A Different Mom

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This should be entitled Part 2 of What I Have Learnt in the Past 12 Years. 🙂

Today, after lunch, as I rushed about cleaning up the kitchen after frying up a kilogramme of pork chops for dinner, the almost 3 year old, Deborah, asked to take her nap. Yes, this is the only child ever who regularly asks to go to sleep! But I told her to wait since it wasn’t even 2pm and she usually takes her nap from 3pm to 4:30pm. She went off to the living room to play – or so I thought. And I continued cleaning up.

Once finished, I brought the extremely sweaty and sticky baby to shower. As I finished dressing her, Deborah appeared in my room, totally drenched in what I thought was sweat. She had apparently gone to take a nap and did not turn on the fan! And on top of that because she didn’t relieve herself before she napped, she had an accident in her bed! 🙁 So she was wet from head-to-toe.

As I showered her, I had to laugh. This type of incident would have upset me and my rigid scheduling a few children ago. But here I was, calmly teling her to go and play even tho it was her official naptime. And I had no idea how long she napped. 10minutes? 30 minutes? Well, definitely not 1.5 hrs as she should have.

Ahhh! Indeed how my mothering has changed. As I look back, I think things started changing when we had #5 and now, with #7 who’s really in a league of her own, things in our home look very, very different from 12 years ago when I first became a mom.

Whatever I have learnt the past 6 babies had to be thrown out of the window or modified a lot! A friend said that if I had written a book after #6, I would need to publish a new and revised edition! 😀

With each child God blessed us with, I became more confident and relaxed. Many things that I thought were shoulds became would-be-nice. I guess HE was preparing me for Anna? 🙂

For example, the 1st 6 babies were taught to go off to sleep on their own in their cot when they were 3 to 4 months old. #1 slept through the night at 6 weeks, # 2 around 3 months, #4 before she was 1 and #5 not till almost 2 years old! And we started co-sleeping with #5 coz she just slept better that way. With Anna, she had 2 brief episodes of being able to go to sleep on her own in her own cot before she turned 1. Now? I nurse her to sleep – horrors! 😀 And the cot has even been dismantled.

The other 6 babies would nurse at between 8 to 8:30pm and sleep till about midnight before needing a midnight nursing session Anna? She does not go to bed till 10pm (on a good night) or 11pm. She has never gone to bed any earlier than 10pm. If she did, she would be awake at 10:30pm all re-charged to last till midnight or later!

Naptimes and bedtimes used to be carved in stone (8 – 8:30pm) – for my sanity. I needed to know when I am off duty and can space out. Now? I just go with the flow. I do usually pack the children off to bed at 8:30pm but it isn’t carved in stone anymore 🙂 Naptimes are very fluid since only Deborah and Anna nap. And since Deborah is on her way to dropping her nap, I can see that we are going to get even more fluid here!

We used to have breakfast at 8am, lunch at 12nn and dinner at 6pm. Now? We eat whenever I can get food onto the table.

Housework used to have a flow to it. Iron on Mondays, kitchen cleaning on Tuesdays, and so forth. Now? I clean whenever I can. But a  routine is slowly returning – thank God! – now that Anna is able to occupy herself for longer periods or is content to be by my side when I am ironing or cleaning.

Food wise? Since baby #2, I don’t do baby food. Except for #1 who was a textbook baby where food was concerned, the rest were never ate a full meal till they were completely weaned. They would be allowed to taste what I am eating and they would be happy with that. Offer them anymore than a taste, they clamp their mouths shut 🙂

With our 1st child, I was your typical anal mom who would insist on no salt/sugar/oil and only homecooked food. You can either say that my standards have fallen with each child we have or that I have become more relaxed 🙂 Take Anna for example, she’s had her share of french fries, ice cream and even chocolate before she turned 1. Don’t panic yet. It is not as daily affair. Not even weekly. She just tastes them and only a little bit. I am just very thankful that she is able to eat these foods unlike some of our other children who have food sensitivities 🙁

Yes, I have changed, relaxed and lowered my standards. Yet, I still believe in teaching babies how to sleep on their own and having a routine (versus a fixed schedule), especially with regards to meal and sleeping times. I just wouldn’t angst so much if a baby needed to nurse to sleep at night (which was what we did since #5) and if sleeping times get pushed around a bit.

This is to encourage new moms out there that there is no one size fits all method even within the same family. Take what works for you and your family. Don’t be made to feel guilty if your way does not look like your peers. But also, don’t get too smug and think that you know it all coz God may just send you an Anna 🙂

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