Am I doing it wrong?

Opinions about parenting seem to bring as much fervor of belief out of their proponents as the most devout religion. Search for advice about things like breastfeeding or sleep, and you get so much different advice, all of which is supposed to be the "right" thing to do. I keep telling myself that as long as I love and care for my son, he's going to grow up just fine. Nurturing is important, but HOW you nurture doesn't seem to have too many measurable effects. But there is a major conflict between the rational, logical scientist, and the emotional, feeling mom in me. So I am frequently left with this feeling that I'm doing everything wrong, even as I try desperately to tell myself that there are so many "right" ways to parent.

Take the sleep thing, for example. My husband slept with his parents for the first two years of his life, and wanted to do the same with our son, but in my family, while (as far as I remember) we were in a crib in my parents room for the first few months of life, we were all taught to sleep on our own much earlier than 2. we both turned out just fine (I think), but if you ask certain people, they would say either his parents or my parents were horrible people for how we were taught to sleep.

I was uncomfortable with the idea of cosleeping because of all I'd heard about the potential for smothering the child in the family bed. We always planned on having him in a crib in our room (partially out of necessity due to the size of our apartment, but we would have done it for the first few months regardless). However, our son did not like to sleep flat on his back. He slept okay in a swing, but we didn't have room for the swing in our bedroom and we turned off the heat and used a space heater at night to save money, so we couldn't really keep him in the livingroom at night. We tried having him in a chair which we placed in the crib, but he woke so frequently that we eventually switched to having him share the bed with us. This presented multiple issues. First, Little Man, while technically a "happy spitter", spat up a LOT. Pretty much anywhere he laid down was destined to be wet within a matter of minutes. Second, my husband and I were so paranoid about smothering him that we ended up sleeping on less than equal thirds of the bed, and I ended up with many nasty back, neck and shoulder aches because of it. Thirdly, Little Man was a very very restless sleeper, and we wondered if part of it was that he was overheating (he tends to run warm) or uncomfortable with our movements.

Finally, after 6 months, we decided to "train" him to sleep in his crib. I read and read and read all the books I could find about how to get a child to sleep better. One common trait among all the books? THEY ALMOST ALL MAKE YOU FEEL GUILTY IF YOU CONSIDER ANY OTHER METHOD. Same with the websites. Whether I was looking at no-tears or cry-it-out or something inbetween, every "expert" had found all the supporting evidence they needed to convince you that they were right and everyone else was wrong. Truth is, there are very few actual scientific studies to tell you one thing or another. Most studies out there try to look at cause and effect by what parents tell them they did, which often is not what actually happened. Often unintenionally, parents misreport how they raise their children because most people just can't remember every little detail that could be important in a scientific study. So the results are anecdotal and inconclusive. When I finally found a book I liked, ("Good Night, Sleep Tight") it was because out of everything I had read, the author made me feel the least guilty, and her method just seemed to make sense to me. It is essentially an "inbetween" method -- you place the child in the crib and let them cry a little, but you don't leave them alone. When you're "training" them, you sit with them, talk to them, and wait until they fall asleep before you leave them. My husband and I figured this way he would go to sleep in the crib but still be able to trust that we would be there.

So far (we've gone three nights) Little Man fusses for a bit, usually for less than 10 minutes, but each night his fussing gets less. He is breastfed, and I feel weird about night weaning just yet, so I feed him every three hours and if he wakes up inbetween, my husband goes to soothe him. Some people would say we're horrible for still letting him wake up to eat, some would say we're horrible for not feeding him every time he wakes up. But this is what works for us right now -- and I am not ashamed to admit that feeding him at night alleviates some of my guilt about letting him cry at all. (Which other people would say is horrible). I already miss letting him sleep in my arms, but having the freedom to watch loud TV, work on crafts, or frankly, go to the bathroom without having to worry if he'll wake up, is nice. I have to fight every instict not to go to him and snuggle him when he cries (which still other people would say is terribly wrong) but each night, as he fusses less and less in his crib, I feel like this will work out better for everyone in the long run. My back already feels better, it is nice to be able to cuddle with my husband again, and in opposition to all the cosleeping advocates, I honestly feel my son sleeps better when he can move around and get himself comfortable. He is a long baby and has always liked to stretch, and being in the crib allows him to do so. So it seems to be working.

Why then do I feel like I'm doing something wrong? I don't think it's because I am. I felt like I was doing something wrong when we were cosleeping, and I'd feel even more like I was doing something wrong if we let him cry-it-out. I'd feel like I was doing something wrong if I nightweaned him now, or if I fed him every time he woke up to soothe him. And almost every mom you talk to would tell me that I was doing something wrong if I chose one option or another, and many probably think I'm doing something wrong for trying to live somewhere in the middle. Those few who say "you have to do what works for you and the baby" still have their opinions, and I'm sure secretly think that whatever way that worked for them must be the right way, or of course it wouldn't have worked. Devout Baptists, or Hindus, or Buddhists, or Wiccans, all would say that the other is somehow not right, and even agnostics or Unitarians wouldn't be on the spiritual path they are if they didn't have some reason for believing everyone else is wrong. Parenting has it's own religious sects, and many would defend their beliefs as fervently. So I guess I'll always be wrong, no matter what I do. But in some ways I'll always be right. The scientist in me will have to deal with the absolute lack of logic of it all, but maybe the Mom will someday accept that as long as I love Little Man as best I can, no matter what I do will be right. Someday.