Schedules
When I was pregnant with Daxton, I was told over and over again how important schedules and routines were. Routines were freeing and it's extremely important to tell your baby when it should eat and sleep. I got books about schedules and read them, ready to apply them when the baby came.
After I brought Daxton home from the hospital I was all ready to set him up on a schedule. Those first weeks were full of stress and tears and I just couldn't understand why the schedule wasn't working for me.
Why didn't I feel free and why couldn't I stick more strictly to my schedule? Schedules were supposed to be good, to be freeing right?
Since then I have learned a valuable lesson that there is no 'right' way to raise a baby. You just have to do what works for your family.
I now live by that motto and feel so much more free because of it. I got so caught up with doing what other people were telling me to be, and feeling guilty for not following through. The guilt was too much. If my baby cried, it was because I wasn't following a schedule, if my baby wouldn't eat it was because I wasn't following a schedule, and if my baby didn't sleep it was because I wasn't following a schedule.
When I finally realized that my baby was mine, and that I was the mom and I knew what my baby needed, I was finally able to feel guilt free. There are still times that I feel guilty because I don't follow a schedule and my babies are falling asleep in the car, or are having a screaming fit because of lack of sleep. But I always fall back on the lesson I learned that I don't need to compare the way I raise my children to others.
We all raise children differently. I have some close friends who are incredible mommies and they choose to stick close to a schedule. It works great for them!
We are all different and raise our children different and that has been a huge lesson to me as I've become a mamma.
I would like to know, do you like schedules? How does it work for you?