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#11
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arguments about feeding
"Melissa" wrote in message news:nJbTa.118430$Ph3.15241@sccrnsc04...
"Joshua Levy" wrote I vote for (c): Buy or borrow the book THE BABY WHISPERER by Hogg, and use it's advice to understand your baby better. ... Except that the author has no expertice except for as a mother. Wrong. She worked for years as a nanny. It is interesting to compare her experience with Dr. Sears (for example). He is a doctor for 1000s of children, but as a doctor only sees them for a few minutes every couple of months. Hogg on the other hand has helped raise scores of children, spending days, weeks, or months with each one. So would you rather take advice from someone who sees kids maybe 20 minutes once or twice a year? Or someone who took care of a baby for months at a time? It's easy for Sears to say vague things like and let the parents deal with it. But Hogg was the person raising the baby. Her advice is specific and useful, not vague. She advocates such things as nursing for 18 minutes on a side because, according to her, that's when the foremilk turns to hindmilk. Wrong. I challenge you to find any part of her books which says this. The LC who runs my bf group says to burn that book (and BabyWise, while we're at it) and stick with your gut (or Dr. Sears' books). You know what the right thing to do is so trust yourself. Ah! Have you even read this book? If not, why comment on it? As for doing the right thing, the OP suspects that she is not, that is why she asked the question. The answer is simple (if politically incorrect in some circles): feed a baby when the baby is hungry, NOT everytime the baby cries. Babys cry for many reasons, and there is no advantage to feeding a gassy baby, a bored baby or a tired baby (for example). Joshua Levy |
#12
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arguments about feeding
Jenn wrote in message ...
In article , Joshua Levy writes THE BABY WHISPERER contains lots of great advice to help you understand why your baby is crying. Doesn't tell you that the author left her children to go live on another continent though does it? Or that she was investigated by Social Services for suspected child neglect? Or that she refused to pay any maintenance? Didn't think so. Translation: you don't know anything bad about the book, so you need to badmouth the author. It is certainly true that Hogg divorced her husband, then later moved to the US, where she restarted her career as a nanny and later an author. It is certainly true that her left behind ex-husband is now unhappy and complains to all who will listen. (Do you believe that people should not be alowed to divorce? That divorcees should not be alowed to move or start new careers? I don't.) However, the question should be: is the book useful to someone in the original posters situation. The answer is "yes", in a big way! While other books say vague things about feeding when the baby is hungry, THE BABY WHISPERER says specific things about what too look for in a baby to see if the baby is hungry. Not just crying, but body language as well. If you really think that feeding a baby every time it cries is a good idea, then why not try the following experiment. Every time you say something, eat something! Remember, crying is all a small baby can do, so they cry to communicate all their wants. So feeding them whenever they cry is a silly for them, as eating every time you talk is silly for you. Joshua Levy |
#14
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arguments about feeding
Circe wrote: Joshua Levy wrote: Even during the biggest of growth spurts, a baby that age does not need to eat every hour. They've gotten in the habit of eating every hour, that is all. Sure a growth spurt may make a baby eat more and more often than otherwise, but every hour? That's learned behavior. Nonsense. First of all, a 6-week-old is too young to have learned any behavior. Newborns haven't lived long enough to establish any real patterns of behavior. And since they can't read a clock, it is absurd to suggest that they are eating every hour because they have been *taught* to. A baby can't possibly be demanding a feed on an hourly basis simply because an hour has elapsed because they don't have the first clue how long an hour is. There is obviously something biological telling them they are hungry/thirsty/want to suck after that hour has passed. Second of all, during a growth spurt, it is *entirely* possible and even normal for a baby to eat every hour or so. The reason is because while supply is catching up to demand, there often isn't very much milk available at each feeding and so the baby doesn't always get completely full. As a result, baby tends to need lots of short feeds to build supply so that the feeds can space out again to longer, more complete feeds. Heck, my son ate every hour on the hour during the day from birth to 2.5 months. I never even noticed any growth spurts - I mean, how much more often could he *possibly* have eaten? Clisby |
#15
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arguments about feeding
Joshua Levy wrote:
"Circe" wrote in message news:_PXSa.14436$u51.12043@fed1read05... Joshua Levy wrote: I vote for (c): Buy or borrow the book THE BABY WHISPERER by Hogg, and use it's advice to understand your baby better. Your answer (a) is obviously wrong buy it shows the underlying problem you need to fix. You should feed the baby whenever the baby is hungry (NOT whenever the baby cries!) Babies cry for many reasons. If you feed the baby every time she cries, you will feed him when he is bored, gassy, hungry, sleepy, etc. Except that babies don't eat if they are not hungry and babies who have a problem *other* than being hungry won't be pacified by being fed. This is well known not to be true. Babies have a suck reflex. If you get the teat in the right place, the baby will suck. (It's called a reflex because the baby doesn't choose to do it, the baby's body just reacts this way, and it doesn't matter if the baby is hungry or not.) But if there is some other problem, feeding will rarely pacify the baby for any length of time. While it is true that babies might initially nurse when they are crying for some other reason, I have never found it to work for more than a few seconds if there was some other problem. Sometimes, a not-very-hungry baby will nurse for comfort without getting much milk, but there's nothing wrong with this. True, but if the baby was crying because it was gassy (for example), then sucking is not going to help. Ditto if the baby was crying because it was bored, or for some other reason. Agreed. Now you're validating what I said above. Nursing won't help if hunger or a need to suck was not the problem. So what's the problem with *offering* to breastfeed if you think it's possible that hunger or a desire to suck is what's making the baby cry? I grant, if it's quite clear to you that hunger/sucking need *isn't* what's troubling the baby, offering to feed would be a nonsensical first response. But in my experience, when young babies are crying, they are nearly always doing so because they are hungry or want to suck. Breastfeeding nearly always worked. When I tried other responses first with my very young babies, they tended to keep right on crying. I quickly figured out that trying the least likely solution first just meant having a baby who was unhappy for longer. Why put myself and the baby through more unhappiness than absolutely necessary? Babies *do* occasionally need to suck even when they are not hungry and since some won't take a pacifier or suck a pinky--two of mine wouldn't--nursing them is the only way to meet this need. Sure, but we're talk about advice to feed the baby every time the baby cries, and that is wrong. Occasionally sucking for comfort is fine, but has little to do with advice to feed a baby every time the baby cries. But if the baby cries and nursing pacifies him, it doesn't matter whether he was hungry or just wanted to suck. I don't know what you mean by "occasionally", anyway. I see nothing, frankly, wrong with offering to nurse as a first response to crying unless it is absolutely clear that there is some other problem. As I said above, my experience with three babies is that nursing worked more often than not to stop the crying (suggesting that it *did* meet their needs) and that when it didn't, it was always quickly obvious that there was some other problem that I needed to set about addressing instead. The baby in question is at the perfect age for a growth spurt, as other posters have noted. It is entirely possible that he is hungry every hour during this time. It will pass. Even during the biggest of growth spurts, a baby that age does not need to eat every hour. They've gotten in the habit of eating every hour, that is all. Sure a growth spurt may make a baby eat more and more often than otherwise, but every hour? That's learned behavior. Nonsense. First of all, a 6-week-old is too young to have learned any behavior. Newborns haven't lived long enough to establish any real patterns of behavior. And since they can't read a clock, it is absurd to suggest that they are eating every hour because they have been *taught* to. A baby can't possibly be demanding a feed on an hourly basis simply because an hour has elapsed because they don't have the first clue how long an hour is. There is obviously something biological telling them they are hungry/thirsty/want to suck after that hour has passed. Second of all, during a growth spurt, it is *entirely* possible and even normal for a baby to eat every hour or so. The reason is because while supply is catching up to demand, there often isn't very much milk available at each feeding and so the baby doesn't always get completely full. As a result, baby tends to need lots of short feeds to build supply so that the feeds can space out again to longer, more complete feeds. And finally, babies get thirsty as well as hungry. It is quite possible on a hot day for a baby to be thirsty if not hungry every hour, even in the absence of a growth spurt. *I* get thirsty every hour or so and want something to drink about that often when it's hot, so I see nothing particularly bizarre or objectionable about the idea that a tiny baby might desire the same. -- Be well, Barbara (Julian [7/22/97], Aurora [7/19/99], and Vernon's [3/2/02] mom) See us at http://photos.yahoo.com/guavaln This week's special at the English Language Butcher Shop: "How a seller can improve their home's value" -- newspaper headline What does it all mean? I have *no* idea. But it's my life and I like it. |
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arguments about feeding
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#17
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arguments about feeding
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#18
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arguments about feeding
Clisby Williams wrote:
Heck, my son ate every hour on the hour during the day from birth to 2.5 months. I never even noticed any growth spurts - I mean, how much more often could he *possibly* have eaten? Sounds a bit like my oldest. He might have eaten closer to every 90 minutes during wakeful periods (which weren't always during the day to start with), but he liked to nurse for 30-45 minutes each time, so I spent a *lot* of times during those first few weeks nursing him. My younger two nursed less frequently--more like every 2-2.5 hours most of the time, with some shorter spacings. But yeah, some babies just like to nurse very often or for a long time. All of mine would have wailed like the dickens if I'd tried to something *other* than feed them when they were hungry or reduce the length of their nursing sessions. Certainly, breastfeeding less wouldn't have made *anybody* happy. -- Be well, Barbara (Julian [7/22/97], Aurora [7/19/99], and Vernon's [3/2/02] mom) See us at http://photos.yahoo.com/guavaln This week's special at the English Language Butcher Shop: "How a seller can improve their home's value" -- newspaper headline What does it all mean? I have *no* idea. But it's my life and I like it. |
#19
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arguments about feeding
Michelle J. Haines wrote:
Baloney. In all four of my children, if they were upset for some other reason (diaper, hot, cranky, colic, or what have you) sticking a nipple in their mouths only made their cries sound muffled. Been there! -- Suzanne http://cshardie.tripod.com sittin' on the dock of eBay, watching the bids roll away --Richard Powers, "Literary Devices" |
#20
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arguments about feeding
Michelle J. Haines wrote:
Baloney. In all four of my children, if they were upset for some other reason (diaper, hot, cranky, colic, or what have you) sticking a nipple in their mouths only made their cries sound muffled. That's not saying that they never nursed for comfort, because they did, but if they really wanted something else, nursing would not pacify them. When he was 9-12 months old, my youngest would *bite* me if I tried to get him to nurse when he wasn't interested. I learned that lesson pretty darned fast! -- Be well, Barbara (Julian [7/22/97], Aurora [7/19/99], and Vernon's [3/2/02] mom) See us at http://photos.yahoo.com/guavaln This week's special at the English Language Butcher Shop: "How a seller can improve their home's value" -- newspaper headline What does it all mean? I have *no* idea. But it's my life and I like it. |
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