The little motor that went splutter

Grump grumps has a new habit. When she's mad, or just filling the time it takes her mother to find a pillow and undo her shirt, she splutters. It sounds very much like a motor and it unfortunately involves a large amount of spit being sprayed everywhere. The grossness increases directly after eating. Yes, my baby has a serious spit problem. And lingering bad breath. Is there some code of silence about these issues, or is my baby really the grossest of them all?

Tonight I finally picked up the 'No Cry Sl.eep So.lution' which has been on our shelf for weeks. Let me preface this discussion by noting that we do not have any sleep issues yet: TS sleeps at least 15 hours a day, we can put her to sleep awake as long as we're next to her, she sleeps a good 5-hour stretch at night and then sometimes another 4-hour stretch. In short, we are not the target audience for this book. But it came very highly recommended and I figured I should read up before I really need help. That and we're co-sleeping so I wanted to see if it had useful advice for ousting the fusspot from our bed.

I know why people like this book - its sympathetic, has common sense suggestions, is targeted to different situations ... and yet, it made me really angry. While it ostensibly purports to support attachment parenting, it is a big advocate of routines, including putting your baby to bed between 6:30 and 7 pm. I know this works for some people, but JD is NEVER home before 8 pm and more like 10 pm on a normal week. And he's just not a morning person so he usually oversleeps and runs out of the apartment less than 20 minutes after waking up. So to start with, if/when we follow these suggestions I assume he will not see his daughter awake for 5 or 6 days a week. And that sucks.

Moreover, I don't get it. The book is all about routines. Attachment parenting is all about bringing your baby with you and finding ways to get things done with baby in tow. We have no schedule because I don't have time to set aside 8-9 am as play time and 10-12 as naptime in her crib. If I really wanted to do that, I would have to leave her with a nanny or in a daycare. As it is some mornings we wake up 6 am to catch a train, some mornings we sleep till 8 am, some mornings we don't set an alarm at all (just a personal interpretation of shabbos). Sometimes we're home at 6:30 pm, but usually not. Sometimes I'm just leaving for work at 6:30 pm. Tonight we went out to dinner at 7:30 pm and were home at 10 pm. The fusspot was awake while we waited at the bar of the restaurant and then fell asleep and slept all the way through dinner and the walk home. If I wanted her to sleep on a schedule, I would have needed to leave her with a babysitter instead.

In short, this book seems designed for the SAHM (without other children) who can arrange her entire schedule around the baby. Or the baby in daycare where the number of kids necessitates a strict routine. I happen to think its more important that the fusspot spends time with me (time that allows us to nurse and play on the subway, the train, airports, libraries, my office, the grocery store) than that she has a firm routine. And in my case it really is an either or proposition: either I leave her at home or she has a very minimal schedule and routine (Because my place in City Y has no bathtub, rocking chair, nightlight, etc. it's very hard to think of a decent bedtime 'routine' besides a book and a song and we do that multiple times a day). Or maybe I'm just defensive because I can see the looming disaster on the horizon and I don't want to admit that my mobility will be even further constrained in a couple of months?

Of course, as I type my baby is sleeping peacefully in her crib next to my desk. And she has never slept a full night in the crib (or honestly more than an hour).