What, the curtains?
It hardly seems believable that Oliver is already 12 weeks old. It is so amazing how much he has already grown and developed. The way he observes his world is so fantastic, I love watching him look at things, how big his eyes get. Whenever I encounter mothers of older children all I ever hear are stories of what their babies were like at his age, how fast they grow, and how much they miss their babies. Yet when I am with my own mother, or around mothers with toddlers, all I ever hear is don’t rock him to sleep, just put him down and walk away, let him learn to calm himself, let him learn to fall asleep on his own. They offer advice, to not hold him too much, to not let him get into the habit of falling asleep in my arms, I’ll rue the day… I just hate it. I just hate the way so many people want their babies to not need them, to grow up faster then they should. Oliver is only going to be a baby for less than a year. That’s it. And that time will go by so fast. I know that in a blink of an eye he’ll be eighteen, and there will be no more rocking him to sleep at night. His bedtime is 30 minutes of total sweetness at the end of his day (that is if he is not having a total meltdown) that we both need. He is not alert and looking around, he doesn’t want to play, he is not fussing; he just wants a cuddle, and to be read to or sung to. Yet I get told, in an ominous warning fashion, that if I rock him to sleep, he’ll never be able to fall asleep on his own. I call bullshit on that. I’ll be able to rock him to sleep maybe until he is 3, and then he’ll be too big, too independent, and then, no more. I am oh so aware of the fact that my baby will only be a baby for a very small amount of time, and I want to relish in it. I want to be able to have a good cuddle with him for as long as I am able. I know that the day will come all too soon when my little baby will not want me to rock him, or sing to him. Why is that so many parents don’t seem to realize this? Why is it that so many parents feel that it is somehow wrong that their babies need them, that they need to be held and rocked? Is it cultural to be so unaffectionate? I can’t do that. I am totally going to overload the little man with cuddles and affection. I think those things are important, necessary. Life should be sweet for babies; we should rock them to sleep at night, every night. These are the best years of his life, and over all too soon. Someday he’ll have to get a job, an apartment, deal with dating, people, life, and parental cuddles won’t be socially acceptable anymore. How do I deal with all of this “advice” I keep getting that is just so antithetical to what I think having the good life be all about?