Secure sleeping

Just read an article about sleeping terrors of infants and I found it illuminating: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201110/why-young-children-protest-bedtime-evolutionary-mismatch

It also prompted me to respond and my response is below.

"For the first six weeks of his life, our son would only sleep on our chests. He happily then graduated to sleeping in a Moses basket right next to our bed and when he grew too big for that, he moved into a three sided cot next to us. He usually sleeps soundly and peacefully when near us or in a sling and when he cries he is attended to immediately - with a reassuring hand, soothing words or a cuddle, depending on the severity of the cry. He is usually a very chilled out and sociable little boy of five months - though currently a terrible sleeper, but I think he's teething.

A month ago I felt under pressure to 'help him' fall asleep on his own and tried to stop nursing or rocking him to sleep and it was the worst experience of my life (no exaggeration here). We tried the 'pick him up and put him down' method - no way I could handle letting him cry it out... We lasted two nights and decided to go back to giving him what he clearly needed. I would love to have a child who puts himself to sleep and doesn't need me so much - it can be exhausting - but I don't and I strongly feel he's too little to be moulded into something or someone he is not.

I found the article very interesting because I clearly remember all my childhood being happiest falling asleep in a room full of family members or where I could hear their voices - but until now I had forgotten this. I grew up in a family of five kids in a house that was slightly too small for us. Our summer holidays were spent in Croatia with extended family, where I slept in a room with my siblings and parents, my grandparents were in the living room, and cousins and aunt and uncle were in the second bedroom, with various other relatives in tents in the garden. For me, this felt like a secure heaven and I loved knowing how close they were.

Reading the article reminded me of how important having that security was, and also how important it probably is to my son. I'm glad he is still sleeping in our room with us and I feel more relaxed about 'allowing' him to have his daytime naps in a sling or, at least, not feeling I need to be rigid about putting him in his cot for his naps. As my husband always says when faced with a parenting choice "What do they do in Africa?"."