Sharing Bedrooms

[Irishy]

Ouch. I always wince at the 'age of the mother' thing. I am not handslapping; I have read the book and approve the message. I got pregnant with my oldest at 17 and I think he is turning out well. It always stings when I read about how I have somehow disadvantaged my children by having them at a young age. Of course statistics are just probabilities and do not apply to individuals.

When I was 18 and in my first semester of college, I got into an argument with a psych professor over this whole teen mother thing, and she was kind enough to explain that statistical probabilities=/=individual outcomes. Maybe my huge book collection makes up for my young age. /off topic, carry on.

I wince too. But I am also secretly smug. I have plenty of energy and years ahead with my kids. We made a decision to have our kids young and I'm glad every day of my life. I know it's not for everyone (most in fact, 99% of the parents at our boys' school have ten years on us) BUT it was right for us. We constantly have people doing this :shock: when they hear we're only 33 with 4 kids aged 8 down. It's kind of irritating.

[Austin]

We have lived in the same three-bedroom home since our kids were born and we have three sons. The two youngest, twins, not only refused to sleep in separate rooms, they refused to sleep in separate beds until they were. . . uhmmm. . .. well, let's say well into elementary school.

When the oldest son went off to college, the twins separted and one took over the eldest son's bedroom. Eldest son moved back home last year to finish up at a nearby university and at that point, the twins had NO interest in rooming together anymore, so eldest son moved into our lower level family room.

Anyhoo, I don't really think it matters much as long as someone else said, you're not putting them on costco shelves. I think every child deserves his/her own space, but not their own room if that doesn't work out in the family home.

[Austin]

I wince too. But I am also secretly smug. I have plenty of energy and years ahead with my kids. We made a decision to have our kids young and I'm glad every day of my life. I know it's not for everyone (most in fact, 99% of the parents at our boys' school have ten years on us) BUT it was right for us. We constantly have people doing this :shock: when they hear we're only 33 with 4 kids aged 8 down. It's kind of irritating.

I don't think it's odd at all and I find it odd that people are shocked. I began having my children in my late 20's and had all three by the time I was 30 (barely). I don't think there's anything strange about that at all.

I am glad that now I'm in my late forties, my children are adults and my time is much more my own. But I also have friends that had their first baby near 40, and they seem to be doing just fine, too. I don't think there's anything to feel smug about either way.

[Irishy]

I don't think it's odd at all and I find it odd that people are shocked. I began having my children in my late 20's and had all three by the time I was 30 (barely). I don't think there's anything strange about that at all.

I am glad that now I'm in my late forties, my children are adults and my time is much more my own. But I also have friends that had their first baby near 40, and they seem to be doing just fine, too. I don't think there's anything to feel smug about either way.

My secret smugness is my defence mechanism when confronted by gasps and stares and people being wary of me. Is she a gypsy? Is she a religious nut? Must've been an accident that first one... Would they ever use some fucking contraception... We live in an area where the demographic leans strongly toward older parents. Dunno bout their book collections though.

I'm well settled into parenthood at this stage and I've some really really amazing fellow parent friends. Some of them closer to 50. That's just the path their life took them on and they're fabulous parents and I admire them so much.

My secret smugness is sort of a confession. It's not often anymore that I have to bring it out (inwardly!).

[2xx1xy1JD]

I think support is very important, and it's sad that a lot of young mothers don't get it and are forced to drop out of school or struggle to feed their kids. I think lack of support is what contributes to the statistic. But you and other young mothers who have that support prove that it doesn't have to be that way.

I can't imagine how a parent could let their child (and grandchild) struggle without doing everything they possibly could to make a difference. I think it's dropping out of highschool, or struggling to feed the kid, or having to work multiple jobs to survive without access to reliable child care is what makes a big difference, and often happens when teen moms don't have support.

Though I can't argue that "lots of books" is always important, and that if people can't afford to provide that for their children, that's why libraries are awesome. I hope my future hypothetical child loves reading as much as me.

The likely reason that "lots of books" makes a difference is not that the child reads the books, but that the child has the type of parents who value books, and are therefore more likely to value education and knowledge.

[2xx1xy1JD]

I read the Babywise books when my youngest was 6 weeks old. I needed to get him on a better routine before I went back to work. What I took away from the books was the pattern of eat, play, sleep. It worked wonderful with my son and his routine ran like clockwork. I still fed him on demand. I used common sense. The parents who take the books to the extreme are bigger problems than the books themselves.

Babywise is not the only book to promote the eat-play-sleep idea. There's nothing inherently wrong with that.

There is something wrong with suggesting that feeding on demand will lead to children who cannot control their evil impulses, or with attempting to let a 1 week old baby CIO for 30 min.

[Irishy]

QFT.

As I've mentioned before, my oldest absolutely refused to sleep in her crib. My efforts to resist co-sleeping led to a few months of utter exhaustion as I paced the hallways with her every night, followed by a disastrous attempt to Ferberize that ended when she cried so hard that she puked. After that, I probably sounded like a hard-core AP parent, because I assumed that parents of children who slept on a schedule in their own cribs must be torturing them.

For forward to child #3: I was all set to co-sleep and do all my AP techniques, when I discovered that I had a baby that wanted nothing more than to go to sleep early, in his own crib, in his own room, with nobody around to bother him, and stay asleep for as long as possible. Until that point, I had no idea that such a baby could exist.

Do you think there's anything to the theory that your third baby was more relaxed because you, as parents, became more relaxed with each child? Although my baby number 3 was a dreadful sleeper. In a league of his own. But I've seen it with other families. Just casual observation.

My third and fourth kids are amazing eaters. I put it down to the fact that we were more relaxed and not hovering over them with a spoon. We pretty much left them to eat as they pleased and they began to pick off the dinner table, whatever we were eating. Salad, hummus, any vegetable. We tried so hard with kids 1 & 2 but they're both very fussy.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Do you think there's anything to the theory that your third baby was more relaxed because you, as parents, became more relaxed with each child? Although my baby number 3 was a dreadful sleeper. In a league of his own. But I've seen it with other families. Just casual observation.

My third and fourth kids are amazing eaters. I put it down to the fact that we were more relaxed and not hovering over them with a spoon. We pretty much left them to eat as they pleased and they began to pick off the dinner table, whatever we were eating. Salad, hummus, any vegetable. We tried so hard with kids 1 & 2 but they're both very fussy.

In my particular case, not really.

I wasn't a particularly nervous parent with baby #1. I think it helped that I learned a bit more about reading sleep cues and had a room that was darker for baby #3, but baby #3 is now 8 yrs old, and he STILL can fall asleep instantly, anywhere (including the hard tile floor by our front door), as long as he has blankie. He also has far more need for sleep than his sisters. Middle child had the same darker room, but felt that the world was too interesting and that she was too mature to sleep before midnight. Going off schedule never bothered her, and we literally hauled her around the world as a baby. My son put himself on a schedule, and had to rigidly stick to it.

I also don't think that being a first-time mom had anything to do with the baby having reflux.

There are other things too that were just a matter of my kids being individuals. My middle child ate EVERYTHING, and was pretty much insatiable. My ped tried to suggest that she was overweight, even though I knew that the food she was eating was healthy and that she was genuinely hungry. Guess what? An endocrinologist later confirmed that she had precociously puberty, and that it was a genetic hormonal condition of the adrenal gland. She was eating like a horse because she was GROWING, and more recently she stopped eating as much and became pickier because she's no longer growing.

I despise Babywise because it doesn't give parents the tools to simply sit back and relate to each child as an individual.

[EmmieJ]

I despise Babywise because it doesn't give parents the tools to simply sit back and relate to each child as an individual.

I dislike any book or other child-rearing guide that pushes the concept that "one size fits all." The biggest lesson I learned after I became a parent was to read up on developmental stages, listen to helpful advice, and then go in the direction that worked best for my child. Once I decided that my main goal was a happy, well-adjusted child, it made many decisions much easier.

Wean him from his bottle at 12 months because pediatrician says so? No, because he was very attached to his bedtime bottle. It comforted him. I brushed his teeth before he went to sleep, so why make him give up his one bottle per day? Didn't make sense to me, so I went with what seemed best for him. Now age 14, and still not a single cavity. His teeth are not pushed out of alignment either. No harm, no foul.

I really hate the "cry it out" proponents. How can you make a baby - your own sweet baby - cry it out? I can't even stand it when my cats meow at me in the middle of the night because they are hungry. I always get up and stumble down the hall to put food in their dish. Now, I'm gonna let my own baby cry it out? That's a hell no.

Co-sleeping? If it works for you and your baby - go for it. I wasn't comfortable with that, but I did have my son sleep in a bassinet in the room for his first year. When he woke in the night, hungry or wet, I could respond quickly, change him, feed him, and tuck him back into his bassinet.

As to sharing rooms as a child - I grew up in a large family (8 kids eventually). We did share rooms. I shared with two sisters until about age 12. It was fine, but we were all plenty happy to get our own rooms as older siblings moved out. I believe it was MamaJuneBug who said that she has her own room and feels it has made her even closer to her significant other than before. I have slept in my own bed, by myself, for years. I would not be able to go back to sharing if and when I met a new partner. It will be separate beds and bedrooms all the way baby!

[Irishy]

I also don't think that being a first-time mom had anything to do with the baby having reflux.

Sorry, I didn't see your post re reflux. I was just wondering. I was not an anxious 1st time mother either, I had 12 neices and nephews at that point. My own third child certainly disproves the theory.

[dawbs]

I find that *most* of the time, even the foot-soldiers in the mommy-wars, if you can get them out of their packs and into normal settings aren't as judgmental as they sound online.

I've got a friend who is, for lack of a better term, a fundie-attachment-parent with mommy-warrior tendencies.

If I went by her occasional online rants I'd be horrified to share my parenting issues w/ her.

But, away from that setting, she's fully reasonable. So when I had to do 'cry it out' with my child to get her to fall asleep at night/take naps at 9? months [somewhere around that time], she was the person who told me that we do the best we can with what we've got--and that me continuing to martyr myself by rocking a child all night wasn't helping anyone--that, if we were independently wealthy and lived in perfect worlds, we might not have to ever hear our kids cry but that as people who had to get on with life and not fall asleep driving to work and balance needs, we do our best with what we've got.

I'm still not going to get in a peanutbutter or vaccine debate with her, but I also know that she doesn't think I suck for making different decisions.

[Irishy]

I used to feel so strongly about breastfeeding. But really, I don't care any more. Breast feed, bottle feed, co sleep, don't co sleep. Just be kind to your babies and understand that they need you for almost everything. Try to put their needs and safety before anything else.

[Levon]

I would never suggest that you ever interrogate the family about it, but for your own reference, you should know that safe co-sleeping guidelines do exist.

Cribs can also be dangerous. When crib dangers are discovered, however, we eventually see recalls, recommendations and regulations that make crib sleeping safer. Many of the things that were once common with cribs - posts on the corner, using bumper pads and fluffy comforters, having drop sides - are no longer recommended, because they pose dangers.

Safe co-sleeping guidelines look at the data, and address the risks that keep coming up. Many official reports, however, lump all co-sleeping together, so that a child sleeping on a couch with a drunk, overweight adult other than the mother is treated the same way as someone who is following the safe co-sleeping guidelines.

http://cosleeping.nd.edu/safe-co-sleeping-guidelines/

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the safest sleep environment for babies under the age of 1 is in a crib or bassinet in his/her parent's bedroom:

The safest place for your baby to sleep is in the room where you sleep, but not in your bed. Place the baby’s crib or bassinet near your bed (within arm’s reach). This makes it easier to breastfeed and to bond with your baby.

The crib or bassinet should be free from toys, soft bedding, blankets, and pillows.

More guidelines from the AAP on safe sleep practices can be found here.