Reading the Experts

As I mentioned before I have a boatload of parenting books, but I found that the more I read the worse I felt about my parenting. Brazelton states that by now I should have established good communication with Baby M and be able to easily identify and meet his needs. Nope-- I still have no idea why he is crying 70% of the time. The Baby Whisperer says I should get Baby M on a 4 hour feeding schedule. You've got to be kidding me-- this kid starts frantically smacking his head against my chest after 2 and a half hours. Weissbluth recommends "extinction" (essentially "Cry It Out") to get your baby to sleep through the night. After a grueling 10 weeks of colic I am not inclined to see how long Baby M will cry before finally conking out from exhaustion. I know he has the stamina to go for hours.

So, as if I didn't have enough conflicting advice, last week I decided I that I also needed to read the Dr. Sears book and checked it out from the library. I knew the basics of Attachment Parenting and while still pregnant had pretty much decided that it wasn't for me, but since I was carrying or wearing Baby M for large parts of the day, nursing frequently and had started letting him sleep in our bed for part of the night I thought there might be something to AP after all. At a minimum I figured I would start feeling better about what I was doing and stop worrying that Baby M would be clingy, sleep deprived and a failure in American society for the rest of his life (although possibly successful in Japanese society according to Brazelton).

When I got to the chapter on fussy babies I nearly fell off the couch. Sear's profile of the fussy baby described Baby M perfectly. "Demanding"- yep; "I just can't put him down" - check; "Wants to nurse all the time" - definitely. Finally it seemed someone was writing about my baby and not some ideal bay laying in an antique crib on the other side of town. Dr. Sears validated all the things that I have been doing just to get through the day and it was great to finally read a parenting book that didn't make me feel like I was setting my child up for a lifetime of issues. And perhaps more importantly, the book helped me re-frame how I see Baby M. He's not "grumpy" or "fussy" he is "High Needs." And he isn't torturing us, he's just demanding a higher standard of care, which means, hopefully, that we will ultimately be better parents.

Nowadays my advice to new parents is to read a limited number of books and just do what it takes to keep your baby happy and healthy. I know this seems obvious and if I had read this statement before having Baby M I probably would have said "No Duh", but then I had a baby and he was so small and delicate and I didn't want to mess him up and I figured these experts knew more than I did. I still don't feel that I'm an expert on Baby M, but I do realize that I probably know a bit more about him than a stack of books.