It’s taken me a long time to write this. It’s taken meeting a lot of amazing mums, reading a lot of helpful and horrendous parenting books and muddling through for 14 months to get my head round it. But this is my philosophy on the crazy adventure of parenting.
There is no ‘should’ in parenting. There is no ‘should’ or ‘should not’ with regards to dummies, breastfeeding, babywearing, co-sleeping, routines, weaning or anything else. There is no time or age when your baby ‘should’ sleep through the night, stop feeding, spend time away from you or anything else. Just because books say they should, or your friend from NCT’s baby is, or your mum claimed you had by that age, does not mean your baby ‘should’.
It’s a cliche but it’s absolutely true - every baby is different. And the person who knows your baby best is your baby. And they will let you know what they like, what they don’t like, what they need and what unsettles them. Our job as parents is to learn to listen to what they are telling us and to respect that.
Some babies love to snuggle all night, some like their own space; some can nod off easily, some need a lot of help; some can handle every day being different, some are like clockwork. Fighting your baby’s nature is a losing battle. You may wish that your baby would nap for 2 hours at the same time every day, in the cot, and go 6 hours without a feed, and everyone may tell you they ‘should’, so if they don’t it’s easy to blame yourself. It’s so easy to wonder what you’ve done wrong, how different they would be with another mummy, why you can’t get your baby to do all these things they ‘should’ do.
Bu there is no ‘should’ in parenting. Your baby will let you know how they like things to be - usually whatever is most inconvenient for you - and you’ve just got to learn to listen and roll with it. That sounds so easy but in reality it can be frustrating, time-consuming, exhausting, even disappointing. It can take a lot of strength and patience to let go of what you wish your baby would do and accept things the way they are, especially when your baby’s reality seems so different from what you imagined.
That’s not to say that if there are aspects of life with your baby that are not working for you that you just have to accept it. Babies do need to learn to sleep independently, eat vegetables, be picked up by strangers and all kinds of other things that may not come naturally to them. So as their parent we need to create safe, loving, supportive environments for this learning to take place. Learning requires failing so these things can be tough. But it’s so important to recognise frustration as part of a learning process from fear and anxiety. Pushing babies to learn things that they are not developmentally ready to do, even if you’ve been led to believe they ‘should’ be, is bound to backfire. It could even end up teaching them a very different and undesirable lesson.
So ignore what anyone says you and your baby ‘should’ do. Lean on your village - whether that’s your family, your friends, your facebook group, your favourite blogs - for support and ideas when you need them, but don’t compare and don’t let them give you doubt. Trust your baby and trust your instincts. Listen to your baby and listen to your heart.
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