Monday, May 19, 2008

Can you hear me now?

Let me see if I can start over: there are principles in a book about child-rearing that I like. I am passing those ideas on to a group of ladies. I am recommending they work to keep their marriages a top priority. I am hoping to help them see the importance of being family-centered as opposed to child-centered. My desire is they will learn to understand their baby’s cries and instead of instantly offering food will begin deciphering what the cry could mean. I am also going to tell them how much having a routine helped me as I raised my babies.

I am NOT telling them to ignore their babies. I am NOT saying to leave a crying baby in a crib indefinitely. I am NOT telling them to starve a hungry baby. I am NOT telling them to be a slave to the clock. And I am most certainly NOT saying a mom who chooses a different path is stupid or lacking in common sense.

I am taking these guidelines from a book written by a man who is polarizing; you either love him or hate him. (Actually, there is a middle ground: I appreciate his book but am not a fan of him as a person.) I wish there were another book with these principles I could use; thus far I have not found one.

One of my greatest concerns about the Ezzo material is its propensity to divide moms. As I have said many times before, if you choose to implement some Ezzo material, great. If not, great. No one has the corner on the market of child-raising. I am all about doing what works. This worked for us. And by that I mean it reminded us to continually work on our marriage. We learned how to watch our babies’ diapers (six to eight a day!) to make sure they were eating enough. We used the growth charts to monitor their growing bodies. And it helped us teach our children to sleep independently, which was important to us.

Again, let me say, this was a book that I found extremely beneficial. If another mom doesn’t, I can only encourage her to find her own way. I will applaud her efforts. I will welcome her advice to me. I will not tell her she is wrong or less Christian or a bad mother. Because I don’t believe that not following a book can make you any of those things. (Well, not following the Bible can make you less Christian, but that’s another thing entirely.)

My greatest desire in this can be summed up by this familiar quote: In essentials, unity, in non-essentials, liberty, and in all things, charity.

I sincerely hope this explanation can put to rest any claims that I think non-Babywise moms are stupid or ignorant or any of the other things some commentators have written. And if not, I welcome respectful questions so I can more adequately address those concerns. We are all moms! We have common ground; let's build on that.

5 comments:

  1. 8~) I'd never heard of the Ezzos or their book till you started talking about it here. But it sure sounds to me like something with some worthwhile ideas, and some ideas that are hard for people to grasp or apply in a useful way...

    ... and that means it sounds like a book that needs a print study guide. Preferably a print study guide bound into a new edition of the book (though a separate one would be better than nothing) and it also sounds to me like you, or you and your group, could write a good one.

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  2. Anonymous9:32 PM

    I hear you on the divisiveness of Babywise. I sometimes avoid telling people that I read it and that my baby was on a 3 hr routine, because they will AUTOMATICALLY assume that I treated Babywise as my baby manual/ bible.

    I read all sorts of books, from LLL leader books who advocate extended breastfeeding, cosleeping and the like, to BW.

    I also had the priveledge of being a nanny throughout high school and college, which taught me a great deal about children and parenting. From my own experience, the parents who DID sleep with their child, never let them cry and breastfed them 24-7 continued those patterns of a *child-centered* world beyond infancy. These families are in great distress, as their marriages have slowly fallen into a irrepairable state.

    One such mother whose child I took care of warned me of allowing the baby to come between me and my spouse. She offered such advice with her own pain and regret of what she feels she had done wrong for over 10 years.

    I knew that I never wanted that to happen to me and the marriage that God had blessed me with.

    Thankfully, my baby was not much of a screamer. I did the cry it out thing to get her to sleep during the day and it took 2 days. I was afraid to do it at night, but everything turned out alright. She is now 6 months old a healthy weight and is happy.

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  3. To clarify. . . I did not take from your initial post (the one that I found most inflammatory) that you thought "non-Babywise moms are stupid or ignorant."

    What your words implied were that Babywise moms who had difficulties with maintaining milk supply, infant weight gain, sleep issues, or other issues were ". . .the crazy mommy’s fault!" for not using "common sense."

    What I have found is that intelligent, loving, well-meaning parents gather information from a wide range of sources and then make intelligent, loving, well-meaning decisions based on that information. I think we'd both agree that is good.

    My concern is that Babywise contains a significant amount of misinformation about infant growth, development, and breastfeeding. When a resource such as Babywise is highly promoted and considered by many to be factually sound, parents naturally assume the information contained within is reliable for decision making.

    In past posts you have had very harsh words for mothers whose babies didn't "fit" easily into the Babywise routine, and as a result had issues with delayed weight gain and so forth. And THAT is what I take issue with.

    Please carefully consider that even intelligent, loving decisions--when based on faulty information--can be harmful to babies.

    Please also consider that just because you perceive your infants to have done well with Babywise, that for other infants the philosophy and program itself can be harmful. (And not simply the result of "stupid" mothers who lack commons sense.)

    The mothers you are seeking to encourage during your book study, especially if they are brand new mothers, may need direction in how to assess when to deviate from the Babywise routine, how to be flexible, how to discern hunger and sleep cues beyond what is mentioned in the book. They may need encouragement to not "rush" the routine, especially if their particular child has an especially small stomach capacity or has the tendency towards growth spurts at times that don't line up with the "norm." They may need help in evaluating milk supply (what is in the BW book really is inadequate for evaluating and addressing milk supply concerns.)

    When a mother is presented with guidelines such as in Babywise, what is presented as the "norm" may not be applicable to her own baby. As a leader and encourager, you may be in a situation to help especially a new mother to know when to toss the book aside and listen to her baby and her God-given maternal directions.

    Again I say, I found your initial description of mothers who used Babywise to be offensive, mothers whose children didn't "fit" perfectly into the program. The same sort of mothers you are seeking to help.

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  4. Wow, TulipGirl. I cannot even imagine the pain you must have experienced to be so incredibly unable to read positive words about BW. I do not take any joy in saying that. I am truly sorry for the difficulties you have had with the BW book or people who appreciated it.

    You write: "What your words implied were that Babywise moms who had difficulties with maintaining milk supply, infant weight gain, sleep issues, or other issues were ". . .the crazy mommy’s fault!" for not using "common sense."" I never wrote any such thing. I never talked about milk supply, infant weight gain or sleep issues. I wrote that moms who denied a hungry baby food were crazy. Please tell me where that statement is incorrect.

    You also claim I maligned "mothers whose children didn't "fit" perfectly into the program." I never did any such thing. The only negative thing I said about mothers was to take to task those who denied a hungry baby food.

    I have bent over backwards to say if parents don't want to follow a routine, they shouldn't do it. I don't know how many times I have to say parents get to choose. Why can't you hear those words?

    Truly, TulipGirl, I cannot express enough sadness over whatever trauma you went through to be so passionately anti-Ezzo. But I again ask you to read my words, the actual words and not what you think I may be implying. If you knew me in real life you'd know I don't imply things; I say them. And that is exactly what I do in my blog. I say what I mean.

    I *mean* parents who don't feed hungry babies are crazy. I *mean* parents who follow some book over their instincts are crazy. And I *mean* that is, indeed, the fault of the mom and dad, not the fault of a book of parenting principles.

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  5. Christy,
    I hear you. LOL
    Thanks for stopping by.

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Hey! Thanks for commenting - I really appreciate it!