Whew

Glad to know the paranoia is normal! :-) Thanks, everyone for your comments on my last post. It was a great comfort to know that my feelings on people holding her were normal, and it was fun to hear your different and alike perspectives on routines and schedules.

I am of the personality that I overanalyze everything, read every book, and end up being indecisive every time when it comes to making a decision, because once again I'm overanalyzing the situation. Such has been the case here. I started reading books, listening to people's "advice", and began to feel like I was messing up! I wasn't doing it right. I would think, "well, great it worked for them...so maybe it's what we should do!?" Anyways, all this reading and listening resulted in grand confusion in the MacPherson home this week. Poor little Danielle...I'm sure she didn't know what the heck her mommy was doing half the time. Because...well...neither did I! One minute, I'd decide I was going to stick with trying to get her to go to sleep on her own (as books I'd read said she should be doing that by now)...then I'd decide I didn't want to do that so I'd rock her to sleep. TOTAL indecisiveness...inconsistency...yadayada yada...you know...what you're NOT suppose to do to children. But she's been so patient with Mommy. I'm sure she understands her mommy's confusion. (smile).

Finally, after praying for clarity and wisdom, looking into myself, and speaking with a few wise seasoned mothers, I came to peace with just being myself and doing what works for us...not worrying about following a book or plan or what someone else did. Because, I find when I try to do something like that, I get all stressed out when it doesn't work, or when I don't follow through and "fail". I asked myself, "what's my instinct? what's MY philosophy? What's working for MY daughter?" Right now, trying a schedule IS too early, as many of you have said. She's in a growth spurt, wanting to eat all the time. Some days she's more sleepy than others and naps for hours...some days she has tons of wake time and is awake for hours. So we're going to go with the flow. It works for us. We're much happier that way. We're loving parenthood that way.

I don't care if it's "bad" to rock her to sleep or to bring her into bed with me to help her fall asleep. Those are the things I am loving most about being a mom and so I'm going to enjoy them while they last.

I could go on and on about my "new" Mommy revelation. It's brought a freedom though...and the books are going to go on the shelf for a while. I've read them...I've gleaned what I need. Now I'm just going to enjoy and wing it...that's where I soar. I love to see her smile and I enjoy figuring out why she's crying so I can meet her needs. Mmmm...I love being a mommy.

She's so happy it's awesome. Here's a picture of her smile today. I just can't get enough of it!!!