- Conventional wisdom: Children need routine.
- Reality: Routine may be taken to extreme.
At the new parents home, the note beside the doorbell reads, please don’t ring or knock – baby sleeping. When asked to volunteer, the mother replies, “sorry, but that’s during nap time, I can only help from 3:17 to 4:15 after that it’s feeding time.” The father sadly turns down the invitation saying, “I wish I could, but I have to watch the baby sleep.”
When reading the above lines some parents will smugly see themselves, and bask in their incredible parenting dedication. Other parents, especially the ones with several children, will scoff, saying you can take the baby out of the nap, but you can’t take the nap out of the baby. This is definitely not to say there are no repercussions for missing nap time or making loud crashing noises causing the baby to startle awake and begin screaming. Some adults wake up swinging when woken from a sound sleep, so it should be understandable that a baby may cry some when startled.
A good argument may be made for letting day to day interruptions happen, and allowing life’s little nuances influence your children ( best to leave sleeping adults alone). The baby that is reinforced that they must have absolute silence to be rested may not do so well later in life when noisy siblings begin crashing and banging about. Imagine them, when they go away to school and expect quiet in a dorm. The same child that learned others would bend to their will and throw adorable tantrums or pouting bouts to get their way, might not do so well in the real world.
Now picture a different child, a child that grew up on moms’ shoulder, and being dragged everywhere at all times of day or night. This child’s mom receives compliments like, oh, he is so precious, and he sleeps through everything. Or, it must be nice having a baby that’s not fussy. Or, my little one needed(s) routine… and on and on. This mom knows her child gets all the sleep he needs and never fusses or cries without a reason. Yes it is true, baby’s use different cries for different reasons, it’s how they communicate since they don’t talk much.
The only difference between these two bundles of joy is how mom and dad have acted around them. One set of parents has bent over backward to protect and shield their child from everything, even changing their schedules to accommodate the little one. The other parents simply included the newcomer and carried on with everyday living, the way parents always have.
Keeping a routine has lots of benefits, but mostly it benefits the parents. The parents don’t have to deal with crying if they keep silent, the parents feel good about their parenting if the baby doesn’t cry. The parents admonish all around them (shhh – baby's asleep) and then require all to cater to their baby’s demands. This is all self imposed, where the parents actions are reinforced by the child’s behavior. The child cries, the parent demands quiet, the child shuts up. The parent learns to appease the child. The parent wakes the child, the child screams, the parent brings a snack, the child shuts up. From a very young age of just hours or days the baby learns to cry in order to satisfy needs. As the child gets a year or two older they have learned from their parent how to scream, cry, pout, demand anything and everything. Yes it is true the inmates are running the asylum, but who gave them the keys? The parents did, by scheduling everything around the child, to keep the peace. The parents have learned to retreat to a scheduled routine of appeasing children. As the years pile up, it is not surprising that these children get labeled as, fussy, spoiled, demanding, and difficult.
There is nothing wrong with routine, the world runs on routine, and so do families. But, parenting is a proactive job, and cowering in fear that the new baby may get fussy is the first baby step towards problems later.
At the end of the day both sets of parents get the job done, but one baby is known as a cranky, crying, screamer, to be feared and not crossed. The other baby is cute, adorable, and always happy. There are exceptions of course but generally a baby, a toddler, and even a much older child need little more than to be fed, kept clean, safe, comfortable, and to be loved. But, don’t we all? Uh oh, quitting time, gotta run, grab the baby, it’s time to go.
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