Crying It Out

I remember writing a while ago, some time early April saying I thought I had ovulated, and would be surprised if my period hadn't shown up by May. Well, it's now the middle of May, and still no period. I have also taken a pregnancy test, and I am not pregnant. The last time we could possibly have made a baby before I took the test was a long enough time previously that I felt confident that the answer would be correct. Soo.. I don't know what was up with that, just odd niggles I guess! Still, the longer without one the better I think, and seeing as Christopher is about 7.5 months old, that's fine by me! Robert was 11 months when my period returned, and he had been nightweaned for a few months by then.

Christopher is not nightweaned yet, but we will be nightweaning him gradually like we did Robert. I have read a lot of gentle parenting blogs, which advocate breastfeeding, co-sleeping, babywearing, cloth nappies, BLW, etc etc. And while I can see why people want to let their child learn to sleep by themselves in their own time, I personally needed to nightwean Robert for my own sanity, especially as when he got to 8 months old and was starting to wake hourly again, I just could not handle that! And while I am coping with motherhood-to-two better than I did with motherhood-to-one, I think the fact that I have two to look after would make me be in need of my sleep, especially since one is a very independantly-minded toddler! I think that in every aspect of parenting, we all just find our own way. Whether we do lots of research or little to none, we all do the best job we can, and sometimes I think it is important to remember that.

Why is it then, that as a pretty well-researched mother (at least I believe so) I sometimes read things or hear ways of parenting and cringe? Perhaps not at what is being done, but at the reasoning or the justification. The example I am thinking of right now was a discussion on someone's status about CIO. Someone replied saying that they did it with their baby, and after a week (a WEEK!) they finally "learned that bedtime meant bedtime". I read that, and my heart drooped a little for the baby, and my initial thoughts were "no, your baby learned that no-one would come no matter how distressed they were and how long they cried for." I have no doubt that this person loves their baby more than anything, and that they felt that CIO was the only option, but to me it just feels so harsh on a baby, I can't help but think how scared the baby must feel, in the dark and alone, desperately wanting to see their mummy and know she is still there, that they are safe, and no-one comes to get them.

I think what I find saddest is that I read so many people saying "I was in tears listening to them scream". How can anything that feels so WRONG possibly be right? What has happened to mother's instinct?

If you want to get to that Magical Land of Uninterrupted Sleep, there are several paths you can take. You can take the shortest route so you get there faster, but the road is made of broken glass, nails and shards of rock, and you are barefoot. You get to your destination in a fraction of the time than if you went on one of the other paths, but it is a journey filled with anguish and pain, and by the time you get there you have scars you will never get rid of. Or you can take one of the longer paths. The paths consist of sand, grass, smooth paving slabs, but they are significantly longer journeys than the short path. You reach your destination eventually, probably more tired than if you had taken the short path, but you had a relatively easy and painless journey, and no scars to show for it.