I am afraid of the dark. I have been consistently from the time I was six years old. I’m not afraid to admit it, as I honestly don’t care if people think I’m crazy. I’ve gotten to a stage in my life where I no longer worry about people liking me. So if you think I’m loony, I do understand.

What is changing is that I am reconsidering my fear of the dark when I put my daughter down to sleep in her crib. I have the same fear of the dark, but am more combative with my fears. I talk to them directly. “Leave her alone,” I say mentally. “If you come near her I’m going to kick your ass.” Then I leave a light on in the bathroom just in case. When I was younger, light represented protection. When I was left alone at home, I would turn on the lights in every room. I was still afraid and couldn’t sleep, but at least I could see and be vigilant until my parents got home. As an adult, I progressed to managing to fall asleep with the light on. The problem went away when I met my husband. When there is somebody else in the room or apartment with me- parents, roommates, friends at a slumber party- the fear is less debilitating.

My daughter, by contrast, exhibits no fear of the dark. She remains peacefully asleep as I transfer her from the boppy to her crib. Her arms fall beside her forming right angles around her beautiful face. Compared to my fear, she is a bastion of strength. I’m even less afraid when I’m around her. However, I sometimes wake up at night and am fearful for her. That’s when I turn the light on in the bathroom so that a) I can see her from my bedroom and b) to keep my imagined boogie monsters at bay.

Differences in the way objects appear during the day and night is interesting. I took a biochemistry class in 2004 and learned that the eye, not surprisingly, sees more precision during the day but is better at sensing motion at night. This phenomenon is highlighted by the fact that I need glasses. Without glasses at night, I can see less detail but am still sensitive to motion. During the day, I am rarely afraid. But at night, my other senses are heightened. When I grab for my glasses on the coffee table in the dark, for example, I don’t actually see the glasses clearly, although I pick them out at first reach about 90% of the time. It’s not so much that I can see their exact shape, but I can pick them out even amidst the rubble that is on my coffee table.  My imagination fills in what I can’t see.

So at night, familiar objects have a different look to them. The two mules looking out at me from the picture I took at the zoo take on a more somber meaning. The woman with heavy mascara looking out from a chemical dependency calendar I got for free looks downright scary at night. (I have to replace it.)

It’s 9:30 pm and my 7-month-old daughter is beside me, awake and curious.  A wind up ladybug is turning to the sound of “Someday Over the Rainbow” as she reaches for the keys on my laptop.  I tried holding her, rocking with her, breastfeeding, to no avail.  Last night she went to bed at 10 pm, and it looks like another night of the same.  Hold on, I have to take care of some crying. 

Yep, she fell asleep at 10 on the nose.  She was so cranky, that as soon as she latched on to my breast she fell asleep.  The times when she is asleep in front of me are some of my most treasured moments.  I hold her there, on the boppy, and if I could, I would hold her there all night.  If I didn’t need sleep and had infinite time and didn’t have to do anything else, I would hold her there all night.  It’s funny, but that’s the closeness I feel when she is asleep.

I just finished reading a book about ways to get your child to sleep.  I was surprised that one of the supposed professional recommendations was letting your child cry themselves out until they fall asleep.  This has the unappealing distinction of being called the “extinction” method.  The logic behind this plan is to force children to learn how to fall asleep by themselves.  If you help them by attending to them, the argument goes, your child will need you to help them fall asleep again if they wake up during the night or to fall asleep on subsequent nights.  With regard to the former, that has not been my experience.  My daughter wakes up about 6 hours after falling asleep to nurse and usually goes right back to sleep.  If she’s not asleep, I put her back in her crib and go back to sleep myself.  She does manage to fall asleep by herself, because when I get up in the morning, she is asleep. However, each night, we go through the same rituals of going to sleep- nursing, rocking, stand and hold, repeat.  When the crying continues, we let her stay up with us, as we did tonight, until she gets tired.  This is so much easier than letting her cry and cry and cry.  We live in an apartment, so that’s not really an option for us.  Secondly, and more importantly, I do not think this is good for her neurological development.  God knows why we have such loud babies compared to other animals.  While most animals try to protect their young from predators, a human baby’s cry would certainly attract them.  On the flip side, maybe it forces families to attend to their kin.  Maybe it’s a test of loyalty or perseverance.  Hey, it could be worse.  Salmon, for example, die after spawning.

Whatever the reason, nature has endowed humans, most of us anyway, with a sense of compassion for crying babies.  While I can understand how someone can become fed up with a crying baby (they are, after all, self-centered), it seems unethical and immoral to let a baby cry and cry and cry.  I don’t profess to be an expert on baby’s sleep.  I guess I am lucky that while my child becomes fussy and cries in our nightly ritual, my husband can attend to her while I regroup.  It would be a lot harder for a single mother, or a woman without that kind of support.

The best part about this experience is the last part.  When she does fall asleep, it’s the result of a hard won effort, the icing on the cake, so to speak, which makes the moment sweeter.  The weight of her body on my lap, her chubby cheeks turned to one side, her eyes peacefully closed.  All I want to do is be with her at that moment, to feel her breathing and the dynamic energy of her presence.  At some time in the future, this will end.  She won’t need me to hold her anymore.  She won’t latch on to my breast for comfort.  So I’m cherishing these moments that we have together.  Caring for an infant seems like a long time because it’s the only thing I know now, but in the timeline that is life, it is a short period.  It’s not always easy, but I find ways to treasure it now.