Ho hum

So another Friday night home alone, with Riley of course, with nothing to do but watch reruns of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Nights that Joey isn't here are lame, but they happen often, so I've gotten pretty used to them. I seriously am contemplating getting in bed right now, even though it's only 8:28pm. But then I would rob you of this titillating blog, so I won't go to bed yet :)

I've been putting off discussing the ridiculousness that is the book 'Baby Wise' because it a) makes me mad, b) pisses some people off, oh well!, and c) i don't follow it's teachings/lunacy. It all began about a month ago when Riley went from sleeping awesome to waking up every couple of hours. I felt like a friggen' zombie and i was sure people would think I had just come back from rehab, not maternity leave, due to my bitchin' under eye circles, crappy memory, and general clumsiness. A friend of mine, who is not a mom, told me about this book that her friend had read and it got her daughter sleeping through the night. Eager for some decent sleep I googled the book and was bombarded with negative reviews of the book.

Ask any new mom, what is the number one question people ask you about your baby? Are they sleeping through the night? This question makes you feel defensive because if you dane to answer "no", the advice begins. Put cereal in their bottle. (My Doctor hasn't advised food yet.) Let them cry it out. (Over my dead body!) Give them formula. (So i can not sleep and have rock hard boobs?)Keep them up all day (yeah how??). Etc...etc...etc... So the more I looked into 'babywise' the more I realized it taught everything I'm against as a parent. Forget for a minute that the book caused several children to become dehydrated, resulted in a 'failure to thrive', and I have witnessed first hand babies that are "Fockerized" (forced to self soothe) turn into kids that are "independent", which is a nice way of saying they don't want to be loved on and won't be physically close with you. I personally don't want an "independent" 7 year old. I want a loving, sweet son that loves and trusts his parents.

Dr. Sears, the author of 'The Baby Book,' and the pediatrician who coined the term "attachment parenting," which is what Joey and I practice, is the man with the plan. AP is parenting in a way that brings out the best in parents and their babies, with the main goal of knowing your child, helping them feel right, and to enjoy parenting. Sounds like duh! right? Isn't that what we all want? But what I read online was so surprising. It seems that only us silly Americans are obsessed with the concept of "sleep training." Every other country in the world acknowledges and accepts that new babies = less sleep. In Sweden, mothers are given a paid 90 week maternity leave for goodness sake!

As Americans we enjoy so many freedoms that other countries could only dream of, but we seem to have lost some of the fundamental basics of healthy lifestyles. We eat too much. Rack up credit card debt. Sleep train our kids. Watch tv and pour over the computer instead of going outside. We have gained and lost so much at the same time.

Ok, I'm going to jump off my soapbox now, sorry! Riley is healthy, gaining weight, and that little dork smiles and laughs all day, so I'm ignoring all the haters and unsolicited advice givers. There's a reason Dr. Sears and most pediatricians say you can't spoil a baby in the first 6 months of their life. They cry because they're freaking babies. Each child is different. And each parent is different. What works for one may not work for another. If sleep training worked for you, awesome! Let's all just support each other and be sensitive to the cause of "mommy hood." It's a hard ass job. More family this week, so stay tuned for more shenanigans as I try to not melt like the wicked witch of the west in this 112 degree heat, yikes bikes!