldn't I have just one solid
night of sleep? After all, I was up all day with my baby, was it fair
that I should be up all night, too?
These feelings were particularly
prominent this morning, when David woke me at 1 AM. The past three days
have been miserable for me. I have been suffering with the flu, complete
with sore throat. I felt as though I wanted to curl up and sleep through
next week. One o'clock in the morning came around far too quickly for
my liking.
But as I gazed at David's
precious face as he nursed, those feelings began to drift away. His
tiny hand reached up to touch me, his warm little fingers curling around
my pinky. His eyes fluttered as he fought off sleep just one more time.
In that moment that I realized
that yes, David will someday sleep through the night, and it will be
on his own terms. When that happens, I feel as if I will be missing
something. Quite frankly, I will miss these quiet moments that only
we could ever share.
So, when it is my turn to
dispense advice to the new mother, I will tell her to look forward to
those middle of the night feedings. They will come and go all too quickly
in the grand scheme of things, and these can be some of the most precious
and personal memories a mother can have of her child's infancy.
Last updated Friday, September 29, 2006 by njb.
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