Dearest Pony,

I ran across this paragraph today in an article about attention and meditation:

Back in 1971, when the web was still twenty years off and the smallest computers were the size of delivery vans, before the founders of Google had even managed to get themselves born, the polymath economist Herbert A. Simon wrote maybe the most concise possible description of our modern struggle: “What information consumes is rather obvious: It consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.” As beneficiaries of the greatest information boom in the history of the world, we are suffering, by Simon’s logic, a correspondingly serious poverty of attention.

Oops.  

I think in my quest to be the perfect parent for you I am deluging myself with information, therefore, making it almost impossible for me to hear my intuition.

A new wonderful mommy friend gave me this mantra today:  I am the perfect parent for Pony and she is the perfect child for me. 

I want to cry right now and I don’t know why.  I am sitting on the couch with you in between your Dad and I.  Noodle is laying at his feet.  You are napping deliciously.  Nothing could be more perfect in our world at this very moment.  Maybe that’s why I want to cry.  Because it is so damn good.  And I have never known such goodness before.  It’s kind of overwhelming at times.


Plus your eyelashes are so long and we keep stopping what we are doing to both stare at you and talk about how beautiful you are.  We are a little obsessed.  It’s probably kind of creepy for you.  


It’s probably not going to ever go away.


You might just have to get used to all this love.


Lord knows I am trying to myself.  


xx
mum

Oh, Dear Pony,

I am so sorry for the last two nights.  I used to envy the firstborn, as I am a middle child, and being one has always given me so much fuel for my self-indulgent pity parties. However, I now see your situation in a whole new light.

You are, unfortunately, one giant experiment for us as new parents.

We should try this?  No, wait, what about this?  This could work.  Oh shit, that was bad. Let’s not do THAT ever again.  How about this?  Oops.  Not good.  Try something else. Score!  THAT works!  Oh.  Not tonight?  It doesn’t work anymore.  Fuck.  What now?  I thought we were going to do this?  Now you are doing that? I’m confused and frustrated. Let’s start over.

All while you Pony are spitting up, burping up, scowling, howling, laughing, gurgling, and trying to sleep or fight sleep as best you can.  Meaning, you are just being a baby through it all while we fumble along as your parents.  But at least we are trying.  That much I believe to be good and true.

Let’s take the last two evenings- for example.  Because both had elements of success and complete failure in both of them.

It all began with a book.  Those damn books…

I picked up The Modern Parent by Michel Cohen M.D. who is a French pediatrician in New York and father of three beautiful little girls.  He tells it like it is, straight up, no holds barred and I really like that about him.  He has this A-Z guide for just about every question you could have about babies and childcare.  A dear friend recommended it. And she has two little wonderful girls.  He goes from adenoids to the x-rays and everything in between.

He has this little note at the end of his book-

Voila! It’s the end of the alphabet and the end of the book.

But I hope it’s also a new beginning for you, an opportunity to embrace this softer approach to childcare.  You’ve got my song in your head by now:

Kids are tough
tune them up
fix what needs fixing
stand by them
stand up to them
Your love will take care of the rest

I also hope The New Basics has given you the confidence to relax and trust your intuition so that when it comes to the health of your child, you’ll rely less on this book or any other.

Thank you for letting me make this house call.  I am delighted to have been a part of this important time in your life.  My warmest wishes to you and your family.

So what’s not to love and trust about this guy?

He doesn’t subscribe to switching boobs while breastfeeding, militantly burping babies, worrying about the fore and hind milk, attachment obsession, doing gymnastics to release gas, the urban myth called colic, rigid nap and sleep schedules, and tummy time.

What he does subscribe to is The Witching Hour and how to handle it.  He says if she’s dry, fed, and cuddled and nothing else works to soothe her she’s probably over tired and over stimulated so let her cry for five to ten minutes, pick her up, put her down, five to ten minutes, repeat until she’s soothed herself to sleep.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

Ha.

Pony love.  Two nights ago you were positively witchy and no amount of parenting somersaults were going to stop your fussing and you kept wanting to eat which kept making you throw up and you wouldn’t take a pacifier or a pinky so we did it- we let you cry for ten minutes.  It was the hardest ten minutes of my life.  Almost.  I might be exaggerating a bit there because last night was pretty awful too.  However, after I picked you up and soothed you I put you back down and you only cried barely at all for another eight minutes before you fell asleep.

Score!!  Said Papa.  I wish I could have a stiff drink.  Said, Mama.

I felt sick and sad about it all day.  I called the committee to consult and read every sleep book we had ever been given or bought on our shelf.  By the end of the day, I was a basket case of too much information and opinions.  It’s my drug of choice these days.

So we tried something different last night.