[imported from livejournal and backdated]
Everyone keeps asking "Is he a good baby?" Huh?! Good in what sense? Apparently a "good" baby doesn't cry much and sleeps lots.
Rightio then.
Tiny
slept through the night last night. The night lasted from midnight to 7
something. He had an extremely saturated nappy when we woke up in the
morning but seeing as he didn't wake up for his usual in between change
and top up, was to be expected I guess.
Was nice getting to sleep
7 hours in a row rather than in two 4 hour blocks. Though it did make
me feel more tired coz I had more sleep. It doesn't make any sense but
that's the way it seems to work.
I joke about how Tao is such a
cruisy bub coz I trained (in kung fu of the Choy Lay Fut Buk Sing
variety) up til I was 8 months pregnant, then I stopped coz the school
was going to close and I felt too fat. I tell people Tao is so cruisy
as well coz I carry him all the time.
I get pissed off with
people who insist that controlled crying works (apparently they're
selling it under the label "controlled comforting" so it has less
negative connotations but it's the same fricken thing). They insist
that it teaches the child to put themselves to sleep if you mostly
ignore them when they're crying and only come in at set intervals to
comfort them. What they conveniently neglect to mention is that being
ignored when they're calling for their mother stresses the baby out.
Long term effects nothing, they can't prove or disprove it either way
(or haven't yet), the baby gets upset when it's not responded to.
What
the hell is wrong with people? If someone cries out for help, they can
within reason expect a fairly speedy response. If they get ignored they
feel unloved and unwanted (and in the case of people who desperately
needed help and people ignored them, they kill themselves). Yet somehow
it's perfectly okay for a baby to be put through that shit because
people delude themselves into believing that a baby doesn't feel that
kind of stuff.
Yes we are well aware that the baby is loved and
safe wherever it got put down to sleep. But how the hell is it expected
to know that? Considering most people expect the baby to sleep all by
itself in its own cot and in its own room it wakes up alone and freaks
out.
(I'll admit at this point that I was all ready to stuff Tao
into his own cot in his own room, then he was born and I wanted him
close by all the time)
Most people lose sleep coz they have to
get up to feed the baby all the time. A lot of people reckon that they
can't co-sleep. Sometimes they can't if they have a hard night out or
if one or both parents smoke. But they reckon they can't handle having
the baby in the bed with them. How the hell did they get used to having
their partner in the bed?
Don't answer that.
I think we
get heaps of sleep coz Tiny sleeps in the bed with us. We used to put
him down in his cot and bring him into the bed when he woke up crying
for a feed. Now we just have him in the bed and on the occasions when
he's not requiring a change he doesn't even cry much, he whimpers and
sometimes flails, I roll over and feed him, we're both half asleep or
fully asleep.
So yes. Tiny is a cruisy baby coz he knows that
when he's not being carted around with us, if he calls we will be there
as quick as we can, he knows he is secure sleeping between us (or tucked
up under my arm when he's on the outside of the bed). And that ladies
and gentlemen, not this controlled crying and "teaching them to be
independent" bullshit, is what makes him a "good" baby.
And now that's off my chest. Yes.
I
should start making this house safe for a mobile baby. I have no idea
how far off crawling Tiny is but he's giving it his all. I had to warn
Josh that he is able to kick himself up the change table now so we have
to keep a closer eye on him when changing him. Happens :)
I should put up some head lifty photos. Maybe when I'm feeling less slack (yeh like that will ever happen...)