why is the "success" of life with a baby always measured by how detached you get them to be?

[emkana]

You know - not held too often, sleeping in own bed/own room, not feeding too often...

case in point is my friend with six week old baby, she is desperately trying (and to be fair to her succeeding) to get him to sleep through the night and fall asleep by himself, and not to "give in " too much to him during the day either -

I don't get it! Don't get me wrong, I think she has to do what feels right for her but I question whether she is doing it because that's what she wants to do or because that's what her mother/her sister/society keep telling her she should be doing...

its not 'poor little thing' but 'poor ol' mum'

quite right, whenever you see a yelling baby, you know that years from now, that baby won't remember or be scarred by it...but the mother might.

I think everything that pointyhat says is true but can't see that it is revelatory or contrary to what people have been saying on this thread?

The OP is saying that if a mother doesn't want to co sleep,feed on demand and rock off to sleep she is going by pressure from society-I think she is going by her instincts-not everyones instincts are the same-and there is no reason why they should be.

Her point is that not everyone who looks after their baby in this way is pressured by society or a 'bad mum'. That's a relevant point.

Some people (me) want to raise their children in this way, as it works for them.

Me too Totally!

Glad you agree Chunky as I agreed entirely with your first post- I could have written it (except I have 1 DC and 1 on the way).

Thanks Totally.

Hope you and DH enjoyed your birthdays in the end & his family didn't put the dampners on it too much.

I wanted to have a good nights sleep and I wanted my DCs manage to fall asleep by themselves. It made me a happy, relaxed mother when they were awake. That wasn't anything to do with outside pressure-I need space and sleep-it doesn't make me a worse mother or an inferior mother.(maybe my babies like space too).

That's the thing piscesmoon. Both of my DS's got used to being put to bed awake to the point where they would snuggle down when put in their cots, be asleep in minutes, and when they woke the next day, they wouldn't cry, just babble & play, then give me a massive grin when I went into them.
It's lovely.
When we have had friends round for dinner etc, they have always commented on how well my boys go to bed, and how quickly I am back downstairs and able to enjoy my evening .

I agree with you chunky and you pisces and you totallyandutterly

Pointy - yes but the op and thread was aimed at saying why on earth does bf/co-sleeping seen as a worse way of parenting?

Chunky - hmm nice smug emotion on the happier baby and happier mum. Firstly it isnt a competition, its just life and we do our best with what we have. Fwiw to me i think my children are extremely happy kids and i am a happy mum. if either them or i werent then that would be an issue to deal with. Glad you are so happy and as are your kids. As parents that is all we can really want.

Re the rhesus monkeys (Harlow) and the bowlbys theory of attachment. I quoted both these earlier int he thread but didnt attach Harlow next to rhesus monkey exp as at that time of night i couldnt remember name. Sorry if it caused cofusion but thought it was evedient in my grammer they were seperate. Thougth often my grammer and spelling are shite.

Also i still think Emkana op has a very valid point as it is widely known the AP and EBF are not the norm in the society of GB and that it is frowned upon as a weird and wrong way of parenting. Unfortunately this is down to ignorance often and not direct experience. As i stated earlier, alot of the parenting of leaving babies to cry, fixing set routines come from the pressure of women to work in the post war period. Anyway, life is what it is nowadays and the clock cant be turned back. I just hope that as it moves forward the attitudes will be more child forcussed than economy.

And the defensivenss of some posters on the CC approach is quite interesting. Your choices but what the OP was trying to say is that for those who make a different choice there is a differnt view and different set of pressures. Its almost as if lots of people post and say it ne'er did us any harm and they dont remember (well actually they subconciously do) then alls well and no point in looking at other ways of doing things. Kind of sheep like.

I don't think that's what the op was saying at all, squig.

The op has a friend who is trying to encourage ger abby to sleep through a chunk of the night and fall asleep by himself. The op is criticising this way of parenting.

Nothing to do with bf-co-sleeping seen as worse. It is the op who is being critical.

I have to admit that that is not really how I read the OP but perhaps that's because I was focusing on the thread title.

I totally agree that everyone should parent in the way that best suits them and - more importantly - their baby. The OP made it obvious that she felt the same way.

I think she was raising the point (which I agree with) that these "detachments" are seen as "successes" or goals.

Getting my baby to sleep through the night was definitely not my objective in the early months - that was to have a happy, healthy and secure baby which I suspect is the goal of most mums. For me and my baby that involved going to him in the night, feeding him on demand, lots of carrying about although not co-sleeping. For others it is obviously different.

The point is re the value that people place on these things (i.e. sleeping through, sleeping separately, not holding too much, not feeding on demand) and I agree with the OP that it seems that now a lot of emphasis is put on having a baby who sleeps through the night, not being "clingy" etc. These are seen as "successes" whereas having a baby who does not sleep through, for example, is seen as a failure - a problem that needs to be sorted.

ROFL at Chunkymonkey's unbelievably (and self-proclaimed) smug posts which so perfectly illustrate exactly this point.

Squiglet, the OP uses 'detatched' in the title. Very negative. Obviously those of us who (Jamie, Chunky, Pointy, pisces, myself) have used this parenting style are going to put our points across, too- we would not consider ourselves 'detatched' from our DCs.

It's an aim for many people because it helps make parenting more enjoyable for them, to have a decent sleep and to have the occasional little break during the day.

Nothing to do with being sheep.

yes, detached was an odd choice of word and a negative one.

As i stated earlier, alot of the parenting of leaving babies to cry, fixing set routines come from the pressure of women to work in the post war period.

actually, four-hourly feeding began with mill bosses wanting to get mums back to work, but BF ing long and often enough to act as birth control.

Pointyhat, I still don't think that's what the OP was saying. Perhaps I am wrong but I don't think she was criticising her friend's parenting style. She didn't talk about her friend "trying to encourage" her baby to sleep through but rather "desperately trying" which sounded like it was a real struggle, fighting against the baby's demands and putting a lot of pressure on herself.

I may well be reading too much into the wording used but that is how it reads to me - perhaps because I relate to exactly those feelings ... When DS was a newborn I felt a lot of pressure to get him into a routine, not demand feed etc and I struggled with that for a time. A very short time mercifully because a lovely friend eventually pointed out to me that I was going against all my baby's natural rhythmns and that I would be much better off if I just relaxed and did what felt right to me and my baby. Which I did and it really turned things around for me.

I parent in the way that I consider to be focussed on the well-being of my children, in the short and long term. My childrens' well-being wouldn't be served by me getting very little sleep, or them being unable to self-soothe, or me not having sex with my husband, of feeling utterly unable to have any time to myself.

And I don't believe that anyone has commented on the point I mad in an earlier post, that SOME mothers choose to parent in a way that is serving their own needs, dressed up as being child-focussed, and can undermine their childrens confidence (I used the example of parents who are anxious about their children going to playgroup and so behave in ways which make the child believe they can't cope, and get upset, which reinforces the parents view that separating is a bad thing).

BTW, cc is not the same as "leaving to cry"

Read that back and I sound angrier than I meant to .....

Squiglet - If you read back through all of my posts you will see that I know it is not a competition, as I have said it is every mothers own choice how they choose to parent their DC's. My smug emoticon was a little bit of light hearted banter as I was making the point that 2 people I know who do pander to their childrens every whim, are seriously struggling because of it and admit that they actually aren't at all happy with how their way of doing things is going.

Mothers like myself, Totally, Pointy, Pisces & Jamie have been given a bit of a hard time by other posters with words like "hard" "cold" and "detached" being used to name but a few, so I just wanted to make my point in that I am always complimented on how well my boys go to bed with lots of people asking me how I have managed it rather than looking down on me for leaving them to cry/putting them to bed awake/not having them attached to my hip 24/7 etc etc.

stillstanding - Yes, to me it is a success to get my DC's sleeping through the night so early on, settling themselves etc, as I appreciate that those who take a different view to me wrt parenting also feel that what they do is successful (check out some of the other posts to see that!!). Glad I gave you a giggle though.

Just musing to myself. My last post seems to be implicitly attacking people who co-sleep etc. I just wanted to make the point that I parent in a way that suits ME, just as those who do this hopefully choose it because it suits them.

The use of terms such as detached has made me a little defensive.

Actually many of us were just muddling through the first time. It's just not helpful to be critical of others.

Me too Jamie. I don't think any of us on here who choose to parent in this way have been derogatory towards those who don't. I'm sure we have all said that it's the choice of the mother.

I'm with chunky, jamie, pisces, totally and pointy on this one ;) I started putting DS down awake at 8 weeks old - but didn't do CC. It worked amazingly well and now at 8 months he is fantastic at being put in his cot and going straight to sleep, wakes up all smiles The question the op has asked is whether we do these things because we want to or because we are told to, for me I was just trying out different things, rocking etc didn't work so well for ds as he would wake up the minute I put him down so letting him go to sleep in his cot made sense.