Advice for Early Parenting

When my daughter was born I read two books that significantly took the stress out of early parenting for me: The Happiest Baby on the Block, by Dr. Harvey Karp, and The Attachment Parenting Book, by Dr. William Sears. I learned an invaluable lesson about babies and kids and being a parent. In a nutshell, look at things through their eyes and go with your gut. There's another approach to parenting. It involves following rules developed by parenting authorities and using black-and-white techniques that blanket every baby and every parent with the same goals. The second approach is what I had acquired naturally from my own rearing and watching other parents around me. It set me up for a serious case of nerves when I became a parent myself. All the rules about scheduling and letting your baby "cry it out" so she would gain independence set my head spinning. And it felt so unnatural. How did maternal instincts fit into following everyone else's rules? I'm someone who likes to study and make sense out of anything anyone else suggests. And I confess I couldn't always see the connection between a screaming, flailing newborn stinging my maternal nerves raw and a happy, functional family.

The Happiest Baby on the Block is a book about soothing techniques for newborns. Dr. Karp has five simple tricks to help a baby feel secure in his new life outside the womb: swaddling, sucking on something, swinging (being in some kind of rhythmic motion), shooshing (some kind of white noise), and side- or stomach-lying. They all mimic conditions the baby experienced in the womb and was robbed of at birth. For the first three or four months, a baby is just simply going nuts without all of the womb-like stimulation and security he had for nine months. Providing it all for him results in a calm, secure baby. I started reading the book and felt every fiber of my being give a giant "WHEW!" Suddenly, baby-handling clicked. I knew what to do for my daughter to make her comfortable and confident. Which meant I as a parent could be comfortable and confident! Eureka! My world as a brand new, insecure mother transformed. It was like I had never known what a baby was until I read that book and learned about her world and her needs in such an intricate way. You mean babies aren't just complicated little devils who have to undergo forceful restrictions about eating and sleeping and waking and holding and comforting in order to turn into well-rounded children? All of my instincts to find some way to bring security and comfort to her world weren't just naughty impulses to spoil my kid or gain myself some peace and quiet? I felt like a woman with a right to be a mother and all of the tools necessary for the job.

On finishing the first book, I read The Attachment Parenting Book. I had read The Pregnancy Book by Dr. William and Martha Sears when I was expecting, and deeply valued the insightful advice and information in it. So when I learned Dr. Sears is a well respected pediatrician, I started looking into some other books by him. The Attachment Parenting Book passionately upholds parents being in tune with their children, from babies on up. Sears urges parents to breastfeed, wear their babies in slings, and co-sleep. (Sears also has a book called Nighttime Parenting encouraging bed-sharing and offering all kinds of little known but well researched support for it. He has done many studies himself showing that babies who sleep with their parents are healthier, more confident, have better regulated sleep cycles and breathing, and are at less risk of SIDS, to name a few benefits shared thoroughly in the book.) He also discusses the value of setting and maintaining clear boundaries for your children, and finding parenting methods that are fine-tuned specifically to your family and baby. As I read through the book, I felt my self-awareness as a mother being bolstered and boosted. I began to realize that the most effective parent is a confident, at-ease parent. One who approaches the baby or toddler (or beyond) with a clear perception of the child's view and needs, and with a strong notion of his/her ability to know what's good for the child and the family. It really is true that "a happy mom is a good mom" and moms and dads alike need to find the balance in their parenting that feels right and works for them. Sears says the way to do that is to be in tune with your kid, and the way to be in tune with your kid involves the intimate, constant contact naturally nurtured through breastfeeding, baby-wearing, and bed-sharing.

I'm pretty passionate about the truth behind these two books and the approach to parenting they encourage. I've watched parents and their little ones and have seen that the ones who know and respond to their baby's/toddler's needs have calmer, more polite, less needy children. While the ones who spout some baby rule about not giving into their baby's crying or about ignoring a bad behavior because it is a cry for attention have babies who cry a lot and kids who whine and cling and act up. Now, of course nothing is black and white. And anyone who truly loves and nurtures their kid will be a successful parent with beautiful, well-rounded children to some extent no matter what parenting method they use. But I think our baby-training rules set parents up to the expectation that their kid should respond with a black-and-white, tailored, perfect baby result, when in fact all babies have different personalities and all families have different needs regarding routine. And they make parents terrified that if they don't follow the rules the right way, they will ruin their kid, and everyone will see their kid and know that those parents didn't do it right. When in reality, some babies never stop crying, whether you let them cry it out or not. And some babies could be significantly helped with their stress if mom and dad knew it was okay to pick them up and wrap them up tight and let them sleep on their chest or at mom's breast. And so many frantic mothers who haven't slept in days could benefit from knowing that taking her baby to bed with her at night and letting baby nurse and sleep all night would mean that she could sleep too, every night, all night. No more repeated trips to the nursery in the dead of night to sit in an uncomfortable rocking chair with your neck and back breaking from fatigue, tears streaming down your face because your whole being is screaming for sleep but isn't getting any because baby needs to eat every two hours, and everyone has told you that has to take place in the rocking chair in the nursery, and then when the baby is finally done eating and you are overjoyed to put her back in her crib and go get a few winks before the next feeding, the baby screams at you because he is overwrought with horrible agony to be stuck all alone in his mini isolation chamber, and you try to tell your overwrought baby and your overwrought self to buck up, because you are just trying to be a good mommy and follow the rules so your kid will grow up feeling secure and happy. Does this method of parenting make sense to any mother who's in the thick of actually trying to pull it off? I guess it does to those lucky few whose babies respond the "right" way in a short amount of time.

A new mom I know summed things up really well when I complimented her on her calm newborn. She said, "If you are calm and secure, they will be calm and secure." It's true. A baby is influenced by any tension or peace that you feel. So is a toddler. So is any pre-adult human. If he knows he is in confident hands he will trust you and respond to you and the world around him with acceptance. Whereas if you are feeling stress about your ability to parent well, it will translate to him that maybe he can't trust you. If you worry about failing the test because you may not get the "right" results from the rules, the kid will be insecure in you as a parent. And he will be driven crazy by the constant underlying sense of expectation that you are covertly burdening him with (meaning, you will be watching for all of the results that are supposed to happen because of the rules you follow). Whereas a kid whose mom and dad are in tune with him isn't spoiled or over attended to-he's acknowledged. His parents truly do know what is good for him, because they know him, not just what parenting authorities say about kids in general. And they've set boundaries based on him and their specific family and found ways to make sure the boundaries are clear to him. Which means he can trust them and respect their decisions. He is responded to appropriately for his individual needs and respected as a unique, real person. He feels cherished and affirmed. He gains a natural, healthy level of independence as he develops into an adult. And he is more likely to maintain a natural, respectful, significant relationship with his parents. A child who is raised by the "rules and expectations" method is more likely to experience rejection (because no child will contribute the predicted behavior to every rule of the parenting method), and will therefore be more likely to reject his parents by distancing himself from them and their expectations.

Understanding and close contact and continual involvement are the natural urge of a new parent's heart. They're there for a reason. They are effective, prosperous, healthy, enriching parenting skills that grow stronger over time as they are practiced in early parenthood and beyond. And following your gut regarding your little one is worth it, because it creates in you the ultimate confidence that can not be gained from following another person's rules, no matter how well you do it or how well your kid turns out. And a confident parent can accomplish much more good in the upbringing of their child than a parenting book full of rules.