Having Aria has been a whole new ball game to us compared to Sienna.. before we even had children we had very set ways on how we would parent and we had very similar views. Neither of us was a fan of the whole 'attachment parenting'.. Warren thought it got the babies into bad habits and I thought it was a bit OTT.. yes I knew I'd love my baby but I didn't need to be attached to it 24/7.
When we had Sienna, everything went as we expected. No baby wearing, no rocking her to sleep, no co-sleeping.. still to this day she has never slept in our bed (no more than a half an hour nap anyway).
Fast forward 3 years to having another newborn and our parenting style is completely the opposite. I baby wear, breastfeed on demand, soothe her to sleep and dare I say it.. co-sleep (kind of). All the things we said we'd never do, we are doing.. but I have realised it isn't our parenting style that has changed, it is down to our babies having different personalities and us responding to that.
Sienna was a very content baby.. she was brilliant at being put down and settling herself into a deep sleep, rarely cried unless something was seriously wrong and she didn't love being on me or being cuddled, she loved her own space.. she was and still is very independent.
Aria is the total opposite.. from day one she has loved being held and cuddled close, has needed a lot of comforting or soothing to fall asleep, sleeps very lightly and loves feeding/comforting on the boob. She's also a very light sleeper and wakes crying at the slightest noise unless she is completely 'zonked'.
If baby wearing, having her sleep close and rocking her to sleep helps her feel safe and comforts her.. then that's what I'm going to do. Parenting isn't textbook and I now realise how different babies can have such different needs. We've had to let go of our old thoughts and just go with the flow.. find what works for us this time round.
It's been a bit like being a first time parent again as everything seems so new and we're using a whole new parenting technique but slowly we are getting there!
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