Iīve been thinking a lot about this thread....and I remember the dozens of
women who have combined some sort of scheduling and breastfeeding. There
are a lot of women that can actually do that. Iīve met many women that give
an occasional bottle of EBM or even formula, and go on to have long,
rewarding lactations. They do not breastfeed into toddlerhood, nor want to
do it. The possibility of giving that occasional bottle probably saved
those nursing relationships and gave those babies the benefit of breastmilk
in situations where the exclusive breast vs. formula debate, would have been
won by the formula option.
For some mothers the question of rest, sleep but specially, a sense of
order is very important. Doctors, grandmothers, experienced parents, etc.
are andamant about babies need for a certain number of sleep hours, they say
babies need their rest and that they should rest in a cot or crib. The
sooner the better. They say babies are born into families and that it is
healthy for them to adapt to their environment as soon as possible. They
firmly believe that an exhausted, stressed, sleep deprived mother is no good
for a baby....and when most new mothers hear that kind of advice, they
cannot but agree.
There is a middle road though. You can have some order, not to the minute
or even the hour, but some sort of predictability with a baby without
harming the nursing relationship. The problem is there are not fixed
recipes....or they have not been published!! There are perfectly healthy,
happy kids that have been breastfed but have never been allowed into their
parentīs bed. It might not be the ideal situation in terms of OUR
expectations for breastfeeding but they constitute an acceptable compromise.
And parents deserve to be supported in their choices. Tolerance might seem
difficult at times, but boy, it is sooo necessary.
Faced with books like Ezzos or its Spanish equivalent (Duermete niņo, Dr.
Estivill....350,000 sold) I think we need to take a middle road. It is OK
to try to develop some kind of routine, some kind of schedule, softly, with
love and above all, flexibility, knowing that it is OK to break the routine
sometimes. That if the baby start sleeping through the night....it does not
mean that he has done it permanently, etc, etc, .....and all the good solid
arguments we all have in this field.
My gut feeling is that given the state of affairs in our hectic world, if we
confront the scheduling with a proposal of total chaos, we will lose the
battle. Faced with the inflexible mother, we can always propose one more
month before they apply "the method".....and just hope that in that month,
the toothless smile, softness and cuddliness of her baby will make her
surrender to the magic.
Lavinia Belli, IBCLC
Madrid
(sooo happy to have "spoiled" my three beautiful kids absolutely rotten!!)
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