Graceful Parenting in Austin

If “Babywise: How 100,000 New Parents Trained Their Babies to Sleep Through the Night the Natural Way” (Gary Ezzo, Robert Dr Bucknam) were a guy and I was single and we met in a bar, it wouldn’t last very long, maybe ten minutes, with no trading of phone numbers. Me and him, it would be like Paris Hilton and Bono trying to hang out, but with less money and attention.

We Disagree About the Main idea

Because, for one thing, Ezzo believes a parent’s number one job is to provide order and discipline. He feels that this will provide the security and stability for the baby and the family that will have the best long term results. This is best accomplished by:
- Following a sleep-eat-play routine, with a consistent time between sleep-eat-play cycles.
- Training your baby to fall asleep on her own
- Making decisions about feedings and naps, not letting the baby decide

I believe a parent’s number one job isn’t order and discipline, it is to love, love, love their baby. My favorite part of my day is when Baby Girl wakes up and I say “Good Morning, Baby Girl!” and I give her a huge smile and clap my hands. Then I cup my hands around her face, then pat her belly and say “I’m so glad you are awake! I love you!” Then I pick her up and hug her and kiss her for a good long time before getting down to the orderly business of changing her diaper and feeding her. I want her to feel, at the core of her being, a sense of joy and love and my most important job is to give this to her every day.

But, maybe we aren’t that far apart. I’m sure Ezzo believes in love too, he isn’t saying you shouldn’t hug and kiss your baby. And I believe in routine, Baby Girl is happier when there is a pattern to things.

Maybe He Isn’t All Bad

I liked some of Ezzo’s recommendations. For example, he says that when the baby cries or fusses, you should take time to figure out what might be wrong before you give the baby your breast. He feels that babies may breast feed for hunger or comfort and it is best not to feed for comfort. This may not feel right, he seems to be saying that when you baby is upset you shouldn’t feed her right away and if breast feeding your baby would comfort her, you should Just Say No.

I Just Say No and there are two reasons why. One is that I am willing to loose my shirt, bare my breasts and feed a hundred times a day if I need to for my baby to have the food she needs. Also, if Baby Girl is crying and nothing in the world will comfort her except for my breast, then it is hers. But, in general, I prefer to keep my shirt on, so if my baby isn’t hungry, but needs comfort, I would rather comfort her another way. I asked around and read some books and tried some things and I found that the ideas in “The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer” (Harvey Karp) worked really well to comfort Baby Girl.

And it’s not just about me getting to keep my shirt on, it is about Blue Eyes too. If I use the breast to comfort Baby Girl and she learns to seek comfort this way, then Blue Eyes won’t be able to comfort Baby Girl. Blue Eyes is such a loving, connected and compassionate parent, I can’t imagine saying to him ‘Honey, let me handle Baby Girl all the times she needs to be comforted, you really can’t handle it.” I think sometimes women act like breasts (well, also the whole giving birth thing), makes them by far the superior parent and I think that is our own myth. It is the same myth that says men are by far better CEOs and Presidents. Maybe it is true some percentage of the time, but it isn’t biologically true and when it is true it us usually only because we thought it was true in the first place. So I won’t assume it is true. I will be open and allow for Blue Eyes to be a parent in every way and I can’t do that as well if I use my breasts to comfort Baby Girl.

This isn’t easy to do, I know. It means taking some time to try other ways to comfort your baby when the breast might have worked right away. It means learning to read your baby’s cues about when she really is hungry. It means missing the cues sometimes and re-swadeling her a dozen times before you realize she really was hungry in the first place. But for me, seeing Blue Eyes comfort Baby Girl makes it worth the effort.

I also like Ezzo’s idea that it is OK for the parents and the family to have needs too. It may be true that the baby is the most vulnerable and least able to care for herself and if the baby was hurt and needed help, every person in the family would give everything they had including arms and legs to help her. But that doesn’t mean that in regular, every-day life, only the baby has needs. The Mom needs sleep, both parents need time together and siblings need attention. It is OK for parents to make the judgement calls, like Mom taking a shower even if the baby is fussy and wants to be held or the parents leaving the baby with a sitter to have some time to be together. Sometimes it is hard to not do what is easiest for the baby, but I don’t think that is realistic or sustainable and I don’t think the baby needs that to be happy.

An Exercise in Practicing Your Own Good Judgement

While there are several ideas of Ezzo’s that work for me, some of the other ideas are pretty nuts. He surely makes me appreciate my ability to be open minded, to listen and learn, and to decide for myself. Like when he says rocking your baby to sleep instead of letting her fall asleep on her own is a prop that hinders her development. Sometimes he even gets creepy like when he implies that women suffer from postpartum depression because of their lack of order and discipline and meeting your baby’s needs too quickly can lead to child abuse. And my favorite is the claim that if this very specific program isn’t working for you and your baby, it isn’t a problem with the program or because babies and mothers have different needs, it is because the parents must be implementing the program incorrectly.

And beyond all of that, it feels dangerous. Ezzo has a serious and focused emphasis on order and discipline. He talks about flexibility now and then, but only in the context that flexibility is a temporary relaxation of strict order and discipline. There isn’t much of a sense of flexibility left when he says it is the Mom, not the baby, who decides when naps will begin and end. When I think of people with a natural tendency towards order and authority, who implement the ideas in this book without fail, I have sad visions of crying and hungry babies.

The Last Word

Ezzo feels like the Dad in 1968 that longed for order and stability instead of out-of-control personal freedoms. But I don’t see myself as for or against 1968 and my parenting philosophy values order that supports our communities and society as well as the personal freedom to do what you believe is right. I would rather read books that help me find that balance.