Nursing Your Kids

Salma Hayek is talking about breastfeeding again and again it’s controversial. From Fox News:

Salma Hayek may soon need rehabilitation for an addiction.

She told Style magazine: “The myth that says you lose all this weight when you breastfeed! That is so not true! It’s like, please, will everyone stop telling me I look really well.”

It’s a shame that this time, the third time she’s in the news about breastfeeding, the articles are portraying her as a nutjob. This French article about her translates (badly!) to Mothers, Hide Your Children-Salma’s on a Breastfeeding Rampage.

But the good news is that she’s a well-known, well-liked celebrity spreading a positive message about breastfeeding. Her daughter is now over a year old and she’s not weaning and not embarrassed to admit it.

Hayek was in the news talking about breastfeeding and weight loss both in January and April of this year. The first time was another controversial piece where rumors were that she was pumping non-stop to lose weight. The second time was after an Oprah appearance where she said that breastfeeding did not help her lose weight.

According to the Celebrity Baby Blog not all celebrities have nannies. Their year end round-ups have lists of the celebrities who co-sleep, cloth diaper, wear their babies, and breastfeed. Like I’ve said before, I’m not necessarily an AP parent, but my husband and I are definitely attached parents and still occasionally co-sleep, wear our toddler, breastfeed and we’ve recently added cloth diapering to our list so it’s interesting to see which celebrities are more down to earth than you’d think.

Co-sleeping Celebs
Angelina Jolie co-sleeps with her kids. She told Esquire magazine that she slept with Maddox until Brad came along and sleeps with Pax, her most recently adopted child, to make him comfortable.

Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates and their kids, 16 and 13, still share a bed. I certainly hope they don’t share it every night because while I’m all for co-sleeping, I think co-sleeping with two teenagers regularly is pretty weird. My own hang-ups aside he told OK! magazine, “There is a theory that a child has to teach itself to go to sleep, and if every time it cries, you whisk them out of their bed — the jury is still out on that. But our kids still sleep in our bed.”

Baby Wearing Celebrities
Plenty of celebrities wear their babies in slings, pouches and mei tais including Julia Roberts, Gwen Stefani, Sara Gilbert, Lisa Leslie, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Keri Russell, and Annabeth Gish who said, “What I always loved seeing was mothers with their slings and the Baby Bjorn – the carrying things. I really like the Maya, the Moby, and the New Native. I like the Maya the best.”

Cloth diapering Celebs

Dave Matthews has spoken about cloth diapers for his son August Oliver saying, “I think diapers might be the No. 3 piece of garbage [in terms of environmental damage]…so if you have a little cloth diaper service nearby, that’s good.”

Maggie Gyllenhaal also cloth diapers. Her brother Jake spoke about changing his niece Ramona’s organic, tie-on cloth diapers on Conan O’Brien

Josie Maran uses gDiapers, a cloth/disposable hybrid.

Breastfeeding Celebrities

The Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog recently wrote about celebrity breastfeeding activists citing Maggie Gyllenhal who proudly nursed in public despite being stalked by the paparazzi, Gwen Stefani, Jennifer Gardner who breastfed baby Violet for 14 months, and Keri Russell who attributes her post-partum weight loss to breastfeeding. And let’s not forget about kind of creepy Will Ferrell who talked about his wife’s breast pump during an interview at the Golden Globes this year.

After five days Operation Nap is officially over. I’d rather waste money on gas, pollute the environment and kill an hour of my day driving aimlessly than deal with the tears, screams, and misery of trying to make him nap indoors. If Bob can do it when he’s home I’m all for it, but I am too tired and (and my nipples are entirely too sensitive) to make the transition by myself.

Yesterday since it was nice out and we’d walked to a friends house to play I was hoping he’d fall asleep in the stroller. He was so furious about having to sit in the stroller that he screamed almost the entire way home. I asked if he wanted to nap in the car or in his bed. He said stroller. We walked a bit more but he kept screaming so we went home and rocked for a while. I won’t get into the play by play because it’s pretty much a repeat of the previous day’s performance. After an hour I decided to just let him watch “baby farm” a Baby Einstein animal video he’s become obsessed with the past few weeks.

Usually he’s miserable by the end of the day when he hasn’t had a nap and yesterday was no different. He was so out of control by bedtime we skipped his bath entirely. When I say out of control, I mean out of control. He was stiff and fighting and screaming and hurting himself in the process. Though I’ve seen him in similar states (on nap-free days, of course) Bob had never seen him have a tantrum like that. At 7.20 Bob said that he was so tired he’d be asleep in no time. I said that I’d be shocked if he was asleep by 8.30.

Eventually we wrestled him into his pajamas and sleep sack and got him to sit still for a story. Bob planned on putting him to bed, but he clearly wanted me and in his state I was afraid he’d never fall asleep if I left. He tossed and turned and cried and didn’t want me to touch him but didn’t want me to leave either. Not knowing what to do I asked if he wanted to nurse. He practically cried with relief at the suggestion, but as I unhooked my nursing bra he got angry again and started wailing, “uh-uh. Other side, other side. Uh-uh.” I knew it was a bad sign, but I let him nurse anyway.

He relaxed and his breathing got heavier and deeper. I moved him off of my lap and into bed as he nursed. After three or four minutes he loosened his latch. I thought he’d fallen asleep and was just letting go. Instead he clamped down on the protruding part of my nipple and refused to let go. I roughly shoved my fingers into his mouth, got him off of me, and left his room. I wanted to slam his door and shout, but I managed to contain my pain and rage and just walked into the other room instead. Bob went him and eventually got him to stop crying and go to sleep. He tried to leave the room, but Sam woke up crying so he stayed a bit longer, falling asleep himself. He emerged from Sam’s room, blinking in the light, around 10. I heard Sam wake and cry several times throughout the night, but he fell back to sleep on his own each time. It’s a good thing, because I wasn’t going in there.

Today Sam is going to nap in the car.

Yesterday Bob got Sam to sleep in his crib while I was out. I don’t know how he did it. He said that he rocked him until he fell asleep, put him in the crib and Sam woke up as soon as he hit the mattress. The heat guy was here to show Bob how to skim the boiler, so Bob left him to cry for a bit, came back, rocked him until he fell asleep, put him in the crib and he woke up again. Bob left for a second time, and repeated the process a bit later only this time Sam stayed asleep and napped for more than two hours.

The whole process, from rocking to two-hour nap took about 45 minutes. I don’t know how the circumstances were different from my approach, but Sam will not let me rock him without clawing and biting at my face.

Today Sam isn’t feeling well. He’s got a runny nose and a cough and doesn’t even want to play. After our gymnastics class I just didn’t have it in me to struggle to get him to sleep and because he’s not feeling well he needs his sleep. I don’t want exhaustion to make him sicker. I got him in the car, we drove our regular 20-minute loop and he was asleep after 15 minutes. My nipples are thanking me.

Since Bob was so successful I wonder if it would make more sense to put Operation Nap on hold for a few weeks until Bob’s Christmas vacation. Maybe if he got used to sleeping indoors he’d be more willing to let me get him down.

In response to comments on yesterday’s post, I want to clarify that the nursing down is not the issue. Of course I prefer not to nurse him down for naps, but I’m glad to do it if he’ll actually fall asleep. The problem is that he generally doesn’t fall asleep nursing for naps. He’ll just doze and chew on my nipple and become furious if I take it away. That’s why he’s been napping in the stroller or the car for close to a year now.

At nighttime breastfeeding is not an issue. He almost never nurses before bed at night and when he does he’ll stop nursing while still awake but drowsy and roll over to fall asleep on his stomach.

Sam’s only been nursing on a “don’t offer, don’t refuse” basis since June. He often goes for days at a time without showing any interest in my breasts and a lot of the time when he asks to nurse he’s so tired that he forgets he asked and rolls over before I even get my bra open. Unfortunately, even though he’s gone as many as ten days straight without nursing, I don’t think he’s going to wean completely any time soon. Especially with Operation Nap Indoors in full effect.

I don’t mind offering the breast for comfort when it’s not painful. At night he’s been pretty well-behaved on the occasions when he nurses. During the day it’s just horrendous. I have battle scars. So the two issues- napping indoors and breastfeeding are intertwined, but it’s not like I’m trying to make two major changes at once.

As for Operation Nap Day 3, I have a prenatal appointment at nap time and Bob will be home with Sam and possibly the guys who’ve been working on our heat. (We have no heat in our bedroom and a few other radiators in the house won’t work. We’d be screwed without space heaters and our wood stove. The current temperature in our house downstairs is 58 degrees except for in our laundry room and powder room where it’s so cold you can see your breath. The current temperature in the room with the wood stove on the second floor is 85.) If the heat guys are here I imagine it will be day three with no sleep. If they aren’t here Bob’s going to attempt to get him down in his bed. I’m sure you’ll be awaiting my update with bated breath.

Operation Nap Indoors day two was a bigger failure than day one. A very sleepy Sam and I read a few stories and rocked in the glider together. We got into bed and I rubbed his back. He said, “Up mama, up.” I explained again that it was nap time and we had to stay in bed. I held him and he struggled and cried. I whispered to him and shushed him and cuddled him and rubbed his back. He cried harder and harder.

I decided to try physically holding him down in the hopes he’d just collapse from exhaustion. He cried even harder and struggled, hitting me and pulling my hair. I explained to him again that it was nap time. He hit me again so I left the room and told him I’d be back in ten minutes. Ten minutes later he’d thrown several diapers, three books, and two hats over the gate.

He asked to nurse so I picked him up and brought him into bed. He nursed for a while and fell asleep. I tried to remove my breast from his mouth and he clamped down hard. I nudged him to relatch and he clamped down again. I suffered through for a few minutes until his breathing grew slow and heavy again and tried to remove myself again. His eyes opened wide and he cried, “nurse, nurse, nurse.” I switched to the other side. It was fine for a few minutes until he clamped down hard. I asked him to let go but eyes closed, he clamped harder and said no through his teeth. I burst into tears, stuck my finger into his mouth to unlatch him and sobbed in his bed while he cried to nurse more.

After I calmed down a bit I opened the gate and left the room. He followed me out and I’ve been crying on and off ever since. I don’t think this is going to work.

Sam hasn’t nursed to go down for a nap in at least six months now but that’s because I’d given up on indoor naps entirely and taken our naps on the road. When the weather was nice he’d nap in the stroller and when the weather was bad he’d nap in the car. Then I got pregnant and my energy level plummeted. Two hour walks trying to get him to sleep were out of the question. For the last three months he’s only napped in the car.

I kept thinking that things would change at some point. Eventually he’d be old enough to reason and just calmly accept that it was nap time and he’d get into bed and lie down. But then I came to my senses and realized that I was screwed unless I actively changed our nap routine. Of course I was too exhausted to actually do anything about it, but the idea was that when my energy returned in the second trimester changes would be made.

Well it’s the second trimester and I still don’t have any energy. For some inexplicable reason I decided that today is day one of operation nap indoors. I prepped him all morning for the indoor nap after lunch. I told him that he was going to take his nap in bed today and he shook his head no and said uh-uh each time I reminded him of the indoor nap. After story hour we came home, washed our hands and ate some lunch. I reminded him that it was nap time. Again he shook his head no and said uh-uh, but this time he started to cry. I brought him upstairs and into his room. He began to cry harder and say light on, shoes on. I turned on the sleepy time music and asked if he wanted to read a story.

We read two Curious George stories, turned on the music, got into bed and read Goodnight Moon a few times. Then I put the book down and tried to help him fall asleep. He started to cry immediately. The crying escalated until I did exactly what I didn’t want to do and asked him if he wanted to nurse. He said yes immediately and nursed calmly until he fell asleep. As soon as I removed my nipple from his mouth he woke up screaming and crying, “More, more, more.” I let him nurse a little longer until he was asleep again and the same thing happened only this time when I tried to extract myself he bit me. Hard. I tried to cuddle him a bit longer but the screams just got worse and he tried to bite a chunk out of my cheek. After the third time I told him to put his head down I left the room.

He cried for a while then started yelling, “Mama, bed.” I went into his room and he asked for his pajamas and sleep sack. I got him dressed for bed and he cuddled with me for a few minutes and asked to nurse again. I told him no, he started crying again, climbed out of bed and tried to unlatch the gate in his doorway. I told him I’d leave if he didn’t get back into bed. He said, “Mama stay,” but didn’t get into bed so I left.

That was ten minutes ago. We’re an hour and a half into the process now. He’s clearly not going to take a nap today. I don’t know what to do. He’s obviously exhausted and ready for a nap but doesn’t want me to help him fall asleep. I don’t want to get into the habit of nursing him to sleep and leaving my nipple in his mouth for as long as he’d like but I don’t want him to give up naps altogether. I feel like breastfeeding just to get him to nap is taking a huge step backwards, but I don’t know what else to do. If he doesn’t learn how to nap in his bed I’ll be screwed once the baby is born.

I wish I could remember where I read this rumor, but at some point early in this pregnancy I read that breasts don’t change as much during a second pregnancy. I was expecting that unlike my first pregnancy, when my breasts went from a perfectly reasonable 32 B to a shocking 38 D, I’d stay on the small side until close to the end.

This bit of information wasn’t something that really consumed me, although I think I may have been slightly disappointed that I wouldn’t have the fabulous cleavage to draw attention away from my belly since I’d also read that women start to show more quickly in second pregnancies.

Yes I started to show much more quickly this pregnancy. I was showing at 10 weeks pretty obviously if I wasn’t wearing a baggy sweater to disguise the baby bump whereas with Sam I didn’t show until 16 weeks and even then I was just barely showing. Here’s a picture of the belly. On the left is me at 16 weeks the first time around. On the right is me at 12 weeks this pregnancy. (please excuse the filthy mirror)

With Sam, my breasts got bigger way before my belly. I needed to buy new bras weeks before I needed maternity clothes. But now, just over 16 weeks pregnant, my breasts have finally caught up to my belly. They are large (yippee for fabulous cleavage!), heavy, and sore. I’m not so fond of the sore. They’re sore pretty much all the time, whether I’m chasing Sam or sitting still. They’re also tingly, like I’m experience let down when I’m actually not. Sam is still nursing sporadically- twice yesterday, once the day before- and the tingly feeling doesn’t actually occur when he nurses. It’s like phantom letdown at random intervals throughout the day.

It’s still painful when Sam nurses, though not nearly as painful as it was during the first trimester. It hurts when he latches and I often have to make him readjust his latch, but it doesn’t hurt through the nursing sessions. It also helps that the sessions have been lasting no more than a few minutes lately. I don’t know that I could take much more. I really thought that pregnancy would be my big incentive to wean. But so far it’s just another minor inconvenience. It’s not nearly as bad as I thought.

Bryan’s wife Sarah is being induced today. Good luck with a smooth delivery!

Back to the breastfeeding is weird thing, last night I was putting Sam to bed and he was having trouble falling asleep. For the first time in about a week he asked to nurse. I wasn’t feeling great and wasn’t in the mood so I asked if he was sure and he flopped on his belly and let me rub his back for a while, but after a minute or two he asked again. He didn’t want to sit on my lap though, and at this point nursing lying down (with his vice-like grip) is way too painful. I tried to get him on my lap and he cried and stiffened. He realized I wasn’t budging and begrudgingly climbed up on my lap and started to nurse.

But he wasn’t happy. He pulled down my shirt, climbed down, pulled up my shirt on the other side and said, “that one, that one.” So I let him nurse on that side for a while. But he still wasn’t happy. He pulled my shirt down, tugged on the the other side and said, “that one, mama. That one.” So I let him nurse on that side again. Of course that side wasn’t good enough, and after a few seconds it was the same routine. I told him that this side was the last side and he was all done after that. He nursed on the second side again, lost interest pretty quickly and asked for a drink. I gave him his water and he passed out sideways with his water bottle clutched in his pudgy little hands and his head on my leg.

If having your kid pull up your shirt and express a random preference of “that one,” when talking about your breasts isn’t weird I don’t know what is.

I started to write back to Stacie in the comments, but decided to make this a post in its own right. Responding to my Weaner-gate post from the other day, Stacie wrote:

I’m saddened that someone as involved in breastfeeding as the lactivist is is weirded out by toddler nursing. Certainly I think she should wean when she wants to but her attitude says a lot about how uncomfortable our culture is with the biological norm of toddler nursing and is unfortunate.

The Lactivist is already nursing a toddler, so that particular piece of the Weaner-gate scandal doesn’t bother me. It seems like a moot point. The idea of it weirds her out, yet she still nurses her son. I completely understand. I’m weirded out by the idea of nursing a two-year-old, yet I have a feeling that in just a few months that’s exactly where I’ll be.

I never dreamed I’d nurse this long. When Sam was one-month-old I wrote, “So yeah, it’s all about the boobies these days. I’m thrilled that they’ve come through for Sam and me- he’s probably at least 9 pounds by now since he was 8.5 last week- but man, it’s exhausting. Every few days he’ll go through a little growth spurt where he eats every hour. EVERY HOUR! Give a girl a break. I don’t know how people do this until their kids are two and three years old. In my opinion, if the kid’s old enough to use utensils, he’s old enough to be weaned.”

Utensils? In my head I based weaning on the use of utensils? How little I knew. The child’s been using utensils for more than half of his life now. What used to weird me out has become my every day. I still nurse my 20-month-old son and I’m not afraid to admit it, but I don’t nurse him in public. He doesn’t need to or want to and I don’t particularly want him to. He’s old enough to eat a cracker if he’s hungry. So while nursing a toddler may be normal for me, people only know I’m still nursing him because I write about it or tell them about it. It’s not something anyone sees anymore, not even my husband since these days Sam never asks to nurse in front of him.

Our culture is uncomfortable with toddlers nursing because it’s the exception, not the norm. I very rarely see anyone nursing a toddler and when I see it it’s weird. It’s not wrong, I nurse a toddler fairly regularly. It’s just different. It’s also weird when I see someone topless on the beach. Not because it’s wrong or unsavory, but because it’s out of the ordinary.

I think the Lactivist’s statements show that she’s reevaluating her feelings every step of the way. I think it’s fair to be weirded out by something that’s a cultural rarity and I think it’s fair that she’s ambivalent about her current situation.

Now that I’m a third of the way through my pregnancy (and nursing while pregnant is weird and painful enough) it looks like I may be faced with tandem nursing- another idea that weirds me out. To have a newborn attached to my breast for weeks at a time with a toddler, a walking, talking, jumping, singing, alphabet-reciting toddler, trying to get in on the action terrifies me. I never would have dreamed that I’d even have to consider the possibility. It’s weird. But perhaps in six months if it’s my reality it will cease to be weird. Honestly, I hope that Sam will wean on his own and I won’t have to deal with it, but if he doesn’t, my future seems weird to me.

I don’t think that the use of the word weird is necessarily negative. I am ambivalent about my current situation and ambivalent about what the future holds. I think that ambivalence is something that many women are still afraid to address. Honestly, I think breastfeeding is weird. It’s strange to have something (and a newborn is hardly even a someone yet which is why I use the word something) attached to your breast so many hours a day for so many weeks. I’m sure that all over the world nursing women look down at their newborn infants and think, “this is pretty weird.” Once you get used to it and it becomes less of a struggle it seems like the most beautiful, natural, thing in the world, but each new development in a nursing relationship, each foray into the unknown (like the first time Sam nursed standing in front of me!) feels strange. I don’t think it’s bad to be weirded out.

It seems a number of women think that in order to call yourself a lactivist you must practice child-led weaning. Child-led weaning, which differs from baby-led weaning, is when a child continues to nurse for as long the child shows interest. Though some will wean earlier or later, most children wean themselves between their second and fourth year.

The Lactivist recently found herself in trouble when she mentioned that she wanted to wean her 14-month-old son and that the idea of nursing a toddler “weirds her out.” A number of women were outraged that a woman who dares to call herself The Lactivist would use the words “weird” and “breastfeeding” in the same sentence. Many of these women expressed that they were disappointed that someone who calls herself The Lactivist, not a lactivist, would wean a child that wasn’t ready.

I think the whole argument, Weaner-gate, as The Lactivist calls it, is ridiculous. Why can’t a woman who calls herself a lactivist wean her child when she wants to? The AAP recommends exclusively nursing for six months, continued breastfeeding for the first year of life and beyond for as long as mutually desired by mother and child. The Lactivist’s son is 14-months-old. How is that not setting a good example? Why can’t she support child-led weaning without actually practicing it? I’m a pro-choice advocate yet I’ve never had an abortion. Does that make my support for a woman’s right to choose any less real? My husband is a breastfeeding advocate yet he’s unable to actually breastfeed. Does that make his support any less real?

Breastfeeding is an amazing, important thing, and I think all women who give birth should try it. I don’t just think they should try it, I think they have a responsibility to try it, it’s just that important. But I don’t think any woman should be forced to continue a breastfeeding relationship for any longer than she wants to.

The comments section of the article about breastfeeding a four-year-old I linked to last week was a little bit out of control. I came across a website where someone responded to many of the comments. Here are some of my favorites:

So is she going to feed her child at school? Will she be packing a bottle of expressed milk in her secondary school lunchbags? How does she get anything done with a child permanently up her jumper? Certainly there’s no way she can have sex if she is still breastfeeding! Snigger!

Translation: I have no idea why she’s doing it, and I don’t know anything about the benefits of longer term breastfeeding, so I’m going to assume that she is doing it for unfathomable selfish reasons. I probably also believe in early weaning so that the mother / father can regain control of the breasts instead of having to make them available to her infant child, in which case the contradictory nature of my arguments has not occurred to me and probably never will. I probably also think that breastfeeding is disgusting and/or unpleasant full stop, even though I probably will not admit it.

And my personal favorite:

We’re not in the Stone Age / Third World!

Admittedly, I’m not so keen on the idea of nursing a four-year-old. I think it’s kind of weird and ooky in theory, but then again I thought that I’d wean at a year. My original thinking was that once a baby is old enough to ask for milk they’re old enough to be weaned. But it turned out that Sam started signing for milk well before he was a year old and it didn’t feel right denying him. Then he was a year and he was still such a baby that I didn’t feel the need to cut him off. Then he was fourteen months and it seemed like he was weaning himself.

Here we are six months later- eight months after the random weaning date I’d originally chosen- and based on this morning’s 40 minute nursing session it seems like child-led weaning is the path we’re taking. So nursing a four-year-old isn’t something I want to do, and I certainly hope it’s not the route we end up taking, but if that’s where I am in a couple of years… Well. That’s where we’ll be.

Many people think extended breastfeeding is unnatural (or weird and ooky as I said originally) which is why it was so nice to see this piece, “Why I still breastfeed my four-year-old daughter.” Here’s an excerpt.

Now, there’s a word: comfort. I remember, pre-motherhood, challenging a friend of mine who was breastfeeding her 18-month-old child.

It isn’t like any other woman’s milk, anywhere on the planet, because my daughter isn’t like any other child in the world.

I listed some of the benefits of extended nursing here.

Last night was wretched. After spending forever trying to get him to sleep, Sam was up at 11.30, 4.00, then again at 5.15. I crawled into his bed (I am so glad we went with the twin size bed instead of a toddler bed because I really needed that sleep) and he slept until 7.30, a full hour and a half later than he’s been sleeping the past couple of weeks.

He’s got a bit of a cold so I decided to take him to the zoo this morning instead of the playground or playhouse. I figured he’d have plenty of room to run around, but fewer toys to stick in his mouth. He had a great time and got plenty of exercise running from animal to animal and climbing every staircase we passed. I packed a lunch so we ate that at 11.30 and shared an ice cream cone before heading back to the car by noon. After all of the running and excitement I thought he’d be ready for a nap. Then I remembered he slept in. After close to two hours of trying I gave up on a nap completely knowing that if he slept any later than 2.30 it would be impossible to get him to sleep.

He hung in for a while. His aunt and grandmom came for a visit and he adores them both. But by 5.30 he was falling apart. He threw a fit when Bob took his clothes off to put him into the bath then threw another fit when it was time to get out. Bob had to leave to chaperone an event for school so I was stuck putting him to bed on my own.

Sam wanted nothing to do with me. He wanted to read stories from our Curious George anthology but refused to let me finish any of them and slammed the book shut on my hand. Then he cried when I put it away. I tried to read Good Night Moon but it made him cry even harder so I turned off the light and tried to rock with him. After he punched me in the eye trying to wrestle away from me I asked if he just wanted to get in bed. He did. I put him in bed and sat beside him. He said, “nurse, nurse.” I asked him if he was sure and he started tugging on my shirt in reply. After about five minutes he was asleep- the first time in probably four months he’s nursed to sleep. Let’s just hope he stays asleep.

Back when I had a TiVo I had the pleasure of watching a lot more television than I do now. Every so often I’d have the double pleasure of watching back to back episodes of Wife Swap and Supernanny. Well I think it was Wife Swap, but it could have been Trading Spouses. I can’t tell those two apart. I can tell Nanny 911 and Supernanny apart though, just because one of the shows has more nannys. Good times.

Anyway, my point is that I found one episode of Supernanny especially alarming. In the episode, a woman with several kids and a home day care spent a large portion of her day nursing her toddler. The Supernanny came in and demanded that the 17 month old girl be weaned immediately. I was surprised that an “expert” would recommend quitting cold turkey, a practice that’s traumatic for both mother and child, especially when neither party has expressed a desire to stop. When I saw the episode Sam wasn’t quite a year old. I’d planned on weaning him at a year, but watching that episode helped me realize that I’d stop when he was ready, not when some know-it-all British broad told me to.

Now Superanny Jo Frost, a woman with no children of her own, has the potential of alarming a much larger audience. Her new book about infant care ignores all recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics and World Health Organization and suggests introducing infants to formula feeding between six weeks and three months because it will help them sleep better. Right. This advice goes hand in hand with my mother’s ill-informed advice of slipping some rice cereal in my two week old son’s bottle to help him sleep through night.*

The “expert” also says that co-sleeping, a practice that has helped countless families around the world sleep better, is a “no-no” and suggests giving infants pacifiers to help them sleep, but only if you’re prepared to take them away the minute your child turns one. I can’t wait to read the rest of her great advice.

*Please note that there is absolutely no evidence that any types of formula or cereal actually help babies sleep longer. Some babies sleep well and others don’t whether they’re formula or breastfed, and solid foods like cereal before the age of four months at the absolute earliest can do more harm than good to an infants immature digestive system. I wrote more about starting solids at Kids Dish.