Unfortunately in the society we live in with all the different parenting styles, social media and the pressure's to be the "perfect mum", some mothers do judge, and after what we've all achieved i find this really upsetting.
A few weeks ago i was extremely sleep deprived, i was demand feeding River which meant for my big baby feeding him every hour or two, for and hour or two, all day and all night, it got me wondering if there was a better way. After reaching out to some other mums, they recommended the book 'Save our Sleep' by Tizzy Hall. Its a book basically about routines for babies and toddlers and part of the routine at the beginning is controlled comforting. It's slightly different to controlled crying, wherein controlled crying you leave the baby and go in for a minute or two when the crying gets to much and then go out again. With controlled comforting when the crying gets to much, you go in and sit with the baby for about 20 mins and most of the time they fall asleep. The book encourages you to listen to your baby and figure out why they are crying. For me this was the greatest skill i could have learnt. The first night I tried controlled comforting I lasted about 10 mins, went in and topped River up and he went straight to sleep, that night he slept for 5 hours, the longest he had ever slept. The next night he cried again i let him go for a little bit longer but i still couldn't help myself, i topped him up and he went straight to sleep. The next night he had a good feed and i put him down at 7 and that was it, not a peep. It got me thinking the cries i was hearing the nights before were probably his hungry cries, so i then knew if i heard those cries i would top him up and he would go off to sleep and so far so good. With the routine it also spread out his feeds which was great, instead of River demand feeding and just snacking all the time he was now having a proper feed.
This method worked for me and my family, River now sleeps for at least a 6hr stretch at night and for the last week he's even started sleeping right through. I'm happier, River's happier and Jamie's happier because he can see we are.
About a week into trying this new routine i read some comments made by another mum about controlled comforting. The way these comments were delivered threw me a little and left me feeling upset, and made me question whether what i was doing was the right thing. It made me feel like what i was doing was horrible and how could i leave my child to cry in a room. It took all i could to leave my baby crying, but i was so sleep deprived i was willing to try anything, and after only a couple of nights of listening to River cry it worked and he now knows when bedtime is and goes to sleep with a smile.
The comments made by this mum in regards to controlled comforting were her opinion and she is definitely entitled to her opinion, however, the way it came across was sarcastic and judgemental. Controlled comforting may not be a path this mum would like to take in parenting her child, however i don't believe these comments should make another mother (me) doubt her choice or feel bad about the decision made, when parenting alone is already hard enough.
Another example of judging i was shocked to hear about is how mums can behave at school. I was talking to a girlfriend yesterday at a BBQ and she has just finished her primary school teaching degree (congrats Patty) and she was telling me how judgemental the mums at school can be. She told me one incident were one mum said loudly in the class "finally that child isn't crying today", the mother of said child heard this comment and became quite upset. After hearing this story, i just thought how can mums be like that, we all have kids, we know they cry and can be fussy, why pass judgement and make that mum feel like she's anything but a great mum.
When i found out i was going to be a mum, my partner and i briefly discussed how we would like to parent our child and we both agreed all we wanted to be was good parents, if we could raise a compassionate, happy, confident and well adjusted human being our job would be done.
Being a mum in today's modern world is hard, every man and his dog has an opinion on how you should bring up your child. Whether you're an attachment parent who co sleeps with your child or perhaps an instinctive parent someone who just goes with their gut, or maybe even an authoritative parent who likes rules and regulations, it doesn't matter, we're all trying to achieve the same goal at the end of the day and thats to bring up our beautiful children the best we know how.
Don't judge man! |
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