Meredith fell asleep nursing in my arms today. We (Meredith and I, Kris stayed here) have been away for the last ten days visiting my family and just got home last night. What with so many people being around and having to visit and go out a lot, she didn’t nap nearly as much or as long as usual. She slept for over two hours this morning. I love watching her sleep. Being around my family is stressful, to say the least. I love them, but my parents don’t agree with how I parent and made that pretty clear. Watching Meredith sleeping in my arms this morning while I caught up on e-mails and message boards, I almost feel sorry for all the parents (including mine) who feel they need to put their children to sleep in cribs all of the time in order to get anything done. I say almost, because they choose to do so. I wonder, if they knew what they were missing would they make that same choice?
My dad doesn’t understand how I could not want to put her down in a separate room, I don’t understand how he could. If I need to get stuff done, I put her in our mei tei and she sleeps while I get stuff done. Today, I just wanted to sit and hold her and read my e-mails.
She stirred a few times to nurse or shift positions. She was sucking slowly when she woke up for good. Her eyes opened and went immediately to my face. I was watching her, and she gave me a huge grin. She always smiles at me if she sees me watching her when she wakes up.
I cherish my time holding her. Now that she has started crawling, she doesn’t want to be held all the time anymore. She spends far more time on the ground than in arms. My parents think she is going to be insecure and never be independent. I’m not worried. And besides, interdependence is more important to me than independence.
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I think you are a fabulous mummy! Watching the little one wake up in your arms and knowing that she is safe being with you is so much more important then being able to move around a little faster to get things done.