E.A.S.Y. vs E.A.G.E.R.

"The Baby Whisperer" says that parenting should be easy if you follow the E.A.S.Y. method: "E" for eating, "A" for activity, "S" for sleeping and "Y" for the 'you' time. Babies should be satisfied if you allow them to eat well, play well and sleep well. It all sounded wonderful and I thought we could just take it E.A.S.Y. However, what it fails to address is what happens when your baby refuses to take it easy.

Chamu is usually good in the mornings, following the E.A.S.Y. method closely, but when it comes to after 2pm feedings, everything goes haywire. He would eat, play and then fall into perpetual grouchy mood for the rest of the afternoon until he exhausts himself around 9pm. Last five days, he has been extremely difficult to deal with: eating every two hours while being grouchy, refusing any activity and sleep time (which means there is zero "You" time for us).

Today we called it quits when Chamu was still refusing to fall asleep at 9pm after two feedings and 3 hours of grouchy. We had to call our helper to take over and we left to get a foot massage.

E.A.G.E.R. seems to characterize our parenting experience better than E.A.S.Y. these days: Eating and Activity followed by Grouchy until we Escape but only to Rush back thinking we are bad and impatient parents to have left our baby.

Hopefully this E.A.G.E.R. stage will soon become E.A.S.Y. again...