Hellobee Boards

I had to just kind of play it by ear once my baby arrived. There were things I swore I would, or wouldn't, do that turned out to be the total opposite in real life. You just have to do what works. This quote pretty much sums up my first year of motherhood - "Let my words, like vegetables, be tender and sweet, for tomorrow I may have to eat them."

@loveisstrange: @grizz: I totally agree with both of you. There are a million things I never thought I would do, or I thought I would do but didn't because I make choices based on my child alone. There are lots of experts that wrote books, but none of them have ever been my child's mother.

@loveisstrange: +1

There were many philosophies I loved that just didn't work for my baby at all. For example, I was positive I would have baby sleep in our room for a million different reasons that I could have detailed in-depth. But then he was actually born, and I quickly discovered that every little noise he made in his sleep woke me up, and then when I woke up he would wake up. After a couple months of zero sleep and a very crabby family, we switched it up and life got a million times better. There were other strategies I thought would be a last resort that ended up working super well for my baby once we made our way there. And some stuff I'd heard was super helpful, like EASY scheduling, did nothing but make me a miserable clock-watcher.

Basically, I wish I'd spent a lot less time trying to make these strategies work. There was so many thoughts of, "If I just keep being consistent..." and driving myself nuts with all my reasons of why this way was supposed to be better. I wish I'd been more open to trying new strategies much sooner than I was. Once I let that stuff go everything got so much easier.

@Torchwood: we've gone nearly exclusively with our guts, with a healthy dose of logic. If an idea makes sense with what we know about our kid (and what I know about kids in general; I studied early childhood development) and it also feels right when we're doing it then it becomes part of our parenting. Most of our parenting decisions revolve around respect and that's something we decided before having our kid.

I read about RIE before our son was born and liked a lot of it, but not all of it. I thought AP was nut balls back then, but we practice a lot of that now. I totally feel you on having a game plan and I'm glad I had some strategies/ideas in mind before he was born. I just try to stay flexible.

Trial and error. In the moment, you will try every thing you can think of and you'll stick with what works for you and your baby. I don't have a philosophy, I have a baby who has individual needs.

I don't subscribe to any set parenting "philosophies"; I think we try to categorize life too much these days. My parenting decisions were based on doing what worked, following my gut and using common sense. We were not fans of co-bedding prior to kids, but it got LO to immediately STTN, and now I'm a big fan. Swaddling made her super-ragey so we quit that, even though beforehand, I thought for sure we would swaddle. Parenting is a lot trial by fire; you just do what you need to do and what works for you and your family.

I just kind of roll with it for now. Try things out, if they work, keep doing them. If someone is dogmatic about one philosophy and it works, great. I'm sure they are smug about it lol. And if not, well, it's nice to have other tricks in your back pocket, ya know?

My husbands favorite quote for the early days of parenting is "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face." (Mike Tyson, about boxing, not parenting a newborn, but it works)

Agree with everyone that we go with what works for us and our baby. I will read advice things but pick and choose what I think will work for us.

@Torchwood: I went to school for ECE/child development and while I found that useful I also just had to go with what my baby preferred! I thought we'd do more baby wearing and what not but AP wasn't for us. (And it's not the only way to foster attachment anyway.) I personally found that too much reading made me anxious with mommy guilt so there's that too. There comes a point where you also have to balance what works in your family with your ideal parenting philosophy.

Basically it's a lot of trial and error but you'll get there!

@Torchwood: for me with regards to montessori, it never feels like the right time to introduce the ideas. At 21 months my LO is just now showing interest in using toys the way they are intended to be used. I tried giving him "work" in the mintessori style and he didn't get it at all. Only recently has he shown any interest in arts and crafts a la Waldorf. I try to introduce and when I spend time putting together an activity that is rejected, that can feel frustrating. So about two months ago I stopped all that foolishness and have let him lead our activities. If I'm being completely honest, when I see pictures of six month olds doing "work" I roll my eyes! I'm just mentioning all this to say....these methods are great but try not to judge yourself or LO by a standard that they set out. There is more than one way to skin a cat, you know? Don't get me wrong...Montessori is fantastic , Waldorf is great, RIE is cool....but they are only a few decades old. A lot of what they endorse is what parents have been doing from the dawn of time, they just didn't have a book for it! So I try to feel comfortable mixing and matching.

@grizz: i love that quote! now that dd is here, there are things that i thought were weird pre-kids and now i TOTALLY get.

@Weagle: a thousand times yes to your words too!

@Cole: and i was totally going to tell @Torchwood: that i like reading and researching as well to have different tools in my toolbox. my GFs and i call it: guess and check. doesn't work? move on! ha.

@Torchwood: @scg00387: I think I'm similar to the two of you. Yes, I do listen to my gut, but my gut tells me to research and read and study and make informed choices.
@scg00387 is right, it's very odd to me that people find it perfectly normal to research strollers and bottles for countless hours, but then think that you shouldn't research parenting methods.
Of course reading and being prepared is going to be helpful. Of course you don't know exactly how everything is going to work with your particular child, but being armed with ideas and scientific studies to guide your approaches certainly can't hurt!

To answer your question? I decide based on scientific research plus my gut feeling. I think humans are programmed to feel, at least to some extent, what's right for their child.
If something feels wrong, it probably is. If I naturally want to keep my baby close, nurse her when she cries, and sleep inches away? That's probably what my child needs.

So far it's working.

When I had D almost 7 years ago, I knew nothing of the philosophies. I just did what worked. Now that I know about them, I can see where what I have dobe with him would line up with certain aspects of them. But I wouldn't dive all in to one particular view point. I just do what is working for our family.

Instinct is the best and it goes back to caveman times.

1. I ignore almost all unsolicited advice. (Sometimes this means I have to pretend that I never had certain conversations with my mom!)

2. I do some reading to get ideas.

3. I research problems as they arise.

4. I choose which solutions work best for my family. If necessary, I implement trial and error.

5. I try not to get stuck in a particular mindset or philosophy. Very few hills are worth dying on when it comes to parenting.

6. I try to pick my battles. Most things are not worth obsessing over. Some are important to me. Those are where I try to concentrate my efforts.

This isn't rocket science. It's important work, and it's unrelenting, but if you love your kid and figure out how to set appropriate limits then the details will fall into place.

@scg00387: @Arden: @Torchwood: I think I fall into this camp. I definitely research but don't subscribe to one philosophy in its entirety.
When I am deciding whether to do something #1 is that it works for our whole family, not just baby. Sometimes that ended up being baby led, sometimes not.
My husband and I discuss a lot. He works with abused and neglected children so he really prioritizes making sure LO is happy and attached. He is not on-board with anything like CIO. He is less likely to worry about the smaller things (eating habits, discipline, etc). I worry about those exact things because I am the one spending the most time with her alone and food throwing got old a year ago, lol.

I go with my gut when it feels like we are heading in the right direction with a new intervention or plan but I HAVE to research to get ideas to try. I do not naturally know how to stop the food throwing or minimize stress during meal times or what to do when LO purposely (she is 24 month) hits Grandpa hard in the face when he kissed her goodbye. I need tips, so I research and try.

I am going to say something that is going to be horrifying to some bees: my gut/ instinct is sometimes exactly what I should not do. Maybe it is because I grew up in a house with a lot of hitting and yelling and lack of parental involvement, I don't know. But when things are really hard, I want to hit and yell and check out, too. I don't. That is not the kind of parent I want to be, so I research and come up with new views and plans, so I never devolve into what I knew growing up or the kind of parent that some of the older generation think I should be (they wanted me to hit her for hitting GP...) I think if you had excellent models of parenting this may not be as necessary for you.