Babies Aren't Machines; Throw the Schedule Out the Window

One of my biggest problems with blogging is that many bloggers work for organizations that pass themselves off as news. They call their pieces articles. These are not articles. They're commentary at best (and this includes my own work. Unless I'm citing pediatricians and other experts and fully exploring and representing both sides of an issue, which I don't think I've ever done, this is not news. This is opinion.)**

So that when an "article" comes down the pipe on Patch.com about putting small infants on a schedule and cites one pediatrician and a whole lot of anecdotal evidence, I get a bit miffed.

Sue Buchelt tells me that parents are supposed to start working toward getting their infants on a schedule as soon as they leave the hospital. Her methods include stuffing the baby as full as he can get so that he goes at least 3.5 hours between feedings (both breastfed and formula fed) and letting the infant cry it out if he wakes up before it's time.

But it's okay. She knows. Her pediatrician told her. Plus, she has four kids. A singleton and triplets, and it worked for them, so obviously she's an expert on everyone else's kids' needs, as well.

She suggests this schedule and says her singleton was on it and sleeping through the night at six weeks. Her triplets? By three months.

6:30 am feeding
nap after feeding (in bed)
10:00 am feeding
1:30 pm feeding
nap after feeding (in bed)
5:00 pm feeding
8:30 pm feeding

That right there looks more like a dream to me, and not the kind I'm getting while I let my children scream in bed for twenty minutes after they wake up (we'll get to that piece of advice in a moment). And if Buchelt was able to pull it off, more power to her. But what about you? What if your baby gets hungry in between 6:30 a.m. and 10 a.m.? What if he gets tired after his 10 a.m. feeding? What if he won't go down for a nap after his 6:30 a.m.?

Babies, especially very young infants, are not made to fit into your sleep schedule. If you expect to regiment them like this, you are probably in for major disappointment. You're setting yourself up for failure. Babies aren't meant to be scheduled so young. They're all so different. They get hungry at different times for different reasons. Feed them. They are tired early? Put them to sleep. They wake up crying? For God's sake, go to them.

Babies are not machines. They may not be able to express their feelings, but that doesn't mean they don't feel. There's not a damn thing they understand in the world that they just came into, and parents are supposed to leave them hungry because it's not 1 p.m. yet? Parents are supposed to let their infants fend for themselves in the dark, in a room alone, because they've woken up before the allotted time?

The baby isn't crying to annoy you. She's not crying to interrupt your sleep pattern. It's not about you at all. Your baby is crying because she's wet, or she's hungry, or she's scared. She's only just weeks old. She doesn't even know how to smile yet, let alone manipulate you to get some more mommy-time out of the deal. There's plenty of time for that when the children are three, like mine. It does not start in the first months of life. No. In the first months of life, they cry because they need you. Buchelt would abandon them because her pediatrician told her to?

She says, "You need to be okay with letting your baby cry for 15-20 minutes. Which can be pure torture, but if you are the type of person that needs to pick your baby up every time you hear a peep, this will never work for you."

There is a big difference between uninterrupted wailing for 20 minutes and "a peep," and to be quite honest, even if you are the type to check on the baby at every peep, it's okay. It's your baby. It's okay for you to be worried about him and check whenever you want to. You'll soon get to know your own child, provided you listen to your own intuition and your infant's cues, and you'll soon know when the child is resettling and when he actually needs something, be it a diaper change or just some reassurance that you are still there.

Because twenty minutes of listening to crying is hard on an adult, certainly. But how long do you think that twenty minutes is to the infant who is waiting for someone to come? The baby doesn't stop crying because she's magically become satisfied on her own. She doesn't stop crying because her little mind-game didn't work. There is no mind-game. The baby stopped crying because she gave up hope. So, in two months' time, if you've managed to train your child like this, you may very well be sleeping through the night. But you're doing so at the expense of your infant's trust. She needs you. Why not go check on her instead of "putting a pillow over your head"?

Now, if you're one of the unlucky parents who have a lively one who's not ready to give up after 20 minutes, Buchelt advises you go ahead and check on him. But make sure you don't treat him like a human being.

"Do not talk to your baby, and do not make eye contact. No, you’re not being mean, your just letting them know that it’s bed time, not play time."

Yes, you are being mean. You're baby is mere weeks old. He doesn't know bed time versus play time. He only knows that he needed something, he was scared and crying for 20 minutes, and no one came to his aid. He only knows that now that someone finally arrived, she's not there to comfort him.

Then Buchelt comes out with this gem.

"Now offer them some distilled/nursery water for 5-10 minutes. My daughter never drank out of a bottle, so she outright refused the bottle and 2 out of 3 of the triplets drank the water, but either way, it just another way to stall their feeding time."

Everything I've heard says not to give infants water. Ever. But barring that, why on Earth would you want to delay a feeding? If your seven-pound child is hungry, she probably needs to eat, and she probably needs to eat now. Filling her with water to trick her little body into thinking it's full does no favors for anyone. She's hungry because she needs nutrients. This is biological. You'd deny your infant her biological needs because you know better than her body? I don't know, it just seems off to me.

But, guys, if you don't think Buchelt's method will work, she's got irrefutable evidence. It not only worked for her, it also worked for her sister, who has four kids. That's eight children this method has worked for! Oh, and don't forget the other triplet mom for whom it worked. That's eleven children who responded to being bullied into a schedule. With those kinds of numbers in support of this method, I'm surprised everyone isn't doing it.

The point of this post is that mothers give birth to babies, not machines. Babies don't cry to piss their mothers off. There is, at that age, a very good reason for them to be crying. It's the parents' job to figure it out. If you can do that, you'll be sleeping again a lot sooner than those who spend their nights staring at the clock, waiting for their 20 minutes of screaming to be up so they can  go check on their hungry, wet, scared child.

Buchelt's Patch.com article: http://lisle.patch.com/blog_posts/baby-not-sleeping-through-the-night-yet-youve-gotta-have-a-schedule


**Just to be clear, I understood that this piece was a blog.

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Parenting Online - Part 1

As a first-time parent, I did a lot of research online.  I looked at Kelly Mom, at Dr. Sears, at the World Health Organization.  I joined parenting groups and forums, baby groups and pages.  We have the internet's boundless knowledge, facts and experience at our fingertips, we may as well use it, right?

In my years of hardlined internet research, I learned one core fact I think every parent should take into consideration: you can find an expert to back up any belief you have.

It's true.  No matter how you choose to raise your child, you can find someone on the internet to tell you that you are doing it right.  For every one person you find to tell you that, there will be 20 more to tell you that you are doing it wrong.
 
My solution?

You need to do what feels right for you and for your child.  You cannot go by the book in parenting because there simply is no book.  Or, rather, there are 80 billion books.  As new parents, we often don't have the confidence to rely on ourselves, on our gut feeling, but with all this conflicting information, it's really all we have.

Here are a few examples of what I am talking about:

1) You are unsure if you should babywear.  Babywearing.com has an effusive writeup on the benefits of babywearing, many parents in your chosen internet forum advocate it, but, then again, there was that recall a while back.

People have been wearing babies for centuries.  If you choose to do so, you are following in their footsteps, and they've created millions of people, so I'm sure you'll be fine.  Alternately, people have been putting their babies down for centuries, and those babies turned out okay, too.

I never babywore.  I had twins.  Problem solved.  I didn't even have to look into this one.  (Although, I'm sure there are many advocates who would tell me I should have worn them both.  Perhaps saddlebag style?)

2) Breastfeeding or formula feeding.  Most news stories, experts and websites you'll see agree that breast is best, but your mother in law, your aunt, and the hospital in which you gave birth are pushing formula. 

Again, babies have been fed both ways for many, many years.  Those babies made it, and so will yours.

I breastfed for three months.  My babies never latched and needed to take my milk from a bottle.  I fought tooth and nail to continue, but the babies were less than 10 pounds at that three month mark, my breasts were making less milk, and I had to go back to work.  I switched to formula.  I'm here to tell you, I am still a good person, and my babies are thriving two year olds.  It's okay, and it's nobody's business how you feed your child.  Do what's best for you.

3) Cosleeping.  You can find multiple articles for and against cosleeping.  Some physicians say it's dangerous and leads to SIDS or other problems.  Others say that theory is rubbish, that cosleeping is good for baby and parents, that it strengthens bonds and leads to a better night's sleep for all involved.  You need to do what's right for you.

We never coslept.  My kids made it.

4)  Crying it out.  Babywise says do it.  Everyone else says don't.  Again, I stick to my adage of doing what's right for you.  In this particular instance, though, I must let my bias show, as I cannot imagine how letting a small baby cry for any long amount of time is good for anyone involved.  But I'm no expert.  That's what Google is there for.

And these are just a few.  There are so many questions that need to be answered.  And once you make a decision, there are several important follow ups.  So that if you decide that a pacifier is right for your family, you then have to research what type of pacifier, and when you're supposed to wean baby from that pacifier, and when you can and can't use that pacifier, and how often, and for what amount of time.

With all of this ready-made knowledge, we're essentially taking the intuition out of parenting.  I'm not advocating shunning the internet.  The information is there, we best use it.  I'm simply saying, don't forget, in all the noise of the typeface coming through your computer screen, to listen to yourself, and, more importantly, to listen to your child.