It's a baby, not an object that comes with an instruction manual

I potentially annoyed my gran yesterday.

She looks after Archie two days a week whilst Lucie goes to work. And whilst I was picking him up yesterday my cousin called, moaning that her three week old newborn keeps falling asleep on her. My gran said "hang on, Robert's here, I'll ask him what he does as Archie falls asleep on his own... Robert, what should your cousin do to stop him falling asleep on her?"

I couldn't hold back, I had to be truthful, as I always am now when giving opinions of child-rearing that is based from my experience. So I just said it. "She shouldn't do anything at all, just let him fall asleep where he likes."

My gran fixed me with a glare. That wasn't what she wanted to hear. See, my gran has a very old-fashioned view on parenting. Babies should be seen and not heard, they shouldn't control you and you should always have the upper hand. My parents lived with her when my eldest brother was born and she used to put him to bed at 6pm. My dad would come home from work just after (having left the house before he had woken up) and she would try and stop him looking in on his own son, saying that he would "wake him". It caused a huge fall out.

When she used to call when Archie was a newborn, she would warn us of cuddling him too much as he would just become clingy and selfish. I ignored that advice.

See, with Archie, he fell asleep on us the whole time. There's this whole mantra in the Western world now that you should get your baby into a routine on day one. You should have strict times for doing things, you should never let your baby fall asleep on you, you shouldn't feed them on demand as they will only feed for comfort, that sort of thing. That didn't sit too comfortably with Lucie and I, and we read the odd book that went contrary to this guidance and said "you know what, we reared babies on instinct for thousands of years, hell outside of the Western world people still respond to babies on demand, carry them around everywhere and let them sleep with them, WE'RE the weird ones for expecting any different."

That point of view held a lot of resonance for me. Afterall, the poor baby has spent nine months in a lovely, warm, safe cocoon yet is suddenly yanked out into a world of bright lights, weird loud sounds and uncomfortable sensations like too hot and too cold. And we think it's reasonable to put them into a cot on their own and let them scream to "get over it"? We expect them to know the difference between day and night? We expect them to deal with set feeding times?

I can't get my head around that idea. So we carried Archie all the time, we let him sleep on us (in fact, he hated being put down to sleep). He fell asleep at Lucie's breast pretty much all the time. We let him sleep in the bed with us (actually the best way to a peaceful nights sleep, and also the best way of teaching them the difference between day time and night time as they sense the difference in you).

Is he spoilt because of it?

Hell no. He's an extremely loving baby, who still loves exploring and isn't clingy to us at all. He will happily stay at my parents' or my gran's for the day, but still have a huge beaming smile for Lucie and I when we walk back through the door.

And as for sleeping, he will happily sleep in his own cot now. He's learnt that the bedroom is a place for sleeping, and that we're nearby. This is in contrast to some of Lucie's friends who have been trying to make their baby 'independent' from day one and are still struggling with babies that cry for 40 minutes at night before going to sleep and wake every hour to be resettled. Archie is asleep right now and cried for about ten seconds about twenty minutes ago, but promptly resettled.

So, despite my gran's fears of us spoiling him when he was a newborn, we appear to have done anything but.

The idea behind this style of parenting is to simply do what feels right. There's no 'manual', there's no diagrams in paperback books that explain what time of the day they should feed and what time of the day they should sleep. It's simply doing what feels right between you. And trust me, it takes a lot of the weight off your shoulders about whether you are doing it "right".

Studies have shown that this style of parenting actually produces more contented, more independent children with a better self-image. They are confident that they are loved and that a caregiver is nearby. They don't have to deal with the fact that during the most confusing and scary stage of their lives you just left them in a cot to cry themselves to sleep because if you didn't "they'd never learn to do it by themselves."

So back to my gran. Yes, she gave me 'a look' because it wasn't what she wanted to hear. But I cannot give advice on parenting that I wouldn't follow myself. And I mentioned that it's unreasonable to expect a baby to fall asleep by itself after being in the womb for nine months. I pointed out that in many other parts of the world babies are ALWAYS in close contact with a caregiver, whether that's his or her parents, or a sister, aunt or grandmother. And they're just fine.

Why the need to control your child? What's wrong with 'spoiling' them (if that's what you want to call it) when they're a newborn? They deserve it, it's a scary world and as the parent you should be allowed to let them know you're there and that you love them.

We live in a world of instruction manuals for everything and people seem scared that if they don't pick up a book that claims it has a "magic wand" for being a parent this will invalidate the warranty. Parents just need to remember that if their baby is alert and happy they're probably doing just find.

Rant over