A Not So Easy Dinner

Dear Kiki,
                Yesterday  Benjamin and I took the girls to Izzy's for dinner.  It seemed like an easy win - Sydney wanted pizza, I wanted salad and Benjamin wanted food.  Prior to dinner we went to the Columbia Employee store to exchange a Christmas present of mine.  Sydney and Laura had good behavior and I handled the crowd well despite my burgeoning headache, so dinner seemed like an easy end to an otherwise fun/relaxing day.   However, not so much.

On the way to dinner we decided to swing by Walgreen's for allergy medicine.  We were not very far along in our journey before Laura Kate began to fuss. It was close to her feeding time so we pulled over and I gave her the bottle I had prepared for her in-advance.  Unfortunately this did not seem to placate her and she continued to get madder (and sadder) as we drove.  When we got to Walgreen's Benjamin went in to get the medicine while I tried to calm LK down.  Instead of drinking the bottle she was chewing furiously on the nipple and when I checked her gums, she acted like she may be teething.  Poor Baby!   With LK acting so fussy we stopped by the house to get a Mum-Mum for her to chew on as well as some infant Tylenol.  When I walked through the front door I was greeted to a huge mess of garbage!  Putter had made a mess of the kitchen floor as well as dragged some items on to the living room rug for added enjoyment.  With shock and anger I walked over the mess, got my needed items from the kitchen and walked back out the door - after sticking Putter in his kennel of course).
As we pull away from the house Sydney is moaning about how hungry she is, LK is crying and I'm pissed off.

We arrived at Izzy's and proceeded to have a fairly calm dinner.  Until we became That Family. You know the one with the screechy baby, inappropriate acting pre-schooler, nagging mom and disconnected dad.  LK started yelling and screeching because I guess I wasn't feeding her fast enough, and Sydney was doing her best impression of bad dinner table manners.  I was trying to get Sydney to behave while shoving food into LK's mouth.  And Benjamin was ignoring all of it.

Until Benjamin noticed that Sydney didn't have her glasses on.  She left the house with them on.  She left the store with them on. When did she take them off?  

He asked her where they were. Her response was a shrug.  A SHRUG!!  She told us that she took them off while eating so she could see better.  "Its okay mommy, I don't need glasses to see with anyway." We searched under the table in all of our coat pockets.  We even got the hostess to take apart the seat so we could check in case they fell in the crack between the wall and the seat. Nothing.  We have made a big spectacle by this time and Sydney is crying because she has finally figured out that she is in trouble.  The whole time this is happening we keep grilling Sydney about where she may have left her glasses.  She continues to state that she left them next to her on the booth seat.

We pay for our dinner and pack ourselves out to the car.  Sydney is trying to negotiate her way out of an early bedtime punishment by suggesting other forms of loss privileges while I am explaining what a big deal her losing her glasses is.   Out the car we get Sydney and LK buckled in then Benjamin uses the light on his phone to double check around the carseats to see if maybe by chance the glasses are in the car,  Low and behold they are.  ON THE FLOOR OF THE CAR.  Sydney's response, "Oh there they are".

It was an early bedtime at the Lee House last night.

Parent Shaming!

Recently a Facebook friend conscientiously shared an article about Present Parenting.  Apparently, in order to be a successful (present) parent you can NEVER sleep train your child.  I read the article twice, and double checked the credentials of the writer.  Her picture depicts a happy, health, beautiful young woman.  Her bio indicates she is a woman who likes tattoos and naps, oh and is also the mother of five-year old twins.  She didn’t personally offer any research to back up her argument that children shouldn’t be sleep trained, but she imbedded links that took you to articles where other authors had outlined research which would support her stance.  Because this wasn’t what one would call a “neutral” perspective, she did not provide any links to articles (research) for the opposition.

It appears the author also has no educational background which would make her an expert on the effects of sleep training, and her only experience relates to her twins.  So basically, she is totally qualified to parent-shame the rest of us.

In reading the article the author refers to a medical practice where the leading physician supposedly recommends that you start sleep training a child at 8 weeks.  According to the author, the doctor directs that you place the baby in their crib at 7pm, then return to the room at 7am.  This is all of the information the author provides, as the recommendation was not given to her directly. In fact, the physician in question had given the recommendation to another author who already wrote a piece on the issue. 

In that article the author (the one with firsthand experience) explained that the decision to support sleep training at 8 weeks was reportedly slowly determined over several decades of pediatric care this physician, and his residents, had provided.  It was his experience that around 8 weeks of age babies are sleeping 6-8 hour stretches and asking them to sleep an additional 6-4 hours isn’t unreasonable.

Personally, I do not agree with asking a baby to sleep (or be alone) for 12 hours straight. However, I think that 6-8 hours is reasonable once your baby is on a fairly consistent eating schedule.  But I realize this is MY OPINION and should not be thrust upon every parent and or every baby.

In my personal experience, at eight weeks my baby has some nights where she will sleep for seven hours before needing to eat, other times she only sleeps four.  For me, getting up to breastfeed after only four hours of sleep is not a problem.  However, that’s because my baby generally goes back to sleep quickly after eating.  In addition, I know that when she wakes again, it’s Dad’s turn to get up and feed her. So, there isn’t much stress attached to my baby’s sleeping schedule and at this juncture I don’t see a need to train her to sleep longer stretches.

The first author mentioned above, noted in her article that it’s not “brave” or “gutsy” to attempt to sleep train your baby.  This is because sleep training is only done by parents who are selfish and may not have realized how demanding babies can be.  It’s more “brave” to actually listen to your baby “I mean really listen” (because apparently most parents only partially listen…) and respond every time they cry.

I have a friend whose baby never slept more than two hours at a time and once the baby was awake it would take her several hours to get back to sleep.  Because of this schedule the baby was cranky all of the time, as were her parents.  They turned to their doctor for advice, who referred them to the Ferber Method (allowing a child to cry themselves to sleep) – and this worked for them.  But it was initally very hard for my friend to commit to the Ferber Method.  She had many failed attempts because she couldn’t stand to think that her child might be suffering.  I commend her for her bravery and would never shame her for this.  They are now a much happier family.

Every parent knows that parenting is VERY hard.  We probably spend more time doubting our methods then we do embracing them.  I don’t know what the future holds for my family, and whether we might have to use the Ferber Method at some point.  But if we do, I would hope my friends (Facebook and otherwise) would provide moral support and not be judgmental or critical.  I don’t want to have to isolate myself due to fear of being publically (or privately) shamed for my parenting decisions.   

Just for some extra fun – here are some titles from other articles this author has written:

Kim Kardashian’s Push Present Request is Way Over the Top

Kylie Jenner’s Snapchat Shows How Hurt She is Over Her Breakup

Model Loses Thousands of Followers When She Posts These Ugly Selfies