After 18 hours of travel yesterday we have finally arrived home. It feels really good to have my own bed back. It''s also nice to have an internet connection. The wireless in Europe was few and far between, and often involved loitering outside of a McDonald's. I am sitting here eating peanut butter (also non existent in Europe) on my toast and catching up on my e-mails & blogs. I will do my best to publish these over the next several days. Here is what I started while in the first leg of our journey -France.
Bonjour! We arrived in the French Alps after a long flight from Vancouver via Amsterdam and Geneva. I will write more about travel with a small baby later. For now I will begin with highlights of our experience in the Savoy region of south eastern France in the heart of the Alps -this is the famous Chamonix.
I've been spending Anika's nap times reading the book "Bringing up Bebe" -a recently published best seller about an American woman's observations of French parenting while living in Paris. This book provides an interesting sociological study for me here while just learning the ropes of parenting myself.
The author, Pamela Druckerman, observes happy, well adjusted, French kids eating four course meals in restaurants, sleeping through the night from very young ages, and calmly entertaining themselves, and can be said to stem from a few parenting practices that are somewhat different from our North American ideals. I will attempt to highlight them without completely spoiling the book.
Equilibre -Equilibrium or balance. This is an important ideal for each family to have a balance of time and needs of each member. A family is felt to be out of balance if one member is requiring too much attention or taking too much time away from others. Babies in North America are often throwing us off balance at the expense of the parent's (especially the mother's) needs.
Cadre or framework-this refers to certain guidelines and rules which are firmly enforced, but within this there is a fair bit of freedom for a child to explore, and discover his/her own autonomy. It is a parent's job to educate a child. This is the closest translation the French have to "discipline".
French babies sleep through the night at very young ages, some right from hospital discharge. They are almost all formula fed, and I suspect this is the main reason why, but the author thinks it has more to do with the parents pausing and not picking babies up as soon as they cry out in the night. If they can resettle on their own, then they should be able to do this without need for adult attention. Anika is waking once or twice during a 12 hour night time for a full breast feed and I thought that was fairly normal. We won't be trying the "pause" while on this trip, but perhaps when we get home. I find it hard to believe she could go 12 hours without eating, but maybe??? Since writing this her sleep has sadly taken a turn for the worse. With all of the changes of locations and time zones paired with increasing awareness of her surroundings the night wakings have been much more frequent -sometimes even hourly. We've got to get back on track again so I can function mentally.
I had an opportunity to observe some French (and British) children in restaurants and shops in town. Some of the characteristics to seem to hold true. French kids don't throw food, shun vegetables or forget to say au revoir. They have strict rules to follow but this is comforting for them and they know what's expected. Some of the north american and Brit tots could be observed being holy terrors in restaurants and shops.
One of the most memorable encounters I had was at the public swimming pool. I took Anika for a swim one afternoon. DH opted out because they only allow Speedos (no loose shorts) for men claiming a hygiene rationale. You can even rent a Speedo from a vending machine if you forget your own. At the pool we befriended a little girl and her mom from the UK who were living in France. She was taking her daughter swimming because there were no lessons available for preschoolers (the French believe in letting children freely explore the water, rather than have a structured class.Apparently Saturday is "baby day" at the pool when they go to the trouble of turning up the temperature of the water.The lifeguards were quite worried that Anika was getting too cold because her skin was looking so pale. The ex-pat Brit mom and I had a good laugh about that -no that's just her usual white skin tone.
Some of the downfalls of the French parenting style are the lack of breastfeeding and the reliance on nannies and daycares (creches) from an early age because French mothers return to work soon after giving birth.
The book delves into greater detail, so I haven't completely spoiled it hopefully. It is certainly worth the read.
That sounds like an interesting book.
ReplyDeleteRE: night feedings. Calvin was sleeping through the night at 8 weeks, but then when he hit three months he started waking up every three hours during the night, which was worse than when he was a newborn. It lasted for about a month, then he started going longer again, and then was sleeping through (and I'm talking 12 hours here), but now he's getting up more frequently again like twice a night, but then last night he didn't at all (and was I glad when he finally did - my boobs were killing me!. I usually wait a few minutes to gauge his noises, since he doesn't usually wake up actually crying, to see if he's going to escalate or just talk to himself and go back to sleep on his own.
With the 3 month frequent-wakings I tried seeing if he was just wanting his pacifier back in, but while sometimes he would go back to sleep but then be up an hour later. With him, he only really makes noise when he's hungry, otherwise he wakes up and squeaks but goes back to sleep on his own without calling for me. And when he eats, he's really eating and 99% of the time I put him down after he's done and he's still wide awake, but is happy to be by himself and will eventually go back to sleep. I was worried that he "shouldn't" be waking up as much as he was because I read that somewhere, but after testing it out and knowing his temperament, I know that if he's awake and fussing, he needs me. I try to think of it like how sometimes I wake up in the night and I'm hungry and other times I don't.
Anyway, obviously your mileage may vary depending on you (I've never been a good sleeper, so getting up in the night is no big deal to me, usually I'm awake when he is anyway) and on Anika's personality, but I do find that his patterns change frequently and now I don't always pay full attention to what a book says since I find it causes more stress if I think he "should" be doing something else than what he is.
PS. Forgot to say that it sounds like you had a fabulous trip!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the review. I would love to read that book and having spent some time in France myself I understand the mentality. Reassuring that you did see some holy terrors, too! I hope you and Anika are settling back into your timezone well and you are enjoying the beautiful spring! Rhubarb
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