Should.
I may declare it a curse word in this household.
As a new mother, you can should yourself right into a straight jacket! Your baby really should be sleeping better. Your baby should "self-soothe". He should be napping in his crib. He should be sleeping in his own room. He should nap twice a day. You should have a fixed and elaborate bedtime routine. You should put your baby to bed at 6:30 in the evening. You should give him rice cereal before bed to help him sleep better. You should not give him rice cereal until 6 months. You should make your own dang rice cereal. He should have 20 minutes of tummy time, read fifteen books, listen to 3 hours of classical music and watch 5 Baby Einstein DVDs every day. GAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!
First of all, for almost every person who says that you "should" do something or other with your baby, there are at least 10 more who say that you shouldn't. It's downright maddening. For the most part, I'm coming to realize that it really is all about what works for your baby, and where your motherly instinct leads you. Unless you're a moron. If you are a moron, please run your decisions by someone else. People do some purely insane things with their babies, so we can't exactly claim that all mothers' instincts are on-point strictly by virtue of the fact that they are mothers. Case in point: Britney Spears. If you think it's a good idea to drive down the road with your baby in your lap, you may want to re-evaluate your fitness for decision making, at least when it comes to child rearing.
For many of us (apparently I've decided that I am not, in fact, a moron, but feel free to disagree if you wish), it is not only sufficient but probably even advisable to simply operate under the influence of those "gut feelings" the majority of the time. I used to think that people were being rather relativistic when they said things like "no one knows your baby like you do, so you just have to do what you know is best for your baby". I figured surely there had to be a "right" way to do things, and a bunch of "alternatives" or "short cuts" that would ultimately yield some negative result. But the better I get to know my baby, the more I'm realizing that every child is an individual (just like every adult!), and there's no one-size-fits-all "right way" to do much of anything when it comes to babies.
Now, when it comes to issues of safety, there is certainly a right way to do things. But where and when my baby naps... how long I'll let him fuss before I pick him up... when we start solid foods... when he moves to his own room at night... those are all judgment calls that we have to make on our own. There are many resources we can turn to for guidance: our pediatrician, mommy friends, Google... but at the end of the day, we have to make a call. The final decision will always be shaped by our knowledge of our baby and his preferences, routines, tendencies... and a general "sense" of what works and what doesn't. That last part is difficult to describe, but as you get to know your baby, you also develop a sixth sense for how he will behave in different scenarios. That sixth sense is actually one of the great rewards of parenthood - there's nothing like the vindication of a successful prediction about your baby (particularly when someone else thinks they know different!). I love it when I'm right, especially about him ;) It makes me feel like a good mom who knows her baby well! Of course, as soon as you think you know them, they throw you for a total loop just to keep you on your toes!
Anyway, let's get back on-topic. The zillions of different resources out there can make parenting a very confusing endeavor, if you start trying to "do some research" about one topic or another. Of course there's nothing wrong with investigating different points of view or looking for professional recommendations, if you're up for it, but I've found that it quickly becomes a can of worms that I end up wishing I'd never opened. It's so easy to guilt yourself into believing that you're "doing it all wrong", because invariably you will find someone on some message board somewhere posting about the very thing you've been doing and how her pediatrician told her that's the absolute worst thing you can do for your baby. Maybe it won't be that dramatic, but if you look long and hard enough, you will eventually find some tidbit that makes you doubt yourself. Maybe it'll only make you doubt yourself a little tiny bit at first, but for first-time parents, doubt may as well be bacterial meningitis. It's highly infectious and spreads rapidly, and before you know it you're on death's door. While doubt won't kill you, of course, it certainly has the potential to kill your confidence which in turn will kill your joy.
Then again, maybe some amount of doubt is healthy if it drives us to be thorough in our research and understanding of the issues we face as parents. Maybe that doubt will motivate us to exercise the appropriate amount of caution when it comes to caring for our precious children. One could certainly argue that over-confidence can be just as harmful as paralyzing doubt, when that confidence is misplaced (a la Britney Spears). If you're too sure of yourself and never take a moment to doubt yourself, how much damage could you end up doing if it turned out that you were wrong? With questions like oatmeal vs. rice cereal, maybe the damage won't be too hefty. With higher-stakes questions, maybe we ought not be too sure of ourselves.
So, what's the take-home message? I'm not really sure (there's that pesky doubt again... ha!). All I know is that so far, for us, letting Eli take the lead on most things is working out well. He's progressing on-pace with other kids his age without any forcing or "training" or prodding from us! Maybe he's not sleeping through the night anymore, for example, but lots of babies his age go through this so-called "4 month sleep regression" (so many that there's a name for it!). I could fight it and try some sort of "sleep training" method, or I can accept that that's just where we are. If it's so common to babies his age, I'd be willing to bet that there's a developmental purpose behind the extra overnight feedings. I could fight it and try to force him into a sleep pattern that's more convenient for me, or I can wake up 3 or 4 times for about 15 minutes each to give my baby a little snuggle and provide him with the nutrition that his little body is obviously craving. He'll sleep through again when he's ready. Perhaps if the sleep deprivation was getting bad enough that it was interfering with my ability to function at a job and provide a roof over his head, I'd consider trying to "do something about it" - I'm not in that situation so I'm not going to pass judgment on other parents in different situations who do choose to try to "sleep train". But that's exactly what I'm talking about - for most things, it really is all about "what works for you".
Personally, I feel that whatever is natural for him is probably what's best for him. God designed my baby the way He did for a reason. Eli is too young to be manipulating his routines and manufacturing "needs" that he doesn't really have - if he's asking for something, it's because he needs it. Heck, even if he just wants it (my nearly-18-pound baby clearly isn't hurting for nutrition, for example), he's too little to discern any difference between a want and a need. He just feels compelled by something and fusses til he gets it, and it's confusing and scary to an infant to have his primary caregivers stop responding to a need that he perceives. That's why I'm opposed to the idea of "sleep training" at this stage, or any kind of "training" for that matter (particularly when it involves "crying it out". Don't get me started.) As he gets older, we will gradually assume responsibility for shaping his behavior to ensure that he establishes healthy eating and sleeping habits, good social behavior, etc. But for now, he is driven by a combination of natural internal instincts and feelings of physical or emotional discomfort, none of which are "moldable", nor should they be ignored. As he assumes more cognitive control over his behavior, we will begin to shape that behavior in developmentally appropriate ways. I just believe that "training" is developmentally inappropriate at this stage.
Well now that we've brought that tangent to a close, I suppose we can wrap up this entire post. I'm not sure that I really had much of a point to make, but I think that we explored some interesting territory anyway :)
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