Cloth Napkins and Baby Comparing

I love using cloth napkins. Josh and I have for as long as we've been together and we go through very few paper towels thanks to the eight cloth napkins I bought two years ago. By this point, they're a little tattered and at least half have disappeared thanks to to dogs, so I bought replacements today at the Help Give Hope garage sale. The sale is on North Kansas Expressway in Springfield, in the Town and Country shopping center. It was dimly lit, unorganized, and somewhat picked over, but I'm sure if you had a lot of time, then you could probably find something you need. It's going on next week too. Click on the link for dates and times. I bought 17 cloth napkins at a dime each:


Ben and I had lunch at the Smoothie Cafe with Karen and coffee with my McGregor friends at the Mudhouse. (The Mud Lounge is temporarily closed due to problems with their liquor license.)

While there, another friend of mine brought her baby, one week younger than Ben. And so it starts... baby comparing. I want so badly to not compare Ben to any other baby, but at the same time it's fun to compare and discuss what we're going through right now. Her son has been sleeping in his crib, in his own room since he was four weeks old. He sleeps 6-8 hours most nights and has a routine and schedule. Wow, I was impressed.

Ben has no kind of schedule. I couldn't tell you how many times he nurses or how many diapers he goes through. I tried to keep track but kept forgetting and usually made it up at the end of the day on my chart. He slept through the night once, in our room. Although I said horrible things about cosleeping before I had Ben, he now sleeps in the bed at least half of the time and in the Pack N Play next to the bed otherwise. We don't really have normal bedtimes or wake-up times and I'm worried my pediatrician is going to recommend we get on a schedule at our two month appointment on Monday.


Although my friend's structure is impressive, it really doesn't fit where we are right now. By the time I go back to work this fall, I'll need to have something a little better figured out. But I can't imagine trying to make Ben eat at certain times or not letting him eat other times. When my friend Katy wrote a post about her child's schedule, or lack thereof, I didn't even consider that anyone with a baby under three months could even consider being on a schedule.


The bottom line is - as long as the kid is healthy and safe, everyone should feel free to parent how they choose and not worry about what they "should" or "should not" be doing. I've got my goals of eventually getting Ben to sleep in his own room, when the time's right for him. In my teaching experience I have worked with about 200 kids, and by the time they are pre-teens, you can't tell whose parents carried them hours each day, let them cry it out in the crib, or ground organic flour for their teething biscuits. It all evens out in the end, and I'm not going to feel bad about anything I'm doing. I'm just going to do what's best for our family and our situation.