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-> Parenting our children
-> Infants
amother
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Sun, Oct 19 2014, 12:10 am
...so I've just simultaneously begun reading Tracy Hogg's Baby Whisperer AND realized that the way I parent would be classified as "attachment parenting", and I'm torn. I'm a WAHM who works nights (and maybe mornings, hoping not to send DS to babysitter), and on the advice of my sister picked up the Baby Whisperer book (which advocates what sounds like a sensible "schedule" of sorts to foster independent sleep in baby... but is initially overwhelming in practice with my DD.)
With my first three, I coslept, babywore, and fed on demand, both because I loved it/baby loved it/it seemed right and because I never had the time/education to "train" them to do anything else. So far, it seems to have b'chasdei Hashem produced very happy children. Yes, people comment that my kids are "very active" and "demand a lot of me", but I don't feel that way - I feel as though we are closer than most mom/kid relationships I observe, that my kids are B"H B"H extremely creative, sharing, explorative, loving, and expressive (note that I am NOT trying to attribute these traits to my "stellar" parenting so much as to give all the facts and praise Hashem. Perhaps they would have been like this if I would not have inadvertently practiced AP, who knows?)
On the other hand, it would be super-convenient to be able to work smoothly all night without having to pause feed/comfort, as this book seems to promise. But do I want convenience, really? Is motherhood all about convenience? (And before anyone goes down that road, motherhood isn't about martyrdom, either: I've learned to take care of myself AND baby - let's take my needs out of the equation for now by assuming I'll reassess if whatever I end up doing will be too stressful for me.) Right now, I feel stressed just trying to follow all of the "directions" in the book, and find myself naturally falling back into what Tracy Hogg calls "inadvertent parenting" (ie, feeding baby to sleep, which leads to the kid needing to always be fed to sleep... which yeah, might have been occasionally annoying for previous kids, but overall seemed to have worked).
Am I being lazy or following my mothering instinct? Am I being lazy short-term but unrealistic long-term?
Without having to work night hours, there is no doubt in my mind I'd continue what I've been doing, with perhaps incorporation of some of Ms. Hogg's ideas (longer feedings foster longer sleep times, etc.), but realistically speaking, now that I expect to be busier than ever with a night shift and B"H baby plus other kiddos... I'm not going to stoop to asking "am I right/wrong" here, but I will ask... have any of you read the book and experienced the same dilemma? Anything to share?
(amother because I'm embarrassed to be boasting about my kids under my name when people know me :-)
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bnm
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Sun, Oct 19 2014, 1:03 am
longer feeds foster longer sleeps? why don't my kids get THAT memo?
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amother
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Sun, Oct 19 2014, 1:09 am
AP all the way. If you can handle it (and I know not everyone can) go for it! It worked well for me and my kids. They are all turning into very independent, secure young people. Maybe they would have no matter what. Who knows? But I did what felt right/natural and it was successful.
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