Day 188 in my miracles life
My question is:: Do we have good babies and bad babies or are our babies behaviors a reflection of who we are as parents?
WHY do i ask?
There are not many times as a parent, as a mother, that you get praise. No one says thank you for doing the washing, no one really cares that you spent two hours scrubbing the bathroom and consequently you have to smell bleach on you all day long, no one goes ‘wow’ when your baby begins holding her own bottle so now you can feed a baby, watch tv, one handily type a blog AND think about dinner ALL at the same time… No one notices you day in and day out working on your babies routine, changing it up to suit the babies needs making sure she knows when its nap time & when its dinner time… No one SEES you doing that…
So when you go out, when i go out, and my beautiful babe follows her routine, when she doesnt fuss, when she is happy being held… Is that because she is a good baby or because i have spent time adapting her to a routine?
I am not saying that mothers and parents who dont do the routine thing arnt fantiastic parents or that their babies arnt ‘good’ babies… Nor am i saying that my babe doesnt have ‘bad’ days – take last friday, she screamed the WHOLE day, yes the WHOLE day – I am simply wondering if their behaviour is a reflection on us?
And i guess it comes from the constant stream of people telling me i have a ‘good’ baby. I know i am blessed, I know that she sleeps though the night that she is easy to feed, that she rarely cries, that she smiles and giggles. that she plays well, that she is happy in her pram, that she settles when i comfort her, that she goes to bed with little fuss (most nights) but is that because she is a ‘good’ baby, or because i have helped her to fall into a routine that suits her, because i followed a book that suggested ways to slowly teach my child how to sleep through the night?
Each time i am told i have a ‘good’ baby a little piece of me crumbles inside. No one tells me i am a ‘good’ parent, i dont expect it, but i wonder if i hadnt followed routines from the start, if i didnt constantly work on changing things around to suit her needs, if i didnt blog hop trying to read up on other mothers and parents experiences, if i didnt spend time asking the questions i did on twitter… Would she still be such a ‘good’ baby?
And while i ask the question… Is there such a thing as a ‘bad’ baby or for that matter a ‘bad’ parent?
