I hate "experts"! I have lost so much sleep over the crap that "experts" have said. They have made parenting even more difficult. I think they probably meant to make it easier, but they haven't--mostly because they don't agree with each other. So all of us first-time parents sit and agonize over who is right, and what has the best chance of not hurting or emotionally scaring our children. A perfect example with which I am currently grappling is when to let a baby "cry it out". The concept was introduced to me through a book--that most of the people who read my blog know--called Babywise. (but for those of you who are unfamiliar with it) Its a "program" that parents can do, starting with their newborns. It helps set up a routine for the baby by regulating the eating schedule, which in turn regulates the sleep schedule for the most part. Since I've made sure that Abbie eats for 20 mins or more at time, she has done the rest. She eats every 3 hours--its almost clockwork. She generally gets ready for a nap about 30 mins after finishing eating. And for the last week she has been sleeping for about 6 or 7 hours a night. She decided she was gonna all of this on her own starting back at the beginning of December. I haven't had to do one thing beyond making sure she gets a full feeding every time. I really like all of these things and I think that Babywise has makes a lot of good points and has a lot to offer...but the one thing I struggle with (still) is letting Abbie cry it out--for a couple of reasons. 1) I was given a pamphlet written by "experts" that said that letting a child cry-it-out before they are about 3 or 4 months old will create a child with insecure attachments, and that the way to help a child create secure attachments is to respond to their crying for the first 3 or 4 months of life. 2) I graduated in psychology and I've dealt with children who have insecure attachments--it is exhausting and frustrating. I don't want my child to be that child! 3) More often than not, if Abbie is crying after a feeding it means she has a tummy bubble that needs to be burped out, and in recent weeks she has been having other tummy problems. She is already uncomfortable and not feeling well. I'm not gonna let her cry through something that I can fix by picking her up when she feels like that. But according to Babywise (written by another "expert") if you don't teach a baby to self-soothe by letting them cry-it-out then you're creating a selfish, spoiled child that will always need to be at the center of everything. And I don't want to do that either.
I know that just because an "expert" says it doesn't make it true and I am Abbie's mom for a reason and I get to make the final call...but that doesn't mean that I don't second guess myself and agonize over the decisions that I make. I constantly have the words of the "expert" that I'm not listening to ringing in my ears...parenting was already hard enough...
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Friday, January 7, 2011
Rambling
I don't have anything to say, and maybe that means I shouldn't try to post anything, but I it seems like its been so long since I posted something (besides copy/pasting an email) that I want to. I imagine that since I'm not posting with any sense of purpose this will be a fairly odd and rambling post...but its my blog and I'm ok with rambling.
1) I was thinking the other day how self centered our society is. We feel like we have to have a say about everything and that other people actually care about what we have to say. Blogs are a perfect example. Are there really enough people on the face of the earth that care about what I have to say to warrant me having a blog or am I just so elf centered that I think people should care? Another great example is the way that sites like CNN.com have a space for people to comment at the end of articles. The majority of those comments are ridiculously far-fetched or just plain rude to other people who are posting. [that led me to the thought that if these people were having the same conversation face-to-face they would never say half of the things that they post on-line; the anonymity provided by the internet is eroding common courtesy] But then I realized I don't really care if other people don't care about or value what I think or what I have to say. I value what I have say, and that is enough. I because I see value in what I have to say I can enjoy looking for value in what others have to say.
2) Some people use the phrase "I can't live with you and I can't live without you" to describe romantic relationships. I use it to describe parenthood. In the last 2 months I have been more exhausted and frustrated than I ever remember being at any other point in my life. My biggest challenge has been sleep. I get enough (in fact I think I get more than most people with a 4-8 week old), but I get it on Abbie's schedule. I miss going to sleep just because I'm tired. Now I go to sleep because Abbie is asleep. And if Abbie wakes up, then I do too. But if I could go to sleep whenever I wanted, then I think that would mean that Abbie would not be a part of our family or wouldn't be with us anymore and I couldn't bear that either. She has brought so much joy to our little postage-stamp-sized apartment that neither of us can imagine life with out her (her name means bringer of joy). Yesterday Abbie fell asleep in my arms and I started thinking about an old roommate of my mine. Her little girl would be over a year old now, but she died when she was about 3 months old. Looking at Abbie, and knowing that she is healthy and well, and thinking of my friend and how heartbroken I would be if I had to face losing my baby (even if it is just temporary)brought me to tears...and did again as I typed this out.
3) I have this habit of either trying to be funny (and it doesn't work out the way I thought it would) or just saying the first thing that comes to my head. Either way the result is "open mouth, insert foot". I can talk this way around Doug. He gets me and will just tell me I'm being a dork and that's the end of it. But when I make these mistakes around other people it turns into something I obsess about for weeks. I'm so worried that I offended someone and they don't like me now, or that I made an idiot of myself. I can actually still remember some things I said or did in high school and some of these things still cause me so much embarrassment!--I try to tell myself that no one else even remembers that kind of silliness by now, but I can never quite convince myself of that. But its so frustrating to me because I almost NEVER do anything maliciously (there are very few people that I actually dislike and I'm not around them enough to be annoyed by them enough to lash out). I don't intend to be mean. I'm just terribly opinionated and love to hear differing opinions. I learn so much more from debate and conversation than anything else. I also really want to be funny, and more often than not I just don't know my audience. Usually--after one of these occurrences--I wont even realize it till I get home. And then when I realize that what I said could have been taken negatively I start obsessing and I get so nervous...
I think I have more rambling posts come...
1) I was thinking the other day how self centered our society is. We feel like we have to have a say about everything and that other people actually care about what we have to say. Blogs are a perfect example. Are there really enough people on the face of the earth that care about what I have to say to warrant me having a blog or am I just so elf centered that I think people should care? Another great example is the way that sites like CNN.com have a space for people to comment at the end of articles. The majority of those comments are ridiculously far-fetched or just plain rude to other people who are posting. [that led me to the thought that if these people were having the same conversation face-to-face they would never say half of the things that they post on-line; the anonymity provided by the internet is eroding common courtesy] But then I realized I don't really care if other people don't care about or value what I think or what I have to say. I value what I have say, and that is enough. I because I see value in what I have to say I can enjoy looking for value in what others have to say.
2) Some people use the phrase "I can't live with you and I can't live without you" to describe romantic relationships. I use it to describe parenthood. In the last 2 months I have been more exhausted and frustrated than I ever remember being at any other point in my life. My biggest challenge has been sleep. I get enough (in fact I think I get more than most people with a 4-8 week old), but I get it on Abbie's schedule. I miss going to sleep just because I'm tired. Now I go to sleep because Abbie is asleep. And if Abbie wakes up, then I do too. But if I could go to sleep whenever I wanted, then I think that would mean that Abbie would not be a part of our family or wouldn't be with us anymore and I couldn't bear that either. She has brought so much joy to our little postage-stamp-sized apartment that neither of us can imagine life with out her (her name means bringer of joy). Yesterday Abbie fell asleep in my arms and I started thinking about an old roommate of my mine. Her little girl would be over a year old now, but she died when she was about 3 months old. Looking at Abbie, and knowing that she is healthy and well, and thinking of my friend and how heartbroken I would be if I had to face losing my baby (even if it is just temporary)brought me to tears...and did again as I typed this out.
3) I have this habit of either trying to be funny (and it doesn't work out the way I thought it would) or just saying the first thing that comes to my head. Either way the result is "open mouth, insert foot". I can talk this way around Doug. He gets me and will just tell me I'm being a dork and that's the end of it. But when I make these mistakes around other people it turns into something I obsess about for weeks. I'm so worried that I offended someone and they don't like me now, or that I made an idiot of myself. I can actually still remember some things I said or did in high school and some of these things still cause me so much embarrassment!--I try to tell myself that no one else even remembers that kind of silliness by now, but I can never quite convince myself of that. But its so frustrating to me because I almost NEVER do anything maliciously (there are very few people that I actually dislike and I'm not around them enough to be annoyed by them enough to lash out). I don't intend to be mean. I'm just terribly opinionated and love to hear differing opinions. I learn so much more from debate and conversation than anything else. I also really want to be funny, and more often than not I just don't know my audience. Usually--after one of these occurrences--I wont even realize it till I get home. And then when I realize that what I said could have been taken negatively I start obsessing and I get so nervous...
I think I have more rambling posts come...
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