Living Epistles
Each time I manage to write a blog post, it should begin with an ode to naptime, because that’s usually the only way I’m writing. It would be something like:
Naptime…
when littles peacefully slumber
and there is again space to breathe
and think.
Ahem. Clearly I won’t be winning any poetry awards anytime soon.
I used to love to write. I wanted to become really good at it. And now? I still love it, but I’m so rusty and haven’t honed it much. But it reminds me of an excerpt from Anne of Ingleside:
“And you’ve quite given it [writing] up?” asked Christine.
“Not altogether… but I’m writing living epistles now,” said Anne, thinking of Jem and Co.
[takes a break as Eliza has woken and wants to eat]
Where was I?
Naptime… writing… nowhere, really.
Last night I was spending some time on Sally Clarkson’s blog, I Take Joy. It’s not a regular read of mine but I think it’s going to be. Here’s an excerpt from today’s post:
A sweet young mom in my ministry was telling a story recently. She has a new baby and her mom has encouraged her to nurse her sweet baby when she cries, to cuddle and sing to her, to hold her, to comfort her and to enjoy her. My friend is surprised at how responsive her new infant is, even at three months, and how easily she comforts.
A friend of hers who had her baby at the same time, read baby-wise. She does not hold her baby often. She will not feed her baby until 4 hours exactly, as she does not want to train her babe to be selfish and break the baby-wise law and need her, and so on. When the two were together, the babywise mom, whose baby was fussy and cried a lot, proclaimed. “Look at my baby. Even at 3 months you can see that she is strong willed and defiant–just look how she cries when I don’t pick her up. But what she didn’t know was that her baby was saying, ”Hey, mom, I need you. I am hungry and insecure–would you please hold me?”
To be honest, this brought back some painful memories. I wrote about Babywise last year when Christian was a few months old. I was overly influenced by the desire to get him started on good habits and a routine. It stressed me out and I am sad that I didn’t just relax and focus on nurturing him. I thought he was so fussy. I do have to say that part of the problem wasn’t Babywise, it was just that I had no idea how to get him to sleep.
Now with Eliza, she seems so easy because I just go with the flow and do whatever she wants. And you know what? She rarely fusses (except in the evening, although that’s gotten better).
I do find our days go more smoothly when I encourage some structure (watching for sleepy cues, helping her extend naps, etc.), but I’m such a big softie now – maybe a little to the extreme.
I get sad and stressed if I can’t hold her or play with her the whole time she’s awake, which I do most of the time, but it isn’t always possible with my “four-limbed wrecking ball” (stole that phrase from Emily) running around.
Anyway, that was kind of a tangent, but my point was that I love Sally Clarkson’s emphasis on compassion and grace in raising children, although not to the exclusion of rules and discipline.
I was going to write more, but I think this post is long enough and I want to enjoy a little non-blogging free time before my littles wake back up. Happy first day of Advent!
This really makes me think! As a first time Mom I am so afraid of being up all night with the little one and having their scedule totally messed up but then I don’t want to be so stressed because I am not getting it right. Any advice for that?
I’m so excited for you, Katy! 
Honestly, I don’t think there’s much you can do to mess up them up in the beginning. It’s totally normal to nurse all day and night, especially for the first week or two. All I do is make sure I wake to nurse after 3 hours during the day if the baby’s still asleep, to encourage longer stretches at night. And I graaaadually try to incorporate good habits of putting them to sleep on their own, good naptimes, etc., but so much depends on your baby’s temperament and what works for your family. You’ll figure it out! Just don’t stress and enjoy your baby!
Sometimes I wonder if it is just cluelessness with the first? I didn’t do babywise but stressed WAY too much over every little thing Cora did “wrong.” (like not napping or heaven forbid..eating every 2 hours) I am finding the same thing as you…very go-with-the-flow with Elinor and she is so happy and content (most of the time). And I am over the moon for her which I wasn’t for Cora when she was an infant. Took me a while to really bond with her but with Elinor it was right away.
You’re right, a lot of it is cluelessness, I think. I’d always babysat and taken care of little kids growing up, and I’d worked at two daycares, so I thought I would know my own baby better, but it was so much harder than I expected. This time I just fell into the baby groove more naturally.
I haven’t read Babywise, but I’m rather glad I did not. My mom had the same philosophy as Babywise (I think she read a similar book by the Ezzos) and she would gently reprove me for being so lenient with my little girl.
There were times I definitely needed to hear her wisdom to focus on following a routine with my little one, but there were other times I’m glad that I just followed her lead.
I think it happened because I had come across so much online about attachment parenting (it has good and bad points I think), plus being a first time mom, I was clueless. Still am, I suppose.
Hmm, I have to say the example of what that second mom followed with her baby is not at all what I got out of Babywise. Of course, I read the precursor book to Babywise, not the actual Babywise book, but I skimmed and it seemed to be alot of the same information. I got from the book though that you shouldn’t “schedule” your baby and only feed them every four hours or whatever – you can try to get your baby into a “routine” (aka: eat, wake,sleep), but that should be adjusted if your baby seems hungry. I mostly skimmed the book and just did what seemed to work when Wyatt came – I think I inadvertantly applied some of Babywise’s principles, and it’s worked really well for us – Wyatt is hardly fussy at all, and he knows I’ll take care of him and be there when he needs me, plus he’s been sleeping through the night since 10 weeks. We were pretty low-key about it though, and Wyatt has never been on a “schedule”, he just naturally fell into his routine – but it still changes day to day. I think Babywise has some good things to say, but it WAY over-complicates the whole thing and makes it sound like a science when it really should be adjusted to what comes naturally for your baby. Maybe that’s where some people go wrong – I don’t know. I’m just saying, I think what that second mom was doing was what Babywise was saying NOT to do. Anyway . . . sorry for the rambling comment.
I think the Babywise example in Sally Clarkson’s post was a bit of a caricature. I didn’t mean to say Babywise is completely terrible and I don’t think she did either. Some other baby books advise the same sort of eat, sleep, wake routine and other similar advice (like The Baby Whisperer).
I think a lot of it is the general attitude of Babywise that if you don’t do it this way, your baby’s daily life will be completely chaotic. I really liked this post on that: http://sortacrunchy.typepad.com/sortacrunchy/2009/02/as-he-leads-us-two-concerns-over-sleep-training.html
I’m really similar to you with Eliza – laidback, low-key, but I do try to follow eat/wake/sleep and somewhat structured naptimes if possible because I’ve found that gives us a better routine.
P.S. I don’t remember anywhere in the book where it says not to hold your baby – so I’m not sure where the second mom was getting her ideas on that either . . . that whole quote was pretty confusing to me, because it really was totally the opposite of what I got out of it. If it did actually say something like that, Anna, can you direct me to the page? Generally, we were just pretty laid back, and applied some Babywise things like making sure Wyatt got full feedings and stayed awake a little bit afterward (though we didn’t do that all the time), and everything worked out really well.
P.P.S. I was just reviewing your old Babywise posts, and I did want to say that I agree with you about the comfort nursing – we didn’t make a habit of comfort nursing (ie. I didn’t nurse Wyatt every time he cried), but I think there should be exceptionss – I comfort-nursed Wyatt when he was not feeling good after vaccines, and I think that was a really good thing. So I’m definitely not a strict Babywise proponenent, I just kind of took what I liked from it – I don’t think anyone should try to follow the “rules” too strictly, because there are exceptions, and different babies are different too. Okay, I’m really done now.
[...] was very encouraged the other day when reading a blog post of another mama of littles. In it, she mentions a quote from my beloved Anne of Ingleside that I [...]
I’ve become a softy with my third, as well.
I think the reason so many people have problems with the babywise approach is we lack the balancing influence of mothers and grandmothers in close community, helping the young mother get into a rhythm. Thus the blessing of Sally’s wise words.
found you from Jessica Telian…
Glad you shared Sally’s post, so timely for me. I’ve been working on a post about parental rights and graced based parenting…seems to ever be my hearts desire.
It’s amazing how much more chill we are when #2 comes along. It’s not any less tiring, but it certainly easier to soak it in. It’s amazing that eldest children are mostly all normal, ha!
I find myself being much more lenient with Sprig, and I’m not sure if it’s because she’s a girl? I would love to hear other Mama’s opinions on that matter. The gender/birth order relation. Girls just seem so much more delicate, I find myself catering to that after having a rough and tumble boy come first…makes me wonder how that will evolve with more children added to our tribe…