So here's the deal.

Warning, Mommy-Wars annoy me, so this is kinda rant-ish.

My son schedules himself.

If he's not maintaining his usual pattern, it's because something is wrong.

Nobody believes me.

I have friends all over the spectrum of parenting styles, and everybody thinks I'm doing it wrong.

The more mainstream types are convinced he's never going to sleep on his own because I nurse him to sleep, and any disruptions to his naps or night sleep are laid at the door of "You must not be maintaining his schedule consistently" or "Could you be feeding him too much?"

The more AP-leaning sorts say things like "It's normal for a six month old to still be waking up multiple times a night, you know," and "You know it's really hard to make a baby stick to a schedule."

Now, I'm pretty crunchy.  We cloth diaper, babywear, cosleep, baby-led weaning, homemade toys, sensory play, yadda yadda yadda.  I'm breaking ground for that garden so I can grow our veggies instead of buying produce that got sprayed with God knows what.  I'm learning to make sourdough bread from scratch, including my making own starter.

Some things, we do more mainstream.  Vaccinations and baby-entertainment gear, mainly, because there have been pertussis outbreaks here recently, and it's really tough to cut sod with a baby on my hip.

But scheduling?  Nope.  He really is that predictable, as long as he's comfy.  Everything's right with his world, JJ takes two naps during the day, of 90 minutes to 2 hours each, and conks out for the night between 6:30 and 7.  He rouses once after bedtime to top off his tummy, then sleeps until 6:30 or 7 in the morning, with one wake-up during the night to nurse, anywhere between 1 and 3am.  Takes 15-20 minutes, and he never really wakes up.

Now, if he's having a growth spurt, his gums are super sore, or his reflux is acting up, all that goes haywire in extremely short order.  But that's the point.  If he's a happy baby, he sleeps like an angel.  If he's waking me up more than twice a night, something is wrong, and because I'm sleep-deprived at that point, I usually require a little help figuring out what that something might be.

I know that most babies aren't nearly that predictable.  I get that.  I am aware that I was blessed with an incredibly easy baby for my first time out, quite likely I'm using up all my free passes on this one, and his next sibling will probably be one of those all over the map babies that's perfectly happy with random naps and being wide awake at 3am.

I can hear my mother already.  It's your turn, dear.  I hope you have a child JUST like you.

Thanks, Mom.  'Preciate it.

But honestly, folks... it seems like a thoroughly unpredictable child is considered some kind of AP badge of honor, like if your kid is sleeping through the night "too early" you must be forcing the issue, and baby being off their routine is really nothing to worry about because it's normal.

By the same token, the far end of the scheduling school of thought has a predictable baby that sleeps through the night, takes regular naps, and has planned out meal- and play-times followed like clockwork as its Holy Grail, leaving very little room for a child's individual needs or personality.  If your kid isn't meeting that standard, well, you must not be doing your job!

Lucky me, JJ does six of one and a half dozen of the other, so they all think I'm nuts!

Don't mind me, I'm just going insane over here.

Okay, enough ranting, time for baby cuteness.

A couple of days ago JJ was seriously bored and I was a little tired of entertaining him, so I improvised.

Pimento jar (baby food sized), Parsley jar, Meat Tenderizer jar.

All with a dozen or so red kidney beans inside and the lids glued on.

Little dude was FASCINATED.

They all move differently and make different sounds.  The pimento jar is glass, so it's louder and kinda musical.  Plus the pop-top lid makes it drum-y, which he loves.  The parsley jar, he mostly rolls, and the meat tenderizer jar... heh.  It's his favorite because it's just small enough around for him to get a grip on, and you should have seen his face when he worked out how to make it make noise.

*shake*  Those little eyebrows start to lift.

*shake shake*  His eyes pop and his mouth does that surprised "Oh!" thing for a second, and then he flashes me this huge wide-eyed open-mouthed grin and proceeds to make with the maracas.

*shakeshakeshakerattleshake*

It also apparently makes a really awesome chew toy.

I love my life!

"Nighttime Parenting" ... more like "Parenting Olympics"

SO... Yesterday was interesting.  JJ took three (count 'em, THREE) forty-five minute catnaps.  He then refused a fourth entirely, despite it being a perfectly normal naptime for m... 'er... him...

ANYWAY... he stayed awake for three hours and fifteen minutes and finally passed out on my shoulder at quarter to six.

Of course, I looked at the clock with dread, trying to figure out if I should try to get him to stay asleep, or let him "recharge" and just be up half the night.

In the end I opted to make a go of convincing him that he really was tired enough to sleep through the night from six pm.

We had a bobble (with more sleep-nursing) around 6:30, and he was SO restless I just held him.  The next two hours had a lot of comfort nursing and 3/4 asleep trips to Mommy's shoulder for burps, but by nine he was back in the cosleeper.

I inhaled dinner, and good thing because he was reflux-fussing again at ten thirty.  After that one I just gave up on the Arm's Reach and kept him on me for the night.  Oh the gymnastics I tried in order to get that kid to stay asleep!  I suppose this is a preview of coming attractions, anytime he's teething or sick.

I doubt I got thirty minutes of continuous sleep all night.

My reward?

Thirteen hours and thirty minutes of baby sleep, inclusive of nursing/burping/eeeeeeeaaasing down to the mattress and praying he stays down this time.

And this morning...

Rested, active, happy baby boy.

So totally worth it.

A Parenting Mindset, Part Two: Finding Another Way

Part One Recap: I don't want to spank, Time-Outs a la SuperNanny make me cringe, and I distinctly remember from my own childhood that losing a toy, a privilege, a special outing, or personal property was a supremely ineffective deterrent in the long run.  It usually just made me determined not to get caught the next time.

So what else is there?

There's the "Now, Jenny, you need to use your indoor voice", as the child is standing in her chair in a crowded restaurant throwing a tantrum. The siblings chasing each other through a store and knocking over a display, heedless of Mother's pleas that they stop behaving like wild animals.  The punk on the street corner giving his momma lip, blowing off his school work, and generally giving teenagers a bad name.

Don't lie, we've all seen it and judged. Said to ourselves, "That child is going to grow up to be more trouble than she's worth." or "His momma must not have whopped his butt often enough when he was a youngun'." I'm just as guilty as the next person. And while I now appreciate the potential situations from a new viewpoint, I'm still going to ask for a new seat if there is a screeching toddler at the next table.

So I don't want that either.

It seemed, as I began to read and look, that there really were only those two options.  For the sake of having labels to use, punitive parenting styles and permissive parenting styles.  There's "obey or else" parenting at one extreme, overwhelmed or just uninvolved parents at the other, and a whole host of self-proclaimed parenting experts somewhere in between.  But in the end they all come down to the adversarial paradigm with which our culture approaches child-rearing, either by upholding that constant battle as "the way it has to be", or by rejecting even the language of control for fear of impinging on another's free will.

Well, then.

Par for the course, I decided that since I didn't like either of the two options available to me, I was going to keep looking until I found something better. (Remind me to tell you folks about HypnoBabies sometime.) The Attachment Parenting boards I had already found didn't seem to be much help, since so many of the mamas seemed to run out of useful advice as their kids got older. I was having trouble finding much on how to use AP-style thinking effectively with toddlers, older children, teens, until I clicked a link in someone's signature and ended up on Arms of Love Family Fellowship and Gentle Christian Mothers.

Mind. Blown. Seriously. I'm going to attempt to explain, but please, check these sites out for yourself.

Arms of Love is a ministry devoted to the explanation and facilitation of Grace-Based Discipline, "a parenting style ... rooted in the New Testament teachings of Grace", and GCM is the associated web community.   The founder, Crystal Lutton, is Senior Pastor of her congregation, and let me tell you, this woman has done her research, both in spiritual sources and in the realms of child psychology and development.

The more I read on both sites, the more I found myself saying "YES!!  That, that right there!"  I also began to find more and more of my underlying ideas about parenting and relationships being called into question.  I knew, for example, that I wanted to keep spanking as a last resort but pretty much expected to "have to" issue a swat here or there to nip disrespect and disobedience in the bud early on.  Grace-Based Discipline uses a number of entirely different tools, some of which I knew, others I didn't, but with an underlying philosophy that children are people too.  As their parents it is our job to a) set them up to succeed by seeing to it that their physical and emotional needs are met, b) provide them with tools for dealing with their problems in an acceptable way, and c) model the use of those tools so that our children see that they really do work.

Quick sidebar: This was my problem with "No hitting!" followed by a swat. It's a logical inconsistency, and children are itty bitty learning machines that will default to actions rather than words. To those who say that spanking doesn't teach children to hit, I say this: It sure taught me to hit. A discussion for another time, but I learned that hitting was okay if you were the one in charge, and I learned it so well that I still have to fight that reflex when something doesn't happen the way I think it should.

Now, as I read more about GBD and what it was NOT (time-outs, spanking, shaming, etc), the question occurred as it always does.  "This sounds really great, but what does it look like in practical application?"

It's a lot a lot a LOT of work.

"But parenting IS work!" I hear you thinking. Yup. But some ways are more proactive than others, and GBD is a wear your sneakers, eat your wheaties, and prepare to get messy sort of parenting.

It's recognizing that a very articulate three year old is still a baby in many many ways, and not expecting her to behave 24/7 like the miniature adult she seems to be sometimes.

It's saying "You're frustrated because brother took your toy. You may be frustrated, but you may not hit." and removing the child to a place where he or she can play with a bit more supervision. Reverse to brother: "I know it's annoying when sister keeps poking you with her toy. It's fine to be annoyed, but it's not okay to take her toy. Next time call for mama, and I will help.", and removing sister to a place where she can play without disturbing brother.

It is lovingly returning a potty-training child to diapers after the second accident of the day, without making any sort of "What a naughty boy! Only babies potty in their pants!" sort of comments. Then you take a look at what the kid's eaten, their stress level, if something has changed recently, if they might be getting sick, etc, and see if there is a hurdle or two you can remove for them tomorrow.

It is being prepared to physically step in a LOT when they are small and make your instructions come to pass. Gently and with love, but make it happen, and don't give an instruction you aren't prepared to make a reality. The idea being that the subconscious mind will note that every time a parent gives an instruction, it does eventually happen, and in fact it may be physically impossible not to comply. As one poster on GCM put it, it's kind of like Jonah going to Ninevah. He can go on his own, or he can go in the belly of the fish, but he is gonna go!

It is protecting children from natural consequences until they are developmentally able to process those consequences and learn from them. A toddler can be scooped up or taken by the hand to stop them running on the wet sidewalk. A seven year old can skid out, get a skinned knee, and let the natural consequence teach the lesson that listening to Mama's words did not.

Obviously there is a lot more to it than this, much more than I could ever summarize in one blog post. Of particular interest to me were Crystal Lutton's articles on spanking, it's history, and how she addresses the "Rod Scriptures" so often referenced by Christian parents and pastors to justify spanking, even present it as something you MUST do in order to assure your children's salvation. (Link is to a topic page, several articles are in the associated drop down... oh just browse the site, you'll get the idea!!) It was the level of research and careful thought that went into those articles went a long way toward convincing me that this woman was onto something, and it was worth my time to keep reading. Grace-Based Discipline has implications reaching into all aspects of parenting, with all ages and ability-levels of children, even into the relationship between Mum & Dad!

The end result is that I am sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for membership registration on GCM to open up on the 16th. I have found another way, one that makes sense to me and is backed by both Scripture and child development research, and I'm going to run with it. I know that as JJ gets older I will make mistakes, probably slip back into the old ways more often than I will care to admit to later, but right now it's enough for me to know that there IS another way, and that I found it in time to start right from the beginning with my babies.

A Parenting Mindset, Part One; Now What?

You know, I can already hear the groans.

Oh, boy... here we go... another preachy judgmental defensive first-time-mom on the war path...

I hate being preached at, judgmental horse poop makes my teeth hurt, and folks who get defensive when I honestly wasn't intending to attack them just plain confuse me, so I really try not to do any of those things to people.  FTM is accurate, so I'll forgive the eye-rolling.

For now. *wink*

But as my little guy gets bigger and starts to show me a little more personality, the fact that one day he's going to purposely do something I've told him not to do is looming ever nearer on the horizon.  So I've had to put some serious work into the "how will I handle ____" sort of thinking.  I'm thinking about this time next year, this time in 2015, Christmas in 2027, you get the idea.  Obviously, I'm focusing more on the early challenges that are fast approaching, but those later hurdles are in the back of my mind and applicable ideas get tossed that direction once in a while.

Those of you who follow me know that I lean pretty heavily toward following my instincts where my son is concerned.  While I've gone through several manure-loads of anxiety and stress over the past four months, every time I step back, take a breath, and just play it by ear, things improve.  Whether that's JJ's demeanor and behavior or my stress levels and attitude, things get better.  Those instincts led me toward things like co-sleeping (even bed-sharing), baby-wearing, leaving my son intact rather than circumcising, using cloth diapers, and never ever leaving my child to cry alone in his crib.    

As I started to think about the coming years, the "terrible twos", the "NO" and "MINE" stages, the inevitable moments of sassiness, I found that the conflicts between my upbringing and my instincts were leaving me very perplexed.  I was raised in a significantly messed-up household, but for the sake of the current subject, I'll leave out the complexities that growing up with an abusive parent added to my particular stew, and address the parenting I received from my mother.  

While I remember my mother as loving and gentle, even occasionally permissive, she soon found herself resorting to the punitive methods which she often professed to despise from her own childhood.  Time outs, spankings, groundings, loss of a toy or a privilege, loss of a promised outing due to misbehavior, etc.  My mother used to carry a kitchen spatula in her purse, to be used as a spanking instrument on the bare behind of the child who dared act out in public.  We always knew it was there, and let me tell you, for something that never left marks, you could feel that sucker for DAYS.  As we got too big to spank, she still had to control her children, of course, but it became more and more about the special things we were denied when we failed to measure up, and less and less about the talking things out that she tried in our early teens.

To many in the United States, that looks like a fairly reasonable approach to parenting.  It looked that way to me... until I was faced with a child of my own.  Suddenly things took on a very different perspective.  I started to remember being confused by early accusations of lying.  Feeling hurt and angry when a punishment seemed unfair or out of proportion.  Getting into still more trouble for refusing to submit to a spanking, or asking for an explanation of exactly how I had sinned this time.  Obeying rules, not out of desire to do the right thing, but merely to avoid punishment.  The difference between "hitting" and "spanking", between "stealing" and "taking away your _X_ because you did _Y_", between "lying" and "editing for your own good", all began to sound disturbingly like those exercises in semantics adults use when trying to justify their actions to the child who has spotted a flaw in the logic.

It occurred to me... I used to be that child.


I really... REALLY don't want to be that grown up.



Crap.




Okay... now what?




Next time... Part Two; Finding Another Way