Mail Bag - Breastfed

Transcription

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Debi Pearl:  Papa and I are going to record so y'all go ahead and shut the door. [door closing]

Child 1:  Let's play castle! I'll be the dragon attacking the walls!

Child 2:  OK, then I'll be the knight. You can be the princess, Nomise.

Announcer:  There are all sorts of schools of thought on breast feeding. This week on Vintage Answers, Debi shares some old fashioned common sense.

Debi:  Dear Michael and Debbie, thank you so much for your books and tapes. My husband doesn't have time to read these days, but he can listen to the tapes while he's driving. They have been very helpful, but we still have work to do to get our children obedient. We just had our third blessing this past spring. Our daughter is the hardest one, probably because we didn't know what to do with her when she was younger. Our son now is getting to be disobedient, but we are really trying to be consistent. It seems so hard for me and every once in a while I get angrier than I should. I have prayed and prayed, but I just can't seem to get rid of the anger I feel sometimes, when they do things that they know they're not supposed to do. How can I know if I'm expecting too much?

The main reason I'm writing though is a question I have about infant feeding. What are your thoughts about demand feeding versus schedule? My newborn wants to eat often. I'm trying to get him on a schedule, but sometimes he gets full right away, then he's hungry soon after. Sometimes he sleeps for four or five hours.

There are Christian books that teach we need to get them on schedule, and books that teach that we need to feed them often, and through the night. Naturally space our children the way God intended. Which way is right? Can I do the latter and still train them up right?

I don't feed him every time he cries, he lets me know when he wants to eat. But sometimes I just don't know. He won't nurse if he isn't hungry, it seems. Both teachings say: "God is the God of order", but uses it differently. One side says they should sleep through the night by eight weeks, and one says to feed them through the night with the baby in your bed. I would very much appreciate your thoughts on the subject. Thank you.

Michael Pearl:  Well Deb there's not much I can answer on that, you've had plenty of experience there. We'll address that first part about the anger first. Let's let you deal with this part on the child feeding.

Debi:  I don't know why I didn't know about nursing. I live in a community here with ladies that have at least 10 children by the time they're 40. I went from house to house asking the ladies, about a year ago, "how did you nurse your babies?" All of them answered, the way I nurse my babies. We didn't have somebody to tell us how to do it, so we just did what came naturally. What came naturally was we fed our children when they were hungry. Some newborn babies are very small and need to be fed more often. The larger babies a lot of times will completely drain your breast and get all of the cream, and therefore will sleep a lot longer. There is a principle that you need to understand and that is, once your milk does come in, and you've got a good flow of milk, the first milk that the baby nurses is sugar milk.

Then as the baby drains your breast, you have cream, just like with a cow. If you've ever milked a cow, when you first start milking...I'm not talking the first few weeks after the calf is born I'm talking about a month or two after the calf is born or when the baby is two or three months old. Your milk is kind of a blueish color, it's clear looking.

Then as you completely strip the cow clean the last part of the milk is real thick, it's cream. Same way with a mother. If you nurse your baby too often, that baby's constantly just taking the light milk and that sugar milk will give your child diarrhea. As the baby learns to drain the breast totally, then that baby's getting heavy cream milk, which will cause it to sleep longer and not have diarrhea, not have so much stomach ache and colic.

You have a principle here, you want to cause that child to be hungry enough to completely drain the breast dry so it will get plenty of cream. Therefore, not have so much stomach problems and sleep longer and get the fat that he needs.

Another thing, if you let a little baby cry because its hungry, it gets so exhausted it can't eat. Mothers trying to stick to a schedule will often cause their child harm by not allowing that child to eat soon enough, so the child's so tired he can't nurse as much as he needs to nurse, so a mother needs to use wisdom in making a decision.

People that write books write books because you need the information. You need to take that information and use it wisely. Don't just say," OK, this lady says this so I'm going to believe her, and this lady says this and I'm not going to believe her."

You need to take that information...If you have a little five pound baby you know that baby is going to need a little more care than a great big 10 pound baby, as far as watching out for the nursing and making sure it gets what it needs and just taking care of a tinier infant.

As far as nursing overnight, I usually tried to nurse my babies and make sure they were tired late in the evening. I kept them awake from seven o'clock in the evening till nine and played with them, even though they wanted to doze off. Made sure they were real good and hungry and then nursed them about nine or 10 o'clock, and they would usually sleep till four o'clock, but sometimes they didn't.

But my house was cold and I kept my babies in the bed with me. I really never woke up completely, when they nursed. I'd just roll them back and I'd pat their little backs to help them burp. It didn't disturb my sleep and it really didn't disturb their sleep. I let nature take its course.

Now remember, when I was nursing my children there was a woman that I never saw her go for 30 minutes without nursing her baby. He just nursed, nursed, nursed, nursed. She seemed to be sickly and her baby seemed to be sickly, and I knew at the time that was not the way to do it. I couldn't tell her why. I just knew at the time that was not the way to do it.

You need to use wisdom and judgment. Some children need to eat more often, but you don't need to pacify their emotional upsets or use the breast to satisfy their constant need to suck or their constant need to be there with mama. Use good judgment and keep your baby good and healthy.

Michael:  The fact that she had several authors with extreme different views indicates that there's room for a lot of different views and different positions out there. Why? I suppose it's because there are no fast rules here. Some things will work well for one baby or one mother and other things will work well for another baby and another mother. Also, circumstances differ. In other words, how the mother works or how many kids are in the house. Different variations can occur in a family lifestyle that would dictate different responses, so just don't come under guilt when you fail to conform to someone else's pattern.

Search around your own experience, your own child and see what works well for you. I would think the main rules you'd need to look for is, number one, you want to feed your child thoroughly, you want your child to be well nourished. Whatever it takes to keep your child well nourished, do that.

Secondly, you don't want to use the breast, or a pacifier, or a sucking thumb, or anything like that to cause a child just to indulge the sucking appetite or the eating appetite to satisfy emotional needs. Then, a young child doesn't have much more than two or three needs, need to eat, need to be held, need to be kept warm and dry.

When a child is very young like that their very existence is to be indulged by their mother. As they get a little older you have to begin to wean them off of indulgence and cause them to face the bigger world around them.

But when our children were very young my wife held that baby quite a bit. That baby slept with us. The baby was close to her. She just comforted that baby like a baby was in the womb. Let your mothers instinct take over there, and do what you feel is right for your baby, and for you, and the circumstances you live in.

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Announcer:  Come back next week as the other question in this letter about parental anger is answered. As always, don't forget to check out this week's specials at Cane Creek Corner.

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