Having a baby means you should probably give some thought to your parenting style and how you want to handle challenges, crises, and triumphs big and small. There are the four basic textbook styles – authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved – and then there’s everything in between from attachment-focused to the more parent-directed stuff. Although there are some core schools of thought, I’d venture to say no two parents parent alike.
Before bringing my daughter home from the hospital this summer, I planned on finding a happy medium between following her lead as a needy newborn and being her primary leader as a stay-at-home mom. I liked the idea of breastfeeding to bond with my baby, but I cringed at the thought of constantly feeding on demand. I wanted to meet my little girl’s needs for love and affection, but avoid her becoming too dependent upon me for around-the-clock entertainment.
Nearly five months in, I’m relieved to find I’m finally getting the hang of it, but my parenting style isn’t exactly what I expected. What has surprised me?
1. My obsession with sleep. The parenting cliché about being profoundly sleep deprived is no joke, and the lack of shuteye has turned me into a real control freak about keeping a schedule. I never thought I’d be “that parent” who refuses to leave the house at certain hours of the day to observe naptime. But that’s where I’m at right now.
2. My preoccupation with taking tons of pictures. However, I’m not so into sharing them on social media. What am I keeping them all to myself for? I have no idea. But I do worry that I’m parenting from behind a lens way too much.
3. My quasi-demand feeding routine. I nurse my daughter on a loose schedule, usually after she wakes up in the morning and following naps, but also just before bedtime and any time she seems super hungry or fussy for no other apparent reason. She doesn’t “demand” to be fed all that often, so I end up steering the milk truck most of the time.
4. My newfound love of baby play. Before having one of my own, I logged many hours playing with babies as a sitter-slash-nanny. I never truly enjoyed the littlest ones and usually preferred kidding around with bigger kids. Now that it’s my own daughter though, reading the same board books over and over again, stacking and tumbling blocks, playing marathon rounds of peek-a-boo, and showing her things as mundane as paper towel rolls are the best parts of my day.
5. My lingering self-doubt. Given the hands-on experience I have with kids of all ages and my time spent writing and editing for parenting publications, I figured I’d be a fairly confident parent. But there’s a certain degree of self-doubt that I just can’t shake most of the time. I never thought I’d question whether I’m playing with my baby in the “right way” or if she’s sleeping enough for her development, but those uncertainties keep me trolling message boards online like it’s my job.
5. The fact that I’m a softie. The thought of sleep training and letting a baby cry it out never ruffled my feathers, until I first heard the sound of my daughter’s distressful wail. Sure, there are nights when I can’t get her to settle down and I wish I had the strength to let her scream herself to sleep, but at this point I’m nowhere near leaving her in her crib to soothe herself. Maybe that will change in the next few months, but for now, I’m as soft as a down comforter.
Whitney C. Harris is a freelance writer living in Westchester, NY. She had her first child, a daughter named Rowan, last summer. Find her at whitneycharris.com.
