I rec'd a note this morning from a mother with a four month old baby, not
gaining well. Had been bf frequently, in the beginning..but her
pediatrician advised her that her baby only needed to bf every 3 hours, not
more than that.. Mother was obviously tired, and young...(22)...and
overwhelmed. She then bought "Secrets of a Baby Whisperer." Followed the
advice. Baby slept and slept, which she thought was great, waking to feed
four times per day. Now at 4 months, baby will take supplemental bottles
easily, is fussy all the time if the mother attempts to breastfeed her more
often....and *losing* weight. The mother is so caught up with trying to
figure out the order of things.... "sleep, feed, play, feed, sleep,
play...etc..." who knows...that she is totally confused, and a wreck..and
her baby is losing weight. She went through "HELL" to get her baby to
sleep through the night, and to be scheduled, and now she realizes it isn't
working, and called LLL, and didn't like their advice, and the baby is
miserable, and the mom is miserable. She wants to increase her milk supply
without sacrificing the scheduling.
I wrote her a long and involved and very honest response, (which included
starting a good fire in the wood stove, using that book as kindling)...but
am interested to know if others have rec'd reports of this type of results
from this book, and if anyone else has thought that perhaps the publishers
of this book would like to know that there are incidences of babies who are
failing to thrive because of this type of "advice," and I use that word
loosely.
Scheduling preys upon young, vulnerable and tired mothers. It promises
control where there is none. ANy thoughts?
Boy, did I let her have the facts, too, and nothing but the facts..m'aam.
Kathleen
Kathleen B. Bruce, BSN, IBCLC co-owner Lactnet, Indep. Consultant
http://together.net/~kbruce/kbbspin.html
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