Are you being manipulated by your baby?
In a word? No. When your baby cries, he or she is telling you that they need something. For babies, wants are needs and needs are wants. You may be tired of holding your baby or nursing every hour or waking during the night (who wouldn’t be?) but by doing these things for your baby, you are taking care of his or her needs.
Crying is not good for a baby’s lungs or their nervous system as your grandmother might be apt to tell you. You simply cannot hold a baby too much. You will not spoil your baby by responding each and every time, without fail, to his or her cries. Again, you cannot spoil your baby.
Can make your baby attached to you? Absolutely. And with that attachment comes many important things that will eventually create an emotionally healthy adult. Attachment parenting creates children who are self-confident, empathic, and self-aware.
I would think that non-attachment parenting practices are painful for the parents as well as the child. Leaving a baby to cry-it-out in a crib? That is difficult for most moms. Not picking up a toddler when they are clingy? It is mom who has to listen to them whine and shake them off her leg. Why not just do what literally comes naturally and respond with kindness?
On the subject of manipulating, what would you call it when a mother leaves her baby to cry-it-out to teach him to soothe himself? What about the mother who doesn’t want to spoil her toddler by picking her up? That mother is guilty of manipulating the child in hopes of forcing certain behaviours from her child. And then we wonder where children learn to manipulate.
Calm down, do what your heart tells you to do and do not fear stages. Your child will eventually sleep through the night. Very possibly not nearly as soon as you want him or her to, but it will come when they are physically and emotionally old enough to handle it. Your baby won’t always nurse for 40 minutes on, 40 minutes off. You toddler won’t always want to be held. The first five years of life are gone in a flash. You will never regret time spent responding to your child in a positive way.
June 12th, 2007 at 4:27 am
So true. I wish these two ways of parenting weren’t constantly put in opposition to eachother.
June 12th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
It really irks me when folks say “oh, just him cry it out. It won’t hurt him”. Um, YES it will. There is ample brain research that shows leaving a baby to cry for hours leaves brain damage - The Science of Parenting by Margot Sunderland does an excellent job of illustrating this.
As a result of reading this book, I am vehemently opposed to crying it out. However. However! I do tend to keep this to myself because I really try not to play the Parenting Game with people. Still, it’s hard to keep my trap shut!
June 12th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
I have never understood when people say a baby is being manipulative, especially a newborn. Babies have needs and they cry to get them met. How on earth are you spoiling a baby by meeting their most basic needs? It’s infuriating.