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Choose the Right Puppy for Your Family
Purchasing a puppy for your family is a very big decision. It should never be approached casually, or lightly. A new pet becomes part of your family. You should do everything you can to educate yourself about the breed of puppy you are...
Do's and Don'ts of Military Care Packages for Soldiers
Sending a care package to your loved one deployed overseas seems so easy, doesn't it? You just box up some cookies, attach a sweet card, and it's ready to go, right? If only it were that easy. Sending mail to ships/units overseas is tricky for...
Family Management Tip #2: Choosing the Right Organizer for Your Family
What method do you currently use to organize your family? Do you mean my paper calendars or my electronic ones, you ask? If you're like the vast majority of people we surveyed, you're probably using a wall calendar on or near the fridge. And, for...
Poetry Speaks to the Whole Family
From the moment the shiny new book arrived at my doorstep, I was excited to see what this incredible creation had in store for my son and for me. From the moment I cracked open the spine, I realized it delivers more than I had hoped it would.
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The Secret To Keeping Kids Interested on Family Vacations
Vacations and trips are great family events, but how do you keep kids interested and busy during the down times? Have them keep journals of the trips and their impressions. Writing Journals Take a minute to give some consideration to your most...
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The Family Bed: A Story in Generations
If I had been born at home, surely it would have been into a family bed. As it was, my parents brought me home from the hospital, where I was promptly given a place aside my mother in the bed which slept us all: mom, dad, my brother and I. I nursed until I was nearly four, when the arrival of a younger sibling forced shared privileges. I was not, as a rule, thrilled with anything that wasn’t mine alone and so gave up the breast and my place between my parents for slightly more independence on the outskirts of our small country. I slept on the edge (had my parents been a bit more intuitive, they may have recognized this as foreshadowing, and thus been more fully prepared for the journey of parenting a true Sagittarian daughter…).
By that time, the eldest Dotson child had moved on and now slept in a wood framed bunk bed hand crafted by our father. In a family of five, he was the only to sleep solo. This left me as the senior child in the family bed, a title that lent me a certain amount of privilege, and these are the days I remember most when I think back to the last time I slept in the same bed with someone under the age of two.
I remember the stories of my infancy, more from the telling and re-telling, I am sure, than from genuine memory; countless friends and family have heard of the night, sleep deprived and exhausted, that my mother lay me down to sleep next to my father. I slept huddled in his arms on the side of the bed, my mother an ocean away on her end of the king size waterbed. Lured by the scent of her leaking breasts and some clearly primal instinct, I managed, at just a few months of age, to roll over my father and across the broad expanse until my lips at last found the relief of my mother’s waiting nipple. This could have been my first successful experience at rolling over. Suffice to say, mom did not sleep as anticipated, but who could deny such determination?
For years I laughed at this story, until I had a toddler of my own and understood, finally, the sacrifice that lay at the heart of attachment parenting. Despite the pain of too many sleepless nights, I am hooked, just like my mother before me. I am a co-sleeper at heart, a habit brought on by genetics, it would seem. I know the warmth of my parents’ bodies, a peace surpassed only by the warmth of own daughter’s sleeping body as she lay- covering me in bruises with impulse kicks and left hooks- sleeping next to me. A woman of the new millennium I never thought I would stand for such abuse, and yet imagine my surprise at not only standing for it, but demanding it continue. While I can’t honestly say I love the pain, I can say I will happily put up with it. And while I am
anxious for the day when she can confidently spend a night- or even an hour- asleep without me (a time to finally let the wounds begin to heal), I dread the day she moves out of my bed and into her own. Yet another instance, I am sure, when she will be ready for the next step far before I am ready for her to be ready. I suppose I will have to get used to this.
But this is not a story about the virtues of co-sleeping, for if you are a co-sleeper you have doubtless already read a library of those. Nope, this is the story of a co-sleeping alumna. This is the story of why we do it: it is what you will remember at three o’clock in the morning when your twenty-three month old rolls over to nurse for the seventh time that night; this is a mantra you can chant when your sex life has disappeared completely and your idea of well-rested is a solid three hours; this is the answer to your repeated “why’s?” when your bed becomes so crowded that, like my mother, you end up spending your nights lying crosswise at the foot of the bed hoping for just an hour. It is as simple as this: co-sleepers breed co-sleepers. You’re giving your grandchildren the gift of their parents’ bodies. You’re breeding a noble instinct, a culture of love and commitment, of families raising families instead of a technology of baby monitors and flashing light mobiles. That baby you are cuddling will likely someday know all it is to cuddle his or her own baby deep into the night, evening after evening for years and years.
I feel safe in the night, for all the ways my parents held me rather than a crib. Between my mother and my father the night time was never more dangerous than the day, and when the slow transition of movement into my own bed began, my parents continued to cuddle me in innovative ways. It is only now, with a daughter of my own to keep me company through the long and short nights, that I understand the dual gift of co-sleeping. I thank my parents for the nights they kept me close, for the bond created and the emptiness avoided, for all the good I know co-sleeping does for a child. But who knew that the gifts extend way beyond childhood? Today I thank my parents for teaching me to continue the tradition; for giving to both me, and my daughter, these nights we now share together. And lord knows, I hope that one day Ruby will lie in bed next to her own sleeping infant, reveling in the little body so inspired by her side.
About the Author
When Abigail's sleeping toddler wakes her up with squirms and snores, she sometimes writes by the moonlight. Her writing has appeared in the compilation Loving Mama: Essays on Natural Childbirth and Parenting as well as in several periodicals.
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| Family.org |
| Offers practical help for marriage and child-rearing. Recent magazine articles, letters from Dr. James Dobson, news, and RealAudio broadcasts. |
| www.family.org |
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| FamilyFun: Fun stuff for Kids, Parents - and More Family Fun |
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| Family.com - closed beta |
| Features a to do list, calendar, and recommended sites for health, shopping, and recipes. |
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| FamilySearch.org - Family History and Genealogy Records |
| Search for family ancestors. Billions of free family tree, family history, ancestry, genealogy and census records. |
| www.familysearch.org |
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| Family - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| A family consists of a domestic group of people (or a number of domestic groups), ... Members of the nuclear family use descriptive kinship terms: ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
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| Family (biology) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| The concept of rank at that time was still in statu nascendi, and in the preface to the Prodromus Magnol spoke of uniting his families into larger genera, ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
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| Family Guy |
| The official Family Guy website with everything you ever wanted to know about the show and more. |
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| Parenting advice, child development and family reference at ... |
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| Family Life Today |
| FamilyLife, a division of Campus Crusade for Christ, provides practical, biblical tools to strengthen marriage and family relationships, including the ... |
| www.familylife.com |
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| WorldVillage - A Family Friendly Portal for Families, Kids, Adults ... |
| WorldVillage is for families, kids, adults, parents and teachers. Features include coupon codes, online games, downloads, internet monitoring and internet ... |
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| Open Directory - Home: Family |
| Family Check-up - Provides assessment activities and access to educational materials related to family health with respect to family life, finances, ... |
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| Free Family Ecards, Family Greeting Cards, Family Greetings, Cards ... |
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| kids and family news articles - arizona education - arizona family ... |
| Family News Articles - azcentral.com provides articles and reports on Arizona education and Arizona family events. |
| www.azcentral.com |
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| Google Directory - Home > Family |
| Many articles dealing with a wide range of topics from single parenting, family life, child development and stress management. ... |
| www.google.com |
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| Family Research Council: Wednesday, December 6, 2006 |
| Christian organization promoting the traditional family unit and the Judeo-Christian value system upon which it is built. Provides links, commentary, news, ... |
| www.frc.org |
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| Sesame Workshop - Home Page |
| The non-profit educational organization behind the show and related educational outreach. |
| www.sesameworkshop.org |
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| National Sex Offender Registry |
| Free national US search for registered sex offenders. Map registered sex offenders to see who lives in your area. |
| www.familywatchdog.us |
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| FHI Family Health International |
| Provides the highest quality research, education and services in family planning, STDs/HIV and family health to improve the health and well-being of ... |
| www.fhi.org |
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| National Family Caregivers Association |
| Caregiving advocacy organization with tips and statistics on caregiving in America. |
| www.nfcacares.org |
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