"Says Who?"
I've been thinking a lot on the things that are driving me nuts about motherhood, the main stress factors, the things that are keeping me from enjoying my babies. They all go away with a good resounding angry* "Says who?"
For example:
I breast feed my twins. It's how they get their food, and it's also how I put them to sleep. Someone said to me "They're using you as a pacifier," like that's a bad thing. I thought about it a great deal and came to the conclusion "Who said it's a bad thing?" Is it a bad thing? A lot of people say it, "Don't let him use you as a pacifier!" but no one ever says why that would be so horrible. So instead of sitting around chewing my nails and fretting that I'm being so ill used, I let it go. I still put them to sleep by nursing them and see nothing wrong with it.
This brings up some other bits of child rearing advice: "They need to learn to put themselves to sleep." Says who? Ask yourself how you put yourself to sleep. Do you read a book? Watch an hour or two of tv? Have a glass of wine? Take a pill? Why do we expect a baby to do what we can't seem to manage? After all, we tell older kids bed time stories to help them sleep. This advice would call that practice into question. If a baby must learn to fall asleep on their own what business does a child, or an adult for that matter, have using any form sleep aid?
Here's the parenting breakthrough that just might cure my post postpartum depression. It's not so much advice as it is an assumption, a myth, that a lot of advice stems from. A myth that puts a lot of pressure on mothers who have enough on their plate already:
Sleeping through the night.
I can hear some of you now saying, "Hold up Miss MioneBeast. My babies slept through the night at X number of months!" To you I say, congrats. That's very peachy for you and I'm sure that was lovely. But let's get real. I'd like to know "who said?" Who said babies should sleep through the night? I was getting so frustrated with my babies, until it hit me, I don't sleep through the night. I haven't for years before I got pregnant. I'd have to pee, or finish the next chapter in that good book I'm reading, or been stressed out about something, or had a bad dream, and I won't even get into all the new nighttime fun that came into my life when I got married (like a snoring husband ;) ). Sure, we'd all love a nice 7, 8 or 9 hours of uninterrupted blessed deep sleep. But when does that ever happen? After you take a sleep aid? So, I had to ask myself once again, "why do I expect my babies to master something at 5 months that I haven't mastered at 27 years?" I don't dread nights now that I know I'm not doing anything wrong and neither are my babies.
I have a theory on who said, when it comes to baby advice that only stresses us out and makes us feel like bad moms. A man. That's who. Some man who's never been pregnant, never given birth and has no mother's instinct said it. It may have even been the same man in the 1890's that first said "Children should be seen, not heard." To him I say, "Then look at a picture, mister smarty-pants." Clearly he never had to see a set of twin boys through learning to crawl, teething and a growth spurt all at once. And do you know why he thinks it's so easy to dole out his great wonderful advice? Because while his wife was doing all the hard work, he was at work. Then when he got home, he left her to do more hard work while he went to the bar and smoked cigars with his buddies.
So I say, a nice resounding angry* "No" to all nonsense.
*We don't use anger enough. We repress it when we really should use it, smile politely when we should take a stand and lay down as a door matt for people to wipe their feet on when we should stand up for ourselves. We do not have to tolerate rudeness, or take anyone's nonsense. Christ didn't smile nicely and tolerate the money changers in the temple.
Vivian! THANK YOU! Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you...
ReplyDeleteVivian, you make some great points! Two more assumptions you'll encounter (at least I did) are that babies should be eating solid food at four months or six months or whatever, and that they should be eating chunky food at eight months, and finger food at a year, and off baby food at least by a year. I have said more than once - says who? And why? The second one might not apply to you if you don't bottle feed as well, but there's a huge community that says babies MUST be off bottles by 12 month. I still can't figure out why. I mean, 13 months is just like 12 months, and for that matter, so is 18 months! Either way, I'm glad to hear you're having fun, Tricia
ReplyDeleteAll babies are different. There is not one thing that will work for all babies all the time. I want you to know that when babies "sleep through the night", it doesn't mean that they won't ever wake up during the night, it means that they won't wake you up to feed them or play with them during the night.
ReplyDeleteRight now, the babies think that when they wake up during the night they need to be fed, because that's what they have been doing. They are being taught to eat during the night because that's what babies do from the beginning of their lives. However, there comes a point when that is no longer necessary. And we as parents need to teach them that they no longer need to eat during the night. (Our roll as parents it to teach our children.) So if you would like them to learn that they don't have to eat in the middle of the night, then you need to teach them that. It will probably take a few nights of getting up several times to reassure them that you are there, but don't actually pick them up or feed them. And after a few nights they will no longer cry for you when they wake up in the middle of the night. It's definitely not an easy time during those nights, because it's hard to leave them when they are crying, but it certainly is worth it in the long run. It will actually make life much easier, not harder.
Remember, our children will not just learn everything on their own. We are here to teach them. That is why God has entrusted these sweet little beings in our care. They will learn what we teach them, but later in life, that doesn't mean they will always chose to do what we teach them. It's all a part of life.