Rock a Baby
I checked my to-do list but couldn’t come up with 18 hours of errands
M
othering is serious business, I realized a month into the role. I’m responsible for a helpless human being.
Nobody told me this when I was a glowing kallah posing near the flowers my chassan sent. And not only was I not forewarned; becoming a mother was so all-consuming and energy-sapping, I didn’t have a moment to ponder this new reality.
I was a 20-year-old mother of a gorgeous and fussy little baby girl. Babies are meant to be demanding, and she fulfilled her job to a T.
She cried a lot, wanted to be held, and eschewed the pacifier in favor of me. And that’s where I was stumped. I just didn’t know how to get the baby to sleep. In the hospital I’d learned that newborns need to sleep 18 hours a day. My baby slept eight hours at night, with generous breaks, so she had to clock at least another ten hours during the day.
The solution became rocking her to sleep. We learned the rhythm together: back and forth, abruptly but not too abruptly, slow and steady, but not too slowly. Finally, she’d fall asleep. I’d note the time. Ten hours, baby. Other than getting up for feedings, you ought to be in la-la land until you reach the 18-hour mark.
I spent hours a day rocking her. When I kvetched about it to a friend, she suggested I time Baby’s naps with errands, so that the rocking happened naturally on the way. I checked my to-do list but couldn’t come up with 18 hours of errands.
If you’d tested me, I could’ve rattled off the number of hours she slept every day of the past week. I was nothing but a conscientious mother, and lulling Baby into 18 hours of sleep was an important part of the job.
Until it got too much. I must have had it wrong. How did everyone do it? What was the trick?
I was going to find out.
I tried my sister Rachel, a mother of seven. How did she get her baby to sleep?
“Um…” she started. “What did you ask me? Get the baby to sleep? Oh. So. I guess I’ll put her in the carriage, lay her down in bed, if she’s fussy, I’ll put her in the infant seat, and at some point she’ll get comfortable and fall asleep.”
I listened with growing pity. Rachel didn’t realize it, but she totally didn’t know what she was doing. I guess? At some point? This sounded very wishy-washy to me. What was her method? What did she do?
I felt bad for her. She was a mother of seven kids and didn’t even know how to put a baby to sleep.
Time has a way of slipping past you, and suddenly I found myself at my sister’s stage. My younger self asks me today: How do you put the baby to sleep?
Silence. I don’t know!
I know a lot less today than I did as a mother of one. What I do know now, and I didn’t know then, is that you can’t get your baby to sleep for 18 hours, or your 15-year-old to get to bed on time. Or your seven-year-old to treat her sister nicely. Or your nine-year-old to be responsible. Or your teenager to clean up after herself.
You try this, you try that. You daven. You think. You wonder. You throw up your hands. And you start all of that over. You know it’s not up to you.
The only thing you can do is let go and go to bed yourself.
(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 959)
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