Minimalist Must Haves: Baby Edition

You are about to welcome a new baby into your world. Congratulations! It's an exciting and incredibly overwhelming time. I remember trying to figure out, with my first, what I would need to survive, and it honestly was a lot less than I had. Here, I'll outline the things I found I needed and mention a few things you only might need. 

Parenting Methods: RIE Approach (or “Educaring”)

RIE is probably the closest to my instinctual parenting style. I came across a blog about it quite by accident, then I read a couple books about it – one by the founder of the method, Magda Gerber. Here are some guidelines RIE teaches:

• Every child should have a safe environment where he/she can play and explore
• Babies need time to play on their own and with other babies
• Childcare activities (diaper changing, baths, feeding, etc.) should make the child an active participant and warrant your undivided attention
• Weaning should take place at one year old if you can't manage any sooner
• You shouldn't use pacifiers
• Sleep-training is strongly encouraged
• Anything your child is to learn should be learned independently, as much as is possible. This includes talking, potty training, rolling over, crawling, walking, etc.

This parenting style gets a lot of flack because people think it expects your child to be too adult. I don't see how this is true, as every child longs to be like an adult, and children spend all their time imitating what they see. Here are the points fleshed out and my comments on them.

Parenting Methods: Gentle Parenting

Gentle Parenting is more of a sub-method, but I think it deserves its own post, because it is a direct response against “Authoritarian Parenting.” Here are the basic principles of gentle parenting:

• Guide instead of controlling or ordering
• Connect instead of punishing
• Encourage; don't demand certain behaviours

I like the idea of gentle parenting, in the sense that you try to listen to and communicate with your child when it comes to correcting certain behaviours and attitudes. What I don't like is the supposition that authority is a bad thing. Here are some thoughts on the various principles and why I do or don't use them

Parenting Methods: Attachment Parenting

I love reading about parenting methods. I find them illuminating, educational, and fun. The parenting methods out there are as varied as the children with whom they are practiced. There are essentially four parenting methods I am particularly drawn to, and there are aspects I love and hate about each of them.

The first method I want to talk about is called Attachment Parenting. It is most widely shared by Dr. Sears, a well respected pediatrician. I think part of the reason his touting of this method appeals to me is the fact that he has a large family; if a person only has one child and says that his/her method of parenting was the “only” method, I would probably be skeptical. Here are some typical practices of those who parent using this method:

• Bonding after birth is incredibly important (the first few hours especially)
• They carry their babies in a sling or wrap, against their bodies
• They bed-share (sleep in same bed) or co-sleep (sleep in same room)
• They breastfeed on demand and do this for as long as the child desires
• They do not try to teach a baby to “self-soothe” or use baby-training methods
• They stress the importance of a parent staying at home with the child/children

Milk Drunk

There is nothing quite as sweet as the contentedness and silliness of a baby who just finished nursing.

My Baby Won't Sleep Through the Night Anymore

At three months, my little girl slept through the night for the first time. A proud mommy moment followed. When she did it a couple more times, I was ecstatic. It seemed so early! How lucky I was to have a three-month-old sleeping through the night without nursing

After she did this, I asked my husband to take over in the evenings, should she wake up – so that she wouldn't think she was going to nurse if I picked her up. He agreed. She woke up every night; he would soothe her back to sleep. She really fought going back to sleep, and it could take nearly two hours, some nights, to get her settled. Then she started waking up more than once. She was upset, Daddy was grumpy, Mommy was confused.

Why Is My Baby So Difficult?

When my baby was first born, she looked every bit the adorable alien all newborns do. At first, caring for her was relatively simple. She let me know when something was wrong, and she wasn't overly fussy, but I soon realized that she was going to be more difficult than I had first thought. I desperately searched for an answer to my problem, because there were too many strange issues that didn't seem connected but shouldn't have been occurring without a common issue. These were the things I noticed:

• My baby was very fussy.
• She wanted to be held constantly.
• She had difficulty sleeping.
• She choked while nursing - more than a newborn should. 
• Although her latch had initially been perfect, it was getting progressively worse.
• She started to clamp down/bite while nursing.
• She absolutely hated being in any position that wasn't perfectly upright.