Surrender...

I went to Sam's Wholesale with my mom this last Sunday.  As I was walking through the aisles picking through the thousands of "bulk" deals I stumbled upon the book section.  Of course I was drawn to the 100's of 1000's of baby books available...

I have a natural curiosity for everything breastfeeding and natural birth now.  A world I find interesting, yet at some point in my life, found strange and uninviting.  I tell people it's like being saved.  I found something new and want to shout it at the roof tops.  But that's another topic for another day. 

Today, I want to discuss a little something I discovered in one of those "parenting" books.  I thumbed through quickly as I was waiting for my mom to get out of the canned goods aisle.  I flipped to the breastfeeding section curious as to their advice to new mothers and the like.  What could another book possibly have to say that I've never heard.  Would I discover a new found "trick of the trade"?

What I found actually disturbed me!  Especially as a second time mom...  "surrender to your baby"
Um, do what?  Surrender?  Isn't that what people who are at war do?  These were my first thoughts as I was flipping through the pages.  Surrender....  What exactly does this mean?  I read further; nothing new; latch frequently, feed on-demand (good point as I am a firm believer you shouldn't feed on a clock), get good rest, accept help, SURRENDER...  there's that word again.

Straight from Wikipedia this is what Surrender means:

Surrender (military), capitulation

Surrender (religion), the relinquishment of one's own will to a higher power

Surrendering your own will to a higher power!  Wow, I've never thought of it like that.  Is my 4.5 month old a "higher power"?  Is he all knowing? 

I've never thought of breastfeeding as surrendering; or even taxing, or difficult.  Time consuming; YES!  Especially when he's in a growth spurt.  But I remind myself frequently that this stage does not last forever and soon he will be toe to toe with his brother and cousin.  He won't want anything to do with me and he'll be off to school before I know it.  I don't mind the bond.  I don't mind the down time.  I don't mind giving of myself so that my son will have the best start possible.  I am able to do this so I feel I should take the reigns and run with it.  So many women are unable to do so... 

Do they Surrender?

That's the thing about being Human Mothers; we get to change our mind!

When I had my son Mason I thought that I knew everything there was to know about having a kid.  I was a 25 year old know it all that wasn't about to 'conform' to anyone's idea of what it was to be a mother.  HA!  Looking back now there are 100 + 1 things I can think of that I did WRONG!  I listened to everyone else and did what they told me to when it came to raising him.  Yes, that's a contradiction to my previous statement about conforming to everyone else's idea.  Because if you know me at all, you know that I am far from a conformist. 
Anyway; I only breastfed until 10 weeks because I had to go back to work.  I wasn't going to pump because, well, that was too much trouble. 
He wasn't sleeping through the night by 6 months; so what do I do... spend a night in hell, AKA: CIO!  My husband and I stood by the door marking little "tick marks" on a sticky note attached to the door for each time we went in to sooth him.  I hated myself for MONTHS after this and never tried it again.  He still doesn't sleep through the night; BTW!
I tried a baby carrier once while cooking spaghetti and he HATED it!  So where did it end up?  At the bottom of his closet. 
When he became a toddler it was straight to time out and high expectations of a child who was supposed to listen when spoken to.  If you only knew this kid; yeah right!
Then the 4's and 5's came around and it was "enforcement" time.  I was so done with the fussing and the cussing that I told my husband "I don't want him to FEAR you; I want him to RESPECT you!"  We had a very heated debate that night about the difference between a child doing out of fear and doing out of respect.  I "won" that arguement that night as he agreed he would no longer expect our son to listen out of fear but do because he respected and it was expected out of him.
Around this time an old friend from college and I reunited over MySpace.  She ended up dating my brother in law and they later had a son.  I remember vividly sitting in my office corresponding through emails with her and the mention of  Attachment Parenting.  I had no idea what this was.  And so the discussion blossomed.  I looked it up and was baffled.  What was all of this "Hippie" stuff about?  When looking at the different definitions of the 4 parenting styles I found myself, at the time, to be more of an Authoritrian Parent.  DO as I SAY when I say to do it...  OR ELSE! It was how I was raised and it was how we were raising our son.
Fast Forward to the last two years....
I've realized that I've done this parenting thing wrong for quite sometime now.  Mason and his defiant self has proven that to me day in and day out.  What happens when you become a strict parent and stay on their rear ends for every little thing?  They rebel...  I have a 7 year old REBEL sleeping in his bed right now!
I became pregnant with our second son and I vowed to do it all different.  I was going to give this kid a chance his big brother didn't get.  I was gonna breastfeed him forever, co-sleep, and wear him until he asked for his feet to touch the ground.  It wasn't a matter of just waking up one morning and deciding that it was how I was going to be.  It blossomed over time.  I guess you could say I'm into all the "attachement parenting" stuff but what I say is I decided to change my mind on how we were raising our kids.