Guest guest Posted February 2, 2007 Report Share Posted February 2, 2007 Yes, " The Contented Little Baby " book has been around for a long time, especially in England -- it's really an eye-opening read. But thanks for pointing out this detailed and multi-level website -- a new parent could spend days there, losing confidence all the way. Hers is one of those authoritative books that tell you that babies can be convenient if you do it right (leading to the logical conclusion that you're doing it *wrong.*) Jan Barger did an interesting session on these scheduling/system books at the LLLI Conference. She noted that parents always start out at a " formal " stage looking for rules and trying to do everything " right " and in the normal progression they gain confidence and find their own ways. But these very confident sounding books encourage people to stay trapped in that first stage, always judging their experience against " what the book says. " I think the Internet as a whole really stands in the way of many new parents now being able to relax at all in their parenting. It used to be you just had to worry about what your mother said or the neighbor said. Now you can troll endlessly 24/7 for things to worry about. (Yes, yes, I recognize the power of information to do good too -- I'm just being cranky.) In prenatal classes I always warn people against these " one-size fits all " books, noting that someone may even recommend them with the best motives, e.g. " this really worked for me. " And if someone has a big milk supply and an easy-going baby, they can really get away with a lot -- breastfeeding tends to work. But a lot of these books are built on a bottle-feeding model, and a lot of parents start supplementing to make the baby " last " the designated time. I always work in the phrase that " mothers and babies did this without clocks for thousands of years, " hoping that might be a phrase that sticks. Margaret ________________________________________________________________________________\ ____ Bored stiff? Loosen up... Download and play hundreds of games for free on Yahoo! Games. http://games.yahoo.com/games/front Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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