Kathy, I liked your Lactnet comment: ".parents often seem so eager to impose
an external set of guidelines on their baby to prevent them from developing
bad habits, rather than trying to discover who their little person really is
and what they need to thrive."

 

.and I had some additional thoughts:

 

When we start a new job - whether employment, motherhood or being a
lactation consultant - we all want to know what to do to succeed.  

 

For many of us raised in the US (and perhaps other countries, but that's my
current frame of reference), this means:

"Give me a list of what to do and when to do it, so that I don't get in
trouble - and so I can be sure I'm "following the rules".

 

Recently, a job-seeker asked: "What does 'success' mean in this job I'm
interviewing for?" - the interviewer had no answer.

 

Last week during a Peer Counselor Update session I was leading, they asked:
"Can you give me a list of what to tell mothers when they report ____?"  We
spent a long time discussing what this would look like - more a "flow chart"
with options depending on many factors.

 

A new mother asks: "What do I do so that I raise a "successful"
child/adult?" I have no simple answer, because "it depends".

 

What I'm seeing from all this discussion is again the need to LISTEN -
listen to the baby, listen to the mother, listen to what is going on between
them, listen to their culture, their pressures, their support system.

 

Yes, I started with "the baby" because that is MY frame of reference - but I
do not live with this mother - I did not escape from poverty by dressing up
as a boy for 4 years, I did not live in an apartment with three families,
none of which are related to me, and who criticize and threaten if my baby
makes noise, I do not live in a household of 14 people, mostly my husband's
family, and he is the only breadwinner.

 

I'm very glad that we are learning more about meeting the infants' needs and
how that can create healthier children - at the same time, we need to stay
always aware that often mother has little control of her environment - and
the options we provide should include not only the "ideal" (exclusive
breastfeeding, attachment parenting), but also
less-than-ideal-but-still-better than what is now happening. 

 

In most situations - the "cookie cutter approach" that we often read from
Health Departments and professional organizations which fear "confusing
mothers with 'too many' options" (i.e. co-bedding, starting solids, etc.)
leads to unhappy families - because no one LISTENED. 



.just some thoughts.

 

Jeanette Panchula, BA-SW, RN, PHN, IBCLC


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