I read the Continuum Concept while pregnant with my second child and it made a lot of sense to me. It comapares child development in an amazonian tribe and in the west with rather amazing results, it seems we have lost our human "continuum" and are bringing up our children in an artificial way which is convenient to parents but detrimental to the children.
While I was reading I realized that I had made some rather bad mistakes with my first child (now a toddler) mainly trying to put him in his own cot and room way before he was ready, this has caused all manner of sleeping problems and he now still wakes up at night, does not really like his cot but feels uncomfortable in bed with us or in a "big boy" bed of his own.
The problem I feel comes by trying to "train" him and have him conform with the society I live in where children are expected to sleep on their own preferably in their own room, with my second baby we are trying to forget what society expects from us and what is convenient to us as parents, we are doing what is right by him. So I carry him in a sling (I also did this with my first althoug I did feel the pressure from those around me to put him down in a pram or baby seat), he sleeps with us and I will breastfeed him for as long as possible. To my surprise this way of doing things is much easier than the prescribed one of putting him down for naps and feeding him at certain times as I don't have a fight on my hands, he's happy and so am I. I'm not sleep deprived because we sleep together and I don't have to get up to make bottles in the middle of the night as I just roll over to my side and feed him, very often we're both asleep again in minutes...
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