Whatever Works

             A friend of mine with a newborn baby told me recently of her struggles to get her daughter to sleep. The baby, she said, would fall asleep while nursing, but, unless deeply asleep, would wake up if she tried to move or lay the baby down. I had two very strong reactions to hearing this. One was to thank my lucky stars that my girls nap more readily than that. Dee Dee is a piece of cake, and Sylvia, although resistant at times, requires nowhere near that kind of attention. Thank God, because I couldn't give it to her, even if she did. I barely have time to pat her back for ten seconds while shooing Townes out of the room with my other hand.
             My other reaction was pure empathy. How I hated nap time with Clayton! Only three more years until he won't need a nap, I calculated on a daily basis. I planned my day-- car rides, walks, runs-- to coordinate with nap times, stressed myself out over his endless screaming, nursed him until my nipples hurt, kicked myself when he fell off the bed after I'd nursed him to sleep there and didn't have the courage to move him. And all the while, I felt guilty, as if his difficulty sleeping was my fault, a "problem" I hadn't figured out how to "fix." And no wonder, really. My bookshelves were full of books passed on by other mothers: The No-Cry Sleep Solution, Fixing Your Child's Sleep Problems. Everywhere I turned, I heard well-meaning advice, most of which served only to make me feel that I wasn't doing it "right." I felt heartless if I let him cry and spineless if I didn't. I worried that the naps I coaxed out of him in the jogging stroller didn't "count," akin, as one author wrote, to an adult sleeping on an airplane. (That book, I think, should be banned, until airplane seats are like comfy hammocks that cradle your entire body, with fresh air and passing scenery.)
            With a few years' perspective under my belt, and more experience mothering infants than I ever anticipated, I want to write my own parenting-advice book. Ironic, really, since the only advice I'd ever allow myself to give to new mothers is to avoid parenting books at all cost. Still, if I did write a book, I would call it Whatever Works. Does your baby only fall asleep at the breast? Read a lot and sleep yourself and don't feel guilty! Does your baby only sleep in the stroller? Go for a lot of walks and don't feel guilty! Does your baby need a destination-less car ride? Enjoy the scenery, park in a shady spot with a good book (maybe donate a few extra bucks to the Sierra Club?) and don't feel guilty. (I struggled with writing that last phrase for a good long while, because even now, when I extend our trip home around the neighborhood, praying that the few extra miles will miraculously make Clayton take the nap that he has all but given up, I still feel guilty.)
              But even as I mentally compose the book jacket summary for my imaginary Whatever Works book, I wonder just how far that philosphy really goes. The other day after we had been to toddler gymnastics, Clayton refused to get in his car seat for the drive home. The other kids were all buckled in, but he was obstinately climbing around in the van. I could sense him gearing up for a real power struggle, one that would inevitably end with me physically pinning him down while I buckled him in, a technique that was getting harder as he fast approached (or topped?) forty pounds and which made for a very tearful (and loud) car ride home. But, as he climbed between his sisters to the front seat, he spied an almost empty bag of M&Ms on the console. They had worked so well during potty training that I had tried them a few days before as an incentive for "going to school happy" since his sobs of "Don't leave me, Momma!" and "I don't want to go!" were wearing me down.
               Now he said, "I want an M&M."
               "M&Ms are for good boys who listen to their Mamas and get in their seats," I told him.
              Within seconds he was buckled in and we were happily on our way, a tantrum averted by one blue M&M. Whatever works, I thought, and truly I did not feel guilty about that particular candy bribe. But the incident reminded me that my "whatever works" philosophy did not, could not, extend indefinitely. I am not above using the grocery store's offer of "free popcorn for kids" to get us through the aisles in one piece; one too many poops in the backyard convinced us to up the ante for pooping on the potty to half a mini ice-cream sandwich. But neither am I willing to make food-- even one measly M&M-- a "get out of a tantrum free" card, especially since I know enough about almost-three-year-olds now to accept that tantrums are like sneezes (or maybe more accurately, but indelicately, farts): you can try to put them off but they're bound to happen anyway. Watching a movie on a rainy Saturday morning is fine once in a while, but I never want to live in a household, never mind run one, in which television becomes the easy answer to "Momma, I want to do something!"
             Anyway, part of the satisfaction of parenting, I think, comes from holding the line. When Clayton is sobbing violently about wanting to watch "just one more video," what he really wants, ultimately, is to know that his hysterics, no matter how theatrical or extreme, are not going to change the limit I have set. In this way, raising kids is not so different from running a high school classroom. It turns out toddlers and teenagers both want to know what the "rules" are, and make it their job to test them, just to make sure you know, too. That Clayton ultimately appreciates that I didn't let him watch "just one more" I find out for sure at dinner, when he tells his dad about his day.
           "It was time to turn the videos off, and I wanted to watch one more and I cried, "Wa, wa, wa!" and I had to go to my room," he reports cheerfully.
          "And did you get to watch one more?" his dad asks.
           "No, I didn't," he says matter-of-factly, as if it were a stupid question. "It was time to turn them off."
           So, I guess "whatever works" only goes so far. I was more than happy to let the girls sleep in their carseats, instead of their cribs, for the first six months of their lives. People raised their eyebrows, but, hell, it worked for us. They slept well and we could easily move them around the house to "shove binkies" and jiggle them to sleep, while still managing to cook dinner, play with Clayton, or even watch an occasional episode of The West Wing. But if we always took the path of least resistance with Clayton, we'd have a dirty-haired, grubby-handed, M&M-eating video addict who poops standing up by the fish pond and smears play dough all over the coffee table while standing on his sisters' heads for a son. (In addition to our mulch-eating daughters.)
           I suppose parenting involves a gradual shift from "whatever works" to something else, something harder and more complicated that I haven't yet found an alliterative catch-phrase to describe. I do know that now that Sylvia's waking up numerous times a night again, I'm just going to nurse her without feeling guilty, without wondering if I'm perpetuating her wakefulness by "rewarding" her with milk every time she cries, without trying to "fix" it. Because, ultimately, all these months without an uninterrupted night's sleep are just a blip, just a fleeting moment in the span of her life and of ours. There will be time enough to wonder if I'm doing it right soon enough. For now I'm treasuring doing whatever works.