When my daughters were babies I used to marvel at how quickly they often responded to their being nursed, how soothing it was, how comforting, and how they drifted into sleep. This was not always the case, and my wife will tell you of many nights feeling, well, attached.
Dads of course don’t have that capacity, and yes more than once I would cry out exasperatedly about not coming with mammary glands. The bottle is not the same as it might have been in another time, when few children were being breastfed. But dads do have something to compensate: a magic shoulder.
With my oldest, I could put her on my shoulder and sing her a song and get her right off to sleep. My wife would get annoyed at this, because to her it seemed too easy. She was not always around when I’d have to play thirty minutes of oldies music to get her to finally drip her food or water bottle, but that’s okay. Eventually she grew out of this shoulder phase (my daughter, that is), and so we turned to vehicular sedation (well, I did – my wife continued to nurse her to help her fall asleep at night). My little one was a bit more of a challenge, and I often found I had to restrict her movements by putting her in the Baby Bjorn to get her to sleep. (I preferred the “baby sling,” but she did not).
The magic shoulder worked with other babies too – on play dates more than a few babies, male and female alike, would rest comfortably on my shoulder and fall asleep, and mothers would eagerly ask what my going rate was. I can’t help it – I’m proud of that skill.
I look back on that time fondly, that closeness of just me and the baby, singing and holding, making them feel safe in my arms. It’s the closest I’ll ever come to nursing one. But maybe, just maybe, the shoulder is coming out of retirement.
When my oldest was struggling to learn to fall asleep on her own, I got to hold her from time to time. She often resisted it, but I was able to pull it off. Sometimes I would have her in bed and she would want something to drink and I would go downstairs and take my time getting it, and that would work (sometimes it would seriously backfire, and she’d be up for another hour). And this week my little one has begun to explore alternative modes of sleeping. Monday this week she managed to fall asleep in my wife’s arms on the couch, and she’s tried to get comfortable on my shoulder as well, though two of the past four nights she’s eventually succumbed to going into the stroller for a few passes round the dining room into dreamland. She’s starting that transition that all kids must go through eventually, finding a way to just conk out.
We were never big on the “let them cry it out” theory, but my comments on that topic will eventually come out. I’m just hoping for a few more moments of sleeping children on my shoulder before they get too grown to need one.