Balance

Before Brooks was born I was pouring through information on stroller travel systems, vaccinations, natural birth techniques and more. Being a parent requires a lot of decision making. One thing that seems increasing more complex is the topic of parenting in general ... more specifically, how to organize your baby's routine, or lack of routine. Here's what I mean ...

I found myself torn between two parenting methods: The hyper-scheduling method (the "let 'em cry it out or they'll be spoiled" folks) and Attachment Parenting (the "never let your baby cry or it could damage his psyche" folks). Of course everything was theory until Brooks arrived. Then it was time to figure this all out.

I liked the idea of establishing a routine (scheduling method), but found I didn't like listening to him cry ... at all. And I liked the idea of rocking my baby to sleep (attachment parenting), but found it was very demanding and sometimes exhausting to do before every nap. But after 6 weeks, I'm happy to say that we've found a pretty good balance.

Brooks eats on a flexible 3 hour schedule following the pattern of eat, awake, sleep. But of course there are days where we deviate from that rhythm. Sometimes he eats every 2 hours or he might go 4 hours between feedings. There are days I'll let him fuss himself to sleep, but if he full out cries/screams, I'll go rock him for a while until he falls asleep. Plus with a little bit of routine, I now have an idea as to why he is crying; whether he's hungry, has gas, needs to be changed, or is tired (never knew babies cried when they were tired ... just thought they fell alseep). We certainly don't have everything figured out, and probably never will. But we sure do know more than we did 6 weeks ago. Just think what we'll know 6 weeks from now!