Because, After All, I Do Have Two Children

I have something shocking to tell you.  Four years ago, I Babywised my daughter. I Ezzoed her. And only later was I made privy to the information that, as it turns out, Ezzo is the devil incarnate. My best friend gave me the book, having used some of the content herself, for her two children. She gave it to me while adding these ominous words: "It is a bit controversial..."

Before I began implementing some of the principles, I didn't realize that the information was based heavily on religious teachings. Baptist, to be exact. I visited a couple of chat rooms where the accusations were flying wildly. What I learned was that surely my child was going to have severe psychological repercussions related to the mere fact that I had even brought this evil, evil Babywise book into our home.

I'm happy to report that I sincerely believe no long term damage was done. And she's a hell of a sleeper.

But I regret having put myself, and my daughter, through a lot of unneccesary hardship. I tried to be so rigid with the schedule that I suffered tremendous amounts of guilt and frustration when we were not able to maintain the schedule. (Guilt. See? That's a Baptist thing. I should have put two and two together.) We actually started the schedule immediately upon coming home from the hospital, which looking back seems like the most ridiculous idea ever.

The biggest regret I have about Babywise is the advice to feed on a 3-4 hour schedule. I had a terrible time with my milk production and I'll always wonder (assume, really) that if I had fed on demand, my milk supply would've been better. And I would've alleviated the major, major stress of feeling like I was not supplying enough nutrition for this most important little being that I was now responsible for. That was one of the first things I decided about nursing my son- I nursed on demand pretty much for the first several months. And I've never worried about having adequate milk for him. Did you hear me Gary Ezzo? Did you?

That being said, there were actually a few concepts in the book I do agree with. Since I got burned on my first parenting book and haven't read a plethora of others, let's assume this information can also be found from some other less devil-like source (because I bet it can be).  The first is the idea that the relationship between the husband and wife is extremely important, and that it should not be ignored in lieu of granting your child's every wish. At a certain point, a child should learn that while they are an important part of the family, the are not the only family member, and sometimes they should just go play Candyland by themselves already and let mommy and daddy "take a nap" with the bedroom door locked.*

Next is with regards to a schedule. We didn't even attempt to try any form of scheduling for at least the first month with M*ck. And it was sooooo much better! I'm definitely throwing my vote in for the do-whatever-the-hell-you-need-to-do-to-get-through-the-first-month plan. After that we did move into more of what I would refer to as a routine. Things happen in the same order, but are not dictated by the clock. I am a fan of the sleep-eat-awake succession, rather than the eat-sleep-awake scenario. The idea behind this is that you are not nursing the baby to sleep, but rather teaching the baby to go to sleep on his own. We did do this with both of our kids and its always funny to me to hear people say with amazement, "You just lay him down and he goes to sleep?" Which brings me to "crying it out." I did it with my daughter way earlier than I should have. And it really didn't work. Now I find myself in the camp of going to them with comfort when they're very little- let them know you're never far away... then once they're a little older, if they need to cry a little to get to sleep, it's really going to be more painful for you than for them. My daughter put up some good fights, but eventually gave in. God. The further I get writing this, the more I want to get Ezzo on the phone and tell him to go to hell. My son, whom I waited to let cry, really doesn't cry much at all. He might put in a half-hearted 3 minutes or so, but that's about it.

Now that I am baby wise myself, because, you know, I've had babies, I have come to the very important realization that parenting is not a perfect science. There is no one right way to do it. Different things work for different people. And Ezzo is the devil.

* This is for older children, not newborns, Ezzo-you dumbass!

On a lighter note, how cute are my kids?

Comments

[ALG]

Long time lurker. Just wanted to say that your kids are gorgeous!

[ALG]

Long time lurker. Just wanted to say that your kids are gorgeous!

[Christine]

Really freaking cute. I have no idea who Ezzo is, so I'll take your word for it and will attempt to avoid baby-wising.

We are fans of the do-whatever-works...for only the first month though, really? How about for the first, let's see, say 11 1/2 weeks?

[Cat, Galloping]

Cute? They're gorgeous! (And I'm taking notes, here.)

[TulipGirl]

I'm another been-there-done-that parent. Milk supply issues, guilt and all. . .

I don't believe Ezzo is Baptist, btw. But definitely hawks his ideas as "Biblical"--though all but a few Christians would disagree there.

Glad things became so much smoother after dumping Ezzo!

[usako]

how cute are your kids?
very, very cute. a job well done =)

[Linda]

I read Ezzo's book because I heard it demonized so many places. I found about 75% to be horrifying, 15% to be okay if that's what you wanna do, and 10% to be pretty innocuous (sp?). I did like the eat-play-sleep thing and tried to follow that, but wasn't nearly the hardass he says you have to be. Otherwise, I ignored the rest of his book and was just moderately annoyed that he defined AP as breastfeeding whenever your kid cries.

I agreed with his belief that kids need to be taught they're part of a family unit and not the center of the world, but when they're BABIES? Really? My husband and I figured this was just a period in our lives where our needs were on the back burner and our kids came first. As they've gotten older, things have started to slowly change and we're able to teach them to wait a little and reprioritize. I'm sure that transition will continue until they want nothing to do with us and we can go see weekly movies again.

We didn't get a good, reliable schedule until 5 or 6 months and I was okay with that. I doubt if it would have happened any earlier despite my efforts, I probably would have just been more stressed about it.

I did hate that he hawked his ideas as Christian. As a Christian, I took MAJOR offense to that and thought seriously non-Christian thoughts about him.

I also didn't like his rigidity. At least in Dr. Sears' books, he says things like, "If this doesn't work for you, do something different" and "Listen to your instincts, even if they go against the so-called experts (including himself)" and "Pick and choose the parts of attachment parenting that work for you and disregard the rest."

On the plus side, it made me more confident as a parent to say, "HELL NO! I'M NOT DOING THAT, EZZO!"

Your kids are simply beautiful. I can't wait to meet them!

[Christine]

Welcome to those of us who left the Ezzo cult. It's a delightful group, and we all have big, fat smiles on our faces!

[Amie]

Your kids are adorable! I didn't have to read Ezzo's books to decide I didn't want to use his methods, observing some of my baby-wise friends was enough to turn me off.

[Tertia]

Gorg & Divine kids, must take after their mother ;-)

[giddy]

I used Babywise for both my kids. But like you, I focused only on the "sleep-eat-wake" principle, and fed on demand. And with both, the kids were sleeping 8-10 hrs a night somewhere between 9 and 12 weeks, right on Ezzo's schedule! (And I was able to continue nursing to 18 months with #1; currently at 7 months with #2). We were lucky I guess; the kiddos are temperamentally easy and genetically endowed with the ability to sleep just like their parents. As a result---I have always been sort of mystified by the outcry against crying it out, since we technically used that method but neither child ever had to cry it out! This could be luck more than anything else.

Anyway. Your kids are beautiful! Have fun meeting Indigogirl!

[KatS]

Guilt, guilt guilt. Then only good thing that came out of Ezzo for me was that reading his book triggered me to call the LC. I was so worried that I was doing something wrong because I couldn't "schedule" my children and "set" their metabolism or whatever he calls it, that I called the LC to see what I was doing wrong. Turns out, my kids had some oral-motor difficulties with nursing, and that a visit with the Occupational Therapist was in order. I was essentially starving them by trying not to feed them but once every three hours! He is the devil!