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Sooner or later it will be time – perhaps not yet, but one day you’re going to recognize that it’s time to come out of your hole.

You’ll step tentatively at first, maybe squint a bit.

You might even be surprised to see what your partner looks like by the light of day, not as a father at midnight madly trying to hush a baby back to sleep, but as the man you chose to spend your life with, the one with whom you made the colossal decision to have these socially ostracizing creatures in the first place.

Oh yes, sooner or later it will be time.

Having young children can make you forget yourself, or at least much of yourself.

We have camping gear that’s been sitting in our storage area for years. It hasn’t been used since Chloe was born.

Before we had kids we’d try to get out at least twice a season, on a backpacking hike into the woods or a canoe trip in Algonquin Park. It was a big part of our lives. Now it seems a distant memory.

I once complained to Julie that we were too busy socializing every weekend and didn’t have any room on our calendar to make other plans. Well, the calendar now has plenty of white space.

Getting together with friends meant a lot of work and inconvenience. Seeing a movie required finding a babysitter. As time passed, we became comfortable in our roles and routines – not satisfied or happy necessarily, but complacent.

It was just easier to resign ourselves to our situation.

Children, especially fussy children, force you to re-juggle your priorities. You realize very quickly that in order to survive young parenthood, you need to hunker down, keep your eye on the ball, and just get through it.

Every time a scheduled nap is missed, or they go to bed late at Grandma and Grandpa’s, it’s you that pays later when they wake at 4:00 screaming.

So you give up on other priorities – especially anything that requires the least bit of flexibility. After all, if baby ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

This withdrawal is normal. It’s a necessary coping mechanism, especially when your baby isn’t “that baby “ – the one who magically slept through the night at 12 weeks old who sits happily on the floor smiling contentedly at everyone who walks by.

I’ve heard tales of parents who took their babies with them to parties and rocked them gently under the table with their foot while they continued to visit.

They’re the same parents who tell you very assuredly that you should be less rigid and not stick so religiously to sleep schedules.

“Of course,” I think. “That’s what it is. I’m getting a kick out of being rigid and uptight.”

What I should have done was take Chloe to one of those parties and rock her with my big toe while she screamed blue murder all evening under the dinner table.

But fussy baby or not, there is a time when, as parents, when we should take a step back and widen our focus.

It’s okay to hunker down in the short term, to recognize the immediate, acute needs of your new young family. But it isn’t healthy in the long-term.

In North America we already drink the Kool-Aid that says we are solely responsible for our children’s’ upbringing, success, and happiness – as though the rest of the world in which they spend so much of their time has very little to do with it.

I would venture to say that our single-minded obsession with our kids does little to help them grow and understand themselves and the world around them.

Believing that our kids cannot learn to thrive without us is as dangerous as believing that we cannot thrive without them.

From the moment our children are born, it’s our job to start letting them go, a little at a time. When we teach them to take risks, but assure them they have a soft place to land when the fall, we are teaching them to be human teaching them both to strive for what they almost dare not wish, and to support those around them when support is most needed.

But to truly teach these lessons we must teach by example. In short, we must reach for our own heights, demonstrate our own grace in failure, and engage in the communities around us.

As young parents struggling with small children, we re-prioritize our lives to focus on a monumental task, as we always do when faced with an immediate and crucial need. But in the long term, our children should not be our only or even our number one focus.

It is often said that children are like sponges. They learn by observing and by mimicking. What can a parent, no matter how attentive, possibly teach a child in the long run if he or she isn’t taking the time to know herself, to dust off her childhood wonder , and to embrace new challenges?

So here is my challenge to all of us, when it’s the right time: Make time for yourselves. Make time for your spouses. Make time for your friends.

Take the time to remember what it means to be you and to explore those things that were important to you before you had children.

Do all of this, not in spite of your children, but for your children. They don’t need you to just be nannies –a nanny is a position, a job, not a person, and certainly not a parent. Children need parents. And parents are individuals first, and nannies second.

Sean Sutton lives in Ottawa, Canada with his wife and two children, Chloe and Emily. He spent much of this year on paternity leave following Emily’s birth and started a blog to document his experience.

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It’s been a rough couple of weeks.

Emily had a stomach bug, then Chloe had a stomach bug which turned into a cold, which turned into some other flu-like virus.

Then Emily got the flu-like virus, and now Julie has it. And throughout all of this, the lack of sleep, the vomiting in the middle of the night, the crankiness, the tantrums, life must go on. We still need to work. We still need groceries. The floor can only get so “crunchy” before we have to break down and sweep it, and only so sticky before we have to mop it.

This is the picture of life with kids that nobody really wants to hear about…especially people still contemplating kids. To my childless siblings, the horror of these moments petrifies them. I can see it in their eyes.

Remember those commercials, “this is your brain on drugs.”? Well, there are times when your brain on kids isn’t much better, and neither is your strung out life. It’s not the idea people have in mind when they say to themselves, “gee, wouldn’t it be nice to have children.”

And “gee, wouldn’t it be nice” partly sums up the problem of our modern world. There was a time when having children was a duty – an obligation to the species, our culture, and our people, not to mention to God. Now it’s seen as a nice to have – a “hmm, what’s missing in our lives?”

People often buy puppies for the same reason, to fill a void somewhere. Except unlike new furniture, a remodelled kitchen, that class on Art you always wanted to take, or even a puppy, with kids you get more than you bargained for – and you can’t quit or take them back.

Chloe hit a low point a few nights ago. She was utterly exhausted from being up night after night coughing or throwing up, or with a fever. And when Chloe’s really tired, she loses her ability to cope with not getting what she wants and reverts back to many of the uncontrollable outbursts and crying she had when she was a little colicky baby.

She had decided that Mommy was putting her pyjamas on – except Mommy wasn’t available. And so I tried to talk to her, to reason with her. But she screamed at me, kicked her legs on the floor, and cried uncontrollably. Believe it or not, she was actually on the mend. But when she’s really tired, she just can’t deal.

Eventually I had no choice but to pull a trick we had used back when she was two. I stopped answering her, stopped trying to reason with her – stopped talking to her. Each time she came out of her room screaming her head off (and keeping Emily awake), I just picked her up as calmly as I could and put her back on her bed.

At first this made her angrier, and she screamed in fury. But we repeated the exercise over and over again. At one point, I was feeling pretty low. I wanted to give in. I wanted to get her Mom. It would have been easier, but it probably wouldn’t have worked (she’d have pulled the same thing on us over something else – we know Chloe).

I just wanted to throw in the towel. We hadn’t asked for this. We wanted a nice sweet child – a couple of nice sweet children. I longed to be able to sit in a nice comfy chair and read a book in the evening, like I used to. I longed to get up in the morning on my own terms and sip a cup of hot coffee, like I used to. I wanted to feel like I could go back to school in the evening and learn something new….But I couldn’t imagine my life without these beautiful, sensitive girls.

They give me so much, but ask so much in return.

I thought these things as I stood there waiting for Chloe to make another dramatic appearance, and then I realized this wasn’t about what I wanted. I had decided to have children. And I loved them dearly. That I had gotten more than I bargained for was rather beside the point, as I wouldn’t change the decision for the world.

This was about who I was. I was being a father right then and there. I was doing my job, my duty (and generally I think I was doing a pretty good job of it). For all my pouting I realized a truth that night, as I’ve realized time and again as a parent:

Life isn’t about what’s convenient, what’s easy, what makes you feel good.

If it were, we’d have made very few advances as a species. It’s about accepting challenges, testing ones limits, learning through adversity, and passing on lessons and values to those who will survive us.

Sean Sutton lives in Ottawa, Canada with his wife and two children, Chloe and Emily. He spent much of this year on paternity leave following Emily’s birth and started a blog to document his experience.

Photo Credit: Lilgoldwmn

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The other day, an acquaintance of Julie’s asked for help with her child’s sleep through a posting on Facebook. Instead of help, she got a link to Dangers of Crying it Out: Damaging children and their relationships for the long term, by Dr. Darcia Narvaez.

When Julie told me, I sighed, gritted my teeth, then swore under my breath (I understand Holly also had choice words for this article).

This wasn’t the first time I had seen such an article. In fact I’ve seen quite a few of them since our journey into parenthood began nearly 4 years ago. It also wasn’t the first time I’d seen them circulated between mothers as advice or “information.” They all have two things in common:

1. they tend to be pseudo science at best and unsubstantiated opinion at worst; and
2. they ooze self-righteous indignation (as though parents who let their children cry are somehow too lazy or unwilling to follow through with more humane alternatives).

Last winter I ranted about a similar article on my blog, and I would like to share an excerpt of that entry, as I believe it is pertinent to parents – especially mothers, of fussy babies:

Last week, Julie opened a message from the owner of her favourite baby store that read: “This article explains how crying-it-out leads to sleep in infants — it’s not because it ‘teaches’ them to sleep!”

The article, entitled, Why I no longer believe babies should cry themselves to sleep is a set of arrogant assumptions that, when read by new mothers, can greatly heighten anxiety and make their decisions more difficult.

I’ll let you read it for yourself, but it essentially argues, with no reference to supporting evidence, that “the implicit message an infant receives from having her cries ignored is that the world — as represented by her caregivers — is indifferent to her feelings.” He also writes that when parents allow their children to cry themselves to sleep, “the short-term goal of the exhausted parents has been achieved, but at the price of harming the child’s long-term emotional vulnerability.”

I won’t pretend for a moment that Julie and I don’t have a particular sensitivity to this topic. We were left with no choice with Chloe but to let her cry herself to sleep. She had had wicked colic, and at 5 months old it was the only way to allow her and us to sleep and to regain our sanity. Before sleep training, the girl looked like a wasted heroin addict (think Trainspotting).

After sleep training, her mood improved dramatically and she started to smile regularly. She was happier because we had managed to get her some sleep. As for co-sleeping? Great if it works for you. It didn’t for us.

One thing I’m confident of with both girls (and as a nail-biting, nervous father, believe me I looked for it), is that they very rarely cried because they felt abandoned or because they needed us in any real sense.

A mother and father get to know their child’s cries the longer they know their child, and although there were a few times we wish we had gone in sooner because we detected distress in a cry, most nights our children only cried in frustration at trying to fall asleep or out of frustration at being told they had to go back to sleep.  When I go in at night to tell Emily she must go back to sleep, she protests in anger. She knows what I’m asking, and she’d rather not. Yet every morning, Emily wakes up smiling and cooing. She is the happiest baby on the block.

Do I have any concrete evidence to back up my sense that my kids don’t feel abandoned when I let them cry? No, of course not. But fact isn’t apparently what counts in these battles. They are battles of “you think, I think.’ And, let’s face it. They are really battles of who thinks who’s a better mother.

As the good doctor has demonstrated, a man of science need not feel compelled to back his assumptions with evidence before sharing them with the world. Other doctors who, for example, argued that schizophrenia is the result of “refrigerator mothers” (or that hysteria could be cured with a vibrator) come to mind.

The danger this type of speculation poses can be very real when it is passed to new and sometimes vulnerable moms as fact. Julie opened the article, not just to stick her tongue in a sore tooth (which is unfortunately an all too human temptation), but to see if there was some new research that might make us take pause when it comes to our approach to sleep. What she got instead was a link to baseless opinion, cloaked in supposed medical expertise.

And the babyshop owner / mother who shared it? What was her motive? I can only guess some sort of self-gratifying vindication of her own mothering approach.

So why is it that some mothers feel the need to share their unsolicited opinions on parenting so openly and aggressively? (I’ve been harangued myself on the street and in parks by mothers too willing to tell me what I’m doing wrong) — I propose, and I invite comment on this, that mothers who tell other mothers how to parent do so out of a deep insecurity about their own parenting abilities — a sort of, see, I’m doing it right because you’re doing it wrong.

I suspect I’m not the first person to suggest this, but I’d like to suggest it, strongly, as a father, to mothers out there because I feel that this behaviour has led to a very unfortunate and detrimental environment for many mothers.

Just to be sure that the landscape hadn’t changed since the last time I’d written on this matter, I went through the torture of reading Dr. Narvaez’ article. But of course, nothing has changed. This article has nothing more to back it up than any of the others I’ve read. And yet these opinion pieces are passed on as gospel, seemingly without the least concern for the effects they might have on new mothers.

Dr. Narvaez purports to be a psychologist and yet she presents none of the scientific research that would normally be used to back up her conclusions. It seems that with this topic, conjecture is enough.

This issue is not just about the parents. Children need sleep to grow and develop. For those who pass these articles on to mothers of young children, you should ask yourselves for whom you are doing it.

Then ask yourselves, what if you couldn’t get your child to sleep properly anywhere – with you or in a crib, no matter how hard you tried?

Sean Sutton lives in Ottawa, Canada with his wife and two children, Chloe and Emily. He spent much of this year on paternity leave following Emily’s birth and started a blog to document his experience.

Photo courtesy of pcioca

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We’ve been on vacation in Florida now for about 2 weeks, which is why I haven’t posted lately.

(By the way, to any American readers, I am very jealous that you have Florida. Thank you for sharing it with us. The warmest we’ve got is Victoria, and it rains there all winter.)

We have travelled a fair bit with our kids, and this trip got me thinking about how it might be useful for us to share with other parents what we’ve learned from travelling with our young children.

If you have a colicky baby, you might be asking yourself, “Why would I even consider getting in a car or on a plane to go someplace different? I’m barely keeping it together at home, where everything’s familiar and I have all the equipment.”

Well, you know how they say that sometimes a change is as good as a rest? It couldn’t be more true when it comes to travelling with a high need child, especially since rest is out of the question. And we know from experience. We did it at the height of Chloe’s colic.

So what can you do to make life easier while travelling with a high need child? Well, if your child is colicky (i.e. less than 4 months old), not a darn thing. The kid’s not on a sleep schedule anyway. You weren’t sleeping at home and you probably won’t sleep on your trip either.

But hey, you’ll have lots to do to distract you from your chronic fatigue. It worked for us… and it was surprising how much sleep we were able to get Chloe while walking around a town or through a forest with Chloe snuggled up in a carrier. As for high need kids who are old enough to be on a schedule, here are some tips that might help make your trip as pleasant as possible.

Get a place where you can put the little one in his/her own room if that’s how they sleep at home.

This tip is pretty important. If you’re staying in a motel room with no extra room for a baby, what are you going to do during naps and in the evenings, huddle under a blanket with a flashlight and book?

But don’t worry, you don’t need to get a mansion in order to get baby his own space. Stay at B&Bs where there are common rooms for you to sneak away to with a monitor or make sure there’s a walk-in closet for the baby. We have used walk-in closets on many occasions. One time, we had no choice but to put Chloe in her portable crib in the ensuite bathroom… we didn’t drink much water that night.

Stay in one place

Believe me, as interesting as all of those places sound, this is not the time for a driving tour. All kids (and even adults) need consistency and regularity. But spirited children thrive on it. Remember, these kids are easily overwhelmed. Chloe loves adventures, but she needs a certain amount of predictability in order to cope and to feel secure.

Having a home base for the duration of your trip helps to provide this security. For example, the first couple of nights on this trip she had significant trouble settling at night as she was obviously nervous being in a new place. But after a few nights, she felt more at home and went to bed easily.

Try to stick to sleep schedules

This won’t always be possible, but you’ll have a much better time when you can. This tip applies to some extent to all kids, but with high-needs children, a change in sleep pattern can really throw them off. When there is something special you want to do, go ahead and put the little one down late. Just remember that you might pay for it in the middle of the night or early the next morning.

Also, be careful where you choose to go. If you have lots to do in close proximity to where you are, it will be easy to get out and do something and still make it back in time for naps. Where a longer drive is needed, try to arrange a nap in the car.

We’ve all heard of those people that take their little ones with them everywhere, even to a 9:00 o’clock dinner, with no problem. But we don’t have these kids, and it’s easier simply to acknowledge it. Even if we were to take Chloe now to a late dinner, it would be a miserable experience – she’d crash and burn by 7:30.

A lot of places have secure babysitting networks, and even hotels often offer this service. If you want to go out for dinner, try for an option that lets your child go to bed on time.

See if you can rent baby equipment where you’re going

Many cities have agencies that offer this service. You can get everything you need without worrying about how you’re going to carry it all through the airport. Sometimes renting equipment can be worth every penny.

Set realistic expectations

This isn’t your honeymoon. Don’t plan to see all of the best museums in Paris. Instead, get to know a few playgrounds too. We didn’t get to see everything when we were in Nice for three months last year, but we are confident that we know the area playgrounds better than any other tourists!

And Chloe does like art galleries and museums – but in very small doses. Most cities have free days for museums. Try dropping in on those days.

Be prepared to be surprised

One of the most interesting surprises from our trip to Nice was finding that Chloe has a fascination for churches. I wrote a post about it on my blog. Much to my delight, Chloe asked to stop at every church we passed. We’d go inside, look around, and I’d answer all of her questions. It was an unexpected joy we wouldn’t have known had we not gone away.

Don’t be daunted in the face of a trip. Be prepared and know what to expect from your children before you go. You may be surprised at how well things go.

As I mentioned, we took Chloe on a trip (to B.C.) during her most colicky period. We had a connection in Toronto and almost abandoned the trip there. We’re glad we didn’t. The trip was just what we needed to step back from our misery and see that the world was still turning and that there would be light at the end of the tunnel.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that life still goes on after colic.

Travelling can remind you that the world’s still waiting for you and your family when you’re ready.

Sean Sutton lives in Ottawa, Canada with his wife and two children, Chloe and Emily. He spent much of this year on paternity leave following Emily’s birth and started a blog to document his experience.

Photo Credit: Michelle Meiklejohn

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For Chloe, the world has no off switch and no tuner.

In my last post I talked about perceptiveness. It’s one of the most impressive traits of a spirited child. They don’t miss anything, and it can be a wonder to watch.

But the flip side of seeing everything is being overwhelmed by it all, and a number of doctors / researchers have commented on this trait (see, for example, The Happiest Baby on the Block, by Dr. Harvey Karp).

They believe that colic is caused primarily by a child’s inability to tune out the world around them. Baby takes in everything, makes connections all over the place, and before you know it, overheats, looses it, and screams bloody murder.

Their ability to observe and to perceive at that age is impressive, but their ability to have a complete meltdown and throw a whole home in crisis… well, that’s impressive too.

Chloe’s always going to be easily overwhelmed. It’s in her nature. The good news is that she’ll learn to cope. And we are two very proud parents when we see daily how Chloe has adapted to her environment already. Here are just a couple of examples:

First time skating – Since last winter Chloe has wanted to learn to play hockey. She’s been obsessed with it ever since she saw kids at the park passing the puck (it had nothing to do with me – I don’t even watch hockey).

Well, we told Chloe that in order to play hockey she’d have to learn to skate. This was fine with her until she discovered that parents weren’t allowed on the ice during lessons. Chloe had always refused to be left at activities by herself.

But for skating, she was willing to give it a try. This lasted until her first fall, after which she begged to go.

Daddy: “Chloe, you can do this. You want to do this. You want to play hockey.”

Chloe: “I can’t Daddy. I fall down. I’m no good at skating. I want to go home.”

(By the way, fear of failure and a drive for perfection are common traits for spirited children).

Daddy: “Chloe, falling is normal. You won’t hurt yourself. I promise.” (I know, big gamble). “Just go out there and know you’re going to fall. And each time you fall, just laugh and get back up. You can do this Chloe. I know you can.”

Chloe: “O.K.”

Well, Julie and I had the best time watching Chloe the rest of the lesson. Every time she fell, she’d start laughing her head off – and it was the fakest laugh in the world (picture Chandler smiling). The instructors must have thought she was nuts. But it worked. She found a way to deal with her intense emotions.

Skating on a big rink full of lots of new people was a huge step forward for her.

Christmas 2011 – Our Christmases are not quiet events (whose are) and it’s a lot for Chloe to take. She finds the noise alone unbearable. She can’t seem to tune it out.

So before long, with a house full of people, Chloe was asking us to go home.

“Mummy,” she’d say, “it’s too loud. Can we go home to our house?”

At these moments Julie would take Chloe to another room so she could calm down and regain her composure. It’s not that she wasn’t having fun. It was actually too much fun.

She couldn’t decompress with so many people around. She needed an escape.

Julie told her, “Chloe it’s fun to be with other people, but there are a lot of people and it’s o.k. if you find it too much sometimes. When you find it too much, just go to a quiet place for a little while.”

Well, before long one of us would ask, “Where’s Chloe?” only to find that Chloe had taken a break in a room by herself. She had learned that this was a good coping skill and she used it whenever she felt like she’d had enough.

Talk about mature! How many three year olds know how to find tranquility when they’re overwhelmed?

Of course these are just a couple of many hundreds of examples – some big, some too small to describe, of Chloe learning to cope with the situations in which she finds herself.

She’s passionate, social, creative… I could go on. But she’s also quite introverted. She needs to be able to sooth herself when she’s over-stimulated, and sometimes we still need to help sooth her, just as we did when she was a colicky baby and during her difficult toddler moments.

But more and more, she’s handling it herself. As a result, the meltdowns are fewer and far between, and most of the time we have Chloe at her best, which is a special experience.

If you have a colicky baby and you haven’t checked out Karp’s book, I highly recommend it. The 5 S’s may just have saved our sanity.

Sean Sutton lives in Ottawa, Canada with his wife and two children, Chloe and Emily. He spent much of this year on paternity leave following Emily’s birth and started a blog to document his experience.

Photo Credits: David Castillo Dominici

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As I mentioned in a previous post, fussy babies often make for amazing children. Don’t take my word for it. If you look at the literature out there, you’ll see that you’re in for a real treat. But don’t go supposing amazing means easy.

Forgive me for saying, but I liken a spirited child to a smart dog.

Yes that Border Colly will delight you alright with his amazing intelligence, but unlike the dummer breeds, he’s going to drive you absolutely mad with his intense energy and need for stimulation.

I know, because we have a Portuguese Water Dog. We should have bought a Bulldog.

But I digress.

One of the amazing personality traights of a formerly fussy baby (i.e. spirited child) is their acute awareness and perceptiveness. At three, Chloe is so perceptive that we have to be very careful what we say around her. She knows when what we say doesn’t jive with what she knows, so we can’t lie to her.

She’s acutely aware of when anyone says anything critical about her. And she understands what seem to us to be relatively complex concepts – like life and death.

One day, for example, I decided that it would be a good idea to be honest with her about where some of her relatives have gone. She asked, so I said:

“They died honey. We all live and we all die at some point. We don’t live forever.”

She broke down in tears and said,

“But that means I’m going to die too. I don’t want to die.”

In one move I had just gotten my 3 year old child thinking about her own mortality. Way to cut short her innocence Dad! I had no idea she would make the connection to her own life that easily. Kids aren’t supposed to be concerned about dying, right?

But connections are what perceptive children are all about. It’s not the noticing that matters – although that helps. It’s making the connections to everything else they know that makes them perceptive. Which leads me to yesterday.

Chloe was at her skating lessons with Mommy and, it being close to Christmas, Santa made a surprise appearance. Except, this wasn’t the Santa she was used to seeing. He had, as Chloe put it “dark cheeks.”

“Mommy,” she said, “Why does Santa have dark cheeks?”

She was the only one staring at Santa, giving him an uncomfortable look. The other children didn’t seem to pay any attention.

Julie, caught off guard and not knowing what to say, just said she wasn’t sure and quickly distracted her.

I didn’t know any of this little story when I put Chloe to bed that night. I asked her about her skating lessons, and she told me that Santa had come to visit, but that he had had dark cheeks.

“Really?” I said. “Well that’s nice.”

“But Daddy,” Chloe said, “it couldn’t have been Santa if he had dark cheeks. I’ve already met Santa and he didn’t have dark cheeks….”

Then there was a pause (where I didn’t have a clue what to say) and Chloe went on,

“There must be more than one Santa. There must be lots of Santas.”

My cue: “Chloe, I think it’s just that sometimes Santa has helpers because he can’t do it all by himself. This must have been one of his helpers.”

“Oh,” said Chloe, looking only semi convinced.

Meanwhile I’m thinking, great, I just made Santa’s helper the visible minority – how white of me!

Julie and I have resigned ourselves to accepting that when it comes to Santa and Christmas, Chloe’s not going to be one of those kids who still believes at 10 years old. I think we’ll be lucky if she makes it to 5. She’s just too quick at adding 2 and 2 together. She likes to know how everything fits so her world makes sense.

And as colour blind as we all pretend to be, let’s face it, we’d know if our biggest hero just up and changed colour one day.

Merry Christmas everyone!

If you have your own stories about your child’s spirited personality I’d love to hear them, and so would others on the blog, I’m sure. As parents of fussy babies, we could all use to hear a few anecdotes from time to time.

Sean Sutton lives in Ottawa, Canada with his wife and two children, Chloe and Emily. He spent much of this year on paternity leave following Emily’s birth and started a blog to document his experience.

Photo Credits: Luigi Diamante | Ashley Cox

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I remember quite clearly a discussion I had with Julie before Chloe was born. We were talking about how we’d raise our kids – the attitudes we’d take, our style of parenting. I said to Julie:

“Don’t worry. We’re not going to be like those uptight parents who plan everything out, fret over every little thing about their children. It wouldn’t be healthy for them or us. We’re just going to keep doing all the exciting stuff we do now, but bring them along for the ride. That’s how they’ll learn… by experiencing life with us.”

I know… yes, I really said that. I’m almost embarrassed at how naive I was and at how poorly I had judged others.

I looked at certain friends of ours who were having difficulty with their first children, and while I empathised to an extent, I also thought, get a grip!

These friends recently turned parents seemed to be always fretting over nap schedules, feedings and crying so much that visiting seemed next to impossible. Right in mid-sentence, the conversation would be cut off over some little thing the baby needed. To non-parents like Julie and me, it seemed as though they were obsessed and had lost all sense of balance.

Now I know they were actually trying to keep a very delicate balance and preserve whatever sanity they had left.

I wrote in an earlier post that going through colic and sleep problems with a baby is traumatic – so much so that it leaves scars. But nobody who hasn’t been through it gets that. Not even family and closest friends understand that if you’re holding on with a tight grip, it’s because you’re just keeping it together and that at any moment it could all fall apart.

But we were aware of how crazy we must have seemed to others. To say we were demanding would have been an understatement – still is an understatement.

Last Christmas, we insisted on having three rooms – one for Chloe, one for Emily, and one for us, when we visited family. It might seem crazy, but we would have rather turned around and driven 3, 4 or 5 hours home than do it any other way.

If Chloe and Emily are in the same room, neither of them sleeps. If Emily is in the same room with us, Julie doesn’t sleep because she’s listening for every possible noise Emily might make. And if Chloe sleeps with us she doesn’t sleep because she can only ever seem to sleep on her own, which means we don’t sleep. It’s torture and we avoid it. But you should see me trying to explain to my 3 childless siblings why we need to hog 3 rooms at Christmas. 

Sibling: “Come on man. I don’t sleep well when I’m not in a bed.”

Me: “Well I don’t sleep well ever. You can handle it for one night.”

We practice a form of tyranny when we’re the parents of a fussy baby. We might as well say, “play the game my way or I’m picking up my ball and going home.”

We give strict instructions to grandparents on when and how to put baby down for a nap, and if they don’t follow those instructions exactly, we get angry. Why? Because baby didn’t nap as long as he should have and now he’s going to be up crying at night. But they don’t get that. They’re just trying to help.

We’re tyrants out of necessity, but we don’t like it anymore than we like any of the other challenges of a fussy baby. We don’t like that we seem crazy and inflexible to the people around us. It only adds to our anxiety and stress.

I’ve often wondered,

“Do they think it’s us? Do they think we’re partly to blame for our children being so fussy, temperamental, and inflexible – because we can’t chill out?”

I can’t remember how many people told us about how they used to take their babies anywhere, even to parties.

“Oh we’d just take them along to the party with us, and the youngest, well I’d just rock her to sleep under the table with my foot while we kept on visiting. She’d sleep anywhere.”

These people had lived the dream I’d intended when boasting to Julie about how we’d raise our kids. And had we wound up with accommodating babies like the ones they’d had, we’d have thought that parents of fussy babies were just uptight too.

But we’ve been there and know better.

Sean Sutton lives in Ottawa, Canada with his wife and two children, Chloe and Emily. He spent much of this year on paternity leave following Emily’s birth and started a blog to document his experience.

*Photo Credits: Stuart Miles |  David Castillo Dominici

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Let’s face it; the bar’s not set that high for fathers of young children.

Some score points just for sticking around. Most get nods of approval if they don’t forget to bring the kid’s snacks along to the park or the mall.

But if this is the measure for dads, I’m in big trouble (today I ordered adult size meals for the kids because I didn’t realize there were kid sizes – yes, even the 1 year old). But whether I get the little things right or not, I’m committed to being fully engaged in raising my girls, right from the start.

Many men do make young children the central focus of their lives (I’m far from unique), but they don’t always find it easy. For every man out there who chooses to stay home on parental leave, for example, there are two more who would never consider it.

To think, when I told my co-workers that I was taking 9 months leave after Emily’s birth, a couple of them told me to enjoy my vacation – and another my sabbatical.

I’ve heard comments ranging from concern about my career to what a waste of money it is to offer fathers parental leave. Many asked me why I would take some of the time right away when Julie would be home with the baby. I didn’t want to get into what a traumatizing experience we’d had the last time, so I let it go.

I shouldn’t have cared about all of these opinions. But I did. The preconceptions and expectations I was hearing openly around the time Emily was born were similar to the ones I had secretly feared during Chloe’s colic – namely that in many peoples’ eyes, fathers are expected to be at work; mothers are the ones who are expected to go to appointments, pick kids up from daycare, and work short days, but men…well they’re who the boss depends on.

I readily admit that my fear was incredibly chauvinistic. I feared that my work might want “men to be men.”

But of course that’s what I feared. That’s what makes subversion of roles both exhilarating and terrifying. It’s about leaving a comfort space, a space where you feel assured, surrounded by others like you.

How many men would want to admit that the jobs they’re doing every day at the office, with accompanying stature, salary and inbox full of useless messages might be less work than staying home with their kids?

Until we can bring an alternative masculinity into clearer focus – one that doesn’t rely on men having to justify their value based on their perceived importance in the public sphere, many stay-at-home dads are going to continue to feel as though they just stepped out of a cold swimming pool naked every time they’re asked what they’re doing Monday to Friday.

But too bad!.

It’s our turn to feel a little uncomfortable – to worry about taking a sick day to stay home with the kids, or to leave work early because it’s our turn to pick up the kids at daycare. The game’s been changed and we’ve benefited from it.

When it comes to our young kids, we’re actually there. We’re involved. Overall we should be grateful, shouldn’t we?

The struggles of women over generations to be more than just mothers have allowed us to be better fathers. We’ve been given a gift.
Fathers are needed more now.

Mothers have taken their place in a new order. They have demanded to be acknowledged both as individuals as well as guardians of their children. And yet they are still burdened with the weight of generations of expectations. They are “supposed” to know what they’re doing. It’s a difficult tightrope to walk.

Raising children used to be a responsibility shared by mothers, sisters, and grandmothers. And a woman’s domain was once almost exclusively domestic.

But what was, isn’t anymore, which is why men take parental leave, and why women need their support at home. Society is adjusting to changing circumstances. And so am I.

Our role, that of men and of fathers, is slowly coming into focus. We’re still catching up. But the shifting ground will settle. And families will be the better for it.

Photo credit: David Castillo Dominici

Sean Sutton lives in Ottawa, Canada with his wife and two children, Chloe and Emily. He spent much of this year on paternity leave following Emily’s birth and started a blog to document his experience.

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Young, overwhelmed mothers of fussy babies don’t usually ask for help.

It’s almost unheard of. They can be treading water, on the verge of being pulled under and they’ll still need to be coaxed to reach out.

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This past weekend was all about sick kids.

Thursday night Emily came down with a gastro and Chloe followed suit the next morning. Emily’s also on an antibiotic for a chest infection, Chloe’s on one for a urinary tract infection, and both girls have got sore throats (are we having fun yet?).

But if there’s a silver lining to our children being sick (and it’s admittedly a small one), it’s that it’s the only time we get to see Chloe calm, even relaxed. Of course she can’t be too sick (or she becomes a complete mess) but just enough to slow her down a bit.

Suddenly, instead of never being able to stop moving and squirming, she lies still on the couch. Instead of moving from one subject of conversation to another, easily distracted by everything going on around her, she talks to us calmly and wants up for cuddles. She’s more measured and reflective in her thinking and speaking, and often less rigid – more agreeable to changes and transitions. And best of all, our little tornado sleeps a bit better. In short, she becomes a very different little girl.

Chloe is a restless child. She always has been. She takes in everything around her – all the static, and doesn’t miss a beat. She’s super sensitive, has difficulty filtering, and for this reason is always on overdrive and has difficulty focusing. She has an uncanny memory for little details that others might dismiss (the colour of the nightgown Mommy wore the day Emily was born, for example), but difficulty paying attention when listening to instructions or an explanation.

For those of you who have intense children, like Chloe, I highly recommend a book entitled, Raising Your Spirited Child, by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka.

When Julie started reading it and recommended it to me, it was because it seemed to sum up so perfectly the type of personality we were encountering in our little girl.

The author starts out by explaining why she chose the word spirited to describe some children. She wasn’t happy with the words people had used to describe a child like hers: “difficult, strong-willed, stubborn…” She much preferred the definition provided for spirited: “lively, creative, keen, eager, full of energy and courage, and having a strong and assertive personality.”

That sums up many of my kid’s key traits, how about yours? And it emphasizes the true strengths of our children’s personality rather than labels born of our own frustrations.

Sheedy Kurcinka goes on to describe what she has discovered through her research to be the most common characteristics of a spirited child. Let me know whether you recognize any of them:

Intensity – “The loud, dramatic, spirited children are the easiest to spot. They don’t cry; they shriek.” They’re noisy when they play, when they laugh, and even when they take a shower…”

Persistence – “If an idea or an activity is important to them, spirited children can lock right in.”

Sensitivity – “Keenly aware, spirited kids quickly respond to the slightest noises, smells, lights, textures, or changes in mood. They are easily overwhelmed in crowds by the barrage of sensations.”

Perceptiveness – “Send them to their room to get dressed and they’ll never make it. Something along the way… will catch their attention as they walk by and they’ll forget about getting dressed.”

Adaptability – “Spirited children are uncomfortable with change. They hate surprises and do not shift easily from one activity or idea to another.”

Those are just some of the characteristics outlined in the book, and I’ve abbreviated the author’s descriptions substantially. But you get the picture. I think that a lot of parents of fussy babies will recognize these traits as their babies continue to grow and develop.

Raising Your Spirited Child gives a lot of good advice for how to manage the crazier moments at home, at daycare, and in public more easily and with less frustration. It also helps parents to see that while the characteristics they’re trying to manage come with frustrating behaviour, they are also what make their children beautiful and unique.

And if you’re parents of a fussy baby right now, all I can say is good luck and be patient. The good news: while the basic characteristics you’re experiencing don’t change, the children do adjust, adapt, and learn to cope. Chloe, for instance, will probably always be restless, but she’s learning all the time how to listen, how to focus, and how to follow through, even when she’s not sick.

Sean Sutton lives in Ottawa, Canada with his wife and two children, Chloe and Emily. He spent much of this year on paternity leave following Emily’s birth and started a blog to document his experience.

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