Friday, December 16, 2011

Rhythm of Love

I have failed miserably at the 30 day journaling challenge, sometimes due to lack of time and sometimes due to writer's block.  Today, I'll pick back up in hopes of salvaging what ever I can of this challenge.  Without further ado, lets talk rhythm. 


Rhythm is defined as movement or procedure with uniform or patterned recurrence.  Those of you follow this blog or who know me personally, know that patterns aren't really my thing.  I enjoy variety and find repetition annoying.  Attention Deficit Disorder?  Maybe.

Becoming a mother challenged many of my previously existing ADD tendencies.  At the front every parenting book I read, there was always a  chapter near the front addressing the establishment of your child's schedule and maintaining consistency.  Prior to becoming a parent, very few things in my life were scheduled and I enjoyed it that way.  Needless to say, the impending lifestyle change was a little bit scary.

Grace was born with a rhythm all her own.  From the get go, Grace preferred late nights to early mornings and long naps to playtime.  As expected,  3 am feedings peppered those first several weeks - each one met with the eager (and tired) arms of new parents. Into Grace's second and third month, it was became clear that 3am had turned into Grace's awake time.  She went from drinking a bottle and dozing back off, to drinking a bottle and wanting to play the night away.  Something had to give, and quick!  

At each doctor's appointment we'd meet the dreaded "how's she sleeping ?" question, and panic a little.  Something about telling the doctor that we'd yet to figure out our 7 month old daughter's schedule, felt like failure.  The looks I would receive from my fellow Mothers were that of shock and appall.  Bed at midnight and up at 11am?!  The audacity!! (You should have seen their faces when they found out Grace drank juice!)
 
Over the next year few months, we slowly but surely got G on proper schedule.  As some point I decided to throw the judgement of fellow mothers and the parenting books away, and play my roll at Motherhood. 

Be advised that Grace now goes to bed around 10:30pm (give or take an hour), and sleeps 10-12 blissfully,uninterrupted hours. When we finally decided to just let our instincts take over and not force ourselves and Grace into a mold that wasn't fit for us, things just clicked.  After spending so much time trying desperately to fit into this mold of what parenting should be like, removing the pressure and negativity of outside sources turned out to be the most powerful lesson learned.


At Grace's last doctor's appointment, our doctor informed us that Grace is a prime specimen of toddler, in the top percentile of height and weight and growing beautifully.  The doctor also commented that Grace was the most well behaved 15 month old she'd seen in a while.  

Unfortunately, she said this before she realized Grace was dismantling her stethoscope, but that is neither here nor there.

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