back home

We are home again.  Safe and sound (more or less).

We returned home after a grueling flight (let’s just say that Curious J does NOT enjoy flying!) to a house replete with freshly shampooed carpets and freshly mopped floors (thanks, Chris!).  My newly sharpened Cutco knives also arrived via FedEx today, and I’m very pleased that our joint arrivals coordinated so perfectly.  We returned home to a minivan with solid brakes, a house with lots of space in which to spread out, and I discovered that in our suitcases, all the breakables of my grandmother’s that I had carefully wrapped and packed — arrived safely!  Yeah!

However, we also returned home with one sad daughter in tow.  Lyd did NOT want to return home; she passionately wanted to stay in Wisconsin.  She had further deepened her relationships with family and friends, as well as established some new relationships, and she was very reluctant to give those up.  There were mighty tears, but sad tears, not tantrum tears.  This was the same kind of sadness we last saw when her friend moved away.

She kept asking JJ and I, “When are we coming back to Wisconsin?”  And the answer is: We don’t know.  Airline tickets have doubled in price since we bought our tickets back in April.  $300 a ticket for 3 people is one thing, and not something to be sneezed at.  But consider $600 a ticket for 3 people?  Ugh.

Honestly, I was right there with Lyd.  I didn’t want to leave Wisconsin either, for reasons I will elaborate on another day.  Suffice to say, it was WONDERFUL being around family, especially around family who are examples of the kind of person you want to be some day.  I didn’t realize how much I missed that until I was immersed in family.

Yet, home we are.  And it IS nice to be back.  To help Lyd realize that there are good things about being back in California (and also because the refrigerator was empty), we went out to eat at Lyd’s favorite restaurant tonight, Baja Fresh.  THAT’S a chain you don’t find in Wisconsin!  Our local Baja Fresh is located across the street from the Caltrain tracks, and as we ate supper early, 5pm (7pm WI time), we saw at least 7 trains speed by while we were eating, and that cheered Lyd up a lot.  There’s no Caltrains in Wisconsin, either! 

Tonight Lyd was feeling better when I put her to bed.  And tomorrow is another day that will have new exciting things to do.  I hope we all sleep well tonight in our own beds.  For JJ and I, sleeping on our own mattress is the best part of coming home.

Babywise by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam

On Becoming Babywise: Book One

by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam, M.D.

First of all, I should state that my edition of this book is copyrighted 1998, and I know it’s been revised and updated since then, so bear that in mind.

Ah, Babydumbwise.  I saved the controversial book for last.  If you click on the link above, you’ll go to the amazon.com website, where you’ll see 2/3 of the people give the book 4 or 5 stars, but 1/3 of the people give it 1 or 2 stars.  Some parents swear by this book, other parents claim this book promotes child abuse.  You’ll have to read it and decide for yourself.  I’ll give you my opinion, however, because this is my blog .  Here goes…

There is some good advice in this book about putting baby on a schedule and tips on how to incorporate your baby into your life, rather than having your life completely revolve around the baby.  That said, most of the good advice in here is stated far better in other books, and while, yes, you can’t revolve your life around a baby, at the same time a new mother’s life should revolve around the baby, especially in the first weeks of life.  That’s the best way to promote bonding and attachment, as well as to firmly establish the breastfeeding relationship, which can take up to 8 weeks to really feel comfortable (says Emily as she frantically waves her hand in the air and says, “That was me!  Eight weeks!  With Baby J!  And I had already successfully breastfeed Lyd before that!”).

I didn’t read this book until my first daughter was no longer an infant, past the age range of this book.  I had already been introduced to attachment parenting (AP) by then, and while I still don’t consider myself a full-blown attachment parenter, I definitely use some AP ideas in my own parenting.  However, what struck me instantly on reading this book is how the author creates straw-man arguements between Babywise parenting and AP.  Babywise parenting is All Good, and AP is All Bad.  The picture the author draws of AP is not a true picture at all, and if I had heard nothing about AP before I read the book, I would be completely biased against AP.  So, reading the author’s stupid analysis of AP biased me against the book, because I know that’s not what AP is.

The other problem with Babywise is that not all babies take to a schedule the way Babywise thinks babies should.  Neither of MY daughters have!  So, if I buy into the teachings of this book, then if my baby doesn’t fit the Babywise mold, the problem either lies with me, that I’m just not doing it right, or the problem lies with my baby, that something is wrong with her.  I don’t like either of those assumptions.  I don’t need ANY MORE GUILT as a parent than I already am dragging around with me, thank you very much.  I can create all the guilt I need BY MYSELF; I don’t need any book telling me that I’m parenting “wrong.”  Secondly, I resent the assumption that something is wrong with my child if she doesn’t fall neatly into the pattern laid out in the book.  NOTHING is wrong with my baby!!  She is just fine; she is her own person!  Stop making me feel bad about my baby!

There.  Got that off my chest.

Now, I can, more calmly, go on to say that there are some nice ideal schedules in this book that might be useful to a new mom, especially for a woman who has not grown up around babies and infants.  But at the same time, you have to be willing to adapt to your baby’s needs regardless of what the schedule is.  This book pays lip service to being sensitive to your baby’s needs, but the whole tone of the book says that you should not let your baby push you around, and you have to be the parent in charge.  When you consider that this book is written for the parents of infants 0 – 5 months old, that’s a little strict, in my opinion.

Now, if Babywise works for you and your child, great.  More power to you.  But the danger with this book, and why some people are so vehemently against it (besides the points I yelled out above) is the book’s idea of a parent-directed feeding schedule.  The author encourages the parents to decide when their child eats, rather than doing “demand feeding,” an AP term, which the author apparently assumes means that AP’ers only feed their baby when s/he shows hunger cues.  If it weren’t for the book’s parent-directed feeding philosophy, then parents wouldn’t know that they should feed a child, even when that child is not displaying hunger cues.  Where does the author come UP with this nonsense?  That is so NOT what attachment parenters do!  Anyway, the author says that when the baby wakes up, s/he should be fed, then should have some waketime, and then back to bed for a nap.  This routine takes place over 3 hours.  (This routine in itself isn’t bad, and if it works for you, great!)  Parents are encouraged not to feed their babies in-between times, and to definitely not nurse their child at naptimes or even (God forbid!) nurse the baby to sleep.  (What??)  Unfortunately, there have been parents who have followed this schedule too strictly and have allowed the baby to nurse only at specified times, which meant the mother’s breasts didn’t get the stimulation needed to build up a good milk supply, which meant the baby didn’t get enough to eat, and when the baby was finally taken to the doctor, it got a ”failure to thrive” label.  Now, that’s not likely to happen to most people, and in fairness to the book, it does lay out criteria that you can use to make sure your baby is growing adaquately, but it serves as an example of the authoritative tone in this book, a tone of This Is How You Should Parent.  Personally, I don’t buy into the idea that there’s only one right way to parent a baby.

Like I said, there are some good tidbits of advice in this book that I have used with my girls.  The “eat-wake-sleep” schedule worked well with Lyd, although she did it on a 2-hour schedule, not a 3-hour schedule.  However, it did not work with Baby J.  I tried and tried to get her to do that routine, and it just never worked.  When I finally gave up, and did what she wanted, which was an “eat-wake-eat-sleep” schedule, she finally developed regular naps and became a much happier baby.  But she followed a 3-hour schedule, whereas Lyd did not.  So, you have to be willing to know your baby and work with your baby, not try to force your baby into doing it the “right” way.

Beware, another rant coming on here.  In the chapter “Facts on Feeding,” the author says that feeding schedules have an impact on sleep schedules.  Not true.  I’ve read a lot of research on this, and no other doctor out there (that I’ve come across, please prove me wrong) says this is true, with the obvious exception of the fact that a hungry child won’t sleep well.  But, to suggest that when you put food in your child’s belly is a main factor in whether or not your child sleeps well at night is bogus.  Read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child if you want to learn the facts on babies and sleep.  And that author, whose life work has been to study sleep in children, says that most babies don’t begin to establish regular sleeping schedules until at least 8 weeks, and many don’t establish them until 3, 4, 5 or even 6 months.  He also says that feeding and feeding schedules have NOTHING to do with sleep habits.

Speaking of sleep, the author promotes letting your baby cry themselves to sleep, even from a young age.  While I have done that with both of my babies, I wouldn’t dare do it in the first three months of their life at least.  I think I started doing it with Lyd around 5 months and with Baby J around 6 months.  In many health and sleep professionals view, it’s highly ill-advised to let a baby younger than 3 months cry it out.  If babies are crying at that age, it’s because they need something.  Little newborn infants just don’t have the capacity to be stubborn or rebellious at that age.  And to insinuate that putting a baby to breast when it’s fussy isn’t always the best idea — well, maybe it isn’t ALWAYS the best idea, but it’s a pretty sure-fire idea to have at your disposal.  To suggest, even mildly, that a mother NOT do that is to insinuate that breastfeeding isn’t always good enough.  It’s part of the subtle attacks on breastfeeding that are peppered all over this book.

Finally, while this book does promote breastfeeding in the first months of a baby’s life, it also says that the nutritional value of breastmilk declines after six months, which is simply not true.  The nutritional value changes, but it certainly doesn’t decline!  To be fair, perhaps this is a fault of the 1998 version, and newer versions don’t have this false fact.  But although the book says that ”breast is best,” there are many subtle statements in the book that create the idea that a bottle is just as good.  And another false fact stated in this book regarding feeding and sleep is that “It is not what goes in the mouth as much as when it goes in.”  This is SO false!  Breastmilk IS digested faster than formula; it’s supposed to be that way.  Now maybe you’ll be a lucky one and your child will sleep through the night early despite being breast-fed, but that’s certainly not every mother.  And to insinuate that there’s no difference between the two is going to potentially set a mother up for failure.  Either her child won’t get enough to eat and will be hungry and fussy much of the time, or the mother will give up breastfeeding and start feeding the baby formula, making the baby “settle down,” and the mother will think that she just wasn’t meant to breastfeed.

Like I stated earlier, if this book worked for you, great.  But I’m thankful I didn’t read it with my first child, because my parenting experience would have been very different.  I have gleaned some good tidbits from this book, but I found those good tidbits floating amidst a sea of lousy advice.

And as for the author, Gary Ezzo, apparently he’s … got issues.  The American Academy of Pediatrics and breastfeeding professionals have many concerns about the infant feeding advice promoted in Babywise.  Read about those problems at http://www.ezzo.info/  He apparently has had problems with his church, too, and has been publicly denounced.  So…

There is good advice in this book, but you can find that same good advice in far superior books.  Read it if you feel the need, but, like ANY book, don’t follow it blindly.  Read, research, and make your own decision that works best for your family and your particular baby.

For stories of people who initially thought Babywise was a good idea, but then had problems with it later, read here.