Reflecting on 2 years of parenthood

I've been reflecting a lot lately on parenthood. 

The first year of my son's life I questioned everything I did. I was unsure of everything and often felt like I was doing it all wrong. As you know from reading my blog my son doesn't sleep well and I tried everything to figure out why, including changing our diets during that first year. We were gluten free and dairy free at one point in time. In fact he had a gluten and dairy free birthday cake on his first bday and he didn't touch it!!  Poor kid! He doesn't have an allergy to anything that we know of but he does prefer to sleep near his mama! 

Now a year later I am amazed at how much I have changed. I am not the mother I was a year ago. I am a confident  mom who knows she is doing everything (or most things) right. 

I honestly think a lot of it has to do with my decision to be a stay at home Mom. It helped me become a more confident mom. No second guessing anything. 

The other thing I think has helped is doing some reading and research on different parenting techniques. I read a book written by The La Leche League and it was like a revelation. Everything I thought I was doing wrong as a parent according to that book, I was actually doing right. It helped me feel like a confident parent and confident in my parenting. 

I feel like society puts a lot of pressure on moms. There are so many things that are expected of us. 

You should breastfeed, but not too long because then it is weird.

 You should give your child lots of love and cuddles, but not at bedtime or they will never learn to sleep. 

Those are just two of many we hear daily, but the two that I am most affected by. 

I am still nursing my almost 2 year old. And guess what, I don't care what anyone thinks about it! I know in our society it isn't "normal" and that's ok. It works for us. My son is small, but healthy and happy. He has only been sick a handful of times and it was always very quick because he still gets lots of antibodies from me. And I think he is pretty smart too, but I guess I'm pretty prejudice on that spectrum!

The other thing is sleep. I know many people disagree with me on the sleep issue. But I made a decision about a year ago that my child would learn to sleep without crying himself to sleep. I knew there had to be another way. It may not be as affective, but over time with lots of love and snuggles Colin now sleeps a lot better. Last year we were lucky if we had a few 3 or 4 hour stretches of sleep a night. Now we consistently have about a 7 hour stretch a night. I've determined that some kids just need extra love at bedtime than others. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that we are still nursing. We don't nurse to sleep anymore but we did for a very long time. He still needs that security to fall asleep and that is ok because guess what? He is only going to be little for a short time and very soon he isn't going to want me anywhere near him, especially at bedtime and I am going to have to force a teenager to get out of bed before noon. These are inevitable things that will happen regardless of whether my son learned to sleep by crying it out or by snuggling near his mama.  

These are his baby years and they will be gone very soon. I plan on treasuring every moment because for now he needs me! And very soon there will be a day where he doesn't need me like he does now. I provide him with a sense of security that nobody else can provide to him. My parenting is lots of love, snuggles and encouragement and less worrying and second guessing.  We are moms. We do what works for us so we can get by. These baby years are short and we need to spend more time treasuring and embracing them and less time worrying and second guessing!