Do As I Say, Not As I Do

I don't know if you've experienced this, but I've noticed an interesting phenomenon...the more babies I have, the more certain I become about the "right" way of doing things.

Scheduled feedings versus feeding on demand - my philosophy has become "if a boob in the mouth keeps the babe quiet - do it!"

Night waking... Be tough. They can sleep through the night at about six months old if you just make them learn how. Get earplugs and let 'em go hard at it for a couple nights, then welcome to bliss!

Spit up. Use bibs, don't waste time changing clothes. In fact, why bother with actual clothes?! Sleepers are so much easier. The baby doesn't care what he/she is wearing.

Solids, whole milk, etc. - when should we start? Basically, tell the health nurses what you know they want to hear, and do what works for you.

To those who prefer to heat up the bottles under hot running water - use the microwave, people! It's sooooo much easier.

I am (gasp) becoming like my mother! (No offence, Mom - it's really a statement about all mothers in general. *smile*) It is less and less likely that I will keep my opinions to myself - after all, with all this experience I'm most certainly "right." Right?

Last week I buckled down. I had had enough of being bleary-eyed and just plain exhausted. NO MORE NIGHT BOTTLES! Go ahead and scroll up to the top of the post so you can double-check my opinions...Uh-huh, that's right, six months. Yes, yes, now you can scroll through old posts until you're certain - Malakai is, in fact, fourteen months old. And until last week he was waking up (count 'em) AT LEAST three times per night.

Anyway, you can now let out a cheer for me. We have slept through the night for a week! Yay! Well, not totally through the night, I do have to take him a bottle around 5am to get another hour or so out of him... But hey, it's much better than two weeks ago. :)

At Wal Mart last weekend, though, I made an interesting purchase. One that runs completely contrary to my baby-raising philosophy. Do you ever get to the point where the bottle nipples are sticky-ish and icky? Gross, eh? Most of Kai's bottles have achieved this state of loveliness. Fitting with my philosophy of "off the bottle at a year," the plan was to toss each bottle once the nipple had bit the dust.

Yeah, um, so I picked up a new six-pack of bottle nipples. Because we can only conquer so many key issues at a time, and mastery of the whole sleep thing took about as much energy as I could muster up for the next few months.

So, I'm not Super-Mommy after all. Sorry to disappoint. (But I do give totally great advice about how to do things right. Seriously.)