Something I discovered as soon as I found out I was pregnant, actually even before that, was that there is an overwhelming number of choices to be made regarding how to care for your baby.
Do I breastfeed or bottle? Do I co-sleep or not? Do I use cloth or disposable diapers? Do I do this, do I do that, do I not do this, do I not do that? How do I know if I’m doing it right? And how do I not make myself crazy with all these decisions??
And honestly, it has been kind of hard for me to convince my brain that we are doing things right with the decisions we’ve made for D so far, because I often think well what if we’d done this or that instead? And, but what about all the reasons for doing it differently than we have? Here’s a peek into the chaos of my mind and what routes we’ve chosen:
Working mom vs. SAHM: As much as I would love to, I can’t stay home with D right now. And it’s something I think about daily. If you’ll remember, I wrote about that whole struggle here.
This is probably one of the hardest decisions many moms have to make. If you go back to work some may make you feel guilty for deserting your baby at daycare, and if you stay home some may make you feel guilty for not having a “real job”.
I think this is one argument that needs to go away. Why can’t people just respect each other for the choices they have to make that are best for their own family and support them as mothers period?
I certainly don’t look down upon anyone who is able to be a SAHM, because I know that this parent thing is absolutely a full-time job in and of itself. You just don’t get paid for it. Unless you count dirty diapers, spit up, and snot rivers as a salary. And I would definitely take offense if someone criticized me for sending D to daycare. Oh ok, are you going to fill the void left by my lack of paycheck in our bank account? Didn’t think so, so zip it.
Breast vs. bottle: I think you all know the answer to this one by now, what with all my tales of magical boobs. But just in case, I breastfed D, and that is actually one decision that I have no qualms about whatsoever.
Co-sleep or their own bed: D has never slept with us, and I really can’t imagine even trying to keep her in our bed. From the beginning, she has been a noisy little sleeper. And now she flops around like a fish.
As a newborn she slept in a wheeled bassinet that we put right next to our bed at night, then rolled out into the living room during the day so she could sleep in the same room where we were. We changed her diapers in there too, everything. It was extremely handy, and I highly recommend one (i didn’t want to use one originally, thinking she’d just go right into her crib, but i am now SO glad r’s sister-in-law let us use theirs for d).
She then moved into her crib around 5 weeks old I think. I haven’t done much research on co-sleeping, actually, because that was another thing that I was pretty sure on before she was even born – I never wanted her to sleep with us. Plus there have been way too many tragic stories lately of babies dying from accidental smothering in their parents’ beds. No thank you.
Babywearing: This I did more when necessary, not really as the rule. We were lucky – D has never been much of a crier when she wasn’t being held (now she’s starting to get into a phase of this, but that’s a whole other post in itself), so we didn’t have to struggle through hours upon hours of ceaseless wailing.
When this did come in extremely handy, however, was when I wanted to get stuff done around the house and she did decide to be cranky. We got a Baby Bjorn as a shower gift, so I used that. I’ve also heard great things about Mobys and Ergos, but they’re expensive and we already had the Bjorn, so why bother?
D loved the carrier. I would strap her in there and vacuum, dust, whatever, and more often than not she just totally conked out asleep. Then when she got big enough I would face her outwards, and she loved being able to see everything I was doing. We took her for a hike in it last Fall too, which she enjoyed. So I did like babywearing, just not as a constant accessory.
Cloth vs. disposable diapers: This is probably the one where I have the most guilt. For you see, I try to be as eco-friendly as possible with my product choices. However, we use disposable diapers instead of cloth.
I know, I know, boo on me and all the diapers I’m putting into landfills from one tiny butt. Trust me, I know. I say the same thing to myself. And I did even get a 3-pack of reusable diapers when I was pregnant, thinking we could try to start using them once we were out of the newborn stage and more used to the whole baby routine.
Yeah, they’re still in the package in a drawer, 100% unused.
It’s not that I don’t like them; in fact I think they’re quite lovely and cute. It’s just, here’s the thing. I do laundry one day a week. Not 3 or 4 or 7. I’m sorry, I just don’t have time.
I work full-time, I’m usually the one to pick D up from daycare after work, she eats dinner shortly after we get home, then R and I eat dinner, I try to find time to squeeze a run or workout of some sort in a couple times a week, then after that it’s usually bedtime for at least her, if not all of us.
I know that’s not a good excuse – I could have the laundry going while I’m doing that other stuff, but honestly, I just don’t feel like adding one more chore to my daily list of things that have to get done. And I’d much rather spend free time playing with D instead of washing, drying, and folding a shitload of diapers (ha, get it, shit? it’s in the diapers? i’m hilarious).
So disposables have been our choice. Am I happy that I’m contributing even more to the overflowing landfills and the pollution of our planet with all these diapers? Of course not. But disposables are easy, convenient, and preferred at her daycare.
We use 7th Generation ones (i loved Pampers when she was a newborn, but 7th Gen has pretty much been our go-to since she’s gotten bigger) that are free of chlorine processing and petroleum based lotions, but still aren’t biodegradable. I don’t think any disposables are. I do use biodegradable bags in her diaper pail, though. Does that count for something?
CIO or not: As I’ve mentioned recently, D has been pretty much a champ sleeper until the past couple weeks. So we really never had to worry about letting her cry herself to sleep or not. I think though, if we had to make the choice, I’d let her cry it out. From what I’ve heard, it takes only a few nights of the heart-breaking sobbing themselves to sleep for them to learn bedtime means go to sleep, which I could handle.
I know the opponents of this method say it’s so unnatural for babies to cry themselves to sleep, that’s not nature’s way and animals in the wild don’t ignore their offspring when they’re calling for the parents, they’ll think you don’t love them, and on and on. But I just think that as long as you know they’re not crying because there’s something really wrong with them (besides the fact they just don’t want you to leave them in the crib), they can learn to do this on their own. And we’d all sleep that much better after those couple nights it takes.
Plus I find it really hard to believe that it would become some deeply-ingrained memory of hers that means we don’t love her – practically every waking second of the day she’s showered with love and affection. If D’s bedtime antics resume and we resort to this tactic, I’ll let you know if I’m singing the same tune or not. I think I will be, though.
Baby food: R made a lot of D’s baby food when she was really young and first starting to eat solids. He would mix in breast milk and puree sweet potatoes, beans, peas, chicken (which she hated), and I mashed up bananas. Way to contribute, Mom.
We did buy the occasional jar, but more just when we were going somewhere and needed it for convenience. The stuff we made at home we froze in little individual tupperware containers, then would thaw them at meal times or send them to daycare with her until she ate completely off the menu there. It worked out great. And we calculated that buying the regular items and processing them ourselves did save us money.
That’s why we did it, not because we didn’t trust what was in the store-bought baby food jars. For if you just look at the labels, most all of them are simply the main ingredient mashed up anyway. You’re definitely not stuck buying jars full of preservatives and chemicals anymore.
Pacifier or not: I chose no on the pacifier from the start. If you do this too, make sure you tell them that at the hospital as soon as the baby goes to the nursery the first time, if you decide to have them sleep there instead of in your room (do it! you’ll want some sleep that first night or two and believe me, they won’t remember it. that was one of the best decisions i made when d was born).
I just didn’t want her to rely on something to fall asleep or to be soothed or whatever, because I knew eventually I would spend all of her naps and bedtimes going in her crib to replace the fallen pacifier when she started screaming for it. And that wasn’t on my to-do list.
For us it’s worked like a charm. She took one for a bit around 1 month old, but that was about it. It did calm her, but she never grew to depend on it and then just didn’t want it anymore. And personally, I hate seeing toddlers running around with pacifiers in their mouths. I know the parents have good reason to let them keep them (noise plugs, anyone?), but I didn’t want to deal with constantly picking them up and cleaning them off when they would fall out of D’s mouth. So to try to make life simpler, I just decided to forgo pacifiers from day 1.
I’m sure there are plenty more decisions that I’ve second-guessed myself on along the way here, but this list is some of the main ones so far. Are there any I’ve forgotten that you’d like to know what we did? Please let me know – I’m happy to answer anything.
I guess you never really know if you’re doing things exactly right. But I just try to remember that D is healthy, happy, loved more than anything, and R and I have survived almost the first year (woah!), so we must be doing something right. And there really is something to be said for a mother’s instinct – trust your gut and don’t let others make you feel guilty about your decisions. That’s your baby, and you more than anyone know what’s best.