The Best Parenting Book is the One you Already Had

I am obsessed with parenting books. Well, books in general, but parenting books especially right now. And it's driving us all nuts. As you can see from the video we (meaning I with Ivan dubiously agreeing to go along with it) decided that it was a good time to take away the girls' pacifiers. We don't see anything wrong with pacifiers in general; if used correctly they can be a wonderful tool. And babies need to suck. Also, the offering of a pacifier at night is seen as a significant factor in reducing SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Sydrome). We were all for it! While we were co-sleeping, it worked really well too. Onc hardly has to wake up to insert a dropped pacifier when your baby is an inch away. Now consider what this is like when the babies are in their own room and there are two of them. Twice as many dropped pacifiers equals twice as many trips to the nursery. So in a desperate act to restore my sanity, I took the stupid things away. They're young, they won't remember, it'll be easy....right? WRONG!
But I suppose I should have started with the fact that we kicked the girls out of our room. That was actually going quite well....for them. I kept them in sucking all night and they were happy little clams. Even once we removed the pacifiers (suckos) they were fine. I was simply nursing them to sleep. Nothing wrong with that! Wrong again. Can I rock them to sleep? Nope! Oh and apparently they're supposed to have two three hour naps per day. And this is where I became extremely confused and ended up messing up sleep for everyone in the house. (Well, Ivan managed to get some sleep bless is heart.)
I read and read more books. And when I ran out of books, a well-meaning girlfriend brought over even more books. And all of these books contradicted one another. So on Thursday, with a stack of parenting books and a whole lot of newly acquired free time, I set about putting the girls down for the first of their 3 hour naps. I nursed them to sleep, (then learned you shouldn't do this), I rocked them (whoops), I walked them around (oh dear!). And they slept. In the afternoon, I put them back down in the sleepy-awake state that one popular book directed me to do. They slept again for 3 hours. I thought "Oh dear, these girls have been so tired all along, look at all the sleep they've been missing out on!" And then night time came, and if you were predicting that they would not sleep at all, you were RIGHT! They were tired though. Yawning, kicking, crying the whole time. I could get them down for an hour and then they were up again. I thought I was going to lose my mind. I pleaded with Ivan in the morning to please take the car to work and come home at noon so I could get some sleep! Thankfully, he did this.
After a phone call with a voice of reason (thank you, G) and 2 cups of strong coffee, I began to see the light. The girls had been fine all along. They were already "sleeping through the night". One five hour stretch, a feed and then a few more hours etc. I had been convinced by some well meaning Nanny-turned author that a 3 month old baby can and indeed should sleep through the night by our definition. Ridiculous! So last night, we took the hour we needed to get them to sleep calmly, knowing that eventually they would go to sleep. And at 3 am after 6 hours of uninterrupted blissful sleep, I went into the nursery, fed my first girl, then my second girl, and then put them back to bed. All the while thinking how wonderful it was that I was still able to nurse them, how wonderful it is to have this quiet time to spend with each of them, one one one. (On to Toni's topic next week). I rocked them, and stroked their hair and just loved them. And I realized that I already know what I need to know. It's not everything there is to know, but it's enough. I come pre-programmed with all the information that I need to raise healthy and happy people. It's already in me. So away with Dr. Sears (no offense, I'm sure he's a lovely man), and down with Ferber (who lets their baby cry it out?!). I'm going with the well intentioned Mommy method. The oldest, tried, tested and true!
Don't forget to set your clocks back and change the batteries in your smoke detectors!