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Subject:
From:
Ted Greiner <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 29 Aug 1995 13:28:18 +0200
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Re Kathleen Auerbach's comments on this subject. When our first son was
born we tried to follow the baby book advice and get him to sleep in his
own bed. This clearly was not even possible to contemplate, though, till he
was no longer regularly breastfeeding at night. Then there came a period
when he often still woke at night and eventually my wife gave up on trying
to cart him back to his own bed. She usually fell asleep while
breastfeeding him anyway. Then when he was about 9 months old we made a
huge effort and after what felt like the application of "cruel and unusual
punishment" got him used to falling asleep on his own.

Then we entered a period of moving several times and all newly formed
habits were called off. Sleeping in bed with us became a new habit of its
own. Then we saw the book The Family Bed and decided to give up worrying
about it. When number 2 came after a 3.5 year birth space, we pushed two
mattresses together on the floor and got used to being four in a continuous
bed space. I was more bothered by our boys' kicking in their sleep than
Stina (their heels seemed to have built-in homing systems targetted to that
spot between one's legs), so my only request was that she lay between me
and them, but that only worked sometimes. This kept on and was actually
conventient, as in those days we could not afford more than the two room
apartment we had.

When they were 10 and 7 years old we began to sleep in a separate mattress
in the living room. But we kept taking turns laying down beside them as
they went to sleep. For the next couple years they still never had to fall
asleep on their own, but gradually they got used to it and now only the 12
year old on rare occasions likes to have company at least for awhile before
falling to sleep.

As neither boy ever sucked his thumb (or anything else besides a breast for
that matter) or was interested in teddy bears or such, I was interested to
note in "Object attachment, thumbsucking, and the passage to sleep" by AW
Wolf and B Lozoff (J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 1989; 28:287-292)
that it is falling to sleep with someone (closely correlated to having body
contact at this time) rather than breastfeeding per se that is most
associated with lack of need for an "attachment object."

Knowing what eis wondering about, I can say that a
physician colleague at work loudly claimed a few years after the birth of
his youngest that this thing of prolonged breastfeeding that I advocated
(ours were breast fed for 3.5 years each) had no future, as it interf1
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