Okay, so I watch a lot of daytime TV. Not soap operas, per se, but I like to watch those baby shows, the ones where the couple takes the new baby home and then have little break-downs from the sleep deprivation. I also watch Jon and Kate plus 8. (You can't help it, it's on all the time) Watching those poor suckers cope makes my situation seem easier. (The husband thinks someone should put poor Jon out of his misery. He's convinced that Jon is sending secret signals that he wants someone to hit him with a car.) The one thing they all harp on is getting, and keeping, a schedule.
A lot of moms put their kids on a schedule. The point, I suppose, is so the kids/babies know what to expect and what is coming next. I'm not sure I totally agree.
When my angel was a baby, she didn't have a schedule. In fact, when I would leave her with a sitter, they would often ask "How much does she eat?" and "When does she nap?" and I would have to say, "I don't know." When she was hungry, she ate and when she was full she would stop. When she was tired, she would sleep. Often where ever she happened to be at the time, as evidenced by the scrapbook pages full of pictures of her sleeping in strange places! Some people might say that this loosey-goosey parenting wasn't good for her, that she never knew what was going on. But I think that it actually taught her to listen to her body instead of living her life by the clock. (In fact, I am regretting a little that she is learning how to tell time. She'll be nodding off on the couch, but she doesn't want to go to bed until "bedtime".)
Some of my favorite parts of the shows are where the kids have major meltdowns because they missed a nap or they didn't get their lunch on time. My angel never (at least, not that I can remember) had a problem postponing a meal or skipping a nap. Schedules are great, until something comes up that alters it, like daylight savings. (And don't even get me started on that little farce!) My angel never knew what was coming, so she was never thrown for a loop when surprises came up.
I'm not sure if that is how things should be with the new baby or not. Now that angel is in school, we do have more of a schedule. After all, school does follow a clock. So we might have to get the baby to follow her schedule, for the most part. All I know is, I never want to have a panic attack because the baby isn't home to nap on time. He can learn to deal, just like the rest of us! And when he's hungry, I plan to feed him. I don't care what the clock says.
1 comment:
Right on sister! I never had my prince on a schedule of sorts. I feel slightly bad when Monday comes and he has to go to daycare on about 8 hours of sleep (I would love to get that much by the way!) He usually just takes an extra long nap or goes to sleep early. I can always tell when he's reached his limit though. I think the only schedule that matters is that the baby sleeps at night and not all day!
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