Becoming A Parent

Everyone thinks of what they will be like as a parent. It starts when we are still children ourselves... what 5 year old doesn't boldly say "When I have kids they are going to be able to do whatever they want!" or "I'm not going to make my kids go to bed at 8!" As teenagers again we think we know what being the perfect parent entails. We complain about how strict our parents are, how they just don't understand, how their rules are crazy. And then one day as an adult we finally make that realization we are really ready to have kids on our own. We suddenly find ourselves taking a moment to stop and seriously think about becoming a parent and what that entails. And then we become one and everything we thought we knew turns out was wrong.

When my husband and I made the conscious choice to have a baby we began seriously discussing parenting styles. We talked about what our parents had done, what we liked, what we didn't like, what we had seen other parents doing. We had this parenting thing figured out! We knew what we wanted to do and what we didn't want to do. Then we actually had a baby.

The first thing to go out the window was sleeping in bed with us. I purchased the lovely arms reach cosleeper and my idea was this... he'll sleep in there right next to me! Then when he outgrows that we'll transition him to his crib. Well, when your child wakes up every 2 hours to eat and will only stay asleep on your chest things change. Slowly he has wormed his way into our bed. Not the entire night because he does still sleep in his cosleeper, but I have no hesitations about pulling him in to bed at 2am if he's awake and fussing.

Next was the pacifier. I swore I wouldn't give Eirik a pacifier. I actually held out for about 4 weeks however at that point I was tired of being his human pacifier. At night he would fall asleep nursing and the second I would move him away he would wake up and want to latch back on. I couldn't do it anymore so out came the pacifier.

Finally there was the swing. I liked our swing but I wasn't going to let him nap in there all the time. fast forward to a few weeks and yes, thats right, all his naps were done in the swing. He LOVED it. Just putting him in there half the time calmed him down.

There are many things that have surprised me about my parenting style. Before having Eirik I never would have considered myself a "crunchy" mom (for lack of a better word). Sure, I wanted to breastfeed but I was 100% positive i'd never do it in public. However I very quickly realized it was just no big deal. I now nurse Eirik whenever he's hungry wherever we are! I knew I wanted to make my own babyfood... i've tasted jarred baby food and I wouldn't want to eat it! Then I came across the idea of baby led weaning and went "oh wow, that looks awesome!". Now I look at my parenting style and find myself babywearing, breastfeeding, cosleeping, making babyfood, and cloth diapering! Even just a short 5 years ago I never would have imagined that would be me doing all these things!

I'm sure the road of parenthood has more surprises for me. Things I thought I knew will be thrown out the window and things I swore I never do will be done. Ah the joys of becoming a parent.