What Bro. Ezzo Says About Me. . .
What he has said. . .I've helped breastfeeding moms for the past 13 years, and I must say my favorite mothers are the ones who are using the Ezzos' program. They fervently love the Lord, want to raise children to His honor and glory, and are often convinced that a neat little plan will guarantee success in that endeavor.
However, among these moms, I see a whole lot of breastfeeding "failure", several little skinny babies, and women afraid to feed their babies when they showed hunger signs, because that would make them "humanistic." In other words, I recommend their program for new moms about as much as I recommend newlyweds get marital advice from Planned Parenthood.
So, in that vein -- respecting the desire of parents to raise God honoring children, to survive with infants amidst homeschooling 4 other ones and 2 toddlers, I thought I would add to Bro. Ezzo's list, comparing myself to his list of sins that he says I am:
Idolatrous, because I tend to their needs, abusive, because I occasionally allow my two youngest to find comfort in our bed, in bondage -- get REAL!!, and "not glorifying to God" -- my four children who all at one time or other had cheese grits in their hair despite being taught table manners.
This is saddest of all: "When a baby cries and gnaws at his hands, we often assume he must be hungry and should be fed. There are many reasons babies cry, but it is amazing that hunger is the only reason the average person considers!" (pg 139) Crying is a late hunger cue, gnawing hands is an earlier one. God's Word referred to nursing as comforting... why deny that to our covenant children?
I don't get it.
Posted by greasy joan at 2/17/2005
|
Links to this post:
3 Comments:
-
TulipGirl said...
how breastfeeding is initially endocrine driven requiring lots of stimulation *on demand* in the earliest months and later switching to the supply/demand system to be very instructive.That was on the the concepts that opened my eyes to the reality that the "God's Way" that Gary Ezzo taught was indeed against God's design for breastfeeding.
12:36 PM
Have you seen this article?
Examining the Evidence for Cue FeedingIt does a good job in summarizing the physiology of breastfeeding for mamas that may think scheduling is helpful.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- Willena said...
Well, here is one mom whose little guy would have starved to death on the Ezzo plan.
2:33 PM
Nathaniel was 9 lbs. 7 oz. at birth, but from day one he was a snacker. It didn't matter how much or little time had passed since his last feeding... he never nursed for more than a few minutes at a time. It took a full week to get all the meconium out of his system, and he weighed 6 oz. less at a month old than he had at birth. I tried everything I could think of, as well as other things suggested by a LLL leader. By the time he was three months old he had plummeted to the 5th percentile on the doctors' weight charts, and a month later he had dropped off them altogether. Yet he was a normal, happy, healthy, strong baby in every other way.
Today he is the slenderest and shortest 5yo we know, but he is the only one of our seven never to have been on antibiotics. I shudder to think where he would be today had we been following Ezzo's method of infant feeding.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
You know, I found the recent discussion on ACCP about how breastfeeding is initially endocrine driven requiring lots of stimulation *on demand* in the earliest months and later switching to the supply/demand system to be very instructive. It is no wonder those poor Ezzo mothers have such difficulty with breastfeeding if they put baby on a schedule right away.
10:21 AMSpeaking of idolatry, I think it is idolatry to make Gary Ezzo's word on breastfeeding schedules law and Gospel, which is what many of the Ezzo parents do; stopping their ears up when anyone says anything contradictory. In fact, I also think it is often a violation of sixth commandment duties to *ignore* the cries of a hungry baby in deference to a schedule!
Please tell me that Ezzo is losing popularity!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -