Monday, January 01, 2007
The obscure "no-cry policy"
My wife loves, like all mothers, her child very much. Even a tiny bit more than me (understandable, but I always find that a bit disturbing). And just like most parents she hates to hear her baby cry. But she made it a policy: the "no-cry policy". This means that if the baby cries it cries for a reason. So we never leave our baby upstairs crying in her bed for 10 minutes. We always get up immediately and see what's going on.
And if our baby cries, she does that for a reason most of the time. By being there in times of need, my wife hopes to create a better bond of trust between her and our child. To prove her thesis, she occasionally provides me with supporting evidence. The best article she found that describes what she feels is called Letting Baby "Cry-It-Out" Yes, No! on www.askdrsears.com. There are more articles on that page about that subject.
She needs that affirmation, since most of the people she knows just let the baby cry for some time. Especially people of former generations. They had to feed a baby on schedule, even when they were breast feeding. We once heard one older women say that she would crank up the volume of the radio so she would not have to hear her baby cry for milk while it wasn't time to feed yet. That make my wife's no-cry policy an obscure one.
Is the policy perfect? I think not. Though it is much better than letting the baby cry all the time, I see that my wife is losing a lot of time with our 4-months old baby. So the downside is that the control over your own time is a bit more limited, since you have to act on (almost) every yell.
But it's getting better. Our baby has a larger "vocabulary" now than as a newborn. When she was a newborn, there was little time between desire and yelling. By now, she's fussy for some time before she starts to yell for milk. So she kindly gives us a priority to her needs. So we can now finish what we are doing before attending our lovely little girl. Thanks for that! :)
And if our baby cries, she does that for a reason most of the time. By being there in times of need, my wife hopes to create a better bond of trust between her and our child. To prove her thesis, she occasionally provides me with supporting evidence. The best article she found that describes what she feels is called Letting Baby "Cry-It-Out" Yes, No! on www.askdrsears.com. There are more articles on that page about that subject.
She needs that affirmation, since most of the people she knows just let the baby cry for some time. Especially people of former generations. They had to feed a baby on schedule, even when they were breast feeding. We once heard one older women say that she would crank up the volume of the radio so she would not have to hear her baby cry for milk while it wasn't time to feed yet. That make my wife's no-cry policy an obscure one.
Is the policy perfect? I think not. Though it is much better than letting the baby cry all the time, I see that my wife is losing a lot of time with our 4-months old baby. So the downside is that the control over your own time is a bit more limited, since you have to act on (almost) every yell.
But it's getting better. Our baby has a larger "vocabulary" now than as a newborn. When she was a newborn, there was little time between desire and yelling. By now, she's fussy for some time before she starts to yell for milk. So she kindly gives us a priority to her needs. So we can now finish what we are doing before attending our lovely little girl. Thanks for that! :)
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