A moment of time to myself. It’s kinda nice. Morgan is playing piano and Emily gets to play in the music room when he does. Avery is attempting to fall asleep un-assisted. We are starting to let her cry a bit to fall asleep. It feels heartless, but it worked amazingly with Emily and we’d love to have another good sleeper. She already sleeps pretty decent for a newborn. So we’ll see how this goes.
With Emily we read this book called “Babywise”. It was recommended by a good friend who had followed the principles in it with three of her kids before I’d had Emily. Its definitely a controversial book and for the most part I have to keep my mouth shut about it and the methods it uses for sleep training. I go to drop in parenting groups in town and they are big proponents of attachment parenting. For the most part they are fans of things like co-sleeping, wearing your baby, and breastfeeding until Jr. High. They are really serious about not letting your baby cry ever.
I guess I just see it differently. Firstly, I’m not a co-sleeper because both my girls are noisy sleepers and I like to sleep. Plus I already have to share my bed with Morgan, and I’d rather not add to that even though we have a king size. I don’t mind wearing Aves in a sling or snugly, but it really doesn’t have to be all the time. I’m even on the side of breastfeeding. It didn’t work with Em, so I pumped for six months so she could have the benefit of breast milk. And with Avery, I plan on breastfeeding for at least a year. Technically, I’m on the same team as the attachment parents, I just do things differently. If you take ten minutes to hand out with Emily who didn’t sleep in or bed, got carried around sometimes, bottle fed with formula supplemented and cried herself to sleep for a short period of time, you will find a girl who is very attached to her parents. She’s also very independent, social, care-free, and well adjusted. She hasn’t suffered at all.
I felt I should explain myself so I don’t come across as harsh, unloving, and stone hearted towards my tiny little preemie baby. I love her dearly, and want her to get good sleep too. One lady at the drop-in parenting meeting actually told me that if my baby slept “through the night she might get SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome)”. WHAT? She said that as if my baby could contract a cold. Get SIDS? I do all the things that are recommended to avoid that. Maybe I’m not as worried about that because I believe that God is in control of my life and my kids lives. Either way, it’s a bit harsh to say “your parenting choice could kill your kid”. Special moment much?
Morgan is listening to Jars of Clay “Crazy times” downstairs. I used to love that song! It was one of the most complicated songs I could play on my guitar when I was first learning. Wow that’s a long time ago. Anyways…I get sidetracked easily.
My newest news is that I’m changing things up Blog style. I’ve been looking at a few different sites to blog on, and what the capabilities are. I’m bored with this wordpress site, so I had planned on switching to squarespace, but I haven’t found it to be THAT much better. It helps that I have free hosting, so I can host my own WordPress and choose my own template. I’ve found one that I like, but I haven’t decided to fork over the moolah yet. We’ll see. It’s silly because I want a blog that isn’t so word heavy. I like pictures to much for the way my blog looks right now. There’s also some collaborative events in the upcoming blog future. I can’t wait to tell you, but I’m going to have to wait until the transition with my blog is complete. Soon…very soon!
Wow, I’m sooooo glad to see someone else of our generation who isn’t an attatchment freak! Go you! My kids are soo not going to be attatched at my hips when I finally have some. I’m sure that your girls will grow up perfectly healthy and SID-free (srry, couldn’t resist that one) even tho you’re not letting them be attatched at your hip.
I ran across your post from a google alert on Babywise. I am one of “those people” who thinks the book is evil (sorry to be blunt, but I do). The AAP DOES NOT support it and links it to failure to thrive ( http://www.ezzo.info/Aney/aneyaap.htm ). Additionally, the authors of the book have no background in any field that remotely relates to child development, medicine, psychology or any field that would give them authority on child rearing. You might be interested to read more about the Ezzos on http://www.ezzo.info .
I do not think that you have to be an “attachment freak” as your previous commenter stated to raise a happy, healthy child. I do think that any child who is left to cry at such a young age (your daughter is about 5 weeks old, right? Adusted age of about 1-2 weeks?) may learn that no one cares when they cry or that no one is coming to console them. I have never let my 2 year old daugher CIO, and she is a happy, independent child who is far from “attached at my hips”. Children who are raised with attached parents are mostly (as there are exceptions to every rule) very independent, social children.
I applaud you for breastfeeding. I sincerely hope that you are able to meet your goal of 1 year!
Thanks for being honest Ashley! I really don’t like it when people have to keep their opinion quiet just because it is contrary to someone elses. I just thought I’d better point out that I don’t think anyone would take any parenting book as the law. I think reading as much as you can and choosing what things fit your family are much more important. That’s what we do with babywise. We use some of the principles behind it. Because we have a preemie we are also very careful that she doesn’t end up having a failure to thrive. We weigh her regularly and she’s growing extra fast. For the most part her schedule is still the same as it was in the NICU.