Ask Roxanne

Question: Dear Roxanne,

We have three kids, ages 3 & four months, 22 months and eight weeks today. I guess I have an Attachment Parenting style, although I've not read all that much about it. But all three of our kids were born at home, all breastfed, we're home-schooling using the Montessorri method... you get the picture.

I currently nurse the two younger ones to sleep every night, and occasionally (about every other night) the oldest one too. This arrangement works when we're at home and we can start the "cow hour" around eight or eight thirty. (I call it that because I feel like a dairy cow by the time I'm done.) However, all this nursing can be a royal pain in the neck if we want to go out on a date because the babysitter (usually one of my sisters or a close friend) has to lay down in bed with the babies to get them to sleep. If the sitter doesn't do this, the kids will stay up until we get home.

It is very hard to get them to sleep at a decent hour when we're staying with anyone else, because there is so much activity which they can take part in, and frankly, I don't always feel like going to bed at eight thirty if there's something more fun to do. (Most of the time, I fall asleep too, and don't feel like getting up again.)

Right now we're at my parent's house and in a few weeks we're all flying to Ireland for eighteen days to see his family. His parents are not openly disapproving of what I'm pretty sure is totally bizarre to them. Moms in their country just don't nurse their babies the way I do. They have suggested to my husband in the past that it would be easier for us if we put the kids to bed at seven, which is what they did with their kids. We have tried putting them to bed without nursing in the past, but all hell broke loose. Sobbing hysterically, they pounded on the bedroom door for fifty minutes before they finally fell asleep. My husband went in to tuck them in again every ten minutes while I sat on the steps outside their bedroom, nursed the little baby, and cried.

I can't handle doing that again. I felt like a witch doing that to them - they needed me and I didn't go to them. I am not ideologically opposed to putting them to bed without nursing them to sleep, but it can't be with all that crying. His parents have been so accepting of so many things about me - they had never even heard of homebirth until our first child was born.

Although they weren't able to attend our first two births because they live so far away, they were here for the last one, and they seemed to enjoy being a part of it. They don't know that our oldest child still nurses occasionally (and I'm not about to tell them!), but they do know that the two younger babies are tandem nursing. Neither of them have ever said anything about this to either of us, although I suspect that they think it's excessive.

I sincerely like his family and I want to please them because they are so kind to us. How in the world am I going to get them to sleep at eight o'clock without nursing them for an hour or an hour and a half? (Start to finish, that's how long it takes for me to get them to sleep deeply enough for me to leave the room.) Oh, and we gain five hours flying over there, which makes it very difficult to get them to stay in bed at eight, because it feels like three in the afternoon to them. What am I going to do? We leave in eighteen days!

Dear Ann:

Wow. What a letter. Mostly because I'm struck by your bravery (and am slightly jealous) for your upcoming trip to the Emerald Isle. Although it's pretty long, and it feels like there's a lot going on there -- and there is, I mean, you have three children under the age of four; you’re a saint in my book -- there are really only two issues that need to be addressed.

The first is your trip and your relationship with your in-laws. While your parenting style may be different than theirs, and in fact, different from that of most Americans, you are the best parents for your kids. And it sounds like your in-laws think that, as well. Sure they've mentioned their kids' 7 PM bedtime (did they also mention that anyone who defied that bedtime got the switch?) but that's what grandparents do. They talk about "the good old days" with the rosy glow of twenty or so years worth of fuzzy memory. So don't look for trouble where there simply isn't any. You nurse your kids to sleep. So what? As long as you're not whipping out a mammary gland and squirting Dad in the eye to make your point, they probably won't even notice.

As to the kids bedtimes and how they get there, frankly, all bets are off. You're gonna be in a different time zone, in a cool place, and who knows how they'll react. Maybe the eldest two will be so busy during the day that nursing won't seem so fun anymore. Maybe they'll be so freaked out by the change that all three spend the entire trip lined up outside your shirt as if they're Woody Allen and you're their on-call therapist. There's just no telling.

Your only problem in regard to the in-laws on this trip is going to be to try and maintain some level of peace in their household, and if nursing kiddies to sleep does the trick, then you'll just have to miss a lot of the nighttime events. And with an eight-week-old, it's not like you'd be disco-ing til dawn much anyway.

Now to issue number two, by my count. Sounds like you are a bit worn out, and who could blame you. Even if you have no desire to let your kids cry it out at night, you sure could use an evening to breathe by yourself every now and then. I don't know your middle kid, but especially with the baby, it may just be the wrong time to institute any sort of cutting off. That may cause more trouble than it's worth.

But he is old enough to understand when you say, "I'm going to nurse you for five minutes so you go to sleep. It's our special time along, and I'll read to you and rub your back so you can go to sleep. When you wake up, I'll be right downstairs (or wherever)." Then follow through. Leave the infant with grandmother while you put him/her down. Then you can rejoin the adults and maybe wear the newborn in a sling so he/she can nurse and sleep to heart's content.

Number one, however, sounds ripe for the ministrations of a lot of Daddy. Daddy gets to do the bath, read the story, and tuck into bed. See, Daddy can't nurse (although our little boy has certainly asked his father when he was desperate!). That removes one set of arms from around your neck. And as for nights out, if the sitter has to lie down to get them to sleep, so be it. That's why they make the 2 bucks an hour! :-)

Good luck with your trip, and remember the golden rule of travel: Go With The Flow!