Phyllis asks for resources to share with an overwhelmed new mother who is tempted to let her baby cry it out.

Here again, La Leche League has the very best support and materials, and I hope she can find a group, but here is a nice article that I think sums it up very nicely:  "Why Africian Babies Don't Cry"

The title does not promise NO crying, but it just speaks to the different ways mothers may chose to approach motherhood- either by fully embracing it, or harboring a little slice of resentment or fantasy thinking that "it shouldn't be this way."    Many mothers find that when they "give in" to the needs of their baby, things start to get better.  That's because the mother changes- not the baby!

"I suddenly learned the not-so-difficult secret as to the joyful silence of African babies. It was a simple needs-met symbiosis that required a total suspension of ideas of "what should be happening" and an embracing of what was actually going on in that moment. The bottom line was that my baby fed a lot - far more than I had ever read about anywhere and at least five times as much as some of the stricter feeding schedules I had heard about."

http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/claire_niala.html

Maybe this will help.
Regards,
Sue Jacoby, LLL and IBCLC
California

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