Before becoming a parent I did a lot of thinking about it. Mostly about how awful it looked from the outside sometimes. I worked with young children in my past and I didn't find it hard, but I would see all these struggles parents had and all these things the parents wanted to be different and wanted some control over. It seemed like one long power struggle for some people.
This was long before I read up on any child-rearing practices, I was totally out of the loop on so many things, but it seemed like the average American parent was doing it all wrong. One of my biggest anxieties about becoming a parent was, in fact, toilet training. I did pretty horribly at it as a child and wasn't really accident free until I was 11 or 12 years-old. This caused me a lot of shame and humiliation growing up. I felt deeply that something was horribly wrong with me. But I just didn't see an answer to it. But when I stumbled across Elimination Communication (EC), I felt a huge sense of relief. I bought the book "Diaper Free," read it in about two days and cried; I cried a lot. I was happy and also looked back on my own childhood and felt like finally I wasn't the one who was wrong, I just grew up in a diaper-obsessed culture. I KNEW I was going to do EC with my children; then toilet training wasn't a question anymore.
To me, EC is the natural route, diapers and toilet training later in life is some invention of modern society that has some pretty hefty pitfalls.
Breastfeeding was another no brainer for me. Now that I've done it for ten weeks I can assure any mothers-to-be that breastfeeding is the easiest and best way to feed your baby, it's hard for the first month, but after that, it's way simpler than prepping formula and cleaning bottles. I will have to pump, but, honestly, if I could never pump, or only pump a few times a month when I need to be away from baby, I would, but this would mean not working. Pumping appears to still be easier than formula, but it's going to be a little hard. Feeding from the breast requires no extra cleaning, prepping, storage, or anything really, and you can do it without getting out of bed. It's magic.
Once I learned that a lot of people world-wide co-sleep, that also suddenly seemed like the easiest and best solution. Baby leaves the bed when he's ready. He feels secure in the knowledge that his parents will be there for him night or day. I remember not feeling this security, wanting my parents but knowing they would be mad I was out of bed. I don't want my children to ever not feel they can go to me, being present at night will help give my son this feeling. I'm honestly not worried about him not being able to fall asleep on his own. He's a baby! He won't be a baby for long, someday he will put himself to bed. I might as well enjoy these times we have together and just go ahead and end the anxiety over sleep before it even begins. Another struggle I'm not going to engage in.
Another thing I learned of very recently is baby-led weaning, a super simple, super logical approach to solids. I will never have to buy baby food or make purees. It's all about trusting that your child will eat solids as he is ready. No spoon feeding, no worry about how much solids he is getting. I am so happy a friend told me about this. Food; as a person who has suffered from an eating disorder, I am so glad I have found a way to make it a non-issue in the beginning. I also hope to avoid the sugary, refined, tasteless kids foods. My parents did really well with avoiding those, I don't think we ever had fish crackers or Kraft Mac and Cheese or Spaghettios or graham crackers or even white bread. I was never a picky eater growing up. I'm still a very adventurous eater, and super proud of it. I'm amazed at how many fully grown adults are still very picky, maybe some of it is genetics, but I think a bunch of it is how we were introduced to foods and the attitudes surrounding food when we grew up. I'm going to serve my baby the food we eat as much as possible, it's what he will be expected to eat later.
So I guess a lot of what I really get excited and passionate about in parenting are things that avoid struggles with my children. So many times I feel that I see unhappy parents and unhappy kids, when it seems like they could both be happy with just a little bit of changes and some more realistic expectations. It seems like a lot of people are trying to force their children to do something that's probably completely unnatural to the developing child; like formula, spoon feeding, diapering, toilet training. I think if something is forced and something is causing a parent so much stress and worry and anxiety, it's probably worth doing something else.
It's normal to wonder if they are getting enough to eat, but it's another thing to force them to finish something they clearly aren't enjoying. That's not fun for anyone!
My goal will be to avoid as many struggles as possible and to have tons of fun. We can do it!
No comments:
Post a Comment