It’s Ezzo Week(end) 2008
Once again this year Tulipgirl is observing Ezzo Week. Blog your story, submit a comment, reflect on how Ezzo parenting has changed over the years…
As an example of the latter, I submit a page from the 1990 edition of Preparation for Parenting showing the Ezzos’ infant care recommendations. When my youngest was a baby, this is what was sweeping through the churches all around me:
These numbers equate to a mere half to three-quarters of the feedings that AAP guidelines call for at those ages. (6 feedings per day versus 12, for instance!) No wonder so many problems with dehydration, low weight gain, failure to thrive and dwindling milk supply surfaced among users.
In recent years, the Ezzos have increased the number of daily feedings in their plan. And, according to them, they’re grateful to critics. I haven’t felt the love–quite the contrary–but that’s ok.
Even with the increase, their plan still skims the bottom of the range that normal newborns require.
Instructions that were once adamant that parents must make sure at least three hours had passed before feeding the baby again now say that feedings may be spaced two hours and a half hours apart. A parent who does that will be able to squeeze almost ten feedings into a day, provided she rigorously wakes the baby to feed him at the same intervals through the night as well as during the day. For that progress I am very, very thankful.
The AAP policy statement on breastfeeding and the use of human milk calls for pediatricians to educate nursing mothers to follow their infants’ feeding cues, having 8-12 feedings a day, and rousing non-demanding babies to nurse. Once breastfeeding is well established, the number of feedings a baby takes may decline a bit, but that the baby may increase frequency for growth spurts or any other time an increase in milk volume is desired. The recommendation to follow the infant’s cues, by the way, is based in physiology, not philosophy.
Ezzo loves to frame the issue as being about “feeding philosophies” and has thus unfortunately obfuscated the physiological facts of the matter by insisting that recommendations to follow the infant’s feeding cues arise out of discredited or disreputable psychological theories.
Proper information can empower mothers to make wise decisions how to feed their babies, and can also be useful to the Ezzos as they apparently are open–little by little–to revising their information to be as safe as possible.
This is fascinating. . . I don’t have our “original” book, though I think I found a copy. With all the changes that have been made over the years, at times I have really wondered if I was really remembering all that was taught. . . But I was. . .
Like you said, I’m glad that more accurate (though still incomplete) information is now included in the newest BW/Prep versions. And perhaps the “new” toddler materials will include accurate information about the growth and development of toddlers as well. (Another flaw in older materials — an incomplete and often inaccurate understanding of normal child development.)
So weird…
I love the “A Biblical Perspective” at the very top of the book’s page… Yes, a certain amount of feedings per day is, er, *Biblical?*
It’s all so dang weird. I hate that I fell for any of it (mine more a Pearl than an Ezzo, but same thing underneath it all, in a round about way)…
:(
Yes, molleth, that is a striking juxtaposition, isn’t it?
That illustrates that the materials have carried within themselves the seeds of controversy. Mean people didn’t hunt down and beat up on this perfectly innocent material–rather, it was always centered on a far-fetched claim to be biblical—and anything that takes that claim upon itself invites scrutiny to see if it really IS.
If you can read the page, tiny print and all, you’ll also see assertions of some additional far-fetched statistics. Readers are placed on the horns of an uncomfortable dilemma. While it strains credulity to the breaking point to accept the idea that 99+ percent of the babies slept through the night (unless the group was chosen BECAUSE they slept through the night), it also is terribly uncomfortable to entertain the alternative, that the author would make up statistics and present them as true.
That dilemma unfortunately crops up many times as one evaluates the Ezzo’s writings.
I followed the babywise book and my baby pretty much did what the book said he would do. He started sleeping 8 hours or more per night without waking up starting at 7 weeks. He is well rested, always smiling, and hardly ever fusses. We have had no problems with his weight although we made sure to monitor his weight and make adjustments accordingly as the book tells us to do. He is nursing only and has never really taken or needed more than 7 feedings per day. He is off the chart for length and is in between the 50th and 75th percentile for weight.
I am happy for you, Ashton. Enjoy your baby! He sounds like a delight. It is wonderful that you are able to exclusively breastfeed him. :-)
The concern is that many mothers are not so fortunate and cannot maintain a milk supply when they only nurse 7 times daily (and especially with the long overnight gap). These mothers start out strong and believe there are no problems, but the problem, if there will be one, tends not to be evident until 4 – 8 months. Sometimes the mother can rebuild her supply by very frequent feedings for awhile, but many times she cannot.