Thursday, May 28, 2009

Riddle Me This

I find parenting confusing sometimes. For example:

You're supposed to impose a routine. Babies love routine, order, predictability. Right?

Ok, except: babies change all the time and you never know exactly what they want or how they are different until you figure it out by trial and error.

The result is that you are constantly trying new things, attempting to determine what they need now, and what they want or don't want anymore. You have to experiment because they can't tell you what they want or how they feel.

So. The secret to raising a baby is to create a structure and adhere to it. Except when you're changing the routine to reflect changes in the baby, which is all the time. Because babies like order, except when they've decided they don't like something about the order.

????

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Welcome aboard.

bugboys69 said...

a conundrum wrapped in an enigma!

Heather said...

There are some things that have to be predictable for babies, like always getting changed when wet/dirty/both, breakfast is always at early-thirty, bedtime routine is always bath/story/milk (or whatever you do) the rest is up to the baby because they do change ever so. At least that has been my experience. Then when they get older, like my kids, a schedule is a must. Always.

Unknown said...

And you want me to have one of these?

Chris Bray said...

Dude, I think of OBTL as a theremin -- just keep waving your hands around until you get a pleasing sound of some kind.