The Unsnugglesome Child

swjohnsonla's story

August 22, 2007

We had heard the horror stories about attachment parenting. We had heard basically that IT WORKS.

If you let the kid sleep with you (i.e., the family bed), you can pretty much count on the kid sleeping with you for years to come.

At least for the people that we know who did this, it put a tremendous strain on their marriage, and most often resulted in the husband sleeping separately, seething with resentment that there's no sex, nor any chance of sex anytime soon.

With that in mind, my daughter was in her own crib and in her own room, pretty much from Day 1.

Though it was hard at first -- and inconvenient -- to get up and go in the other room to feed and comfort in the middle of the night -- the pay off was that our child was going down easier and sleeping through the night sooner than anyone else we knew.

We got time together as a couple, and both of us got a lot more sleep.

This plan seemed fool-proof, even as we transitioned from the crib to a "big kid" bed. Even with her new-found freedom, she had no problem staying put.

Our daughter has never been the snuggly type (attachment parenting advocates would say it's because we didn't give her enough love), but she is smart.

She realized sometime around age 4 that she could prolong bedtime by asking for her story in the Mommy and Daddy bed. Then, she asked if she could "rest with us" for a little bit. We easily agreed since it was the snuggliest she has ever been (outside of when she was not feeling well).

And it wasn't long before -- at the ripe old age of 4 years -- she was sleeping with Mommy and Daddy pretty much for the first time.

The trend didn't last; she eventually got bored of us and tended not to stay very long.

But for a brief little while, we found ourselves falling for *attachment* parenting -- the snuggle factor was impossible to resist.