Kaytee

depends on who you ask and what you want to accomplish. Many feel it works, many others feel it is very damaging to a child

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ljmahr

The first thing I thought of when I read this post was pediatrician's usually do not recommend feeding a baby cereal until 3 months. Like everyone else I think you should just follow your instincts. Only you know's what is truly best for your baby.Whether you use the AP method or not, that is how it is. I do want to say, when it comes to co-sleeping, I do think you can spoil a baby. They get used to sleeping that way and expect it all the time. It is a very hard thing to break. As far as everytime a 2 month old cries you pick him/her up kind of thing, I do not believe you can spoil them. They cry at this age because something is wrong. Using CIO at this age, I believe, is just mean. But again to each his own. Bottom line do what you think is right and do not worry about what your stepmom thinks.

P.S. I don't think I would let her babysit.

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Laura

Mommy to 4 beautiful girls and 1 handsome boy

Xero

Yeah I went through the same thing with my own mom, she thought I was "spoiling" Eli when he was real tiny, but I didn't think it was possible. Babies need a lot of attention at that age, and people who are lazy about it need to just get over it and understand that. Everything my mom ever told him like "let him cry a little" or "make him wait for a bottle" or "get him used to sleeping by himself" all just seemed to me like ways to make caring for an infant "convenient" for yourself. Which is wrong. There's nothing right about caring for an innocent little baby in a convenient manner for yourself. They NEED you and they're BRAND NEW to the world, so everything is so new and scary to them. You can't expect any being just a few months familiar with the world to be durable to everything that comes at them. My mom actually went as far as to say "you can train him". It just irritated me. Since Eli has been about 6 months old, I've been letting him cry a LITTLE only just to get to sleep at night. I don't consider anything I've done with him as "cry it out". I'm not saying that method is NEVER neccessary but before six months I would almost never do it UNLESS you are overly frustrated and alone and you feel like you can't handle it. (just to protect your baby, I think everyone has been through this feeling so I don't feel like I'm posting anything terribly abnormal.) Sometimes it's better just to set them down than get frustrated, you know? But I think it's cruel to ignore or not feed a baby just to make life easier on yourself. Come on, for real. I fed Eli whenever he wanted, let him sleep with me, and picked him up the moment he whimpered since he was born, but I can confirm the fact that it is HARD to get a baby to sleep by themselves once they're used to co-sleeping. VERY HARD lol. Don't listen to what other people say. If they want to have unloved zombie babies, then hey more power to them, but I want my baby to feel secure and loved. Period.

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budnkota

my ex is a therapist specializing in behavior therapy and he HATED the fact that I was an attachment parent. He wasn't around until R was 15 months (long story) and then was trying to step into already established routines and such... I think part of the problem was that he felt left out because he didn't have any emotional connection with our son. He used to try to isolate my attentions when he's come home - and when I'd respond to R, he'd rant that I was "coddling" him. He literally told me once that all a small child needed was a few toys and a warm place. That the attention should go to the partner. Swear to God. And this man is a therapist (how about the child getting the attention he needed as a baby so he's not trying to make up for it as an adult???)
We left after a month with him, mostly because his jealousy and insecurity were so incredible. It was turning him into a raging machine, which was totally different than the man he used to be. My son wasn't living in that environment.
Instead of the neurotic, damaged child I probably would have had if we hadn't left (and/or if I'd listened to him), I have a little boy who's said "please, thank you and excuse me" since he was 2. Same with alphabet and counting to 20. He's 3 now and in the first stages of learning to read. He is polite and very well behaved. He's also EXTREMELY social. I can't tell you how many comments I've gotten on his huge vocab and speech. My son is exceptional, and while part of it comes from his natural personality, some of it comes from the way he was raised.

My long winded point is to go with your guts. Because even the so called professionals don't have a clue sometimes. You are the one who will mold the person your child becomes. You have the most invested, and your instincts should be trusted.

Kaytee

great post!

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ajo

Coming in late but I find the best way is to smile nod and do what you are going to do. So often people are trying to justify their own issues through criticizing YOU. You know what's best , so I say next time she pipes up smile and ask her to pass the bean dip

yulia

I tandem nurse both of my kids: 17m.o. and 34m.o. (he's turning 3 in June). we eat organic, plus everything that goes into my kids' body has to have a great nutritional value. We co-sleep with both kids (my husbands calls cribs little coffins). When our kids were younger we were wearing them all the time when they were not sleeping. We never did CIO. We do not spank or punish our kids; gentle discipline is the way to go for us. I started cloth diapering when my son was 2 months old and from birth with my daughter. We also did elimination communication with both of our kids from birth. Unfortunately, our son received quite few vaccines before we knew any better, but we stopped as soon as we researched the subject some more and our daughter is a lucky vaccine-free girl. We use conventional medicine (especially antibiotics) as a VERY last resort (our kids ped is an MD (pediatrician), but with a holistic approach, who actually prescribes conventional meds as a very last resort). We are opposed to genital mutilation regardless of gender.
We are going to unschool from 6 years and up.

Ari2

I'm not really fond of anyone criticizing my parenting techniques.

Regarding AP, to me this means more baby-wearing, co-sleeping, gentle discipline, not CIOing, etc. I think of cloth diapering, organic foods and the like to be more natural family living. I'm only saying this because you ask about AP.

I'm fine with AP. If someone is super, uber AP and it works for them, fine. The only parts that I feel more strongly about is not CIOing and not spanking. I really dislike physical correction of any kind, and I won't let my kids CIO. But I was raised by very non-AP parents as were most people I know, and I really don't think it did damage. It was more important that my parents were consistent and I knew they loved me.

As for NFL, we pretty much don't. We do eat organic (mostly) and avoid highly processed foods. Will this make our kids somehow better for it? Who knows. The only fairly decent data I've seen are about certain food dyes making hyperactivity worse. Our kids aren't hyper; I just don't see the need to give them artificial stuff and know that there's no good science either way.

I do dislike judgment about parenting choices that are not clearly abusive. A very good friend has a child the same age as our twins. When his wife found out we didn't give our kids a birthday cake (we gave them sweet potato pancakes instead), she felt terrible as her kid had 2 frosted birthday cakes. Good for him, as far as I'm concerned. It certainly won't do him harm. We just were struggling to get my daughter to eat something aside from sweet stuff. I had no judgment against her. There's a range of parenting styles that fall within my broad range of acceptable, even if all are not ideal. But who is ideal?

.:Kalli Rae:.

What is elimination communication? And what do you mean by "unschool"?

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Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
Kalli Rae--
Mommy to:
Aaron Joseph- 8yrs Lily Ann Marie- 7yrs Kyla Raye- 4yrs

yulia

elimination communication is basically early potty praining. if you google it you will find alot of info.
Unschooling - no schooling of any kind (including homeschooling). There are TONS of books about unschooling in the library if you are interested to learn more, some info on the internet as well where you can find your local unschooling group.