Babies and parents
I wasn’t shocked when I read the findings of a recent report in the UK on parenting which revealed that most fathers and mothers lie about their baby’s sleeping habits. One in every three parents of the more than 11,000 parents interviewed on Netmums lies about their child’s sleeping habits to show they are perfect parents. The reason being there is so much pressure faced by mothers and fathers to show that they are good parents.
Luckily I don’t belong to this one third, my numero uno (my number one), which is what I call my son, who is 7 months, picked up his sleeping routine naturally. I tried to work on a routine when he was a month old and after three nights of trying I gave up. Now he is able to put himself to sleep and can sleep ‘well’ at night. When I say well I mean he doesn’t cry, in fact I don’t give him the chance to cry when he is hungry. I’m very alert so I can hear him toss and turn and before he knows it, milk is delivered. He sleeps for his 10+ hours, which means if he goes to bed at 7pm I expect to be woken up by him playing and humming at about 5am.
I have been one very lucky mother. But still at times I find myself under pressure to compare him with other babies. Being a first time mum I read a lot of baby magazines. You know how professional editors are, when they write that a baby at such a certain month should be able to do this, they quickly write at the end ‘Note that babies are different and their development will differ too”.
Having been hit by this true line in magazines I resorted to looking around for babies at church or in a kombi or in the supermarket and comparing them with my numero uno. At times especially at church I would ask how old the baby was and I would weigh the baby in my hands and do a silent eye-to-hand-heart comparison. This was becoming more of a bad habit for me and I had to face the reality that not all babies are the same. I quickly knocked some of level of sense in my head that, yes I can compare my numero uno, with Betty’s sunshine but these two are different and yes I should take heed of the editors note and live by it.
I have learnt that there is more I can gain from engaging in a conversation with the mother at church sitting next to me than calculating the baby’s weight. There is more to benefit from having coffee with Betty and have our angels play together. And definitely my numero uno will benefit a lot if I take him out of those walls he is used to seeing everyday.