Like most new parents, I spent a lot of my baby’s first year on the internet. After the baby fell asleep, I was up — sometimes late into the night — researching infant milestones, reading other moms’ experiences and, very often, desperately seeking advice. The first year, I read, was all about feeding, sleeping and simply getting through the day. Sounds easy enough, right?
And yet, truth be told, nothing could have prepared me for my first year as a parent. Somehow, the decisions my husband and I had to make as parents still took us by surprise. No matter how much information I armed myself with, we stumbled on challenges and reacted as best we could.
According to child development expert Allegra Taylor, it’s not unusual for parents to educate themselves to the teeth and still feel flummoxed.
“There are best practices,” she says, “and then there’s reality.”
Taylor, who has a master’s degree in child development, is the director of a preschool in Hingham, Massachusetts, and has been working with children and their parents for more than 20 years.
“What works for one child might not work for another — and all families are different,” she says.
That being said, all parents face the same big questions, whether it’s how and when to feed your infant or how to get him to sleep. Many parents settle on a combination of approaches and/or land somewhere in between popular options. And some of the “decisions” we make as parents, Taylor says, may not feel like choices at all.
Taylor weighs in as parents reflect on the five biggest decisions they made in their baby’s first year.
1. Breast or bottle?
It’s on your mind from the moment your little one lets out her first hungry cry, if not earlier. For decades, commercial infant formula was the standard, whereas moms of today’s generation came of age hearing “breast is best!”
Emily Farmer Popek, a mom from of Oneonta, New York, turned to breastfeeding exclusively because it was the easiest, least expensive option.
“I hoped to save money by not spending on formula, and I couldn’t imagine mixing up a bottle two to three times per night while exhausted and sleep deprived,” she says.
Allison Landa, of Berkeley, California, chose formula over breast milk, per her doctor’s advice.
“I’m on medication that easily passes through breast milk,” she says.
And Jodie Mernagh, a mom in West London, United Kingdom, confesses breastfeeding simply didn’t appeal to her.
“I just didn’t want to do it or even try,” she says.
The deciding factor: “It’s a personal choice,” says Taylor. “Clearly not every child in this world can be exposed to breast milk — and that’s OK.”
2. Soothe to sleep or sleep train?
Every exhausted parents’ first priority is to sleep.
“But most parents also hope to foster interdependence,” Taylor says.
Battles at bedtime can occur when these two goals feel at odds. Dana Meijler-Gross, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, says that she and her husband co-slept with their baby for practical reasons.
“My daughter slept better with us,” she says. “She woke less and slept longer with us than in her own bed.”
To get her baby to sleep through the night on her own, Jayme Kennedy, a mom in Los Angeles did what she describes as a modified “cry it out.” When her sleeping baby woke up crying, Kennedy or her partner waited five minutes before going into the nursery. Then, Kennedy says, they picked the baby up and comforted her. If the baby started crying again, they waited another five minutes to go in and do it again.
“It took maybe a week, and by the end of it, she wasn’t crying but sort of fussing a bit, and we could go in and just rub her tummy and talk to her without picking her up before she fell asleep,” Kennedy says.
The deciding factor: “You might have to try a number of approaches before you’re able to settle on one that works,” Taylor says. “If something’s not working — or stops working — don’t be afraid to try something new.”
3. Stick to a schedule or follow baby’s cues?
A parent-led schedule means you set the daily agenda, dictating when your baby should eat, sleep and play. With a baby-led schedule, you follow your child’s cues.
Shana Westlake, a mom from Rockville, Maryland, discovered after a few months of very short or non-existent naps that following her daughter’s cues would not work.
“By the time she was yawning or rubbing her eyes, it was already too late and we had an overtired baby who did not want to sleep,” she says.
For Westlake, imposing a strict age-by-stage sleep schedule worked better for her family. There are sleep schedule charts readily available online, which tell the parent what the child should be doing at any given time of the day. They’re created by experts and based on a typical infants’ patterns and needs, which vary by age.
Denver, Colorado, mom Issa Down took the opposite approach. Rather than expecting her baby to sleep, wake, eat and play at the same times each day, she and baby went with the flow. The anti-schedule approach, as it is sometimes called, means picking up on your baby’s cues and responding appropriately. Every day looks different, and some days you’ll be grabbing lunch out or allowing the baby to sleep in the stroller while on the go.
For Down — a single, working mom putting herself through grad school — freedom and flexibility was a priority. Instead of planning life around nap times, feeding times and bedtimes, Down says, “I just wanted to hang out with my son.”
The deciding factor: “Most children will naturally fall into a schedule, but there are some babies who are very dysregulated and need more help,” says Taylor.
4. Back to work or stay at home?
According to a Pew Research study, the number of stay-at-home moms have risen — 27 percent in 2016 up from a modern-era low of 23 percent in 1999. Even so, times have changed since 1967, when 49 percent of women in America were stay-at-home moms with a working husband.
Washington, D.C., mom Megan Rogers says she and her spouse waited a couple years to start a family so that she could establish her career first.
“I enjoyed [my job], and I was looking forward to going back after maternity leave,” she says.
Holly Scudero, a mom in Fairfax, Virginia, chose to stay home.
“It didn’t sit well with me to be paying huge sums of money for someone else to take care of my kids all day when I’d honestly rather be doing it myself,” she says.
The deciding factor: Again, says Taylor, there’s no right or wrong answer. “If you have the flexibility and it makes financial sense to stay home with your children, and you want to, that’s great. Play and bond! But if you’re miserable, that’s not working for your family.” In that case, Taylor says, quality child care is an excellent option.
5. Baby-led weaning or purees?
The traditional way to start solids is to follow a schedule, introducing one pureed single-ingredient food at a time. Baby-led weaning (BLW) means skipping purees and offering your baby soft and mushy meals and allowing the child to feed themselves.
“We did BLW and loved it!” says Elizabeth Xu, a mom from from Toledo, Ohio. “I didn’t have to worry about preparing separate food or spoon-feeding him while my food got cold.”
Alexis Schaitkin, a mom from Williamstown, Massachusetts, had planned to do BLW.
“My son turned out to have an extremely sensitive gag reflex and vomited almost every time I tried to offer him solids,” Schaitkin says, so she switched to purees. “It turned out I really enjoyed making homemade purees for him and feeding him.”
The deciding factor: “Food is a loaded issue,” cautions Taylor. “It’s one of those decisions that parents really want to control.” Instead of making it a battle, Taylor says, let your child lead.
The bottom line
Besides knowing your goals, Taylor encourages parents to consider the reasoning behind their parenting decisions.
“Don’t just do something because that’s how another mother does it,” Taylor says.
As my son enters toddlerhood, presenting my husband and me with a whole set of new challenges (Hello, temper tantrums!) I’m glad for the reminder that there’s no right or wrong way to parent.
Bottom line, says Taylor: Regardless of what you read online or what your neighbor does — and how it can feel when you’re in the middle of it — “you are the expert on your child.”
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