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Well, *that* didn't work.
Sep. 23rd, 2005 02:35 pmMy friend Emily canceled our Friday morning get-together today because she wasn't feeling well. I was feeling the need for some Mama companionship, so I decided to go to a parenting group at one of the local hospitals - it's for graduates of the group I attended when Alex was tiny. I'd never been to the older babies' group, because it meets at the same time as infant story hour. Emily and I always take the babies there instead.
At the eight-weeks-and-under group, I loved the leader's style. She was warm and supportive and knowledgable, and she taught a very child-centered approach that resonated with me: learn to read your baby's signals, follow the baby's cues instead of a schedule, go ahead and co-sleep if you want to, babies need to be held, you can't spoil a baby by picking her up. I looked forward to getting her advice about helping Alex sleep.
Um.
It turns out that her approach to older babies is radically different from her approach to newborns.
When I arrived, she was talking to the mother of another five-month-old about sleep. "I tried leaving him to cry..." the mother said. "How long?" "I've never lasted past twenty minutes." "Well," the leader said, "if you're only going to do it halfway then it would be better not to do it at all." She said that after the baby was in bed he shouldn't be picked up and fed for five or six hours. "Even if he cries on and off the whole time?" the mother asked. Yes, even then.
When my turn came, I started talking about Alex's sleep issues (they mostly boil down to wanting to be up for the day at 4:30 or 5am), but said that I wasn't willing to let her cry it out.
"I don't have any advice for you, then," she said. I was stunned.
"That's it? That's your only suggestion?"
"If you don't want to let her cry, you can keep responding to her every time. It's okay to do that if you think it's best for your family. The only thing I can suggest is that you try to put her down when she's drowsy instead of when she's all the way to sleep... but right now she needs you to go to sleep, and if you keep going to her she'll keep needing you."
"I was trying to sort of wean her off me gradually," I said. She shrugged.
After that, I was the Mother Who Wouldn't Cry It Out When She Needed To. I asked about a period Alex went through last week when she seemed to be in a lot of teething pain - rubbing her mouth, wanting something cold to chew on, fussing and clinging, but improving on Tylenol. We went through several days of that, but then the symptoms improved without any teeth coming in. Her interpretation: Alex was overtired because she wasn't getting enough sleep, and that's why she was fussy and clingy. Me: "But she responded to Tylenol and did better." Her, dismissively: "You can give your child Tylenol until she turns 21, then, because that's how long she'll be developing teeth."
She went on to the next mother, and the next, dispensing advice. Then someone came back to the topic of crying it out.
"Some people don't want to do it, they want to do more of a Dr. Sears Attachment Parenting thing, and that's fine if it works in their family," the leader said. "But people say 'I don't want to let the baby cry,' and I want to know, what are you going to do when she's two years old and wants ice cream for breakfast?"
I had been staying out of the whole thing and not trying to argue with her, because it's hard to explain why you don't want to cry it out in front of a roomful of mothers who are trying it without sounding like a Mommy Drive-By. I was trying to live and let live. But I was stung enough to respond to that one. "A two-year-old can understand the concept of limits," I said. "A five-month-old can't."
Another mother jumped in and told a story about how her neighbor didn't want to let her kids cry, and now they're completely undisciplined and unmanageable. "She just gave in to them, and now they manipulate her."
At that point I seriously started to feel picked on, so I left. And cried.
Here's the thing: I know I'm not a bad mother. I'm not a great mother either - I don't have the calmness and patience and unflappability I associate with great mothering - but I'm solidly average in my mothering skills. One of the things I think I'm best at is reading Alex's cues and being responsive to her. And now a second person in the course of a week (the other was my sister, in a lecturing e-mail) is telling me that I'm doing that all wrong. If I'm no good at that, then what am I good at?
I actually don't think that I'm doing the wrong thing. I'm confident that I'm making the right decision about responding to Alex when she cries. But I'm feeling awfully lonely and unsupported right now.
At the eight-weeks-and-under group, I loved the leader's style. She was warm and supportive and knowledgable, and she taught a very child-centered approach that resonated with me: learn to read your baby's signals, follow the baby's cues instead of a schedule, go ahead and co-sleep if you want to, babies need to be held, you can't spoil a baby by picking her up. I looked forward to getting her advice about helping Alex sleep.
Um.
It turns out that her approach to older babies is radically different from her approach to newborns.
When I arrived, she was talking to the mother of another five-month-old about sleep. "I tried leaving him to cry..." the mother said. "How long?" "I've never lasted past twenty minutes." "Well," the leader said, "if you're only going to do it halfway then it would be better not to do it at all." She said that after the baby was in bed he shouldn't be picked up and fed for five or six hours. "Even if he cries on and off the whole time?" the mother asked. Yes, even then.
When my turn came, I started talking about Alex's sleep issues (they mostly boil down to wanting to be up for the day at 4:30 or 5am), but said that I wasn't willing to let her cry it out.
"I don't have any advice for you, then," she said. I was stunned.
"That's it? That's your only suggestion?"
"If you don't want to let her cry, you can keep responding to her every time. It's okay to do that if you think it's best for your family. The only thing I can suggest is that you try to put her down when she's drowsy instead of when she's all the way to sleep... but right now she needs you to go to sleep, and if you keep going to her she'll keep needing you."
"I was trying to sort of wean her off me gradually," I said. She shrugged.
After that, I was the Mother Who Wouldn't Cry It Out When She Needed To. I asked about a period Alex went through last week when she seemed to be in a lot of teething pain - rubbing her mouth, wanting something cold to chew on, fussing and clinging, but improving on Tylenol. We went through several days of that, but then the symptoms improved without any teeth coming in. Her interpretation: Alex was overtired because she wasn't getting enough sleep, and that's why she was fussy and clingy. Me: "But she responded to Tylenol and did better." Her, dismissively: "You can give your child Tylenol until she turns 21, then, because that's how long she'll be developing teeth."
She went on to the next mother, and the next, dispensing advice. Then someone came back to the topic of crying it out.
"Some people don't want to do it, they want to do more of a Dr. Sears Attachment Parenting thing, and that's fine if it works in their family," the leader said. "But people say 'I don't want to let the baby cry,' and I want to know, what are you going to do when she's two years old and wants ice cream for breakfast?"
I had been staying out of the whole thing and not trying to argue with her, because it's hard to explain why you don't want to cry it out in front of a roomful of mothers who are trying it without sounding like a Mommy Drive-By. I was trying to live and let live. But I was stung enough to respond to that one. "A two-year-old can understand the concept of limits," I said. "A five-month-old can't."
Another mother jumped in and told a story about how her neighbor didn't want to let her kids cry, and now they're completely undisciplined and unmanageable. "She just gave in to them, and now they manipulate her."
At that point I seriously started to feel picked on, so I left. And cried.
Here's the thing: I know I'm not a bad mother. I'm not a great mother either - I don't have the calmness and patience and unflappability I associate with great mothering - but I'm solidly average in my mothering skills. One of the things I think I'm best at is reading Alex's cues and being responsive to her. And now a second person in the course of a week (the other was my sister, in a lecturing e-mail) is telling me that I'm doing that all wrong. If I'm no good at that, then what am I good at?
I actually don't think that I'm doing the wrong thing. I'm confident that I'm making the right decision about responding to Alex when she cries. But I'm feeling awfully lonely and unsupported right now.
