Bloggin' and Bitchin'

Not Ferberized

So this is my first blog post and I wanted to tell you a little bit about it. I'm going to talk about my life, and my life revolves around my daughter. Just in general I have my own way of doing things when it comes to parenting. I think it's funny and a little bit retarded when people read books about parenting and decide that's the kind of parent they want to be. I haven't done what I would call research in this particular area, so correct me if I'm wrong, but the two main things I hear about a lot are attachment parenting and the Ferber method. From my understanding they are pretty much opposites of each other. One says "be all up on your baby all the time" and the other says "leave that kid alone and let him figure it out on his own". Both of these ideas are stupid if you ask me. First, let's talk about a little thing called EVOLUTION. The reason we have survived for thousands of years is because it in ingrained in us, how to raise our children, how to keep them safe and hopefully have them grow into well-adjusted adults. Can't people just follow their instincts? And babies aren't dolls or dogs. We can't just bend them to our will. They are individuals. The very premise of having a child is to mix DNA with someone you love to create A WHOLE NEW PERSON. And people have opinions, preferences, things that piss them off. Caitlyn, for example, for every single day of her life, sleeps with her arms up over her head. It's just what is comfortable for her. Which brings me to what's really been annoying me: my sister and brother-in-law.

My brother-in-law read all the books. Therefore, he obviously knows everything there is to know about babies, right? RIGHT??? It started when I was pregnant. Their son is 7 months older than Caitlyn and he was a nightmare the first couple of months. He screamed constantly. And it was their fault. He has reflux, they finally figured out after changing his formula 5 times in the first month of his life (on a side note, I'm not usually one to judge when someone doesn't breastfeed, but my sister wouldn't even TRY...she thought it was "gross"). All those changes caused him to be gassy, constipated, overtired and flat out douchey on an almost constant basis. Especially coupled with the fact that they aren't patient people and found the fastest nipples possible and practically poured formula down his throat (he would eat 6oz in 5 minutes. I wish I was kidding). So they had all these troubles, and truthfully, they still do. He's such a whiner. I love him and all, but they turned him into the baby who needs everything to be JUUUUST right or he won't eat, can't sleep, can't poop, screams endlessly. And they try to give me advice. First it was swaddling. T. (the brother-in-law) would tell me before Caitlyn was even born "you know Jaclyn, you should swaddle her a lot when she is born, babies need to be swaddled, it reminds them of being in the womb and it's the only way Shawn will sleep". Hmmm, really? Then why did you spend months bitching about how sleep deprived you were because Shawn never wanted to sleep? Of course, that's what I said in my head, what I said out loud was something like "well, every baby is different, but I will give it a try". Then I got "well, you know at first we thought Shawn hated it, but it turns out we were doing it wrong. Bring her over after she is born, I can show you the RIGHT way to swaddle". Eye roll.

His newest thing is that he keeps pushing me to let him "put Caitlyn on a schedule" for me (they babysit while I'm at work). Let me explain that I'm not a baby retard. I understand that they do need some sort of regularity in their lives. And she has that. But my husband and I work retail and our schedules change constantly. Some days I'm in at 7am and some days I don't go in till 3pm. It's virtually impossible to keep the exact same schedule every day. So we are flexible, and I think that's a GOOD thing. Imagine what my life would be like if Caitlyn was on a strict schedule and half the time I had to pick her up from her babysitter at 11pm and completely disturb her sleep. Then I'd have a cranky asshole too. So we are realistic about what is possible. Most nights she doesn't go to bed till 11 or midnight. But then she sleeps till 8 most mornings. On days when we need to get her up earlier we do, and then she will go back to sleep till 10 or so. And between 7am and

Clearly Exhausted from a lack of a cohesive schedule.

around 2pm, she takes 30-40 minute naps every 2 hours no matter if she's at home in her crib, resting in her swing or en route to my sister's house in her car seat. Once we hit the late afternoon, she tends to be awake more often. When she gets really tired she takes 15 minute cat naps then she's up again. I don't think that just because she doesn't eat and nap at the same time every day that I'm doing something wrong. Especially since my kid is awesome and sweet and smiles all the time.

Ok, so clearly this devolved into a full-blown rant. But now you know a few things about me, I hate schedules and I'm not fond of book learnin'. That's a start.