They grow up so fast, trust your instincts as you will never get this time back again.
You are doing a fantastic job!
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They grow up so fast, trust your instincts as you will never get this time back again.
You are doing a fantastic job!
anna - I read somewhere (not going to get the quote quite right) that whatever you do with your baby (well provided you aren't harming them in any way) isn't a problem unless it's a problem for you. Does that make sense? I mean that if you are happy to rock your baby to sleep then it's NOT a problem. If you aren't happy to rock your baby to sleep then it is a problem. I was rocking my DD to sleep and I was happy to do it, but it got to a stage where rocking her to sleep wasn't working any more and nothing I tried was working (sling, pram, rocking, etc). So she was getting extremely over tired and I was having no time out because I have no one around to help during the day. It got to the point that I wasn't happy to rock her to sleep any more so I got help to learn new settling techniques (not CC - there's no way I could leave her to cry). I still love rocking and cuddling her and we do plenty of that. I wish I could still rock her to sleep because I did enjoy it. But when I was rocking for two hours and she wasn't sleeping at all it just got too much for me. It's early days in using the new settling techniques so maybe they too will fail at some point, but for now I'm finding she gets much more sleep and I'm having some time out, which we both need. HTH
Sounds to me like you've hit a pretty magic formula then! You are clearly doing something very, very right!! Good on you for listening to your instincts.:
When I was having trouble settling Clare, I too couldn't bring myself to just put her in the cot and let her cry, but I also had a shoulder injury that meant that holding her as much as she wanted to be held was not an option either. I would swaddle her and put her in her cot next to my bed and pat and stroke her until she went to sleep, instead. She was never crying unaccompanied, and didn't cry much, to be honest, but it saved my aching arms and back a bit :)
I'm not saying you need to do that - but I'm backing the previous poster who says the most important thing to do is what works for you and your baby, and other people's opinions just don't come into it. They aren't the ones taking responsibility for this child, you are, and you're doing a great job of it.