Do you and your SO have similar parenting styles?

MissMheMhe · February 2016

DH and I have found that our ideal parenting styles are vastly different. DS is 6.5 weeks and I feel he still needs comfort and to know that when he cries, someone will be there to offer support, cuddles, and love to help him feel better. DH says that he needs to learn to self soothe and that by immediately coming to him, we are teaching him to rely too much on the touch of others. I would love to bedshare so DS can dream feed, allowing all of us to get more sleep. I tried it one night and DH almost had a fit. He thinks that DS will become spoiled by sleeping in our bed and doesn't want to even entertain the idea of dream feeding. To make matters worse, DH is so hard headed. Arguing with him is pointless as he always has a comeback and I feel like it's a waste of my time. Help!

l4rk · February 2016

My SO and I come to agree on everything. For example, I was thinking about bed sharing but my SO wasn't into it, so we agreed that meant it wasn't right for us. However, we do tend to always agree on making baby girl stop crying as quickly and easily as possible...

teachmegs817 · February 2016

My LO is 9w old. I just asked his Pedi. some ?'s about the things you and DH are disagreeing on.

It is not likely at this age to spoil a baby. Even at 3-4 months when a baby cries, we should be responding. I do not let LO go more than 1 minute, 2, if I am literally in the middle of doing something that I have to finish doing before I can go get him, (ex. using the bathroom). I framed it like this to his Pedi. "As long as I know DS is clean, has been fed/not expecting to eat soon/hurt in any way, should I let him cry for a few minutes?" She pretty much blatantly told me "no", to go pick him up and that at this age, you can not spoil a baby. It is not teaching him anything in regards to; "Ooo, I will get my way from mom and dad if I cry." They are not there developmentally yet.

I asked about sleeping in our room and her only response to it was; "Is he sleeping in your bed?" I said "no", and that was what she would have been concerned with. I wanted to know if he was at the age (2 months) where we should start transitioning him out of room, because I thought similarly like your husband, that he would get to used to us always being there. Our Pediatricians concern about whether or not he was in our bed was because many babies do have a really hard time transitioning from bed sharing/co-sleeping when they get older. I would think that debate would be totally up to you two still, but even though it sounds like a dream for you and you think you may be getting more sleep now, it might end up causing more work to get LO to sleep in their own space/own room, down the road. Again, I do not know your situation, so I am not trying to judge what works best for your family.

UptownPearl · February 2016

You can't spoil an infant. Your baby cries out of need, and you should follow your instinct to respond to that need. Bedsharing is a personal choice, but it has to work for all of you. I think if that was important to me and DH refused I would move to the guest room or ask DH to move, but I would also have goals to transition LO little by little so as not to cause a permanent situation.

As far as what DH and I are like as parents I'm much different than I expected. I have always been a firm, strict caregiver with set in stone rules and a more detached style. When we adopted a puppy I insisted she sleep downstairs and DH was the one that went and slept on the floor with her because he couldn't stand for her to cry. But ever since DS was born I'm the softy. I want him to be held and snuggled constantly and would gladly sacrifice whatever necessary to bring him comfort and happiness. Fortunately DH is a nurturing person and go with the flow, so he's mostly supportive of my style even if it's not exactly like his.

Have your DH read the most recent research on self-soothing and baby spoiling. He doesn't have to change his parenting style, but I hope he sees merit in your style and supports it

https://kfor.com/2016/02/01/new-research-ends-an-age-old-debate-will-you-spoil-your-baby-if-you-pick-it-up-each-time-it-cries/

Cejiml · February 2016

DH and I agree some of the time. I will say with baby age he lets me have my way mostly because I did the reading/ research and I was/am very particular about the way we handle babies. I'm with PP on you can't spoil a newborn. I will say we learned a lot of lessons with our first though. We rocked her to sleep every night and come 5-6 months when it was time to skip the MOTN feeding she was a mess before and after. We ended up co-sleeping until she was almost 3. She is now in her own room but needs one of us to lie with her if she wakes. Every kid is different though. DH and I have had Many disagreements and compromises along the way with her and will do the same with DS I'm sure. We fought about co-sleeping but eventually he understood I needed the sleep and I was much happier with it. If he won't bend I would sleep in another bed as the PP said.

BarrettJ89 · February 2016

We agree on most things, but as they get older, I feel like I'm much, much tougher. I know his daughter technically isn't my child, but if she is living under my roof, even just on the weekends, she's going to listen and abide by the same rules we plan to have for our two little ones. For example, I refuse to be her maid. At almost 9 years old, last weekend I forgot to give her a fork and she sat there staring at her breakfast for about 10 minutes before demanding a fork. I told her that she knows exactly where the forks are. It's taken three years, but she says please and thank you, eats what I make (instead of getting whatever she wants), and has basic chores and responsibilities.
Discipline is much different though. The Littles (or the toddler for now) gets spankings or his hand slapped and he gets things taken away if he misbehaves. His daughter has never been spanked and has been a very spoiled only child for 8 years in both households. It's been a big transition, but from the very beginning of our relationship, I told him I'd never treat her differently than I would treat my own, tough love or not.

Communication is key! Talk over these things now because as they get older, the kids will pick up on the differences between you and your partner. And they WILL play those differences against you

Mommyduclos · February 2016

The best way I can explain it is that baby has been held and close to mommy 24/7 for the entire first 9 months of their existence, then they get thrown into an entirely new world where they are completely dependent on others for their care, and their only way of communicating is to cry and we expect them to sleep by themselves and hang out by themselves a ton more than they are used to and then when we cry people think they are manipulating us. Really? No- they have needs- food, cleanliness, security, love and they rely 100% on us to meet those needs. Their psychological capacity doesn't even include manipulation for some time. Go to your crying baby. The co sleeping I get that people feel differently on this one. We are a bed sharing family. My oldest comes to our bed in the wee hours and my husband has complained about it a few times- my response: if you would like to drag your butt out of bed and take him back to his bed and help him settle there, by all means be my guest and personally I'd probably say something similar with the baby- if you would like to get up for an hour every 2 hours all night for months please be my guest. I need to sleep- I have 2 other kids that need me all day so I do what I need to to sleep. After a month or two I do start putting them to bed in their own beds. This gives us a couple hours or more for couple time and then baby comes to bed when he wakes. I also don't think co sleeping affects things much later. I've weaned both my older kids successfully from sleeping in my bed, though eventually my oldest wandered back lol. But I've seen toddlers that never bed shared as babies try to wiggle their way into mommy and daddy's bed and with m consistency and lots of love you can definitely get them out of your bed whenever you are ready.

sharonholck28 · February 2016

We are close. He does try the hole let her cry it out sometimes and I always tell him that it doesn't work like that yet. So there are times I'm trying to soothe her a lot more than he tries to but when he can see I'm starting to get fed up or tired he is there to take her. I think cause he never had real time off to spend when she was born he just doesn't know what else to do so its a lot of teaching when he is home too.

we agree with trying to get her quiet as well. There have been nights where she cuddles with me sitting in bed or mornings where she sleeps with me cause I side nurse but I'm not too worried about it being a habit yet. My husband doesn't mind either. The only thing is he wants me to start getting her to sleep in her crib. And some nights I will try but sleep is more valuable to me so she often still ends up in the rnp or swing. I told him he's not the one getting up and fighting with her at night loosing sleep. ( I let him sleep since he has to leave for work at 5) during the day I try her crib more until I get fed up

DaphneMoon1 · February 2016

When we do disagree, I research and then we discuss what I've found again. A baby cannot be spoiled. You are not 'teaching them to cry more'. Read up on it and present him with your findings.

Another example was helping our 3.5 yo adjust to the new baby. I read a ton of research and articles about how to best help the transition and what's normal expected behavior at this time. It's not I'm right and you're wrong. I say, "this is what I've read, what do you think?"

MissMheMhe · February 2016

Thank you everyone! I have presented DH with several sources regarding the difference between spoiling a child and practicing attachment parenting as well as why it just doesn't make any sense to let a little baby just cry. But he listens to his mother and has a website or two that he references his info from. I told him that you can find just about any opinion on the internet, if you search hard enough. We're compromising now until DS goes to the pedi next and we will ask him. I made sure DH is able to go to the appt so he can hear for himself what DS needs.

carlyhammond · February 2016

When we disagree I usually ask the pedi and then he understands.
SO has a daughter from a previous marriage who is 10 and she was born SUPER early (25 weeks) so she spent time in NICU. So SO 1. Doesn't remember what it's like with a new baby and 2. Didn't have the "newborn" experience so everything is basically new for both of us.
At first I was 100% against co-sleeping I feared I would roll over and squish my son in my sleep. So we set up the pnp in our room and used that....until one night SO put the baby in the bed and now he hates sleeping in the pnp ( seriously LO can be knocked out we put him in the pnp and a few mins later he wakes up) we have him propped up on a pillow so I can feel when I'm close to the pillow and honestly when I sleep I don't move an inch I wake up in the same position I fall asleep in.
And right now LO's bedroom is across the house and it's too far away from our room for us to be comfortable with letting him sleep alone. We plan on moving soon and hopefully we will find somewhere that has the bedrooms close together so we can get LO in his own room *fingers crossed*

Our pedi has told us at this point CIO is pointless. They aren't crying just because, they are crying for a reason and CIO doesn't solve anything at this point.
But, I do let him cry. I don't pick him up at the exact moment he starts crying. And sometimes I'll hold him while he's crying ( he does this cute pout thing and I just love watching his face lol) just so he CAN cry. But never for more than a minute, when that time is up I feed him and he's happy and we go about his day.
SO doesn't like for him to cry at all- if he cries at all SO will immediately pick him up and will coddle him until he stops crying.

So far though, SO and I agree on most things- but I'm 98% certain when LO gets older we will start to disagree ALOT more ( SO and I have opposite personalites so we already clash )

danasphillips · February 2016

Anyone who thinks a 6.5 week old needs to learn to self soothe and not rely on the touch of others knows very little about newborns.

At this age DH defers to me on most things since I'm the one home with the baby and the one breastfeeding around the clock. If I wanted to bed share and he said no I'd pretty much tell him to eff off.

ondabianca · February 2016

Right now, we have have been lucky and pretty much agreed on everything (all major things anyway) but he has also let me take the lead on most things and I am the one who primarily cares for little man. Now we'll see if we still agree as my little guy gets older...

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