text:
I always felt very attached to my baby, but compared to my second born, she was actually too independent. I would even say, she was unattached emotionally and we didn't even know what we were missing. I am grateful our 3-year-old has recovered, but we will never have those early years to do over again.
I am an American girl who has seen Tim McGraw live 18 times and as traditional as they come. I do not, however, participate in baby showers. This ceremonial welcoming of a baby rarely treats birth with reverence. I believe women can - and should - birth naturally and breastfeed their babies. The American way of having babies is in crisis. This is an educational blog; exploring birth, breastfeeding, & attachment parenting. I am a Natural Childbirth Educator and this is my voice.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Confessions of a Former Babywise Advocate
I always felt very attached to my baby, but compared to my second born, she was actually too independent. I would even say, she was unattached emotionally and we didn't even know what we were missing. I am grateful our 3-year-old has recovered, but we will never have those early years to do over again.
54 comments:
- Alli said...
I simply have to speak up about BabyWise because some parents talk about it and I wonder if we read the same book. Babywise advocates a pattern to your day, not a tick-tock, by the clock schedule. If we aren't home for my son's general naptime, he takes a snooze in the car to wherever we're going. If he's going through a growth spurt, he does eat more often - the book says if your kid is hungry, feed him! Don't let him starve because the clock isn't right. (Btw, I also get blood sugar drops if I don't eat soon enough.)
There is a reason children like shows (if you allow tv time for the older ones) like Sesame Street and Blues Clues - there is a predictable pattern to them. Kids don't have any sense of the time of day unless they know what's coming next. But again - it's a pattern, not a to-the-second schedule.
We have many things like this - we have a getting-ready-for bed schedule: bath time, lotion, massage time, story time, bed time. But, if it doesn't happen one night, big deal, we go back to it the next night.
- April 30, 2012 at 8:28 AM
- Kim said...
I agree with Alli. I think many people misread BabyWise. It is about a pattern for the day, not a regimented schedule. They do give examples of what a day might look like with times stated, but is an example meant to help new parents better understand how the pattern works. The author is adamant that you don't JUST follow the clock. It is a balance of following your child's cues and following a predictable pattern on most days. Almost all adults have a pattern to our day (wake up, eat breakfast, get dressed, go to work or housework, eat lunch...) so I think it is perfectly reasonable that many babies prefer this model and predictability in their lives. I also think that natural-born personality plays a role in what method works best for each child. My first would have been a wreck on a free-for-all schedule. My second was premature, suffered from colic for several months, and is a more adventurous personality- he has never been as regimented, but now that he's older (15 mo) he does thrive in a predictable pattern.
Also, I considered co-sleeping with my second and still wish I had tried for longer. However, I just cannot sleep with a little one in the bed. My baby might have liked it, but I would have been one grouchy momma if I never got any sleep.
Whatever end of the spectrum a parent finds himself/herself on, I think it is only right and fair to not judge the other side. Within a family, it is very possible that what works for one child doesn't work for another. There are many factors that play a role in determining what method works best, such as the child's and parents' personalities, the parents' daily schedules (work inside or outside the home & the time of work shifts), other siblings' needs, other conditions the baby may have (such as prematurity, difficulty gaining weight, chronic illness). Each family has to decide what works best for them and their children. Then, do your best not to judge others. :)
- April 30, 2012 at 9:49 AM
- Regina said...
I agree with the previous poster Alli. I have never read baby wise or any attachment parenting book, but if I had to pick one it WOULDN'T be attachment parenting! Kids, toddlers, even babies NEED a general guideline for things. At least mine do. And of course your baby has a melt down if you are out and about and it is their nap time! They are tired! EVERYONE (even grown adults) get grumpy when they are over tired!
Babies need sleep. I HATE it when people say, "He'll sleep when he's tired." Ummm, no he won't. He will stay awake and be grumpy and fussy and cry. And then, because he lacks sleep from the night before, he will do it all again the next day.
I certainly don't have a set "time" for things. I can't say "My baby will nap from 1-2:30." But I can say "My baby usually gets tired about an hour after lunch and will sleep for about 2.5 hours" It is a routine. And it works. Every one of my babies have slept through the night (and by that I mean 10-12 hours....not 5) by 8-9 weeks. Even my exclusively breast fed baby. And none have ever been made to cry it out.
With breastfeeding, we also have a routine. He eats usually 5 times a day. Usually just from one side, sometimes both. Very rarely, but sometimes he will cry when we put him to bed for the night (like last night)so I pick him up and feed him some more and then he goes to bed.
The author of this post talks about parenting being more than a schedule and how being a mom doesn't end at night. Well, It doesn't end for ANY mom. Even the ones who take their babies to their crib to sleep through the night.
As the parent, as the ADULT, it is our job to make sure our kids needs are met. ALL needs and I'm sorry to say that eating and sleeping are a BIG part of what a baby needs. So while all of the other fluffy lovey dovey stuff is great, I care more that my baby has a good nap than I do about being able to be out and about on a whim.
- April 30, 2012 at 9:56 AM
- Regina said...
I re-read my comment and hopefully my use of exclamation points and capital letters don't make me come across rude! Donna, you know I love you. You also know I disagree with you on attachment parenting and the use of nursing covers. But again, nothin' but LOVE!! :)
- April 30, 2012 at 10:02 AM
- Kaitlin @ More Like Mary said...
I'm surprised by these comments! I thought this was a great reflection of what worked for this family. And a great comparison of two different ideas of mothering.
Thanks for sharing it!
- April 30, 2012 at 10:12 AM
- momto5 said...
interesting. i think people don't get attachment parenting at all. it is about being attached to your child, filling their needs, especially when they are a wee tiny babe. what they need is milk, and to be close to their mother. a baby will fall into a pattern, BUT they find that pattern. it isn't up to the parent to say when they are hungry or tired, they know it themselves. having AP'd with 6 children (the first two without even knowing it was an actual thing with a title) they have all fallen in to a pattern. just like myself. no one demands i eat at a certain time or sleep at this time. i eat when i am hungry and sleep when i am tired. and just like myself, my kids love to sleep with someone instead of alone in a crib down the hall. carrying them around is just easier (at least for me). i don't feel it is spoiling or impeding me, it is keeping someone who is unable to care for themselves, super close. like how we all would like to be if we were in a similar state.
and your days do naturally fall into a nice ebb and flow. we get up close to the same time, go about our day and than at night we all fall into bed around the same time. it feels pretty natural to me.
- April 30, 2012 at 10:20 AM
- Kim said...
I fall in the middle between attachment and rigidity. I think both are good. They look different from family to family. If you think non-AP parents are forcing their children to eat and sleep at certain times, you are misinformed. Can anyone really force a baby to eat or sleep when they're not hungry or sleepy- it is quite impossible! The BabyWise method is about balancing the baby's needs with a predictable routine. It is actually very similar to AP, because both have the baby's needs as the first priority.
I think both methods have a lot of great wisdom, and I used some of each for both my children. With my first baby, I used a sling (which by the way, was not comfortable, so it didn't last long). With my second, I discovered the Sleepy Wrap and loved it!
The ebb and flow you talk about is exactly what BabyWise is about. The book even says most babies begin to fall into the rhythm on their own. Some, however, need help. One of my friends had a baby that was very colicky, and the baby had a very erratic pattern to her day. After a few days of following BabyWise, they helped her into a more predictable routine, and the colic instantly went away.
My colicky baby was developing a routine on his own, so I didn't assist him in it. Unfortunately, routine was not the solution for him, so I put him in the Sleepy Wrap and walked around the house with him for hours every night until he would eventually fall asleep. This sounds exactly like AP.
The only thing that I know of that AP advocates that didn't work for me was co-sleeping. I couldn't get a wink of sleep with my baby in bed with me. My hubby and I are heavy sleepers and I didn't trust either of us to notice if we rolled onto the baby, and the little bed inserts they make would take up too much space in our queen bed. Also, our second was a preemie and our pediatrician was adamant that he sleep on his back and in a separate from us until he was a few months old and his lungs more mature. (I know pediatricians have their own views of parenting that don't always align with our own, but sometimes it is wise to listen to their advice.) We put our baby in a bassinet right next to the bed when he was an infant, then moved him further away as he got older (because it was hard for me to get in and out of bed with the bassinet right there!). By 6 months, he wasn't sleeping well in the room with us so we moved him to his own room and into a crib where he began to sleep better again.
Both methods of parenting have more similarities that most people will acknowledge. I used the best of both, and it worked for us!
- April 30, 2012 at 12:58 PM
- momto5 said...
true you can't force a baby to eat, but you can easily deny them food because it isn't "time or them to eat" their schedule says 10 am and it is only 9:30 am. and although you may not be able to force them to sleep you can easily put them in a crib at a certain time and let them cry themselves to sleep.
i liken the care i give my children to the care i would also give to a quadriplegic. someone who is unable to care for themselves. i would never in 100 years leave an adult who couldn't even scratch their nose alone all night to cry themselves to sleep because i decided that 9 pm was lights out and i was done with them. or if they said to me "hey, i'm hungry" i would never say "sorry lunch isn't until noon, so you must wait". i would never ignore their needs and wants just because it wasn't time for them to need or want them. or even if all they want is to have me sit by their bed and talk to them, just because it wasn't time for that it wouldn't matter. peoples needs are constantly changing and evolving, especially a small child's. just because at 10 weeks they did "A" doesn't mean that is how it will always be. when we stick to a schedule over actually listening and paying attention to the person we miss so many ques. when a baby gets to the crying stage of hunger... we missed the subtle ques. sometimes after the diaper is changed, the baby is fed and you clothing is check.. what they baby may need is just to be with you, up against you, maybe even rocked to sleep. babies and mamas were meant to be attached to each other. we may no longer live in tribes in 1st world countries or in caves like cavemen, but a baby doesn't know that. a baby has very basic needs, food, warmth, and being next to it's mother.
it is one thing to have a plan to your day for yourself or even your young child, but to schedule a baby seems well honestly... not right. BUT if it works for you, than hey who am i to say not to do it. i couldn't do it, it didn't seem right to me.
- April 30, 2012 at 5:33 PM
- Mellanie said...
Beautifully written Rachel. I read the Baby Wise book with my first as well with my first. Ezzo plays heavily on fear - the stories of the "attachment" parented child found throughout are meant to make a parent fear attachment parenting, implying that it produces spoiled, demanding children that will grow up to be delinquents. Ezzo's teachings also set up an adversarial relationship between parent and child. He also misses the point that nursing is NOT just about food. It is comfort, it is love, it is a relationship. I could go on and on, but I won't. I will end by saying that, as a lactation consultant, I have talked to many, many moms who tell your story. Restricting feedings to a schedule, or even just restricting nursing to just feeding, often doesn't give enough stimulation in the early days to sustain milk production long-term. Frequent nursing in the early weeks keeps prolactin levels high, which creates more prolactin receptors in the breast, which is what sets a good foundation for milk production after hormone levels drop around the four month mark.
- April 30, 2012 at 8:56 PM
- Mama Birth said...
Very interesting comments-
It is true that in Baby Wise, he, (Ezzo) says to feed the baby when it is hungry and to be flexible. He also warns parents of failure to thrive and what not. BUT THEN- (as Melanie stated) he goes on and on about how awful and evil your kid will turn out if you give in to their "wants" and he goes on and on about how awful AP is and has a very strict schedule written out in the book. When I read it I felt like he was almost covering his own butt- It didn't even make sense. He would contradict himself by saying one thing and then stating the opposite.
Babies will make their own pattern. It is our job as MOTHERS to find this pattern. It is our job to listen to our God given instincts and use them to raise our children with love, kindness and yes, WISDOM.
I did not find a whole lot of wisdom in Baby Wise, though there was abundant fear, stories, and schedules. Not only that- the schedules were not imposed by a mother, but by a man, who has never been a mother and who has never met your child.
I find it shocking that this person could claim to be a Christian, believe in divine design, and yet think he can tell all women everywhere exactly how to raise their child AND mock instincts (not just AP.)
I think that most women in real life, find some kind of balance between AP and needed boundaries (which really ARE part of AP but which some forget about).
It seems to confuse people to that a newborn is NOT a toddler. Yes of course a toddler likes routine (it feels safe to people) but a newborn is not a toddler. A newborn needs to eat. It needs to grow. God has given us a miraculous ability to do this with our own bodies and he created a system that thrives on need and use increasing that which is needed. It is called cue nursing.
What is really tragic is that we need books to raise our children. Or we think we do.
And thank you for sharing your story-
- May 1, 2012 at 12:41 AM
- Kathy said...
Thanks for sharing your story and I am so glad you found your way to a more natural way of understanding your OWN baby's rhythms. As you discovered, Babywise's recommendations don't support breastfeeding in the long term--a fact which Babywise obliquely acknowledges.
Mothers and fathers don't need to choose between Babywise and anarchy. Unfortunately, Babywise promotes that misunderstanding and that fearful vision of a "free-for-all" helps keep readers on the reservation, I guess.
The fact is that babies who are fed according to their feeding cues (as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics) settle into a rhythm of feedings and naps that supports their own unique growth curve and responds to their mother's unique milk storage capacity and milk supply mechanics.
In fact, individual mother's and baby's bodies work in tandem to satisfy this particular baby's hunger from this particular momma's milk supply/milk storage capacity.
Unfortunately Babywise's bias towards achieving longer spacing between feedings as early as possible can undermine the physiology that regulates and supports the mother's ability to produce a full and abundant milk supply in the later months.
This is why mothers initially believe Babywise implementation is going well only to discover in later months that their milk supply is sketchy and doesn't respond well to efforts to increase it.
Often an aggressive approach to adding solids makes up for that loss, but it is sad that many mothers using Babywise wind up being unable to breastfeed as long as they would have liked to and come to rely heavily on the less nutritious solid food instead of on the breastmilk that is biologically tailored for babies that age.
Thank you again for sharing your story! I hope it encourages many mothers to lay down the book and trust themselves to be able to understand and meet the needs of their own individual children.
- May 1, 2012 at 9:05 AM
- Susan Skok Martin said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- May 1, 2012 at 9:55 AM
- Susan Skok Martin said...
Sorry, I had to delete my comment to correct glaring grammatical errors that were really bugging me! Here it is revised:
I didn't read "Babywise" until I had an eighteen-month-old and a five-year-old. The book showed up as a donation in a garage sale fundraiser I was doing for LLL. I promptly pulled it out (because it was not going to go in a League garage sale) and read it because I was curious.
That book was filled with so much fear mongering and misinformation that I literally highlighted it all over the place with the parts that were in direct conflict with current knowledge about normal infant sleep, maintaining a good milk supply and normal human infant behavior, physiology and development.
I found the book to be deeply disturbing as source of information for new parents. Human infants need their mothers to help regulate them - they are unable to regulate themselves. Babies need us to help them figure out what they need by responding to them. When a mother pre-determines a schedule is she really listening to what her baby is trying to communicate? A baby will stop trying to communicate when he is repeatedly not listened to and not know his own needs like the blog author's first child. (And I have to say it takes a brave mama to learn from her experience, move forward and also be willing to share it - thank you!)
My personal experience is like some of the other responses that by simply following my babies cues and responding to them that eventually they fell into a rhythm. Children also completely and naturally wean on their own even if you breastfeed them to sleep for years. Here's my story: http://www.thesacredmother.blogspot.com/2011/12/sharing-sleep-bad-habit.html
Mothers may not want to nurse their children to sleep for years for personal reasons (I totally get it!) but I think it's important to know that fear-mongering that implies your child will never learn good sleep habits unless forced to do so is not supported in any scientific way. Our country has a very high incidence of sleep problems in adults, the majority of whom (I am pretty darn sure) experienced something akin to this Babywise philosophy since it has been pervasive in our society for a long time. So obviously it does not prevent sleep problems.
- May 1, 2012 at 10:05 AM
- Jules said...
I love the biblical perspective the author gives. I believe motherhood is a tool the Lord can use to teach us one of the basic principles he teaches over and over- selflessness. When we experience the overwhelming love a mother naturally has for her child, we have an opportunity to give of ourselves more than we can for any other person. We can have a better understanding of how God wants to give all that His children need and ask for (Matt 7:11). Regardless of your position on AP or Babywise, we can all ask ourselves to examine our motives and keep our hearts in the right place- love and selflessness. :)
- May 1, 2012 at 12:43 PM
- Tereza Crump aka MyTreasuredCreations said...
I remember being very upset when my first baby would wake up in the middle of the night. I had high expectations that my baby (like everyone else's) should be sleeping by 8 weeks old. Not so!! When she was 2 years old still waking up in the middle of the night playfully calling out my name, I was still mad!
I think it finally hit me by my second baby, who slept through the night by 4 months old, that all babies are different. Motherhood is about developing an unique relationship with each of your children.
What doctor, friend or relative can tell you about your baby?? You are the closest one to him, other than the Lord.
I think AP is about developing that relationship, getting to know each other, not living by rules imposed by someone else.
- May 2, 2012 at 12:34 AM
- Alli said...
It's me again. I just have some thoughts about some of the comments.
One, it truly is about knowing your child. For me, that is the ultimate parenting style. BabyWise practices don't work for every child, and Attachment Parenting practices don't work for every child. No matter which style you chose, you have to know when to put it into practice and when to throw the rules (all styles have rules) out the window. I know when my son's cry is out of pain/need vs just needing 10 minutes to cry. I also observed a mother who didn't know when to leave her 2 year old and "couldn't" be gone from her longer than an hour (she AP's.) So, it's all about balance whichever way you chose.
Two, I believe that the fear card is dealt from both sides, if you chose to view it that way. Dr. Sears says that if you let your child cry, you are causing neurological damage, that if they're not in the bed with you you're causing psychological damage. (Sorry, I just don't buy it.)
Three, based on the topic of this blog and the general population that reads it, I am assuming that we - the people reading this - are ok making our own decisions rather than letting someone tell us how we should play by the rules. That is why we even chose natural birth in the first place. Yes, I know the medical view of labor, and I chose what is best for me and am not guilted into anything different. It's the same with Babywise for me. Some babies sleep through the night at 8 weeks. My son at 15 months still isn't. It doesn't prove or disprove anything - that I did it wrong, that I am not parenting well, none of that. I am frustrated, but not because of any book I read. I'd just like to get some sleep. (And, no, co-sleeping doesn't work. None of us get any more sleep.)
So, make your choice for your family and for the individual you have been blessed to raise. But, balance, understanding, and grace are all key when interacting with other parents.
- May 14, 2012 at 9:38 AM
- Alli said...
One last thought. I guess I just took what I needed from Babywise and left the rest. I did find that there was a book that I liked better as I found it was the balance - Secrets of a Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg.
- May 14, 2012 at 9:46 AM
- Deb said...
I found Babywise to be guilt-inducing. It also gave bad advice (counter to what pediatricians and lactation experts say) about nursing. I would not encourage anyone to use this book. EVER. It is the only parenting book I know of which has a strong cautionary statement against it by pediatricians. That says something. Why bother? There are better books. What Ezzo does is undermine the natural parent/baby connection (notice I said PARENT - moms and dads) by making it a rule-based instead of love-based relationship.
William Sears is a good place to start, but Ezzoites have been warned about his stuff. So -- my suggestion is this - If you want a gentle, middle-of-the-road book, try Families Where Grace Is the Place by Jeff VanVonderen. It is thoughtful, helpful and supportive. There is no laws or rules. Just love and common sense.
I nursed one child 14 months, the other 35 months. They are bright, strong, caring and focused young people, now in college and high school. And no, they don't sleep with us any more LOL.
- June 14, 2012 at 5:13 PM
- Deb said...
I found Babywise to be guilt-inducing. It also gave bad advice (counter to what pediatricians and lactation experts say) about nursing. I would not encourage anyone to use this book. EVER. It is the only parenting book I know of which has a strong cautionary statement against it by pediatricians. That says something. Why bother? There are better books. What Ezzo does is undermine the natural parent/baby connection (notice I said PARENT - moms and dads) by making it a rule-based instead of love-based relationship.
William Sears is a good place to start, but Ezzoites have been warned about his stuff. So -- my suggestion is this - If you want a gentle, middle-of-the-road book, try Families Where Grace Is the Place by Jeff VanVonderen. It is thoughtful, helpful and supportive. There is no laws or rules. Just love and common sense.
I nursed one child 14 months, the other 35 months. They are bright, strong, caring and focused young people, now in college and high school. And no, they don't sleep with us any more LOL.
- June 14, 2012 at 5:14 PM
- Deb said...
I found Babywise to be guilt-inducing. It also gave bad advice (counter to what pediatricians and lactation experts say) about nursing. I would not encourage anyone to use this book. EVER. It is the only parenting book I know of which has a strong cautionary statement against it by pediatricians. That says something. Why bother? There are better books. What Ezzo does is undermine the natural parent/baby connection (notice I said PARENT - moms and dads) by making it a rule-based instead of love-based relationship.
William Sears is a good place to start, but Ezzoites have been warned about his stuff. So -- my suggestion is this - If you want a gentle, middle-of-the-road book, try Families Where Grace Is the Place by Jeff VanVonderen. It is thoughtful, helpful and supportive. There is no laws or rules. Just love and common sense.
I nursed one child 14 months, the other 35 months. They are bright, strong, caring and focused young people, now in college and high school. And no, they don't sleep with us any more LOL.
- June 14, 2012 at 5:14 PM
- mtbikemom said...
I ditto Kim in post #7. Why not an individual blending of both styles to fit individual circumstances? Different kids tend respond better to different parenting styles, imho, and it is sometimes a mistake to put any kid in a preconceived box just because this or that worked or didn't work previously.
My two non-colicky kids were entirely unique and my two (dynamic) colicky ones needed a different approach. Trial and error are O.K. and discussion is important when it comes to parenting. The bottom line is that each parent that reads a blog like this cares enough to give of themselves unselfishly, to one degree or another, and that is a miracle in every case. I say: move with the groove and stay flexible. Do not get caught up in useless judgement, for by the same measure you will be judged! (Matt. 7:2)
- June 14, 2012 at 7:58 PM
- Valerie W said...
This "confession" is great. There is great confusion when it comes to ideas such as independence, attachment, "demand", structure, discipline, and predictability. Much real "wisdom" lies in the idea of age appropriateness. In all of life there is a natural progression from utter dependance to eventual independence. Think of the kind of dependency and literal attachment that exists in utero. Think of the kind of independence and individualization 16 year olds demand. There is a gradual progression between the two.
How often is heard the mantra, "if he doesn't learn it now he never will." This is not a workable principle. My children will need to pay taxes eventually but I don't expect them to do it now. When the time comes (knowing when takes real "wisdom') they will learn how to face that reality. We treat babies this way because we are afraid to walk through the transitions. To take the time to rethink things as they change and present different needs for instruction.
Infants, babies, and toddlers, need to be responded to and attached in order to develop a foundation of security on which to build independence. This is not a parenting fad. It's a well studied psychological reality.
The author is a Christian and so am I. I see this principle of age appropriate transition from dependance to independence evident in our faith as well as in nature. When we come to God we are helpless and 100% in need, as our ignorance disappears He expects more of and "His discipline is His love."
- June 14, 2012 at 8:08 PM
- VJCarleton said...
Lucky for me I didn't read BabyWise until long after my children were born. The one point that stood out for me was that this approach is proven wrong by many culture's baby nurturing practices around the world.
Infants in many cultures are raised by attachment parenting and grow to be responsible adults. If BabyWise was a universally true parenting method we would see it succeed in other settings.
- June 14, 2012 at 9:41 PM
- Knitted_in_the_Womb said...
I think there are some important things to understand in this debate.
First: "Babywise" has changed a LOT from when it was first introduced. The original edition of Babywise recommended a 4 hr schedule from birth, and recommended having a baby down to 4 feeds per day by something like 6 weeks of age. It gave all sorts of dire predictions about what would happen if the parents did not hold to the schedule, spacing out feedings. Some of why people who read current editions of Babywise follow it ridgidly is because they are being mentored & encouraged by people who used these earlier materials.
Second, the "Eat/Wake/Sleep" pattern is specifically designed to MASK a baby's early hunger cues--and Ezzo acknowledged that once in a verbal interview...laughing about how a baby who is asleep will not notice that he is hungry. (my babies tended to fall into an "eat/wake/eat/sleep" routine--but Ezzo specifically warn NOT to feed the baby right before sleep is scheduled). Up until the 2001 edition of Babywise, there were instructions about the "45 minute nap monster" that instructed mothers to let their babies cry until it was time for the nap to be over if they woke 45 minutes into the nap. It was only in the 2001 edition that a *grudging* suggestion was made that maybe the baby was hungry and should be fed early--ahead of schedule. This kind of teaching is part of what leads to the rigid time schedule.
My first child was born in 1998--at the peak of the Babywise boom. The young mothers in my church were quite into Ezzo, making me the "odd mom out." There was a mother (probably the biggest Ezzo advocate) who would insist that her child be left in a crib to cry for 20 minutes to fall asleep for a nap in the church nursery (she said this was what her daughter ALWAYS had to do)...which was SO not workable, as it would get all of the babies in the nursery crying. We ended up having to make a rule that babies were only allowed to cry "alone" for 5 minutes, then a nursery worker was supposed to spend 5 minutes trying to soothe the baby before getting a parent. This mother was always SO angry when we'd get her. This baby was born 2 months before my first daughter was born...and she was something like 6 lbs 11 oz at birth while my daughter was 7 lbs 1 oz. By the time my daughter was 2 months old she was BIGGER than this baby who was 2 months older than her, and my daughter stayed on her growth curve, she wasn't moving up through the percentiles. I dealt a lot with babies who were lethargic...who would lay or sit on the floor and not do anything. Many babies that rarely smiled. One mother admitted to me--saddly--that her daughter would not cuddle and be rocked to sleep, which the mom felt was because she very strictly stuck to never allowing the baby to EVER fall asleep in someone's arms when she was a newborn--because Ezzo warned against developing negative sleep associations. We eventually left this church because of the negative parenting teachings.
Oh...and The Baby Whisperer...oye vey! It gives lots of incorrect breastfeeding advice as well...and I can't say as I have a lot of respect for the parenting advice of a woman who leaves her elementary school aged kids in England and comes to America to serve as a nanny to the rich & famous.
- June 14, 2012 at 10:12 PM
- Knitted_in_the_Womb said...
Alli...a question...
Can you point to where "Dr. Sears says that if you let your child cry, you are causing neurological damage, that if they're not in the bed with you you're causing psychological damage?"
I've read several of his books, and never got that message at all. Looking at his website (www.askdrsears.com), this is some of what I see:
Crying (http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/fussy-baby/7-things-parents-should-know-about-babys-cries): Though he has articles about dangers of excessive crying, his message is different about "normal" crying: There may be times when baby simply needs to cry, and you needn't feel desperate to make him stop after trying all the usual things.
Cosleeping (http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/sleep-problems/co-sleeping-yes-no-sometimes): Says that he *didn't* cosleep with his first 3, and really wrestled with the choice when his 4th child was high needs. He never seems to indicate that his first 3 children are somehow psychologically scarred. Further, he says "there are many nighttime parenting styles, and parents need to be sensible and use whatever arrangement gets all family members the best night's sleep."
- June 15, 2012 at 10:44 AM
- Leesa Briones said...
Many parents have posted that Babywise is not about a schedule, however all the parents that have told me they want to follow 'Babywise' have all talked first thing about the ... schedule. That is the thing that seems to appeal and stand out - your baby will conveniently fit into a schedule.
There is good information in the books, but this information can be found elsewhere, in more medically sound books, written by those qualified in childcare.
The distinctive information is the thing that I believe
1) can steal parents' quality time with their precious babies that grow so quickly
2) make parents feel so guilty and obligated to follow all the books' advice because if they don't it is implied that they are not good Christians and the child will become ADHD, less intelligent, rebellious, etc ...
I tried having regular feeding times (not exactly a schedule) waking up my daughter for a feed every 2 1/2 hours to try and get her to behave better in the evening, but this made her terribly grumpy. I decided to let her sleep, wake and feed whenever she wanted, and suprise! She ended up making her own somewhat regular schedule and she did sleep through the night by about three months.
Like the author of this article says, we are not just carers of a baby. The thing newborn babies need is not schedule and discipline. They need to know that they are LOVED! They grow so quickly that you will regret it if you don't take every chance to hold and love them as much as possible.
I have read some very sad testimonials of misguided parents following Babywise, etc ... and the sad thing is that apparently some course instructors tell parents not to tell anyone they are taking these courses. This isolates parents from seeking others' opinions, and some have even been reluctant to tell their doctor, and the doctor wonders why the baby is underweight and dehydrated.
When a baby is newborn their only method of communicating their needs is to cry. They don't know how to manipulate. This is a very important thing that my maternity nurse told me.
Why take unqualified advice from a man who doesn't even mention his children on his own website and has to self-publish his book because his publisher dropped it?
- June 16, 2012 at 4:07 PM
- Valerie W said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- June 16, 2012 at 7:57 PM
- Nichola said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- July 9, 2012 at 7:54 AM
- Nichola said...
I am a former Babywise mom and could have almost written the article above. Except I stuck it out for 3 children...modifying it a bit with the last 2 but still teaching them to sleep on their own, learning to ignore my baby when he/she cried and exulting in my 'easy' babies and self-soothers.
I came to the end of 5 years as a babywise mom only to realize that I had missed out. I missed out on the cuddles, the sweet times of rocking my baby to sleep, of getting to snuggle at naptime, and the worst of all, of being the one they needed for nurture and meeting their needs. The need for mommy was replaced by their snuggies, and as I would lay them down for a nap with hands free to go wash dishes, etc, I knew something was missing, and finally came to realize it was my children's need for me that was missing. Emotionally we had not grown close the way I knew we should have.
I mourned over the state of my family, and when I became pregnant with my 4th baby, I knew that I was no doing Babywise. Esp after finally researching Mr. Ezzo and realizing that I def didn't want my family to turn out like his...the man didn't/doesn't have a clue about raising kids and was ashamed I had been stupid for so long. (btw, I haven't seen it mentioned, but Growing Kid's God's Way is the Christian version of Babywise and just as destructive, maybe more so...)
My 4th baby was a very healing baby for all of us. My older children were still little enough that as I met the needs of the baby as he needed me, it met their needs as well. They were healed in the process of watching/helping me take care of this new baby. And our relationships were healed as well. Then I had my 5th baby and our family hasn't seemed to even feel the effects of the Babywise parenting anymore.
I do not view myself as an AP parent, although I do hold with some of the AP parenting style. I view myself as a natural parent, looking to the natural order of how God created us as mothers/fathers and doing my best to go with His creation and order, not against it. I now co-sleep, breastfeed when the baby needs it for whatever reason, wear my baby to sleep, and respond to my baby's cries. It is glorious, and my husband and children are all more at peace than they ever were on Babywise.And as I now expecting my 6th baby, I am more firmly convinced than ever that natural parenting God's way is the wisest way to parent my children, and the most rewarding.
- July 9, 2012 at 7:58 AM
- kysyra said...
Thank you, Mama Birth, for your statement.
The thing that struck me the most was, that Ezzo DOES of course say "If he's hungry, feed him" ONCE. At a point in the book going on about responding differently to different reasons for crying.
Not at a section about "what do I do if my baby is hungry and it isn't feeding time yet?"
However, when it comes to reading your baby's cues, he actually claims that typical hunger signs are NOT hunger signs (I think he claims the are signs of sleepiness).
Also, he keeps claiming, that if you use the schedule, you don't need to guess as to why your baby cries. If it is time for feeding and he cries, he's hungry. which obviously implies that, if it is not time for feeding, and he cries, he cannot be hungry...
And of course, as already stated, deviating from the schedule, picking your child up "too much", holding it "too much", feeding on demand and co-sleeping are spoken of in a derisive way, time and again, and the terrible results of such behaviour are stressed all the time!
- August 4, 2012 at 3:54 PM
- hollymariesweet said...
Kysyra, no where does it say that holding your baby too much is bad. Have you read Babywise? Also, I have attached a link to a blog that lists out every time Babywise says to feed your baby when they are hungry...
She counted 27 times.. and she may have missed some. I am not sure why you think it says to feed your baby when it is hungry just once?
- September 8, 2012 at 7:12 PM
- Alli said...
He states it explicitly. I've read it different places but it's also here on his website:
I think this article sums up the flaws in some of his logic well: http://ideas.time.com/2012/05/10/the-science-behind-dr-sears-does-it-stand-up/
- October 8, 2012 at 11:05 AM
- Greg and Jenn said...
I did a modified version of babywise and my son did very well with it. We had to work closely with lactation because he never nursed well and my supply was never great. I know this is due to my own hormonal imbalances and not a schedule issue because I have PCOS. My son sleeps great in his own bed since 6 weeks old. I would not change this. I do however hold him for 1 nap a day. I enjoy this cuddle time. I however will never cosleep with him. I am a former ER nurse and have seen MANY babies come in who have died in the bed with their parents. There is a reason the American Academy of Pediatrics says babies under 12 months old should sleep seperately. Please find a different way to cuddle with your sweet babies.
- February 4, 2013 at 9:28 AM
- Kelly J. Gastley said...
I agree with Alli - I have no idea what BabyWise book some of these commenters have read. BabyWise is abundantly clear that a parent is supposed to take their child's cues and not follow a rigid schedule down to the minute. The schedule just gives a framework to the day. I followed BabyWise's principles and breastfed my daughter (while being a working mom) until 12 months with no problems. She slept in her own room from the first night she was home, slept through the night at 8 weeks, and gained weight incredibly well. She is now a very well-adjusted toddler who loves to cuddle and show affection. She has also continued to be an amazing sleeper.
I can already tell that her brother, a newborn, is not going to sleep through the night as early as she did, and that is fine - he was born smaller and needs more time to have a full belly. But he, too, has gained weight incredibly well and is doing great.
BabyWise is about general routine and helping your child have good sleep habits. It may not be the only way to do that, but it can work beautifully when it's digested properly and not as a mandate to adhere to a rigid schedule (which it clearly is not). BabyWise's biggest take-home lesson for me was the importance of FULL feedings, not snacks every 30 or 60 minutes. Yes, there are times when I offer a feeding shortly after one just occurred, because my baby seems hungry - BabyWise does NOT tell you to wait another 2-3 hours to offer a feeding in such a circumstance. But by focusing on full feedings from Day 1, I have allowed my children to get the nourishment they need from both foremilk and hindmilk and have children who are very happy and sleep well.
Call it coincidence, but if you actually read BabyWise's words (not the interpretations that some have posted here), I think you'll see that it can really work and allow everyone some peace. If you want to use Attachment Parenting, that is your choice, and I'm confident your baby will grow up fine and you will have a wonderful family. I may not agree to your approach, but I'm not going to say that you are a bad parent or harming your child for using it. Please do the same for others and stop making BabyWise out to be something it most plainly is not, whatever your reasons.
- February 12, 2013 at 2:31 PM
- Kelly J. Gastley said...
One more comment - nowhere does BabyWise tell you not to hug or cuddle or rock your child. In fact, it suggests rocking your child to help them to get sleepy and then allowing them to complete the process of falling asleep on their own. I rocked my toddler to sleep every night when she was a baby and am doing the same with my newborn. I also cuddle with my toddler in her bed when I am reading her a story before bedtime. We also cuddle after she wakes up from naps and any other time of the day when we need it. I don't feel like I've missed out on any love and affection because of this book. I feel bad that some read it to mean that cuddling and rocking is bad, but it does not. It's just a guideline for setting a routine - you, as a parent, do the rest. And I must ask - why would you ever attempt to follow something that tells you not to cuddle or rock your child? BabyWise is about using your head and not just feeding your baby every time they cry or get upset. Feeding is primarily about nourishment - occasionally about comfort, but not primarily. The rest of parenting is about comfort and showing your child they are loved, and you can do that even if your child sleeps in their own bed and has a nice daily routine.
- February 12, 2013 at 2:43 PM
- Julie Cornewell said...
I've noticed as well that what people say BabyWise is about and what the book actually says are two different things. However, the edition that I read was 2009. It's certainly possible that the recommendations were far more strict in the earlier editions or perhaps worded less clear? Regardless, I like The Baby Whisperer much better. I think the routine of eating, playing, and sleep is explained much better with Hogg's idea of E.A.S.Y. (eat, activity, sleep, you). I also think Hogg emphasizes treating a baby like a human being much better. I don't just follow The Baby Whisperer. I also do some attachment parenting. I wear my baby in a sling for a few hours everyday and sometimes cosleep. I follow Sears for AP not some of the more "crunchy" extremists that have their own ideas about AP. However, I may be a bit extreme when it comes to crying it out. I am adamantly opposed to the idea. Also when I read BabyWise I kept wondering what all the talk was about "the fourth trimester" and then by accident I came across The book The Happiest Baby on the Block which talks about the idea that babies are so helpless because ideally they would spend another 3 months in the womb if they could. They aren't little machines that need scheduled but need help adapting to life outside the womb. Overall I have found useful information in all of these books. I've taken what works for me and what doesn't. All of them have pros and cons.
- March 9, 2013 at 5:30 AM
- Hanna said...
My first two children were demand fed, didn't sleep through until 2 1/2 and 6 years respectively. Both are now married and are wonderful young people. My third, I shedule fed after reading Baby Wise. She slept through at 4 months, was a really happy baby, breast-fed for 3 1/2 years! (not exclusively of course!) and is an awesome young lady. Funnily enough, she is my pickiest eater! Number four was delivered at 35 weeks weighing only 2lb 6 oz and has Down syndrome. I would get him sleeping through the night only to have our routine broken or he would get sick and we would be back to square one again. He still does not sleep all night consistently at age 10. I guess the point I am trying to make is that every mother and every child is different and you have to be prepared to be flexible in your parenting style. Give something a go, if it's not working then change it! You'll do more harm sticking rigidly to an ideal that is not working for your child than making a change. Love has more to do with how your child turns out than whether you did AP or routine feeding, breast or bottle fed, fabric diapered or used disposables.
- April 7, 2013 at 4:42 AM
- Heidi said...
I don't understand why you were so upset that your child enjoyed a schedule and was naturally independent. If AP is about the needs of the child why wouldn't you cater to her need for a schedule and independence? Those are specific personality traits. Didn't you say you liked schedules as well? Your daughter could've inherited that from you. I don't understand the need to "fix" a naturally independent kid? That is what seems disturbing to me about this article. As if something was wrong with her daughter because she did well on Babywise. I read Babywise and used some things that were helpful and forgot the rest!Basically I liked the eat play sleep routine because I finally got a few minutes with a happy baby. She was full and rested at the same time and I got a few smiles! yay:) Because of that routine we didn't have any nursing to sleep and comfort nursing which I liked. Sorry if that makes me less of a mother to some of you!
- April 11, 2013 at 1:21 PM
- michael said...
PLEASE VACCINATE YOUR BABY. We are having measles and mumps outbreak because of parents not vaccinating their babies. These are preventable morbidity and mortality. It's the same reason we put babies in car seat. And no, vaccines don't cause autism.
- May 18, 2013 at 11:04 AM
- Mckayla said...
I read a book called "The Power of Positive Parenting" basically, it states that if your baby is crying you should attend to his/her needs (Feed them and change them). If you r baby's needs have been met, and your baby is still crying he/she should be put down until he/she stops crying for 45seconds. Once the crying stops the baby should be coddled and loved. This positively reinforces good behavior, and the baby is now only crying when he/she is tired or hungry. I haven't tried it, but I think it might be a good mix of the two?
- May 29, 2013 at 6:02 PM
- MaryMcDoula said...
I read the first few blog posts... er, I mean comments after your article. You know, the ones defending BabyWise. That's great that some parents like that way of parenting. It's also great that some parents prefer attachment parenting. Your article was perfect in conveying what worked for your family. I'm not quite sure how people misunderstand your experience to mean that one way is better than the other for every family. I hope that people could unwrap their heads from thinking there is only one RIGHT way to do things.
- July 8, 2013 at 11:59 AM
- Knitted_in_the_Womb said...
Mckayla, the problem with what you are describing is that it doesn't seem to allow that a real "need" the baby may have is for emotional attachment, and it is teaching the baby that negative emotions need to be stuffed down because they are unacceptable.
- July 11, 2013 at 9:59 PM
- Alli said...
Knitted_in_the_Womb, Mckayla clearly writes that parents need to cuddle and love and snuggle their children. That is a wonderful emotional attachment. What is so wrong with teaching our children how to communicate their needs in an appropriate manner, to use self control? Negative emotions don't need to be stuffed, but not all emotions need to be allowed to run rampant. This obviously looks different in parenting an infant vs a toddler and even into childhood and teenage years. But to claim that anything other than attachment parenting is neglectful is a bit shortsighted.
- July 12, 2013 at 11:36 AM
- Dina and Ricky said...
I did baby wise with my 3 kids, a boy first, then twin girls. I loved it. I didn't get so caught up in the "guilt-inducing" (??) details. I loved that my kids could be put to bed easily and could put themselves to sleep (still works at 4 and 22months). I loved the flexible schedule and predictability. As a delirious new mom it took the guess work out and made it easy to know when my baby was hungry (when he woke up) or sleepy (after he has eaten and played for a while and gets fussy). As far as causing milk supply to decrease, I think every mom is different. I joked that with my first baby I had enough milk for twins. I stayed engorged constantly and milk squirted in my little guy's face all the time. Then I had twins and nursed them on a flexible baby wise schedule for 13 months. I had a ton of milk with them too. I find that all of parenting is trial and error. You ave to find what works for you, your child, and your family. For me, it was baby wise. I loved it and highly recommend it. It helped me maintain my sanity.
- July 24, 2013 at 11:52 PM
- Chantell Loftus said...
Babies do have their own schedule but you are there to guide them and help them find a balance that's the best for the both of you~ My Grandmother said to me before my first son was bon that "That he is coming to live with you not you going to live with him." What I got from that was I am the mom I do what is best for him. I am the boss not him . My first son his first night home slept a straight full 8 hours and fully every night his whole life even now at 13,he didn't starve and his healthy and happy. Also I stopped giving them naps around two years of age because they wouldn't take a nap until 3p.m. and then not go to bed until 10p.m.,so I dealt with the crankiness in the afternoon got used to it and they went to bed a 7p.m. and slept until 7a.m.. I have 4 children(raised all the same way) and they are all healthy and happy. I think parents need other help from parents when asked not told what they "should" or "should not" be doing every child and every family is different.
- February 26, 2014 at 6:30 PM
- Sannetta Marsh said...
So I tried cosleeping with our 7mos oldbc he was not gaining well. He gained great bc he had open access all night. I however could not relax or rest with him in our bed. I woke tired grouchy and exhausted. I cant go against my gut whuch says cosleeping us not safe for us. Yet it feels natural in some ways. He also became soooo attached that week, I could not even sit him down to pee without him screaming. So is that a healthy attachment? If so, then tell me and I am.being sincere here...how do u manage to do anything. Laundry cooking? I know u will say a sling but that only last so long. I dont feel safe using the stove a knife with him in asling either. How do u ap's do it? How do they nap? When do u shower? I could not seem to accomplish the basics. Any ideas?
- March 27, 2014 at 5:21 PM
- cindi lincoln said...
I'm wondering why you'd want to feed only breastmilk for a year? My doctor told me to start solid foods IN ADDITION TO breast milk at 4 months. Of course she was hungry with only milk at 11 months! And unfortunately the "up, up" to another bed is a huge rarity. Usually if you get them in your bed, you could have them there until they're 6 years old which is hard on the marriage/sex life/sleep. I guess I'm glad you found something you enjoyed, but I think Babywise got a false blame for the problem. When I used Babywise, I always called their help-line when I didn't understand or when something wasn't working and they'd help me get back on track to that happy-baby/happy-family you were talking about.
- August 20, 2014 at 12:14 PM
- blee90 said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- December 5, 2014 at 4:42 PM
- Valerie W said...
Sannetta, I feel you. What you experienced often happens when a parent "tries" cosleeping for a time. Believe me that I really do commiserate with the exhaustion you were feeling I'm not trying to say your feelings are illegitimate... just explain some of what I learned about why that happens.
Switching to cosleeping or "trying" attachment parenting can often cause a temporarily EXTREMELY attached child. Why? Because, if you understand attachment theory (not attachment parenting, but attachment theory which is well accepted in all of child psychology), you understand that babies are born with survival mechanisms. Closeness to mommy is the most powerful instinct a baby has because it should provide all their basic needs. A mother's body is a baby's habitat. This is why they really want to be close.
When you sleep with your baby from day one, nurse without restrictions, and hold your baby often their programing says, "I'm getting what I need" and they will, on their own, start to allow more separation because they feel safe. I'm not talking about parenting opinion here, I'm talking about human biology. The way it is was in every traditional culture and in the animal kingdom with higher primates.
Now what happens when your baby has been comparitvely separated from you since birth? They start to cope. They have coping mechanisms... shutting down and not asking for what they need in order not to burn calories is one of the mechanisms. This explains why CIO and BW ideas might seem to "work." They do... if your goal is to teach your baby not to ask for what their biology is telling them to.
A baby who hasn't experienced the biological and psychological norm will try to cope with the environment they do have... another survival mechanism. But if you decide I'm going to "try" co-sleeping... something your baby was born to expect... they will remember deep inside that this is what they wanted... and latch on (literally and metaphorically :-) to this ideal environment.
Do you understand what I'm saying? Your baby, after experiencing the closeness they expected will demand it... and they should. But they will be more "demanding" than they would've been if they never had to worry it will go away again. The problem is not the co-sleeping... it's the insecurity that it will go away again.
Of course every child is different but I'm talking about human biological expectation. It explains why trying attachment parenting (or what I call human parenting) can really make babies all the sudden seem intense and needy. It is possible for them to feel safe again but you have to do some catchup time and really prove that you "get it" that they need to be with you.
I learned this lesson after having twins who I only "kind of" attachment parented. When my 3rd son came along I decided I was all in. We made a big family bed and didn't even have a crib. I kept him with me all the time. I can honestly say he was the happiest baby ever which made me a happy mommy. I could tell he felt safe and once he developed object permanency he knew I would be back and didn't always need to be so close to me. Basically he always felt sure so he was chilled out. People often asked me, "does he cry?" He did cry but only when he was hurt or something very unusual was happening. His basic needs were all met because he was safe and close. He's now 5 and the most independent kid I know. All his own idea of course. :-)
- December 6, 2014 at 12:26 PM
- catie said...
I guess I'm not certain why it's important to hold to *any* philosophy strictly. Babies tell us what they need. Not always very clearly, it's true, but we are the adults and it's our job to try (to the best of our ability) to decipher their needs.
Arguing over the finer points of some "guru's" theory on how *you* should parent *your* child, seems to be missing the point of parenthood. And I'm not, not, not trying to make anyone feel guilty by saying this, or make anyone feel like a bad mama. I just think that every single baby is oh-so-different, and God made us intuitive as mamas (in part, at least) so that we could build a close relationship with our babies. We are their advocates, and we are the closest to them. We know what they need. Gary Ezzo and Dr. Sears probably don't. At least, not to a T like we do.
I would *so* encourage every mama to take a minute to put down the books, pick up your babies, and just love on them! They are only tiny for such a very short period. And their cheeks, oh, my gosh, their cheeks!! Who can get enough of that?? We are meant to love these sweet little souls with all of our hearts. And to make that the priority. I think when we let go of all the ideas that other people have for OUR "godly" parenting, we will be able to follow God to a style of parenting that is utterly unique to each of us and to each of our babies. God, sometimes with the help of our sweet little ones, can teach us (so much better than a guru can) how we should be parenting, and I think it really does Him, ourselves and our babies, a disservice when we adopt all of these different "styles" and adhere to them so strictly.
Just LOVE those sweet little things and kiss their fat, slobbery cheeks!! They're only little for a short, short time.
- January 8, 2015 at 7:49 PM
- hameza zobbà said...
Thanks a lot it is teaching the baby that negative emotions need to be stuffed down because they are unacceptable. and welcome to my new blog.All what you want to know arround Baby Shower games for free !
- August 22, 2015 at 8:20 AM
- Kathleen Hubbard said...
"We treat babies this way because we are afraid to walk through the transitions." Wow. I'll be chewing on this for a while. I'm 32 weeks pregnant with my first and trying to decide how I'm going to approach all these parenting decisions. And it's soooo true- I find myself looking for a formula that avoids or mitigates rough transitions. But transition and change are the very stuff of life (and faith!) Thanks for these encouraging words.
- December 7, 2015 at 11:22 PM
- Kathleen Hubbard said...
"We treat babies this way because we are afraid to walk through the transitions." Wow. I'll be chewing on this for a while. I'm 32 weeks pregnant with my first and trying to decide how I'm going to approach all these parenting decisions. And it's soooo true- I find myself looking for a formula that avoids or mitigates rough transitions. But transition and change are the very stuff of life (and faith!) Thanks for these encouraging words.
- December 7, 2015 at 11:26 PM
- Laura said...
I did AP with my first child to a "T". He co-slept with us for 2 years and weaned shortly before 2 years. I nursed him whenever he needed nursing. I never used pacifiers or bottles. He woke every 2 hrs for 18 months to nurse. I WAS MISERABLE. And when I say miserable, I mean seriously sleep deprived, resentful and many times angry. I kept thinking that no one told me how incredibly difficult this would be. With my second I followed AP until she was 5 months where I began to train her to sleep on her own during naps. Within 1 week she would nap by herself and by 8 months she naturally was sleeping through the night without me trying. I was on cloud 9. I LOVED it. Now, I wasn't hardcore. If I wanted to nap with her or hold her while she napped, I did and didn't feel guilty or think things would be ruined. I just had my 3rd child 1 month ago, and I'm much more scheduled with her. But I use common sense. And my schedule looks more like this, "Eat, Wake, Eat, Sleep". She doesn't always eat before she naps, but I always offer. I also used pacifiers this time and it's a life saver. I offer a bottle every day as I feel this gives me more freedom. If I want a date with my hubby the sitter can feed my baby pumped breast milk. I never had that option with my first or second. I swaddle her for bed and naps and she sleeps so well! She is already sleeping an average of 6 hrs a night, and a few times has slept 7 hrs. She's gaining weight like a champ. 2lb gain at 4 weeks old already. The rest I am getting is absolutely amazing. I NEED SLEEP. I become very angry, withdrawn and depressed when I am exhausted. I just don't cope well. I'm so upset at how withdrawn I was from my son because of how exhausted I was, even though I faithfully practiced AP. And my conclusion is that, it's my personality. I just don't do well with that method of parenting. I don't think AP is evil but I don't think it's for me entirely. I babywear, feed my baby when she is hungry and sleep with her when I want, but otherwise a schedule has literally saved my sanity. My marriage is SO much better, and I could cry over how happy I am about that. My husband and I are finally having the freedom care for each other. There were many times I considered divorce during those early years with my first and second children because I was worn so thin I couldn't think straight. I thought all our issues were my husbands fault. In reality we were making ourselves slaves to a method that wasn't working for us.
So use common sense. If something is not working, STOP. If your intuition is telling you to change, DO IT. And don't let anyone make you feel guilty.
- January 12, 2016 at 1:27 PM


text:
The USDA's estimate of Dec. 1, 2012, inventories of corn, to be released on Jan. 11, 2013, will be one of the more important factors influencing the price of old-crop corn in the first quarter of the new year.
The estimate of soybean stocks may be somewhat less important because more is known about the level of consumption during the first quarter of the 2012-13 marketing year, according to University of Illinois agricultural economist Darrel Good.
"For soybeans, consumption during the first quarter of the marketing year is generally known because periodic export and crush estimates are available," Good said.
"Based on Census Bureau estimates for September and October and USDA inspection estimates through November, exports were near 613 million bushels. That would be slightly less than the record-large exports of two years ago. Based on estimates from the National Oilseed Processors Association, the domestic crush during the first quarter was near 448 million bushels, the largest in five years," he said.
Good continued, saying that feed, seed, and residual use during the first quarter is highly variable but averaged 115 million bushels in the previous 10 years. Total consumption during the quarter was likely near 1.176 billion bushels.
The biggest uncertainty about the magnitude of Dec. 1 stocks is the size of the 2012 harvest.
"If the final estimate of crop size is near the November forecast, Dec. 1 stocks would have been near 1.97 billion bushels, 400 million smaller than the inventory of a year earlier.
"As indicated in an earlier Weekly Outlook, previous years with yield forecasts following the pattern of 2012 provide little direction for forming expectations about the January yield estimate this year," he said.
According to Good, the magnitude of corn stocks on Dec. 1 will reveal the magnitude of consumption during the first quarter of the marketing year and the amount of corn available for consumption during the final three-quarters of the year.
In essence, the stocks estimate will reveal whether the small 2012 crop is being sufficiently rationed.
The magnitude of stocks will be influenced by the final estimate of the size of the 2012 crop. Due to the severity of the drought, there is some expectation that the USDA's December survey revealed fewer acres harvested for grain than was forecast in November.
Little direction
Like soybeans, previous years with corn-yield forecasts following the pattern of 2012 provide little direction for forming expectations about the January yield estimate this year.
"The uncertainty about the final production estimate is one of the factors that makes it very difficult to anticipate the magnitude of Dec. 1 stocks," Good said.
"In addition, the magnitude of stocks will be influenced by the imports of corn during the first quarter of the marketing year. For the year, the USDA has forecast imports of 100 million bushels, compared to about 30 million in each of the previous two years.
"The Census Bureau, however, reported total imports of only 4 million bushels in the first two months of the year. The magnitude of imports in November is not yet known," he said.
Based on Census Bureau estimates through October and USDA inspection estimates through November, exports during the quarter were near 215 million bushels. Exports during the quarter were 190 million bushels less than during the first quarter a year ago and the smallest in 41 years.
Based on the estimate of ethanol production during the first quarter of the 2012 corn marketing year, and the assumption that processing for other uses proceeded as forecast by the USDA, total domestic processing use during the quarter was near 1.48 billion bushels. That is 135 million bushels less than use during the first quarter last year.
Good said that the rate of domestic feed and residual use of corn is not known but will be revealed by the magnitude of Dec.1 stocks.
Total disappearance during the quarter, minus exports and domestic processing use (estimated here at 1.695 billion bushels), equals feed and residual use.
"Anticipating the level of feed and residual use is difficult because the level of use in that category during the first quarter of the year varies considerably," Good said.
"Implied use varied by 250 million bushels the previous two years and by 565 million bushels in the previous five years. Use this year is even more difficult to anticipate due to the harvest of an estimated 1.2 billion bushels of corn before the start of the marketing year on Sept. 1. Some of that corn was presumably consumed before Sept. 1, but will be revealed as consumed after Sept. 1.
"That expectation is supported by the unusually small estimate of corn in the feed and residual category during the final quarter of the 2011-12 marketing year. Even then, Sept.1 stocks of old crop corn were smaller than expected," he said.
Good concluded that the magnitude of Dec. 1 corn stocks cannot be forecast with confidence and expectations will likely be in a wide range.
However, the potential for a smaller 2012 production estimate and a large level of implied feed and residual use point to relatively low inventories and the need to slow the pace of corn feeding.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Flower Mary Jane Baby Shoes
It's never too early to get your first pair of classic Mary Janes - and there's no cuter pair for babies than this navy blue version from Gap! (I scoured the store looking for an adult version - no luck.) Snap these up, they just went on sale, and they're sure to go fast!
$19.99 at Gap Baby.
September 19th, 2008


text:
MIDDLEBURY — Imagine driving from Middlebury to Jacksonville, Fla. Now, replace your car engine with a paddle and muscle power, and imagine canoeing the same distance — about 1,200 miles.
This spring, 10 young men will leave Lake Dunmore in a fleet of wood-canvas canoes they built themselves, bound 1,200 miles north for James Bay, Canada. Instead of finishing in the sunbelt, though, they'll chase spring ice on their paddle through Quebec and Ontario.
Breaking from tradition, I recently paddled somewhere other than Otter Creek. My sister, the illustrious raft guide, was visiting and we settled on the not-so-tame New Haven River.
Welcome back to another installment of "Otter Creek is the Best Creek," a serial tour of paddling on our backyard stream. This week, it's the Otter Creek Gorge, a class II-III section of whitewater between Belden Falls and Huntington Falls.
So, the Weekly Rider is "rolling on" into a broader blog dealing with The Great Outdoors more generally. You'll still get biking updates on occasion, but this week, it's paddling.
I've been doing a lot of paddling on Otter Creek lately, and there's nobody else out there. So, it's time to go public:
There's some phenomenal canoeing and kayaking to be had in our backyards.
You could literally paddle in the backyard a few weeks ago, but this is more figurative.
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Copyright 2011 Addison Independent | 58 Maple Street, Middlebury, Vt. 05753 | All Rights Reserved
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text:
Force-Feeding Medicine, XHTML 1.1August 01, 2003
On constructive criticism, and XHTML 1.1 vs. MIME types.
It's great having people pick apart your work with unsolicited advice, isn't it, Andy? And by great I mean it's as much fun as having your eyes gouged out with lobster forks. And by fun I mean cringe-inducing.
As a veteran of the odd "doing work for the Common Good and being taken to task after doing something wrong" paradigm, all I can offer is a sense of solidarity, and these words of advice: At the end of the day, if you change one thing to make one person happy, you will inevitably have changed the very thing another was perfectly happy with.
And a word to those who are quick to hit the Contact button. On any site. Honey first, to make the vinegar go down easier. Don't drown your message in unpleasantness, or it will go unheeded. §
While there are purportedly no real-world benefits to using XHTML 1.1 in 2003, it can't hurt to start experimenting now.
What I want: a way to serve up
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="application/xhtml+xml; charset=iso-8859-1" /> selectively to browsers that can handle it. I'd like both ASP and PHP variants. I tried someone else's PHP on the Zen Garden a month or so back, but I never got it working properly; does anyone have a link or two on this? §
Reader Comments
Try this, put it at the start of each page, amongst the first PHP headers sent:
if ( strpos ( $_SERVER[ "HTTP_ACCEPT" ] , "application/xhtml+xml" ) ) {
header ( "Content-type: application/xhtml+xml" );
else {
header ("Content-type: text/html");
Take riffola's conditional code and modify it to echo out the meta tag, or not. Aren't you using ASP though?
ASP on this site, PHP on the Zen Garden. I plan on moving this site to PHP some time in the next 6 months, hopefully sooner than later. A little bit of foresight goes a long way :)
What are the advantages of PHP over ASP (aside from the obvious "Microsoft Sucks" stance that most people have)?
I currently do all my development in ASP just because I'm a windows user, and IIS is easy to develop in. PHP has always intrigued me because hosts with PHP are traditionally a little cheaper than ASP hosts (until I found out about Vortec Inc. that is).
Just curious.
Oh, and I love both Mezzoblue AND CSS Garden!
You'll get a lot of different answers to that.
My main reason for moving onto Apache is so that I can do something about stupid things like this. IIS does everything through the console, which I don't have access to. Apache lets me use wonderful things like .htaccess, therefore allowing me to create custom error pages and the like.
Plus it seems like all the fun toys are written for PHP these days.
Let's not forget the inexpensive nature of Linux PHP web-hosts, in comparision to their Microsoft equivalent.
Re Arikawa's comment above:
Looks like it's a variant of the crash bug already documented :
Times New Roman still has to go. I feel criticism is all good even if all negative, but yes if a pattern emerges, it will be noted.
One more question…as a "Windoze user", is there a way, without buying a MAC, that I can check stuff on MAC IE5? I've just been going on faith that if stuff works in PC IE 5.5, 6.0, NS 6, 7, Opera 6, 7, and now Thunderbird, that it will work in MAC IE5. I didn't even know until recently that there was a difference between the MAC and PC versions of IE 5!
…it's not that I have anything against MAC's I'd just hate to buy all my software again in order to switch.
Times New Roman can stay.
Negative criticism is fine, if it's phrased properly. Telling someone why you disagree with their choice while respecting their original choice is acceptable. Making blanket statements that something has to change because you say so is the quickest way to a deaf ear.
Criticism should be healthy; otherwise it defeats the purpose. Forcing your individual, pre-conceived beliefs on others is inherently wrong. You may not like Times New Roman, but forcing this "rule" on others is not justified. Andy has challenged himself to make Times Roman look beautiful. Instead of enjoying this beautiful accomplishment, folks are criticizing his choice of a font. Andy, you are right. It can be a tough pill to swallow.
Dave, thanks for the show of solidarity.
At the end of the day, if you change one thing to make one person happy, you will inevitably have changed the very thing another was perfectly happy with.
Or in my case, at the end of the day, whilst trying to fix one thing you create a new problem that cause IE5.2/Mac users to have their browser crash on loading your site!
Does anyone know why IE5.2/Mac doesn't like this combination?
h5 { vertical-align:baseline; line-height:30px;}
.leader { vertical-align:middle; line-height:inherit; }
/* using the html below */

TheDaily Flight

Obviously it's not the most semantic choice, but it seems to work in every browser save IE5.2/Mac. But as long as it crashes IE5.2/Mac, I'll have to deal with that pixel or two of misalignment. :-)
Your site sucks and CSS Zen Garden is the worst thing since Limburger cheese. It's got to go because I say so!
(I'm kidding, of course.)
BrowserCam is one way, but I find it a bit slow. There's nothing like the instant feedback of hitting Refresh.
As far as I know, no VirtualMac or similar product exists. I'd love it if someone were to correct me on this point… but I doubt it. Your best bet is to buy an older Mac on eBay for testing. Something just barely capable of running OS X, since you can't run Safari on < 10.
The PHP code for passing a line based on the UA is not difficult. A simple regular expression match on the $_SERVER["HTTP_USER_AGENT"] super global variable will determine the agent. You can do any number of loops there after on what line of code to pass.
If you need further help send me an email and I'll see what I can do.
Okay, let me confess: I know nothing about PHP, and next to nothing about ASP. So the phrase 'regular expression match' goes flying over my head.
Sample code that I can reverse-engineer is what I'm going for here…
Actually, don't trigger on HTTP_USER_AGENT; use HTTP_ACCEPT instead. See the "Accommodating Legacy Browsers" section of The Road to XHTML 2.0: MIME Types for PHP code.
Use both, for goodness' sake.
This is how I do it in ASP:
Dim Browser, AcceptHeader, SupportsXHTML, ContentType
Browser = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_USER_AGENT")
AcceptHeader = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_ACCEPT")
SupportsXHTML = False
ContentType = "text/html"
If InStr(AcceptHeader, "application/xhtml+xml") Or InStr(Browser, "W3C_Validator") Or InStr(Browser, "WDG_Validator") Or InStr(Browser, "Opera 6") Or InStr(Browser, "Opera 7") Then SupportsXHTML = True
If SupportsXHTML Then ContentType = "application/xhtml+xml"
Response.ContentType = ContentType
Response.Charset = "iso-8859-1"
…start writing to page…
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="<%= ContentType >>; charset=iso-8859-1" />
I also set the doctype to XHTML 1.1 only if the browser supports application/xhtml+xml, otherwise it's 1.0 Strict.
Dave–hope this helps:
$mime_type = (stristr($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT'], 'application/xhtml+xml')) ? 'application/xhtml+xml' : 'text/html';
header('Content-type: ' . $mime_type);
Then, in the  of my pages, I toss in:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="<?= $mime_type; ?>; charset=iso-8859-1" />
Sorry about the wack-ass formatting, but your CSS-fu is no match for my shoddy PHP. ;)
Excellent, thanks Sean! Easy enough to follow, now that I have it in front of me. I'll give that a try this weekend. Now for PHP… (but I'm just being greedy, ASP is the more relevant of the two for now)
And there it is. Right on. Thanks, Ethan.
Anytime, Dave. Good luck with the coding.
Pardon my ignorance, but what is the purpose of passing along a different MIME type to a browser w/r/t XHTML when passing the proper DOCTYPE seems to work fine across all browsers (that I've tested, anyway)? Not asking to be flip - I really don't know. :-)
Serving XHTML 1.1 as text/xhtml is technically invalid, according to the W3.
But the problem is that serving it as application/xhtml+xml causes NN4.x and perhaps other older browsers to download the (theoretically unstyled) content, rather than display it. So selective MIME types it is.
XHTML's Dirty Little Secret
XHTML Media Types | Summary
XHTML media type test
Just some useful links. I think Bob can find his answer in the first given link.
From that link:
Note that a meta http-equiv statement will not be recognized by XML processors, and authors SHOULD NOT include such a statement in an XHTML document served as 'application/xml' (and 'application/xhtml+xml' as well for that matter).
I did not know that. What happens to supporting UAs if you eliminate the http-equiv meta tag and just set the HTTP headers?
Nothing, check my site ;)
There isn't any resource on this that I'm aware off (I found out myself, but there must be resources on this), but "DON'T TURN application/xhtml+xml ON AT CSS ZEN GARDEN. Why? Because that will turn Mozilla in XML-mode. In that mode the element body will be nothing more than a div. So if you want to apply a background-image you should do that on the html element for mozilla and the body element for text/html.
I don't think any of the CSS Zen Garden entries have styled the html element like that for future proof.
So it ain't possible unless you change everything and tell people who submit what they have to do.
Take a look at this article for instructions on doing this in PHP. It's a good article, and brings up a lot of good points, like how "browser sniffing is stupid." The method talked about in the article sends the MIME type and character encoding in the header, but you can probably easily alter this to send this information as a meta tag (just as long as you send it in the headers as well, because this is the proper way). You also may want to edit this script to make sure that the W3C validator is always send text/xhtml+xml.
Anne - good points. I originally had it validating to XHTML 1.1, but found out that, since I was still serving it as text/html, I was doing it wrong. It's XHTML 1.0 Strict, and I have no intention of changing that.
I'm pretty sure I've read elsewhere about Mozilla in XML-mode not giving special status to the long-standard HTML tags. It sounds familiar, at the very least, which must mean I've read it somewhere along the way.
Thanks, Anne and Dave, for the info. Learn something new every day… :-)
Here is a sample PHP template that I gave to my class over the summer
Most examples I've seen here won't actually work properly because they don't respect the q= settings that a browser can send in the Accept: header. I made the same mistake in my Dive Into XML article on the subject; some examples happened to partially respect it, but I don't think any supported it fully.
Oh, and yeah, browser sniffing is stupid. I used to sniff for "Gecko" and serve application/xhtml+xml, until Safari came out and included the phrase "(like Gecko)" but didn't support xhtml. 2 million Mac fanatics, a Certified Apple Trainer, and a beta browser that downloads my home page instead of rendering it. Browser sniffing is stupid. Don't go there.
"Browser sniffing is stupid. Don't go there."I disagree. The only good reason for going to the trouble of sending out application/xhtml+xml is if you are actually going to embed other XML namespaces in your document (the "+xml" part). If you do that, you have to worry about how a given User Agent will deal with a namespace that it doesn't undestand.
The Spec says that the User Agent should just ignore elements from namespaces it does not understand and render the text. Unfortunately, there's not a browser in existence that behaves according to Spec. Just because a browser's Accept headers say it will handle application/xhtml+xml doesn't mean it won't puke when it sees your page. You need to browser-sniff.
This is not just theoretical. Camino coughs up blood when I serve my blog to it as application/xhtml+xml. It needs to be fed text/html. It doesn't matter what the Accept headers say.
Anne van Kesteren wrote:
Why? Because that will turn Mozilla in XML-mode. In that mode the element body will be nothing more than a div. So if you want to apply a background-image you should do that on the html element for mozilla and the body element for text/html.
Look at my weblog. I've applied a background-image to the body element, and I am most certainly serving it as (valid!) XHTML 1.1 with a MIME type of application/xhtml+xml (to gecko-based browsers).
Most examples I've seen here won't actually work properly because they don't respect the q= settings that a browser can send in the Accept: header.
I am not sure how to figure out the q setting for application/xhtml+xml and compare it with the q setting for text/html, what the modified code below does is check if application/xhtml+xml appears before text/html, if so the header sent is application/xhtml+xml. It's not perfect, but it's a bit better.
if ( strpos ( $_SERVER[ "HTTP_ACCEPT" ] , "application/xhtml+xml" ) && (strpos ( $_SERVER[ "HTTP_ACCEPT" ] , "application/xhtml+xml" ) < strpos ( $_SERVER[ "HTTP_ACCEPT" ] , "text/html" )) ) {
header ( "Content-type: application/xhtml+xml" );
else {
header ("Content-type: text/html");
P.S: Sorry about the previous comment mess up.
jacques, regarding xhtml1.1 / xml and background images: i think the problem arises when your page's content does not fill the browser window. the background simply stops at the end of the content, leaving the rest of the background without bg image…if that made any sense at all…
Doesn't seem to be a problem for me. Try this search.
If your browser window is fairly large, the "content" will fill only the upper part of the window, whereas the background-image (applied to the  element) fills the whole window. N.B., unlike most people, my search page is served as application/xhtml+xml.
Learn something new from Mark every day. Just saw his comment on the q= parameter, of which I'd never previously been aware.
I'm now serving up application/xhtml+xml according to the following condition (thanks to Mark's article for the regular expression):
$mime_type = (stristr($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT'], "application/xhtml+xml") AND !eregi("application/xhtml\+xml\s*;\s*q=0", $_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT'])) ? 'application/xhtml+xml' : 'text/html';
Hang a tic; that probably won't work, as it looks like the q= parameter can have a value of 0.x. I'm gonna leave, and post again when I know what I'm talking about. Bah.
Jacques Distler,
I'm sorry, I wasn't saying what I intended to say. The body element doesn't work on absolutely positioned layouts.
And I think those layouts exist in the Garden, don't they? I went into trouble with this styling my blog site, which is absolutely positioned.
Anne wrote"I'm sorry, I wasn't saying what I intended to say. The body element doesn't work on absolutely positioned layouts."Ah! OK. That's better, then. But is this really something essential about XHTML as XML, or is this a CSS rendering bug in Gecko? Does Opera 7 (or whatever) have the same problem?
I get suspicious that this is just some stupid little CSS bug in Gecko once you put in all the caveats.
I think it has to do with the body element becoming a div. Since you can position this like any other element (only in Gecko supported though).
'If InStr(AcceptHeader, "application/xhtml+xml") Or InStr(Browser, "W3C_Validator") Or InStr(Browser, "WDG_Validator") Or InStr(Browser, "Opera 6") Or InStr(Browser, "Opera 7") Then SupportsXHTML = True'
This is broken in two ways.
1. As Mark says, it doesn't respect the q= settings. Is this a problem now? Are there any UAs that give text/html a higher q= setting than application/xhtml+xml? Searching for position (as riffola does) doesn't work, because it's possible to list q= settings in ascending or descending order; or, indeed, any other order.
I'm going to leave this for now, because there's no incentive not to.
2. It should be searching for 'Opera/6' and 'Opera/7'. Sorry.