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African Babies Don’t Cry? I Call Bull****.
Dec 30th 2011
Last year, I read an article by a mother of one 5 month old baby, which led me to believe that if I was only a more attached parent, then my baby would never cry. Supposedly, African babies who are breastfed on demand don’t cry, and according to the woman’s grandmother, that’s all it takes to prevent crying to begin with. All kinds of natural parenting websites picked up this story and used to tell mothers all about how it must be the mother’s fault if the baby is crying, because she must not be doing a good enough job breastfeeding or being attached to her baby.
Well, this argument would have worked with my middle son. He was breastfed on demand whenever we were together (I worked and went to school upwards of 80 hours a week) but when we nursed, it fixed all his problems. He nursed for food. He nursed for comfort. He nursed when he was in pain. He nursed when he was tired. No matter what ailed him, a few minutes at the breast would fix it. The baby was perpetually happy. He smiled from his inside out all the time. Every time I posted a picture of him on Facebook, people would say “My god! Is that baby EVER not smiling?!?” The boy just didn’t cry.
So when I was pregnant with my daughter, I read that article and told myself that my daughter would be exactly the same way. As long as I wore her, and slept with her, and breastfed her on demand, she’d be happy. Like the African babies, there would be no reason for her to cry.
Fast forward a few months, and I give birth to a screamer. An inconsolable, nothing-helps-her, 24-hour a day screamer.
BUT WHY?
I am the perfect example of what Attachment Parenting is supposed to look like. I cosleep. I breastfeed 24 hours a day. I wear my baby everywhere. She’s only received ONE vaccination in 8 months. I’ve done chiropractics. I’ve tried elimination diets. I’ve taken her with me to work and school. I cater to her needs constantly, rarely even asking to take a shower by myself. If Dr. Sears handed out grades for Attachment Parenting and biological nurturing, I’d be getting my usual A+++.
So apparently breastfeeding, and wearing a baby, and sleeping with them doesn’t fix everything. And I don’t know why in the world I would let my educated self believe that it does. I already know that babies are different. What works for one baby with NOT work for another, and if it did, then chances are you just got lucky. Some kids have allergies that make them scream. Some kids have sensory problems that make them scream. Some kids react poorly to an overactive letdown and oversupply, which causes them great pain and makes them scream. Some kids will NOT comfort nurse because nursing itself is what’s upsetting their stomachs. Some kids are experiencing severe teething pain that makes them scream. Some kids have reflux. And some kids are just needier! And these are the examples of otherwise relatively healthy kids. We’re not even talking about the babies with bigger problems.
Yet the writer of this article would have us believe that a baby breastfed on demand would never have any reason to cry. And why would she believe this? Because her Grandma told her that was true, and because it was coincidentally true for her one baby.
Listen, my Grandma has told me a lot of things, few of which I’d consider evidence-based parenting advice. She’s told me my kids act like kids because I don’t spank them enough. She’s told me that little babies are happier when their car seats face forward. She’s told me I should force-feed my toddlers when they don’t want to eat. She told me that breastfeeding causes babies to be allergic to food. In her time, these things were held as truths.
As you can see, being my Grandma doesn’t automatically crown her with some doctorate in parenting wisdom, just like me being a mother doesn’t automatically mean I have all the right answers.
Instead, I feel that sanctimonious article does little more than pile judgment on the backs of the mothers whose babies are born needier than average. It tells the mothers who are doing the very best they can that their best isn’t good enough. Additionally, I think it helps those mothers with calm babies feel that they are doing a “better” job than others. If your baby’s cries can be fixed just by breastfeeding, then go ahead and pat yourself on the back if you want, but also thank your particular god that you got a baby whose problems will be fixed by nursing alone.
What IS true about the article? Breastfeeding on demand is the biologically normal way to breastfeed, and that should be facilitated whenever possible. But the article could have, and should have, stopped there. To claim that feeding on demand is the magic solution to all a baby’s cries is one of the more ridiculous assertions I’ve ever seen on the internet, and I’m frankly embarrassed at any of my Lactivist friends who would hop on that bandwagon. I would be willing to guess that those people have ONE or two babies that this worked for, and they’ve never had to parent a baby that has higher needs. Otherwise, they’d know full well that no amount attachment parenting can “fix” their baby’s temperament. So far, nobody has found anything that can “fix” my daughter’s fussiness. We’ve tried cosleeping, and we’ve tried putting her in a crib. We’ve tried wearing her, and we’ve tried letting her roam more. We’ve tried more solids. We’ve tried no solids.
There’s just no silver bullet. She has her good days, and she has her very, very, very bad days. Right now we’re in the thick of some of the worst days, and it’s NOT because I stopped breastfeeding her on demand. I had her in the ER last weekend after a fever and eight straight hours of screaming, and they couldn’t find a diagnosis either. (I’m going with teething, since that’s all we can come up with.)
I understand the appeal of buying into this “wisdom.” Moms want to think there’s a solution. They want to believe that something will fix it. They want to believe that there is a parenting utopia somewhere in the world that is free from the constraints of the Western World; a place in which all our natural parenting instincts are nurtured, and thus, our children are perfectly content, which makes parenting less stressful. But teething is teething everywhere in the world. Gassiness is gassiness everywhere in the world. I wish there was a parenting utopia, but I don’t live there, and you probably don’t either, so you and I are going to have to do the best we can, and know that for some babies, it’s just not going to fix it.
I’m tired of people telling moms,
“If you only coslept, your baby would be happy.”
“If you only nursed her more, your baby would be happy.”
“If you only cut out dairy, your baby would be happy.”
“If you only wore her more, your baby would be happy.”
“If you only blahblahblah, your baby would be happy.”
I’m sure African babies teeth. I’m sure some African moms have an overactive supply or overactive letdown that upsets their African baby’s tummy. I’m sure some African babies are born with high needs. I’m sure, right at this very minute, there are thousands of African babies crying for no particular reason, and their African mothers can’t do anything to fix it. I’m sure they walk the floors with them at night, just as I walk the floors with my American, breastfed-on-demand, rides-on-my-hip, sleeps-on-my-chest baby.
Feed your baby on demand. Love your baby on demand. But don’t feel like an attachment parenting failure if your baby is still a screamer. Just come commiserate with me until we all survive this. I’m on facebook at 3 am if you want to chat.
