H AVE YOU HEARD THESE?
“Let your baby cry it out.”
“Don’t carry her so much, you’re spoiling her!”
“You’d better get him on a schedule.”
“He’s controlling you.”
“You’ll be sorry. She’ll never get out of your bed.”
“What, you’re still nursing!”
Few parents escape their baby’s first year without somebody sending one or more of these dire warnings in their direction. These misguided comments come from self-proclaimed experts in baby rearing who are everywhere. They appear at parties and at family gatherings. They write for magazines and even teach parenting classes. They may have no credentials and no children, or they may be professionals who should know better. We call them the baby trainers, because their approach to parenting is similar to the way you might train a pet. They seem to be more interested in showing you how to get baby to fit conveniently into your life than they are in showing you how to raise a happy, healthy, well-balanced human being. And your desire to do the best for your baby or your fear that you might be harming your baby by responding so sensitively can make you vulnerable to their baby-training advice. “Beware of baby trainers” is another Baby B of attachment parenting.
The basic difference between the BT’s and the AP’s (baby trainers and attachment parents) is the attitude toward crying. To a BT, a baby’s cry is an annoying, inconvenient habit, which must be broken to help baby fit more conveniently into the adult environment. To an AP parent, a baby’s cry is a language to be listened to.
Some AP mothers can easily ignore baby-training advice. For others, especially first-time moms whose confidence is a bit shaky, the pronouncements from the baby trainers plant seeds of doubt. They wonder if they really are doing the best thing for their babies and for themselves.
Don’t worry if you number yourself among the less confident. Every mother has days when she wonders whether her parenting choices are going to pay off. Every mother has days when it looks like putting baby down in his crib and walking away might be a reasonable thing to do. Your love for your child and your desire to give her the very best make you vulnerable. When someone suggests that your parenting style may actually be harming your baby, this naturally undermines your confidence. The more you learn about attachment parenting, the more you’ll understand what’s wrong with the baby-training approach to parenting.
You can approach the subject of baby training through the eyes of a scientist, through the eyes of a mother, or through the eyes of any ordinary human being blessed with common sense. No matter which approach you take, you’ll find reasons why baby training just doesn’t make sense as a way to nurture human infants.
SCIENCE SAYS:
Good Science Backs AP
As you will see throughout this book, there is essentially no research supporting the advice of the baby trainers.
What Mom’s biology says. Baby training is not in tune with a mother’s biology, particularly a lactating mother’s biology. And since babies were designed to be breastfed, the way lactation works tells us something about how best to meet baby’s needs. The hormones needed to produce and release milk, prolactin and oxytocin, are secreted when baby nurses at the breast. But these hormones have a very short biological half-life, which means they clear quickly from the body, often within minutes. The natural conclusion is that frequent breastfeeding is necessary to keep hormone levels high. Parenting at a distance and on a strict schedule, as baby trainers advise, is not the way humans are designed to nurture their young. The fact that human milk is quickly digested is another indication that mothers and babies should be near each other. Mother’s hormones are telling her to stay close, and baby’s tiny tummy makes him want to have his mother handy.
PROFILE OF A BABY TRAINER
Most official baby trainers (BT’s) are authoritarian males, so caught up in their role as advice giver that they ignore scientific evidence that shows they may be wrong. Some baby trainers even discount science altogether, rather than hold their own advice up to any scientific standard.
In contrast to uncredentialed BT’s, other advocates of baby training are psychologists or pediatricians with lofty degrees and academic appointments in high places. They are so removed from what babies and mothers are really like that their advice fails to reflect the realities of day-to-day parenting. Their advice is based on the kinds of situations they see in their practice, which are often the more difficult and unusual problems. They tend to discount realities that can’t be measured, such as mother’s intuition and maternal sensitivity. They approach baby care as a science rather than an art and think of a baby as a project rather than a person. And, like good scientists, they expect babies to follow the predictable rules the trainers set up.
BT’s have zero tolerance for differences in personalities and are quick to discount differences in maternal sensitivities and infant need levels. The one-size-fits-all approach seems more scientific to them. As the history of parenting shows us, baby training is likely to go in and out of popularity during the next century, as it has during the past. The best we can hope for is to build up parental sensitivity to the point where parents will carry neither attachment parenting nor baby training to the extreme but instead learn a proper balance in both.
What happens when a mother ignores her biological signals? Either the body stops signaling (that is, stops producing milk), or she becomes desensitized to the signal. This is one way baby training “works.” It promotes insensi-tivity Ignore those signals long enough and you lose your ability to interpret them. Then you have to rely on schedules and outside advisers to know what to do with your baby.
I heard the baby next door crying. Her own mother didn’t.
What Mother’s sensitivity says. The more a mother responds to her biological signals, the more she learns to rely on them and to trust them, and the better they work for her. Attachment parenting teaches a mother to rely on her inner wisdom, and gives her lots of rewards for doing so. Baby training tells a mom to rely on a book or a schedule or on the baby trainer’s word. It completely bypasses this complex system that parents can use to really know and understand their child.
If we had to pick one word that sums up attachment parenting, it would be sensitivity. Sensitivity means you have a feel for your baby (can sense his needs) and that you trust those feelings. Sensitivity helps you understand your child, anticipate her actions and reactions, and appropriately meet her needs.
If there’s one word that characterizes baby training, it would be insensitivity. Baby training puts mother and baby at a distance, with the result that mother loses her sensitivity—that gut feeling for her baby’s needs. Insensitivity leads to mutual lack of trust. Baby does not trust that caregivers will meet her needs. Mother no longer trusts herself to understand and meet baby’s needs.
How quickly a mother can become insensitive to her baby following baby-training classes was brought home to me one day as I was examining a newborn at a two-week well-baby checkup. During the pre-exam chat, I was answering the new mother’s questions. Midway through our dialogue, the baby started crying. Mother continued asking questions, seemingly oblivious to her baby’s cry. My heart rate was going up, and I was becoming anxious, yet the mother didn’t acknowledge the baby’s cry and kept relating to me. Finally, I advised her in a tone of voice somewhere between advising and pleading, “It’s okay. Go ahead and pick up your baby. We can talk while you nurse her.” As she looked at her watch, she replied, “No, it’s not time for her feeding yet.” This mother had been so indoctrinated in baby-training class that she had already desensitized herself to the cues of this tiny baby. It took a while to get her back on track.
What common sense says. It’s interesting that traditional cultures, which are not blessed with baby furniture, infant formula, and advice books for parents, don’t even have a word in their language for spoiling. When mothers from non-Western cultures are told about spoiling and not giving in to their babies, they shun these ideas as nonsense. Responding to baby’s needs makes sense. Everyone is happier when mother and baby can relax and enjoy each other.
Use your common sense to help you think like a baby, and you’ll see the truth in the following observations about attachment parenting. (We include a translation into more psychologically correct language for those who need it.)
Pick up a baby when she’s young, and she’ll get down more easily when she is older.
Translation: Early dependence fosters later independence.
Listen to a baby when he’s young, and he’ll listen to you when he’s older.
Translation: Trust fosters communication.
You can put your time in at one end of your child’s life or at the other.
Translation: A convenient baby may well become an inconvenient teenager.
“But it works,” insist the baby trainers. Does it really? That depends on what you mean by works. Ignoring baby’s cries will eventually shut them down. Stop listening to a baby’s cues and the baby will stop signaling. That’s a no-brainer. But look beyond the immediate results. What does a baby really learn in the long run from this detachment advice? Baby learns that his cues have no effect on his parents. They have no value, and it follows that he himself has no value. After all, nobody listens to him. All that this training has taught baby is that he can’t communicate with his parents.
How a baby handles this discovery depends upon his personality. A persistent personality type will continue to cry and fuss louder and more forcibly, in hopes of breaking through the barriers set up by her parents. She becomes clingy and anxious and expends lots of energy trying to stay near her parents and control them. She is anything but independent. The infant with a more laid-back personality adapts more easily to his parents’ lack of responsiveness. He simply gives up and becomes apathetic. He becomes a “good baby,” one who conveniently fits into the dictated schedule, sleeps through the night, and generally is “less of a bother.” This is the baby about whom BT’s say, “It works!” But parents pay a price. This child doesn’t trust, doesn’t feel. He shuts down.
Here’s a story from my practice that happened during the writing of this book. Jim and Karen were new parents who carried their three-month-old daughter, Jessica, into the exam room for her checkup. When they walked into my office, Jessica was strapped in her car seat, and they put her down on the floor a few feet away as we began to chat. They had some questions for me, and as we talked, I noticed that they focused all their attention on me and seldom turned toward their baby. They didn’t make eye contact with her or try to engage her in any way during our conversation.
As my interview with the parents continued, I realized that there was a lot of distance between these parents and their baby. The father, as if wearing a badge of parental accomplishment, proudly exclaimed, “Notice how good she is. She sleeps right through the night!” But it seemed to me that something was wrong. I put Jessica on the scale and noticed that she had not gained any weight since her checkup a month earlier. As I held her, I observed that her muscle tone was as limp as her apathetic personality. She made little attempt to sustain eye contact with me, and she didn’t make a peep.
The more I examined Jessica, the more I was sure that she was a baby experiencing what I call the shutdown syndrome. (See the box on page 126 for more on this syndrome.) This “good baby” was in reality failing to thrive. I asked the parents about their caregiving practices. They had been feeding Jessica on a three-to four-hour schedule, leaving her alone in her crib much of the time, and letting her cry at night until she gave up and slept. They weren’t carrying her very much and weren’t giving her very much of themselves.
“Where did you get this advice?” I inquired.
“In a parenting class at our church,” they volunteered.
These were loving parents, but they were new to babies and vulnerable. They sincerely wanted to do the best for their baby, but they had fallen into the wrong crowd. I advised them of the dangers of a detached parenting style and gave them tips on how to help Jessica thrive.
Two weeks later the parents brought Jessica in for another checkup. She had already gained a pound! She seemed more animated and looked at her parents and me during the examination. She even fussed a bit when we put her down in the infant seat, so her mother picked her up and put her in the baby sling. The parents were delighted with their changed little girl and were well on their way to becoming attached. A month later I got a thank-you note from them: “Jessica is doing great. Thank you so much for steering us in the right direction. We certainly hadn’t meant to do anything that would harm our baby.” Jessica continues to thrive on attachment parenting, though I doubt she is as “good” as she once was.
Not all babies react to baby training as dramatically as Jessica did. They may not actually stop growing or be diagnosed with failure to thrive, but they may fail to thrive in a different sense. Thriving means more than just getting bigger. It means optimal all-round development—physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. This can’t happen when Mom and Dad are denying baby what he needs most: their dependable presence.
Parents who use baby-training techniques may fail to thrive as well. Thriving as a parent means that you know your baby, are sensitive to her signals, anticipate her needs, and give appropriate responses. The ultimate in thriving is to enjoy living with your child and to find this relationship fulfilling. Baby training gets in the way of this goal. You lose the ability to read your child (making discipline more difficult), lose trust in yourself, and feel less adequate and, therefore, less fulfilled as a person.
My son went through a spurt of tantrums at around twelve months, and my first response to that was what every parenting book said to do: ignore the tantrums. But that never felt right to me, and it rarely worked. After discussing it with some AP friends, I learned to recognize those tantrums for what they were—overwhelming emotions. I realized that it was okay for me to listen to him, talk to him, and try to give a name to his feelings. I wasn’ t “giving in,” as many critical parents tried to convince me. It worked like a charm. I basically learned to help him work through his tantrums rather than ignore them.
What makes parents fall for the baby-training advice? Why do they let someone else’s rules and schedules override their own knowledge of their baby? There’s plenty of better parenting advice available in bookstores, on the Web, from various AP organizations, and, best of all, from more experienced parents. So why does baby training continue to thrive?
BEWARE OF BABY MAGAZINES
I have written articles for a lot of baby magazines, and I’ve discussed parenting philosophy with many editors and publishers. Most parenting magazines give at least equal attention to attachment parenting and baby training. But the fact still remains that baby training sells. A feature about baby-training classes recently even made the front page of the Wall Street Journal.
While the best baby magazines offer a balance of parenting styles, many strive to be “parent centered,” because that’s the way you sell magazines. Parents devour articles with titles such as “Five Ways to Get Your Baby on a Schedule” and “Ten Ways to Get Your Baby to Sleep Through the Night.” Here is an excerpt from an article in the May 2000 issue of Parents magazine entitled “Teach Your Baby to Sleep in Just Seven Days”: “Bedtime sins even smart parents commit: 1. Nursing your baby to sleep. 2. Rocking him to sleep…
Since when is it a sin to nurse or rock your baby to sleep? It’s sad but true: Baby training sells.
Baby training sells. While there are certainly millions of parents who just don’t feel right about the baby-training approach to parenting, there is a large market for advice that promises to make babies fit conveniently into a parent’s lifestyle. Baby training gains credibility from the case histories of satisfied parents who swear that getting their baby’s crying under control saved their sanity—and their marriage. It’s hard being a parent, and baby training promises to make life easier. Who wouldn’t want to be able to count on an uninterrupted night’s sleep?
In our culture, most adults become parents without having had much experience taking care of babies and young children. As result, they don’t have much confidence, so they go looking for advice. Attachment parenting, with its “trust your instinct” message, may be less appealing than parenting methods that come with specific directions and timetables. We are a goal-oriented society. Quick results—or at least the promise of them—are what sells.
Baby training is PC—parent centered. New parents who go looking for advice will encounter baby-training ideas everywhere, and this approach appeals to many of them because it’s parent centered. It allows mother and father to schedule their time with their baby in the same way they plan when they will do chores. It makes baby fit into parents’ lives, so that parents don’t have to change. We’ve heard these infants dubbed “daily planner babies.”
Baby trainers believe that attachment parenting is too infant centered. What parents need, they claim, is a more parent-centered approach. After all, grown-ups should not have to answer to the whims of an infant. Nor, they say, should the baby be making the decisions in the family. These indictments of attachment parenting capitalize on stories of attached mothers who can’t ever say no to their infants, sacrificing even their own well-being. Attachment parenting needs to be balanced, we agree, and the parenting style we advocate suggests you make decisions based on what works well for the whole family. This is not the same as letting your baby run your life, but baby trainers find it easier to describe it this way than to understand the complexities of infant cues and parent responses.
Baby training is based on a misperception of the parent-child relationship. It presumes that newborns enter the world out to control their parents, and that if you don’t take control first, baby will seize the reins and drive the carriage. Baby training sets up an adversarial relationship between parent and child. This isn’t healthy. You shouldn’t have to choose between infant centered and parent centered. Family life is not a contest that someone has to win and someone has to lose. In families, the goal is that everybody wins.
Think of the AP family as the us generation. This means, for example, that the baby of attached parents is likely to go along when the parents travel to Hawaii. They might bring her because she is still breastfeeding or because they simply enjoy being with baby. A trained baby, on the other hand, is likely to stay home with a sub while her parents escape on vacation. Baby training makes it possible for parents to do this, but think of the cost.
When you become a parent, you also become a target for criticism. When you are practicing a parenting style that is different from what your friends and family are used to, you’ll get lots of advice, some of which can make you worry about the wisdom of your choices and shake your confidence as a parent. Nothing divides friends and relatives like opinions about parenting. Here are some suggestions for handling advice from critics and feeling more confident with your own choices.
Surround yourself with AP parents. Join an AP support group (see the list of resources, page 177) or La Leche League (see page 63), and develop friendships with like-minded parents. Seek advice from veteran parents who not only share your views but whose kids you like. These are the people you can share your parenting struggles with. They’ll sympathize with what you’re going through without trying to win you over to an approach you don’t care to try.
Don’t set yourself up. If you’re seeking support for your parenting choices, or if you just need to complain, be selective about whom you talk to. If you are struggling with a high-need baby, stay away from mothers of “good babies” who eat every four hours and sleep through the night. You won’t get the empathy you’re seeking. Instead you’ll be told to stop spoiling your baby and put him down in the crib to cry, advice you don’t want to hear. You’ll end up feeling that your baby is fussing because there is something wrong with your baby or your parenting. (Keep in mind also that these mothers are probably stretching the truth a bit about their babies’ good behavior.) Instead, seek out experienced parents who have survived and thrived with a high-need baby. These are the ones who are most likely to give you empathy and useful advice.
Throughout our thirty years of working with parents and babies, we have grown to appreciate the correlation between how well children thrive (emotionally and physically) and the style of parenting they receive.
“You’re spoiling that baby!” First-time parents Linda and Norm brought their four-month-old high-need baby, Heather, into my office for consultation because Heather had stopped growing. Heather had previously been a happy baby, thriving on a full dose of attachment parenting. She was carried many hours a day in a baby sling, her cries were given a prompt and nurturant response, she was breastfed on cue, and she was literally in physical touch with one of her parents most of the day. The whole family was thriving, and this style of parenting was working for them. Enter the baby trainers. Well-meaning friends convinced these parents that they were spoiling their baby, that she was manipulating them, and that Heather would grow up to be a clingy, dependent child.
Parents lost trust. Like many first-time parents, Norm and Linda lost confidence in what they were doing, yielded to peer pressure, and adopted a more restrained and distant style of parenting. They let Heather cry herself to sleep, scheduled her feedings, and out of fear of spoiling they didn’t carry her as much. Over the next two months Heather went from being happy and engaged to sad and withdrawn. Her weight leveled off, and she went from the top of the growth chart to the bottom. Heather was no longer thriving, and neither were her parents.
Baby lost trust. After two months of no growth, Heather was labeled by her doctor “failure to thrive” and was about to undergo an extensive medical workup. When the parents consulted me for a second opinion, I diagnosed shutdown syndrome. I explained that Heather had been thriving because of their responsive style of parenting. Because of their parenting, Heather had trusted that her needs would be met, and her overall physiology had been organized. In thinking they were doing the best for their infant, these parents unknowingly pulled the attachment plug on Heather, and the connection that had caused her to thrive was gone. A sort of baby depression resulted, and her physiological systems slowed down. I advised the parents to return to their previous high-touch attachment style of parenting—to carry her a lot, breastfeed her on cue, and respond sensitively to her cries by day and night. Within a month Heather was again thriving.
Babies thrive when nurtured. We believe every baby has a critical level of need for touch and nurturing in order to thrive. We believe that babies have the ability to teach their parents what level of parenting they need. It’s up to the parents to listen, and it’s up to professionals to support the parents’ confidence and not undermine it by advising a more distant style of parenting, such as “let your baby cry it out” or “you’ve got to put him down more.” Only the baby knows his or her level of need, and the parents are the ones who are best able to read their baby’s language.
Babies who are “trained” not to express their needs may appear to be docile, compliant, or “good babies.” These babies could in fact be depressed babies who are shutting down the expression of their needs, and they may become children who don’t ever speak up to get their needs met and eventually adults with the highest needs.
Try to choose an AP-friendly health-care provider. If, because of your insurance plan, you don’t have that luxury, set some ground rules on your first doctor visit. Let your health-care provider know what you are doing and that it is working for you. If he or she gives you detachment advice, such as, “It’s time you got him out of your bed,” simply let it pass, or respond, “We’ll work on it.” Then go home and keep doing what you are doing.
Dr. Bill notes: There are three questions you should never ask your doctor: Where should my baby sleep? How long should my baby nurse? and Should I let my baby cry? These are parenting questions that are best addressed to veteran AP parents. You can be sure your doctor learned nothing about these issues in medical school.
Consider the source. Criticism from your parents or in-laws can be a delicate problem, as can criticism from anyone whose opinion you value. Feelings run deep, especially between mother and daughter, and gaining your parents’ approval of your parenting style may mean a lot to you. It helps to put yourself in your mother’s place and realize that she may think you are criticizing her when you make choices different from the ones she made. Remind yourself that she did the best she could given the information available to her. Your mother (or mother-in-law) means well. What you perceive as criticism is motivated by love and a desire to pass on experiences that she feels will help you and your children. Be careful not to imply that you are doing a better job than your own mother did. Don’t be surprised if your parents don’t buy AP. It’s not because they’re against it; they probably don’t understand it. If you think it would be helpful, share information with them and explain why you care for your baby in the way you do. But don’t argue or try to prove that you’re right. When you anticipate a disagreement, the best course is to avoid the issue and steer the conversation toward a more neutral topic.
When someone with little experience and fewer credentials criticizes your parenting style, ignore it. It’s a waste of energy to even get into a discussion. This is especially true if you run into hard-core baby trainers who are so completely certain of their own parenting philosophies that they cannot have an open mind about anyone else’s.
ATTACHMENT GRANDPARENTING
Grandparents may be less than enthusiastic or even critical of attachment parenting. Go easy on them. Remember, they grew up in a different era. They did the best they could with the advice and information they had, and now it’s your turn. You can make your own decisions about your parenting style without having to prove your parents wrong or make them feel guilty about mistakes they made. In fact, a simple statement like “I think I turned out pretty well” will help to ease any tension between you and your parents over how you are raising your child. Assume that grandparents mean well when they make statements such as, “Maybe he’s not getting enough milk,” or “What, you’re still nursing!,” or “She’ll never get out of your bed.” Don’t let anyone derail your confidence. You can offer a brief explanation of your choices, without becoming defensive or starting an argument.
Let grandparents help. Instead of focusing on differences in your parenting style, rely on your parents and your in-laws for help when you need it. Grandparents, like you, love your child, and they often can see needs that you don’t see. If Grandmother offers to baby-sit so “you two can have a night out,” take her up on it, yet let Grandma know you expect baby’s cries to be attended to. A wise grandmother realizes that many first-time attachment parents fail to take care of themselves while taking care of their baby. Grandparents can be very important attachment figures for babies and children. I remember the day a child walked into my office sporting a T-shirt that read, “Mom’s having a bad day. Call 1-800-Grandma.”
Let your child be the best testimony. Your child will eventually be your best advertisement. Once grandparents see the loving, caring, sensitive, and well-disciplined person their grandchild is becoming, you will win them over without having to say a word.
My mother-in-law was watching how I attachment-parented her grandson. She said, “I can see what I did wrong with his Dad when I watch how you parent Jacob. I ignored my child for fear of spoiling. He went through so much pain as an adult.”
♦ ♦ ♦
I trust that when my children are grown, some of what they have learned at home will stick with them, and they will nurture my grandchildren as lovingly as they are cared for now.
I’ve sometimes found that admitting doubts to someone who doesn’t agree with me can turn that person into an ally and draw us closer. The other person can see that I’m not really a know-it-all. I’m just trying to do my best, like every other mother. When someone feels that you need her emotionally, even a little, she is far more accepting of the things you do.
♦ ♦ ♦
My child is now seven years old, and she is a wonderful, bright, sensitive, and empathic person. Sleeping with her helped me be able to keep my milk supply up, even though I worked as a pediatrician three days a week. We slept with her, and I breastfed her until three years of age. I believe I have had less criticism regarding my views on attachment parenting due to the fact that I am a pediatrician and child-development specialist.
Stay positive. People are more likely to suggest you change your parenting style if they sense that you are frustrated and unhappy. If they perceive that you’re happy with your parenting style and with your child, they’re likely to back off. A simple statement, such as “It’s working for me,” puts you in a strong position and fends off unwanted opinions.
How you talk about your child is also important. Use this strategy called framing. If your toddler is going through one of those high-need, energetic stages, and your critic shakes his head and says, “He sure is demanding,” turn the comment around: “Yes, he has such a strong personality and really knows what he needs.” When someone says, “She sure does get into a lot of trouble,” come back with, “Yes, she is bright and curious.”
Humor helps. Humor disarms a critic. Use it to slow the momentum of a heavy conversation that may not be going in the direction you want. If someone criticizes you by saying, “You’re still nursing!” come back with, “Yes, but I’m sure she’ll wean before she starts college.” Critics usually back off once they see that you are confident enough about what you are doing to make jokes.
Use the doctor as a scapegoat. To preserve family friendships, I often advise parents to use my advice as a way to get their mother or mother-in-law off their case. For example, if your in-laws are shocked about your baby sleeping in your bed, just say, “My doctor advised me to do this.” Even if your doctor is not an advocate of co-sleeping, you can feel you are telling the truth if you just think of me, Dr. Bill, as your second doctor. Of all the Baby B’s, extended nursing and having baby in your bed are the ones that seem to bring out the most criticism.
Oftentimes your child will be the best advertisement for your parenting choices. Once your critics see that you have a baby who is happy and healthy most of the time, they’ll have to acknowledge that something about your parenting is working. When they see the person your child grows up to be, they will be even more impressed.
It’s confusing, yet heartwarming, that the very people who were criticizing me in the first couple of years are the ones who are now noticing how bright, intelligent, and compassionate she is.