Parent Extremis

I took over this site back in February and I have always felt a little guilty for not posting more about, oh … those controversial parenting issues, you know, like bottle versus breast feeding and attachment parenting and the dreaded sleep-issues. I haven’t been living up to the TITLE of this blog, writing about parenting EXTREMES. Personally, I don’t parent in any of the extremes, at least I don’t think. I have my nuttiness, as my husband likes to remind me, but for the most part I dabble. I make some baby food, I buy some baby food, Noah sleeps alone, in his crib and he does get a little fussy sometimes and I don’t rush in to grab him, I do use Tylenol for those teething moments and post-vaccine fevers, I do use a sling and a carrier but only BEFORE he reached 20-pounds and mostly for convienence, not because I thought we weren’t bonded enough. So, I don’t really fall into any of the strong beliefs about attachment parenting and authoritative parenting and cry-it-out (Ferber/Weissbluth) versus Sears-method sleep training.

But! Some of you do! And I’d like to get some of those debates out in the open here at PARENT EXTREMIS. It’s what we’re all about, when I’m not writing about nose-picking and Cabernet play dates.

TypeAlice recently had a down and dirty comment war with another blogger about letting a baby cry and where to draw the line at ABUSE and WRONG. It is hard to hear your baby cry but sometimes when they are really tired they cry for like 30 seconds before they fall asleep, after you have fed and comforted and rocked them. Is that BAD? To me, that isn’t crying, its more like, fussing. Each parent has a different tolerance for hearing their baby cry and only each parent knows the line of a distress cry versus an I’m-annoyed-come-entertain-me cry. And to some parents, it doesn’t matter, a cry is a CRY.

I think the problem comes when one parent thinks THEIR way is better and RIGHT for someone else. But, who am I to judge? I buy baby food and put my baby in a stroller??

What are your thoughts on these extremes? Food, sleep, etc … do you dabble in the “methods” or do you follow one more than another?