Hellobee

Mr. Bee recently blogged about our 5 biggest parenting mistakes. We’ve definitely learned from our mistakes, and we’re going to do a lot of things differently with Olive. But we’ve also had some parenting successes, and we’re going to repeat those with Olive as well!

1) Breastfeeding

There were so many reasons I could have given up on breastfeeding Olive. She had to stay in the hospital an extra 5 days and was bottle fed the entire time. She got down to 4 lbs 9oz at one point, and I actually took comfort in bottle feeding her so that I knew she was getting enough to eat. Once we finally came home, I battled mastitis twice — the first time was the most sick I’ve ever been in my entire life. I was also already a pro at exclusively pumping from Charlie, so it would have been easy to give up on breastfeeding at that point. But I kept at it, nursing her once a day, then twice a day, and then eventually for every single feeding. It took her a while to get the hang of things, but one day she decided that she preferred breastfeeding over the bottle, and she’s never looked back. She’s had a bottle practically every single day of her life, but she still fights it every Monday morning when our nanny comes in!

I love that I can comfort Olive any time I need to just by nursing her. I love that I don’t have to worry about preparing bottles when we go out. I love that I have this special bond with her that no one else in the world can ever have. I’m so glad I stuck with breastfeeding because I’ve enjoyed it so much more than I ever thought I would. My only problem now is… Olive is so addicted to the boob, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to wean her!

I grappled with the decision to sleep train Charlie for months, and did it as a last resort. At the time Charlie was suffering from exhaustion, and I felt it was more cruel to allow him to be exhausted day after day than to endure a little bit of crying if it meant he would get the sleep he so desperately needed. Before sleep training, Charlie was waking up 10+ times a night, was wide awake for hours in the middle of the night, took short naps, and was so exhausted he could barely stay up in between naps. After sleep training he put himself to sleep for all naps and bedtime, slept through the night, took naps that could last 3+ hours, and became an awesome sleeper. It’s an understatement to say that sleep training changed our lives. Once Charlie started sleeping better, our entire family was happier, and it’s much easier to be a better parent when you’re well rested!

I’ve been putting off sleep training Olive since she’s a smaller baby. But now that she’s close to the ideal sleep training period (5.5 – 7.5 months), I’m going to  have to bite the bullet soon because she has been waking up all night long lately!

3) Nanny vs. Daycare

Having a nanny for the first year and a half of Charlie’s life was the right for our family. I was able to see him throughout the day, and loved that he was getting great personalized care, eating enough, and sleeping enough. We made the decision to enroll him in full-time daycare at 21 months with a lot of trepidation, as our initial plan was to have a nanny until Charlie started preschool closer to 3. But it didn’t take long for us to see that daycare was absolutely the right decision. Charlie’s became a chatterbox, his days were full of enriching activities, and best of all, he loved his classmates and teachers.

Our daycare only accepts older children that nap once a day, so we’re going to be enrolling Olive as soon as she drops down to one nap. I can’t wait for the two of them to walk to school together!

4) Learning Through Play

I only learned about the wonderful world of sensory play because of research I was doing for Hellobee. I used to buy Charlie lots of toys and think up new and exciting adventures we could go on together. But now we’ve incorporated all kinds of learning through play activities into our daily lives, and it’s dramatically changed the way we play with Charlie. The only toy I’ve purchased him in the past 6 months+ has been a pot and pan set for his birthday. Even though we stay home a lot more often now that we have two kids, our days are full of painting, sensory play, and crafts. And it’s having a positive impact — not only does Charlie love it (and we love it too!), his daycare teachers tell us that his drawing abilities are equal to the children a year older than him!

5) Coparenting

When we just had Charlie, I did the lion’s share of childcare and anything related to the household since I worked from home while Mr. Bee commuted. I would pick up Charlie from daycare, feed him dinner, put him to bed, and Mr. Bee would come home long after Charlie was asleep. After we had Olive, it became apparent very quickly that I needed a lot more help. Because I was breastfeeding and needed to focus so much of my time on Olive, Mr. Bee became Charlie’s primary caretaker. He woke up with him in the mornings, and put him down at night. Since he was responsible for getting Charlie dressed, fed, clean and sleeping without me hovering nearby telling him how he should do it, Mr. Bee handled anything that came his way with aplomb. It made him a much more confident, and better parent.

Now Charlie has a huge daddy preference, but I’m ok with that because for most of his life he’s had a mommy preference. We don’t encourage his preference in any way because we’re partners in this together. It’s us against the kids!

Mr. Bee also started doing a lot more chores, which was an enormous help as well. It’s amazing how your chores seem to double when you have one kid, and then triple when you have two kids!

What have been some of your biggest parenting successes?