Or how to put a child to sleep without harming the health of both parties involved

Dear tired mom, close your eyes, take a deep breath and exhale. We're in this with you. Whether you've just spent twenty sweaty minutes bouncing around on a fitball with a baby in your arms, whether you're starting to feel the first signs of thigh muscles from rocking with a baby in a carrier or trying to tame a wild beast at half past ten in the evening, we can imagine what you're going through. We've been there, too. We rocked, we bounced, we walked, we sang, we shushed, we hmmmmed, we nursed, we traded the carrier for a scarf and vice versa, all with one noble goal in mind: to put our little ones to sleep. The following lines might serve to reassure and encourage you that what you are doing is right and if you persevere, you won't lose your nerve and you have a chance of raising a happy and contented child.

YOUR CHILD DOES NOT FALL ASLEEP ALONE?

Which one of us hasn't gotten that question yet? Which one of us hasn't longed, at least for a moment, for her little person to be able to fall asleep on her own? Without help? These thoughts are probably quite natural in our environment. Our parents' generation brought us up on the one or two parenting books that were available in our area at the time, and today we are bombarded with endless amounts of conflicting information from all corners of the world. 

And so one easily gets the feeling that one is not doing something right, something has gone terribly wrong somewhere, or something is wrong with one's child. Dear Mom, you can breathe a sigh of relief, none of this is true, thank goodness. If your baby doesn't function by giving him milk, putting him in his crib, covering him up, giving him a teddy bear, stroking his hair, saying goodnight and he falls peacefully asleep within a few minutes, trust that it's absolutely okay and normal. It would be quite a rarity, in fact. 

So no, most babies don't really fall asleep without our help, and it's not our goal to get them to learn to do so either. Because whatever method we applied, we wouldn't teach our little being to fall asleep on her own. But what we would teach it by our absence would be to resign itself. To give up hope that we are there for her. (And this is incredibly hard to even write.) That in vain she would cry out for help, mommy and daddy wouldn't come anyway. And so he gives up. After a while, he stops crying in his crib because he learns that no one will come anyway. And the feeling of being alone and abandoned in the world becomes deeply ingrained.

SO HOW TO DO IT?

With love and tenderness. We possums (Vacice) are quite contact creatures, so we like to roam and cuddle. It's completely natural for us and we believe babies feel the same way. So if you'd like some advice from us, in addition to the aforementioned and most important unconditional love, we'd also recommend proximity, presence, touch, contact, empathy and patience. 

We big people often forget that our little people aren't quite exactly like us yet. They still have a lot of growing, developing and maturing to do. And so it is with their brains, nervous systems and emotions. Little babies don't yet have a mature ability to self-regulate, so they need our help (even with putting them to sleep). They need to feel our closeness, warmth, smell, they need to hear our voice or heartbeat and most often they need to be soothed at the breast. Thanks to all this, they get a feeling of security, which is essential for a peaceful falling asleep. (We adults probably wouldn't get a good night's sleep either if our sense of threat and stress hormones were at an all-time high.)

That's why we think that the best cure for falling asleep is closeness, and with it comes empathy. When we understand how much our baby needs us and how defenceless he is without us, it's easier for us to put ourselves in his shoes and sense what he needs. 

We'll probably disappoint some of you, but there is no one right way to put a baby to sleep. Every baby needs something different and this can change even from day to day. What worked yesterday, or the whole previous month, may not work at all today. And that's okay, it's normal. Because our beautiful baby is getting older, more mature and more grown up every day. So dear mama, try to relax, let go of your expectations (and of that booklet full of guaranteed baby sleep advice) and just be. Be here and now, be present with your baby, observe, feel and listen to what they need at this very moment. That's all you really need to know about putting babies to sleep.

Good night.