Are you struggling with what type of parenting style to use when it comes to your infant or toddler? Do you co-sleep or do you put your baby in a crib in another room? Do you comfort her every time she cries at night or do you let her cry it out? Do you exclusively breastfeed or bottle feed? Do you wear your baby or put him in a stroller when you’re out and about? There are countless research reports to support all parenting tactics, as well as many reports condemning these same tactics. So how do you choose?

I personally think that it all comes down to your own personality and that of your little one’s (and of course, safety is always a factor). My husband and I are independent by nature. We both like our space—nay, we NEED our personal space from time-to-time. When I don’t get proper sleep, I become incredibly cranky and irritable (like, no one wants to talk to me). We enjoy figuring things out on our own. We both have struggled to make ends meet in the past and have learned so much from it. So naturally, we want to raise equally independent and, more importantly, resourceful children. Plus, we’re older parents (I gave birth to Baby R when I was 36 and Baby #2 will arrive when I’m 38), which means we flat out don’t have the energy we once did a decade ago. So helicopter parenting is not appealing to us.

Combine all that with the personality of Baby R who is now 20months old… She is very independent by nature. She loves to cuddle, but she also likes her own space. I swear she will have some sort of engineering career or similar in her future. When you hand her a new toy, she first spends time figuring out HOW it works before actually playing with it.

So for instance when it came to sleeping arrangements… I needed to make sure that I was getting the rest I needed to be able to remain productive at my full-time place of employment. That meant training Baby R to sleep in her own room. I kept her in a bassinet next to my bed for the first three weeks. But after that, I realized I needed to get her in a better routine so I could function as a capable adult in two months. We ended up loosely following the feeding/sleeping schedules listed in the book “The New Contented Little Baby Book” by Gina Ford, which supports that A) children love routine (coincidentally, so do I!) and B) kids function best when they sleep from 7PM to 7AM (to put it simply—the book goes into so much more detail). It took us two months to get her to sleep through the night in her own bed in her own room, which helped me sleep well so I could transition back to working full-time. Granted, she “fell out of that routine” within two months, so I walked around like a zombie at work until she started sleeping through the night again at seven months old. (I was so cranky at one point that my boss even asked me if I was okay, at which point I felt a little silly chalking it up to lack of sleep… but it was what it was.) Baby R now sleeps through the night 95% of the time (generally from 7:30PM to 8:00AM). This routine works well for our own family.

Now let’s talk breast feeding vs. bottle feeding. I was walking into motherhood with every intention to exclusively breastfeed. The nutritional benefits are incredible, that’s for sure. But when it came down to it, my body simply wasn’t producing enough milk to satisfy my baby’s hunger. For three weeks, she was not gaining any weight. So the pediatrician recommended supplementing her food with formula. At this point, it was more important to me that she was eating enough. So we added formula to her daily routine. Meanwhile, I still worked on ways to increase my supply—to no avail. I started losing my mind, like literally. Whenever I put her down for a nap, I now had to decide if I was going to sleep, eat, clean or pump. There was no time for more than one task. Even overnight, I would set my alarm for every 3 or 4 hours to pump in an effort to increase flow. I drank “special” tea (and I hate tea!!). Nothing was working. Finally after seven weeks, I gave up on it altogether. Baby R was now strictly formula fed. And honestly, I was happier for it (thanks to the exhaustion of trying every other method under the sun to prevent that from happening). Mama was happy and less stressed… Baby was happy and well fed… Daddy was happier all around because mama and baby were happy. This is what worked for us.

These are only two examples of decisions we’ve had to make regarding how we take care of our daughter. These decisions very well may not work for your own family. But they work for us.

No matter which tactic you choose, your #1 goal is to love and nurture your children. The style by which you do that will vary based on a number of factors (some of which may be out of your control). At the end of the day, I say that as long as your kid is happy and healthy… you’re doing a darn good job, so keep up the good work!