A few blogs that I read on a regular basis have in the last week talked about how they have turned to Ferber to train their kids. Reading these stories made me cry. I understand that they have been fighting with their childrens sleep for a while now and I understand that they don’t want to deal with it anymore. However, I can’t understand why they believe that making their children feel abandoned and Cry themselves to sleep is the way to resolve their “sleep issues”…

In their posts they make it known that it feels so wrong yet they “know” that it is the right thing to do. How can someone believe that? How can someone justify making their kid cry themselves to sleep… Oh yeah….. they believe that babies are better off in their cribs in a seperate room and beleive that they should be happy to sleep there, they wouldn’t dare let baby sleep in their arms or in their bed…. so they turn to making their children fall asleep from pure exaustion after having cried for however long…. of course the reasoning is that it works…. of course it works… the child cries and cries and nobody comes, night after night nobody comes… so why bother crying anymore.

I really think that the people that turn to these awful and sad “sleep solutions” really believe that their intentions are good and really do beleive that it is best for their children.This is what I find sad. How can crying yourself to sleep and giving up be the best thing.

There was an article that I quoted recently on my blog written by Dr. Gabor Mate.

Here are a few parts of the article…

Ferberization is the process of “training”an infant to sleep by ignoring her crying. As a family physician, I used to advocate the Ferber technique and, as a parent, practised it myself. Since then, I have come to believe that the method is harmful to infant development and to a child’s long-term emotional health.

Ferberization seems simple: “After about one week, your infant will learn that crying earns nothing more than a brief check from you, and isn’t worth the effort. She’ll learn to fall asleep on her own, without your help, reads Dr. Ferber’s advice. The question is, what else does a baby learn when treated this way and what is the impact of such learning?

People cannot consciously recall what they “learned” in the first year of life, because the brain structures that store narrative memory are not yet developed. But neuropsychological research has established that human beings have a far more powerful memory system imprinted in their nervous systems called intrinsic memory. Intrinsic memory encodes the emotional aspects of early experience, mostly in the prefrontal lobe of the brain. These emotional memories may last a lifetime. Without any recall of the events that originally encoded them, they serve as a template for how we perceive the world and how we react to later occurrences.

Is the world a friendly and nurturing place, or an indifferent or even hostile one? Can we trust other human beings to recognize, understand and honour our needs, or do we have to shut down emotionally to protect ourselves from feeling vulnerable? These are fundamental questions that we resolve largely with our implicit memory system rather than with our conscious minds. As psychologist and leading memory researcher Daniel Schacter has written, intrinsic memory is active “when people are influenced by past experience without any awareness that they are remembering.”

The implicit message an infant receives from having her cries ignored is that the world “as represented by her caregivers” is indifferent to her feelings. That is not at all what loving parents intend.

Unfortunately, it’s not parental intentions that a baby integrates into her world view, but how parents respond to her. This is why, if I could relive my life, I would do much of my parenting differently.

When the infant falls asleep after a period of wailing and frustrated cries for help, it is not that she has learned the “skill”of falling asleep. What has happened is that her brain, to escape the overwhelming pain of abandonment, shuts down. It’s an automatic neurological mechanism. In effect, the baby gives up. The short-term goal of the exhausted parents has been achieved, but at the price of harming the child’s  long-term emotional vulnerability. Encoded in her cortex is an implicit sense of a non-caring universe.

The baby who cries for the parent is not engaging in “tyranny”, she is expressing her deepest need.. emotional and physical contact with the parent. The deceptive convenience of Ferberization is one more way in which our society fails the needs of the developing child.

There is no lack of support for these moms either (on one blog there were hundreds of comments that supported CIO for a 6 month old). Even if it feels wrong to do it of they talk about it like it was their only choice and that it was the best thing to do, no one dare contradict them, they just get the stories of others that have done the same… and if someone does contradict them they are labelled as judgemental and “they have never been through it” blah blah blah…. Really, I think that the support is shared because of they really believe that this is the right answer and that because it felt so wrong, if they dare admit that they would have done things differently they would have to live with the guilt of knowing and that they potentially scarred their children for life based on their unrealistic expectations.

If so many children have “sleep issues” and have to be trained out of “desperation” then it is clear that the “sleep issues” are a norm. If they are the norm then it is clear that the real “sleep issues” lie within the parents expectations of the child and not what is physically and physiologically normal for the child. If people would stop fighting their children over when and where their children sleep, then sleep would not be such an issue. If a child wants to sleep in your arms, cuddled near your heart then so be it. Respect them and their needs. If you believe that your child must sleep in their own room alone and they do no want to because they want to be close to you, then recognize that it is not the child’s best interests that are served in such an arangement but it is yours. You are trying to force something that doesn’t feel right for the child, trying to force something that goes against the childs most primal needs. These unrealistic expectations are what leads to sleepless nights for so many people, the child just wants to be close to the person they feel safe with. Then of course, the only way to make the child conform to these expectations is to leave them there, to feel abandoned, to learn that no one will come, to retreat into their own space, to shut down, to give up.

I have to admit that I am “judgemental” when it comes to this and I am not sorry for it. (And no, Colin does not sleep through the night and still wakes up a few times to nurse, and occasionally so does Xavier) However, It is not really the mom that falls in the trap believing that this is the best for her child that I judge (though I cringe and tear up if I read it). It is whole movement in itself, the time-outs, the fear of “spoiling” the CIO…. All practices that work on emotional detachment in order to get what the parent wants while ignoring or denying the negative long term effects. All practices that make children know that their parents love is conditional. Conditional on behavior and time. It is a movement that has led us and will further lead us to a very untrusting and stressed out society.

A comment on a post yesterday got me thinking about this more…

I have to admit that we would also like to have a child of the opposite sex this time, though happiness will come either way…

Before I had kids I would have believed completely that it is nuture not nature that makes such a distinct difference between the sexes, however I now believe differently.

I would like to believe that we are raising the boys in the same way as we would be raising girls. We do not believe that children should repress their feelings and we let the boys express themselves. We provide toys that are unisex and provide dolls and kitchens alongside cars and trains… However, the boys have a clear preference for the “boy” toys, they have times when they will nurture a doll but it is a rare occasion… It is not something that we have taught them but something that seems inherent. When we are with friends that have girls I can also plainly see the difference in the way that they act.

I decided to look for what physical differences could be found between girls and boys and among a large slew of articles on the net. I found a few acticles that made quite a few of sense for me, strangely they are from very mainstream sources.

One article found here: has “10 key differences between boys and girls”
I think that they are really interesting (I shortened them a bit)

Language Lessons: One study found that parts of the female brain that process language are more densely packed with nerve cells than corresponding parts of the male brain. This may explain why girls often begin talking a few months before boys do and usually have better verbal ability.

The Math Equation: The part of the brain that handles space perception is bigger in males — and this may explain why boys are better at thinking about objects in three dimensions. In a French study, for example, 21 percent of 2-year-old boys could build a bridge of blocks, but only 8 percent of girls could. “Spatial ability is one of the most noticeable sex differences, and it gets more pronounced through childhood and adolescence,”

Motor Matters: Better 3-D thinking could explain why boys typically start walking three to four months earlier than girls do and usually outperform them in motor skills such as running and jumping, says Dr. Gur. However, parts of the brain responsible for fine motor skills mature more slowly in boys, so girls outpace boys in finger work such as holding a crayon, zipping a jacket, and learning to write the alphabet.

Girls and Dolls: Better spatial skills also appear to attract boys to toys that move, such as trucks, balls, and anything that can be propelled through space. It’s not just dads pushing guy gear at their sons: Male monkeys also choose action toys in lab studies, so it appears to be a programmed preference. Girls, on the other hand, really do prefer dolls (though not as single-mindedly as boys go for wheels and balls). One reason may be that girls pay more attention to people while boys are more enthralled with mechanical objects.

The Sensitive Gender: Girls’ brains are bigger in an area that interprets events and triggers complicated feelings like sadness and empathy. Boys’ brains are relatively larger in a more primitive area that handles raw, impulsive emotions like fear and anger. Boys are more direct and confrontational, yet they don’t take verbal — or physical — jabs as personally. In some ways, that makes boys better at handling conflict. “When boys fight, they quickly make up,” says Dr. Gur. “Girls remain enemies longer.”

Little Men on the Move: By age 2, boys are noticeably more physical than girls: They’re more likely to run, jump, and play rough-and-tumble games and less likely to stand around and chat. In studies of make-believe play, Dr. Scarlett found that girls tend to act out domestic themes and boys tend to act out death and destruction. “Boys play at power,” he says. “That’s why they love superheroes.”

The Safer Sex: Because they’re sharp analyzers of what goes on around them, girls are better at anticipating the consequences of their actions — which keeps them safer but also makes them more cautious than boys.

The Stress Effect: In animal studies, short-term stress improves memory in males but impairs it in females, suggesting that boys learn better in tense situations such as contests and timed exercises. Female brains, however, appear to weather long-term stress better, which may make a girl more resilient during, say, a bitter, dragged-out divorce between her parents.

All Ears: Preliminary studies suggest that girls tend to have better hearing than boys have. The differences are too subtle to pick up in early auditory tests but may make a difference in classroom behavior

An Eye for Color: Animal research finds that cells in the retina are primed to take in sex hormones, indicating that eyes may develop differently in boys and girls. Other studies suggest that male retinas are better at detecting motion, while female retinas are better at seeing color and texture. As a result, girls tend to draw flowers and butterflies using bright colors, while boys draw cars and spaceships using drabber hues. It’s also well documented that boys are more prone to color blindness than girls are. High-tech scans are letting scientists observe gender differences in parts of the brain responsible for emotions like sadness and empathy.

Here is another Article that is quite a good read…

One thing that stuck out in this article is that the author states this about finding sources that show what she believes

Not only do most of the books currently in print about girls and boys fail to state the basic facts about innate differences between the sexes, many of them promote a bizarre form of political correctness, suggesting that it is somehow chauvinistic even to hint that any innate differences exist between female and male.

Anyways… though I believe that there are very real differences between girls and boys I also believe that the differences should never be used as excuses for behaviors as many parents seem to do.

I believe that we should provide them with the same toys experiences etc and let them make the decisions for what interests them. We should also encourage their interests whether or not we believe that it is “gender appropriate”…

I remember a few years ago when the birth board that I participated on had moms that were scandalized by their nearing 2 year old boys wanting to play with kitchens or brooms… I also talked with a mom recently who is worried about her 2 yo son raiding her closet and wearing her high heels and is now making sure to hide such things from him…

Though I already believed that there was a difference between the sexes, I know that the way kids are raised has as much or even more weight on the outcome and the very real difference between the men and women in our society in the past and at the present moment.

I started reading and posting on a Yahoo group for Canadian UC and it is pretty much bombarded with “god” talk…. Within a few days that I joined the group someone commented on it, just saying that she had trouble getting though all of the “god talk” and finding the message in the text… I agreed with her saying that I was having trouble doing the same and explained that in trying to find information and gather the strength to fully have confidence in my body I would love to read about how others do the same… However, in going through the archive the majority of the messages about preparation and birth are all full of “I had trust in God”, “I knew He would do what is right”, “I prayed to God to tell me what to do”, “I knew that God was with me”… blah blah blah….

So… what happens when you read this and don’t believe that God even exists.. Well you don’t get anything from it and another learning experience is pretty much thrown out the window. So I explained just that… that I have trouble getting what I personally need when all the trust is in God and not in themselves and that I would love to read how people have gained confidence in themselves. I explained that I am searching for this because I am in the “unlearning stage”… Unlearning the idea that pregnancy and birth is a medical problem that needs medical attention, and relearning that Birth and Pregnancy are in most cases are problem free but have problems due to medical intervention.

The response was the usual.. everyone jumped to the conclusion that because we don’t like the God talk and can’t take anything from it, that we automatically are offended by it and we want it all to stop and we want them to hide their faith or stop believing. Then the “tolerance” issue of “I am not offended when I read Pagan, Wiccan and Atheist birth stories, why are you offended by mine?”… “Read this passage in the bible and you will understand why”… “Are we Christians now going to be discriminated against?”…

UGHHHH!!!

I hate it when people jump to the conclusion that when someone talks about their religion and then someone says that they just can’t take anything from it, or can’t relate then they automatically think that we are offended by the “god talk” or that we want them to stop not only talking about it… But it is almost like they think that we want them to stop believing… Why does it automatically become an offensive remark to not believe in the same thing? Are people taught in their churches etc that whoever isn’t with them is against them? That non-believers are out to get them and bring them to the “dark-side”? That Atheists are just out to make them stop believing or that we have pacts with the devil or something?

The devil thing makes me laugh (I have heard this argument before) because an Atheist having a pact with the devil is an oxymoron… the devil is a religious idea and you would actually have to believe in a god to believe in the devil…

I get so annoyed by people assuming that I am offended by them, or think that I am trying to offend them just because I state an opposite opinion. The same goes for aspects of parenting…

“It’s not all about you!!”

A fellow volunteer just called me recently to complain a bit….As breastfeeding counselors we go through waves of people that have problems but will do everything to breastfeed, people that get bad info and would like to try give up easily because “formula is good enough” and then there are people that have problems just because they want to have problems, don’t really want to breastfeed so they make themselves believe that it isn’t going to work so that they won’t feel guilty when they go the chemical way….

I am getting so tired of hearing all of the excuses that people use…. especially when you give them advice and they choose not to follow through with it but just keep on repeating in their head that it isn’t working out (so of course it won’t work out)

I have seen moms that have great breastfeeding relationships go against the advice that we have given and end up not breastfeeding within days or weeks.

The biggest thing is the “not having enough milk” excuse…. This is the one that all women are scared of because they hear it from everyone they know. This is the one that makes breastfeeding not work for many people, this is the one that makes formula companies salivate…

What we explain to moms over and over again and what never gets through is that if you breastfeed on demand and avoid the evil formula you will have enough milk. The minute you supplement a feeding (even with your own milk) you are walking on thin ice….

But, So many women that come to us with problems have this story…

- Baby was born at 37 weeks (the doctor around here LOVES provoking labour at 37 weeks (and gives many reasons for why he does it) and many end up with “emergency” C-Sections…)

- Baby and mom are in the hospital for 3-4 days, during which the baby loses a bit of weight. (completely normal)

- The differences in weight loss between a FF baby and BF baby are not taken into consideration.

- The baby wants to feed often and the mom is told by one or more of the nurses/pediatrician etc… that her baby is in danger because she doesn’t have enough milk and they have to supplement with formula after each nursing session until her milk comes in…. (They are working to become “baby-friendly” so they supplement with a cup)

-Mom and Baby are sent home…

We then get called and we have to explain that she needs to put the baby to the breast on demand and nurse as often as she can and she will have the supply…. they don’t listen though and keep on supplementing… Why? Because everyone around them has told them that they didn’t have enough milk either….

What I would love to know is what do people think women did before the sludge that the formula companies make was around… do they really think that 100 years ago women often just didn’t have enough milk so would just give up feeding their babies… No!!! People did have enough milk because they knew that their milk was the only food available and they had people around them that knew that all women have milk…

What it comes down to in many cases is bad information for many people…. but unknowingly and unwillingly they keep on spreading the rumor that some women just don’t make enough milk….

However, then there is another bunch…. the ones that KNOW breast is best, the ones that know the dangers of Formula (but don’t believe it) the ones that just don’t want to breastfeed but want to alleviate the “guilt”….

These are the ones that I know are not going to keep on breastfeeding from the second I talk to them. They will find any excuse to not breastfeed, they will try and make me say that formula is just as good, they will try and make me agree that their problem just can’t be solved…. they will invent problems and won’t listen to anything we say to help them….They just want to have the peace of mind that “they did everything they could but it just didn’t work out”…. I wish that people that don’t want to breastfeed would just not call me…. I don’t want to be a pawn in their game and I don’t want to waste my breath….

Here is an example I once had…

1st call: breastfeeding going great… I debunk about 10 myths in one phone call (she was trying to find an excuse I know it) things I tell her… supply=demand, feed on need, no bottles before 5-6 weeks, pacifier not recommended for first 5-6 weeks… everything should go well…

2nd call: Her milk came in…She asks….Are my breasts going to be this big the whole time? I tell her no that they will go back to normal (though still a bit full) after a day or two and feel less and less full as time goes on….

3rd Call: breasts feel less baby nursing often, she KNOWS she doesn’t have enough milk… the baby is happy between feedings and has full diapers, I tell her that everything sounds normal…

4th call (about 5 days later): baby not taking breast well… they started a using a pacifier, didn’t think she had enough milk because the baby was nursing every 2-3 hours so she tried pumping and “saw” that she wasn’t making enough… so they went and got formula because the baby was “starving”… I tell her that the pump isn’t a good indicator of amount and that the baby is better at getting milk out… tell her that supply=demand so as long as she feeds when baby wants it then she will have enough milk…. the baby was probably not taking the breast well because they suck differently on the breast then on bottle or pacifier… I advise her to stop the bottle and paci and put baby to the breast often.

I call a few days later… She explains that she knew she wasn’t making enough milk because her baby would cry and wanted the bottle more then the breast and seems much happier now… “but I know I at least “tried” and guess what!! Now I can go out without baby and leave the month old baby with MIL for the night while I get my “much needed rest”…..

I knew at the end of the first call that she would breastfeed. I knew that she was going to use the time that I would spend trying to help her as a way to alleviate the guilt of not giving her child the best food possible….

I am tired of wasting my breath of these people… they take the time away from those who really do want to breastfeed and really do need and want help…

I have been getting the impression more and more lately that people have been adopting the AP label because they believe that to do so they

1) have to be simply be “attached” to their child;

2) attend to their child’s “needs”¦

The problem is that the words “attachment parenting”  automatically makes us assume that the opposite of AP is being “detached”which is simply not the case…

All children are attached to their parents and most parents do what they think is best for their children (I can’t say “all” because I watch the news and it is simply not true)…

Most parents, AP or NOT believe that they are responding to what they think are their baby’s needs… What it comes down to is what they think their child needs, if they are really listening to their child (or hearing what they want to hear) and also what they expect from their child….

What has been bothering me is that more and more people call themselves AP and don’t even agree that the Sears’s 7 B’s are Ideals and seem to only believe that there is only one important one which is “Balance” (therefore giving them the permission to forgo all of the rest in order to maintain balance even if it means CIO, sleeping in a different room, formula feeding, never wearing baby etc)

It is true that you do not have to do all of the 7 b’s to be a Attached Parent but they do remain the ideals and they should be considered and tried as much (and even more) then anything else, they should be the first step and be the natural step…. (The 7 B’s for those who don’t know are these)

• Birth Bonding
• Breastfeeding
• Babywearing
• Bedding Close to Baby (family bed or different beds in the same room)
• Belief in the language of your baby’s cries
• Beware of Baby-Trainers
• Balance

http://www.askdrsears.com/html/10/t130300.asp

However, though the term “Attachment Parenting” started with Dr Sears, it has grown beyond that and has become a philosophy of its own.

This philosophy is to do what comes naturally and instinctively, and the 7 B’s (among others) are part of this instictive reaction, but to do so you must get rid of the expectations that society has put on our children.

We all know why and how these actions work and how they are important in building a relationship of trust and attachment…and there are people that struggle in trying to be AP and fail, and some that just can’t understand AP at all, so what is the difference… we does it work and make sense for some but not for others…?
By design children are Dependant for the first few years of their lives. There is no way around this, there is no denying it…

By Design, 99% of women CAN breastfeed, however, we have not had the experience of learning about breastfeeding from our surroundings because our culture has sexualized the breast and believe that nursing a child shouldn’ be seen. The natural age of a child weaning is between 2.5 and 7 years of age…. weaning a child is most often a result of what we believe is culturally acceptable (for the mom or the child) Sure, “extended” breastfeeding is’t for everyone but why it isn’t for everyone mostly comes from what we believe is culturally acceptable, what we have grown up knowing and is not what we have come to expect from a child after a certain age (3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years etc)…

By design, children most often rather be parented to sleep and sleep through the night when they are ready to do so and some may not be ready to be independent in sleep until much later then we would expect. Our culture however, seems to put the emphasis on teaching babies to self-soothe and see sleeping through the night at a young age as a goal. And even go so far as making it not only the goal but saying that the opposite is unhealthy for the child. If children were really designed to sleep through the night at such a young age then there wouldn’t be so much effort to train them to do so… or so much money made with books and baby-training techniques… When brought into bed with the parents, like we as a species have always done, both parent and child get more sleep, and the child learns by example how to fall asleep when waking at night… For some this happens earlier on… but for most it is much later and it is normal.

By design babies want to be held and want to be in our arms…  Strollers have only been around since 1733 and even then they were only accessible to the richest of the population until the 1930’s and then only became popular to the general public in the 50’s… with another boom in the 70’s with the umbrella stroller… Before strollers, we held our babies, we did so with our arms or we used pieces of cloth to do so. In holding a baby and wearing them they learn to regulate their temperature, learn balance, cry less (proven to cry 50% less), have less or no Colic, are close enough that we can recognize and respond to their cues quickly, etc… in societies that never use strollers women learn how to wear babies when they themselves are children, they learn by example (like they learn breastfeeding, sewing, cooking etc). Most of the time when people say their children don’t like to be worn it is because they don’t know how to use the carrier and become stressed when trying which the child in turn reflects…. they often also try at bad times (when baby is already upset, tired or hungry) and often don’t start at birth…

All of this goes for saying… AP is a return to the roots of what parenting has always been… and a return to what comes naturally instead of what is culturally sanctioned… and there are many cultures that still have AP as the normal way of parenting…

If you really believe that a child should be sleeping through the night at a certain age, should not be held too much or should no longer be held much after a certain age, if you believe that breastfeeding shouldn’t be continued after a certain age, or that formula is just as good as breastfeeding, if you believe that some children just need to be trained to sleep, if you believe that their cries mean nothing at certain times of the day, if you don’t think that the simple need for comfort in the middle of the night is as important as a physical need after a certain month of age, if you believe that there are just some times that a baby really cries for no reason and that there are times that it is best to leave them alone when they do, If you don’t think you have the time to listen and to respond to your child’s every cue… then the parenting path named Attachment Parenting may simply not be for you, and will probably be more of a struggle then anything else. As much as you may want to work, and believe in the ideas and philosophy, it will not work for you easily if you don’t put aside these cultural expectations…

That doesn’t mean that you can’t use the tools that are often associated with Attachment Parenting (such as wearing, co-sleeping etc) and that they won’t work for you throughout stages of your parental life, but they won’t give you the results that you may expect…(and note I didn’t put breastfeeding in that because breastfeeding should always be done no matter what Parenting path you take)

However, If you are not only willing, but able, to let go of what society tells us is the “normal” and “healthy” way to parent, and truly listen to your child and give your child all of the benefits of the doubt, then not only will Attachment Parenting work but it will be far from the struggle and will become as easy and natural as breathing.

Of course, there are times that we are bombarded with messages or advice from others that are not AP, or we can’t help but fall back on the ideas that we have been fed all of our lives, and it is in these times that we need the support of other Attachment Parents and it is why it is important to be able to use the label of Attachment Parenting…

On the board that I Host the last few weeks have been bombarded with “Sleep Issues” and many people coming and saying that CIO can be OK because it is doing what is “best” for baby and mom…

This infuriates me…. There is NO WAY that CIO can be an AP response…

Anyways… a mom there was saying how discouraged she was getting about AP cause she is tired of her 9 month old not sleeping through the night and how she just thinks that AP is the cause of the sleep problems… especially since all of the moms that did CIO at 3 months of age are all sleeping great….

Anyways… I had to respond…

“Here is my opinion on the whole subject… and why I think you should not be discouraged…

First…

There is a big population of kids that are forced to cry themselves to sleep night after night (and it IS emotional damaging and can lead to emotional problems later on in life)

Also Crying to sleep is SOLELY for the benefit of the parent… NOT the child… Crying to sleep is physically and emotionally draining (if you have ever done it then you know how draining it is)… (this is another reason that CIO may also “help” them sleep longer)

Also, CIO is not a one time solution because it has to be done over and over again… Say if a child is sick, or teething and and actually gets a response from their parent then they regain the hope that their parent will come to them when they need it and have to be trained all over again…

Another thing is that kids that CIO or are sleep-trained, DO wake up in the night they just know that if they cry no one cares enough to come… Also like a few of the pp said… some parents just exaggerate and don’t want to admit that they may attend to their child at night because they feel “guilty”….

Also like a pp said… AP parents are maybe more in tune with their parenting style and don’t have as much guilt that their child is not “sleeping through the night”….

So… I think it is NORMAL that a large majority of children are not sleeping through the night…if it wasn’t normal then there wouldn’t be so much money being made in trying to solve “sleep problems” and it wouldn’t be such a big issue…

As for when it comes to AP and “sleep issues”…

Personally… I think that more parents are losing sleep over the idea that their child is not sleeping through the night and also they try to impose what they think a child should be doing instead of letting the child lead… which is more the AP way…

We all know that trying to get a child to sleep when WE are ready for them to go to sleep but THEY are not is a tiring and exasperating struggle… The moms that I know (AP or NOT) that don’t have “sleep issues” are the ones that try and if it doesn’t work then they just let the child have quiet play etc and then try again when they see another sleepy cue…

Also, there is nothing wrong with nursing to sleep… they will wean from it by themselves when they are ready to do so… Nursing to sleep is a great parenting tool and is not a bad habit… Nature has made us in a way that the hormones in warm milk (like breastmilk) help us fall asleep (even some adults have warm milk before going to sleep)…

Also, a point to make is that a FIVE hour stretch is considered “Sleeping through the night” and NOT the 10-12 hours that people boast about…

So if a child is sleeping 8pm to 1am or 12pm -5am then they are sleeping through the night technically…

Of course if we didn’t go to sleep at 7pm.. but went to sleep at 11pm then we have only had a 2 hour sleep if our child wakes at 1am… so of course we are not as well rested… the problem then is with OUR sleeping habits… not the child’s!

Of course we don’t want to go to be at 7pm so instead we can try other things such as “dream-nursing” before we go to bed. Co-sleep so that we don’t have to wake fully etc…

Anyway… my point is that it is normal for many kids to be waking at night…and the problem is more our high expectations (too high) of what they should be doing instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt that will do it when they are ready… also we should look at our individual child and follow their cues instead of looking towards a “sleep expert” or a book… especially since they have never read the book and don’t know that they “should” be doing those things

as for me… I have one child that is nursed to sleep and has been sleeping 10-12 hour nights from the time he was 8 weeks old… and one child that fights sleep like crazy and doesn’t always want to be nursed to sleep and wakes up during the night….both have been parented in the same way.. it is that one was ready (and wouldn’t nap during the day even as a newborn) and the other just still needs me at night…I just don’t stress about it…”

The overall response of the board is to be awaited but it will determine if I am going to stay host or not (and I have been leaning towards resigning for a while now)…

Lately people have been getting the impression that AP is simply having your child be attached to you emotionally and that if you are not an AP parent then you are completely detached…. They also get completely stuck on only one of the 7 B’s (Balance) and seem to be able to dismiss all of the rest (birth bonding, breastfeeding, babywearing, beware of baby trainers, belief in the language value of baby’s cries) and justify dismissing the rest because it will maintain “balance”…

Personally I think the opposite of attachment Parenting is not “detached” but “separation”… They can still be emotionally attached (even a child who is beaten is still emotionally attached to their parents….. and I am Not saying that Mainstream is equal to beating)

But… What I see (and don’t like) about Mainstream parenting is the need and goal of having an independent child at a very young age… They are proud that they can leave their child with anyone… they are proud that they don’t have to hold their child often, they are proud that their child doesn’t care if they are with them or not… they are proud that their child no longer “needs” them…. they also expect that their children shouldn’t need them…

AP is not only about doing what is best for the child but it is about listening to the child and not imposing your expectations on them… Someone who is making their child Cry themselves to Sleep justifies it often by saying that it is what the child “needs” and that they are responding to their childs “need to sleep”…. and can therefore see it in the realm of AP…..But this is NOT AP… this is a mainstream way of thinking…. I don’t think that any mom LIKES to make their child Cry themselves to sleep but they believe that it is in the best interests of the child…. when it is really because of an unrealistic expectation brought on by society…. if they actually listened to what the child needs then there wouldn’t be the need for tears…

Oh my god I wanted to see that woman hurt!!

I have rarely felt this way about anyone but today this woman just made me see red.

\We went to see the “pediatrician” today and it was one of the worst experiences of my life… After almost 2 hours of waiting I got in her office and she didn’t have clue of why we were there until I told her that she is the one that called me about the test results… I let her do her shtick as she explained to me that she wanted to have more blood tests taken to see Colin’s Iron storage levels, she examined Colin (who was amazing like always and let her do her thing without a sound) and then started to explain the papers that she was giving me… I asked her if he was anemic 2 weeks ago when he was in the hospital and he wasn’t, it was just on the last test that his levels were going lower, (his white blood cell count i back to normal btw) then I asked if it could be due to the meds that he had taken or the virus and attempted to show her what I had found but she said that she wouldn’t look at it and said that she has never heard of anemia being caused by such circumstances.. I then asked her if the tests could wait a few weeks so that we could see if it goes up naturally but she didn’t agree and said that it had to be done at that moment and then started to fill out the paper to see a dietician also.

While we were talking, Colin was in the pouch and signed Maju, so I just let him drink…

She got UPSET saying that now he couldn’t get the tests done today cause he is supposed to fast for at least 4 hours… I said in a “joking” kind of way that he would then not have the test for a few more months because he drinks often still, and besides from what I have learned there are to contradictions of breastfeeding before a blood test and it is considered a “clear liquid” just like it is considered a clear liquid before surgery…. she disagreed and said that breast milk is just like any other solid and it can’t be taken for 8 hours prior to surgery (this is NOT true) and then said that I should come first thing in the morning because then he would have been the night without eating… So stupidly I told her that he still eats at night so that i not an option either…

This is when the conversation got heated, first she started telling me about how breast milk after a year has no more nutritional value (but just antibodies) , so I laughed and asked her if it just magically changed overnight at their first birthday or what? She then asked if I give extra Iron and Vit D, because there isn’t enough in breast milk, I said no, but I assure that they have enough sun exposure… she then said that there is not enough Iron in breast milk so it is very important to give supplements… I then said something like Isn’t it true though that there is less Iron in breast milk, but it is absorbed at a rate of 50% compared to the 4-10% absorption in Formula and cow milk and therefore there is actually more Iron that is absorbed when breastfed… she then scuffed it off and then preceded to tell me that as a “Pediatrician” she has a few “rules” that she tells parents and (this became the turning point from frustration to Anger)…

1. Babies should never sleep in their parents bed because it is dangerous blah blah blah… and when I told her that I don’t agree she then told me about a baby that does in the moms bed…. we argued a bit on that point and then she went back and said her first point again and then said

2. they have to be sleeping through the night by 2 months old and then told me about CIO… this is when I kind of exploded, I told her that I actually love my kids and wouldn’t let them CIO because I want them to know that I will always be there for them, I asked her about breastfeeding babies and if she has the same “rule” especially since breast milk is digested easily and she said that by 8 weeks old babies no longer need to eat at night and they need to start to learn to be independent, she then told me that she is a doctor not a psychologist and she just says what she believes it to be better medially … I stood up at that point and started to leave…While I started picking up everything and started to head out of the door I asked her if she truly thought that a 2 month old needed to be trained how to be independent, and if it sleeping though the night was truly a medical issue, and I started to go for the paper on her desk, and this is where it really got to me… she didn’t let me pick up my paper on her desk for the blood test and continued in her rant about how dangerous it was to co-sleep and how she is a doctor etc… I told her at that point that she was crazy…(she answered by saying that I shouldn’t call a “pediatrician” crazy)….

I then took the papers from her hand and left….

This is what I was talking about the other day when I said that I can’t understand why people actually listen to idiots like her…

Why the hell did I have that kind of conversation when I was going in to check his blood for Iron? Why do these idiots think that their medical degree gives them the right to give out parenting advice especially to someone that didn’t need it and didn’t ask for it…

I left there feeling like I wanted to hit something, I wanted to hit her, I was shaking, I had tears in my eyes, I was upset and everything that I was in there in the first place was taken out of my head by her ignorance and stupidity, if she doesn’t even know the basics about breastfeeding how can I trust that she knows the basics about other things….

Without thinking, I headed to the blood test room… I asked them if it was OK if he had nursed before and they told me that breast milk is fine before a blood test and won’t change a thing. I asked if it was possible to keep him in the pouch like the last blood test we had taken and she said no and that she had to go in his arm.. I looked at her and asked if she was serious, Looked at Colin, thought it though a minute, and then asked if the paper would still be good in a few weeks and she said yes… I went back to the secretary and asked fer the prescription back…

I then headed across the hall to the archives room and asked to get a copy of Colin’s file. (I will have it at the beginning of next week) and then headed back to the blood test room and asked if I get the test done in a few weeks if I can just get the results myself so that I can bring them to the doctor of my choice and they said that there shouldn’t be a problem.

So….Here is my plan….

I love my family doctor even though he is an hour away and I don’t want to ever see that woman again… so I called my Family doctor when we got home, told him a bit about the situation and asked if it would be ok to just go get a blood test in a few weeks and then go see him with the results of the blood test and his medical file… he said that he would be happy to do that with me and that there is no problem waiting a few weeks (as long as it isn’t a few months) to see if things have improved and that he would be there when I was ready… he did however say that it would be better to make sure that he is eating well and to provide some high iron foods in the meantime to help him get his storage up…

So, though I didn’t want to go see dietitian I just took an appointment anyways.. I think it could be a good opportunity to ask a few questions about diet… best foods for iron, calcium and other vitamins and what food should be taken together etc to best help absorb…. especially because I would like to shift towards a more vegetarian diet and I have an older picky eater …

When Colin was at the hospital and I was anxious to get home I mentioned to the doctor that I had another nursling at home and she dared to comment on it!
She at first looked surprised and then asked how old he was and I told her that he was just about 3 and a half…
she then said it was time to wean him !!!!
OK… First I was already stressed and on edge cause I wanted them to get him of the Serum but that just hit me like a ton of bricks… but I am proud of myself… Everything came out perfectly and without a thought… every little reason she gave I responded without skipping a beat and I am actually happy that we did have the conversation in a way…
It went a bit like this….

Dr: You should wean him!
Me: Why?
Dr: He is 3.5… that’s too old?
Me: Actually 3.5 is young in my opinion…
Dr: But he is too old to be nursing still.
Me: Actually, the natural weaning age is between 2.5 and 7 years old, so he is still near the beginning… and I don’t believe in premature weaning.
Dr: But it must drain your energy.
Me: Why would that happen?
Dr: But he has teeth…
Me: So!… sometimes a 4 month old has teeth… would you advise the mom to wean because of that?
Dr: No… that’s true… you’re just the first person I have met that has nursed this long…

A bit later she heard me talking, saying that I have to go to Montreal to see our family doctor for the kids and she offered to be their ped (this is also after she found out that I am not vaxing)

Anyways…Even though I am OK with the conversation I can’t believe that a doctor would have the gall to actually comment on breastfeeding…. I know I hear others that rant about their awful, misinformed doctors but I am lucky that I never had experienced it until now…
The problem is that to be a breastfeeding counsellor we have to have to go through the Training that is put in place for Unicef’s “Baby-Friendly Initiative”
The nurses and Doctors at the hospitals that are working to become”Baby-Friendly” also have to go through the same training.
The Big problem is that that doctors are the ones that are most often not doing the training and hindering the hospitals. These know-it-alls actually know nothing about breastfeeding and they are the ones that have the most weight in the minds of most parents… and when they are given the chance to learn they don’t even want to do it!
How can people put all of their trust in these people?
Another thing that Irks me is parenting advice… Why the HECK do people take parenting advice from doctors! Why is the opinion of one person better then the instincts of a parent? Besides… in most cases with the hours that doctors are away from their homes and away from their children how can you expect them to know what they are talking about… I know there are some good docs out there that do have good parenting advice but I don’t think that a doctor’s office is the place to exchange that advice…

What I love about my Family Doc in Montreal is that he is always eager to learn. We don’t always agree but when it happens he rather exchange info then just try to convince me. He never gives advice that is out of the medical realm. He has never talked about sleep, feeding, potty-training etc… He doesn’t believe that parenting advice should be part of the doctor/ patient-parent relationship…

However, I find Montreal to be far away if I have a sick child to bring in… It’s a good hour drive, mostly highway, pretty rough stretches in the winter and about 30$ worth of gas… so I am debating whether to take this doc as a Ped. for the kids (not even 10 mins away)… even if she dared to say something about my nursing relationship, and I would keep the family doc anyways.