For this blog post and as part of our sleep series, we conducted an interview with Simon Holsteijn, a father of two, regarding his experience with putting his daughters to sleep.
When you become a parent, you hear all kinds of remarks and stories from other parents and while you mostly think certain things will not happen to you, many situations turn out to be pretty similar for most parents, and so are the challenges one faces to bring your baby to sleep.
During the first year of life of our first daughter (Madita), she slept pretty well. Though the hardest part for my wife Lotta and me was that she always woke up too early in the morning (between 04:00 and 05:00!), so my wife and I would take turns during the week to pick her up in the morning, this way the other one could sleep a bit longer.
During one of our visits to the “Consultation Bureau,” we were advised to give our daughter a steady routine for bedtime which would help a great deal, so we started this bedtime routine when Madita was pretty young. This routine definitely helped her understand what was coming and not to make a fuzz about going to bed. The bedtime routine we chose consisted of reading a book, singing a song, and kissing her good night. Looking back, we think this was very good advice and it worked so well for us that we even enjoy this special ritual with her until now.
As Madita grows older, we have been adjusting her routine to the rhythm that best fits her needs, and we also incorporated other little activities which she finds very important. For instance, nowadays, she would never forget to ask for her lip balm, and she would not go to sleep without using it first!
Ten weeks ago, our second daughter was born (Merle). This time we are experiencing sleep in a totally different way. First of all, we now have the experience Madita has given us, and probably because now she’s a big sister, she has also stopped waking up so early in the morning and she would just sleep through until around 7 am when her little sister wakes up as well.
Starting our mornings at 7 am instead of 4 or 5 am means a great deal for any tired parent naturally, and this gives us some rest to deal with our very hectic mornings. If I think about it, I feel proud of myself when I can manage to take care of my 2 daughters at the same time until my wife takes over. And I definitely feel proud of my wife as well as our current routine can be tiresome and demanding, especially since she breastfeeds a small baby on demand.
I could say that (from my wife’s perspective), breastfeeding our first child was harder since Madita always refused the bottle and only wanted to breastfeed until she was one and a half years old. Our youngest, on the other hand, does drink from the bottle so I can also feed her and this can make a big difference for my wife, especially at night!
My parents live about 40 minutes away and since our first daughter was born, they said they did not want to babysit on fixed days as they wanted to enjoy their free time doing other activities for themselves, but after some months passed, they changed their minds and asked my wife and me to have this fixed day every other week where they could take care of Madita. Due to this arrangement, I can see my parents more often which is great as I can also share that part of my life with them, and it is also great because that gives Lotta (my wife) and me some room for ourselves and some rest!
Since my wife was pregnant with our first child, we heard different perspectives about for example putting a baby to sleep. “You must let them cry”, “You shouldn’t let them cry”. But when it comes to making decisions, and figuring out what’s best for our family, something that helped my wife and I was to try and hear different perspectives, and different advice, and ultimately choose what we consider to be the best option. We feel lucky to have a nice support system but at the same time we feel confident enough with our perspectives as parents, and we believe each path we take, will be for the best to our family.
Simon is a 34-year-old father of 2 daughters (currently 2.5 years and 3.5 months). He works as a project leader in the land and water management sector. He likes to just hang out outside with his eldest daughter or go for a walk with his youngest. Inside activities consist of painting, reading books, bathing and of course watering the plants.
