There, I said it. I am a convenience parent.
If you've ever heard this term before, it refers to parents who didn't really expect much to change when they had children. That assumed kids would fit neatly into their lives instead of the other way around and would go to great lengths to keep it that way. Here's the problem with this type of convenience parent- most importantly, of course, it's detrimental to the child. But secondly, those that employ techniques like cry-it-out (CIO) to get baby to sleep better and longer are actually creating more work for themselves. It's not so convenient when CIO doesn't work. I've heard of some CIO programs that actually encourage parents to abandon their instincts. Like if baby is crying in the next room, ignore the fact that it's very upsetting for a mother to hear a baby wailing! I don't know about you, but I would not be able to sleep at all knowing my child was crying in the next room.
However, I am still a convenience parent. I discovered somewhere in my 9 years as a parent that going against the grain of a child's basic innate temperament is an exercise in futility. Take my first child Hunter, for example. He had no issue sleeping in the bassinet beside our bed. Later, I could rock him to sleep and he would sleep in his crib all night long. At three months old. This is what is known as getting lucky. Sadly, when my daughter Jules arrived, I assumed she would do the same. Ha! Julianna wanted nothing to DO with the bassinet or the crib. She wanted to sleep on me. Now, if I had just LET HER, I would have established appropriate convenience parenting right there. But noooooo. I had to fight it. I would rock her for HOURS. I would ever so gently lay her in the crib then slowly remove my arms from her body, holding my breath the whole time. Without fail, seconds later, she would scream and I would have to repeat this process. No wonder I found parenting her difficult and frustrating! It was truly a case of evolutionary mismatch. This article about why young children protest bedtime from Psychology Today, explains it extraordinarily well.
By the time we got to Dylan, he was my fourth baby. I was ready to pull out convenience parenting my way with full steam. He didn't want to sleep in the co-sleeper. Fine, he spent his first 6 months touching me most of the time. One hour a day he spent in the baby swing. The rest of the time I wore him, snuggled next to him in bed at night, or held him. Once in a while towards the end of the first six months, he'd play on the floor, as long as I was within his view. We breastfeed. Breastfeeding is difficult the first 6-8 weeks, I will grant you that. But once you get it down it's a piece of cake, convenience parenting at its finest. I didn't have to make or wash bottles ever, especially not in the middle of the night. I didn't even get out of bed to feed him, since he was sleeping right beside me. I had side-lying nursing perfected by the time he was 10 weeks old, so I didn't even have to sit up to nurse him. Here's a youtube video guide. And when we started solids, I did a few homemade purees, but after that, he ate pretty much what we ate, except dairy free due to allergies. Very, very convenient.
So, my advice to first time parents? Quit going against nature! Just because Babies R Us says the baby must sleep in a crib doesn't mean baby WILL sleep in a crib. Just because the baby swing was a Godsend for your friend's baby, doesn't mean it will be for yours. Don't always be looking for some gadget to entertain or hold your baby for you. Again, going against nature. Your baby spent 9 months inside you. In fact he or she would still be there, but the human head grows too large to fit out after 9 months gestation and a woman's body expels the baby at that point. So all babies, are, in effect, premature. They need you. All you gotta do is find ways to meet your baby's needs while also maintaining convenience for you. You can have it all! Get a sling and wear the baby while you do chores. Here's a general guide. Screw rocking, it's tedious. Just lay down and nurse the kid to sleep. And don't worry one bit about how you'll stop that habit. The baby will tell you when it's ready to stop. Children all end up eating solid food and sleeping in their own beds. If you don't rush the process, it will be more painless for you both.
