When I was expecting, I asked a lot of friends who were already mothers for their top tip and a frequent one was 'follow your instincts'. I was slightly concerned that I wouldn't have any instincts, but I soon realised that it was relatively easy to just do what we wanted, which is a bit like following your instincts. Although, in the society we live in I think most people's parenting instincts are well informed and researched (I know that sounds like a bit of a contradiction). In my first few months as a mother I'd heard people mention something called weaning...what the hell was that? I genuinely did not have a clue, I clearly had no instincts about it so I had to ask my faithful friend Google. I then found that there were different methods of weaning, so once I'd done my research I chose the method that I thought would best suit me and Little Bean and that's pretty much been the pattern of things over the past eight months.
Although I may scoff at our so called 'parenting police' I have actually found them quite useful. In the early weeks my phone and tablet were an integral part of my being. I spent A LOT of time breastfeeding throughout the night and at 3am in a dark quiet house with a baby dangling off your boob, there's very little else to occupy your mind. So having the delights of Google, Facebook and Whatsapp at my fingertips was a Godsend. With my new found mummy friends all experiencing similar things with their newborn babies, we would keep each other company and ask for advice about everything from how to soothe a crying baby to what nipple cream to use. We'd find useful links to forums and websites and share them with those we thought would find them useful.
Sleep is probably the most widely covered topic of parenting. Everyone has an opinion about sleep! It's usually the first topic of conversation with pretty much anyone. Thankfully Little Bean has always been a fairly good sleeper (although I fear I may be cursing that now by sharing that statement so publicly!), whether that is linked to what we have done or not, I have no idea, like I've said already, we're just winging it. I read an article fairly early on about the pitfalls of getting your baby to sleep and sleeping through and how to avoid them. In the first couple of months I didn't care, he was so little that we just let him fall asleep however and whenever he wanted, which was usually on my boob at around midnight. I would then delicately make the transfer from breast to basket, treating him as if he was a fragile piece of glass that might just shatter if I breathed too hard. I digress, the article said that you should not feed your baby to sleep, but put them down drowsy.....err......now that may work for some babies, but not this one - I think this was the beginning of my epiphany about babies being unique. However the article did make a lot of sense, apparently everyone sleeps in cycles, even adults, and we all wake in the night. Adults being experienced sleepers just fall straight back to sleep and remember nothing of it in the morning. But at around 5 months old babies' sleep patterns change, or habits develop and they wake up fully at the end of the cycle (or something along those lines, you need to remember I was reading this article in the middle of long sleep broken night) . The theory is that if they have only ever been fed to sleep they will think this is the only thing that will get them back to sleep. This made complete sense to me and I am grateful to the friend who sent me the link to this article as it encouraged us to start thinking about instilling some sort of bedtime routine (we prefer the word 'pattern' as routine just sounds far to formal and structured for our lifestyle) to help Little Bean sleep. Until very recently he has always needed some sort of help in getting to sleep. We started a routine but after a few weeks we realised we'd simply replaced feeding him to sleep with cuddling him to sleep. By chance we discovered that the hair-dryer sent him straight to sleep. So for a few months we would follow our pattern, put him in his bed (where he would scream instantly) stick the hair-dryer on and inevitably within 20 seconds he'd be fast asleep. This method lost it's impact after a few months. We then found that letting him suck on a finger had the desired effect, then eventually I resorted back to feeding him to sleep which was the one thing I'd been trying to avoid for the previous 4 months! When I am out and DH has to put him to bed he simply allows Little Bean to fall asleep on him. Doing this has not made a blind bit of difference to his sleep habits, he's been sleeping through since about 4 and a half months and thankfully he still is.
Our approach to parenting has been very much 'do what feels right for us'. So yes, I may follow advice that I've read on-line, but I only chose what I like. In the early days I read a lot about how vital it is to get your baby into a set regular routine with naps and feeds otherwise they will never be able to sleep through and will fail to thrive ......blah, blah, blah. Little Bean has never had two days the same, there is far too much I want us to do with the day to be restricted by when he needs a nap. He has his naps on dog walks, in the car, in the pushchair, on the bus and occasionally in his cot. In fact the same is true of his feeds. Yes, I do sometimes just leave him in his cot with a bottle in his mouth, it's proven a very easy way to get him to sleep (I do go in and remove it soon after). This lack of routine has meant that it has been incredibly easy to take him on camping trips, to the pub and even to Glastonbury.
In your first few days as a new parent it is hard not to follow the advice of everything you read. When Little Bean was only a week old he developed a really bad cold and couldn't sleep on his back as he couldn't breathe. The only way he would sleep was when he was lying mine or DH's chest. For a few nights I enjoyed falling asleep with a baby on my chest, but then read an article on SIDS that stated you should never fall asleep with a baby on your chest. That was it, I took it as gospel and vowed never to allow myself to do it again. So the following night I set an alarm every half an hour from midnight to 8am to ensure I didn't fall asleep! Luckily he got over his cold fairly quickly.
In your first few days as a new parent it is hard not to follow the advice of everything you read. When Little Bean was only a week old he developed a really bad cold and couldn't sleep on his back as he couldn't breathe. The only way he would sleep was when he was lying mine or DH's chest. For a few nights I enjoyed falling asleep with a baby on my chest, but then read an article on SIDS that stated you should never fall asleep with a baby on your chest. That was it, I took it as gospel and vowed never to allow myself to do it again. So the following night I set an alarm every half an hour from midnight to 8am to ensure I didn't fall asleep! Luckily he got over his cold fairly quickly.
I now know a lot of babies and mummies and I don't know of any two that have followed the same patterns or routines. Some babies have moved into their own rooms at 8 weeks and some have co-slept until 8 months, some have done entirely baby led weaning and some have done only purées, some have done controlled crying and some have never been left cry, some have a set routine and some are entirely haphazard - but at the end of the day all these babies and mummies are happy. Despite all the experts out there there is no 'one size fits all'. Every baby responds to things in different ways. Our methods of getting Little Bean to sleep and our laissez faire routine would cause others to have an epic meltdown. Whichever way you decide to do things you will find an expert who advocates it and another who completely opposes it. I think that unless a parent is struggling and asking for help, then no-one else has the right to chip in with their opinion/advice - if it's not a problem for the parent then others should not feel the need to make it their problem. Ultimately there is only one expert for your baby, and that's you.
