How leaning into instinct has improved our parenting lives

In my first, delirious months of motherhood, I hungrily searched for tips, tricks and ‘hacks’ that might make my son sleep for longer stretches. Night feeds were spent scrolling through forums; daytime cluster feeds were spent thumbing through books about baby sleep. Seemingly, other babies slept. Other babies could be put down. Why couldn’t my baby?

While I was searching desperately for external guidance, my instincts were screaming at me. On the rare occasions that my son slept for an hour or so in his crib, I was too anxious to sleep. I felt strongly that he should be next to me at all times, but I’d read the warnings about bed-sharing. In my anxious, sleep-deprived state, I took these warnings at face value and persisted with trying to put him down in the crib.

Nights were spent sat up in the nursing chair, as I tried to defy basic biology and survive without sleep. That didn’t work though, and on a few terrifying occasions I woke up with a start: I’d fallen asleep holding him. My mental health suffered, manifesting as anxiety about my son’s health. I loved him more than I could ever have imagined, but much of the time I was too panicked to enjoy new motherhood.

Of course my son needed to be close to me; I was all he’d ever known. I felt settled with him next to me, too. Co-dependency was never a problem to be solved – it’s natural and beautiful.

Incidentally, my son didn’t ‘sleep through’ until he was well over 2. The timing of his (equally wakeful) little brother’s birth has meant that a full night’s sleep has evaded us since becoming parents. But things have changed since those anxious, exhausted early days. We’re well-rested, having found solutions that work for us and them.

We adapt to their needs. Our youngest comes into bed with me as soon as he wakes up in the night. If our eldest wakes up, which is rare nowadays, my husband gets in with him. We know that this season of our lives is dedicated to being a source of comfort to our two little boys – day and night. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

My second postpartum experience was remarkably different to the first. I trusted my instincts from day one. I wasn’t anxious. I wasn’t exhausted. The lessons I’d learned with our first baby were embedded by then, and I felt calm and confident doing my own thing.

The health visitor advised sleep training, but I knew that letting him cry wasn’t an option. This threw me. Why was this supposed ‘expert’ advising something that felt fundamentally wrong to me? What if I actually did know best? There began a radical change.

I stopped looking for parenting advice online. I read up on bed-sharing and realised that a lot of it was, at best, fearmongering. I researched how to bed-share safely and was amazed at how much better we both slept. Over the course of a few weeks, it felt like a light had been switched on. I was parenting on instinct and stepping into my power as a mother. 

Leaning into instinct has transformed our parenting lives. As the boys have grown, this attitude of blocking out the ‘noise’ has spread to all areas of our parenting. I gave birth to our youngest son at home, I’m breastfeeding until he decides to stop, we parent responsively. This is what we instinctively feel is best for our sons. Every family is different, and every child is different. But ours are happy and thriving, and that’s all the validation we need.

We are the world’s leading experts on our own babies – we always have been – and realising this has been truly transformational.

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Emma Foley is a writer and mindfulness teacher. Emma is based in South Yorkshire, where she lives with her husband and two young sons. @emma_foley_writer