- Adjustment to extra-uterine life can be rough! Heck, if I had a choice, I would crawl back inside my mom (provided that I can take along my laptop...and she is around places with good Wifi).
- Sleep is as important, if not more so, for baby's growth as eating.
- For the first three months, often referred to as "the fourth trimester," care for your infant without worry of spoiling them and help them ease into life outside the womb. This means feeding on demand, swaddling, not waking them up (but who would be dumb enough to wake up a sleeping baby...*points to self*), and gently teaching them the difference between day and night.
- That being said, I believed that the first three months were important in teaching them when to sleep. The how part is a secondary priority and could be saved for later when they have gotten the when down.
- After the first three months (actually, I waited to 15 weeks since Camille was born a little early), it is okay to start training them in certain things such as how to sleep and when meal times are. I started stretching out Camille's feeding time to every 4 hours while she was awake and feed on demand in the middle of the night.
- I try to incorporate small inconsistencies into Camille's routines. Nothing too drastic. Maybe a 30-minute shift in feeding time, or singing a different song for nap time, or letting her nap in a different setting, etc. I hope that by doing this, she will become more adaptable while still having a good routine.
- My relationship priorities are as follows: God, Chin, children, other family, others.
- I believe that parents and children should have good boundaries. There are times for co-sleeping and baby-wearing, and then there are times to wean children of childish things and to set healthy boundaries.
- A lot of Western childrearing philosophies lead to independence. Independence for parents (don't have to rock children to sleep, more Mommy and Daddy times) and independence for children (learning to self-soothe, learning to be self-sufficient). That's cool, I guess. But that's not really for me. Chin & I prefer interdependence and would much rather have children who are more relational.
I believe that there are two types of people in the world: Those who live strictly on principles, and childrearing adults.
Before Camille's arrival, I had all these ideals. There are certain things that parents do that make me question their sanity. I now realize that all parents are insane. Here's a list of things that Chin & I have done as new parents that we never thought we would do:
- Breastfeeding for over 1.5 hours long. A friend of mine told me that she did this with her first baby. My thought, "Uh, yeah, that's because you are insane!" True.
- Breastfeeding every meal for five stinkin' months. Camille doesn't take the bottle, and with her teething, introducing the bottle has been really tough. In fact, I believe that some of her nursing strikes are due to her rebellion against the bottle.
- Being completely inconsistent with sleep training. We've let Camille cry it out about 5-6 times...but not with any consistency or method. Yep, sometimes we just let her cry because we're just pooped out.
- Sometimes spending up to 30 minutes to rock the child to sleep. As mentioned before, I really thought we would be better at disciplining and sleep-training our baby so that she doesn't need to be rocked to sleep. But, here we are...
- Having the nerve to raise our voice at a child who is either not sleeping or not feeding. Okay, that's just mean.
- Staying up until the wee hours of the morning, forfeiting precious sleep hours, just so we can savor some child-free times. We still do this. Every night.
- Being willing to spend $1000 for a truly good night's sleep. Okay, maybe not $1000. But if Groupon has a deal for $400, we're on it!
- Some days, regretting the decision to embark on this journey of parenthood. What the heck were we thinking?!?!
and finally...the best... - Doing a #2 while child is on breast. I did this the first time when Camille was 2 weeks old and was nursing in a sling. I've done this several times since then...just holding her with one arm. You know, sometimes you just have to do what's necessary to not poop your pants.
We are still learning.
Finally, I was going to apologize that all my posts are composed of multiple bulleted lists. But I'm not going to. Because I only have the capacity to think in short thoughts. That is the truth.
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