http://rixarixa.blogspot.com/2009/01/just-birth.html

At its core, birth is so simple and yet such a mystery.

http://infantsleep.org/cryingitoutresearch.html

Hats off again to my friend over at phdinparenting blog for passing this information along.  It is our duty – responsibility – to ensure parents get the correct legitimate information they need from reliable sources, rather than from amateur chat rooms where the only advice that is given (or rather listened to) is by brand new mothers or mothers who are simply following the bandwagon mentality.  Or those given the BabyWise book at their babyshower, and think it’s a baby bible!

She really nails it when she finishes her blog past with her statement on ”mommy instincts”.

Does this saying, or a form thereof, make anyone else want to wrap their head in ducttape lest it explode?

This, along with “they will NEVER leave your bed/stop using a pacifier/fall asleep on their own if you rock them/stop their bottle/insert any other ‘bad’ habit here”, are a some of perhaps the most ignorant statements I read in today’s parenting chat rooms.  For example, if you co-sleep, they will NEVER leave your bed (yeah, my high schooler barely fits in anymore, right?)… the list goes on and on.

But the one that kills me, my biggest pet parenting peeve in the world, is the whole “my mother left me alone in a room all by myself to cry myself to sleep every night and I’m okay”.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

This whole theory that one does not need to parent a child to sleep needs to stop.  This whole mainstream Western Culture belief that you must “train” an infant to sleep, that it’s a bad thing to parent from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m., that your infant has the biological, physical, and emotional ability to not only put themselves to sleep but also sleep throught the night from weeks of age on, MUST END. 

PERIOD.

Like a lot of things, when one grows up living it, the circle is rarely broken so that one perpetuates the behavior in their own lives.  Hitting a child (whoops, sorry – those that hit their kids prefer the term “spank”), abandoning them to cry themselves to sleep, etc. etc.  Usually, when it’s done to you as a child, you assume it’s okay to do it to your child.

Well, it’s not.

When I was a baby, carseats weren’t a law.  And I’m okay now.  Does that mean my children don’t need them?  Absolutely not.

When I was a teenager, seatbelts weren’t law.  Does that mean today I can go without them, because “I’m okay”?  Nope.

Lots of women are victims of domestic violence.  Today they’re okay.  Does that make wife beating okay?  Shouldn’t even need to answer that one.

Your mother may have given you condensed milk and karo syrup as a baby.  Or started you on that awful boxed pureed cardboard - I mean rice cereal - at just a few weeks old.  And you appear to be okay now.  So does that mean you should do the same?  ABSOLUTELY NOT.  We now have proof - undisputable proof – that an infant should not have anything other than breastmilk (definitely preferred) or formula for the first six months of life.

But hey, your mom gave it to you, and you’re okay.  At least those of you not fighting allergies, obesity, diabetes, or other health problems that you probably didn’t realize were caused by the early introduction to solids.

But that’s not nearly the horror of the practice of  leaving your child alone to cry.  The whole theory behind “cry it out” is to train your infant to sleep without needing you.  The mom or dad.  The one who chose to let the sperm hit the egg, knowing your life was going to change (at least I assume you knew that) and you may not be as free as you was before.  Yup – you may have to miss an episode of Grey’s Anatomy to take care of your baby.  Yup – you may have to get up in the middle of the night to soothe a baby.  That’s called PARENTING.  It doesn’t end at 8 p.m. when you think it’s time for baby to go to sleep (or your TIVO’d soap opera is ready to be watched).   But to read that “your baby will NEVER get to sleep if you don’t do it” makes ME want to cry.  Your child isn’t learning to self-soothe.  Your child is learning to GIVE UP.

There is real evidence – real studies, real proof – that this method is harmful to a baby.  You spent nine months under the paranoid impression you couldn’t even so much as smell a cup of coffee, eat a ham sandwich, or sleep on your back because of the love/safety/security of your baby, yet you give birth to this little miracle and immediately think you need to start neglecting him -  I mean TRAINING him.  What’s wrong with this picture?  Some start this unacceptable practice when their little precious bundle is but a few weeks old.  How horrifying for that little being, barely out of the comfort of her mama’s womb, to be taught that no one cares because it’s dark outside?  What a scary place that must make a crib or a bedroom for her.  How sad that her little heart is racing, her blood pressure is rising, she has endorphins and hormones being released to her brain causing harm, her eyes seek out someone to hold her but no one’s there, her little arms and legs quiver with the sadness and fear she feels.

But that’s okay – you get to watch CSI without interruption.  You GO, mom!

I have had the information requested enough times that I figure I will blog it for you.  For those that are vaccinating your babies, and doing so with a delayed schedule (see mine here), I did find the place that will send the MMR vaccine in separate shots to your doctor. 

American Medicine will send them to your doc for about $135.00.   Well worth it, in my opinion!!!  I’ll be ordering them next month – they have a shelf life of about 18 months, so I still haven’t decided when she’ll get them.  Probably one every three or five months, I don’t know.

Hope that helps!

 

SEE THIS POST.  APPARENTLY SEPARATE MMR VAX NOT AVAILABLE – TEMPORARY OR PERMANENT, WE DON’T KNOW.

For finally publishing correct information.

http://www.todaysparent.com/baby/behaviordevelopment/article.jsp?content=20081027_134032_13100&page=1

It’s about time a “mainstream” publication actually talks and promotes about attachment parenting (for those that don’t know what this is, it’s just NATURAL LOVING parenting, following baby’s cues, not trying to train a baby to be an adult from the moment of birth), the fact that “spoiling” a baby is a myth and ridiculous notion, and that responding to your baby’s needs is crucial. 

Let’s hope, with all of our hearts, that every other publication, every doctor, and every “expert” that publishes horrid parenting books also stop talking about neglect (crying it out), that co-sleeping is awful (it is in fact natural and nurturing, one of the best things a parent can do for their baby), and on and on and on.

“Spoiling” is in fact beneficial

The kind of responsive care of infants that some people call “spoiling” is in fact beneficial, according to Barr and other researchers:

• It reduces crying. The !Kung San babies, for example, cry 50 percent less than babies in North America.

I just can’t even express how happy I am to see them write this - that babies who are not left to cry it out actually cry LESS.  Maybe it’s because they know they’re loved, instead of ignored.  People, pay attention.

 

…People who think that this kind of responsive care will lead to wimpy, dependent, self-centred older children or adults might consider the experiences of other cultures. Barr studied the !Kung San hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari Desert who carry their babies all the time when they’re awake and sleep with their babies skin to skin. They nurse on average about every 13 minutes, and they respond to every fret and whimper within seconds.

“And there’s nothing wimpy about the !Kung San,” says Barr. “The young boys are expected to go out into the woods and hunt wild boar, alone, and they are both brave and independent. The concept that this kind of care for infants makes them grow up to be wimps is simply not true.”

Hats off to Today’s Parent for wising up!  Come on everyone else!!!

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/11/17/081117crbo_books_acocella

Will the child be permanently affected by the fate of the hamster? Did he touch the corpse, and get a germ?

As children explore their environment by themselves—making decisions, taking chances, coping with any attendant anxiety or frustration—their neurological equipment becomes increasingly sophisticated, Marano says. “Dendrites sprout. Synapses form.” If, on the other hand, children are protected from such trial-and-error learning, their nervous systems “literally shrink.”

As for children’s safety, Honoré makes what will no doubt be the controversial recommendation that we stop fretting about it.

Allergy rates in children are rising throughout the industrialized world. Honoré blames this on oversanitized environments

“How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent” – that’s the byline.  This is really a great book, Meredith Small did a phenom job. So I thought I’d note some highlights as I re-read it!

Discussing the evolution of babies, she goes on to discuss birthing practices.  She says, and I quote:

In the 1960’s, a slow revolution in birthing practices began in Western culture.  …the medical establishment realized the importance of physical proximity on the bonding process and babies were not necessarily removed to the nursery.  The feminist movement in the 1970’s, which helped women assert their wishes, furthered that revolution as it gave female nurses and mothers the support to demand that mother and father be integrated back into the early infant experience.  In 1976 two obstetricians, Marshall Klaus and John Kennell, based on their research, theorized that there is a critical early – and limited – period for human mother-infant bonding.  They noted a higher incidence of infant abuse and failure-to-thrive children among premature infants; because the infants were premature and had been sequestered in nurseries and away from their mothers, there had been, these doctors suggested, a breakdown of the normal mother-infant bond.  They found that although 7 to 8 percent of live infants are born premature, 24 to 41 percent of battered were preemies.  They surmised that a critical period of attachment has passed by the time the baby was sent home, and that the mother-infant pair consequently lacked the essential positive bond that links them together in a healthy emotional and physical way.

She goes on to explain that the “rooming in” philosophy got strong around 1978, when mothers were encouraged not to ever send babies to the nurseries, and care for the premature infant is possible, at times, bedside with the mother.

I find this fascinating.  Someday I hope we have even more solid statistics on the benefits of staying out of the hospital altogether, having home births and birthing center experiences.

So I think next week I’ll be re-reading my book “Our Babies, Ourselves” by Meredith Small.  This is a phenom book, very well written, very easy read.  I highly recommend it… so I think I’ll be picking out my favorite excerpts from it for “discussion”.

A much needed break from the stress of Obamabots and the awesome hero McCain…

ABOUT THE BOOK, Baby Matters

“The extensively documented Baby Matters… could serve as an attachment parenting primer, covering breastfeeding, bonding, and cosleeping. Palmer also pays a lot of attention to food allergies and immunity protection. ” — Mothering magazine

“The greatest discovery is that the science supports natural, instinctual parenting over all else.”    – Dr. Linda F. Palmer

• Today our newest neurological studies and hormonal findings serve to re-prove what the attachment psychologists were trying to tell us in 60’s and 70’s.
• What has come to be known as “Attachment Parenting” more often develops children who actually become more independent, as well as healthier and more psychologically secure.

 

Parents have been encouraged that responding to their baby’s pleas for affection and attention would only “spoil” them. Yet, I have found no sound research to support any long-term benefits from such detached parenting. In fact, a mountain of studies suggest quite the opposite — that responsive parenting is best.

 

 

You are stunning in every way anyways, but you are made even more beautiful and absolutely incredible by letting your touching picture be published.  What a fantastic woman you are!

And to those “offended”, please go crawl back under your rock.  How dare anyone speak out against the most natural, nurturing, loving thing any mother can do for her babies.  You truly have issues with YOURSELF, not with the act of breastfeeding.  Get medical help.  Drugs.  Kevorkian.  Whatever you need to get over it.  We’re over YOU.

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