Supposedly Good Parenting Advice I Don’t Follow

BE CONSISTENT.

While I fully embrace the idea of consistency (of schedule, of rules, of rituals…) as a comfort to little ones, I also think it can make us unwittingly model for our children how to be stubborn. And who wants to mother a toddler who refuses to budge or a kid who gets stuck or teenager who always wants “their way”? I learned this one from another mom: sometimes it's ok to cave. It’s ok to say "You know what? I changed my mind." It will get us out of some tough spots and it will show our kids how to let go and be flexible. I love when my kids are mid-tantrum and then say, “I changed my mind."

PRESENT A UNITED FRONT.

It's a blessing to have a co-parent who can tell you when you've gone too far. Sometimes they're wrong and sometimes they're right, but we are all bad parents from time to time. Why is it so important that my husband and I agree on everything? I don’t mean that you should confuse your little one, but it’s good to show them how two people can peacefully resolve a conflict. Knowing that people can disagree and still love one another is a revelation to kids who are picking their friends based on who wears pigtails just like they do. But if my husband says no dessert, and I think my daughter has eaten well all day and a bite of chocolate is a small indulgence, is not a big deal. You can disagree, Out loud. In front of the kids. If you can do it in a way that teaches them something—save the ugly, everything-you-do-is-just-wrong fights for alone time.  When my we give different answers to the kids, we just say something like, “Daddy and I disagree, so we’ll have to talk about it and figure it out and let you know.” Teaching your kid how to fight nicely is a good thing. 

DON'T INTERVENE UNLESS THERE'S BLOOD.

I understand that siblings—and friends—need to work things out on their own. But how will they know how to do that unless we show them? No human is born knowing the best way to solve a disagreement. Two-year-olds, or even six-year olds, are still learning the skills they need to happily navigate the world. And we are here to teach them. So, sure, sometimes it’s ok to hang back and see if kids can figure out how to solve a problem on their own, but if we wait until things get out of hand before stepping in, we aren’t teaching, we’re disciplining.

SPANKING ISN'T A BIG DEAL, AND EVERYONE DOES IT. 

No. Just no. I have never met a parent who spanks their kid who wasn’t spanked when they were a kid. No one who wasn’t spanked thinks, “You know what my parent should have done? Hit me to get me to listen.” That’s one reason it’s clear to me it’s an unproductive, wrong-headed way to parent. And I really don’t understand that people who spank seem to think that it’s ok to do it to kids who are toddlers, but would never ever think it’s ok to hit a teenager. How could it possibly be more proper to hit a small child? Riddle me that. I know parenting little kids can be crazy-making hard, but physical violence doesn’t solve anything and will never be a good way to parent. If you feel headed in that direction, do whatever you can (read, google, ask friends or family) to get some more tools for your parenting toolbox.

 IT'S OK TO YELL. (OR: YELLING IS AS BAD AS HITTING.)

This one is so grey, which is probably why most parents either think that’s it’s totally fine or totally wrong. When I feel myself starting to yell, there’s are questions I try to answer for myself first—How much of this is about me and how much is about them? Am I having a bad day? Have I dealt with this bad behavior better another time? Could I have done something differently an hour before things came to this? There’s a big gray territory between verbal abuse and occasional slips. But when the occasions come too often, see above about the parenting toolbox.

TIME-OUTS ARE A GOOD WAY TO DEAL WITH BAD BEHAVIOR.  

This is a very common way for parents to deal with those “All-Stop” moments (as my favorite preschool guru would call it). When a kid is hitting or biting or throwing a tantrum or venturing into that zone, the idea that setting them apart from everyone else, fixes nearly nothing. It is embarrassing and not instructional, even if it sometimes seems like the only option. I like to think that giving myself a time-out, so I can cool down or think straight, works better. I like the idea of having a time-in instead. Yes, you should first make sure the kid who has just been bitten is ok, but then it’s time to talk it out with the biter. Just because it is a cry for attention, doesn’t mean it’s wrong to give them attention. When kids behave in an out-of-control way, they need something. From you. Figure out why.

IN THE BEGINNING, YOU'LL NEVER SHOWER (AND THIS I OK.)

Please shower. Not because you stink or haven’t been able to wash your hair for a week. Shower even if your baby is crying—just force yourself to do it. You know those morning shower epiphanies? It’s no coincidence that when you take a step back from whatever you’re all wrapped up doing and can breathe your own air, you have your clearest thoughts. I once heard that the biggest source of stress is feeling indispensible. As a mom, it’s so easy to get stuck thinking that no one can do for your baby what you do. Maybe it’s true, but even then, don’t let yourself be the only one who can watch the baby. Put the baby somewhere safe, even if that's a bouncy seat just outside the tub. Let your husband do things wrong. Let your mother have some grandchild time alone. The five or ten minutes you gift yourself with in the form of a good old shower, will make you a better mom when you return. Even if they have to cry. Also you're not going crazy if you hear phantom baby crying in the shower. I can't explain why, but I do know that lots of other moms hear it too. 

Confession: I Yelled (a lot) at My Kid for Not Napping

My son is a pretty terrible sleeper.

My daughter, on the other hand, started sleeping through the night at two months, and even though we had plenty of tough nights with her and bad sleep stages that felt endless and awful at the time, she still sleeps through the night very reliably.

Even in their shared room, even when he’s awake and screaming, she’s unflappable. After one recent awful night, when her brother was screaming half the night, she told me, “He tried to wake me up, but I just went back to sleep.”

But not everything is harder with the little one. He falls asleep much faster than his sister (Is there a male gene for this?). And he naps every day. They might be short, but they are reliable. I think he’s skipped one nap in his almost two years and I’m pretty sure it was my fault.

With the older one, naps were hard work. When the infant, sleeping-on-and-off-all-day-on-her-own stage ended, I was utterly unprepared. I had no idea that I had to do something to make naps happen. In my pre-baby days, I imagined long stretches of time when she would sleep and I would spend time writing or sleeping or exercising. Yeah, not so much.

It was a rude wake-up call to learn I had yet another job to do. In fact, I had to get her to sleep three times a day (ugh). Good thing I wasn’t yet counting the five times a day I would have to get someone to sleep when he brother showed up on the scene. At one point, I realized I spent something like three hours a day between naps for two kids and bedtime.

It’s adding insult to injury for a parent who’s not sleeping enough to have to focus so much on the sleep of others. It’s unbelievably frustrating to be falling asleep while holding a baby that won’t fall asleep.

I remember days when I would sit in our living room, shoulders up around my ears, listening for my daughter’s voice to pop up again on the baby monitor, in tears or with surges of anger from the effort required to get her to sleep and the number of days that she skipped naps altogether. After I realized that she had actually, finally, mercifully fallen asleep, my anger and frustration would give way to guilt and self-doubt. And I would start to rehearse my apology for when she woke up.

I yelled at her a lot for not taking naps. And I remember she would be so sorry and tell me, “Mommy, I promise I’ll do it this time.” Or, the gut-wrenching, “But mommy, I’m not tired.”

It doesn’t matter how much you love your kids, you have to have a break. Imagine the most amazing job—but with 14-hour days and no lunch breaks ever. Who wouldn’t consider quitting?

My life as a stay-at-home mom can be reduced to a simple equation. No Nap = Bad Day. And it’s inverse: Naps = Sanity. Even with a short, thirty-minute nap, I have space to breathe, a little time to myself to exhale with the relief of being alone, not even realizing I had been holding my breath all morning. When I don’t get to pause, for even a minute, I’m a tense wreck at the end of the day.

Friends who work and have their kids in day care full-time almost seem to be relieved as their toddler’s naps become a thing of the past. For them, no nap means more freedom on weekends. And even more exciting: an earlier bedtime. And earlier bedtime is code for: “I get to say hi to my spouse before I pass out tired.”

Even beyond my own sanity, I believe it is part of my job as a mother to teach my kids to be good sleepers. It’s a skill with life-long benefits for physical and mental health. I’m a pretty terrible sleeper myself, with all kinds of insomniac behavior. My mother says I never took naps. Maybe if I had, I’d be a better sleeper now.

After a lot of reading and talking to other moms and watching my own kids when they do and don’t nap, I stubbornly believe that naps are important.

But at what cost? Not napping is not bad behavior. But it’s oh-so-hard not to get mad about it.

So the reliable naps of my “bad sleeper” have been incredibly important for me. I’ve also learned not to rely on naps as my only downtime all week. I now schedule a babysitter for a few hours every week, and hang my sanity on that. Not foolproof, but a lot better than going nuts because a toddler won’t sleep when they’re not tired.

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