Whew.  We are finally settling down a bit with Minor, only to be hit be another string of typhoons, effectively preventing us from doing anything fun. (I’ve decided on “Minor” as his blog name, after the English public school practice of calling brothers “Lastname Major” and “Lastname Minor.” So Tom Brown’s Schooldays was not a total waste. Too pretentious?  Well, it’s the closest he’ll ever get to a private education, as we are spending all future tuition monies on a basic remodel of our attic, a topic for another post.)

After Minor finished his course of antibiotics, his stomach settled down and he became a lot less fussy. Unfortunately, at the same time he stopped allowing us to put him in his crib to sleep at night. Add that to the fact that he pretty much didn’t allow us to put him down during the day, and you get one crabby set of parents.

I Googled “baby won’t sleep in crib” and found myself on a series of message boards where “attachment parents” congratulated other attachment parents for never, ever putting their babies down, while excoriating “detachment parents” for utilizing strollers, cribs, and other “baby buckets.”

Now, we’re not averse to “baby wearing” here. We’ve been wearing the dog for years.

(It promotes feelings of security and attachment in the dog, and allows us to tend to his needs readily without consigning him to the isolation of a “dog-bucket.” And, yes, we are planning on homeschooling Dog.)

I’m perfectly willing to hold the baby all day and all night. Where I draw the line is between the baby’s bedtime and mine. What do you attachment parents do with yourselves between 7 and midnight? How do you put your other kids to bed, eat dinner, recharge your batteries? Self-righteous attachment parenting advocates: bite me. I’m too tired to be politically correct.

If you can’t hold the baby, then obviously the next logical solution is to have someone else hold him. I have no shortage of babysitters and mother’s helpers hanging around, but as I’ve mentioned before there’s this theory in the adoption community that only the parents should hold, feed, or change the baby for the first few months. So an adopted baby is likely to be needier than a non-adopted baby, but not only are you not supposed to put him down ever, you’re also denied any practical support for those first critical months. Self-righteous adoptive parents: see instruction above.

My playgroup mothers were a much better resource than the Internets. Every single one of them has had a second baby, gotten pregnant, or started the adoption process for a second child within the past few months. The piece of advice they offered over and over was, “Let him sleep in the car seat.” Unfortunately, we never got a detachable car seat for Minor, since we thought he would be older upon arrival, and I wasn’t about to uninstall the mammoth Britax every time he needed to take a nap. I finally broke down and bought the cheapest infant carry seat I could find, banishing my guilt by muttering, “It’s for sleeping, not for NASCAR.”

We have a new routine, then. Just before Minor’s last feeding before bedtime, we pop him in the car seat and give him his bottle, ignoring the adoption commandment that says you are supposed to hold baby and make intensive eye contact during feeding. He drifts off to sleep, and we leave him cocooned there until he wakes up for the 2 a.m. feeding.

Coincidentally, this study seems to give support for the “moderate” approach to baby-wearing, but no one is (or should be, anyway)making parenting decisions according to studies. The important thing is to find what works for your family.