Babywise=Child Centered Home

 I remember when I was considering babywise/intense scheduling for my first child. I heard from some: "If you don't put your baby on a schedule then you will have a child-centered home". The pressure seemed immense. I didn't want a child centered home! I loved this woman's response to why this is wrong thinking. (p.s. you can read my complete story on why I am no longer babywise here)

"Back in the 1990’s when I was having most of my babies, I felt tremendous pressure to follow a popular infant feeding approach, where the mother  scheduled and controlled the baby’s feeding times, sleeping times, play times, etc. throughout the day and forced baby to sleep through the night from an early age.  It was promoted strongly in my homeschooling circles as the only way to have a godly home, since the alternative would create a child-centered home.  Finally I gave into the pressure and gave this approach a try. The result?  It depleted not only my milk supply, but my confidence as a mother and my joy!  In addition, I discovered that instead of avoiding a child-centered home, I created one!  It seemed the whole day had to revolve around baby’s schedule and whether baby was supposed to be playing or sleeping or eating!  We couldn’t just enjoy the baby – we had to check the book for what baby should be doing next.  If baby fell asleep at the breast, we even had to wake the baby!  Ridiculous!  The best thing I ever did was throw that book in the trash, tuck baby into our daily schedule, and get back to mothering from the heart!" 

You can read the rest of Elizabeth's blog post here. 

To be honest, I think both sides are "child-centered" in some way... or should I say, "baby-centered"? :) 

Who do you know that has a brand new little baby that doesn't have their lives revovling around them in some way?  

Charis turned one in February, I noticed a change in my relationship with her and now that she is 16 months I see even more changes. I am moving away from "babying her" and toward disciplining/training her. She is understanding more and more and I am able to communicate more with her. This marks the transition from babyhood to toddlerhood. I feel like some who are stuck on intense scheduling find the baby stage too inconvienent and so they force their little baby to go into toddler mode before their ready/able. 

p.s. I don't care if you do babywise. I don't like to do it anymore and you shouldn't care what I like to do either :) My hope is that I am supporting those moms who felt the pressure to do babywise or be bad. My hope is to give them the encouragement they need to do what brings them the most joy and confidence in their mothering journey.