The ‘shoulds’ in my head

Should is a dangerous word. It usually captures the pressure we feel to do something rather than the will to actually want to do it.

Shoulds were a bit easier for me before motherhood. I didn’t have the added pressure of being responsible for raising a human or the isolation. Being alone can make the shoulds louder. They are tamed when they are named and spending most of the day with only your baby doesn’t allow you a lot of opportunities to do that.

This cropped up for me around how my daughter sleeps. As you know, babies should sleep in their own safe sleep environment. However, we’ve chosen to co-sleep overnight and for naps. It’s amazing how often those shoulds make me doubt a practice that works so well for us.

Even though I did extensive research on co-sleeping safely, including reading The La Leche League’s Sweet Sleep book, I still find myself with doubt.

This week I told my husband I thought we should transition our daughter to her own room. He looked at me with a confused look and asked “why?”. When I tried to articulate it the reasons for this that had seemed so strong in my head were now flimsy. “Because it’s only reccomended to keep them in your room until 6 months. Because I feel like it’s more for me than for her. Because other people have done the same thing.” When I heard myself speaking, I started to wonder why we would do this too? My daughter is a good sleeper for a 6-month-old and we love being so close as a family. Why would we mess with it?

Luckily my husband didn’t have a case of the shoulds and he shook me out of it. We’re going to keep up the routine that’s working so well for all three of us until it doesn’t. Then we’ll start to figure out what’s next.

I’m also going to be more conscious about tracing back the root of my actions. Making sure that I spend less time in my head getting caught up in the shoulds and more time vetting with the people I trust to figure out what’s best.