The Secret

One great nap. At least that's how it's starting. Who knows how long until he wakes up and ends the peace and quiet. But it started wonderfully. He wriggled in my arms at first, playing with my hair, making his baby chatter noises, trying to get me to laugh. But then I shifted him in the crook of my arms and he relaxed against me. Slowly, his fingers went limp in his mouth and his eyes closed. I enjoyed a few minutes of rocking my sleeping child before I laid him in the crib. As I was pulling the door closed, I was reminded of standing in that very spot this time last year. The same warm weather, the sun coming through the blinds in the office across the hall, and my own feelings of inadequacy and anxiety. "Why can't I get this baby to sleep? What is wrong with me?"

I was struggling with new motherhood. Trying to figure out the exact right combination of music and patting and rocking to help my son fall asleep and stay asleep for more than twenty minutes at a time. Wondering what the secret was for all of those "other mothers" with their sleeping babies. When really the secret is that there is no secret. Babies must load up on sleep those first few weeks of life and then nothing can make them nap. It's all their time table and not until they are good and ready. But when they finally are, it's bliss.