What’s the best way to raise a baby? Do you put the baby on a strict feeding regime from day one, making sure to tell it who is boss? Or do you sleep with the baby and always carry him around in a sling, letting him suckle your breast as he wishes?
My husband and I watched, rather wide-eyed at times, ‘Bringing Up Baby’ on Channel 4 last night. The show features six British families raising their babies according to three dramatically methods, each coached by an expert.
Claire Verity advocates the strict 1950s view that children should me made a part of your life, and if the little creatures doesn’t agree with that, too bad. Let it cry. Feeding (by bottle preferably) is every four hours, no matter if the baby is hungry or not. No cuddling while feeding. Instead you should hold the baby away from your body ’so it doesn’t doze off’. In between feedings the child should be put outside to sleep in their pushchair. You should not tend to him if he cries. Then at night, the baby is put in his cot ( in a separate room from the parents) at exactly 7pm. You do not enter the room except for feeding every four hours until 7am. The happy end result, says Claire, is a baby who will sleep and eat textbook-style, and within weeks the baby will sleep through the night.
And on the other end of spectrum we have new-age mummy Claire Scott who promotes the Continuum Concept which blossomed in the 1970s. These babies are raised as those in Amazon jungle tribes. They always sleep with their parents and they are always carried in a sling with unlimited access to the breast. Pushchairs are simply not used. The result is a happy, confident baby who rarely cries, says Scott.
Dreena Hamilton takes the middle road with Dr Spock’s ‘trust yourself’ theory. Being a parent is about loving and bonding with your baby, in a non-routine sort of way. The parents should adjust to having a baby and should not expect to have their old life back in any way. Dr Spock won fame in the 1960s, perhaps as a reaction to the military-style parenting the decade before?
Let’s start with Ms. Verity. Oh where to begin…. First, how can a newborn possibly be expected only to eat four hours? They have very small stomachs. So how can you possibly ignore your crying baby when you know his hungry? But the worst about this method is that it doesn’t allow for any bonding between parent and child. You feed the baby, change the nappy and put it away, that’s it! Nothing in this world will be able to stop me from cuddling with my baby. They are made for loving, so soft and round and wonderful. If you don’t interact with your baby, you don’t bond with him, and it makes it harder to love and really care about him. And the baby thrives on human interaction, in fact it’s vital for their development. I really find it difficult to believe that Verity’s babies can possibly develop very well. They might sleep through the night very soon, but are they happy babies who are confident their needs are met?
But I don’t like the Continuum Concept which falls in line with the annoying ‘back-to-nature’ theme of today’s trendy mummies. This method might work well in jungle tribes, but we don’t live there now, do we? Woman in tribal societies carry their babies for practical reasons; in order to get their work done they carry their babies with them. A bit hard to fetch water from the well with the baby in a pushchair, isn’t it? Our Western lifestyle is so different to theirs that we possibly couldn’t just apply their parenting style to ours. And if you are constantly carrying your baby around, be prepared to do that when they are older…and heavier.
Dr Spock’s ideas are the most appealing, but certainly not perfect. I think I prefer more structure.
To quote what my husband said last night: ‘This is scary. What have we gotten ourselves into?’
4 Comments
Wednesday, September 26, 2007 at 3:16
This is so interesting. Since this is my first kid, I’m wary of making too many predictions lest Fate show her rollicking sense of humor after my baby is born.
That said…
I think there are two factors that come into play when figuring out the “how to parent” thing. One is your family style. If you are a relaxed, go-with-the-flow kind of family, then trying to strictly structure the baby’s schedule doesn’t make any sense and it might be easier to keep the baby close and fit its needs in when possible. But if you are the kind of family that eats breakfast at 7, lunch and noon, dinner at 6, bedtime at 10, no questions asked, no exceptions, then trying to get the baby on a schedule would be less stressful for everyone.
The other factor is the “parent the kid you have” philosophy. I knew a family once that was highly organized–the kind of people that never lost the keys and scheduled their vacations a year out. They adopted their first son and he was just as detail-oriented and precise as they were and everything was great. But their second adopted son was a sunny-faced wild man that wouldn’t stay in a routine for love or money. They were absolutely panicked until they realized that what worked with the first son was just not going to work with the second. They loosened up for him while keeping some structure for their eldest, and got along pretty well.
That’s my biggest problem with these baby-rearing theories. They seem to believe that all babies will react the same way. But they won’t, because babies are people and people are different. So I guess I’m in the “trust yourself” camp.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007 at 3:28
One thing our pediatrician told me last week was that their little tummies are the size of a walnut and they “eliminate” every hour to hour and a half. I can’t possibly see how feeding every 4 hours could be good! Especially not by bottle.
I’m on my third child now and we are a sling and co-sleeping family. She’s colicy and the sling settles her down most times. In fact, without that sling I’d be holding her constantly. She feeds when she is hungry, though I’ve yet to need to feed in public, I try to time it so I don’t have to. I did the same with the first two, and neither of them actually wanted to be held when they got older.
I really think what is best is what works for your family. You’ll figure it out!
Thursday, September 27, 2007 at 9:53
That’s just it. You should do what works for you. Who cares what works for everyone else. If the baby and you are happy, that’s what matters.
Another note on Claire Verity. She isn’t a parent, which makes me question her methods even more. I’m not saying that you necessarily must be a parent to come up with good parenting strategies, but surely you would have more understanding of what the parents feel if you do. Perhaps her routines wouldn’t be so ruthless if she were a mother herself.
Friday, September 28, 2007 at 11:27
Found your blog by searching for “Continuum Concept.” I think it’s true we can’t live like a jungle mama does, but I think the concept is still useful, as we think about what babies evolved to expect. But I think the best bet is to trust your instincts–for example, I think it’s instinctual to respond to a baby’s cries so I don’t read parenting books by people who advise otherwise. Good luck!