Yes, for babies who haven't shown "allergic tendencies" (i.e. to dairy in
mom's diet or whatever)!!
I'll bet most of us on this list who have more than 1 child past this stage
of development can remember what a liberation it was to discover, after
following the precsribed method of "introducing solids" with baby #1 and
being far too busy and significantly more relaxed & confident with
subsequent kids, what a fun, easy, and healthful way to this is! I remember
w/my first the incredible care and paranoia with which I moved through the
recommended rigamarole (and we didn't have nearly as many "rules" back then,
so it was easier than what parents are told now); you would have thought we
were doing brain surgery, following only an instruction manual. Never so
much as a taste of anything refined, or sweetened w/the dreaded sugar, or
unwholesome in any way, fending off the grandmas who were determined to let
him have "just a bite" of ice cream at his 1st birthday, the whole nine
yards.
By the time my twins came along, I didn't have time for or interest in this
kind of fiddling around (nor, in fact, did I have a clue that dairy in my
diet could have been causing the eczema in the one, but it all worked out
fine anyway). When they looked interested and started snatching stuff off my
plate, that was that. What fun! Some of my fondest memories of that time are
of the girls checking out new foods - it's hard to believe the mess a
10-month old can make with one single strawberry, and the pure joy and
delight they can show with that same berry. Well worth the mess, and even
worth the non-refunded security deposit on the apartment because the carpet
around their eating area (hideous & mangy to begin with!) had to be replaced
after we moved on.
Another favorable consequence of this "lazy mother" approach was that I
can't say I ever actually "weaned" these babies. We skipped the bottle stage
entirely and they started drinking from a cup (I didn't even bother with the
sippy-cup thing either, as a sign of how negligent I had become - regular
old cups worked just fine) for anything other than breastmilk pretty early,
and it all just worked out as they gradually transitioned from nurslings to
little kids sitting at the table.
I was lucky - these were healthy, thriving kids, not ones whose growth
anyone with a pair of eyes could be concerned about. But the experience
convinced me that, **in the absence of signs that indicate a problem**, this
is the way to go.
Cathy Bargar RN IBCLC Ithaca NY (who followed pretty much the same method -
that would be the "benign neglect" method - with so-called toilet training.
This "method" consisted pretty much of them of course always swarming around
when I was going, me talking about what the toilet is for ('cause I babbled
to them all day long about everything anyway!), and letting them know that
when they were "ready" (a mysterious and undefined term, now that I think
about it) they would use it too. Which resulted in almost 3 yrs. of diapers,
which was totally fine with me because it's way easier to just have young
toddlers in dipes than to try to cope with the unreliably-"training" ones,
and then *exactly* at the time they started in day care announcing that they
didn't use diapers anymore, they use the toilet now, and that was that.)
***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
|
