Free Bringing Up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman Page B

mother.”
    De Leersnyder even devotes a portion of her book to what a mother should do while her baby sleeps. “She forgets about her baby, to think about herself. She now takes her own shower, gets dressed, puts on makeup, becomes beautiful for her own pleasure, that of her husband and of others. Evening comes, and she prepares herself for the night, for love.”
    As an American parent, this film noir scene—with its suggestion of kohl eyeliner and silk stockings—is hard to imagine in anything but the movies. Simon and I just assumed that, for quite a while, we’d rearrange our lives around Bean’s whims.
    The French don’t think that’s good for anyone. They view learning to sleep as part of learning to be part of the family, and adapting to what other members of the family need, too. De Leersnyder tells me, “If he wakes up ten times at night, [the mother] can’t go to work the next day. So that makes the baby understand that—
voilà
—he can’t wake up ten times a night.”
    “The baby understands that?” I ask.
    “Of course he understands that,” she says.
    “How can he understand that?”
    “Because babies understand everything.”
    French parents think
The Pause is essential. But they don’t hold it up as a panacea. Instead, they have a bundle of beliefs and habits, which when applied patiently and lovingly, put babies in the mood to sleep well. The Pause works in part because parents believe that tiny babies aren’t helpless blobs. They can learn things. This learning, done gently and at a baby’s own pace, isn’t damaging. To the contrary, parents believe it gives the babies confidence and serenity, and makes them aware of other people. And it sets the tone for the respectful relationship between parents and children that I see later on.
    If only I had known all this when Bean was born.
    We definitely miss the four-month window for painlessly teaching her to sleep through the night. At nine months old, she still wakes up every night at around two A.M. Sowe brace ourselves to let her cry it out. On the first night, she cries for twelve minutes. (I clutch Simon and cry, too.) Then s S toght at ahe goes back to sleep. The next night she cries for five minutes.
    On the third night, Simon and I both wake up to silence at two A.M. “I think she was waking up for us,” Simon says. “She thought that we needed her to do it.” Then we go back to sleep. Bean has been doing her nights ever since.

Chapter 4
    wait!
     
    I ’m getting more used to living in France. After a march around the local parks one morning, I announce to Simon that we’ve finally joined the global elite.
    “We’re global, but we’re not elite,” he replies.
    Though I’ve made some inroads in France, I miss the United States. I miss grocery shopping in sweatpants, smiling at strangers, and being able to banter. Mostly, I miss my parents. I can’t believe I’m raising a child while they’re 4,500 miles away.
    Neither can my mother. My meeting and marrying a handsome foreigner was the thing she most dreaded when I was growing up. She discussed this fear so extensively that it’s probably what planted the idea. On one visit to Paris, she takes me and Simon out to dinner and breaks down in tears at the table. “What do they have here that they don’t have in America?” she demands to know. (Had she been eating escargot, I could have pointed at her plate. Unfortunately, she had ordered the chicken.)
    Although living in France has gotten easier, I haven’t really assimilated. To the contrary, having a baby—and speaking better French—makes me realize just how foreign I am. Soon after Bean begins sleeping through the night, we arrive for her first day at France’s state-run day-care center, called the crèche. During the intake interview, we sail through questions about her pacifier use and favorite sleeping positions. We’re ready with her inoculation records and emergency-contact numbers. But one question stumps