Monday, August 9, 2010

Throwing out the book

When Little Mr. Man was born, I did everything by the book...ok, it's not like there is ONE book and I didn't do everything by the book (lets be honest, I hate being told what to do!), but in terms of his naps and bedtime routines, I was, well, pretty inflexible (understatement of the year) and insisted that he have all his naps at home in his cot and be home by 6pm for his bedtime routine. Oh yeah, I was a barrel of fun!!

You see before he was born I'd heard all these HORROR stories about babies that didn't sleep. and to get them to nap or sleep for the night a ridiculous routine would have to be followed, which usually simply ended with either mom or dad crawling into bed (or sometimes cot) with them.

Now, if you know me, you know I NEED sleep (again, another understatement). I could easily sleep for 12 hours, wake up, have a snack and go back to bed for another 6 hours without any trouble (i've even paid to sleep, it's true, click here). But as you know, kids change all this. So, after hearing all these sleep horror stories I was VERY worried that my first born would be a non-sleeper and I'd become one too. So, in my defense my rigidity around his sleep routine was for a reason - the preservation of self.

Thankfully, the little guy has always been a pretty good sleeper, whether my adherence to his schedule contributed anything, I don't know...but lets just say it did!

Now of of course, it's much harder (READ: IMPOSSIBLE) to adhere to a similar schedule with baby no. 2. I mean you could, but with no back yard there's no way LMM would allow us to spend as much time as necessary at home to adhere to a routine for Little Miss. She's now 15 months and for the most part is also a pretty good sleeper. I think that's because as far as she's concerned, she is not going to miss out on an opportunity to sleep - she's never quite sure when the next opportunity is going to come around.

My point - throw away the damned book! I stressed so much over the silliest things with LMM and while I loved being a mom and believe it or not, even thought I did a good job, I never enjoyed it without abandon. And really, there are so many more things to worry about than whether your baby is napping at the right time in the right place!! I'm glad that there's heaps of parenting advice out there. Not only does it give me things to argue about but having tricks and tools of trade is always beneficial. It's when you loose yourself and stop following your own instincts is when it becomes troublesome. I think that's partially what happened with LMM. I'm much happier (still worry WAY more than I need to, but heck that's genetic ;-) and so much less stressed.

7 comments:

  1. Good advice! It's so hard to know what to do. Follow the books or not to follow them!

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    Kari

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  3. New follower from the blog hop.

    Come visit me ... http://www.savingscorner.org

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  4. Hey!! Now Following you from the Moms4Review BlogHop!!!!


    http://www.thesecondarychronicles.com

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  6. Found you on the blog hop. Glad I did...we've got a lot in common! I'm with you on throwing out the book...were we not given brains and instinct for a reason? :)

    -Sue

    www.thedesperatehousemommy.blogspot.com
    www.twitter.com/DHousemommy
    Facebook Group: Desperate Housemommies

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  7. Hi,

    I am visiting from Moms Review 4 You Blog Hop. I would love to follow your blog but I don't see a follow ling :(

    Hope you can visit my blog too.

    Anna
    http://thebabystoreplus.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete