[QUOTE]Originally posted by gabydolores:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by 36yo:



"Sorry - where did you get this from? There's absolutely NO EVIDENCE whatsover that routine driven methods of baby care result in more confident children. In fact, you could argue that children in countries where these methods are common (ie in the West) are far more prone to depression and mental illness that children in developing countries where this style of parenting is uncommon."

Gabby
I have read many of your posts which have been excellent and informative, but I believe that routines develop naturally as you child grows and helps them feel secure. Most of us don't have to 'force' it on our babies, and nearly all parents get into the 'routine' of bathing and feeding just prior to bedtime - what's wrong with that? Most adults across the world naturally adopt a 'routine' of similar eating and sleeping cycles - within their first few months most babies also tend to move into eating and sleeping patterns that have big similarities with their peers. I would not ask ANY parent to ignore their instincts, but believe most of us develop changes in our babies 'routine' when our baby tells us to.

The comments on depression & mental illness seem totally irrelevant - I'm not saying a harsh routine could never impact them, but loads of other environmental factors impact anyone with a western culture upbringing.

Olivegreen - I am sure that if you have to address that issue with your son then you will do so. Just out of interest, do you think there is an age when you should stop? What if your child wants to carry on as he gets older.....say if he still wants to do it at 8 or 9?I have read of women who continue for as long as possible......but I am not sure if there is a 'cut-off age'?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by johnny&bump:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by gabydolores:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by 36yo:



Gabby
I believe that routines develop naturally as you child grows and helps them feel secure. Most of us don't have to 'force' it on our babies, and nearly all parents get into the 'routine' of bathing and feeding just prior to bedtime - what's wrong with that?"


There is nothing whatsover wrong with routines - in fact they're important for parents and children, and children fall into them naturally. I wasn't referring to the normal routines such as the bedtime bath and story - I was referring to the sorts of highly structured feeding and sleeping routines imposed on very young babies by adults following parenting manuals.


"..... within their first few months most babies also tend to move into eating and sleeping patterns that have big similarities with their peers. I would not ask ANY parent to ignore their instincts, but believe most of us develop changes in our babies 'routine' when our baby tells us to."

As far as the 'natural' feeding patterns of babies go - the majority of babies under six months who are being breastfed are still feeding through the night. They also experience growth spurts which result in cluster feeding (occasional prolonged feeding frenzies, often in the evening). Unfortunately parents are made to feel that this is somehow 'wrong' - that young babies should be eating in the same way as the rest of the family. Maybe that's why so many people wean their babies off the breast so early......
QUOTE]

Olivegreen,
I would like to thank you for all your informative posts,particularly the link to Kellymom.Over the last few weeks it has been really encouraging to see the really intelligent debate which has been prompted by BUB.It will be sad when everyone drifts away.
I have 8 children and I have breastfed them all from 14 months with my first to 3 and a half with one of my daughters(she had her last feed when I was in labour with her brother.)I have spent 15 years of my life breastfeeding and currently have a 7 month old doing very nicely.
6 of my children have been born at home,mostly by accident as they came quickly and the maternity services didn't take things seriously enough.The last few have been planned but before the midwife arrived.
It has been very encouraging to find so many other people who feed for a long time.I am mostly surrounded by mums in a hurry like some of the other posters on these forums.Still great mums,it's just a shame that they don't" get it".
I wonder if you who have any thoughts(or better still,info)on whether my milk production now is likely to be more or less efficient nutritionally as my body is so used to doing it?
The whole Bringing Up Baby thing has been very disheartening to me overall-a completely wasted opportunity,giving unwarranted credence to an entirely erroneous methodology.These messageboards,on the other hand,have been inspirational.

Hi Jemimama - wow ! RESPECT for bf all your babies, how lovely !

Unfortunatley I am not a health professional or a lactation specialist (just a boring ex-lawyer !). I also don't have nearly as much experience as yourself as I have only ever bf one child.

Your body may be used to doing bf, but biology would suggest that no matter how many babies you have, you will always produce nutritionally balanced breastmilk with antibodies to help your baby grow and become healthy.

I can't see why the milk of a woman feeding her 15th baby would be inferior to a woman feeding her 1st. Your body will naturally create the right triggers to produce milk in order for your baby to survive. Also if you have babies who have already thrived on your breastmilk, why not the next baby ?

Don't forget that women had many more babies than we do today here in the West and sadly many would have died due to illnesses that we can now vaccinate against. Yet most of their children would have survived just on their mother's breastmilk as formula had not been invented. How else can one explain the survival of large families with many children before the advent of formula ?

I hope I am correct in saying this, but gaby and sassberry on this forum are extremely knowledgeable about bf. Perhaps they know the answer ?

May I also suggest contacting your local La Leche League ? They are very well informed, even if the person you speak to doesn't know, she will find someone who does.

quote:

Originally posted by chermy:
I have bf both my girls exclusively AND returned to work. I expressed during breaks and also fed them myself in my lunch hour. Working and breastfeeding can and do go together, if you truely value your own and your childs health.

You are lucky that you coud do that... I will not be able to express milk or feed my baby when I return to work as I have 3 x fifteen minute breaks in a twelve hour shift. Probably most people are not in your fortunate position and have to wean their babies. Just because something worked for you do not think that it is easy for everyone else.

If you live in the UK you are entitled BY LAW to as many expressing breaks as you need, for as long as you need them. If your employer denies them to you they are breaking health and safetly regulations (bizarrely) sex discriminations laws. I am only lucky that I live in the UK, and am entitled to these breaks. All I did was inform my employer that I was still breastfeeding and would require breaks, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I am still expressing once a day as my youngest daughter is still very allergic to cows milk protien, so I provide her with all her "dairy" so still need to express milk for her to have whilst she is at nursery.

karen - my personal view on that is that I would hope my son to have fully self-weaned within the next year or two, but I am not going to force him. I doubt he will be asking for bf once he is at school full-time. In fact I don't know any women here in the UK who are bf beyond the age of 4 or 5.

There are a few women around the world who feed to 7 or 8, but I think it is quite rare. That is why I was so annoyed by CH. 4 highlighting the case of the lady who bf her 8 year old. It is such a rare situation that it really wasn't worth making a programme about. Also note that the lady they showed in that programme was home-schooling and worked at home. She is a journalist. They lived in a rural area and from the interview one pretty much gathered that the girls didn't get out and about much.

Most children that age will not wish to bf, either due to social pressures (peer pressure, etc) or because they will have fully self-weaned. I have a son, no daughters. An 8 year old boy is fully aware of his peers, to the extent that a 3 year old still isn't. Self weaning, means just that, self-weaning. I doubt that an 8 year old boy at school who is under enormous peer pressure will still wish to bf.

Olivegreen - thank you for replying to my post so honestly....however I do wonder about the 'peer pressure' thing....if you tell your child that it is completley natural (ie animals do it) how do you explain to him the point at which it becomes unnatural??

Thanks Olivegreen,I find it difficult to find answers for things outside the conventional sometimes so like the 1950s babies I stop asking.Still,I am optimistic that someone on here might know a thing or two!!Thanks for the tips though I'll check a few things out.Cheers.

My eldest daughter is 4 years old and started school in September. She climbs into bed with us first thing in the morning and nurses with her younger sister (16 months old). At night she nurses before she goes to sleep. She would happily nurse several times a day, but I have drawn a line and said it is just morning and bedtime now. She accepts this, as she knows she is a "big girl" and not a baby anymore.

As for her being bullied or picked on at school because she is still nursing? Hmm, why would anyone know she was still nursing? Several of the mothers do, because they are my friends. But she doesn't talk about it, so it just isn't an issue.

I never intended to breastfeed her for this long, if you'd told me five years ago I'd still be nursing her when she was at school I'd have laughed in your face and asked you what planet you were on. I wanted to nurse her for a year as there are quite a lot of allergies in my family (including my coeliac disease and mild cows milk intolerance) and once I got to 12 months I couldn't think of a good reason to take away something she obviously so enjoyed and which sent her off to sleep so easily when she woke in the night. I did some reading and discovered that the human immune system was not fully developed until the age of five, so for this reason I decided to let her self wean. I actually thought she would stop sometime between 2-3 years, especially once I became pregnant (as milk supply drops dramatically during pregnancy) but she didn't, and once her sister was born (at home, of course!!) she loved to sit tucked up beside me whilst the baby nursed, sometimes she joined in and nursed too, other times she just cuddled and watched. It made the transition from only child to sibling so smooth and jealously free, I definately have no regrets or doubts about it being a good thing for her.

As for moderation in all things, well, I found it annoying that B.U.B. made it sound like you mustn't put your baby down for 6 months, and had to hold it for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I have read the continuum concept, no where does it say you must do this, it just comments that the tribe being observed don't put thier babies down. But then, these tribes have lots of extended family to pass their babies to, and we, in our "nuclear" families don't. There is nothing wrong with putting your baby down for a while, as long as it is calm and happy. A baby bouncer-chair is not a bad thing, unless it is where the baby is left for hours on end. Moderation in all things.................

As far as I know you don't make different milk after 1 baby, or 3 or 5. I have read that you grow more milk ducts with each pregnancy, so you may find you have more milk each time, but I can't find anything that says your milk quality will be different.

It would be "unnatural" for a child of 15 to bf. I have referred to a well-known study earlier on this thread that said a child's instinct would be to self wean between 2.5 and 7 years old, so yes anything beyond this might be seen as "unnatural".

There have been studies on the actual length of bf. Globally, the average age is 4. What that tells me is that MOST children don't bf to 7 or 8. We don't know the exact reasons for that, perhaps it is partly due to socialisation.

So, I don't think it is "unnatural" to bf to 7 or 8, but it is extremely unusual.

Jemimama - PLEASE don't ever stop asking : ) In fact I hope the best thing (apart from breastmilk !) I can pass on to my son is the ability to question and NEVER to blindly conform.

Olivegreen - just a hypothetical question but what would you say to your son, when he is married and has his first child....and the mother wants to adopt the CC method....and he wanted to do this also....would you let him go with his and hers decision....bearing in mind that he may have decided that he did not want to 'blindly conform' to any other method??

Karen that is a very good point. My view on that is that my son will never allow his own babies to cry because he knows it is not good for them : ) He will have informed choice and science to back him up !

Breastfeeding and other forms of attachment parenting are not the norms in the West which is why I do not think he would be in any serious danger of conforming.

Olivegreen - but his wife may want to adopt the CC method and whilst I agree that you can give your children the facts and figures etc you cannot force them to live their lives in the way that YOU want.....I know that my mother was very upset when I went back to work (part-time) but that was her beliefs and not mine!! And sometimes the more forthright you are with your opintions the more it makes the want to do the opposite.....no offence or arguing for the sake of arguing meant here it is just that my job involves asking lots of questions.....although I don't tend to ask the questions that I do not know the answer to!!!

Karen - this is all very hypothetical. I don't have a clue when and to whom my son will marry. He may never marry or I may not be around to see him marry. I will be 70 when he is only 33 !!

As a parent we all hope that our children will marry or have partners who have similar views to their own, not robot copies of themselves, but I would hope that my son chooses wisely !

I am not going to be the mother in law from hell (I hope) if our son and his partner value my husband and I as intelligent, capable people who have some knowledge and experience of bf and other parenting issues, I hope that they will come to us if and when they need info. or help.

I really do think that living one's life by example is the best form of parenting. My husband and I are far from perfect people, but we both love children, we like holding them and cuddling them and playing with them. This has been passed down to us by our own parents (sadly both of my parents have died) who were and are loving and gentle parents. My lasting memor of my father is sitting on his lap whenever he got home from work (usually very late at night) and I would wait up for him. He hugged me, kissed me and stroked my hair. He also listened to my views and treated me as a grown up when I was old enough to understand. Mum was a gentle, kind woman, who would run to pick up my baby son the minute he started crying.

Memories of our own childhood do stay with us, even after our parents have died. I hope that my son will enjoy his own childhood enough to wish to pass it on to his own children.

Olivegreen - it is all hypothetical - just testing you!! I too have great memories of my childhood and I hope that both my children will too....even though they may want to forget how bad my cooking was...

Ah, yes bad cooking is something one never forgets - I still have nightmares about clumpy custard and over cooked veg. from my school days : )

quote:

Originally posted by olivegreen:
It would be "unnatural" for a child of 15 to bf. I have referred to a well-known study earlier on this thread that said a child's instinct would be to self wean between 2.5 and 7 years old, so yes anything beyond this might be seen as "unnatural".

There have been studies on the actual length of bf. Globally, the average age is 4. What that tells me is that MOST children don't bf to 7 or 8. We don't know the exact reasons for that, perhaps it is partly due to socialisation.

So, I don't think it is "unnatural" to bf to 7 or 8, but it is extremely unusual.

I watched a documentary on extended breast feeding a few months ago at about aged 8 they lose the ability to latch on and suck on the breast properly, Yuk at 15 boys reach puberty that just sends shiver down spine, thats just urgh!

Rozzie, that is an excellent point and sorry I actually forgot to mention it earlier.

Children do lose the ability to latch and suck at around 7 or 8. The woman who did the anthropological study had actually compared the sexual age of primates and humans. She came to the conclusion that the natural instinct of a human (as with a primate) would be to stop bf by around 7 years old. She was comparing primate age with human age of course and most primates don't live as long as humans, so presumably a primate child will not bf until age 7.

In fact I don't know if any of you saw the Extraordinary Bf programme Ch. 4 did a couple of years ago ? But the mother who was still bf her 8 year old daughter actually said that her daughter was beginning to loose the ability to suck at the breast.

It is important that children are "taught" fairly early on that the MAIN function for a woman's breasts are to bf her children. The sooner they have this discussed at home within the family the easier it will be for them to accept that breasts are not just for sexual pleasure so that they can accept public bf and hopefully then bf their own children/support their partners if and when they bf.

I have seen my son "breastfeed" his teddy bears : )

My son 14 was watching was watching BUB, he didn't like the breastfeeding bits he went red and disapeared out of the room, I did say it was natural and my friends used to breastfeed in front of him when he was little. puberty does strange things to boys thats all I can say.

quote:

Originally posted by Rozzie 38:
My son 14 was watching was watching BUB, he didn't like the breastfeeding bits he went red and disapeared out of the room, I did say it was natural and my friends used to breastfeed in front of him when he was little. puberty does strange things to boys thats all I can say.

How does he react when he sees your breasts? Or are you a prudey house, not a nudey house? If we are relaxed about our bodies, and don't behave as if they are things to be ashamed of or are "rude" then boys of alla ge will be comfortable with breastfeeding, be it thier mother, thier sister, thier spouse or a total stranger.