on the subject of babywise.

Clockwork

I was never, ever around infants. I had no experience with babies at all. My first exposure to Babywise was in the fall of 2001. We were going to have dinner with one of Shawn’s coworkers and his family. A family with six children, including a baby. I recall dreading it! A meal with six rowdy children! What fun!

We arrived and were seated, and it was nothing like I imagined. I think I sat there in a speechless stupor. It was as if I were sitting in the front row of an intricately choreographed Broadway musical. There was no whining. There was no fussing. In fact, I don’t really remember the children saying much of anything. The food was ordered, by the mom. She divided and distributed it among the children. And they ate it, no complaining. I don’t remember very much of the baby. She sat there and contentedly ate during the meal. When it was time to leave, all the children knew their place. It was like clockwork. The oldest girl was there handing the mom the washcloth as the mom turned to grab it. The oldest boy was handing the girl something else as she turned to grab it. The evening really made an impression on me. I had NEVER seen such well behaved children, let alone a family of SIX of them.

Trying to make conversation with these folks whom I didn’t know, I said something to the mom about not getting sleep at night. I didn’t know anything about babies… other than you didn’t sleep much when you had them. But she shocked me by saying that the baby had been sleeping through the night as some single digit number of weeks. She told me she had used a method called Babywise, that was detailed in a book, and that had allowed the babies to all sleep so well. I filed that information away to save for a later date! I knew I’d need sleep one day when I had a baby.

Too good to be True

My second exposure began in June of 2003. The first of our close friends had a baby. During the pregnancy, they had taken a Babywise class in preparation for little one’s arrival. And they utilized the Babywise technique, to the letter, with this little girl. I was very close with this family and the little girl. I was the main babysitter. I visited often. But I didn’t know much about babies. Having the predictable Babywise routine was SO comforting to me. I loved it. I knew when to do what – it was based on the clock. Plus, she slept through the night. You just laid her down at naptime and she went to sleep. She was well behaved. I have no memories of her crying, and I spent a lot of time with this family. Further evidence this Babywise thing was sure!

As time went on, other close friends had babies and did Babywise. It’s surprising to say, but we didn’t know anyone well who did NOT use Babywise. That was all I knew. That was “how” I knew to “do” a baby, to do the little day to day, hour to hour, things for a baby.

So when we became pregnant, I knew from the beginning that we’d be doing Babywise. The predictable routine of it was so comforting to me. Since I didn’t know how else to handle a baby. This would help with the unmarked territory. Plus all the ‘biblical’ stuff in the book to back up the positions.

Growing Kids whose Way?

When working with the youth at our church, we were given an article to read, in preparation for the perspective that some parents could be coming from, since it is widely used in Christian circles. It came from some magazine I think. But I was APPALLED at its contents. It was from the “Growing Kids God’s Way” organization. It was directed at parents of teens. I don’t remember all it said now. Here are two things that have stayed with me:

Teens should never be allowed in their room with their door shut (i.e. never allowed ANY privacy) – I would have lost my mind without the ability to go to my room as a teen. Granted, I did not have a good upbringing, but my bedroom was my sanctuary, my respite from the chaos. Having that alone time, for my personality and for those difficult adolescent years, was crucial! To think of not allowing my child that was insane!

Slumber parties are “sin parties” and should never be allowed. This one floored me. It espoused all the evil that would inevitably occur at any slumber party. Again, going to other’s homes for slumber parties was an escape from my awful home life, but these were events that were wonderful for my childhood. Some of my favorite memories are from sleepovers. I did not grow up in a “Christian” home, per se, but I can guarantee you we didn’t do ANYTHING evil at our sleepovers, ever. To deny my child this social outlet, again, was insane.

When we worked with the youth, we taught a curriculum on sexual integrity. For the students in public schools, the information was rather timely. However, there were a few parents of home schooled children who freaked out over the content of these lessons. They couldn’t believe we would broach such topics in a “bible study.” They wanted to shelter their children from these things, in an effort to “protect” them. We were providing the teens with a biblical basis for WHY we should remain sexually pure, in body AND mind, not just saying “don’t do it!” We were giving them real life practical application of these scriptural truths. But these parents were basing their objections on the “Growing Kids God’s Way” philosophy and materials.

I realized that the GKGW philosophy was very wrong, in my opinion, and that I wanted nothing to do with it. And it was appalling to me that there were people out there who insisted their “their” way, “their” interpretation, was “God’s” way, and the only “appropriate” way – a very arrogant stance indeed.

I don’t know when I made the connection that the GKGW folks were the same Ezzos who wrote Babywise. I remember being totally shocked that the Babywise method was the secularized version of GKGW for babies. How could this be? This wonderful baby handling method came from the people who promoted these crazy child rearing concepts? Looking back, I realize this raised a red flag inside me. But I chose to ignore it. I decided I’d apply the Babywise principles, but nothing this organization said beyond that.

Babywise Bad?

I did have two warnings about Babywise. The first came from an acquaintance, a mom of two children, whose children are now older. We were talking one morning about my upcoming motherhood and I think I somehow brought up my plans to use Babywise. And I instantly sensed grave upset and hesitation from her. She gave me a warning about Babywise, knowing my perfectionist personality. She tried to tell me not to be rigid, and not to be upset if my baby came out and didn’t perform as the book said he should. I don’t remember everything now, but I do recall that she greatly regret using Babywise and that no matter how hard she tried, her son wouldn’t “do” what he was supposed to. She tried to tell me that it wouldn’t be because I was doing anything wrong.

She also sent me an email the next day that included links to several anti-Ezzo websites. I was flabbergasted that there were people out there that seemed to be passionately antagonistic towards Babywise. I knew I disagreed with the GKGW philosophy but nothing about Babywise had seemed “wrong” to me. Plus, it seemed to work so well for everyone we knew! I disregarded it, saying that all these folks hadn’t really applied the principles correctly. A lot of the websites focused on failure to thrive. But I knew for a fact that for all the kids I knew, this was not an issue. This helped me to brush it aside.

My other warning was from another mom acquaintance. She was pregnant and due a few weeks before me with her third child. She was the first mom that I kind of “knew” who did not do Babywise, and who seemed to boldly proclaim attachment parenting. In my childless arrogance, I had decided that the “attachment parenting” crowd were the crazies who had wild, rambunctious children. But this mom tore a hole in this theory. Her two boys were very well behaved, and yet maintained their childlike personalities. This always gave my heart pause, but I pushed it down. She’s the exception, I told myself. One evening after a bible study, we walked to our cars together, and she told me how she was against Babywise. I hadn’t brought it up. That had been all the rage when she had her first, and she was adamantly against it. However, she’d never even read the book. So I discounted her warning – she didn’t even know what it was about!

I now realize that God used both of these conversations in my heart. I didn’t forget them. Their impression on my heart continued to persist. And eventually gave me the courage to give voice to my reservations too.

Cracks in the Foundation

Nathan was born. And that’s when the walls started to crumble around me. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happened as it was “supposed to.” The book said to start it on day 10 or immediately. Thankfully that original mom with six kids was there to counsel me some. She told me to throw Babywise out the window for the first six weeks and to just “enjoy him.” But, I must admit, I had a hard time. I had to fight the guilt of enjoying him, knowing the book and all our friends said I should be implementing this and that now. I wasn’t “doing it right” and could “mess him up.” We decided to wait until 6 weeks.

The day he turned 3 weeks, he just started staying awake after he ate, on his own (one of the big concepts of Babywise). And we went with it. From then on, we started trying to get him to stay awake after he ate, for “half” the interval, and then go down for a nap. Having him stay awake after he ate was never a battle for us. Naptime, however, was a completely different story. He hardly ever protested going down for a nap. But he also hardly ever took the "whole" nap.

I don’t remember a lot from this time. I was so sleep deprived. I was so nervous about him not getting enough to eat that I was still feeding him really frequently at night. Plus I was unknowingly actually waking him up to eat when I thought he was waking on his own. It took a while to realize this – he was just a noisy sleeper then.

I vividly remember talking to that original mom on the phone one day with 35 questions about Babywise. Nathan started crying in his crib. But it wasn’t “time” to get up yet… and I was supposed to let him cry. He needed to learn it was naptime. Because “mom decides when nap begins, and mom decides when nap ends.” I remember the tears streaming down my face, emotionally torn in two listening to him scream his head off while I talked on the phone. She finally said to me, “go get that baby! You do NOT have to let him cry!” I don’t think I could even really muster real speaking in reply I was crying so hard myself. I can recall the feel of running up the steps to rescue my screaming child – the amount of light streaming in the foyer, the feel of the stair rail, the sound of the door handle opening. The relief that someone thought it was okay to get my upset child.

I think it was then that the first true crack in the foundation of Babywise was formed. I knew the original mom had done Babywise – but she was in a new stage of life now that her youngest was 6. I’d never seen her “implement” Babywise. Only knew she did it. We’d “seen” our friends do Babywise. Our friends did cry it out. Our friends lived by the clock. Waketime was waketime. Naptime was naptime. End of story. You can sleep during nap, or you can cry. Your choice. And I had assumed that all of this was vital to stabilizing his little system, sleep cycles, and metabolism. As the book would say, sometimes the “loving” thing to do doesn’t “feel” like the loving thing. But original mom assured me, she NEVER let her kids cry. And that each one of them had different sleep needs. Each one of them varied in how much sleep they needed, and even day to day.

I realize now that I’ve fought guilt at my handling of Nathan since day one. We had to swaddle him until he was three months old, in order for him to sleep. That was “wrong” – it was a sleep aid. I don’t remember how long, but we had to rock him from the beginning to get him to go back to sleep at night. That was wrong, again, a sleep aide. We fought tooth and nail to prevent him from sleeping anywhere but his crib. That was “wrong.” We played music in his room to help block out sound. That was “wrong.” It was a sleep aid. During his evening unreal fussy periods, he would sometimes fall asleep on one of us. And I couldn’t completely enjoy the pure ecstasy of my newborn baby resting peacefully on my chest, because that was “wrong.” They are never to sleep on you. If his naps didn’t go well and he was tired, he would fall asleep nursing. And that was “wrong.” You don’t get to sleep during or after you eat. And worst of all, if he woke up “early” I was not to get him. He was to remain in his crib, because it was “naptime.” And Nathan nearly always woke up early. Nathan defied all these Babywise “rules”, and the guilt of that weighed heavy on my heart.


I’m not really sure how old Nathan was, but I finally decided I wasn’t going to let him cry. If he woke up early, I went and got him. And I wasn’t going to feel “guilty” about it. From the beginning, this kid doesn’t seem to need that much sleep during the day. No, or only very short, breaks for the mommy is hard. But still, deep inside, I beat myself up, despite my mind’s decision that it was okay. Why wasn’t my kid doing this like everybody else’s kid (who had let their babies cry in their cribs during naptime)? What was I doing wrong? “I” was failing at Babywise.

You’re already there

One day I realized that I’d met the goal. One day I realized – he sleeps at nighttime, really well. The whole point of doing Babywise was to get the child to sleep at night. And Nathan did. Great. He’d slept 8 hours at 6 weeks old, and 12 hours at 8 weeks. So, what was letting him cry in his crib at naptime accomplishing? Absolutely nothing. All it did was put me and him through unnecessary agony. I was trying so hard to make him conform to the typical Babywise “schedule ” -- in the hopes of “stabilizing” him. But he was already stabilized, all the while, not sleeping like “normal” through the day.

Now that we are past this phase, I can look back and see that Nathan was a high needs baby. And in my opinion, the babies of our friends that we’d been exposed to Babywise through, did not have high needs babies. And perhaps that is why they did not struggle with Babywise as I have. Nathan didn’t cry. He screamed. He hyperventilated. And there was no stopping it short of getting him. He'd go as long as you were willing to let him. And I simply couldn’t handle it. Perhaps I am wrong though about our other friends’ babies. I was not in these folks’ homes to see and hear. Perhaps somehow these parents persisted through the crying because of a need to adhere to the regimen that I simply couldn’t answer to. I will never know. Perhaps very early on, their little spirits were broken. I will never know. Perhaps they learned that if they communicated upset from their crib, they would be ignored. There was no hope.

Hope

The first mom who gave me a warning about Babywise suggested I talk to another acquaintance of ours, who had a similar upbringing to mine, to get her perspective as well. I don’t recall this mom saying anything good or bad about Babywise. What she told me was that a book she found far more useful was Grace Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel.





I love to read, and am a researcher at heart, so I got the book. I started reading it before Nathan was born. And it was superb! Really challenged me on so many levels. But I wanted to read it with Shawn, and we were reading fifteen other books together. We decided to let this one wait until later, since we probably wouldn’t need its content right away. At the time I was irritated, because the content was so amazing to me and I wanted to devour it. But I recognize it as divine providence now. Had I not experienced what I did, I know that these passages wouldn’t have made the impression they did when I happened upon them later.

Dr. Kimmel explains in this book that “all children are born with a need to love and be loved, a need to live lives that have meaning, and a need to believe that tomorrow is worth getting up for. Security, significance, and strength – love, purpose, and hope… They are three ingredients of a life that finds fulfillment in the God who created these needs.” He later goes on to refer to this as secure love, significant purpose, and a strong hope. Each of these qualities, without their qualifier, do not meet those inner needs.

I think Nathan was around five or six months old when I got to the chapter halfway through the book called ‘A Strong Hope’. I felt like someone had whacked me with a boat oar. The concept of hope, and the connection it has to how I treat Nathan now as an infant, had an enormous impact on me. Although it is long, I want to include an excerpt from this chapter here.

INNATE HELPLESSNESS (p98)

One of the first things we need to understand is the role that helplessness plays in building a strong hope into our children. Their early ability to trust us in the areas where they are helpless to meet their personal needs weighs heavily in their ability to ultimately trust God as they grow older.

Children are completely helpless when they’re born. If you strap a four-month-old child in a highchair and leave him there, there is absolutely nothing he can do to get out of it. An infant left on his own for long periods of time this way is taught that no matter how much he hope for relief, no relief is coming. If there are enough scenarios like this in his early life, he could assume that there isn’t much in life worth putting his hope in. This makes him vulnerable to embracing Satan’s counterfeits of power, control, or abuse as substitutes for hope, and conditions him away from the notion that it is even worth it to put his trust in God. If he can’t trust the adults in his life when he is helpless, why should he assume that he could trust in a God he can’t see – especially if that trust in God is preached to him by the parents who failed to help him in his time of need?

I’m convinced that we unwittingly set our children up for a lifetime of struggling to hope and trust in the Lord by putting them in an understaffed, overworked childcare environment for the first few years of their lives. When their helpless needs go unmet for long stretches of time, eventually the children come to the conclusion that this is just the way life is: hopeless.

Children develop hope when they have loving parents ready to sacrifice to meet their helpless needs. Newborns can’t feed themselves, burp themselves, change themselves, or move themselves. They can’t walk or talk or read. They can’t get up and check on things that go bump in the night. They are completely dependent on the people around them for their existence. It’s during this stage that parents can lay a solid foundation for strong hope. At every stage of childhood – toddler, young child, elementary school child, junior higher, and even high schooler – there are built-in dilemmas that children have little to no power to deal with. They need a mother or father who has an eye on them and a savvy sense of timing that pulls up next to them with what they need to get them through. It’s not that they need a handout as much as a hand up when they are facing something too big to handle by themselves.

In the animal kingdom, most animals reach a mature level of self-sufficiency very quickly. Not so with God’s highest created beings. He made them helpless and keeps them that way not only to show them their driving inner need for strength and sufficiency, but also to give us as parents a perfect staging area to instill in our children a strong and sure hope in God. ….

We instill a strong hope in our children when we curb our own wants in order to guarantee their needs. ….

Infants, as I mentioned earlier, are completely helpless. We can condition them to trust in the God of hope by creating a balanced and grace-based environment that accommodates their helplessness when it comes to their need for food. Regarding this, one area that desperately needs a touch of grace is the whole issue of schedule feeding.

Most children naturally fall into a predictable schedule for eating. A mom and dad can get fairly adept at predicting when the child will need to eat. It’s also true that careful attention to his natural food demands can help a mother know how to satisfy her child in the afternoon and evening feedings in such a way that the child is more inclined to sleep through the night. There's nothing wrong with that. Mostly, it's common sense.

But I've noticed a strident attitude that is too often brought to the issue of a child's feeding schedule. Usually its advocates tout the tremendous benefits this strict view of schedule feeding brings to the parent – especially in the area of sleep. But without a clear commitment to grace, strict and nonnegotiable attitudes toward schedule feeding can do far more long-term harm than good. At its worst, this attitude can cause dehydration and malnutrition problems in the child. But even short of that, it can also unwittingly work to undermine a child's ability to trust his parents to accommodate his helplessness. This can cause the foundation of hope that they are building under their child to be flawed and weak.

To fall short of the stricter, strident form of schedule feeding that these outspoken advocates teach is to be guilty of feeding on demand or caving in to a child's unnecessary whims. Guilt or fear of making a mistake can keep some parents from meeting a child's genuine hunger need as well as undermine their capacity to develop a strong and supernatural hope in their hearts. Unfortunately, serious problems can develop when parents take what these advocates teach and apply their advice to their children in strident, uncompromising ways.

Personally, I lean more toward the camp of parents who orchestrate a reasonable feeding schedule for their babies. Usually everyone in the family circle, including the baby, tends to function better with the structure that accompanies this method of feeding. It is to be preferred to the philosophies of feeding that lead to overattachment, overdependence, and overprotection, but there needs to be a commitment to grace that permeates this plan.

Grace doesn't fit with the stricter models of parenting. Grace often contradicts parenting plans that want to distill roles down into checklists. Grace-based parenting is a heart-activated plan that takes its cues from a daily walk with Jesus Christ. Because of this, grace and strict parenting textbooks will never find themselves in agreement.

LET'S DANCE

Raising Children isn't a march with a distinct left-right-left-right cadence. It's a flowing dance where the rhythms change all the time. ….

When we insist on distilling our roles in our children's lives down to a predictable cadence – especially in the areas where they are helpless – we may live in quieter homes and sleep sounder at night, but we may miss the greater opportunity to equip a child with a large capacity to hope and trust. Parenting hopeful children isn't convenient, just kind.

I finally, after reading this, felt justified in my insistence that we not let Nathan cry. As I explained to Shawn when I shared this excerpt with him all those months ago, I'm not willing to take that chance. Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps how we treat him now doesn't affect his hope. Perhaps how we treat him now doesn't have grand impact on his emotional well being, as a child and later as an adult. But, I'm not willing to risk it. The wounds that could result aren't worth it.

-----
Double Take

Reading Dr. Kimmel's thoughts really set my mind spinning. Since I was effectively brainwashed through reading the extremely convincing method book on Babywise, I am very leery of adopting a new "method" book, or adopting another "method" altogether. I don't want to bounce from this to that. Grace Based Parenting wasn't a how-to book. It was a Why book. It opened my eyes to how all my little actions in a day add up to communicate to that little boy how God interacts with him. It opened my eyes to how much I don't understand grace myself, and how my own childhood affects that. More than anything, it prompted my own reflection. And it prompted me to understand WHY I do what I do.

Now what do I do?

I now had major doubts in my mind about Babywise, of course, but I still persisted with what we'd kept of it – the 4 hour schedule – because I didn’t see anything “wrong” with that part. I got him up when he woke early. And if he woke at night, I got up and fed him. But all of a sudden, he stopped taking his naps. He wasn't falling asleep until time to get him up. And this "threw off" the schedule. I didn't know what to do. And that's really what prompted my big shift in philosophy.

For weeks I consulted everyone I knew for when they "took away" the morning nap. No one did before 13-14 months. Nathan was 8 or 9… everyone told me I couldn't. It was too early! But a fellow xanga mom, whose little girl is a month younger than Nathan, posted that her little girl took one long nap. She doesn't Babywise. So one day, at 10 months, we tried it.

Nathan has always been one who seemed to respond so much better if he got a lot of sleep at once. But, due to the Babywise schedule, I was always waking him at 8am to "start the day", and waking him at noon, because that was when he was "supposed" to eat, on the 4 hour schedule. But he never wanted to go back down in the afternoon when it was "time." If he gets 3 minutes of sleep, he's good for another 4 hours.

When I started questioning the validity of Babywise, my husband kept asking me, "Since when does he set his schedule? He's never set his schedule." Again, I felt that boat oar. The book touts that the child will eventually learn to get his sleep during his nap intervals. That he'll sleep during naptime, and wake up naturally when its time to get up. And wake up happy. But Nathan NEVER did. Ever. And that's when I realized. Even Babywise explains that the baby should learn to regulate himself within that schedule. That he IS setting his own schedule. He's sleeping when he needs to. How could we possibly think that us defining when he needs to sleep is correct? He will let us know what he needs!

Now, having one longer nap during the day seems to be working okay for Nathan. He isn't sleepy before 11:30am. That's just him. He also doesn’t take the same nap day to day. Some days he sleeps an hour. Others he may sleep close to three. And that is OKAY! It's completely counter to Babywise. But it's where we've landed. And mom and baby seem much happier.

E.A.S.Y

Before I completely bash Babywise, I must give credit to TWO concepts that it touts.

First, part of its protocol is keeping the baby awake after he eats, rather than going to sleep. So no nursing to sleep during the day. This is actually the same thing that the Baby Whisperer recommends (E-eat, A-awake, S-sleep, Y-you). And this alone is what I credit Nathan's good nighttime sleeping to. I do think this is a good concept, and I will do this with any other children we are blessed with (although they won’t be required to stay awake for certain periods of time). I have a friend in her 40s whose sons recently graduated from high school. She was a lot of help during Nathan's newborn stage. When she learned of this "keep them awake" thing, she explained that that was what her mother had taught her, and that she thought that was just common sense… apparently not.

Second, it encourages being marriage centered, not child centered. And I do agree with this, to a degree. Having a strong and healthy marriage is one of the greatest gifts we can give our children on so many different levels. However, this is a season. We are in the season of raising little ones. What it looks like to not be child centered when they are babies will be different than when they are 10 years old.

It's DESIGNED this way

Oddly enough, my mom emailed me a link to http://www.gentlechristianmothers.com/ around this time. One afternoon, during some time away to myself, I decided to peruse the site. And I came across some articles and such that discouraged Babywise and the Ezzo method, and articles that gave Scripture references to the concept of breastfeeding. It was an enlightening experience, and actually what finally pushed me over the Babywise edge. I came home that day to tell Shawn I no longer believed in Babywise – which took him completely off guard.

From the research I did there, I realized, that his emotional needs ARE valid needs. Babywise and other texts warn against allowing the baby to manipulate you. Babywise also doesn't allow nursing for comfort. But something that always gave me pause, was that Nathan seemed to find enormous comfort in nursing. It settled him like nothing else. I was awed to see so many Scripture references, both literally and allegorically, of the comfort of a mother nursing her baby. I finally allowed myself to realize that God designed it that way. God gave the mother a unique way to comfort that little soul until he has the understanding to be comforted in other ways. It's NOT wrong.

"For you will nurse and be satisfied at her comforting breasts; you will drink deeply and delight in her overflowing abundance. . . . you will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees. As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you. . ." ~ Isaiah 66:11, 12b, 13a

"Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb; You made me trust when upon my mother's breasts."
~ Psalm 22:9

Babywise also ridicules those who respond out of emotion. But I am a woman, and am therefore full of emotion. The last several years I’ve made huge attempts at embracing my femininity and am no longer trying to deny it. Thus, I’ve been allowing myself to feel. And that was the root of my inability to allow Nathan to cry. It emotionally violated my heart. But the stench of Babywise remained for so long, and I beat myself up for “reacting” rather than intellectually analyzing and responding – as one who is not female would do.

Another thing this site alerted me to was that Babywise is really just a "socially accepted form of control", at least in many Christian circles. I could totally see how the Growing Kids God's Way philosophy and method was so completely about control. But I didn't see it in Babywise. The book abounds in references to flexibility and assessing the cries and handling each case. But the practical day to day application of the method doesn't result in that. It's all about conforming to the schedule. The very fact that it’s a "schedule" shows me the inherent wrongness of it. Routine is good, helpful, and safe to a child. Schedule, rigid clock watching, is not. Getting my child to “mind” me is a goal. He needs to respect authority, and his ability to do so will hugely impact his success in life. But just because he “appears” to behave, doesn’t mean his heart is aligned. Babywise totally ignores the concept of the heart.

Babywise is about getting the child to fit into your life, not about adjusting your life to life anew with a child. And the book convincingly argues that this is the “best” way for the child. I realize now that a lot of my problems were due to my expectations. Expectations that Nathan would nap at these predetermined times, and that I would get those predetermined times to do what I wished. Everyone else got this – why couldn't I? When I let go of these foolish expectations, I became a much happier person and mom. Who says it isn't going to impact your life? Who says you get several hours to do xyz during the day? Who says you have to get 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep at night?

On an Island

I do, however, feel somewhat like I'm on an island, alone. I am no longer one of them (the babywisers). And I am not one of them (the co-sleeping, attachment parenting folks). And as much as I hate to admit it, I hate standing alone. But God has not called me to find fellow countrymen. He's given me the high and holy calling of Mother. And I realize now, that it will often feel very alone.

Regrets

One of my biggest regrets was Nathan's third to fourth month. I had to use a topical estrogen cream to treat atrophic vaginitis, brought about due to breastfeeding and a drop in estrogen. I took it for a month – but I was supposed to use it for 6 weeks. At Nathan's four month checkup, we realized he'd not gained any weight in the last month. We tried adding a fifth feeding to his day, which was an utter nightmare. (I didn’t know it at the time, but my milk supply had diminished significantly. There was no milk there by the 4th feeding of the day, and that made Nathan angry! It was a miserable, frustrating experience for both of us). A few days later, I decided to stop the estrogen. I had suspected milk supply issues and went online to research. I found one website that mentioned estrogen "could" cause a decrease in milk supply. I was desperate and willing to try anything at this point to fix the problem. Within 24 hours of ceasing using the estrogen, the milk came rushing back.

I looked back on my daily record, where I write down everything that happens in the land of Nathan. Two days after starting the estrogen, I wrote "inconsolable crying at 2:30." I wrote it again the next day, and the next, and the next. I had assumed it was teething. I had an explanation. I held him, inconsolably crying, all those days. Until 4pm, when it was "Time" to eat again. Although, there wasn't much there for him to eat, unbeknownst to me. I had noticed I wasn’t waking up full in the mornings, but I attributed this to my body finally adjusting to breastfeeding. I had noticed that when I pumped, I couldn’t get anything. I thought something was wrong with my pump.

I had starved my baby. I cannot describe to you the pain that comes out of this. Because of my strict adherence to this "method," for a month, I starved my baby.

I did need the estrogen to heal. But, had I not "held him off", I probably would have discovered much earlier that milk supply was the issue. We weighed him three times a week (because we are engineers and love data). He had rapidly gained more than 7 pounds from his birth to 3 months. Three times a week for a month we saw the same numbers on the scale, and never questioned whether he needed to eat more.

Everyone is different

I do not fault the parents who have used this method. I do not fault my friends. We are all given different experiences. And we all must go with our instincts. More than ever before, I believe in my instinct. I believe God has given me a divine motherly instinct. And from now on, I plan to trust it.

Although I do personally feel that Babywise IS wrong, not only in method but also in the philosophy driving it (control), I refuse to push that opinion on others. I do hope that my experience shared here can be a beacon of light though, for those trying to figure out how they are going to approach the real life day-to-day how-to of being a mom.

What the Future holds

I am scared of the future, but hopeful. I know I don’t fully understand all the ways in which Babywise has permeated my outlook. I no longer know in my mind whether the way I approach certain things is because of my instinct, or because of how I was “taught” in Babywise. My prayer is that God will fill me with wisdom as it pertains to my children, and I will be able to purge my mind with the ungraceful philosophies. As Dr. Kimmel suggests, I hope to use grace as the filter for everything I do from now on.