How to be a Perfect Parent

When we brought the little man home from the hospital, I was certain that, if we held him all the time, he would never be able to go to sleep unless he was in someone's arms...so I made everyone (all the grandparents) routinely put him in his bassinet to sleep. And I made sure that he stayed awake, just for a few minutes, after every feeding, so he wouldn't associate eating with going to sleep and therefore need to eat in order to fall asleep. I freaked out when lights and/or the television was on at night, because he might get his days and nights mixed up.

Add all that to a heaping pile of postpartum depression and you can imagine how fun it was to be at my house after the baby came home!

Being a parent involves the steepest learning curve I have ever experienced, and the training is completely on-the-job. Six months have passed, and I'm not as crazy as I was. I've gotten a handle on some things. I've read lots of books and listened to lots of moms. And here is what I've figured out:

1. NEVER co-sleep with your baby. You will make him dependent on you to fall asleep, and you and your husband will never again have the bed to yourselves. Your child will sleep there until he moves away to college. Good luck having another kid.
2. NEVER let your baby sleep in his crib, in his room, all alone. He will feel abandoned and unloved. You won't be able to sleep because you will be wracked with guilt over abandoning your baby. Your child will miss out on the trust and attachment that is crucial to his emotional development at this age. He will probably become Goth/Emo as a teenager.
3. NEVER pick up your baby the first time he cries. He needs to learn to self-soothe, or else you will find yourself cuddling a sobbing 18-year-old at his high school graduation ceremony. You will ruin any chance he has at a stable, non-codependent relationship.
4. NEVER let your baby cry. Cry-it-out methods have been shown to create lasting psychological damage in mothers and children. If you let your baby cry, you are essentially saying to him, "I don't care." You'll most likely turn your child into a sociopath. Way to go, mom.
5. NEVER give a breastfed baby a bottle or a pacifier. He will fall victim to "nipple confusion" and you won't be able to breastfeed any more, which means your baby will develop allergies and probably syphilis.

There you go. Hope that was helpful.