I’ll set the scene. My daughter is now six, she sleeps by herself in her room and in the last few weeks has started to play relatively quietly when she wakes up early. She then comes into our room when the sun comes up on her Gro clock.

This does not mean I’m a lucky parent.

iBears normal bedtime routine is to go upstairs with one of us with a story around 7:45-8:00pm. She then settles and falls asleep pretty quickly.

This does not mean I’m a lucky parent.

Her typical wake up time on a morning can be anywhere between 4:45am and 6am. Every day, regardless of what time she goes to bed. This means that I can at times complain about how early she wakes up.

This does not mean I should automatically think that I’m lucky that she sleeps through the night.

The need to judge and compare

Since becoming a parent I have always been frustrated at others need to classify me as lucky just because I have my daughter in a sleep routine that works. Parenting is damn hard. And we’ve worked damn hard to get a routine that is now, on the whole, starting to pay dividends.

I don’t judge others and simply say they are lucky that, for example, their child eats vegetable sticks and couscous whilst I struggle to get mine to eat pasta sauce that for some reason “tastes different” from the exact same pasta sauce she had two days ago.

As a parent you have to find a way that works for you. For me, establishing a routine has always been the solution.

Right from the word go we decided we didn’t want to co-sleep with iBear. We wanted to get her into her own room at six months old, first with the use of a cot, then progressing through from a toddler bed to her first proper “grown up” bed. It was our belief that it would ultimately encourage her to self-settle and eventually sleep well without the need for us to be there. It doesn’t work for everyone, but this is the path we chose.

Rinse and repeat

It wasn’t easy. It was in fact incredibly hard. There were times we nearly gave up.

As a baby I would settle her in her cot next to our bed and then ever so slowly inch my way over the bed, roll onto the floor and then crawl commando style out of the room hoping she wouldn’t spot me. She did of course and I’d have to do it all again. Every night. But then, eventually, she learnt to settle.

As a toddler there were nights she would cry for us a few minutes after putting her down. And then again and again over the next couple of hours. We would attempt to judge the sounds and only go and calm her down when we felt it was warranted. There were times we sat on the edge of the stairs desperately trying not to go into her room, hoping she would fall asleep soon. Over time she did.

As she got older we introduced a Gro Clock into her room. For those that don’t know, this is a childs alarm clock that changes colour from blue stars (signifying night) to yellow sun (morning time). iBear understood the premise of it pretty quickly but then would start coming into our room on her usual early wake up time asking “how many more minutes until the sun comes up?” Over the days, weeks and months the times she would come into our room would decrease. Lately there has been mornings I’ve woken up to find she’s been sitting on her bed happily reading away. She still wakes up early but is learning to entertain herself.

Is this all a result of luck? I don’t think so.

OneDadsView

Parents are faced with all kinds of obstacles and no one way is ever the “right” way. But I refuse to accept that just because iBear is a good sleeper we should be classified as lucky.

Instead of comparing and begrudging we should perhaps try to support each other and be more understanding. Nothing is ever as it first appears