1. Don't take the advice of another mom, as gospel. Many moms think differently than you and prioritize certain things, that you don't share. For instance, many moms do not value naps. But they do value portability. They bring their babies everywhere- tired or not. they keep them up til they feel like putting them down. And Ive found that often these babies give up naps all together as early as one year old. But studies have shown, and trust me, ive read them, that sleep is SO crucial to a 0-3 year old. Good sleep habits help SO many things: focus, self-control, mood, and many other things. They help babies to retain information and learn at quicker rates.
This is not meant as a judgment for ANY other moms, but I have found myself feeling guilty, like maybe I should let him skip naps when I need him to, but then I remind myself, we all pick our battles. If it worked for you, and you have a healthy, happy baby, and a good marriage and are not a worry-wart, then great. By all means, do what is best for you and your family. But I thrive on structure, and many babies do as well. I like to create a predictable environment to foster learning and development for my son. He is not in control of his surroundings and he does not know what is good for him so I choose to be a parent that makes the best decisions for him, and put myself second. I will always, also, put my marriage, or at least strive to, put my marriage before my kids. And that means good naps, so I can accomplish chores and daily tasks, so that he has a reasonable bedtime and good consistent sleep= so that my husband and I can always count on several hours before our bedtime to bond, talk, catch up, eat dinner together, watch a movie- whatever it is we want to do.
2. ALWAYS trust your own instincts before you trust advice that doesn't click with what you know or feel to be true for your baby. It took so many tears and so much despair for me to finally REFUSE to be told my son was fine, when I knew he wasn't. He ended up having a milk allergy and it took almost 2 months for me to get answers because I didn't want to cry wolf and I didn't want to tell a doctor I knew they were wrong. But finally, after talking to another mom friend and having her tell me about 10 times- "YOU KNOW YOUR BABY. YOU KNOW WHEN SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT. YOU ARE AROUND 24/7 AND IF YOU ARE BEING BLOWN OFF BY HIS PEDIATRICIAN, YOU MUST FIND A NEW ONE. A GOOD PEDIATRICIAN KNOWS TO VALUE A MOTHERS OPINION. AND YOU NEED TO HAVE THE CONFIDENCE TO STAND BY YOUR INSTINCTS AND MOTHERING SKILLS TO TELL THAT DOCTOR HE/SHE IS WRONG." That was such a crucial and hard lesson for me to learn. But the most important I think, almost any mother can learn. Our kids pediatricians often think they know everything because of experience or knowledge or training, but we forget that they provide only blanket advice and rarely have specific or random cases of something that they are willing to examine for OUR baby. And we often forget, I think, that we do now our babies. And we do know if something changes and something is wrong with them. Our pediatricians, though many are great, only see a glimpse of our child, one time a month or 3 months, even. And therefore we need to trust ourselves as these little angels have been entrusted to us to care for and get to know and make the best decisions possible for every part of their wellbeing- physical, mental, emotional, spiritual.
This will be a running dialogue as my son is only 6 months old now and im sure there are just years and years of things to learn!!
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