Wisdom Wednesdays

Today I was thinking about balance. I am big on having a balanced life. Not that I am always successful but I really try. This is one of the reasons my hubby and I travel alone (as often as possible). Today I was thinking about it in terms of children. I have read a few parenting books and honestly I have to say most of them are crap. Yikes. Yes I feel this passionately about the topic. Many of them talk about holding your baby way more than I think is a good idea. Don't do this, don't do that. Do lots of this and lots of that. While I believe you can take a little something from everything it is important to make it work for your family. Trying to mold your life and family around the principles in a book just seems forced to me.

The reason I think this has to do with balance for children is because the most recent book I read said to hold your child the majority of the day or the period the baby is awake. I think this is a HUGE mistake. My experience is if you hold a child the child will always want to be held. How does anything get done and how do you have a break if you are always holding a baby? Sounds like a recipe for crazy, to me.

I think kids are like adults, they need schedules and they need life balance. They need a balance of time being loved, discipline, playtime, quite time and even a small amount of responsibility. I will admit I have a hard time with the responsibility part and I tend to want more quite time than is realistic. I always strive for balance in both my life and my children's lives.