I stand alone

I have never considered myself one of those "out there" or "fringe" parents in my parenting style. For the most part, I can line up my views with several of my other friends. Usually not all of them but with each given point, I can find a majority and for each given thing, there is usually one or two outliers in the wings. This is not so unexpected. I am alone with my church friends. I am pretty sure all alone in that I don't send my child to a preschool. But I still have my trusty college friends that help me out there.

But there is one area where I am all alone. I haven't asked everyone but I am pretty sure that I am either the only one that has done this or maybe I will find one other person. And it's me and my child's sleep.

It all started with Andrew. When Andrew was 4 months old, my pediatrician told me that he was getting enough nutrition in the day and I could let him cry it out at his 2 AM bottle if I wanted. So I borrowed/stole my mom's copy of Ferber's book - How to solve your child's sleep problem and I followed it step by step. I called it Andrew's boot camp. I weaned him off an ounce at a time but then I took it away completely when he was down to 2 ounces. And he screamed. I would give him back his pacifer every 10 minutes at 1st and then as the night went on, I made it longer and eventually he would go back to sleep. This lasted..I want to say 3 nights and then he slept through the night and has ever since. I can be pretty emotionally detached to screaming babies when I think that I am doing the right thing. The crying did not phase me.

Along comes Peter. I tried the same thing. At 4 months, I could tell he just wasn't ready so I waited until 6 months. He wasn't consistent about drinking the middle of the night bottle so I think I just stopped cold turkey with him. He cried two nights. He is not the best sleeper so occasionally I will feed him a little earlier in the morning than I would like and even sometimes in the middle of the night but then he will go back to sleep. I do think he is legitimately hungry and I only think that this crying it out thing works if you can break a consistent pattern. So when it's not consistent, I feed him. I am not heartless towards the kid. Oh but wait...you probably think that I am.

You see I have had many friends tell me that their child (anywhere from the ages of 6 months to 2 years old) still nurses/bottles in the middle of the night. And they don't know what to do. I dispense my advice because it works and really...what else can you do? You either feed them or you don't. So I haven't had any friends that will directly look at me like I am on Mars but I am pretty sure that several of them think it and in their heads are saying "I would never do that". In general, I don't care if people have differing parenting views than me. I may think you are fringe and I may not do it with my own child but rarely do I think things "that decision is really not the best thing for the child.". I would probably only think that if the person was abusive. Okay and there may be some other gray area like if you fed your child nothing but candy all day. I still may not be out and out judgmental about it but it's possible that I would think that the decision may not be the best one. And like my overprotective parent post, I try not to be judgmental of my friends that let their kids play with matches or run in the street but I am less likely to leave them alone with my child. What they do with their child I sort of see as their own business (but I may pray for your kid's safety :)).

So that leaves me wondering about other people. Do other people just say "oh crying it out..good for her. Not for me". Or do people think that I am totally heartless towards my child and they can't believe that I would do such a thing. Maybe they would be surprised to find out that I actually believe that crying it out is not only convenient for me (I reallllly love sleep) but I also do it because I believe it is the *best* thing for my child because you see, I have read an entire book on how it is important to develop strong sleep patterns at an early age. The only thing that I don't do is my babies have always had pacifiers and I am not leaning towards making Peter cry that out.

So I joke with my mom about standing alone with my Ferber book. She is the one that gave me the book and she doesn't even do it. She used to be judgmental towards people that had family beds with older children. She ate those words. I wasn't trying to be judgmental with my overprotective parent post but it is pretty ironic that I had to call poison control two days after I wrote it.


Next parenting post in my head...why it is infinitely easier to associate with people who discipline their child.