Parenting Skills

This past weekend (Sept 18-19) I had the opportunity to start my journey in learning a new healing technique called "Bowen" which will be a blog of its own. But my instructor in her introduction of herself mentioned that she is a Child Attachment counsellor. Well Logan is a highly attached baby which has caused lots of various changed in my life, but a big one is that I have not slept an entire night through since he was born. (That isn't an exaggeration).

In short this was Logan's life: He was born and I miraculously chose to nurse him (for those who do not know I was completely anti nursing). We quickly discovered that unless I was in the room or in some cases physically holding him, I was the only one he would be soothed by. He did not want a soother, he did not want a blankie, he did not want a stuffed animal or toy. It was me. I nursed him when he was sad, I nursed him to sleep, I nursed him when he was hungry. He was a thorough nurser - and a part of my reason for doing that was cuz he had discomfort as a baby and it calmed him down so why not do what works right? Anyways - as the months went on, by the time he was a mere three months old we learned that he also wanted nothing to do with his father! Can you believe that? Unless I was in the room he wouldn't go to or stay with him. It was a huge crutch in our lives because I sometimes just needed to 'get out' but Logan would just scream and scream and scream until I returned causing anguish on both father and baby. So I gave up my freedom because of my love for both of them. I would only go out when he was napping, or when we had a concrete distraction that I knew I would be safe for half an hour, etc.
Sorry, tangent there - Logan was that way until he was about 12 months old when he allowed Michael into his life. In the meantime - night time was a problem. Logan would NOT sleep through the night. Longest stretch he ever went was probably 4 hours (even to date). When we moved from the basement suite to the townhouse he wouldn't go in his crib even. It caused him undue stress and trauma despite our best efforts. So he now sleeps with me which in the beginning was just a way to allow ME some sleep. Long story short he is 16 months old now and he still doesn't sleep through the night and he will not sleep without me close by despite our best efforts.

Okay - that was crucial background I promise. Now this instructor of mine, I pulled her aside at lunch time and asked her if I could pick her brain, and briefly explained my situation - my question was how do I 'fix' this. My first mistake she told me is that I am thinking of this whole situation as a -problem-! She said this is your son's life and you don't ever want him to feel as though he is a problem, and secondly, this is not a negative thing (aside from the occasional day I feel tired of course) as it is just how he is.

We continued to discuss various things and she gave me one really good analogy from a conference she attended. A lady seperated the group she was speaking to into 3 groups. Group 1: People who eat meals on schedule. Group 2: People who can skip meals and it doesn't phase them. Group 3: Grazers. The speaker then went to group 1 and discussed with them how they are - 'so you can't miss a meal huh?' 'heavens no! if i miss a meal i get shaky and light headed...' and so on. And then group 2 - 'so missing a meal doesn't bug you?' 'are you kidding? I can be working on a project and look at the time and think wow it's 4:00 and i didn't even eat lunch!' .....same thing to the grazers. The speaker then went back to group 1 and asked them how they would react if they had a child who was from group 2. Would you force your child to change despite their personalities? Is group 2 -wrong- for the way they eat? Of course not! That's who they are.

The point then is that Logan is a certain way. Yes he's not the way that I am - I need (well needed lol) 8 consecutive hours of sleep to function. Logan doesn't. He is fully rested at the end of the night with his 2-3 hr spurts with a moment of waking up to check his surroundings, etc.

Then we had a conversation about attachment. All through a child's life we are constantly teaching them things. 'Sleep by yourself', 'Don't talk back to me', 'Don't be angry', etc. But my instructor said that wouldn't you prefer that your baby be attached to you? Wouldn't you prefer your baby be able to express emotions? Wouldn't you prefer your baby know how to say no (cuz as a teenager I would love for my son to be able to say no to his peers if necessary!)  She said take a look at me and my husband. My husband and his family are very close. My family is not. I am peer attached. My peers are more important than my family because that is who I had to turn to. Who do you want Logan to turn to first? Family or peers? Wouldn't you rather have Logan feel loved and know where he can go if he needs love or comfort or attention or advice, etc? .... I'm not portraying this conversation on paper very well, but it was really touching to me! Lots of great comments were made.

Anyways, there was so much more in the conversation I would love to share. She just helped me realize that I am not wrecking my son. I am constantly living in a state where I feel like I am being judged by others because Logan is different. But after talking with her I feel so much more rooted in myself and so much more confident in myself. Each child will be different, and I am SO happy to know that I will be adaptable to each. (cuz heaven knows that if baby #2 sleeps through the night in his/her own crib I am not going to try and stop it! lol)