Holly, I echo your final thoughts there…blessings to each family and how they work things out!:)

Wow, I hadn’t read this! Must have been during our early baby days.

I think…it’s just a great example of how different things work for different families! We do everything probably 100 percent different than you describe - and yet - still have babies and kids who happily nap and go to bed, etc.

Blessings to each family and how they work things out!

The friend who did the extreme CIO with her son was determined that he was going to get into line with the program (I am sure he is now, but at what cost to his little spirit?) even if it took him screaming. “He has to learn,” he said. He was baby #3. It just seems so overstrict to me. And against nature. BUT, he’s not my kiddo. (She lives away now, so I am not sure how he’s doing.)

Thanks for including me and teaching me new things!!

I’d like to think that most moms would recoil at letting their newborns cry for that long…that’s why it bothers me to have people think that when I advocate BW, I’m also advocating letting your newborn lay unattended, screaming. Never! Like Jess said, there is a time, when they’re older by several months(!), that sometimes CIO becomes necessary. But by then you really know your child, and know how to define “necessary”.

I understand where you are coming from! And am so sorry that the BW families at your church made you feel inferior for not taking the same route they did. It’s for this exact reason that I don’t usually even bring it up to my church friends…even though at heart, I’m a “fixer” and want to offer suggestions. I’d hate to add guilt or frustration to an already struggling mom, especially if she was already dealing with a preemie and all the other issues you mentioned. Now if they ask me…watch out, I usually can’t stop once I get started on this topic!

On parenting styles vs. baby personalities…I don’t know. I know I read success stories like yours with Peapod and wish I could have approached parenting w/o so much anxiety over “ruining” or “spoiling” my baby. Holly, over at Seeking Faithfulness has a similar approach to yours on infant feedings/sleeps and it sounds so precious, my heart leans into that like you can’t believe!

Yet,I’m also the youngest of 5, and when I say youngest…the one nearest in age to me was 11 when I was born…so I’ve gotten to watch them raise all their children from infancy, and watch I did! It taught me so much. I’ve seen poor parenting turn sweet kids into whiners, I’ve watched and heard my sil lament about having to let her toddlers (yes toddlers!) CIO (more like scream it out!) at naptime because they hadn’t learned yet to go to sleep happily. Or similar rants about how their one year old couldn’t go to sleep, ever, w/o nursing, things like that. I think that’s why BW sounded so good to me (before children!)…and thankfully it worked for us! And I still cuddled, sang to, and rocked my babies…maybe not as much as I would have otherwise (24 hours a day maybe??? I LOVE newborns!) but enough. So, I think my parenting styles would have been different anyway…because of what I’d observed in my growing up years…but I like to think that if things didn’t work, I’d be open to change!

I do know of new moms whose horrid times of adjustment– no sleep, fussy babies–escalated to the point of not being excited about a new pregnancy b/c of all the trauma of infancy. That, to me, is so sad, when I believe that for the majority of parents, parenting doesn’t have to be hard at all. A couple of these friends ended up sold out for the feed/wake/sleep routine, because they found it incredibly changed the “life with baby” scene at their house.

Boy, I really can go on and on, can’t I? This whole topic makes me want another baby!

Kim, I’m convinced that this method can avoid the CIO if you start from the hospital, from day one with the feed/wake/sleep routine. I’m sure that’s the same routine Jess does, as it’s the foundation of the BW program. I think starting from the beginning helps a newborn know what to expect, and mine have all fallen in line with no problem. I was very reluctant to diagnose their crying as a need for food, though. And upon investigation, it usually was something else. This isn’t to say that we never cuddled or rocked them to sleep…we just didn’t do it enough times in a row that they came to expect it, or think they needed it to fall asleep. Mrs. Brigham’s experience with Peapod sounds ideal…I wish I hadn’t always felt so afraid of “spoiling” my kids. I just knew from babysitting that it can happen…they can get into a routine of their own expectations and fight anything contrary to it! I do think this mostly happens when they are older though…past 5 months, say.

I never had a bassinet or cradle, just a crib. So that’s where my babies slept. I wouldn’t have slept well with them in bed with me, though on the rare occasion, when they were getting me up half a dozen times in two hours during a sickness, I’d take them to bed with me so that the two of us could get a little more rest.

When you do the feed/wake/sleep in that order, you don’t have to pay attention to sleep cues so much. The bigger worry is keeping them awake after the coziness of nursing! I was happy with even keeping my newborns awake a few minutes or more after nursing (time enough to change their diaper or bathe them), just so they didn’t get accustomed to falling asleep while nursing.

My kids were all very easy to wean…but of course, I weaned very gradually over several months till they were barely getting anything, and by that time, all their food needs were more than met elsewhere.

And happily, my cycles didn’t resume for 6-7 months after childbirth…at least, once the post-partum healing/bleeding process was over with.

I wonder if “parenting style” have a lot to do with mom’s personality moreso than anything in particular about baby? Each baby is certainly different and little changes must be made, but I know I have never heard of too many mothers who made *drastic* changes in between each child, barring an extenuating circumstance, of course. If anyone has any thoughts, please do share!

Kim- When a woman has her cycles return is a very individual thing, but *could* be affected by BW. Ovulation is suppressed thanks to prolactin, which is released each time a mama nurses. Higher levels of prolactin in the blood steam usually allow for ovulation to be suppressed longer. Cycles after pregnancy can be odd. I would up having mine return at nine weeks postpartum but did not ovulate for a good seven months afterward. I am assuming that my early pumping and nipple shield use may have played a factor, as the lack of skin to skin contact can make the other nursing hormones a little funky. I had these perfect plans of conceiving again on my first cycle so I could go a few yeras without a period. LOL. It didn’t work!!

Jess, do you do feed/wake/sleep? Or Feed/sleep/wake?

Jess, I was wondering about your milk supply, since you mentioned having very few cycles between babies - most of my friends who do BW have cycles returning at sometimes as little as 8 weeks. ???

Gotta get ready for work…third graders to brainwash…

As for milk supply issues, I’ve never had a problem at all. But like Mary, I’m not rigid. I nurse during the day so that I don’t have to nurse at night. My goal is not, and has never been, to get them to where they nurse as little as possible… rather, my goal is to help them adjust their bodies to what we do: eat periodically during the day, and sleep during the night.

I’ve made all our baby food too, and totally loved that. It’s so much cheaper and healthier than buying the mass-produced stuff.

And as for crying it out, I never had to let a baby cry it out in order to get them to go to sleep. E slept through the night at 5&1/2 weeks. Yes, weeks. That’s something, again, that I attribute to his weight and ease in handling longer periods without food because his tummy was larger, etc. B slept through the night at 10 weeks. M was more like 12 weeks… which I thought was going to KILL me… I seriously would be no good with feeding round the clock- have I mentioned that? But for all of them, this was not a mommy-imposed cry-it-out at X time sort of deal. They happily slept through the night, and each time, I woke up surprised and pleased when they had slept 6 or 7 hours straight.

I did, however, let my older one cry it out when he was older (around 5/6 months) and I knew all of his needs had been taken care of and yet he was just waking up for teething, or a random noise, etc… so I would comfort, pray, give him gas drops or orajel as needed, and then put him back to bed. So in those cases, yes, he would sometimes cry while he fell back asleep. Those are the only times we’ve ever had to let a baby “cry it out”, and that was well past the newborn stage, once we knew (after 4-5 months of a pattern) that he was capable of sleeping through the night because he had done it for so long.

Again, I’m convinced (internet research notwithstanding, Kim) that the anti-Ezzo stuff springs from rigidity without flexibility, which is not advocated in the books at all. Like Mary, I’m so thankful for the peace and ease (for everyone– parents and baby) that this brings to our home… it’s certainly given us confidence and gives the baby security as well.

(Oh, and I would agree with Mary, that the babies you are describing, Kim, are nothing like my babies have been– they’ve all been friendly and well-adjusted, and can cuddle or play contentedly. I, too, would be concerned –not pleased– if my babies acted as you described.)
~Jess

It sounds almost as if your friends’ children have attachment disorders, from your descriptions. It really goes to show that no matter how you parent, rigidity is not prudent. I’m all for consistency, don’t get me wrong, but that’s more for first time obedience, etc. I think there is a ton of room for flexibility with the BW scheduling, the main thing I kept in mind was the feed/wake/sleep routine. And I had an internal “rule of thumb” that I wouldn’t feed more often than every two hours (from the beginning of one feed to the beginning of the next)…and with my two “off the charts” daughters, I really think they had more growth spurts, and needed the extra feedings, as opposed to some who feel that the baby has to wait 4 hours between feedings at all costs. Welshing on that rule never affected my infants’ ability to sleep through the night! And if my infant woke through the night, I fed them! I didn’t “wake them up” to feed them though. And by 8-10 weeks, they simply stopped waking up to be fed. Like a charm!