Nursing Your Kids

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.