Boy, this blog business is exciting! It's a pity the kid doesn't spend more time playing with Duplo and toilet training herself. And vice-versa... which brings me to...
On "natural parenting"...
I confess, I was a big fan of natural parenting. Until I had a baby.
Natural parenting has strong advocates - Pinky McKay is a popular advocate of this approach to parenting and has written several books on it, the main one being "parenting by heart". Penelope Leach is a better known but more moderate advocate of this approach to raising children. Practitioners such as the well-known Dr Sears and his wife are strong advocates of this approach.
"Natural parenting" goes something like this: babies need to be close to their mothers at all times (preferably in a sling or something), for as long as possible. They should be breastfed until they feel that they no longer need it. They should "co-sleep" (sleep in the same bed) with their parents (safely), and they should never, never be left to cry - their behavioural troubles can be sorted out once you can talk them through, when they're 2 or 3.
I'm limiting this to a discussion of behavioural approaches to children - this is leaving aside ideas about medical "natural" parenting, such as using homeopathy instead of vaccination (which I do think is ludicrous), or using probiotics instead of antibiotics (which is not so ludicrous when done in an evidence-based way).
The problem with "natural parenting" is the persistent confusion between it and "attachment parenting". Attachment parenting is extremely important for children: we know that children who have compassionate, loving and strong relationships with at least one caregiver for the first 5 years are more resilient, intelligent, loving, confident and healthy than children who do not. (this is, in part, why I have so many concerns about this child care generation... but that's for another post).
When my daughter was born, I slept in bed with her much of the time. It felt perfect - a small, warm, trusting bundle to protect and nurture in my arms. This was a very important part of bonding with my baby, especially since she was an "unexpected arrival". I began to rock her to sleep whenever she cried, feed her to sleep, and do all those things that newborns want you to do.
When she was four months, however, the pattern became more demanding. She wanted to breastfeed all night (babies love breastfeeding, can't get enough of it). I would sleep with her crooked in one arm, always half-awake so that nothing happened to her. I gradually became more and more exhausted.
I had two older women friends at the time. One was a "primal therapist" who worked counselling children, but who did not have any of her own. She would tell me all the theories about how early childhood "trauma" affects mental health throughout life (a partial truth), and led me to believe I would do my child terrible emotional damage that will come back to haunt her if I let her cry. Meanwhile, I was becoming delusional and emotional with tiredness.
The other had raised six children. She told me that we needed to do controlled crying, because it works. My daughter was waking every 2 hours. By 3am she would be back in bed with us. My shoulder was packing it in from cradling a baby. My back was suffering from breastfeeding in bed. After 10 months of less than 3 hours sleep in a row (I was also teaching at uni at the time - utter madness), we went to sleep school.
And she cried. She howled. She roared. She screamed and she sobbed. I would go in to settle her every few minutes, and she would try to climb up my arm. It was awful. But after 2 hours of hell, she went to sleep. The next time, the screaming was worse, but she went to sleep after 1 and a half hours - sitting up, holding the bars of the cot. My heart was breaking, but I clung to the program - 2 minutes, 4 minutes, 6, 8, 10. My greatest motivation was seeing the toddlers there - they were so much worse. I thought: I have to get on top of this while I can.
After 3 nights, she started sleeping for 4-5 hour stretches, in her own bed. After a week, she was sleeping from 8pm-4am, then until 6. I was getting enough sleep. I would get up in the morning with her and be able to play with her - and I loved it! I loved her more than I ever had. I rejoiced in her new little personality traits, unfolding like petals before my eyes. We attached to each other more strongly than ever.
I haven't looked back: she's still a poor sleeper by nature, always wanting to be up with us, but she knows that we're in control and that there's a time when everybody sleeps, including her. Occasionally at night I'll hear her saying listing all the things that sleep at night: "mummy 'leep, daddy 'leep, nanna 'leep, bear 'leep, train 'leep".
I felt so let down by natural parenting. I felt abandoned, in fact. When I was exhausted and on the verge of breaking down everything in my life, including my relationship with the father of my child, natural parenting gave me nothing but "press on, in the interests of your child", without any consideration of my needs.
I note that Penelope Leach, in the most recent version of Baby and Child (a wonderful book on many accounts), begrudgingly acknowledges the value of controlled crying as a last resort, but still doesn't seem to understand how horrible extreme sleep deprivation can be for parents, and how a clear program can help overcome it.
But once you abandon "natural parenting", there are fears of returning to the 50s and 60s, when mothers were advised not to cuddle their little boys too much, so they don't become sissies...
In fact, there is a sensible middle ground, which allows mothers to enjoy their children's company, and to love them to bits - the most important need of all - without destroying themselves. Even if leaving a baby to cry is traumatic for them, it is far more traumatic to be growing up with a detached, resentful or depressed mother.
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4 comments:
I couldn't agree more. A sensible middle ground is needed. I had rather a different experience, but the same basic lesson comes out of it. My maternal health centre strongly recommended that we try controlled crying and a very regimented approach, and it didn't work for my baby. I felt guilty and thought I must have been stupid and incorrectly applied the controlled crying approach. I also felt guilty for leaving my baby to cry.
My mother's group and I were saying that there's so much guilt out there these days about bringing up children. If you let them cry you'll warp them for life and they'll hate you; conversely, if you don't let them cry they'll be ill-disciplined little brats who won't have any sense of boundaries.
The thing is that every baby is different. And something that will work well for one baby might not work at all for another. Unfortunately, it's a process of trial and error, and there is no "right" solution - "natural" parenting or otherwise. People are full of judgement and advice, whether they have had their own children or not.
I can totally understand how controlled crying was a godsend for you; the world is so hard to cope with when you have had no sleep. As it has turned out for us, a happy medium has been best - still one feed in the night, not getting up straight away unless baby sounds very distressed etc.
I really hate all the judgmental rubbish which suddenly rears its ugly head when you become a mother. The most important thing is that baby and mother are happy and healthy, which makes for a happy family!
did any of you try sleeping with your babies and breastfeeding them lying down? works for me very well. mines 2, happy and healthy naturally parented little girl. ladies need more information. getting up in the night is hard. all the more reason to sleep with your baby!!!
Our middle ground has involved night-weaning while continuing to cosleep. This has worked well for our naturally parented little family of six!
I usually listen to experts, but when all the books told me to let my child sleep in a cot, I just felt in the pit of my stomach that this was wrong. I would wake at every little sound she made and get up and out of bed to check if she was ok, breathing, if she was awake or needed milk. After a few weeks I decided I didn't care what the "experts" said, this was my child, and she would sleep with me. And I have never slept better. I hace since learned that a mothers adrenalin level is higher if she is away from her child, and when she cuddles her child both she and the baby gets lots of happy and calming hormones like serotonin and oxytocin. When my child is hungry I just open one eye, latch her on, and continue sleeping. Highly recommend it to everyone who wants to cosleep but gets tired of sitting up to nurse.
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