Trust Your Gut

It was a month ago, almost exactly, when I mentioned to one of the nurses who do weights and measurements at my baby class, that I wasn't sure if I should be brushing Emilia's teeth after each nighttime feed or just the first. Said nurse took a deep breath and replied, "Momma, Baby doesn't need nighttime feeds anymore. She's nursing out of habit. You can keep that up if it's working for you, but I suspect you'd like to get a bit more sleep. Here, why don't you take a look at these." And she handed me two pamphlets, one short and one long, on infant sleep problems. I was shocked and confused. It had never occurred to me that anything might be wrong.

Well, I tried to keep an open mind. I read the pamphlets with all their scary statistics ("x percent of mothers report that their newborn/toddler/child is unable to fall/stay/go back to sleep", "mood/behavior/cognitive development are adversely affected when quality sleep is compromised", etc.) and I thought, This is crazy. My sweet little girl is hitting all of her milestones just as she should, she's all smiles and laughter, she naps like a dream, and she has no trouble falling or staying asleep as long as she's full. She's not waking to manipulate me, she's waking because she's hungry ... And into the recycling went the pamphlets.

That night she woke again, though only once and much later than ever before. The next night, the first in a heretofore unbroken chain, she slept straight through. And not because I changed her meal schedule or bedtime or ignored her cries, as various 'experts' both on-line and in person recommended doing. Because she was ready.

In life there's a surplus of advice and, sadly, not all that much of it is truly viable. I guess the bottom line is still trust your gut. What's more, trust others to know what they need and how to go about getting it, for the most part. And finally, if it's not broken, don't fix it.

I guess it goes without saying that my tooth brushing quandary is also resolved!