Becoming a new mother is daunting enough in and of itself but when you add to that a plethora of parenting advice from your well-meaning family members, your neighbor and the candlestick maker (all-being well intentioned) it can be hard to filter through what is actually necessary or even feels right when it comes to doing the best for you and your little one.
Here are a few parenting tips that I’m glad I took with a pinch of salt during the first few months (or even years) of my journey as a mother. That’s not to say that if you do follow these tips that there is anything wrong, in fact – that’s great!
But in the case that you are doing the things below and feel pressure coming from all angles for you to stop, I hope this post allows you to find rest in the knowledge that you don’t have to!
So here goes, myth number one…
Parenting advice #1. Nursing your baby to sleep is a “bad habit”
I can’t count the amount of times I was warned against nursing my baby to sleep, or the hours I spent frantically googling what doom awaited me if I was to continue providing my daughter with a “sleep crutch”.
But through the loud voices of advice and ideas, a quiet voice inside of me urged me to continue following the path I had chosen in breastfeeding my child to sleep.
Slowly but surely I came across other women and coaches who empowered me to follow my path, reminding me that nursing a baby to sleep is the most natural thing a mother can do and not only that, it is developmentally appropriate and ‘helps a baby’s emotional health by making him feel safe, secure, calm and content’ according to International Board Certified Lactation Consultant Philippa Pearson-Glaze.
But of course, you already knew that, it’s just that outdated, western models of parenting have become so loud in our ears that it’s not surprising how often we find ourselves battling between our maternal instincts and mainstream parenting advice.
Yes, if you need to create a routine and know that nursing your baby to sleep just won’t work for you that’s great.
But, if you have a choice and you’re wondering who to listen to, follow you heart mama. This is your journey and , maintaining that you are breastfeeding in safe positions for both you and your babe, you get to do it how YOU want.
2. Let them cry it out
OK, so, I know the ‘cry it out’ method of getting your little one to sleep works for a lot of parents and, depending on your circumstances, it might be the only option so, fair play. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it…
To take a quote from Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate’s book ‘Hold onto Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter more than Peers‘:
“Adults who ground their parenting in a solid relationship with the child parent intuitively. They do not have to resort to techniques or manuals but act from understanding and empathy”.
So, I’m far from being a perfect parent, but the idea of intuitive parenting as opposed to following external impetus on how to raise our children really resonates with me. I don’t think there’s a parent out there who has tried the cry it out method and not had some sort of instinct to go into soothe and cuddle their child, because well, since the times of our ancestors, that’s what our babies have needed: constant attention, feeding and soothing.
I was today years old when I found out that there were scientists in the 20th century, such as behaviorist John Watson, who warned against the ‘dangers of too much mother love’. Pffff, sorry, what?
It can be pretty grueling though to go through a three hour bed time session every night or even not be able to get rest until the early hours or the morning and if you are literally on your last straw and need a break then using the ‘cry it out’ method really may be the best solution for you.
But, if you are loving the journey of soothing on demand and feel confused by contradictory parenting advice, follow your instincts and don’t look back.
OK, So now for the piece of parenting advice I DID actually follow… partially…
3. Co-sleeping is dangerous
So yea, this is the piece of parenting advice that I personally DID follow for the first year due to the risk of SIDS.
However, I do feel I was much more frightened of co-sleeping than I needed to be in the sense that as a new mother, I really had NO idea if what I was doing was the right thing as I was pretty uninformed. (Thank you for getting me through Google!)
I was pretty happy with our baby’s cot nestled beside our bed for a good year before we even started to think of venturing into co-sleeping – which we transitioned into pretty naturally when our daughter started noticing what was going on with the sleeping arrangement situation and, understandably, didn’t want to be left out!
After a bit of research, I discovered that co-sleeping is in fact very common in a lot of cultures, even with two or more children sleeping in the parents’ bed up to the age of 5 or more. Somehow this information gave me permission to relax and not feel so guilty that I was going against some sort of cardinal rule by allowing my one year old to sporadically snuggle with us at bedtime.
Still today, we share a bed with our two and a half year old and are loving it. She has her own bed in the next room and I’m sure at some point we’ll get there.