I have wanted to write a book on parenting for a long time. Some things that seem really obvious to me, obviously aren't to others. So here goes (nothing):
My mother was very insecure in her parenting. This manifested itself by her carefully following the "rules" set out by doctors and other experts (more on doctors as experts later). By carefully following the rules, she hoped to raise healthy children, but she didn't seem to be able to rely on her own instincts at all. When my oldest brother was a toddler, my dad told me once, she locked him in his room behind a baby gate (not a closed door) and let him cry while she and Dad ate dinner. Dad told me it was often impossible to eat while Fred cried piteously, or trashed his room and got up to other "mischief" such as removing his diapers and playing with them. When I was a baby, I was told, they sometimes would sneak into my room and get me and feed me earlier than the four hours prescribed as the correct "feeding" schedule. Sigh.
Later: Many doctors claim to be experts on parenting and/or mothering, even though many of them (the male doctors in particular) have never ever been mothers. Case in point - one doctor, claiming an expertise he didn't have, said (and I quote as exactly as I remember it from forty years ago) "You never once thought of putting down your baby while you were pregnant." Until this point, I hadn't considered the gender of the author of this particular book, but reading this, I turned to the author, and sure enough MALE. Because in my pregnancy, especially the last three months, I can't remember how many times - but probably at least once a day - I said to myself, if I could only be not-pregnant for ten minutes, is that too much to ask, I will happily resume the pregnancy and continue to the end. Just ten minutes without this baby bump, please. It was not to be. And I survived the pregnancies (all of them). No, I don't have ten children, it just seems like I was pregnant for ten years.
Like my mother said, those last two weeks of your pregnancy are the longest two years of your life, and the twenty years your children spend growing up are the shortest two weeks of your life.
I read every book I could get my hands on about parenting, while I was still pregnant. Some of them were garbage. Some of them flatly contradicted each other - feed your baby when it is hungry VS feed your baby only every four hours. I read books by doctors, by mothers, by experts and by charlatans. Some of them spoke to me, and fit into my view of life, others seemed to be prissy, stagnant, or totally impractical. By the time I took my newborn son home, I was tired of reading.
When my husband was at work, I would lay the baby in the middle of the queen size bed and watch him sleep. I did craft projects while he slept. I remember making a paper mache wastebasket. I also watched soap operas for a brief period. One memorable one ended on a Friday with a real cliffhanger (would the bride allow the groom's interfering mother influence her, or not) and an announcement that this show would not be seen on Monday, but would be replaced by another type of show. My soap opera watching days ended abruptly, but not my fascination with my son's breathing and sleeping.
He spend the first weeks of his life sleeping and eating. Even bathing him was a problem, as he wanted to nurse, then return to sleep, not stay awake for bathtime. I took him outside one afternoon, in order to take pictures of the bath. He was born in New Mexico in June, so afternoons outside were warm, as in HOT. He loved his bath in the warmth, so after that, I made sure to turn the A/C off several hours before bath time. And he stayed awake better. I had learned by this time, nurse on one side, bath and clean clothes, then nurse on the other side. Then he slept.
He slept for three and a half hours at a time, right from day one. The nursing and diaper change took about a half hour. So every four hours, round the clock, I fed him.
I worried. Breastfed babies, I had learned, liked to nurse often, even every two hours. They were apt to be irregular, sleeping for ten minutes here, and four hours there. Not my child. He ate, he slept. When asleep, he could be moved from place to place without waking him. So he could be put to sleep in the living room, and moved to his bedroom later on. Or taken to the store for a quick shopping trip without interrupting his nap. Or go to sleep in our bed, or my rocking chair, and plopped in his crib when convenient. It didn't bother him.
I learned that you spend the first six weeks, especially, but the first whole year, really, getting to know your child. One of our friends at that time had firmly announced before their daughter was born, that they were not going to let any child of theirs cry itself to sleep. Oh, no, their child would be gently soothed to sleep in their loving arms or allowed to play quietly in the crib before sleep, but crying would be responded to. Sheepishly, about three months later, they admitted that their daughter seemed to go to sleep much more easily and quickly if she was allowed to cry, well, fuss, for a few minutes after being put down.
I read a very interesting book before my children were born. Interestingly, this was the one book my mother recommended, indeed she insisted I read it. It was called The Rights of Infants and it talked about ten traits that some reseachers had identified as seeming to be inborn and lifelong. These traits included liking vs. disliking new things, regularity vs. irregularity of daily schedule, level of activity and so forth. While the book presented the traits as either or, I believe that they are a continuum, with some children falling at either end, but most falling somewhere in the middle.
For instance, my son was clearly pretty regular in his eating and sleeping schedule, and that trait has seemed to follow throughout his life, making planning for his meals and naps easier than if he had been the type to eat lots and often one day and next to nothing the next, the way some kids seem to be. Also, he seem to be near the top of the activity level, and liked and was attracted to new things.
He loved his first oatmeal, his first ice cream, and his first black olive. He didn't like his first taste of tomato, but since there was a bowl of cherry tomatoes on the table, he tasted several, in case the first one was a mistake. He still doesn't like tomatoes, but likes almost all other foods. While these traits may seem like good things, you try parenting a child who is always on the go, and enjoys tasting new things, like poison ivy and the little chlorine balls that didn't get completely dissolved in the kiddie pool at the park.
The book emphasized that the inheritance of these traits was still a mystery, and a couple who both enjoyed a very regular schedule could still end up with an infant who wanted a ten minute nap one day, and a five-hour nap the next, playing havoc with their ideas of a carefully regulated life. And that it seems to be easier to enjoy a child whose traits match yours, but since it doesn't seem to be a given that your child will echo your traits, you ought to learn to parent the child you have, not try to shovel your child into a mold that doesn't fit him.
Learning to parent the child you have is the key to happy parenting. If your child enjoys his first taste of solid food, loves the first outing to the park, embraces strangers as new friends, and generally enjoys new things, you can skip the chapters on introducing your child to daycare, first days of school, adjusting to new teachers, and the like. He/she won't have these problems.
Okay, I'm tired now, so more later. :)
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