Scheduling yourself to Misery or Ezzo and Bucknam are Wieners
So you go through this amazing, surreal, frightening, primal, other-worldly experience. You stay in the hospital for the next day or two being served meals, checked on by nurse, midwife, nurse practitioner, pediatrician, infant nurse, plumber, electrician... you get the idea. And then there like, "Okay. You can go now." They're nice about it, and really, it is time to get on home, but then you realize what that means;
"They are actually letting us leave as a family of three when we only came here as a couple. I feel kind of light-headed, is my forehead sweating? I don't know what the hell to do and I read a bunch of damn books...." You get the idea. And there is the problem; BOOKS.
I'm a teacher. I love reading, I promote it, I think I can say that I use books every single day of my life. I don't think I am going to feel bad about saying this, Sometimes reading too much about one topic can be a mistake. I have used books to learn to build stairs, lay tile, hang drywall, set up live sound systems, etc. and usually I read too many books thinking that one will give me an explanation that actually makes sense to me. It often works but there are times when it just causes confusion and paralyzes you. This is how it has been with pregnancy and baby's first year type books. I read about 4 or 5 different ways to fold and change a cloth diaper. Now I just kind of wrinkle and stuff the diaper together so that it keeps things from making their way out of the diaper. It works and probably uses a technique from each book to make the mess I call a diaper change. Sometimes the books are just down right insulting to men. Comments like, "Even the father can learn to change a diaper." and "spending evening time with your baby is a great way to catch up on sports while enjoying TV time together", and "fathers also play a role in bringing up a child. "They make men sound like frickin' morons. We aren't? Are we?
(excuse my little tangent/rant)
Antway, so the baby arrives, comes home with you and the mom, you all struggle a beautiful struggle, you find hope in your successes and start to feel a bit more hopeful that you will be able to do this and, through that feeling of hope you delve into a book or two to learn more about how to succeed at parenting. That is when you read about feeding and sleeping and routine and flexibility and all the stories of sleep deprived nights that await you and find a book that claims to have the answer to all of these current ambiguities, On Becoming Baby Wise.
I should tell you that a lot of people disagree with this book because of its lack of "strictly scientific" studies related to its methods for the baby's feed-active-sleep cycle. Not to mention that it is supposedly a "Christian" book and that fuels plenty of fires that I'm just going to let keep burning.
My problem isn't with the lack of scientific method because I don't think that is the only way to gain meaningful information, and it isn't necessarily with it's Christian undertones (the authors personal parenting philosophy is, "Raising good children is not a matter of chance but a matter of rightly applying God's principles in parenting.") Okay maybe a little bit.
My problem with this book is it's lack of conviction. This book beats around the bush on every topic and guideline it gives. It tells you to feed your child every two and a half to three hours, follow it with active time then sleep time. Unless you really pay attention, it appears that all information is given until you realize that your kid wants to eat a bit earlier than 2.5 hours or maybe sleeps a bit more than 3 hours. And maybe he doesn't feel like playing after eating and only wants a change and a nap. They don't give you a true picture of the amazing amount of variables that can exist in children and that your child may not be ready to be routinized.
Yeah they mention flexibility in the book too so that you think they have thought of all the variables. Nope. No reasonable explanation or example of how on earth you are really going to get your child to eat when you want, be active when you want, and sleep when you want when your primal instincts take over the second you hear him cry and you only want to resolve the problem for him. I know. It sounds like I want attachment parenting (another current popular parenting philosophy) but that is has some aspects that seem too extreme as well.
What this book and its unclear explanation and time lines did was make me and Hallie miserable. We disagreed about what our interpretation of the information meant and felt upset and like failures because it wasn't working as we felt it should. Any book that is a how-to guide and requires an interpretation by the reader is crap.
After a particularly trying day with this Baby Wise method I went off to visit with some friends for a couple hours to recharge. Upon returning Hallie said, "We need to throw that book out." I had spent 2 hours chatting with friends about whatever craziness was going through my head from that difficult day and came up with some ideas. Complicated ideas about how to help myself deal with the failing schedule and how to "make it work". It never occurred to me that the answer could be easier if we did the one simple thing that Hallie suggested, throw the book away. And we did. Today, as I write this I realize that it isn't so much that we threw away the book but the notion that we need to rely on books for all our guidance, that we must immediately create a routine for the child, and that we have to succeed in every undertaking. We don't. Here's what I've gleaned from this situation:
Is the baby pooing enough?
Is the baby peeing enough?
Does the baby sleep?
Are you feeding the baby?
Answer those questions daily for yourself and the big fears will quickly fade away. Then you will be left with fears like the one I had today. Oh my God! I let him sleep all weird on his little ear and it looks super tweaked like that guy, Chunk, in Goonies. I hope it doesn't stay like that forever.
"They are actually letting us leave as a family of three when we only came here as a couple. I feel kind of light-headed, is my forehead sweating? I don't know what the hell to do and I read a bunch of damn books...." You get the idea. And there is the problem; BOOKS.
I'm a teacher. I love reading, I promote it, I think I can say that I use books every single day of my life. I don't think I am going to feel bad about saying this, Sometimes reading too much about one topic can be a mistake. I have used books to learn to build stairs, lay tile, hang drywall, set up live sound systems, etc. and usually I read too many books thinking that one will give me an explanation that actually makes sense to me. It often works but there are times when it just causes confusion and paralyzes you. This is how it has been with pregnancy and baby's first year type books. I read about 4 or 5 different ways to fold and change a cloth diaper. Now I just kind of wrinkle and stuff the diaper together so that it keeps things from making their way out of the diaper. It works and probably uses a technique from each book to make the mess I call a diaper change. Sometimes the books are just down right insulting to men. Comments like, "Even the father can learn to change a diaper." and "spending evening time with your baby is a great way to catch up on sports while enjoying TV time together", and "fathers also play a role in bringing up a child. "They make men sound like frickin' morons. We aren't? Are we?
(excuse my little tangent/rant)
Antway, so the baby arrives, comes home with you and the mom, you all struggle a beautiful struggle, you find hope in your successes and start to feel a bit more hopeful that you will be able to do this and, through that feeling of hope you delve into a book or two to learn more about how to succeed at parenting. That is when you read about feeding and sleeping and routine and flexibility and all the stories of sleep deprived nights that await you and find a book that claims to have the answer to all of these current ambiguities, On Becoming Baby Wise.
I should tell you that a lot of people disagree with this book because of its lack of "strictly scientific" studies related to its methods for the baby's feed-active-sleep cycle. Not to mention that it is supposedly a "Christian" book and that fuels plenty of fires that I'm just going to let keep burning.
My problem isn't with the lack of scientific method because I don't think that is the only way to gain meaningful information, and it isn't necessarily with it's Christian undertones (the authors personal parenting philosophy is, "Raising good children is not a matter of chance but a matter of rightly applying God's principles in parenting.") Okay maybe a little bit.
My problem with this book is it's lack of conviction. This book beats around the bush on every topic and guideline it gives. It tells you to feed your child every two and a half to three hours, follow it with active time then sleep time. Unless you really pay attention, it appears that all information is given until you realize that your kid wants to eat a bit earlier than 2.5 hours or maybe sleeps a bit more than 3 hours. And maybe he doesn't feel like playing after eating and only wants a change and a nap. They don't give you a true picture of the amazing amount of variables that can exist in children and that your child may not be ready to be routinized.
Yeah they mention flexibility in the book too so that you think they have thought of all the variables. Nope. No reasonable explanation or example of how on earth you are really going to get your child to eat when you want, be active when you want, and sleep when you want when your primal instincts take over the second you hear him cry and you only want to resolve the problem for him. I know. It sounds like I want attachment parenting (another current popular parenting philosophy) but that is has some aspects that seem too extreme as well.
What this book and its unclear explanation and time lines did was make me and Hallie miserable. We disagreed about what our interpretation of the information meant and felt upset and like failures because it wasn't working as we felt it should. Any book that is a how-to guide and requires an interpretation by the reader is crap.
After a particularly trying day with this Baby Wise method I went off to visit with some friends for a couple hours to recharge. Upon returning Hallie said, "We need to throw that book out." I had spent 2 hours chatting with friends about whatever craziness was going through my head from that difficult day and came up with some ideas. Complicated ideas about how to help myself deal with the failing schedule and how to "make it work". It never occurred to me that the answer could be easier if we did the one simple thing that Hallie suggested, throw the book away. And we did. Today, as I write this I realize that it isn't so much that we threw away the book but the notion that we need to rely on books for all our guidance, that we must immediately create a routine for the child, and that we have to succeed in every undertaking. We don't. Here's what I've gleaned from this situation:
- It is okay to trust some instincts
- Some things are age appropriate strategies. Some are not. A 2 week old can't even hold his head up or know when his own hand is in his mouth, so how is a schedule going to make his life fuller?
- It is totally okay to struggle when encountering situations that are unfamiliar to you.
Is the baby pooing enough?
Is the baby peeing enough?
Does the baby sleep?
Are you feeding the baby?
Answer those questions daily for yourself and the big fears will quickly fade away. Then you will be left with fears like the one I had today. Oh my God! I let him sleep all weird on his little ear and it looks super tweaked like that guy, Chunk, in Goonies. I hope it doesn't stay like that forever.
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