Today June 29 is celebrated on World Happy Dream Day, an event that reaches its third edition this year and was born in 2012 as an initiative carried out by hundreds of fathers and mothers who wanted to raise awareness about the needs of babies at night.
The motto of the first year was "Dismantling Estivill", which with the hashtag #DesmontandoaEstivill managed to be Trending Topic. Last year was #ADormirHappy and this year Twitter should "shake" with the hashtag #DuermeteConmigo, in clear allusion to how much children need us at night to fall asleep, even though many people insist on showing us that no and that the cries of babies, at night, have dark intentions.
Social Networks as an amplifier of the event
Those who want are free to participate through Facebook and also through Twitter, with the aforementioned hashtag, to ensure that among all, parents, mothers and professionals, we give voice to babies and children, who are not able to express with words how much they need us at night, as much or more than by day.
Since Babies and more We support the initiative for another year because we see no sense in using behavioral methods as the unilateral decision of the parents, who choose to withdraw the attention and comfort of the babies.
They are methods that help break ties, to emotionally separate the parents from their babies, to make them think (to the parents) that they cry, or complain, because they are too dependent or badly used, when all they are doing is asking for the comfort and security that they They themselves are unable to procure themselves.
When things are forced, when it comes to changing attitudes aggressively, when we have to fight hard against them and against our protective instinct, something breaks. Something in them, that they feel disconsolate and something in us, the parents, that we break a connection, a commandment with our children that should be inviolable: "it doesn't hurt who you love".
But is there an alternative?
Of course there is. Ask your parents what method did they follow to get us to learn to sleep. Ask your grandparents, if you still have, what method they used for your parents to learn to sleep. Surely most will say they did not use any method and surely many will not even understand the question.
Babies know how to sleep, children know how to sleep, but because they are babies and children, they have different needs than adults. Little by little, without doing anything, they sleep more and more like us and wake up less.
Accompany them, sleep with them, care for them at night, attend to them, will not make them get used to or cannot sleep alone. I assure you, I tried to prevent them from sleeping alone by myself, I tried to sleep with them all my life, and I failed miserably.
