Expert advice

I came across a brilliantly amusing blog post, which I'll share at the end of my own post. I love it. Especially the bit about being eaten by a lion. I primarily find it reassuring.

I was starting to be mildly worried that our boy doesn't have a real night schedule and any schedule that he has doesn't really start properly until 9 or 10pm.

As with health issues for pregnancy and post-pregnancy, a lot of the advice on infant care is contradictory, confusing and not very specific, claiming to be absolutely essential, at the same time, if you don't want your baby to die.

Babies 'die' from SIDS unless they sleep on their backs on the cot/Moses basket (and nowhere else). However, babies also sleep better with their parents, as nature intended. Our boy slept on our chests for probably the first eight weeks before he was happy to lie on his back on his own. I was happier this way because I could feel him breathe and I could feel each tiny stir as he woke. I could monitor this tiny creature's reactions more accurately and immediately.

They tell you that your baby should be in a schedule at three months...but that their sleep patterns get screwed up with teething (which can happen for most of their first year), with any illness, with too much stimulation, with too little stimulation (etc etc). Our boy has no real schedule, but then what 'schedule' he does have, kind of fits in with my and the man's internal clocks so it's not surprising that our boy's internal clock is starting to emerge as similar to ours.

I was beginning to be mildly worried, as I said, with all this contradictory advice from experts. They don't half annoy me! Now, having read this fabulous piece of writing, I realise it's actually impossible to follow expert advice and all I can (and should) do, is to follow my heart and my instincts with my child. As his mother, I have to trust that I know him better than anyone else, better even than his father in some cases.* I have to trust my own instincts and be strong. I, as his mother, do know best.

Anyway, here's the blog post by Ava Neyer, mother of twins with different biological clocks. Thank you Ava!



* Though I have to acknowledge that his father's more hands-off approach has been invaluable in helping me to see how much downtime and own-space my son needs.