Upside of Lazy

Like many moms, I am “energy optimizing”… that is I’d like to do the least amount work for the maximum amount of benefit. OK, so my husband would just call me lazy. However, there are some merits to what he would call laziness and what I would call smart about use of time and energy… particularly when it comes to parenting. And this philosophy fits well with the overall Cave Baby Theory.

That is, in natural selection, the traits with the advantage are most likely to get passed on. Given the lack of technology and etc… cave mommy’s had to balance a whole lot of things and get by. They didn’t have the same societal pressures we have today to IMPRESS OTHERS WITH MY GREAT PARENTING SKILLS or follow laws around negligence and child abuse. They had to do it all, simply and naturally. If it wasn’t simple, natural, or have some reward attached… they probably wouldn’t have done it.

My top 3 Lazy Mom Parenting Tips:

Do more lying down – Nurse while you sleep. For me being sleep deprived just was not an option. Maybe its the engineer in me that tried to reverse engineer how cave mommies probably would have fed their kids at night. Roll over, get in the right position… and let baby do the rest… oh and get your rest. Okay its not a pretty site… reminds me of all the piglets at the farm latching on to their mommy but it works.

Don’t get up — I’m a working mom so getting up in the middle of the night is also not an option. Also, my kids get up early so having them play in my bed versus screaming in the other room is preferred. I don’t have to get up! You may wonder if they’ll ever leave my bed but my toddler had no problem transitioning as soon as she could walk. In fact she liked having her own room and bed. Now she can get out of bed herself and walk over to our room in the morning.

Just be– I love shopping for cute little developmental toys but more and more I’m realizing that I don’t need this stuff. Cave Mommies raised babies without more than themselves and nature around them. My six month old is happy seeing my face or playing with her feet and of course hearing my voice. My toddler can spend hours and hours at the beach… something we love too. My toddler learned counting and ABCs just from some good old fashioned singing– no batteries required.