Rockin'

It is 2:15 am and I just finished putting Will back to bed.  It was the second time he had gotten up tonight.  I keep thinking that soon he will sleep through the night, but I also don't expect it.  I know that by this time my other kids were sleeping through the night and I can't, for my life, remember how that happened.  I have read all sorts of advice on how to get him to sleep longer but I just can't bring myself to attempt them. 

The advice all seems to require me to allow him to cry it out some.  Some recommend just letting him cry himself back to sleep, supposedly thereby making him teach himself to self soothe.  Some recommend that I allow him to cry for a while so that gradually it will be longer between wake ups. I just can't do those.  Every time I think maybe I will attempt it I think about my friend's little boy.

Two years ago a friend of mine adopted one of the world's sweetest children from the Ukraine.  Children in orphanages in the Ukraine, and many other countries, don't get rocked to sleep.  No one sings to them at night or reads them bedtime stories.  There are no loving cuddles, tickles or kisses.  Actually, those things are true all day long for those little angels.  Consequently, when she first brought him home he would rock himself to sleep (or just to being calm) any time he was upset or when he needed to go to sleep.  Can you imagine watching your child feel the need to curl up in a ball and rock themselves? 

Now, Will gets lots of love.  I hold him when he asks me and sometimes when he doesn't ask me too.  I sing to him.  I read to him.  I play games and act a fool.  He gets a million things that those children don't get.  I don't for a minute think he will be as deprived as those children if, for one night, I let him "cry it out."  I do, however, look at him and think that, at least for as long he is a baby, I don't want to give him even one reason to rock himself. 

So, for now, I guess I will just keep getting up every few hours to be Will's personal record player and rocking chair with built in pillows.