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.
Showing posts with label Touchpoints. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Touchpoints. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
The Mother's Almanac
While I was still pregnant my mother-in-law gave me a copy of The Mother's Almanac by Marguerite Kelly and Elia Parsons, copyright 1975, saying that this was the only book she consulted to raise her two sons. I wasn't sure if this comment was supposed to mean “Look how great my sons are, use this book” (which, granted, her sons are pretty great, I mean I married one of them) or if this was just another comment along the lines of “in my day we didn't have car seats, baby bath tubs or 12 books on infant care.” Yes, we actually own 12 books on raising a child. Everything from What to Expect the First Year to Touchpoints to Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. And that doesn't include the additional 10 books my husband checked out from the library.
Knowing much of the thinking on raising children has changed over the past 30 years I hadn't paid much attention to The Mother's Almanac, but yesterday I pulled it off the shelf to have a look. The back cover promised to cover the “realities of motherhood from the mechanics of diapering to... old fashioned virtues, basic physics, bricklaying... and much more.” Whoa! None of my other books have anything about bricklaying! And basic physics? Am I going to have to determine the coefficient of friction to keep my baby from sliding down an incline? I was intrigued. I flipped opened the book and started reading.
The opening sentences read “There are many times in parenthood when happiness thrusts your spirits higher than the stars and the pleasure of loving makes living a throbbing delight. This is normal, but like sex, much too brief.” This is is the only childcare book I've ever read written in the style of a trashy romance novel. And a few pages later I found this gem, “ In child care, as in sex, practice doesn't make it perfect every time, but it sure does make it better.” It's clear this book came out of the decade that brought us the key party.
I skimmed through the section on labor & delivery, which, amazingly, contained several more sex allusions, and an outright plea for the missionary position. It also defined hospital rooming-in as having the baby with you for 5-8 hours, which I found funnier than all the throbbing and thrusting comments. Finally, I reached the chapter on what to do now that you're home from the hospital. It begins by stating that you should dress every day as soon as you get up. As of noon, my bottom half is dressed, but I'm still wearing my pajamas top, does that count as being dressed? The authors also offer, “There are at least two times a day when a wife should look good and smell good: at night when she goes to bed and in the morning before her husband leaves for work.” I'm afraid I fail on those counts; I've worn sweatpants and a ponytail pretty much every day for the past month and I smell like spit-up more often than not. The authors go on to talk about getting your “good figure” back and spend several paragraphs on various exercises for postpartum moms. Of course, they also include “Vaginal Exercises” with the helpful comment, “You'll like these more.” I'm sure at some point they will get around to actually caring for your child.
I haven't gotten to the bricklaying section yet, that comes later in the book. It makes sense, a child needs to be at least 3 or 4 before you start letting him play with trowels and construction materials. I think this is my new favorite childcare book, I'm going to start buying it for all my friends.
Knowing much of the thinking on raising children has changed over the past 30 years I hadn't paid much attention to The Mother's Almanac, but yesterday I pulled it off the shelf to have a look. The back cover promised to cover the “realities of motherhood from the mechanics of diapering to... old fashioned virtues, basic physics, bricklaying... and much more.” Whoa! None of my other books have anything about bricklaying! And basic physics? Am I going to have to determine the coefficient of friction to keep my baby from sliding down an incline? I was intrigued. I flipped opened the book and started reading.
The opening sentences read “There are many times in parenthood when happiness thrusts your spirits higher than the stars and the pleasure of loving makes living a throbbing delight. This is normal, but like sex, much too brief.” This is is the only childcare book I've ever read written in the style of a trashy romance novel. And a few pages later I found this gem, “ In child care, as in sex, practice doesn't make it perfect every time, but it sure does make it better.” It's clear this book came out of the decade that brought us the key party.
I skimmed through the section on labor & delivery, which, amazingly, contained several more sex allusions, and an outright plea for the missionary position. It also defined hospital rooming-in as having the baby with you for 5-8 hours, which I found funnier than all the throbbing and thrusting comments. Finally, I reached the chapter on what to do now that you're home from the hospital. It begins by stating that you should dress every day as soon as you get up. As of noon, my bottom half is dressed, but I'm still wearing my pajamas top, does that count as being dressed? The authors also offer, “There are at least two times a day when a wife should look good and smell good: at night when she goes to bed and in the morning before her husband leaves for work.” I'm afraid I fail on those counts; I've worn sweatpants and a ponytail pretty much every day for the past month and I smell like spit-up more often than not. The authors go on to talk about getting your “good figure” back and spend several paragraphs on various exercises for postpartum moms. Of course, they also include “Vaginal Exercises” with the helpful comment, “You'll like these more.” I'm sure at some point they will get around to actually caring for your child.
I haven't gotten to the bricklaying section yet, that comes later in the book. It makes sense, a child needs to be at least 3 or 4 before you start letting him play with trowels and construction materials. I think this is my new favorite childcare book, I'm going to start buying it for all my friends.
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