to be annoyed that people on MN are so against routines?

[Maria2007]

Well, I might be flamed for writing this, but recently I've gotten more & more annoyed by all the anti-routine opinions found on MN. So- am I being unreasonable to be slightly pissed off when I read (again and again) advice to 'co-sleep / wear in sling / bf on demand' when people ask particular questions about their babies (e.g. about sleeping / feeding patterns)? Am I being unreasonable to think that this style of parenting doesn't suit all parents (or doesn't suit all babies for that matter)? Am I being unreasonable to feel that GF (and other advocates of routines) have been unfairly treated here on MN, however much one may disagree on various points in their books (and anyway who said we have to agree with every single thing they write)?

Some background. My DS is 6 months old. He's still breastfeeding (and I plan to continue for as long as I can / he wants). He is also still sleeping with us in our bed (from 11 pm onwards). He's a happy, healthy baby. Until 4 & a half months he was breastfed on demand (with various problems, which I won't go into). Until that point we were getting little or no sleep. I was so exhausted that I decided to work on a routine & in desperation bought the GF books (which until then I had been completely dismissive of). Surprise surprise. Putting DS on a routine (I did it gently & gradually, before anyone shouts at me!) worked beautifully. His sleep has improved dramatically, his breastfeeding has also improved. My milk supply has ALSO improved, making me wonder about the usual advice to feed completely on demand after a certain age. DP & I never felt we pushed our son in any way when putting him on this routine, in fact, it felt completely natural, we just tweaked things here & there & gradually things became better & better.

I simply don't believe anymore that 'all babies fall into a pattern in their own time'. I also don't believe anymore that 'it's normal' for babies to not sleep for months & months, that 'it's normal' for babies to feed all through the night (the thing people say about 'babies having tiny stomachs' also doesn't convince me anymore, not after a certain age, not when they're- for instance- 7 months). We still feed DS at 3-4 am, and we think that's normal for breastfed babies at 6 months, but I simply cannot imagine staying at the place where I was, feeding him all through the night, every 1-2 hours.

Anyway. Just really, honestly, I'd like a discussion on this, because it's something that baffles me. I truly believe I'm a much better parent, more rested, more calm, less irritable, now that we have some predictability and a pattern to our day. I also think that if I had a second child I'd keep an eye on the pattern of their day from earlier. Can't really think why all the anger & disapproval towards GF & other routine-advocates. You may not agree with all their points, fine. You may not like their style of writing, fine again. After all, it's only common sense that each parent creates their own version of a routine for their child, you wouldn't follow any style of parenting blindly would you. But to be so against routines in general is a bit baffling to me, and I've heard it so many times here on MN in recent months, that I honestly would like to discuss it a bit more...

I must sound like a broken record but I am so very glad that I don't have a small baby now. My DS is 21 and we had none of this baby whisperer, baby guru bullshit that seems to make so many mothers paranoid these days. Every baby is different and has different needs. You do what is best for you and your baby and if it works then who gives a shit what anybody else thinks??

I had one book produced by the local hospital and another that my MIL gave me by Dr Miriam Stoppard. Each contained different and conflicting advice. If I had a problem I tried both approaches and stuck with the one that worked.

When we were first home I used to have my Mum knocking on my door at 9am, when I would drag myself out of bed zombie like and she would reproach me by telling me that in her day she'd have been up since my 5am morning feed with all the housework done a full line of clean nappies out to dry! Then my midwife would arrive and tell me to sleep when baby sleeps and not to worry about housework! You cannot win - ever! Do what works for you and forget the rest.

Techno - My MIL apparently got up before DH everyday to do her housework. I just smile and nod, smile and nod.

Oh happybeingme, where did these superwomen of yesteryear come from? I am such a failure in comparison!!

I hate to think that I would ever say such things to the woman that eventually marries DS and has my grandchildren - should I be so lucky. I stumbled and staggered half asleep through the early days of motherhood and don't think I could ever pretend otherwise! Then again, depends if I like her. Mwah ha ha ha ha!

I'm joking, honest.

YANBU to be annoyed, its just how you feel and whenever we come across a group that advises contrary to what we do of course you will be pissed off.

You have found what suits you and others have done the same, if people with contrary opinions slag your style off then that would out of order.

I do agree with you that people seem to go off on one about GF and BW when a lot of what they say is mis-quoted. I didn't agree with some of their advice but found a lot of it pretty much common sense.

Hi again everyone, thanks for all the comments.

Penthesileia- what you describe about nap-times is pretty much what we do too We also never let DS cry, we've never needed to & we've never wanted to. DS sleeps in his cot, in the buggy, in the bouncy chair, and of course in our bed at night . I think flexibility is key (and most people here on this thread seem to agree with this)... but it did take us a while to tweak things enough for DS to be happy to eat more in the day & less in the night (that's the main thing the routine helped us with).

I guess my problem is with attitudes such as that of the poster who wrote 'people who follow routines are uptight & control freaks'. I suppose everyone has the right to their own opinions... but it's such a shame that there's so much misinformation & misunderstanding flying around about what routines consist of (and about how different people use them in different ways). I say this because I too had similar misgivings without having read the GF & BW books, but when I did get around to reading them, I found they contained lots of useful & common sense advice (you can always pick & choose, of course...)

As for sleeping through the night being overrated, well for us a routine- mainly encouraging DS to eat more in the day & less in the night- has meant a dramatic change in our sleep. He now sleeps from around 7 pm to around 11 pm, and then wakes once around 3-4, feeds & promptly falls back to sleep. This may not have anything to do with 'sleeping through the night' (and frankly, I was never obsessed with that, as it's such an alien concept for our household anyway!) but it's so much better than him waking every 1-2 hours screaming with hunger. I don't know about sleeping through the night, but any advice about helping babies sleep a bit better is welcome, in my book.

As for not reading the books & knowing your own child... yes, I'm sure that can work well for lots of people. Personally I'm a bit of a bookworm so I actually enjoy reading the books .

Really I just want to ask you how often you hoover!

Boco- if you're asking me, I never hoover, my DP does WHEN he remembers . Not more than once a week, I have to confess....

Thank you Maria, that is comforting.

I think you make a lot of sense, Maria.

I have a personal take on this because it turned out later that for my dd the things that seemed so sensible (getting her to sleep better, not feeding too frequently) were actually wrong and endee up landing her in hospital.

I thought I was doing well because she was sleeping between feeds and falling asleep really quickly- it was what the books said I should be aiming for!- I didn't realise she was gradully getting too weak to do anything else

And turning a failing to thrive baby round was far harder work than any demand feeding could have been.

Of course,that wouldn't have happened with a normal baby- but then she didn't come out labelled Not Normal, so I wasn't to know.

I would have done better being less focused on having a "good" baby and listening more to what the HV said about her actual weight curve. But none of the baby books mentioned failture to thrive.

Oh cory . Poor little DD. But you weren't to know! You can't beat yourself up about it.

Agree, Maria: it's all about the 'tweaking'.

FWIW: I think that everyone gets into a routine. Their routine...

my youngest is 8 and still not in a routine...go with the flow!

Hmmm... think there is a difference between following someone else's routine and finding a pattern that works for you...

I also think that this is a v difficult time with a new baby - they are lovely but jeez, the sleep goes great then crap then just when you think you know what is going on BAM they teeth or growth spurt or separation anxiety or learn to stand or whatever. And yes, it is hard not to feel judged by SOMEONE whatever you do.

That feeling does go. Honest. And I think the second baby is so much easier because you don't really care what other people think. Hell, I have only just started putting my 6mth old down to sleep in the evening (last time I think I spent rather a long time attempting to get dd to sleep in her cot from 3mths ) - and have had quite a nice 6mths so far

I agree with MorningPaper's posts - actually MP think you once said something about writing off the first year. Well, that's sort of how I see it - I quite enjoy the simplicity of being 24hr-available anyway.

I don't agree with MP on the hoovering - twice a DAY?!!!!!!!!!!

Umlellala, I've heard from many people that the second baby is easier, it does make sense that there's less anxiety, more experience, more going with the flow out of necessity, less stressing about little things etc. And you're definitely right... that initial phase of being a new mother is SO hard, or at least I found it very hard. Enjoyable & magic; but HARD. I also agree about finding your own routine, and not a particular routine that your read in a book and says 'by this month they should be doing so & so'. For example, my DS definitely doesn't go for 4 hour stretches between feeds (which supposedly he 'should' be doing at his age), but he does tend to have a feedig pattern nowadays. But I couldn't care less about the 4-hour thing, I'm just happy that our life seems to have (finally) some sort of order, and that we're getting a bit of sleep which is a blessing. But I'm sure all this will turn topsy turvy once teeth start coming through or once he learns to stand or whatever...

By the way, about the hoovering twice a day, doing this has never even OCCURED to me as a possibility, let alone actualy doing it. But then I'm one of the biggest slobs when it comes to housework...

Cory, you poor thing. How is your DD now?

The exact same thing happened to me when I was a baby - my Mum had b/fed my v demanding brother every 2 hours night and day for 6 months.

When I came along and didn't ask for food and slept through the night v early on she was delighted. Then lost a lot of weight, was classified failure to thrive and my Mum was made to put me on formula.

This was 30 years ago though and did no lasting harm (I don't think!)

Hope your DD is thriving now xx

Cory, that sounds very very scary. It's scary how often these things actually happen. I know at least 3 people who this has happened to. I think there's far too little info on what to look out for in the early days (e.g. about dehydration, sleeping- that you shouldn't let a baby sleep too long etc). Hope your DD is fine now...

Cory, I only bought GF when ds1 was five months, and then sort of followed it and it worked brilliantly. But I thanked my lucky stars I had not even read a word before because I would NEVER have managed her expressing and sleep routines and he would never have got enough milk feeding at intervals she prescribed, as he was badly latched on (although that was obviously not GF's fault!)

Thinking about routines, Maria, it is all what suits isn't it, and I think maybe people are bludgeoned into believing they have to do it one way or the other. I had twins, and my sanity depended on them at 12 months upwards having a nice 2 hour nap in cots in afternoon. Other twin mothers used to get all sorts of things done in afternoon take them to ikea, coffee outings, go shopping with buggy and their twins used to fall asleep en route. I thought those twin mothers were mad, they thought I was mad! One day, I thought, oh I am so inflexible, I will go to M & S with my twins in their lovely comfortable buggy and they will fall asleep en route like everyone elses. Got lots of errands done, but of course, twins DO NOT SLEEP and get very bad tempered by evening etc etc, because they are used to their routine ie: nice quiet cot. SO HORSES FOR COURSES.

MP - to clarify by guidance I do not mean leaving them to cry at night uncomforted...which is a common misconception of routines!

I have never used CIO techniques or anything like that...if my babies cried in the night I went to them and cuddled them. If I thought they needed feeding they were fed. If not I settled them back to sleep.