They say you should get your baby sleep in the crib, and that’s that
They say you’ve made a huge mistake: you let your baby fall asleep in your arms, you didn’t put her down, you nursed her to sleep. That’s the problem. We try so hard to conform. We try to be smart about it by not picking her up, not rocking her to sleep, not nursing her to sleep, not breastfeeding her every time she made a sound. She’s crying her heart out every time. Should I let her cry it out? Should I be smart about it and try not to spoil her? Is it a weakness if I do?
Training
The idea of training is to train your baby from the start! Otherwise you spoil her and she will never sleep alone or without help. Get her to sleep in the crib and feed her on the clock, she’ll get used to it and you’ll have no problems. If you sleep with her, if you pick her up every time she cries, if you help her fall asleep by rocking or nursing, you’re asking for trouble.
The point of training is to parent smart. Raising a child (in this sense) is: planning, scheduling to reach a goal. Moulding your baby into who you want him to be with strict discipline.
So your remember playing with your dolls when you were a child?
Just enjoying and caring for the dolls was so much fun! You were in the here and now with your dolls I bet. And you dreamt of doing the same with your own baby one day.
For older generations, playing with dolls is not parenting. It’s just the opposite. You need to work with babies just like a sculpture works with wood carving any pieces off that are not necessary.
As opposed to your childhood play where essence is to udnerstand that the baby knows what she needs. If I’m with her and I listen to her, sooner or later I will know what she needs. If I give her what she needs, she will develop well. And she will fit into the adult world simply by growing up, by growing into it. She will grow into the adult world that I live in naturally. She will eat, sleep and do everything the way my partner and I do in our adult world – it’s just a matter of maturing, a matter of time.
What is maturation?
Maturation means that the baby, the child, develops on its own. Over time. By itself. You don’t have to teach her. The software is inside your baby, it runs on its own. Parents are just there to support the process as long as support is needed. This is what we call a maturing process as opposed to teaching and carving.
For example, how do babies learn to walk? Well, do you need to practise walking from as early as 3 months by putting one foot in front of the other? NO! That is not necessary at all. It’s because the baby is developing: first she turns, then she crawls, then she sits up and stands up, then walks. She goes through the process. Without our active intervention. In the same way, she moves from nursing to adult eating (going through the process of getting to know food). From suckling (breast, finger, pacifier) to falling asleep with a story, to cuddling to sleep, then to falling asleep the adult way.
What is the difference between training and responsive parenting?
Training overlooks the fact that babies and children function very differently from us adults. Children need something different. Suckling, a lot, and for a long time; lots and lots of frequent flow of milk, including the night; soothing, cuddling day and night; lulling, rocking, lots and lots of attention that reflects back to them on how they are doing at the moment.
There is a great lack of experience in our society on how children leave these early life characteristics behind without cry-it-out, without strict rules and schedules. We have seen children grow up the other way, where you don’t need to toughen your heart and follow any rules that go against all your gut feeling. We are saying: there is no need to make children suffer in any way, because they will grow up perfectly fine on their own. Yes, they will eventually stop co-slpeeing, stop nursing, leave the need for constant care behind. We promise!
We invite you to look at parenting differently. Stop thinking of it as a process where you carve off the excess, the bad stuff. Think of it as caring process, just like when you take care of a plant: nurture it, watch it, learn what it needs and give it what it needs. In the meantime, simply aknowledge that it is growing and will finally bloom. Watch the flowers and the colours – they flourish beautifully. Enjoy the process!
The strict parenting involving a lot of training thinks it’s a bad habit to
● to breastfeed the baby to sleep,
● to lull a baby to sleep,
● to breastfeed on demand, breastfeed every time the baby makes a sound,
●to always pick the baby up when she cries,
● to co-sleep.
But it is scientifically proven that all this is normal baby behaviour, that it is good for the baby.
With this old approach the baby has to be taught:
● to fall asleep alone,
● to sleep in his own bed,
● to soothe himself alone,
● to learn that milk (breastfeeding, formula) is only at certain times, not when babies are hungry, thirsty, sleepy, in pain, in need of security etc..
But it is scientifically proven that all this is completely contrary to the way babies develop, and therefore these are unrealistic expectations. The time for all these things to happen will come on its own.
But when?
If you don’t get the chance to see tons of babies growing up in your comminity it is hard to accept that maturation is a much longer processes naturally than our society expects. People around you might hold you acccountbale for these milestones that you have no influence on. They do so because they don’t know the process, they don’t know the natural course of maturation.
The way we were brought up we learnt to fall asleep alone at three weeks! And we were munching on carrots at two months. And we were potty trained at the age of 1. It’s very important to our society that these things happen on time, because they think that if they don’t, it’s a sign of problem. Our western society assumes that if the baby ‘falls behind’ then the desired milestone will never come. But she is not behind, he is developing normally. And the milestone will come. Slowly but surely. Be patient! It is worth it!
Babies can be shaped
For example, you can get them not to signal during the night. Just let the baby cry for a few nights! Infrared camera research proves that they wake just the same, but stay silent, because they learnt that it is no use crying, noone will come. Stress hormone research showed that a baby who is left alone might be silent but highly upset at the same time. And if that is repeated enough times this anxiety leaves a lifelong mark on their immune system and ability to deal with stress.
There is a very high price to pay for carving
Very important things are lost. Ourselves! Harmony with our personality, our individuality, our body. To listen to our inner happenings, to understand them, to be in tune with them, is not possible. To this day. As a result, it becomes our life’s task to recover from the deep wounds thus acquired.
If we practice responsive parenting our children can spend their lives with something else when they grow up! Living fully, confidently. This is the promise of responsive parenting. This road seems more bumpy but in fact we can yield its fruit every step of the way.