What you need v. what I need

Dear Daniel,
Last night you grew up a bit; it felt like a pretty big deal to us. You slept in the co-sleeper for the first time. At first, you really, really didn’t like for us to put you down at all, especially when it was time for you to sleep. Then, you could sleep for very brief periods of time in a vibrating baby rocker (we call it your bumpy seat). Then, last night, you slept for the whole night (with the usual waking up for changes and snacks) in the co-sleeper.

The fact that you did that is not, in and of itself, all that remarkable I suppose. It’s a landmark event in your life and in ours, but it’s not all that surprising that you did it. What is remarkable is my reaction to it, and your father’s insights. As we turned out the lights, I found myself having this totally irrational fear that you would stop breathing if you weren’t in our arms. I missed you!

Totally unprovoked, and not yet having told my mother about this anxiety, she told me and your dad about the first time she and my dad ever left me after I was born. She says I was about a month old when she and my dad went to an arts and crafts festival for a few hours, leaving me with a perfectly capable mature adult who even had a child of her own. She said that while they were at the festival, she developed a totally irrational fear that I would be unable to breathe without her and my father there.

Why do we have these fears? We aren’t usually crazy people. Your dad reflected on his own thoughts and experience of these last few days, and I think the answer lies in his thoughts. There’s a trick to this parenting that we’re trying to get the hang of. We need to discern what is it exactly that you need, and what is it that we need? In other words, these last few days, have you needed to be held, or have we needed to hold you?

Particularly confusing is that something that you needed yesterday may be no longer important for you today. We have to figure these things out. You can’t tell us yet, and someday when you’re a child and a teenager, you’ll be able to tell us but sometimes you’ll be wrong. For now, it seems that you don’t need us to hold you while you sleep at night, as long as you’re fed, changed, and swaddled. But I confess, I don’t really know how much you actually need to be held during the day because your dad and I need to hold you.

I wonder what you’ll think when you read this someday. Will you think it makes sense and have some sympathy for your parents as we try to figure out these new things? Will you think we’re a little nuts? Those are probably both appropriate thoughts. Well, at least I’m honest about it, I guess.

Love, Mom