Scheduling, Routine, Flexibility, and
Responsiveness:
Muddling Through the Maze of Conflicting Baby Advice
by Rebecca Prewett
"Get that baby on a schedule right from the very beginning!"
"Throw away the clock and just meet your baby's needs!"
Whew--my head was spinning. Let's see, what does the Bible say? What did my mother do with my younger brother? What should I do?
The scheduling advice seemed more rampant among the women I knew. Since some of them also seemed to overflow with dire warnings and bleak pictures of pregnancy, birth, babyhood, etc., it was hard for me to take their advice seriously.
Then our first baby was born. Suddenly everyone--especially, it seemed, if she was was an adamant scheduler--was asking me two questions I found puzzling: "Is he a good baby?" and "Is he sleeping through the night?" Frankly, I had no idea how to answer the first question. Certainly these women didn't want a theological response! ("No, I'm afraid he was born in original sin, just like the rest of us.") My answer was to smile and tell everyone how much we loved and enjoyed our cute little guy. As for the second question, while I treasure my sleep as much or more than the next person (actually I tend to need more sleep than most) I was surprised by what seemed to be an obsession over sleep.
The biggest shock to us as new parents was that none of the dire warnings came true in our family--we found our baby more delightful than we had ever imagined in our wildest dreams.
Time went on. I noticed something interesting at church. I could take my baby into the service, later ducking into the "Mothers' Room" to nurse him and cradle him in my arms while he slept peacefully. At the time, we were the only family with a baby in the church service. Other mothers had their babies in the nursery or were walking around the Mothers' Room, trying desperately to calm babies that had just disrupted the entire nursery with their crying. "Sundays are awful!" seemed a common refrain. "Our whole schedule is thrown off! This is the baby's nap time but I can't get him to sleep. If only he would stop fussing!"
Sometimes they would express envy, seeing my baby sleeping peacefully in my lap. "How do you get him to sleep?" they would ask. (Nursing a baby to sleep was considered a bad habit, one that most of the mothers had worked hard to break.)
More time went on. My husband and I had more babies. A lot of the couples we knew didn't and were quite vocal about their reasons for limiting their family size. When we happily announced our fourth pregnancy, few seemed to share--or even understand--our joy. By this time, my husband and I had long learned, to our sorrow, that modern society does not regard babies and children as a gift from God, a blessing, a heritage. Sadly, the church has been infected by the world's philosophy concerning children.
What does this have to do about muddling through the baby advice about infant feeding?
It struck us that mothers who publicly complained about their children and painted dismal pictures of motherhood might not be the best sources of advice regarding joyous family living. We also had our doubts about mothers who "never wanted to go through the baby stage again" and who expressed a frequent, strong need to "get away from the kids."
In addition, we asked ourselves whether every advice-giver really was qualified to give advice on that particular topic. We have noticed that, at least when it comes to parenting, people are often so eager to give advice to neophytes that they sometimes won't let lack of knowledge stop them. People who had never breastfed, for example, felt no qualms about giving me advice on how to do it.
To muddle through the maze of parenting advice, we sought out experienced parents who enjoyed their families and were either still happily in the midst of the baby years or had fond memories of those times. Because of their examples, and what they taught us, we adopted a nursing pattern that varied with each child and seemed to be neither "demand feeding" nor "schedule feeding".
I personally don't like the term "demand nursing". It makes me think of some mini-tyrant ordering me around: "I demand that you nurse me right this instant!" That's certainly not what happens in our family...
Instead, I prefer the terms "nursing on cue" or even "responsive breastfeeding". That's when you interpret, assess, and respond lovingly to your baby's cues. Is your baby trying to tell you that she's hungry? Or does she need to be held and comforted? One of the challenges and joys of mothering is learning how each new baby attempts to communicate. We've found that, as I get better at reading a baby's signals, the baby cries less, having learned other ways to communicate. I learn to pick up on how that baby looks and acts when he or she needs to eat. One baby rooted frantically for anything near his mouth. Another made a pitiful face and waved his arms around wildly. Our daughter made little urgent sounds that quickly escalated into crying. And one baby was so content, so happy, that we needed to watch the clock to make sure we fed him often enough because he almost never fussed. It wasn't until he was at the breast that I would realize the poor guy was practically starving! (At once particular busy time in our lives--during a move over the holidays when he was a tiny baby--we actually set the clock at two hour intervals in order to build up my milk supply and help him to gain weight.)
What I don't like about schedules is that they become the solitary "cue". Rather than responding to our babies, we tend to respond to the clock. Further, schedules have a tendency to define the breastfeeding relationship as a transfer of nourishment and little else. Some of the Christians who teach the importance of scheduling, as if it were a facet in the spiritual training of our children, actually undermine the compassion we should feel for our children. They ignore the comforting, non-nutritive, aspects of nursing. Instead of urging us to have servant hearts towards our families and to follow the lead of Jesus (who came as a servant, though He had all authority) some of these teachers seem to teach that we are to be parent-centered and that we are to meet our children's needs only at predetermined times. This struggle of "child-centered" versus "parent-centered" has no place in a Christian family. Truly, we are to be Christ-centered. In human relationships, we are to be other-centered; we are to encourage each other to be "family-centered" rather than to focus on our individual wants and desires.
Those of us who have been blessed with several babies in a row have probably seen how even a little toddler can be so protective of the new tiny baby. When Benjamin would fuss, Isaac would urge me almost frantically, "Please nurse my baby!" I encouraged his compassion. What if I had said, "No, Isaac. It's not time to nurse the baby." My little Isaac would have said, "But Mama, I think he's hungry!" "Well, it's not time for him to eat yet. He'll just have to wait. After all, God is a God of order." My two year olds seem to understand that they can wait to eat--but they seem convinced that, when baby cries, we should all drop everything and run to the baby's aid. And frankly, I want them to remain tender to the baby's cries--I want them to be protective. I know that, all too soon, that helpless baby will learn to crawl and then he or she will do something to offend the older sibling--and I want that toddler to still be protective and tender and understanding towards the baby.
From the godly mothers who mentored me over the years--and my own experience--I learned that unrestricted breastfeeding during the early weeks and months does not mean the beginnings of chaos and lack of routine, nor does it result in a lack of discipline. It does not mean we are abdicating our responsibility as parents or placing a helpless baby in authority over us. It simply means we are willing to offer the appropriate comfort and compassion to our babies no matter what the clock may say. It means we are willing to take responsibility for knowing and doing what's best for our families, as opposed to relying on outside experts and predetermined programs. Responsiveness on the part of both parents, as they minister to their baby, sets a wonderful habit that can last a lifetime--a great benefit to the family.
copyright 1996 by Rebecca Prewett
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