Detachment Parenting

I don't follow any textbook parenting style. This might be due to my dislike of strict textbook music education methods...I always preferred to borrow good songs and activities from every method, and leave everything I didn't like. Likewise, with parenting, I prefer to watch other parents and see what seems to work. Since we'd seen my sister-in-law's children go to bed happily and sleep well when we visited, we talked to her when it was time to sleep train Sir Toddler. We established a consistent bedtime routine, used a few soothing techniques, and let him fuss (but never scream) for a few minutes at a time to see if he would drop off on his own. He was a pretty horrible sleeper from birth, but we managed to at least have a few hours in the evening while he slept by the time he was three months old. We had this sleep training thing down!

Enter our "easy sleeper" second born.

The struggle is real.

Lady Infant was a really sleepy newborn--so much so that we had to use an alarm clock to wake her up to eat at night until she was a month old. With all the hubbub of putting two children down for the night, we never established an elaborate bedtime routine like we did with Sir Toddler...and we didn't feel like we needed to. She seemed to accept that we'd eventually change her into a clean diaper and pajamas, feed her, and put her in the Pack'n'Play wrapped in a swaddle. Maybe she'd catch some of her brother's prayers and story, but our "divide and conquer" approach to bedtime didn't make it a guarantee.

She decided to change things up a bit when I started a string of back-to-back late nights playing rehearsals and performances of "Titanic." She started figuring out how to roll onto her tummy  at the tender age of 3.5 months. That life-saving swaddle? Gone-zo, and in its place we had a baby that refused to be soothed by any amount of rocking, binkies, patting, shushing, or holding-arms-at-the-sides...basically any technique that worked with her older brother. It was hard to cope when I was coming home at almost midnight and then catching less than two hours of sleep between wakings. After one weekend of constant night nursing and Lady Infant spending much of the night sleeping on my chest, I was a zombie.

The following Monday, I put Lady Infant down in her Pack'n'Play so I could take a shower. I just blared the white noise, shut the curtains, and hoped for the best. In the time it took for me to turn on the shower and come back to our room...

Out like a light with her thumb in her mouth.

We learned that week that, by all appearances, she just wants to be left alone when it's time to sleep. I'm not trying to be heartless--if we try to soothe her when she fusses, she gets unbelievably angry. Even though I hate to just put her down (on her back, I swear) in the crib and walk away, she'll usually take less than three minutes to fuss, roll over, find her thumb, and conk out.

She's taught us "detachment parenting."