TIP #5 FOR BECOMING A GUILT FREE PARENT: 

Try everything now (and worry about paying the shrink later)

I am a big believer that not everything works for every kid. It is the same for adults. While I like to read a book for an hour or so before I sleep, my wife can fall asleep within ten seconds and that is not much of an exaggeration. This superpower of my soul mate is something that drives me crazy. Usually after a minute or two of me reading and she is somewhere between a nice dream and full REM, she will say “maybe you should go to sleep now and put down your book”. Then I remind her, like I do most every night, “dear, not all of us are like sleeping beauty.” I need a little coaxing to get myself bed ready. I think it is the same for children. Some like one method to help them sleep, eat, or poop, while others like something else. Why do we think that one thing will work on all children because a book or magazine said it would? My motto – try it all. Something is bound to work. Even if they finally succumb to exhaustion, you can at least say you won! I didn’t realize how competitive I was until I had kids. 

When our first kid was very young, she wasn’t a great napper. That might not come to you as a shock. Why else can I write a blog at 2am after being woken up for the 5^th time and am sitting on the couch debating whether or not to cry, drink coffee (or wine), or do a ridiculous google search that will leave me feeling awful.  Sorry – I got sidetracked which isn’t a shock either – look a squirrel! Anyway we were at a cousin’s birthday party and they had a swing and my cousin suggested we try to put our daughter in it for a few minutes. I was a little hesitant because no other method was working, no matter how many books/websites/magicians I tried.  But the heavens opened up and the angels sang a lullaby and she fell asleep. The next day I was at the store buying the exact same model and set it up as soon as I entered the door. I am pretty sure my wife opened the box in the car and was starting to put it together on our way back from the store. I would have taken the floor model and strapped it to the roof of my Mazda but they said it would be a liability issue. They didn’t understand just how desperate I was. Our first kid slept in this swing a lot and it wasn’t life threatening or morally wrong (remember that blog post from September). So months before our second child arrived in our lives, I had the swing set up. I was ready to put that child in there and have a sleeping kid from day 1. Well she had a different game plan about sleeping. She liked the swing fine enough (it kept the acid reflux under control) but she wouldn’t dare close her eyes. So the swing has 8 different levels of speed. I am pretty sure that level 2 is fast enough but one day I was so frustrated with lack of sleep that I put it on level 5 to see if maybe she likes a fast swing unlike her sister. It was like something out a carnival ride – she was like a blur in the seat. Yet still her eyes did not close. I think level 8 is like Mach 3 and they go so fast that they break the sound barrier and you can’t hear them until 10 minutes later – which is just enough time to finish drinking your cold cup of coffee (which is something you will take a liking to). My long winded point here is that you need to try everything because you just don’t know what might work. You need to have a process of elimination to say at least you tried bouncing, swinging, jumping, driving, singing Celine Dion or AC/DC. My lullaby version of Thunderstruck is worth listening to. 

You do sometimes wonder if you are going to mess them up with all your trial and errors though. A comedian once was talking about how his son had terrible diaper rash and they knew they had to dry it off before they put on a new diaper. They decided to use a hair dryer after a bum change. He said the boy’s face would light up when he would turn on the hair dryer and the crying would immediately stop. He became slightly concerned because he could picture his son in 30 years from now paying a prostitute to blow dry his rear end. Hopefully we don’t mess them up too much but psychologists need work too. Consider it your contribution to the economy.