controlled crying

Ideals Meet Reality and the Pragmatism of Parenting

Pragmatism sounds like a positive word doesn’t it? It feels nice to use such a positive word. Even though I feel like a big fat failure. But the word is good and that’s something. I always said I would never let my babies cry. I’m sure there are a bazillion blog posts on this very [...]

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You’ll Never Do That With Your Second Child

I heard that a whole lot when Riley was a baby. The tilt of the head. The tut-tutting. The look that not just spoke but screamed, it’s a mistake. And then that simple sentence. ‘You’ll never do that with your second child.’ I guess the theory being that it’s all well and good to spoil [...]

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The Backslide

When Riley was about 14 months old she started reliably sleeping through the night and no needing my presence to get to sleep. Up until that point she was up three or more times a night and at nap time I would need to rock or stroke her to sleep. Perhaps it was because I [...]

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Sleep – No Training Required

As a new mother you hear all sorts of things about sleep. There’s something perverse about the one thing that you crave above all else is the one thing your baby seems incapable of doing. And it’s the number 1 question (are they sleeping through the night) you are asked by other parents and non-parents [...]

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Favourite Blog Posts of 2009

I read Best Blog Posts of 2009 at Scary Mommy and thought it was a pretty cool idea – if I have only got 6 months to choose from. I started this blog in July, thinking that it would be fun to do every now and then, but it quickly became more addictive than I’d [...]

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Crying It Out to Create Soldiers

“War babies cry it out shut down’ was a search term on google that landed not just one person on my site, but two this week. A little odd, but it reminded me of the Channel 4 Show: Bringing Up Baby which attempted to measure the successes and shortcomings of three different parenting methods for [...]

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Things I Learnt in My First Year – Part II

Sleep is for the Weak! I have to say that I never really thought that much about baby’s sleep while I was pregnant. I vaguely remember my father saying that I wouldn’t get a solid night sleep for the next two years and thinking he was a lunatic. I also remember reading What to Expect [...]

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