So I totally missed the deadline for the April PAIL post, but I’m still going to participate as though I hadn’t.
I never really gave much thought to my parenting style.
Before I had AJ, I suspected that I wouldn’t be the parent that would let their baby cry it out. And I’m not. It breaks my heart to hear her cry when she’s hungry. You know the blood-curddling type of cry where they almost lose their voice?
When she’s tired, she gets a bit fussy and sometimes needs a little help to settle down. When I say fussy, I mean ocassional high-pitch scream (which she started doing a few weeks ago). This is when I’ll pick her up, hold her close, rock and shhh her for a few minutes.
I’m probably fostering some kind of bad habit by not being stronger where this is concerned, but I don’t care. I’ll cross that bridge if/when I get to it.
I was completely oblivious to the fact that there are identified different types of parenting methods out there. And to be completely honest, I don’t care what they are and which one I fall into.
No disrespect to anyone out there that is “following” or as adopted a certain parenting method, but I’m pretty sure that my mom and my aunties didn’t subscribe to any particular method and my cousins and I turned out OK.
I’m fortunate to have many friends who had babies in the past few years, particularly within the past year, that I can get advice from if/when we have an issue.
However, Aaliyah is a really easy going baby. I was all freaked out at first that we wouldn’t establish a schedule, but over the past month I’ve followed her cues and viola! We kind of have a schedule.
She has morning, afternoon and evening naps. She gets up three times a night to feed and after the third time, she comes back to bed with me for another two hours or so.
The feeding every two hours during the day can be a bit brutal since she’s EBF, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. My husband sees it as a burden to me, but I don’t see it that way at all. I enjoy our time together when I’m feeding her. I love how excited she gets when she knows she’s about to feed, and I love the way she grabs onto my finger and holds on tight.
We haven’t given her a soother yet, nor do we plan to. She seems to do ok without one. There have been times where my husband has begged me to give her one. My position is this: (knowing AJ’s temperament) if she’s crying, find out why she’s crying and try to resolve it rather than sticking something in her mouth to temporarily shut her up.
As I said before, AJ is pretty easy going. She only cries when she’s super tired, needs a new diaper, hungry or the odd time, frustrated with a toy she’s playing with.
I’ve heard from other moms about how their babies wouldn’t sleep, or they would cry for hours for no reason. Thank God AJ is not like that.
I pick her up and cuddle with her whenever I get a chance, but I’m also able to let her be so that I can get some things done.
Whenever family is around, AJ is not without a set of arms to hold and snuggle her. Are we spoiling her? Maybe. But with all the cuddles and kisses she gets from me, her dad, her half sister and the rest of my family (I’ll get into where hubby’s family’s role later), she will know that she is loved.
Will I change my mind about my lack of parenting style that I’ve outlined in this post? Anything is possible. But for now . . . this is my style and I’m sticking to it.
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