Mommy Confessions

I don't want to turn this blog into a record of my mommy-hood, but I have a confession to make. My son is almost one, and I still rock him to sleep every night, gently put him in his crib and sneak out. I know, I know, I'm supposed to teach him to fall asleep on his own, put him in the crib awake but drowsy, blah blah blah, but I don't. Here's why: 1. Because rocking your sleeping child in your arms is one of life's great pleasures. Maybe it's selfish, but I can't think of anything that feels as indescribably wonderful as rocking Eddie to sleep. At night, he's cuddly and smells good; we sit in the rocker, in the dark and I sing to him. Most times, he wraps one arm around my neck and buries his face in the other side of my neck. His other arm flops down around my arm and it's like the longest, sweetest hug you can imagine. I can feel his soft breath on my neck and his chest rising and falling. He makes little noises and snuggles against me. It's the most perfect thing ever and I'm not giving it up until I have to. 2. He's not going to be cuddly and rockable forever. Someday, sooner than I'll be ready for it, my sweet baby will be a crazed 9-year-old who won't want to hugged and cuddled or sit in my lap. Why waste this time just so he can learn to go to sleep himself? 3. Regardless of whether or not he learns to comfort himself to sleep now, it's not going to make that much of a difference. Learning to fall asleep when you're a year is way different from when you're 3 and you can't fall asleep because there are drooling tentacle beasts under your bed, and probably some sort of zombie in the closet. Him learning to fall asleep without being rocked now isn't going to dampen his imagine when the lights go down. So what's the point? He'll learn to sleep on his own when he's ready. So there you go, my True Confession of my "bad" parenting. And I'm going to keep it up, too.