Peaceful Parenting: It's Okay to Listen to Your Heart.

It's funny how fast a queen sized bed can fill up and feel a bit cramped. Last night mine was filled by a 50 pound dog, a 65 pound dog, a little kitty and a 6-year-old.

But that switches from night to night. Sometimes it's the 8-year-old, or the 9-year-old.

I know. Some of you are clutching your pearls right now. I let my 9-year-old sleep with me?! Ooooooh Lordie she's doin' weird things again!

Yup. I'm not only "one of those everything killing millenials", but I'm also mostly "crunchy".

I know. I might as well be this guy, right?

But in spite of rhetoric doctors spout from their mouths these days, I did not roll over and smother any of my three children. I did not drop them.

They didn't even do the haters a solid and become so clingy they're incapable of coping without me! Man did they strike out on that one.

A nurse introduced me to it being okay the night Inari was born. She tucked him safely in the crook of my arm, bid me goodnight and shut the lights off.

I went with it and allowed instinct to take over from there. It felt so natural, like he'd been misssing from me my entire life until then.

Another weird crunchy thing occured when a different nurse held up a cold plastic board during the parenting class the hospital held. I dragged their father away from his World of Warcraft raid to come along. Yeah, he was mad, ha!

That nurse flat out told us that it was an unecessary cosmetic procedure. That was all I needed to know. I'd already been leaning over the fence, knowing it wasn't even medically recommended gave me the permission I felt I needed to not go through with it.

And wouldn't you know it, in spite of family members and strangers on the internet's dire warnings*, being uncut has not caused him to have a single UTI in 9 years of life? Win for the crunchy.

And amazingly not one other child has teased him over his penis thus far. Surprise!

One thing I got endless grief over was that I did not use the "Cry it Out" method. That seemed an uneeded stress in my babies lives and my life as well. I picked them up when they cried. Cuddled them, sang to them.

"Don't you ever put that baby down?" and once when I walked in on my mother's husband completely ignoring a wailing baby Inari: "It's good for him to cry, he'll be fine!"

The red face, tears and gasping breaths said otherwise. That man let my baby sit in a shitty diaper for who knows how long because his opinion of my parenting was all he needed to ignore my parenting wishes. And no, he never raised a kid of his own so don't give me any bullshit about "his kids grew up fine".

Yes, it was hard, I had moments, days even, of wanting to tear my hair out in frustration. But the rewards were totally worth it.

Little Willow did not cry the first 2 weeks after she was born. She wiggled. I was so paranoid she would need something and I wouldn't know because she wouldn't cry. But we co-slept, so when she got her wiggle on, I knew every time.

If crying it out and "sleep training" your newborn like a dog were so beneficial, why do they not suggest it for NICU babies? Because it makes NO medical sense! Babies in NICU are given skin to skin contact as often as possible, often bringing about amazing results.

Ignoring that baby does the opposite. Being left to cry and stress raises cortizol levels in that babies brain.

If you stop responding to little cues, the baby will more quickly resort to screams, because you are teaching that baby that subtle isn't heard.

I have a cousin that once told me she was jealous of the relationship I have with my kids. That she had just listened to the people around her. Her daughter was left to cry it out. She wasn't snuggled as much, and as she grew she became a kid who did not come to her parents for help much.

She said she didn't know she was "allowed" to cuddle and snuggle with her own daughter as much as I do with mine. Her daughter would never come over and sit on her lap during a bonfire. Her daughter would never come for a kiss and hug "just because".

I know this is anecdotal. My kids and I are anecdotal. But study after study proves all of this. The Cry it Out Method is detrimental to the brain development of children. Depriving them of physical contact, hurts them.

My point behind this is that if you're a new parent, people are going to throw all sorts of bad advice your way. If your heart tells you to pick your baby up, ignore the haters.

They aren't the mama or papa of YOUR BABY. Go. Pick that baby up. Give them a snuggle as long as you want. Nurse them for 2 years if you want to. Homeschool them, you're capable. Dare to be the parent you wished you had growing up.

Carry them and kiss them and hold them while they need you and want you. Soon enough you'll be chasing after them, longing for those cuddles.

My Inari is 9 now, he still wants cuddles, but they come less and less. Love them with your everything, because you are their everything, in the beginning. You're their whole world.