Blue skies, Barthy burgers, Girls!: January 2010

Kevin and I noticed early on that people are judge-y and opinionated about their parental philosophies. I think worse than politics. You almost just can not say what you think if you aren't sure what another person thinks. People get really really personal and nasty towards their opponents.

On the one hand, the attachment parents, promoted by Dr. Sears and others. These parents believe that birth traumatizes people and that what babies really need is to be returned to the womb. Thus, your best approach is to attach the baby to yourself, never leaving it alone for a moment, and feeding it every time it cries (as if there are no other reasons to cry). People expect me to be associated with this philosophy because I did hypnobirthing and I believe strongly in avoiding c-sections when possible and breastfeeding when possible.

I have two problems with this philosophy: (1) Children have to, ultimately, be introduced into the world. If not now, when? If not you, who? Otherwise, you end up breastfeeding your teenager. This is why La Leche League ladies often bust out the boob as a congratulatory treat for kindergarten graduations. (2) I hate to be an asshole, but I need a little alone time. I don't want my baby sitting with me on the toilet and I don't want to switch to baths so that he can be with me when I bathe. I also don't think the baby enjoys everything I do. He's little. He needs naps. He doesn't need to go to bars and parties and fancy restaurants. The good thing about not being pregnant anymore is that I can share him. Also, he can take advantage of baby-specific tools like cribs and car seats and I can look at my feet, break into a jog, and pull my knees into my chest occasionally. Oh, and, the other thing about attachment parents is that they sleep with their babies in a "family bed." The american pediatric people have stated that this is not safe, but, even if they hadn't, um, how long is this sort of thing going to last? When is the best time to break the news to your little butter lumpkin that he/she needs to give you and daddy a little time...how do these people have more than one child!?!

Now, the other end of the spectrum is Babywise. Essentially, according to this philosophy, you decide on a reasonable schedule for your baby and then you implement the schedule, feeding him when you decide he should be hungry, putting him into his crib when you decide he should be sleeping. You carry out this schedule and, when the baby cries, you let him cry. The philosophy is based on the idea that what babies need most in life is sleep and, further, that the best way for them to sleep is for you to (feed them, then play with them, then put them down to sleep for two hours) four times a day, followed by 12 hours of uninterrupted nighttime sleep. My problems with this approach are also twofold: (1) Babies are not all the same. They need different things. Further, days are not all the same. A single baby needs different things on different days. The best way to serve a baby is not to just soldier through your agenda and let him suck it up. (2) Life happens. Babies have to go to the pediatrician, visit family, and go for walks. Perhaps just as importantly, mommies need to go to the store, care for other children, and, yes, go to parks and festivals. Those things don't always happen in 1-2 hour blocks and within minutes of the crib.

Now, the thing I've noticed is that both camps like to say they have the happier babies. Also, in my experience, the cartoon above is less representative than attacks in the other direction. Attachment parents really believe that the "cry it out" methods for sleep training are torturous. They like to say that they let babies "take the lead" on sleeping and eating and this sort of thing. I guess that I would agree with them if babies had read-outs on their heads telling me what they want. I'm really not crazy about letting my baby cry. I don't actually do that. On the other hand, I've noticed that sometimes I don't have any choice. Sometimes the baby cries. He cries if I pick him up, he cries if I put him down, he cries if I jiggle him or swing him or whatever. It's not a matter of my "leaving him to cry." He just IS crying. I've noticed that this happens to attachment parents also. What I like about not always feeding him when he cries is that I have more than one soothing tool in my arsenal and it also means that my husband can help me and he doesn't just hand me the baby whenever he starts to cry.

The actual issue I'd like to discuss is related to this inconsolable crying. In recent days, the inconsolable crying was becoming more and more frequent. I also noticed that my baby did a lot of spitting up and that the spitting up made him cry. He was getting to the place that he didn't have any awake/alert time. I just fed him, jiggled him while he cried, and hoped he slept for a while, jiggling him and rocking him and carrying him around while he cried. The sad thing was that he would have droopy, sleepy eyelids and would look about to fall asleep when, "POW," like a snake bit him, he would scream and cry. The good news is that his nights stayed reasonable (thank the Lord). Anyway, lots of reading, a call to my pediatrician, and a brief consult with a pediatric nurse convinced me that my baby was suffering from acid reflux. A visit to my pediatrician got her confirmation of my assessment along with a prescription for zantac. Apparently it's hard to tell the difference between reflux and gas at this age so you just have to use the process of elimination with the acid reducer. Phew, we're just a couple of days in and things are really improving, getting back to the way things were when he was littler and more alert/awake/happy. This method is combined with some serious time spent sitting up. He sits in his chair, gets propped up for tummy time, and goes for car trips and walks, sleeping upright for a nap or two.

Here's the thing that starts to make me angry. Check out the opinion of the natural people. Here's Dr. Greene, for example:

Dr. Greeene's opinion

Foods in mother’s diet can also affect breastfeeding babies. Cow’s milk is the most common cause of this, but other foods such as soy, egg, and peanuts could also be a problem. For most babies, I prefer briefly trying to feed the baby without these exposures to see if this solves the reflux problem before trying any medication. I suspect that tobacco, coffee, and caffeine in breastmilk and secondhand smoke in the air also worsen reflux in babies, but I have not seen proof of this.

Why, oh, why is it more reasonable to let my baby cry in this case than in the case of a fussy baby who needs some quiet time in his crib to calm down? Also, why is my life so completely disposable? I should give up dairy, caffeine, eggs, nuts, chocolate, and corn on the off-chance that one of them may be related to the reflux when there is medicine that is approved by the FDA to treat the condition? My understanding, based on conversations with other mothers, is that these food things are bollocks anyway. It's just a way of torturing mothers and blaming them for things, making sure that they don't go around thinking they still have lives of their own.

Dr. Sears is not as bad as I feared, actually. He does seem to just suggest that his parenting philosophy keeps babies from having reflux but whatever.

I love my baby. I want him to be happy. It breaks my heart for him to cry and arch his back and make the "yuk" face after eating. Why can't I treat him? Why do these people want my life to be so hard? Why do I have to be tortured to prove that I care about my baby? I guess the problem has to do with how personal it all is. There is nothing worse than being told you're a bad parent. It's the worst thing you can tell someone. I would say that it's even worse than being told you're a bad scientist.