I like to think about things. One of the things I’ve been thinking about is how I want to act as a parent. I’ve been trying to clarify my basic parenting principles.

Thinking about these things helps me make the right decisions. In particular, being clear about the principles is useful in situations where it’s easy get tempted to apply a quick fix in a way that I might later regret.

These principles are about the relationship between the parent and the child. They are not about how I want my child to be or behave, or what I want my child to grow up into, or how to get there – those are separate issues. These are the real fundamentals, “this is fundamentally right, that is fundamentally wrong”.

1. As above, so below. This can be said in many ways… Be an example. If it’s not OK for them to behave in a certain way, it’s not OK for you to behave that way, either. And vice versa: If it’s not OK to treat an adult that way, it’s not OK to treat a child that way.
2. No violence. This is a corollary to #1, but it is important enough to repeat as a separate point. It is never OK to intentionally hurt another person, no matter what good excuses you have.
3. Don’t reduce the baby to an object. Remember that he is an individual. Be careful about proposed “methods” to “fix” things, and think about whether they fit in your relationship.
4. Err on the side of loving. If in doubt, say yes. You cannot spoil a child with too much closeness and love.
5. Needs go before wants. The younger the child, the more needs it has, and the fewer wants. Even things that later become wants (cuddles and closeness) are needs in a baby.
   A baby’s needs go before mum’s wants, but a baby’s wants do not necessarily go before mum’s wants.
6. Don’t confuse your wants with the baby’s. Don’t hurry their development. Few parents err on the side of being too relaxed; far more parents want the baby to sleep on her own, eat on her own, change her own diaper and have a summer job before the baby is a year old.

How do you think about parenting? How do you make your decisions?

Whenever I go out among people with Ingrid, especially if she’s in the buggy and not a baby carrier, inevitably someone will walk up and touch her. “Ooh, look at those cute little toes!” and they finger her toes, or her cheeks or her hands. Almost always without asking me, they just walk up to her and start pawing.

It strikes me as very impolite. You wouldn’t do that to an adult, so why do you think it’s OK with a baby? She’s not a toy or a pet. I’m more and more tempted to reciprocate… pinch their cheek while leaning in really close and cooing at them. I imagine they would find that a bit indecent, and perhaps that would make them realise that I find their behaviour indecent, too.

And it’s always women. Women of a certain age, and I would guess it’s women with no children of their own.

Attachment parenting is a fancy name for what I would describe as a kind and natural approach to parenting. It means different things to different people, but generally / often includes extended breastfeeding, babywearing, co-sleeping, and responsiveness (not letting the baby cry in order to “train” it). All very sensible, and while I don’t entirely live by the AP ideals, I agree with the general direction. (An AP mum wouldn’t leave her baby in the care of strangers at 6 months, for sure.)

AP parents are often also ecological parents so AP discussions frequently involve cloth nappies and organic foods etc.

But then, for some reason, some parents add another element: avoiding vaccinations. And that really baffles me. What does it have to do with attachment and closeness? How can you intentionally expose your baby to the risks of catching a serious but fully avoidable disease – and claim that it is good for your baby? Natural is not always necessarily better.

Here’s what we have learned about baby clothes over the last 4 months. Some of the tips may sound totally obvious, but I’ll include them anyway, for the sake of completeness.

• Borrow as much of possible for your newborn. And the baby may outgrow the first items within a few weeks. Also, you can’t know what types of clothes you will find practical. Opinions do differ: some of the clothes my sister-in-law liked best, I found impractical and put away after one use. When we started buying clothes for our baby, after about 6 weeks or so, we were a lot better informed and prepared.

• Skip the “newborn” size and go straight to “0–3 months”. The newborn-sized hat we got was too small for our girl on day 1, so she never got to use it. And the newborn-sized body was too small after 3 weeks. Unless your baby turns out to be really tiny, the 0–3s will fit well after just a week or two. And if you do get a tiny baby, you can always buy some newborn clothes when the baby has arrived, and keep the 0–3s for later.

• Don’t buy too much. Assuming your baby can wear the 0–3s for 3 months, and you have 7 sets of clothes, each set will only get worn 13 times. Buy 10 sets, and the baby will outgrow them before s/he’s even worn them 10 times. The same will happen if the baby outgrows the clothes in less than 3 months, which is what happened us. Around 6 sets of indoor clothing worked well for us: this means we wash baby clothes every 4–5 days, because occasionally she goes through more than one set per day because of various “accidents”.

  Because babies don’t sweat much (unless they are wearing too much), baby clothes don’t get dirty unless they are exposed to said accidents, directly or indirectly. Socks, for example, can be worn for 2–3 days before changing, so we get by with 3 pairs. Outerwear hardly gets dirty at all, as long as the baby is pram-bound: one set is enough. When you do need to wash these, they usually dry overnight.

• Make sure the clothes are easy to wash. That also applies to any other fabric items that come in contact with the baby: play mats, bouncy seat covers, blankets etc. Everything will inevitably get pooped and burped on, and I really wouldn’t want to scrub poop off the chair cover with a sponge. If it can’t be washed – for example, if you have the baby sitting in the corner of your sofa – cover it with a muslin.

• Choose things that are easy to change, and allow easy nappy changes. This is less important for outerwear, and ultra important for night clothes. When you’re changing a nappy in the middle of the night, you do NOT want to spend time on fiddly clothes. Skip anything that has buttons; go for poppers instead.

  For this reason we abandoned sleepsuits (all-in-ones with long sleeves and legs): the long rows of poppers along the legs were too much work in the dark in the middle of the night. Almost inevitably I would miss one in the middle, and run out of buttons before buttonholes, or the other way round. Instead, Ingrid only wears bodies. She gets a new clean body every evening after her bath, sleeps in it at night, and has it throughout the next day as well.

• Go for soft and stretchy clothes: stretchy fabrics and elasticated waists, and no scratchy decorations. Non-stretchy clothes will either not fit, or be uncomfortable when the baby has just eaten. Most baby clothes are in stretchy cotton jersey, other knitted materials or fleece nowadays. But I have seen jeans with a buttoned waist, sized for 3-month-olds…

• We found cotton bodies / vests / onesies to be the all-round most practical clothes. Ingrid hardly ever wears anything else at home (except for socks). If you have a reasonably warm house, a long-sleeved body may be enough to keep the baby warm. In a colder house, add trousers. The trousers + t-shirt combination inevitably leaves a gap at the waist (the t-shirt will NOT stay tucked in, as long as the baby is crawling around on the floor) so you’ll almost certainly need a vest underneath, anyway, to keep the little tummy warm. Keep trousers and tops for special occasions. Skirts and dresses are even less practical: they will just get bunched up when the baby moves, and won’t cover anything.

• Consider wrap bodies instead of pull-on-over-the-head bodies. Some babies object strongly to having their face covered, so pulling clothes over their heads can be a struggle. Even if the baby doesn’t mind, I’ve found wrap bodies easier to put on: they don’t get so tangled up, somehow.

If you’re buying baby clothes as a gift, I’d add one more point to the above:

• Buy 3–6-month clothes, unless you will hand over the gift as soon as the baby is born, or before. If you buy 0–3 clothes and visit the baby when s/he is a month old, and the baby happens to be a large one, s/he will outgrow your gift before she’s had a chance to use it much.

Here’s a more general baby needs list.

A friend of mine is expecting his first baby soon, so I thought I’d offer my advice on what to buy and not to buy for the baby.

Here, then, is a list of all the things that we considered buying (based on various sources), and what we thought about them.

Buying for your baby.xls

I’ve sorted everything into 3 groups: ESSENTIAL, YES, and NO, based on how useful we found them.

• ESSENTIAL are the things that we couldn’t have done without. The essentials include such basics as clothes, pram, sling, cot.
• YES marks things that were useful but that could probably be replaced with something else, or you could manage without. This includes a changing bag, bath thermometer etc.
• NO marks things that we bought or got, but didn’t end up using much at all. For us, this included scratch mittens and a breast pump.
• There are also some items marked “Didn’t have one” or “Haven’t bought yet”; those are things that have been recommended somewhere but that we haven’t actually tried out, so I don’t have much to say about them.

I’ve also commented briefly on most items. The comments are of course my personal view only. If your habits or preferences differ from mine, or your baby has different needs, you may not agree at all.

Finally, I’ve guessed at roughly when you might want to buy these things. The things I suggest buying at 0 months are the ones you should probably sort out before the baby is born (and with a few weeks to spare). The ones marked “0-1 months” are those that you can live without in the first few weeks, and may want to buy a bit later, when you know more about your baby’s habits and preferences. But you could also buy these in advance.

Our best buys:

• Pushchair. Don’t skimp; buy a good one. You are likely to use it many hours every week, so get one that you find comfortable and convenient to use. BabyCentre has good tips to help you choose a pram or pushchair. The right choice depends on your lifestyle: I’m very happy with our Stokke, but I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re going to be packing your pushchair into a car on a regular basis, or spending a lot of time on the Tube.
• Moses basket. You can buy a cot straight away, but we found a Moses basket very handy to begin with. It’s light and small, so you can carry the baby with you from room to room. It also allows you to have the baby sleeping next to your bed, where a cot might not fit.
• Sling. I love my slings. Many books and web sites recommend a Baby Bjorn-type baby carrier, but a sling is much more versatile and comfortable, for both you and the baby. Some men have been known to describe slings as somewhat “unmanly”, but if you buy one in black or denim, you can probably convince them otherwise! The Baby Wearer has a lot of advice on choosing a baby carrier.
• Activity mat / play gym. Ingrid spends most of her day on the play mat. It protects the carpet from the baby, and lets the baby have fun looking at interesting things from a very early age. Get one with lots of loops and removable toys, so you can switch to new ones and keep the it interesting.
• Bath seat. Cheap, easy to use, less faff than a baby bath, and takes up less space.
• A good nursing pillow. A tiny baby is floppy and needs good support, and mum’s arms and back can get very tired without a pillow.

Baby clothes are a whole separate topic and deserve a post of their own, which I will hopefully be able to post later today or tomorrow.

Update: here is the post about baby clothes.

It’s hard to be a parent these days. You’re bombarded with advice from all directions, and everyone has opinions about how you should be doing things.

When it comes to babies’ sleep, I keep reading and hearing that it’s important that the baby learns to fall asleep in the cot, and not in dad’s arms or while being rocked by mom. “Baby should be put down drowsy but awake.” Any help you give is labelled a “prop” and is BAD. The underlying message is always “once you start a habit, it’ll stick, and you’ll be sorry a year from now!”.

But no one says the same about other aspects of taking care of a baby. No one says “Don’t feed him – he needs to learn to eat on his own” or “Don’t change her nappy, or she’ll get used to it and then you’ll be doing it forever”.

Why do they have such a different view on sleep, then? (“They” being all those people who dole out advice in books and on the internet.) I guess parents’ comfort is the only reason. No one minds changing dirty nappies 7 times a day, but parents do mind being woken in the middle of the night. So they hope for a quick fix.

(Besides, a book that says “don’t worry, things will sort themselves out” is not going to be a bestseller. If, on the other hand, the author claims that the baby’s current behaviour can and should be fixed using their unique method, this can sell lots of books. And of course first-time parents are easy targets… it’s easy to make us worry that we’re doing things wrong.)

But the more I see Ingrid develop, the less I believe in this view. She is small and needs help. Just as she cannot change her own nappy or put food in her mouth, she cannot go to sleep on her own. And that’s OK.

Nothing is fixed, and no habit will be hard to change, because everything about her changes all the time. There is almost nothing about her that is the same now as it was three months ago. In fact I can’t think of a single thing. She eats differently, sleeps differently, poops differently, cries differently, plays differently.

So I’ve finally pretty much stopped listening to all this advice, and stopped worrying about her sleeping habits. (Don’t tell me “I told you so”! I know. But I’m good at worrying.) While we’re not as rested as we could be, none of us is collapsing from exhaustion. And things are getting steadily better, with the help of time, practice, love and common sense, without the need of any methods.

Gina Ford is a phenomenon. Every parent in England will have heard of Gina Ford, and most will have a very firm opinion about her. The majority appear to be split into two opposing camps: one that loves her and one that hates her.

I looked at her The New Contented Little Baby Book before I’d heard about Gina, found the book terrible, and put it back on the shelf. Eric bought it because “everybody knows Gina Ford, so let’s see what all the hoopla is about”.

So what is the hoopla about? Her main point is that babies need routine. Things should be done in the same order and at the same time every day. A large part of the book (50 pages) is filled with detailed schedules setting out feeding and sleeping times with 5-minute precision. Another 30 pages are dedicated to discussing the different parts of the routine. This is supposedly “the secret to calm and confident parenting” (as the front cover blurb promises) and will lead to a contented baby.

This is the complete opposite of the “feed-on-demand, baby-knows-best” approach which seems to flourish in some places (notably among Swedish midwives, from what I read on Swedish parenting sites). In Sweden the common view seems to be that you shouldn’t meddle with small babies’ sleep rhythms but leave them to find their own rhythm. But I don’t see how a baby is supposed to figure out that night is for sleeping and day is for playing, if parents don’t teach this.

And the followers of each approach are often fully convinced that the others are mad, misled, and probably horrible parents. Gina’s book, therefore, gets very conflicting views from readers: of the 478 reviews on Amazon UK, 76% give it either 1 or 5 stars. Gina has even been compared to terrorists, and sued an online forum.

I started out reading The New Contented Little Baby Book mostly out of curiosity (and because it was there). I was inclined to discard much of the talk about routines. It just sounded ridiculous – and insensitive and unworkable. In the first few weeks I fed on demand, and Ingrid slept most of the time when she wasn’t eating. But then as she became more alert, I gradually felt the need for some more order, and started using a simple sleep-eat-play routine (i.e. doing things in that order, all the time) based on Tracy Hogg’s advice. I found it helpful, but at the same time it was hard to figure out how to adjust this as her sleep needs changed. And I was still spending a lot of my time guessing – is she tired? hungry? in pain? simply cranky?

I came to refer to Gina’s book more and more frequently for a more carefully considered routine. At first I was thinking to myself, “I can’t believe I am following this horrid book,” and yet I was gradually won over. Ingrid took well to having a routine, and I liked having one. It simply works very well for us. I have made a 180-degree turn: I now find Gina’s routines very helpful, and I am glad I have this book at hand. In our household we’re now on first-name basis with Gina: “Gina suggests…”

But I still can’t say that I like the book. I’ve got the hate-Gina and the love-Gina camps both right here inside my head, because the book manages to mix very good things with very bad ones.

This is what Gina gets right:

• I totally agree that having a routine is good and leads to more confident parenting. I find it much easier to read Ingrid’s signals when I can immediately exclude several reasons for crying. Ingrid never gets overtired; she is happy almost all the time and rarely cries without an easily discernible reason. And she definitely never cries for long (unless she is in pain because of reflux) because I can figure out what she needs, and help her.
• A routine makes it a lot easier to distinguish baby’s habits, and to tell chance from a changing habit. Because we do things at roughly the same time every day, I notice quite easily when Ingrid is able to stay up longer without bad effects, and when she is getting too much daytime sleep (because she is awake for a longish stretch during the night).
• A routine means that I know when Ingrid will sleep, which lets me plan my own day as well. (And it ensures that I get my daily feeds as well!) And since we have a well-functioning basic routine, I can adjust it when necessary to fit in outside activities.
• Gina provides not just a routine like some other books, but a routine that changes over time. There is guidance about which naps should get shorter, and which waking times longer? This is probably the most important and useful part of the book.
• Gina’s advice to limit daytime sleep by waking baby from naps was counterintuitive, but turned out very helpful. Ingrid learned the difference between day and night quite early, unlike some babies I read about.

This is what Gina gets wrong:

• She assumes that all babies and all mothers are the same. “Baby should eat x minutes on the first breast and y minutes on the second breast.” One day Ingrid may need 10 minutes for a feed, and the next day it takes 25. And this is just a single baby and a single pair of breasts! Imagine the variation, then, among millions of combinations of babies and breasts. A baby should eat until she is full.
• While she does say that her schedule is a guideline and should be adjusted as needed, the wording of the schedule flat-out contradicts this (“He needs a sleep of no longer than 45 minutes”) and there is hardly any advice in the book on how to adjust the schedule if you think it isn’t right for your baby. I get the impression she really means that the schedule should be strictly followed, but then everybody would get all upset, so she says (without much conviction) that it’s just a guideline.
• She pays too much attention to minute details and ignores more important questions. The schedule micromanages the day (down to telling you what to have for breakfast: “8am: try to have some cereal, toast and a drink no later than 8am”). But at the same time there’s no help for dealing with mishaps. If the baby woke up an hour early, do you stretch each nap a bit, or just the longest one, or do you put in an extra nap? You’re on your own there.
• The book commands instead of explaining. Why is this nap longer than that one? Why is the third nap dropped first? You can figure this out by experimentation and observation, or (more likely) see that it just works that way, but but more explanation would certainly be useful.
• She strongly discourages doing anything that upsets the routine, most of all getting out of the house. If you listened to her you wouldn’t even be able to go to the doctor, not to mention shopping or coffee mornings! Mothers need a life, too!
• Much of the book is written in an unpleasant tone which I found quite offputting. It’s all about “should” and “must” and “must not”: I picture a nurse in a starched white uniform who will not listen to anything you say. There is no joy. She is also far too fond of doling out guilt and disappointment: a baby should be able to do x at 3 months, and so on, and anything that goes wrong is because you haven’t done everything exactly as she says. As another reviewer put it:

  I would say that this book actually should come with […] a volume controll- to turn down Gina shouting at you for being a very bad parent.

• Finally I think the book is badly organised. It is hard to find the important bits, and even the schedules are not so easy to read. The book would definitely gain from a better editor.

As I said, I do find Gina’s advice helpful. But following it to the letter, as she insists, would be a nightmare. I’d need an alarm clock. My whole life would be taken up with her schedule. As it is now, we often deviate up to half an hour in either direction from the schedule, depending on what seems to be needed. Yet the only reason I can fiddle with the schedule (for example to fit in a swimming lesson at a time when Ingrid would normally be getting sleepy) is that we have a schedule to begin with. In order to break the rules, you first need to know what the rules are.

And Ingrid would most certainly not be contented with Gina’s standard routine. She has always needed more sleep and more food than Gina’s “average” baby. At the age of 3 months her routine most closely resembled what Gina suggested for a 2-month-old. At 3.5 months she still wakes up twice every night for feeds – and it’s not just snacking, she takes a proper meal. And she definitely cannot be just put down in her bed awake, in the dark, to fall asleep on her own.

Buy the book. Find the best bits and ignore the rest. Add a large dose of common sense, and relax about the schedule. Then Gina’s book truly is useful.

Amazon UK, Amazon US.

After my two-week Christmas holiday with Eric at home, I started this year rested and with lots of energy. (Relatively speaking.) I was determined to get more done – to get out more, to have more fun during the days, and generally just try to avoid getting stuck in a rut.

It is very easy for me to get worn down by the endless repetition of small stuff, and lose all ability to take initiative. After a few rounds of breastfeeding, nappy changes, and slinging Ingrid to sleep, my brain just slowly shuts down and I let the rest of the day pass by without doing anything much. Even though I like to read, I can’t be bothered to pick up a book. Even though we have lots of good movies at home, it’s easier to simply surf the web for an hour.

One of the changes I’ve made – probably the most important one – is to go out for a long walk every afternoon, as long as the weather isn’t atrocious. This one change alone has worked wonders on my energy level, and that in turn has led to more good changes. Mental energy, unlike the physical variety, generates itself like a perpetuum mobile – you really can get more energy out of an activity than you put in.

I am also trying to find regular activities that I could commit to. It’s easy to skip a walk because it’s drizzling outside, but if I was signed up for a course, for example, I would be more likely to ignore the weather and go anyway. Now that I think about this, the best kind of activity would be something where others depended on me – I have such a strong sense of responsibility that I would make a real effort to do what I have promised. Hmmm… something to ponder.

Anyway, I have only found one weekly activity thus far – a local NCT coffee group, i.e. a group of local mothers who get together and drink coffee (or pomegranate and raspberry juice) and eat cookies and talk about their babies.

I went to a coffee group for the first time last week. Most babies there were older than Ingrid, around 7 to 10 months, but there was one other 3-month baby there. And she was so tiny next to Ingrid! She looked no larger Ingrid did at 1 month. And she also seemed about as strong as Ingrid was then. Ingrid looked like a pro wrestler in comparison, with her ability to lift her head and wave her legs around and all that.

I couldn’t help feeling really proud of my baby. I know that most probably very little of her rude health is due to anything I have done, and she would probably look and be as robust if someone else was taking care of her. She happened to be of slightly above-average weight at birth, and happened to be good at eating and growing. The other baby happened to be born small, and possibly grow slower. There’s not much a mum can do about this. But still, I couldn’t help it. I was inordinately proud of my big strong beautiful baby, and still am.

Look, world, this is my baby! I created this lovely creature! It came out of my body! And it’s my milk that’s made her so strong!

This is something my hormones do to me, I’m convinced, to make sure that I take good care of her. It’s a bunch of selfish genes wanting to survive and procreate and then in 20 or 30 years’ time they can make her feel the same so the genes get to go another round. And every other mum’s genes do the same to her. Doesn’t matter. I’m still so proud of my baby.

The two most common questions I got while pregnant were “When are you due?” and “Do you know what you’re having?” (i.e. boy or girl).

The birth changed nothing, apparently. The two most common questions I get when I’m out with Ingrid are the same: “How old is she?” and “Is it a boy or a girl?”.

The third most common question (but far less frequent than the first two) is “Is she a good baby?”. I don’t like that question at all. I take it the asker wants to know whether she is easy to take care of – does she cry a lot, does she sleep all night, etc.

Firstly, I dislike the way this all gets summarised as “being a good baby”. Is the opposite an evil baby? a naughty, spiteful baby? She’s just a baby! Every baby is a good baby. If she cries, she does it because something is wrong, not because she is being bad and actively trying to make my life miserable.

Furthermore, I don’t understand what business it is of theirs! I get this question from total strangers – at the supermarket checkout till, on the bus, in the street… I’m pretty sure they don’t really want to hear me report on her nightly wakings. Do they secretly hope to hear that my baby is being “bad”, in order to gloat, or what?

I’ve been very tempted to reply “No, she’s totally evil, like the baby in The Omen, you know.” Thus far I’ve held my tongue and simply politely said “Yes”.

While Ingrid is a lovely baby, and getting lovelier by the day, I really cannot say that I enjoy staying at home and taking care of her all day, every day. It’s challenging and boring at the same time.

First of all, it can be immensely frustrating because there is very little feedback, and the little that there is, is very unclear. She is a black box: I am taking care of a system whose workings are hidden from me, and whose feedback is generally limited to two states: “I’m OK”, “I’m not at all OK, fix me!”. When she seems hungry, there is no gauge to say whether she is very hungry, a little bit hungry, or just feels like snacking on the breast. When she seems tired, there is no way to know whether she really is tired or simply bored. And no way of knowing whether what I am doing to calm her is (1) just right but needs some time to work; (2) almost right, just needs some tweaking; or (3) totally wrong and making her more upset. All guesswork. And to make it worse, even when I think I’ve figured out some part of it, that part is sure to change so my solution stops working again.

At the same time, I find it quite tedious to take care of a baby. My days are very repetitive. Change, feed, burp, keep her awake, try to get her to sleep. Wait an hour or two while she sleeps, and start over. And repeat all over again. And each step is the same every time. Getting her to sleep is especially boring: it generally involves patting her while rocking / swaying her in a sling, for 10–15 minutes, and again if she wakes up halfway through her nap. So every day I spend about an hour rocking and bouncing from one foot to the other.

The part that rankles me the most, I think, is the utter lack of flexibility. I cannot ask her to wait just a few minutes – when she wants food, she better get it immediately, and when she is crying out of tiredness, she cannot wait until I’ve finished my meal, for example.

I really am looking forward to a more communicative Ingrid. Much of this does come down to communication, doesn’t it? When her feedback becomes more nuanced than just “this is good” and “this is awful”, when it becomes possible to play with her while she’s awake, when she starts understanding what I say… this should all become much more enjoyable. I hope so!