In the spirit of the holidays, I'd like to offer an apology to everyone that has a child under the age of three.
I have thought terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad things about you, your child, and - mostly - your parenting. Especially you non Babywise folks.
It all started roughly 30 months ago when we were blessed with our darling Bailey. We had read the Babywise book, had friends who successfully implemented the Parent Directed Feeding theory, and knew that we bought into the school of thought. The first weeks were rocky, but hey - you spend nine months growing up inside your mommy's tummy and then pop out on a perfect 3 hour eat-wake-sleep cycle. But by the time Bailey was just a few weeks old, she was in a routine and on a pretty good schedule. As the weeks went by, she just rolled with the punches: extending wake times, transitioning to life in Paraguay, and lengthening her eat-wake-sleep cycles first to 3.5 hours, then to four.
Perfect.
What do you mean you were nursing every two hours all day long? Isn't your kid like FOUR months old?
"Growth spurt" you say??? Suuuuuure. You just need to let that kid cry.it.out.
She's not sleeping through the night? Hummmm...maybe you should read "THE" book. Duh.
Can you PLEASE stop posting on Facebook about your little one not taking good naps! It's your gosh-darn fault. Buck-up! Be the parent! Adjust wake times and figure it out!
That's just a sampling of what has rolled around in my head as I read your posts about the woes of motherhood. I may have replied "So sorry! Hope the rest of the day turns around for you" . . . but that's not what I was thinking. Definitely not.
And while I'm being honest, my running holier-than-thou commentary wasn't reserved just for the non-Babywise moms. No, you fellow schedule Mommies were subject to scrutiny, too, as you struggled with extending the wake times, dropping naps, dealt with interruptions to the day. My pride welled up and I just couldn't understand what your problem was. If you would just do Babywise "right"- whatever that is - you wouldn't have any problems.
Man did I have it coming.
And I got it.
In a word: Boston.
This kid has been "trouble" since day one. And God has been using her to soften my spirit, reveal a whole lot of "junk" in my heart that I (still) have to deal with, and humble me as a parent, well, as a person in general.
Because I did nurse her every two hours, all weekend long when she was about two months old and "should" have been on a solid three hour schedule. Growth spurt? Maybe. I dunno.
Because she didn't magically sleep through the night one night like she "should" have. It was on our doctors recommendation that we just let her cry - for over an hour the first night - when she was about three months old. In his words: "she's too big to need that 3AM feeding."
Because she's an erratic napper; the things that disturb her one day (i.e. the police setting up a checkpoint outside her window), don't bother her the next. The blender that doesn't wake her up one week, does on the following try. Some days morning naps are two hours long. Somedays (like today) they're 45 minutes. She wakes up happy, but that's not how it's "supposed" to be.
And the list goes on.
And I've learned to let go . . . and eat my humble pie as I watch our crazy, unpredictable, fickle baby play contentedly on the floor.
She will never be the perfect poster-child for Babywise, and neither will I be a perfect mother. That was out the window long before I even got started.
And I will read posts about other crazy, unpredictable, fickle children with a heart full of empathy, and a soul aching for forgiveness for all the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad things I thought.
