Accidental Parenting

One of The Baby Whisperer's favorite phrases is "Start as you mean to go on." You've probably been in a rough situation with your child where you were willing to do anything to fix the problem. Well, often this "anything" turns into a not so good habit down the road. Sure you may not care too much about this habit at first, but 4 months down the road you may find yourself going crazy with this habit. Take a child that is always nursed or rocked to sleep from the time he is born. At first this doesn't seem like a bad idea, but when you find yourself up every hour at night with your child that will only go back to sleep when nursed or rocked (most likely because he can't make it through a sleep transition on his own), you may begin to regret this habit. You may also begin to get frustrated with your baby for having this habit, but you can't blame him, it is all he has ever known. Start as you mean to go on. It's easier to teach your children what you expect from them now than to fix it down the road.

This is where I really disagree with some of the advice from Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child*, Ferber and Karp. They generally talk about doing whatever works for the first three months (as if something magical happens after this time to make structure now acceptable) and then advocate suddenly changing your methods. I'd be pretty thrown off if I was a baby in this situation. I mean, they are taught one way from the time they are born and then all of a sudden everything changes. Doesn't make sense to me. It seems like things would go much smoother if you just started teaching a baby from the beginning when you have a clean slate to work with.

I do want to offer a word of caution with this "accidental parenting" concept. Some things to some people (like nursing to sleep) are acceptable no matter the age of the baby while they are not acceptable to others. Just be aware of what your future goals are and start working toward those goals now. Try to picture you and your baby a few months down the road and think, do we still want to be doing this then too? Also, don't be too hard on yourself. If your future plans don't include holding your baby in your arms while he sleeps but this happens every once in a while, don't worry. While consistency is important, a little variation from the routine is ok, and sometimes necessary. Don't beat yourself up about it and try not to stress too much about it. Plus, sometimes you just have to do whatever works at the moment to make it through the day, even if it means doing something that you would rather not do. Sure you may end up having to retrain later on, but if that means keeping your sanity, then do what you have to do.

*HSHHC does mention that starting sleep training early prevents long bouts of crying and sleep problems in the first place. But he doesn't exactly say when "early" is at this time in the book although it sounds like it must be very early on if you are going to prevent sleep problems from even starting. Later on in his book he talks about doing sleep training around a few months of age.


Related Posts:
Sleep Props/Associations
Habits