Parent directed feeding versus demand feeding

When a newborn baby cries, it is their way to communicate with you, their care giver. It is not to annoy you. It is not because they want to manipulate you. It is because they are looking for your attention... for a reason. If you aren't ready to "deal" with that, you may not be ready for a baby.

There are various parenting theories out there, not one will be perfect for all families, but some can be damaging to babies and families. An over indulgent parent who cannot set boundaries is harmful, just as a parent who chooses not to be a 24 hour parent is harmful.



An over indulgent parent isn't the same as an attached parent. An attached parent is one who will consider all members in the family, not just a child's requests when making decisions.

A parent who fails to see that their life will change when they have kids will likely damage their child from the infant stage.

Here's the fact: babies are needy. They NEED you. A sleep trainer you pay $25 an hour to come and "solve" the issues isn't solving the issue. Instead, it is likely that you need someone to come in, give you a bit of a razzle wake up call and let you know that you're a parent now and your life has changed.

The changes of parenthood are only negative if you have the attitude that your life shouldn't change when baby comes. Embrace the changes and gift of this new life. There are ways to make parenting easier, and to me, that means attachment parenting. It is a lot easier to respond, be there, and relax with baby. Of course a baby's night waking will annoy you if you have to run across the house, warm a bottle and/or hear them scream. But if you follow instincts, room share (co-sleep if it works for you) and breastfeed, night waking isn't half as bad. PLUS, many of the biggest smiles are at those 3 am feeds :)

I say this in the midst of night weaning... but it is my two year old who knows the difference between night and day eats regular people food. He's not an infant whose stomach is only accepting the most basic of (high calorie) nourishment that happens to process through the body quickly.

I found this article interesting in the Journal of Perinatal Education that compared Babywise and Attachment Parenting.

These two extremely laughable but highly DANGEROUS points come from Babywise and Parent Directed Feeding:

• Your baby's routine is to serve you; you are not to serve your baby's routine (p. 132).
• You can hurt a baby by picking him or her up too much (p. 128).

Of course Babywise also doesn't recommend rocking a baby to sleep or co-sleeping. In fact those are also seen as harmful in their eyes. So, if being detached teaches your child that you won't respond to their needs... I wonder how things turn out later when their needs change into desires? Where's the trust? Also, don't forget, parent directed feeding and Babywise are specifically listed by the American Academy of Pediatrics as harmful and potentially deadly, due to the possibility of failure to thrive AND dehydration.

I don't see anything regarding that on attachment parenting. 

Night weaning - 17 days in for gently toddler night weaning

Night weaning a two year old? How hard can it be? If you're new here, start at night number one of night weaning, gently.

It was a decision we teetered on for a while before we determined that yes, it was time to finally night wean our newly minted two year old. I'm a working mom, attached as I can be, with a bit of a yell that I'm trying to lose... but we do the best we can with what we have at the time, right? I know that a bit more sleep will help us both, but we're still struggling to get my son to bed at a decent time (ie, before 10) on a consistent basis.

Night 17 was Father's Day. We had let Daddy sleep in this morning, though sleeping in for a 2 year old seems to be 6:30 am! Since we had plans for music at the Railroad Park in the evening (which ends at 9 pm), we'd assumed our son would fall asleep on the way home, and from there we could transition him into the toddler bed and he'd sleep there until morning. We all dream right? Well, it worked mostly well, so it was a good thing we brought along our tooth brushes. Kids were asleep on the drive home, our toddler slept in his bed (in our room), our 4 year old slept in her room. I slept in our room and life was good.

Until 3 am when my son woke up. I'm starting to see a pattern, aren't you?

What I'm also seeing is that my son is generally having to go bathroom at the same time. We're in the dry desert - I drink water at night, so I know he's thirsty too, so cutting bedtime nursing makes him thirsty and I refuse to cut water before bed time...

So let's see what we can do. The big thing is, my son woke this night and wanted to go outside - apparently he was remembering early night weaning days. I'm not ready for that! Eek! Anyway, he was able to get back to bed without nursing, though he did ask. However, he was satisfied with some water and was able to snuggle and head back to bed. My daughter also woke up, but she woke up due to cold. It is hot in the desert and to save on energy we tend to keep the house cooler in the early morning so that the AC doesn't run all day long. However, cool to us is approximately 78* - yeah not that cool, but it works for us and it keeps our electric bill low. With solar, we just pay "billing" each month through the summer, so we can't complain, right :)

Anyway, we're working on what will work best for our family through this time. Hopefully we can figure it out!

Night five of gently night weaning a two year old

And the night weaning journey continues (read previous "episodes" here: 1, 2-3, 4)... at 25 months my son still enjoys nursing. When my daughter was this age she was mostly night weaned (but then un-night weaned, and then re-night weaned.... etc.) because I was heavily pregnant and could only handle her nursing a few times a day and for "one ABC" count down.

The cutie with no midnight "dudh."
Photo by Urban Life Photography.

Night five I slept mostly soundly. After having a lot of shooting pain in my breasts and warmth in my breast I was afraid I may be getting mastitis due to the drastic decrease in nursing, especially on my left side, so I needed to relax, drink some fluids and used plenty of garlic as a precaution. I'm still having shooting pains, but less often and no heat. If I feel it again tomorrow, I may need to figure out if I still have my Breast Pump (and hopefully have some new falanges! somewhere stored!).

Anyway, what I thought was an easy night for my husband, since I slept with the door shut, was not. We found our humidifier, (which luckily did NOT sell in our rummage sale) and purchased a new filter, hoping this would assist my son's night cough. Apparently he woke and was up for an hour and a half. So, after five nights we realize night weaning in this regard is not working. The point was to hopefully get ALL of us more sleep, not just me. So, tonight, I'll sleep in the same room as my son and comfort him to sleep.

More updates soon! Here's tonight going super smoothly :)

Updated to part 6.

Breastflow miPump Sing...$50.47 Sam's ClubBreastflow miPump Sing...$50.47 Sam's Club

Managing Bed Hogs

A popular Hyenacart store (For Crying Out Loud) makes wonderful shirts for the lucky kiddos who are lucky enough to sleep share with their parents. Those lovely shirts scream...

bed hog

For those of us with bed hogs, we know that not every night of sleep sharing is full of bliss. Instead it may mean maneuvering pillows and walls to prevent toddler (or you!) from falling out of bed. For many it also means adding to the master bedroom's furniture. 

Our daughter was almost a year old when I first realized that most of my new-found friends also co-slept and they had this wonderful thing in their room called a second bed. While we had a bassinet that our daughter no longer could fit, the crib was unused across the apartment. We had started sleeping sideways on the queen bed to give us more room for our daughter who was sleeping between us, making the "H" in (bed) Hog. My husband's legs were a bit long, even with the platform extender for our drop-in plat form bed, so we moved the crib over as a "side car" for his feet.

 When we moved into our first "home" our master bedroom was large enough so we used two queen beds next to each other. When baby 2's arrival was imminent, and we knew we had people visiting (and also an au pair later arriving), we invested in a king bed. Now, our master bed room has a King bed, queen bed and that crib that's converted into a toddler bed. It often is musical beds at night. For now, it works, and we're comfortable knowing our kids are safe in their beds and we can respond to their needs as they arise, especially on nights like tonight when our 1 year old is facing a cold.

Are co-sleeping kids necessarily more happy? I'd say so, I think she'd say so as well! Oh and this link is great - "security in infancy reduces stress as adults." Many of my friends are posting what they are "thankful" for on facebook, and lately I have come across quite a few that make me smile and remind me how happy (and thankful!) I am to wake up next to one, or both, of my wonderful children. 

Mommy paranoia and co-sleeping

In a follow up to a recent post regarding safe co-sleeping, this post surrounds the many facets of mommy paranoia. I swore up and down that I would not co-sleep. Media had me afraid that I'd smother my baby. But, research shows that mothers, especially nursing mothers, actually are so in-tuned with their babies that co-sleeping (whether bed sharing or just rooming-in) can save babies (McKenna, 1994).

With the recent disappearance of baby Lisa from her crib, Chrissy recently posted the following (used with permission), "One day a lady commented 'If she would have been co-sleeping, this would have never happened.' Then some guy said "Co-sleeping is BAT SHIT CRAZ...Y!!!" I didn't want to get into it with strangers on the fb page for a missing child but I had to add "Co-sleeping is natural. It has been done since the beginning of time and actually helps prevent SIDS." Well. Some random lady sent me a PM telling me that I was ignorant and putting my Childs (sic) life at risk, blah blah blah. I responded with some general facts in a non-argumentative way and ended it with "I am doing what I know is best for my family and as a mother, I trust you are doing the same. Let's just agree to disagree." She continued trying to argue with me and I finally blocked her and said stop messaging me. She hunted me down from someone else's FB and messaged me from there about blocking her an continued to attack me. I didn't even read the whole thing."


We all know that parenting is TOUGH, and we all are trying to find what works for our families. But, media has us believing that co-sleeping is dangerous and wrong. For our family, we have a split floor plan and while our 3.75 year old generally is in her own bed, she is in our room. 

I am paranoid that she won't be safe on the other side of our house. Our daughter is safe and content in our room: I can respond to her needs, so I'm in no rush to have her on the other end of the house. She has yet to ask to be in her "own" room and I figure when she's ready she will ask. Right now her "room" has no bed and is considered her clothes room! We have asked her if she wanted a bed in it, and it seems foreign to her.



Source: McKenna, J., et al, "Experimental studies of infant-parent co-sleeping: Mutual physiological and behavioral influences and their relevance to SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome)." Early Human Development 38 (1994)187-201.