Babies Born June 2006 #15

[Smoke Jaguar]

Just on elimination communication (EC); there are different ways of adopting it, just like with cloth nappies you can have full time EC'ers and part time EC'ers. Some start from birth, others from later on. There is A LOT more to it than just popping your child over someone's rose bush, and that's one of the reasons this segment was so stupid. You can't explain EC in a 10 second grab whilst you try to bag everything else about a style of parenting! Dr Sarah Buckley is a very respected health professional who advocates gentle parenting and she practices EC - it's not just for barbarians and tree-hugging hippies, as the show would suggest! Kids who have practiced EC toilet train much sooner than nappied children, that much has been shown, so no, they do not spend 4 years squatting in someone's garden...but 60 Minutes wasn't going to tell you that, were they? As for 'accidents', I know of enough toddlers who are known to pull off their nappies and smear the contents all over their bedding and walls...I don't judge those parents as if they condone it - yet they still have a laugh about it cos what else are you going to do? A child has a lifetime of feeling shame, why make them feel ashamed about a natural function that they can't even physically control yet? Nappies or not, I KNOW messy, pooey accidents can happen! If you haven't read about AP, then this 60 Minutes show doesn't really give you a basis to criticise it because it only portrayed a twisted, highly edited (for their own purposes - I think we were supposed to roll our eyes when one of the mums left the room to tend to a crying child in another part of the house whilst filming...she would have been roasted had she not investigated something happening whilst she wasn't supervising!) and false version of what AP is and aims to do. Put it this way, responding to your child's needs the way AP advocates is actually recommended so that your child can adjust socially and independently later on when they interact with peers. Research has shown that for decades. There are AP groups in most capital cities and regions to support parents who AP - like Rory said, it should just be a given that you can parent in this way, but unfortunately it is not. For example, I know of a few mothers who can tell stories of the many times they have been asked by perfect strangers, whilst BFing a toddler, "Isn't s/he a bit old for that?" How about 'None of your freaking business???" Just like BFing women shouldn't need the ABA, it is an important support tool for many, many BFing women, in a world where BFing was once considered to be for animals (like, duh, we ARE mammals!) and barbarians and was actively discouraged. In a bid to 'free' women in the 50's, women became enslaved to formula companies! Anyway, I'm in danger of a major digression there. To those of you who didn't watch 60 Minutes, you only missed warped reporting of an otherwise completely normal thing. Those of you who watched and haven't read or heard much about AP, try to erase the story from your mind because it was too twisted for words (although I'm giving it a red hot go to put it into words!).
I know I'm doing AP - babywearing, co-sleeping (again, some parents sleep separately, some don't - we don't), demand feeding, intention to do extended BFing, immediate comforting where physically possible, take him everywhere we go, no strict routines (it's not like I keep him awake - he'll sleep whether he's in the HAB, bassinette or our bed, so he's not being harmed). What I do does in no way feel like the shameful thing 60 Mins was trying to make it out to be. And no-one in the AP people interviewed said anything about no boundaries, sense of right or wrong etc for the paed to think they were going to grow up being anarchists! And as for "in 5 years' time they'll be spoiled"...complete rubbish.
Nickers, the can of worms was already open, so don't worry! Each to their own, but don't take anything you saw last night as a glimpse into the lives of AP kids!
Welcome Sara. Sorry, baptism of fire today! Good one on the farm - that's what I want (albeit, I want a little more than 5 acres...more like 50).
Bath - I hope the advisor guy who came to our place the other week gets a nice bonus! He works for your DH's employer, too, and his wife gave birth to their first the day before he came out to see us (he is in the Sth Melb area, but my cousin's DP got him for us) and then again a week later...he was supposed to be on leave! DP gave him a bunch of beautiful waratah's when he left, to make it up to his wife for working...no skin off our nose, DP is sick of waratah's after an intense few weeks picking them for export.
Gotta go and see what's in the house that we can eat with these yummy sausages DP bought...some of those tinned beans are looking good, maybe some fresh tomato, some shrooms, beetroot...
Hot day tomorrow - woo-hoo! DP cut the grass out the back so I'll lay Oscar on a blanket in the nuddy.
Catch you later...