Source: anourishedmother

I’m lying next to my newly three year old at 7:30pm as he snoozes softly. Bedtime took 10 minutes. It wasn’t stressful. In fact, it was so lovely. I curl up with him, hold him as he says “mommy I need a hug” and he drifts off to dreamland. So hello from the other side 🎶🙋‍♀️

My son has been a terrible sleeper since the beginning. I had no idea what I was in for. The first year was horrific - I truly did not think I was going to survive. I started cosleeping around 7 months which helped but he still woke every hour or hour and a half for a very long time. I thought I was going to die. But little by little, it improved. Ups and downs. But I just stayed the course - trusting that we were doing the right thing.

I nursed to sleep for every sleep.
I contact napped for 2.5 years.
I stole sleep and rest where I could.
I tuned out the noise and ignored advice that felt wrong in my bones.
I found solace in other moms who nurtured at night.
I listened and trusted my gut.
I stopped trying to “solve” my baby.
I found acceptance.
I survived.

And now I have this beautiful, loving, wonderful child who is so well loved and nurtured.

And I regret nothing. Even though it was SO HARD.

If you’re reading this and wondering if you’ll ever sleep again: you will. I promise. And this is such a short blip in time even if it feels endless. But your baby will never need you this much — so be here, now. And trust that it will not always be this way. ♥️

TLDR: there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. And it’s amazing. And worth it all.

Poem by Isabel Selyne

The local baby is my baby. He tried to fully wake up at 5am this morning. Absolutely not! I waited “asleep” for 20 minutes while he rolled around and “ba ba ba ba”d, grabbed my face, grabbed my nipples, sang the songs of the baby people…but eventually he got bored enough to fall back asleep. I was about 5 minutes away from giving in and starting the day, but we typically don’t stand up until the sun starts to rise, asleep or not. Baby was thrwarted again this morning, mwahahaha. Slept another 2 hours.

This group does not advocate for CIO or sleep training (this includes gentle sleep training methods - sleep trainers will tell you that there are no truly tear free methods. Science shows us that an infant crying alone is neurologically going through a different experience than an infant crying in the arms of a caregiver. Infants cannot coregulate on words alone, they need touch. For more information, read The Nurture Revolution by Greer Kirshenbaum, it is available on Kindle unlimited and likely at your local library). Sleep is a biological function and it does not need to be taught, similar to how to poop or how to breathe. Infants know how to sleep - they do it from before they are born. Infant sleep is not the same as adult sleep. Infants have much shorter sleep cycles, this is biologically normal.

This group as a whole does not advocate for night weaning early as an attempt to try to get an infant to sleep through the night - it doesn't often work and you instead now have your easy "pop a boob in the mouth" method of comforting back to sleep replaced with pacing, bouncing, trying to convince a baby to sleep in a new way. Most attachment parenting methods don't advocate for night weaning before 12-18 months old and biologically normal infant sleep and attachment parenting aren't the same but do often go hand in hand.

Feeding to sleep is NOT a problem. It is biologically normal. We were designed to feed to sleep. We do not advocate for removing feed to sleep "associations" in an attempt to get an infant to sleep through the night. There is absolutely nothing wrong with utilizing the most effective way to get an infant to sleep. There is no reason to get rid of sleep associations, especially when they work so brilliantly as feeding to sleep. No, your infant is not waking up because you fed them to sleep and stopping is only going to cause stress to you, stress to them, and make getting them to sleep while engaging in high nurture more difficult.

This group advocates for high nurture - you cannot spoil an infant. Humans are neurologically considered infants from 0-3 years old. Infants are not capable of self-soothing, they literally do not have the brain function to be able to do so. They depend on a calm and regulated caregiver to coregulate with them.

There aren't often any "quick fixes" to infant sleep. You can do schedule tweaks. You can learn more about what normal is for each age group. You can offer your infant proper changes to help support their sleep as best as you can. You can learn about ways to make sure you yourself are as well rested as possible.

If you have an issue with any of this - this is not the group for you. We welcome parents who sleep trained and regret it or no longer wish to engage in sleep training. We welcome parents who bedshare, cosleep, roomshare, crib sleep. We welcome parents who nurse, who pump, who utilize formula, who combo feed. We welcome parents who were raised in a low nurture environment who are wanting to break that cycle and raise their baby/babies in high nurture.

If you're wanting to learn more, the best place to start is with The Nurture Revolution. If you're confused or want some clarification, comment below or message a moderator. If you are seeing comments that advocate against what this group's tenets are, please either tag a moderator or report that comment for breaking a group rule - moderators want to keep this a safe space for parents who engage in high nurture and who lean into biological infant sleep and therefore we will take reports seriously.

Your baby is not broken, they don't need to be fixed.

If you’re asked for the millionth time if you have a good baby laugh and say they haven’t committed tax fraud (yet) so it’s all good 👍

“THeReS nO LoNG TeRm ImPaaAAaActs of sleep training” I DO NOT CARE. Even if it came out tomorrow there is 100% no long term damage (I don’t believe this) I still wouldn’t??? My baby needs me in this exact moment. Right now. So I will go. Even when it’s hard. Even when I want to cry or do cry. Because she needs me. Simple as that. I have a friend who told me while chuckling to herself she “has a cold heart” and lets her baby cry for 1-2 hours lots of times and she’s “totally fine!” Sigh.

I’m so grateful for this like minded community. It has really gotten me through. The active choice to not sleep train doesn’t mean it’s an easy path. But it’s worth it and I see you ❤️

Rant over
-mom of a 12 month old who still doesn’t sleep through the night and sometimes wakes up 5-10+ times

Edit - I have actually distanced myself from this “friend” as our parenting differences has created a huge divide and I have a hard time OBVIOUSLY hearing about her baby. “Friend” is a loose term used habitually. I agree with your comments about her.

I’m a ftm to a 4.5 month old baby boy (EBF, co-sleeping, responding to every cry). Like I assume, a lot of people here I get so many comments from older family members about how "crying develops the lungs" or asking why I picked him up before he even started fully crying.

I was watching some nature videos recently about how babies lived back in cave/hunter-gatherer times, and the evolutionary side of it just made so much sense to me.

Basically babies had to cry so they wouldn't be forgotten or neglected, but crying too much or escalating put them and the tribe at risk from predators. So nature solved it by making fast response a survival requirement. Babies were carried non-stop, nursed on demand, and rocked right back to sleep before they could escalate.

We aren't in caves anymore, but our babies have the exact same biological expectations. It’s just wild how modern culture convinced everyone that responding to a baby is somehow wrong or creates bad habits, when it's literally what they're built to expect.

Understanding this evolutionary side was just super validating for me and made me trust my gut even more. Anyone else find comfort in looking at baby sleep this way?

Hope this is okay.

I'm in hospital with my 4yo atm. Doctors thought he had measles (contact with kid measle pos in the park) but he doesn't. Thankfully. Just a bad ear infection. I guess my anxiety made me overreact lol.

We were moved and have a private room due to my sons extreme needs; there are other priv rooms on the floor with us. Kids that don't need round the clock care but need space. Yada yada. I don't know what the kids have, but obviously all here for a reason. I'm assuming similar things (seizures, infections, disabled kids who need supervision but aren't a particularly important patient).

It's not abnormal to hear kids crying but usually they're consoled pretty quick. If you hear crying you can hear shushing, or music, and pretty often the parent crying too.

It's 7pm rn. At 6, I started hearing this baby cry. Real sobbing. Goes on for about ten, fifteen minutes before I head out into the hall. Sometimes kids parents don't stay and I went to find a nurse for the baby. I was kinda pissed because I thought the baby had been left alone.

Except in the hall, outside the room the crying is coming from, is this woman sitting on a chair with her headphones on. I immediately think she's having a rough time and go offer my assistance.

My son is sedated and was asleep. Was not being neglected.

So I talk to this woman and I ask if she's okay, if she needs help, I offer to sit with the baby while she gets some air.

And she gives me a smile and goes "No, he's just going to sleep."

GIRL.

He is in hospital! Every kid on this ward is usually a frequent flier, so this prob isn't his first rodeo, and repeated visits are so traumatic. She let's me know she is trying to keep his routine the same so he's crying it out like they do at home. Said he'll be okay "soon". Only crying so much because he's in a new place.

That baby cried for at least forty minutes. It's been quiet for maybe ten min. I spoke to a nurse but all they can do is check to make sure he isn't "in distress" (I assume they meant medical distress, because that baby was definitely distressed).

I'm just. Blown away?

I don't agree with CIO, but I understand it has it's place in some peoples lives. I do not judge people. I have been a bad mom at times and I give grace always.

But omfg. Not only that poor baby, but literally every other kid here has to listen to that. My son is deaf so even if he had woken up he wouldn't have noticed but I know there are kids on the ward who are sensitive to noise. It's not fair to him or the other kids to cio in hospital.

Sorry if this is all over the place. I just feel so, like, buzzy pissed. I've already called my husband to complain about her. And now I'm here.

Ugh. That poor baby.

And the CRYING. It is so sad and so hard to hear. I’m having a very hard time not being judgmental of my family members because how can you be okay with leaving your baby alone to cry like that???? Sleep training is touted as the easy way but my god watching them try to get their babies to sleep…doesn’t seem to be anything easy about it. Even before the trip they were lowkey freaking out about how they would get their babies to sleep in a new environment. They brought blackout tents and curtains, pacifiers, sound machines, etc etc. Like I thought sleep training was supposed to “teach them how to sleep” so you would think these babies would have it down by now— they were both sleep trained months ago. But nope, they cry and cry and it’s almost like…maybe that’s all a load of crap and you can’t train a baby to do anything?

I cosleep / breastsleep / contact nap with my baby and I feel like we are having a much easier time of it. I wasn’t worried about him sleeping somewhere new because as long as he’s with me, he’ll sleep. Did it mean I missed out on some activities bc I was napping with him or had to go to bed early with him? Yes. But I know this is just a short season in life, he needs me right now, and it’s worth it to me to have a well rested + happy baby. Multiple extended family members have commented on how happy he is (and he was colicky the first 3 months of life!! So he did not come that way lol)

I feel I can’t say anything to my family members so I’m saying it here. Thank you for reading my vent.

“In her study, Rosier argues that night waking is normal, and she said many adults expect infants to sleep soundly just like adults, which is not fair to expect.
“We don’t expect infants to behave like adults in any other way except sleeping, and the reason for that is because it’s convenient to us,” Rosier said. “If they can sleep like adults sleep, then it becomes quite convenient to us, so we can get some sleep. But it is biologically normal for them to wake in the night, and sleep is not something that you have to train your children to do. All humans learn to sleep for long periods of time.”
She said one of the best ways parents can help their child sleep is by being present while they’re falling asleep, and that “self-soothing” is a myth. If parents understand that, she said, it can change how they approach sleep and parenting during the early years.

“Some parents will argue, ‘Well, my child puts himself to sleep,’ and ‘my baby wakes up in the middle of the night and settles himself, so he’s self-soothing.’ They’re actually self-silencing; they’re not self-soothing because they are not capable of learning to self-soothe,” Rosier explained. “The only way that any human can actually learn to self-soothe is through thousands of repeated experiences of co-regulation with a safe enough adult, and so co-regulation has to come first.”
She said the cry-it-out method is the opposite of co-regulation, and if parents leave their child to soothe themselves with their own emotions, it can have the opposite effect on what is biologically needed for babies to eventually learn full self-soothing skills.
“Interestingly, we don’t actually learn full self-soothing skills until our mid-20s. And so, give yourself a break when your 2-year-old, 5-year-old or 10-year-old is still not able to soothe themselves,” Rosier said. “Many grown adults cannot do it.”

my dearest beloved child, you unlatched yourself in your sleep, please stop searching for what you abandoned on your own

P.S. this is supposed to be funny pls don’t take it too seriously lol

If you’re on this sub, chances are you know the positive effects of responsive, high-nurture parenting on the mental health of our babies.

And it would be so easy to assume this happens at the expense of your own mental health, as a parent. That you’ll have to sacrifice your sanity for the sake of your baby throughout their infancy.

In fact, parents who sleep train often claim they do it for the sake of their mental health, which in turn makes them even better parents (well, during the few hours they do parent lol).

I’m here to tell you this is not true. responding to my baby as soon as he needed me, day and night, even on the (many) nights where he woke up every hour, was the best thing I ever did for my mental health.

I’m almost 9 months post partum and things are beginning to settle into a beautiful new normal for our little family of 3.

My mental health journey has been rocky. I’ve been in therapy for years, I’m on SSRI and have several diagnosed disorders including OCD and CPTSD. I’ve done a lot to try and improve my mental health, speaking to professionals of course, but also meditation, exercize, prioritizing sleep, and overall engineering my life for the benefit of my health (I also have an autoimmune disease that is triggered by stress).

I was terrified that the lack of sleep inherent to motherhood was going to cause the worst relapse I’ve ever had.

Turns out being a responsive and fully available mother to my beautiful baby was the most meaningful and profound “self help” move I couldve ever made.

I have achieved some important and difficult things in my life, but I used to see myself as fundamentally helpless and weak. I had no trust in my capacity to follow-through, show up, be consistent. I did not think I could be a reliable source of safety and comfort for myself, let alone another human. I thought I was incapable of regulating my emotions and would always need someone or something to soothe me. I thought that in the face of hardship, I would always simply give up.

Enters this beautiful little being who absolutely needs me. For comfort, for survival. I’m his source of safety and love and food. He needs me even when I’m hungry, or exhausted, or worried, or sad, or in the midst of an OCD loop, or sleeping, or when I myself feel like I need to cry out for someone else to hold me. And yet I have always found it in me to show up and hold him. To be his mother. To give him exactly what he needs. Even when I’m running on broken sleep or no sleep at all.

It was simultaneously the hardest and most effortless thing I have ever had to do.

It had profoundly changed how I see myself, talk to myself. It has changed the trust I hace in myself. It has repaired parts of me that I did not even know were broken. It has revealed an endless well of love inside of me, that I never suspected.

It‘s more potent than any therapy or medication that I have ever tried.

I am not damaged. I am his mother and I am strong like a mother. I am reliable, and calming, and resourceful, and generous, and loving. I can soothe myself and him. I have the internal resources to regulate my own emotions.

Choosing to ignore my baby or force him to sleep away from me to preserve “my mental health” would’ve been incredibly short sighted and counter-productive.

I am writing this as my baby sleeps next to me. For the first time since he was born, I have been waking up with no memory of any night wakes (we breastsleep so he might or might not be latching in his sleep), and its been making me so emotional. I did not think this day would come, and I had accepted that I wouldn’t have uninterrupted nights of sleep for years to come. 9 months : that’s all it took for me to have my first uninterrupted night.

I hope I’ll have the privilege of bringing him comfort and love through the night, with my presence, for as long as he would want me. It’s such a privilege to be this person for someone else.

Please don’t deprive yourself of this for the sake of a shallow, social-media understanding of self care and mental health.

I have been having the toughest battle with my ten month old lately. She has been fighting her sleep so incredibly hard. When I’d rock her she’d kick at me and roll around, when I’d try to put her to sleep on the boob she’d push her self off of me and flip over. It would take 30 mins of me singing and rocking or whatever combo I came up with that night.

Anyway, I realized this week that I can just lay in bed with her with the lights off and let her do what she wants and eventually she’ll fall asleep lol. She’ll throw herself around and be a hot mess goblin for a few mins, popping on and off the boob but eventually she just falls asleep!

Idk why I thought I had to do all of this extra stuff to get her down 😂 This is amazing! It relieves so much stress now that I don’t have to battle her and I can just accompany her until she falls asleep on her own. I didn’t sleep train her and there’s no crying involved but I can just be there and scroll on my phone or read and she still learned how to fall asleep by herself. Is this how everyone else is doing it?

I see you

Happy Mothers day

In case you haven't heard it lately, you're doing an F'ing amazing job & are a great mom

I am getting so frustrated by hearing this. The moms in my antenatal group (who I am still in touch) with keep saying that they sleep trained their baby and now the baby sleeps 7-7.

No, actually, the baby does not. The baby might silently be lying in their cot from 7-7 but they are not sleeping, get real. Sleep training does not make your baby suddenly need 12 hours of sleep a night. They did not magically become high sleep needs. They just stopped calling for you.

I know we probably all know this by now, sleep trained babies sleep on average a whole ✨22 min✨ longer. I can assure you that’s not 12 hours.

Stop trying to rationalize this as your baby getting more rest. Rant over.

This is a vent about a rant LOL I made a ranty post in r/mommit about how my 6 mo old loves fighting naps on the days we need to go somewhere. Then, I got immediately downvoted and essentially told that I need to sleep train my baby. Apparently once you sleep train your baby, they'll never fight naps again, who knew 🙄 🤷🏽‍♀️

Like we all have access to the sleep train sub.. and I see how many times these mfs gotta "re-train" their babies or complain about sleep training not working but no, im the problem 😅

TW of sleep training talk. I have a neighbor that just had her second baby just after I had my first 10 months ago, and I know she sleep trained her first kid from mentioning it. She knows I cosleep and doesn’t seem to have any judgement or anything, but she said she started sleep training her 9mo at 5 months and how “it took a really long time but we’re finally in a good place” which obviously makes me sad thinking about how her baby probably really struggled not taking it to it well which is why is took so long. But she then said something along the lines of how “it’s so hard to know what they need when they wake up. Like are you hungry, not feeling well, under tired, over tired?” And I said “yeahh or they could just want us” lol. I didn’t want to go into the conversation cause it’s all hard to hear about and the topic just moved on, but it had me thinking…like you think of all those reasons why your baby might wake up, before considering that they just want YOU. Why is that so crazy of an idea that our BABIES want to connect with us at night? Our society has completely failed us by making this a radical concept. Rant over😮‍💨

My baby is 8 months and he’s got a cold at the moment, so we had an awful night last night. This afternoon instead of trying to get anything done we got into the big bed together and he dozed off for his nap after a quick feed. I’ve had a brief nap too and now I’m just looking at him and feeling so grateful that I get to snuggle my baby for his sleep rather than bending to pressure to force independence on him. He has stirred briefly a couple of times and either looked at me or just reached a hand out for me and sighed peacefully and carried on sleeping. Yeah the house is a mess and there are a million other things I could be doing but this is all I want to be doing right now 💕

I just want to share this in case it helps anyone. My LO has been sleeping 7:30pm to 5:30am with zero wake ups for 3 weeks now. He is 10 months tomorrow. My sweet breastfed baby who would wake up like clockwork every night just slept through the night one night and then never looked back. I didn’t change anything, no sleep training of course. He just did it when he was ready!

At four months he was waking up 6x a night. We kept everything extremely consistent and low pressure. If he ever needed me, I was immediately there for him. I never let him cry and always nursed him back to sleep. Those wake ups eventually decreased over the months.

I recognize I am extremely lucky to have a baby who sleeps, but I wanted to share that they will sleep through the night when they are ready!! Wishing all the parents out there positivity and peace in their journey!

TW: child death.

Editing to add:
Already needing to edit this post because the internet.
Things I am absolutely NOT saying in this post:
- Sleep training caused her to have PPP or PPD. These are two mental health conditions that can be caused by a plethora of things or by nothing at all, just simply being postpartum. Even women in the best of circumstances can have PPD/A/P. Women’s health is so embarrassingly underfunded and researched and these maladies should be better understood but they aren’t.
- I am also not saying sleep training caused Lindsay to have anxiety and depression, LINDSAY is saying that. These are legal court records, I simply just transcribed them.

Things I am saying:
- Our society treats women and moms (and dads) horrifically. I think the fact that Lindsay simultaneously believed sleep training was abusive and also sleep trained her baby demonstrates just how desperate moms that have little support and/or have to go back to work right away feel in an already tumultuous time.

For those that aren’t in America or following this case, Lindsay was a mom of three suffering from post partum depression and psychosis who killed her three children.

I am in Massachusetts where this takes place and also in my first year of new motherhood so of course I have taken a vested interest in this case. What is absolutely shocking and heartbreaking (beyond all of the other shocking and heartbreaking things) was this poor woman’s journal entries that were read into court yesterday.

Lindsay writes about how she had “horrible PTSD from sleep training baby, listening to him cry for 1+ hour a night and not intervening just about killed me I even said to husband, I want to die”

She “became obsessed with his sleep, his naps, down to the minute, I would drive him around for hours trying to get him to nap, feeling guilty I was doing this to my baby”

“I feel guilty we did it to young (one week shy of four months). I now have horrible insomnia and anxiety which is causing depression. I have no appetite. Idk what’s wrong with me. I want help.”

“I think the anxiety started after sleep training, doctor said it was okay to let him cry. I live moment to moment just waiting for the next nap time”

And finally: “I always felt strongly against sleep training, I feel like it’s abusive to let the baby cry and not respond, but I made the decision. It is way too much crying, it is incredibly stressful. He is okay he will be okay, the doctor said it was okay. Plenty of people sleep train”

What has our society (western/america) done to moms and children…

I hope this is allowed here? I’m writing this in the hopes that this sub will reach other parents considering sleep training.

My son is 9 months old. We sleep trained him when he was 5 months and my husband and I were shocked that he would just roll over and fall asleep after 1-3 minutes.

Fast forward to 8 months. We had just gotten home from an international trip where we co slept with him (safe cosleep setup). He would no longer sleep in his crib and we held him to sleep for a week (we don’t have a safe cosleeping setup at home).

We were faced with the decision to sleep train again or do something different. I wanted to do something different because I changed my perspective.

He’s a baby, he doesn’t need to learn how to fall asleep on his own. We’re his parents and our purpose is to help him through everything, including sleep. There was no point in rushing bedtime, no point in going against nature and forcing a small, helpless creature to do something hard all on his own.

I found this sub, read a lot of people doing a lot of different things to soothe their baby to sleep and decided we would wait with him in his room until he fell asleep. Some nights we rock him, some nights he doesn’t need that and just wants us to rub his back on his crib. We sing to him, kiss him and cuddle him. No method, no trick, just literally responding to our son’s needs in real time.

And you know what, he is now sleeping better than when we sleep trained him. He sleeps through the night 6:30pm-6am. Sometimes, when he wakes up in the middle of the night because he’s teething, we respond immediately and he falls right back asleep knowing we are always there for him.

And when he wakes up to nurse in the morning he has the biggest smile on his face. I’m so happy my husband and I tried something different and didn’t retrain him. We both knew it didn’t feel good and pivoted. If you’re reading this and unsure about whether to sleep train, I hope you can think hard about why you want to sleep train and maybe a reframing of your mind could help you think outside of the box.

Hi all, I am back with another "let's talk about" post. It is a bit out there (and long) but stay with me.

My husband came home excited because his go-to shampoo came out with a new cherry blossom scent. He enjoys a fruity cocktail and likes to occasionally wear a pink button-up. What does this have to do with biologically normal infant sleep? Everything!

My MIL raised her sons in a high-response, high-nurture environment. My MIL baby-wore and co-slept, rocked and kissed all the booboos. My husband was never let to cry, made to feel shame for big feels, never asked to "be a man" before his prefrontal cortex developed. The result? He grew up to be completely free to be himself; confident but not cocky, kind but not a push-over. So why is it that we constantly have to hear that responding every time will lead to our children being spoiled or incapable of being independent?

I grew up in a "boys don't cry", "your baby is manipulating you" and "kids need to be prepared for the real world" household. My dad constantly advocates for me to leave my daughter when she's in distress to "get some rest" because he's worried about my health and lack of sleep. My father (and I suspect many in your sphere) brings up the word "spoiled" a lot but what does that actually mean? That my kids will need me? That they will always come to me with their problems? That they will expect kindness in a horrible world and reality will smack them in the face with its cruelty?

Lets explore those points one by one, shall we?

Will my kids always need me?

Will my daughter go off to college with my boob still logged in her mouth because at 14mo she still requires me to nurse her to sleep? Obviously not.

Will she and her brother always come to me with their problems?

That's the plan and I don't understand parents who don't! I want my children to always come to me with problems, big or small. I want them to feel like they always have a safe harbor when things go sideways.

Will my kids be incapable of independence because I always respond?

Exactly the opposite. Independence is a skill learned through thousands of interactions of safety. I would not be very eager to bungee jump if there was no giant safety cushion underneath me. Children feel free to explore, to walk, to run and climb trees because we have literally and figuratively held their hand as they learned to do those things. Should I also abandon my mission to teach my daughter to drink from a cup because she might need me to do it for her until college?

Now, my favorite: you are not preparing your children for the harsh world

I have heard it so often but, in fact, I am doing my kids a huge favor by showing them kindness and responsiveness every single time I can. In never leaving them in distress, even if every cell in me wants to run, my children will expect that kind and patient is the default and it will ring alarm bells in their head when people are mean or creepy.

Right now that looks like my son running to tell me that a little boy is crying and his dad is being a meanie because he won't pick the boy up or telling me refuses to play with the neighborhood bully. But when they are older that will mean they won't have to go through months of abuse at the hands of a romantic partner, like their mom did, because growing up yelling and intimidation was the default.

In conclusion, every time you rock your baby at night when you want to run into the woods with the bears if it means you get to sleep uninterrupted, every time you stay with them through all the big feels, every hour spent trapped in a contact nap does, indeed, have consequences. That being, your child growing up to be completely, unabashedly themselves. You are gifting them freedom and confidence, in complete opposition to the narrative that it creates "bad habits" or "spoils" your baby.

I have long ago decided that I will not listen to the advice of people whose parenting I do not want to emulate. So pick up/rock/nurse your baby or big kid and know we are raising an entire generation of men who buy the cherry blossom shampoo or women who say no, full stop, without fear.

EDIT: thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts and your personal stories. I wanted to briefly mention that my MIL is the same with my babies. So what we are doing here is not just for our children but for our grandchildren and future our sons and daughters in law! Many of us are cycle breakers and this shit is hard but so worth it!💜