Is it better for the baby to adapt to our rhythm of life or for us to adapt to his?

On many occasions I have spoken with couples whose wife is pregnant who have the issue of postpartum quite controlled in terms of schedules, customs and lifestyle they will lead.

Some, the most controlling (because they are probably those who feel very comfortable having everything under control) get to tell you what they will do almost by the hand, and in those they tell you that they will make the baby follow those schedules, that suits them from the beginning, so that it doesn't cost you more.

Other parents do not make so many plans and choose to go making decisions as situations arrive, losing that control of the situation we are talking about. And what is better? That the baby adapts to our rhythm of life or that we adapt to his?

Control, so valued and so difficult to maintain

We go around the world with schedules for almost everything. Come on, that one day you leave your watch and you feel off the agenda. Nothing happens, you carry the mobile, which has a watch and keeps you fully connected to anyone. What if one day you leave it at home? Absolute despair because you lose control of your life. There is your agenda, what you have that day and there is your means of communication with others. What if they call or look for you? What if someone needs you?

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We love being in control of everything that happens around us and the arrival of a baby in the family is a new situation that we will also want to control. Now, the more we try to control it, the worse the fall will be, because babies do not come into the world or obey us or go through the hoop. They come to survive, to be happy and to be free (Another thing is to get it later).

Babies only think of themselves

Babies inspire a lot of tenderness. We think of them as a teddy bear, of those that smell good, that make you want to hug all the time, with that soft skin, those tiny little hands and that beautiful little face when they sleep.

And that's how many people think their baby will be, a teddy bear. That is why they make so many plans, so many schedules and decide that, with a being as precious and kind as a baby, there will be no problems adapting to the family routine that already works.

Have not they explained to you in preparatory classes that babies are not like that? Because when I give these classes I try to explain: babies just think of themselves. And I do it so that mothers and fathers are clear that what is coming can be a very hard change.

Yes, they are beautiful and very cute, but when they have you awake midnight (or the whole night), when they cry and you don't know why, when you can't find a way to calm them down, when they have finally fallen asleep and a fart of their own wakes them up, when your back hurts from so much rocking them and they remain restless, and when all this is repeated day after day, Tenderness ends up not even knowing where.

But little baby, don't you see that mom and dad can't take it anymore? Do not you see that dark circles reach us to the chin? Don't you see that we need to rest? Look, look at my mobile screen: on the phone book it says that Dad has to go to work in three hours, that is, the alarm sounds within two hours, and here it is, rocking around the house again.

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But it is absurd, because it is a baby, and it neither knows what a mobile phone is, nor does it know what an alarm is, nor does it know what a job is, nor does it know what you want to say. He only knows that it is not right, that something bothers him, and in order to survive he comes to the world with the mission of complain when something makes you dissatisfied. That way your caregivers will do their best to restore calm, comfort and so the baby will be well and out of any danger.

"Give me a solution, that I have to work"

I have already told you sometime, but I do it again because it is the case. A couple with a four-month-old baby came to the consultation for consultation and, like someone who takes the car to the mechanic and explains what is wrong for you to fix it, they put it on the stretcher and explained that at night I woke up a lot.

After a few questions, to make sure that nothing seemed to happen to the child and that, in fact, the awakenings were normal for any four-month-old baby, I explained (to the father, who was the most affected) why he did it: "No, look, this noise you hear in the car and that makes you believe that it is wrong is perfectly normal. You will hear it a few more months, but then it will stop doing so, so calm down."

But he didn't like my explanation at all, and he said "you're not telling me anything. Give me a solution, that I have to work." At that moment I thought about telling him that I could try to return it to the manufacturer, but of course, putting it back in the womb was unfeasible, maybe I should have explained where to give it for adoption, but it wasn't the solution they wanted either. He needed me to do something for his baby to sleep at night, because they needed the baby to adapt to his parents' schedules, which work for the day.

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But what does a baby know about jobs, schedules and obligations if he only thinks about satisfying his needs? Nothing, so with this I answer the initial question, which gives title to the entry. Every family that chooses how to lead their family life, but wanting to force the baby to do what he is not prepared to do usually ends up in discomfort for everyone, and the worst unemployed is usually precisely the baby, who has to see how they try to impose a way of living that does not understand, does not understand and is not able to assume.

Children end up crying because you put them to sleep when you are doing well and not when they are sleepy. They complain because you feed them with a schedule and not when they ask. You have them on the street when they would like to be at home, or you have them at home when they would do well for a walk. You try to keep doing the life you did before, but with a baby, and you get mad at him for waking up precisely when you were going to do I don't know what.

Once I heard a mother say that she was going to take advantage of maternity leave to study, and that she was going to dedicate I don't know how many hours a day to it. If he could study something I do not know, but surely if he did it was at the expense of the baby, because every moment you dedicate to something else you stop dedicating it to the creature. And hey, if she is asleep, perfect, but then do not complain that she wakes up at night and you cannot sleep, that the ideal, when one is a mother, is to close the agenda, forget the obligations and suits baby's agenda, sleeping when he sleeps, even during the day, and trying to establish a relationship with him that helps him understand him more and more in his demands so that everything is getting easier and not more and more desperate.

And the father, the same. Try to put yourself in the place of your baby and understand why he does what he does and that way he will be more concerned with finding solutions to his demands, from love, and not type solutions "to see if they repair it, that it's altering my vital order. "

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