When I moved to this part of the world, one fo the first warnings I
received from other Lactation knowledgeables around here was of a
physician's practice and a couple of other places pushing Ezzo
books/philosophy, etc.

Today, I got my first taste of who insidious this can be.  One of my
clients (seen only once; typical when little was going wrong and helping
her made me look like an angel and I felt guilty taking her money) called
and asked if I knew anything about a book that talked about "scheduling,"
as she put it.

I asked her if it was called something like Preparation for Parenting and
she confirmed.  When I asked her how she happened to come upon that book
(wondering about the bookstores I had visited and NOT seen it in), she said
her husband had brought it home from work from a "friend" who said they
SHOULD be scheduling their baby.  Baby weighed 10 lbs at birth; at 8 weeks,
he is 16 lbs and in thriving good health.  A typically bouncing breastfed
baby who LOVES to nurse and whose mom has plenty of milk (obviously!).

As it happens, when she was here, we talked about how she could expect her
baby would lengthen out his feeds at night as he was able and t hat she did
not need to worry that this would never happen.  (That is what he has done
in the last week, says she.)

Why did she call?  She read snippets of the book and felt uncomfortable,
wanted to know what I thought of the "recommendations" which she said meant
that she and her husband were at least 3 weeks BEHIND the schedule given
(in terms of frequency of feedings, length of baby sleeping at night,
etc.).  I discussed some of the problems that have been shared on LACTNET
and asked her how she felt about what she had read, etc.

At that point she said she called because she was more comfortable with the
suggestions I had offered (more int he way of information about normal
infant development, actually) adn that she was going to give the book back
and tell her husband NO WAY!!!

Here's one for open communications.... Also a warning.  This system is
being driven by heavy PR and lack of understanding of babies and what seems
like an easy way to maintain ADULT CONTROL in the interests of ADULTS
without taking into consideration the needs of babies. By the way, the
mom's pedi is not part of the group that espouses this method, but he did
say that a baby her son's size SHOULD be sleeping throught he night
(forgetting that he is really only 8 weeks, even though he is a big as some
6 mo olds).  This mother came back with "he is 8 weeks and I am going to
treat him like an 8 week old" (meaning she had no intention of not meeting
his nighttime needs.  Hurrah for her!!!

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"We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly
disguised as impossible situations."
Kathleen G. Auerbach,PhD, IBCLC (Ferndale, WA USA) [log in to unmask]
WEB PAGE: http://www.telcomplus.com/~kga/lactation.html
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