Spoiling Babies

Hey, did you know that by responding to your baby's biologically wired needs, you're going to spoil him? Did you know that by holding him too much (quantitative specifics still being calculated) you are letting him know that HE is boss, and not you?

Did you know that by allowing him to sleep in your bed, or next to your bed is allowing him to manipulate you? By you not sticking him in his own room and allowing him to cry, sometimes for hours at a time, you are letting him run YOUR life?!

Ways to make sure that time-sucking brat doesn't completely ruin your life: 

1. Make sure he knows who is boss. 
2. Don't hold him too often. Make sure he's in a swing or car seat or bassinet more than he is in your arms. Don't let him get any funny ideas! 
3. Don't feed him too often. Put him on a strict schedule for breastfeeding. Don't let his cries throw you off, he needs to learn to self-sooth ASAP. 
4. If he's crying through these things, he's trying to manipulate you. Put him in his crib, and walk and and shut the door. Again, show him who's boss! 
5. Why should your sleep schedule get fucked up, just because he hasn't learned how to sleep? That's why cribs look like lockdown cells with no roof! He can't get out. Let him learn that he has no choice but to sleep. 
6. If you're out and about, keep him in the car seat. DO NOT hold him or wear him in any hippy carrier. You're going to break rule 2. 
7. Don't worry about the hippy freaks who say his cortisol levels will be raised unnecessarily. Shit, life is stressful. The sooner he learns this, the better off he'll be. 

Babies are, after all, a huge inconvenience in our lives. The sooner they learn that we're not putting up with their manipulation, the more calm and controlled the house will be. Because that's what life with kids is. Calm and controlled, scheduled. Maybe Skinner had the right idea with the baby-in-a-box. You give them the right temperature, clean diapers, scheduled feedings....that's all a baby needs. A mother is simply an incubator, supporting the baby's life until he's on the outside. Then he only needs the basics, and nothing more.

While we're at it...I was born in a time where car seats and seat belts weren't used. I was raised in an extremely emotionally abusive household with two parents obsessed about their own lives to worry about mine, other than control. I drank and drove as a teenager.

I lived. And that's the bottom line, right? As long as the kid is fed and housed...everything else is inconsequential. 

"Butter Birth"

If you've been in the birthy world long enough, you've heard the term "butter birth". Essentially, this means a labor and birth that was smooth as butter. A labor where mom hardly had any pain, a very short pushing stage, no extra bleeding, and probably not any tearing. Butter birth.

While I get the sentiment and glee over a "butter birth", I think that perhaps it does a disservice to women who don't have easy births. I don't have easy labors or births. I have really sucky, mostly excruciating and long labors. Would I LOVE to have a "butter birth"? You bet your ass I would. Just ONCE, it would be nice to have an easy-going labor where I'm in labor for less than 24 hours. And no, I'm not a mom who counts the early contractions that you can ignore as labor. I'm talking the, "gotta be up and moving, this shit hurts!" point in labor when I start counting. I'd love to be in labor for less than 24 hours, NOT have my back feel like it's splitting in two (thank you, asshole with no insurance who rear-ended me, leaving me with permanent damage). I'd love to only have the fetal ejection reflex for only a few minutes (rather than hours) before my baby slides out into my waiting hands.

That's not in the cards for me. I'm done having babies now. But I have to wonder, for women who are physically and emotionally scarred by how tumultuous their labors are...can there ever be a peace about variations in normalcy? Sure, we get the "I don't know how you did it, you're amazing!" compliments. But really, I'd much rather a "butter birth" than the bravery comments.

I recently saw a woman complain about birth stories. She searched "Peaceful birth stories", and was irritated that some of the stories contained long, difficult labors. She missed the point entirely...and I think part of it was due to this idea that peaceful = butter birth. You see, while my labors completely sucked, they were peaceful. I was at home. I didn't have strangers coming in and out. I didn't have anyone freak out because I was past my due date with a HUUUUGGE baby (10+ lbs), or because my labor was long. I didn't have an IV. I didn't have anyone making decisions FOR me. To me, after some of the experiences that I've had in the hospital, this was the epitome of peaceful. Even with the sucky labors, and really difficult births.

But women don't want to hear about that. We have this idea in our culture that a good birth is the "butter birth" with a relatively small baby.

I really believe that this is a part of the problem with women thinking that they can't possibly have a birth without intervention and drugs. Because they don't have butter labors. They don't have butter births. Therefore, it's not even worth trying. 

The Know-It-Alls

Isn't is just so much fun when you post something like this on Facebook: 

And then you get the know-it-all friend(s) who decide to tell you just how dangerous co-sleeping is, how breastfeeding doesn't always work out (didn't for her, after all!), how cloth diapering is just a fad and just as bad as disposables....oh, and don't be crushed if you end up with a c-section, even though you're planning a natural (home, did she miss that?) birth. Because, you know, "things happen". After all, it did to her.

Then another friend jumps in and says that she agrees with most, but that co-sleeping is absolutely positively dangerous, because it increases the risk of SIDS. Because, she read that one article. And the AAP recommends against bed sharing. And March of Dimes says, "Co-sleeping may..."

Ah. Yes. The non-researchers. We all know at least one. That friend who either doesn't do any actual research at all, and goes off of online articles or what a friend/family member/neighbor told them. Or, they say that you can't trust research because you can find studies that say anything you want them to.

MmHmm. It's funny that when we follow the way of life of the generations before we had hospitals for birth, or this idea that babies need to learn independence and sleep in their own room....things are generally safer and healthier!

Natural birth outside of a hospital? Fewer complications, fewer injuries, and lower cesarean rates.

Breastfeeding? Healthier baby, stronger immune system, more attached bond.

Co-Sleeping? Lower rates of SIDS (when done correctly), ease with breastfeeding at night, and a more secure attachment.

No shit! It's amazing!

Our culture is so backwards. Our culture belittles and dismisses women who have a grasp on biological parenting, even though they're doing things in ways that science and history have shown to be best for babies and families. Home birth and even simply natural birth is considered extreme and dangerous. Co-sleeping is considered "enabling behavior", spoiling, and dangerous. Extended (aka, full-term) nursing is considered perverted, instead of normal.  If you wear your baby in a sling instead of keeping them in the damn bucket seat all the time, you're considered a hippy freak who is spoiling her kid. If you cloth diaper because you'd like to save money, save waste, and not expose baby to the chemicals in disposables, you're paranoid and ridiculous.

And the sad part is, us paranoid hippy freaks don't just get crap from other moms. We get crap from the media, from doctors, from nurses, from family members...hell, sometimes from the stranger that happens upon us during one of our hippy freak rituals.

If only our culture valued natural, biologically modeled parenting.