Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Parenting Styles
As Lily approaches 3 months of age, I have been thinking a lot about what my parenting style will be. Will I be the "Baby Wise" mom or the "Baby-Wearing" mom? The first of these practices the "cry-it-out" method to put your baby on a schedule, while the latter always comforts the child to put them to sleep. I can see good and bad points to both. The baby wise mom will probably get the child on a consistent sleep schedule - which is great. The baby-wearing mom will probably teach the child that they must be comforted (rocked, swung, carried, etc.) to be put to sleep. I tried the baby wise approach about a month ago, but soon realized that Lily was just too young to let her cry for 45 minutes at a time. I felt like I was abandoning her. So I guess you could say I have been practicing the baby-wearing approach for now. There has got to be a happy medium. Any suggestions?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Hi,
I was interested to come across your post - I feel there is a very good happy medium between the two style of sleep parenting that you mentioned - the consistent approach does not need to be about leaving babies to cry - just being consistent in teaching them how to go to sleep while they are still awake - to self settle. have a look at the sleep pages on my website - http://www.consistent-parenting-advice.com
All the best,
Helen
i think that first three months are all about survival! :) after that, i realized the attachment parenting techniques were definately NOT working for me, and it was very very helpful to work towards a more consistant schedule with everything -eating, sleeping...and not letting those things be "on demand", but more intentional. now i'm a pretty big supporter of keeping a flexible schedule and not rocking or nursing to sleep...
I think each parent ends up finding their own style, but like Jess said, the first 3 months or so are survival. I was like you. I checked out both Baby Wise and Attachment Parenting...Like you, I just couldn't leave him to cry for 45 minutes (I did it one day b/c my MIL was insisting and I was curious to see how long he'd cry)--and he never did fall asleep on his own like that. Also, I had a baby who cried whether I held him or not...So around 5 months we did CIO, but I would only leave him to cry for 5 minutes at a time and then I'd go in and calm him down and put him right back down for his nap...After 5 or 6 trips in there the first day he went to sleep on his own. Each day I had to make fewer trips in to see him and eventually he was great at falling asleep on his own--even if I leave him with my parents overnight.
Post a Comment