The *down* side to gentle parenting?

[Ozziehoffy]

Ultimately, be true to yourself and to your kids. You are only answerable to them, and one day they'll be asking you about how you raised them, and I reckon you'll be able to hold your head pretty high

*nods* this I like... this I think I need to keep in mind.

[Mummato2]

I love the idea of getting rid of the labels lovely.

I can't call myself a gentle parent - but I also don't believe in harsh parenting (lots of yelling, smacking etc)

If I had to describe my way, it'd be in the middle.

We don't co-sleep - I love my alone time with DH way too much after a full day of cuddling, feeding, playing etc with my 2 babies.

We use sleep "routines" (not schedules) because the thought of having a baby dependant on me to be able to fall asleep and stay asleep didn't appeal to me.

We introduced solids early due to reflux AND because my DD is a little piggy LOL

We use time out, occasionally a "smack" on the bottom if my nearly 3 year old is especially defiant and talking isn't stopping the behaviour. A swift smack on his nappy is normally enough to get him to stop so I can then concentrate on either time out, diverting attention etc/

Darling, there are no "down sides" to parenting if YOU do what's right for YOU xxxx

You know the old saying "it takes a village to raise a child" - well when you get into a situation like this, it's time to call on the village!

Try to take some pressure off yourself and know that you are a beautiful mumma - a wonderful lady and you are doing your best. Don't place unrealistic superwoman expectations on yourself - all that will do is cause you to stress more....

Have you got a good support system around you honey? xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[jackrose]

I'm having trouble responding to your wonderful replies, both on a personal level (you have all offered wonderful, supportive, positive and real advice) and on the bigger question which is a very interesting one I think. There is so much to address in all of this and I am not really in a state to organise any of it into any sense!

You sound isolated and overwhelmed, and frankly very darn lucid for someone so fatigued.

Thank you for your kind works, I am glad I have come across making reasonable sense as I do feel quite confused!

Honestly, I have thought about this issue a lot, at times when I didn't feel quite so overwhelmed. Mostly it was at times I read other people's posts about feeling lost in the world of parenting, at the end of their tether, and have at times replied with support. It is good to have threads like these sometimes so that those of us going through the challenges realise and remember that it is common, normal and to be expected. ( Shades, CheezleMonster and Ozziehoffy and anyone else reading this and nodding your head).

We get pretty good at making it look like we are coping and have our act together when really we are like a duck on water - calm as anything above the water but paddling furiously beneath it.

This is exactly the truth. I can't count the number of people who have said I look great/together/doing well in the last few weeks. Right at a time when I feel at my wits end! (I blame the sugar! - I recently gave up sugar and have never felt better for it so I hate to think how I would be traveling if I was still 'on the stuff'!!)

I do feel strongly about sharing our bad times as much as we do our good times so have made it clear to those around me that I am struggling. I have received lots of supportive encouragement which has been a blessing - just knowing that people know and understand can make the difference between making it through the day or falling in a heap. Practical help is a little more difficult to line up though isn't it?

Having said that, my little breakdown last night did have a happy resolution. Felt better for getting it out here and Dh and I negotiated an answer to the sleep issue. He took the first shift and I got the second. I slept on the couch and managed to get 6 straight hours for the first time in MONTHS! What a difference, new woman here!

I think it is important to get past the issue of labels though because that is not really what this is about. Labels can sometimes make life easier as they can clarify things, but on the flipside, they can alienate and weigh heavily too. I guess for me, the label gentle parenting makes things simple as I can 'grasp' what it is that I want to do/be but it is not the be all and end all. I hate to think that it makes me feel like I have all the answers. It is just that "low point" I am interested in/struggling with and think it helps to work through.

I guess my original question and the title of this post should be changed to "the down side to having ideas about how you want to parent"!!

I realise that this does sound as if I have very high standards and am putting undue pressure on myself. I think this is a pretty normal thing but do recognise that it can be detrimental if it becomes too overbearing. It can be such a fine line really.

I know my children will survive and not suffer for what has gone down around us for the last few weeks/months but it is pretty heartbreaking to loose it completely in front of your children and then have your 3 year old look at you frightened and say "take a big breath mummy, then you will feel better" breaks my heart. Then, to watch her replay out my little tantrum, complete with the swearing, at her little sister for touching her toys

all your gentle parenting so far IS valuable - don't discount it all & feel like it's worth nothing just because you're burnt out right now. It's the downside of being informed I guess, how you are feeling now - but better to know, and practise it where you can, than not know at all.

You are right and I do hold on to that thought. I do believe that all the work I have done to this point is a great foundation and it is good to be reminded of it right now. I think you have actually summarised my entire point here with your statement how I am feeling now is the downside to being informed.


I guess I also feel really angry that I don't have the support I want and need. Disappointed in myself and in my DH for letting me down. That is part of being a parent too I guess, working through these issues.

I remember one of Pinky's general emails that said if you feel like you "can't cope" it means you're not getting the help you need to do the job you're doing.

Right on! Parenting is never ment to be a solitary exercise and our society is pretty crazy arranaging itself in nuclear families, then expecting parents to head out of the house to work without the support networks in place that children flourish under.

As I mentioned before, there are a lot of wonderful words in this thread, I am sitting on many of them and feeling better, inspired...

To me, gentle parenting is my aim, not necessarily what I do all the time. We're all fallible.

I like it.

[HotI]

You are right and I do hold on to that thought. I do believe that all the work I have done to this point is a great foundation and it is good to be reminded of it right now. I think you have actually summarised my entire point here with your statement how I am feeling now is the downside to being informed.

I am another for who this thread has come at a good time, but also probably too sleep deprived to be able to add much constructive info to the discussion.

This reminded me of a time when i was posting through frustration about birth issues and was questioning educating myself and said that maybe ignorance was bliss, cos those who didn't seem to know or care didn't seem to hurt as much. Inanna posted and said that "Ignorance is just ignorance" and not a good thing. At first i was bit irritated but then i realised it's so true (and it has stuck with me) and i know staying ignorant wouldn't work for me anyway, and reading your posts i don't think it would be work for you either.

[Bathsheba]

Just briefly: Will it only work with support? I have to no doubt! We have just moved interstate to gain more support from family. My DH rejected the need for support until last year. We were living in Melbourne... pretty much in isolation from our extended family... and the universe chose to teach a lesson: bam bam bam we were hit with event after event that made DH realise that we just couldn't keep trying to raise our 3 kids without help from our family. So he finally agreed to seek work in rural NSW. The thing was... and don't want to scare you... but you don't just need support when the kids are little. We needed the most support with our teenage DD! So here we are. My kids are in almost daily contact with my extended family and it's been great. All our values are being reinforced (and my kids now realise we aren't the only ones saying something they don't want to hear!), and our minds are at ease knowing that if anything happens at 3am my sister etc is only minutes away to help... as we are for them.

[onthefly]

Is the grass always greener?
If I let my son cry for hours, would we really have gotten more sleep?
And why do discussions of parenting styles and methods always come back to sleep anyway? Do we guage our parenting 'success' or how well something 'works' by how much sleep we get?
Parenting to me is the long game - it's ultimately about raising children who will be caring, considerate and productive members of society as adults.
So I can't fail as a parent because my son took 2 years to learn to self settle. And I can't fail just because I yelled and swore at him the other day. I can see signs that I'm heading in the right direction when he rushes to cuddle his little sister if she's crying.

BUT, I feel like utter **** when I haven't slept properly for months. But that is not a failure of my parenting - that's a failure of the context in which I parent. If affects my day-to-day parenting (unfortunately), but it doesn't define me.

[Arcadia]

:yeahthat:

Sleep is not a metric of our success as parents. In fact our cultural value of uninterrupted sleep is actually part of the problem. We all need sleep, but why does it have to be at night and in solid blocks? I have never felt more rested, and it's because I have finally learnt the art of napping. Sleep when toddler does, why playschool is on, when dh is home etc. It has taken some time though and I have been forced to let go of my perceived ideas of 'achieving' things in the day.

I think information and education are wonderful things, but I blame both for my own feelings of inadequacy at times. It's hard to go from a career to sahm, and harder to just be present with your kids and snatch at sleep, rather than participate in the wider cultural context of work/play/sleep. This is why mayaness says we have a family unfriendly society...our society is geared towards economics and the idea of maximizing working hours...

It's ridiculous most of us don't see our dh or dp for twelve hours a day.

Isolation is such a killer.

for everyone. I am loving this thread and I will revisit it when I start to muddle my way through parenting two kids. This time though, I will accept and ask for more help. I proved nothing but my own fallibility by doing it alone with dd...that and the limits of my mind as I tried to keep it together for us all.

[Shanti]

There is no such thing as a perfect parent, just like there's no perfect child.

Great advice
You're doing a wonderful job, you just need some time out and sounds like you could do with some "me" time.....what are things you enjoy?

eta - I found around 8mths of age was a really challenging time of parenting for us!! DD's sleep went totally haywire and I was absolutely exhausted, for months...... you will get through this chick xx

[Shanti]

Isolation is such a killer.

for everyone. I am loving this thread and I will revisit it when I start to muddle my way through parenting two kids. This time though, I will accept and ask for more help. I proved nothing but my own fallibility by doing it alone with dd...that and the limits of my mind as I tried to keep it together for us all.

:yeahthat: me too!! I didn't have much help with DD but I've asked for more help this time around when bub #2 comes along.....I have to let my guards down and accept help instead of saying "im ok" all the time!!!!

[Cherished]

Like many others have said, do whatever works for you I'm sure if you gentle parent 90% of the time and resort to other methods the rest your child will still feel that amazing bond with you. Support has also been mentioned. I'd have to agree with that. If dh wasn't home most of the time I'd be struggling with fatigue. I'm only 4 and a half months into being a mum but DS is till waking a few times a night for feeds, anywhere from 2-4 hours sleep in a row. Just this week I've had my mothers group scoffing at us co-sleeping and how DS is probably waking because he can smell me whatever I say, I want him to smell me and to wake up every morning to dh and I smiling at him

[Arcadia]

I want him to smell me and to wake up every morning to dh and I smiling at him

That is beautiful. Cherish those moments...before long you'll have a leggy toddler taking up the bed...

I find gentle parenting has been a hard but very fulfilling journey. Nudie sleeps in the day with dd are one of our simple pleasures...

It's so hard when you're in the thick of it though...

[jackrose]

Thank you for all of your posts in this thread, they have been invaluable to me, helping me work through some things and have held my hand during a difficult time. I wanted to say thanks earlier but our Internet was down so i have been unable to pop back in.

I had a meeting with the MCHN which was very helpful and a chat with other friends who have been through similar stuff. That plus a big talk with the staff at a sleep school has highlighted to me how close I am to going under. I can see that i am close to suffering from, if not already in the grips if PND and it is scary.

The last few days have been a blur of fog, tears, snapping, screaming at the kids, fury at my partner, sleeplessness and gut wrenching fear that I don't think i have any more in me. I think the only thing that has saved me and will save me from things getting worse is facing up to the challenges, thinking through the things i have posted here and getting some perespective from everyone (both here and in real life). I can see that head down and keep going is such an easy path to depression when things are like this so i am trying to keep a check, keep perspective, keep talking and keep asking for help. I hate to think where I would be without that.

I did post earlier that the downside to being informed is that you risk feeling so much more devestated when thngs don't work out, i think that being so sleep deprived can colour one's ability to take that sort of feeling with the necessary grain of salt. I feel I have lost my perspective. Still, one good thing about being informed is that i have been able to recognize very quickly when things are getting beyond just bad for me and know to take steps to help myself.

Thank you though to you for your hands out help in working through this.
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