When you have a baby, you can be pretty cer­tain you will hear a few things.  “Oh, he/she’s so adorable!”  “Oh, how sweet!”  “I bet you are lov­ing being a new mom!”  “I love those baby sounds.” and of course “Is he/she a good baby?”  What is a good baby?  What is a bad baby?  In most cases, I was able to under­stand the intent behind the ques­tion “Is he a good baby?” to be “How does he sleep?”  “Does he eat well?”  I’m sure that I have even said those words.  That was before, before I had a baby who was not a “good” sleeper or a “good” eater.  Those of you who have read this blog for a while or know my fam­ily know that baby A was not an easy baby.  He was sen­si­tive to dairy.  He had reflux pretty badly.  He didn’t sleep well.  He nursed at least every hour for the first six or seven months.  He didn’t eat many solids at all before he was 11 or 12 months old, and worst of all, he didn’t want any­one but myself or my hus­band to hold him!

Many times in A’s first year, I was asked, “Is he a good baby?”  Of course he was a good baby.  Look at him, I wanted to say!  Isn’t he one of the most beau­ti­ful peo­ple ever to be a part of the human race???  Couldn’t they see only by look­ing at him that he was obvi­ously amaz­ing?  Then, the ques­tions got spe­cific.  “How often does he eat?”  “How many times is he get­ting up at night?”  “How does he nap?”  I usu­ally gave them the answers with a smile on my face.  Even though I was going crazy with a new­born and a tod­dler who were both nurs­ing like crazy, I didn’t want any­one to think any­thing about my son that might bor­der on less than per­fect.  I vented many times to friends about these ques­tions, I almost always answered them with a smile.  I rarely showed my frus­tra­tions or tired­ness, because I knew I would get advice I didn’t want.

Now, both of my chil­dren are preschool­ers.  When talk­ing with other par­ents, friends, and fam­ily the focus still seems to be on food and sleep with added ques­tions about obe­di­ence.  “What does your daugh­ter eat for sup­per?”  “Can you get your kids to try new foods?”  (see my pre­vi­ous post) “Is your 3 year old still nap­ping?”  “How can I get my child to x the first time I ask him?”

I’ve recently started won­der­ing at what point are we going to start focus­ing on things that are going to make a life­long impact in their lives?  Has any­one ever asked you “Is your four year old com­pas­sion­ate?”  “Does she work on her prob­lem solv­ing skills?”  “How can I pro­vide a rich envi­ron­ment to fos­ter her imagination/creativity?”  Some of us may have heard these ques­tions from our friends and fam­ily, but unfor­tu­nately, these things don’t seem to get nearly the inter­est that sleep, food, and obe­di­ence get.

I don’t have any answers.  I’m not going to pro­pose a solu­tion that will end the focus on the “good” baby who eats and sleeps as the book pre­dicts.  I only hope to point out that while those things seem to be so impor­tant when our kids are lit­tle, they decrease in impor­tance as a child grows.