SIDS and safe t sleep – cruelty out of love? March 7, 2009
Posted by Megan in Belief in Baby’s Crys: Cry It Out/Controlled Cry, Beware the Baby Trainers, Marketing: Formula/Baby Apparel, Sleep issues: SIDS.add a comment
In writing this post I need you to visit the Safe T Sleep web site to see the photos for readers who do not know what this product is.
Often in other posts I have liked the correlation that Keith Sawyer (page 16 of PDF for photo) likened wrapping to the strapping down of patients be it hospital or institute.
Both web sites really need to be seen for the photos before you can understand what my view points are.
So the scoop is that SIDS NZ and Safe T Sleep® Partnership Announced
I have three issues with this ’scoop’
- SIDS NZ aligning themselves with marketing buying a product and the idea that something needs to be brought to keep children safe rather than parenting.
- If we follow SIDS guidelines from round the world and sleep with our babies with in arms reach i.e. a co-sleeper cot, the basinet…for goodness sake a banana box….the SIDS rates drop dramatically. Look at other co-sleeping countries like Sweden, Japan, Hong Kong.
- With this product I can see children being strapped down crying no matter what age…a tool to hold a child down.
My question is how often when it comes to our children do we do something out of love when in fact if we really look at the situation is quite cruel.
Yes this product might keep a child safe on its back and might ease a parents mind but what are we really allowing our selves by using this product to do to our children?
Young infants are often wrapped as we believe that they like the tight sensation. Often as parents who are frustrated with their children not keeping still, they will use this wrap as a way to keep their children in one place. I have written about wrapping before in this post wrapping baby to sleep
So is this Safe t sleep just another way to keep our children in place.
My personal thought is ‘wow even worse crying my self to sleep and not being able to move…new born to the ripe old age of 3′….3 years old now that is cruel. …what about toileting, what about needing to lay in a different position, what about bed sores….and I’m sure there are many other mental problems on top of the physical gained by using this ‘product’.
What affect does War and Violence have on our ability to parent? January 28, 2009
Posted by Megan in Beware the Baby Trainers, History: Cultural Beliefs and Society Pressures, Human Development/Mental Health.add a comment
In starting this post I know this area of thought is huge, well studied and well documented.
My own Mother has spent years in this area teaching many people about this subject from the police, victim support, mental health personal…the list goes on.
My own Father has also helped to pick up the pieces of other people’s lives who try to dull down what has happened to them with drugs and alcohol or their own expression of violence against others.
But for my own views in this post I want to look at War, and mostly the larger wars that have affected many people and their families. If we visit any of the War memorial museums we can see the hundreds of stories from both the people at the front but also thoughts left at home.
The peoples at the front who have seen unimaginable horrors who have had to move through their lives at the time, the best that they can would/will often involve blocking out emotions. With dulled emotions, with minds that have seen what they have seen, often these people have placed themselves out of their lives – to become distant and unfeeling – so that they can live.
The peoples at home are often forgotten and that they also had to have a part of this emotional blocking. Whole families were lost with the Mother, the Wife or the Sisters left wondering if their loved ones where ok…minds making pictures which might or might not be true.
Families living in environments which could have been in the middle of these Wars. Houses gone, lives gone…everything. The stress the hunger and the confusion of what will happen next as well as the confusion of weather their loved ones would come home.
Most of us do not have to deal with this kind of War today though we do still have Wars and we do still have problems with our emotions. Often when people come home from War they are unable to switch on their emotions or what they have seen is so bad that nothing else they see or hear can equate to what they have been through.
What seems to happen many times is that families do not know how to be families they just go through the motions of survival with a dullness of caring or an unsureness of what to do when something really does happen.
How does this affect us today? Why do I want to talk about this horrible time in many of our families lives which we have been trying to leave in the past?
It is true the time for many of these Wars have past and the time that it is affecting us has gone….right?
For many of us it might have been our Grandparents who were in the War – for some – as now days we are more generations removed it might have been our Great Grandparent. But there are also Wars today as well
How does that affect us now?
Most of us listen to our Parents and often our Grandparents advice especially when it comes to an unknown subject or new venture like raising children.
As I often do in this blog is link back to the emotional health, style and methods we use to raise our children, treat our children…or train our children to sleep.
Much of the information we are using today in the forms of “Baby manuals” comes from a time where emotions were not ‘in use’ so to say. The books that a written today can and often will be written by people who have been raised by parents from the war times.
People living through the war had to block their hearts off to any feelings which often meant their own children’s suffering. Possibly not suffering as in physical injury but emotional injury….they in turn past this on to our parents (for some their grandparents) who in turn past it on…..
The idea of “It didn’t kill me” is termed and the idea of emotional harm is puzzling to many…as they themselves have actually suffered from emotional harm.
Today we do not live in that type of life.
Today we know what emotional harm can do to a person.
Today we can move on and learn a new way of treating the people we love with love…it’s ok to show that we care and it is ok to give a child (or anyone we are close to) who is in need to give them their need, so as to grow up and move on emotionally strong. We do not need to switch off our caring heart as our child goes to sleep and if they cry for us we have moved on enough in time and education to know that going holding and comforting that child, it will be better than leaving that child to its own demons.
Do parents sometimes suffer from “The English Disease” January 26, 2009
Posted by Megan in Belief in Baby’s Crys: Cry It Out/Controlled Cry, Beware the Baby Trainers, History: Cultural Beliefs and Society Pressures.add a comment
Tony Hawks the writer of “Round Ireland with a Fridge” has put in words what often makes parents stumble over without thinking.
“…But I was suffering from the English disease of not wanting to make a scene. Like people most English people I fall into the category of those who will suffer a third-rate meal at a restaurant with sloppy service, and then, when faced with the waiter’s question ‘Is everything okay, sir?’ will simply say ‘Yes, fine thanks’. Better that way than making a scene. The last thing you want to do is make a scene….”
I’m not sure if it’s just the English that suffer from this disease or that many of us have English backgrounds and upbringings which infect us with this way of thinking.
This English Disease is tied up with emotions often embarrassment and feelings often expressing a dislike for something. These are not nice qualities which people like to hear or feel let alone share with others….But they are an important part of life and as parents who are guiding our children towards a healthy lifestyle we need to get over our ‘English Diseases’.
This problem we have with the ‘disease’ is all about communication (or lack of it if we are not doing it) learning and teaching our children how to communicate well. As parents we need to be able to listen to the complaints or the issues that our children have and be the mature adult and help sort them out…not ignore them or shy away from ‘making a scene’.
We don’t want our children to ‘Suck it in’ or ‘put on a brave face’ (though there are some times we do need that brave face) but it is not to teach them that emotions are unimportant, as bottling these up we know can cause long term illness or mental problems.
We also do not want our children to give up. Creating a scene is often the way of getting better service. We as parents may need to look at ourselves when our children are having a tantrum and need to think…”what kind of ’service’ am I giving my child”? Do they have respect? Do they have quality parent child time? Do we as parents listen to what our child says…the first time round…rather than when they are on the floor screaming at us?
This is a lifelong skill that children need to learn how to express to get the best out of life. Like Barrack Obama who is skilled at using words, … which in my interpretation is often telling the people of his country along the lines of ‘it’s time to pull up your socks…to stop behaving like a child…and clean your country up’ but said in such a way that inspires people and makes them feel proud and want to do a good job.
This skill is learnt in the home and is not about hurting people’s feelings but telling them what you want and what you expect.
I have personal two examples
1 . “Nanma that’s my job” Ara tells my Mother as Mum is unloading the dishwasher…”That’s my job”….”LEAVE IT ALONE”….”STOP it’s my JOB” tears now as I finally make it down to the kitchen to ask my mother to listen. Mum was in her own world and just wanted to get the job done not thinking that Ara might be able to do the job…but even if she can’t at least letting her give it a go.
2. After a long holiday with few children around and Ara finally finds some children to play with at the beach…after a while we have to leave. This was a full on tantrum which I probably didn’t handle all that well… I’ll put in the excuses of heat, pregnant, carrying a full bag with beach blow up toys and a screaming toddler on my own.
I can see that I should of spent more time sitting with her to get through this tantrum rather than suffering from the ‘disease’ and just putting her in the car and driving home.
BUT also thinking of Ara over these really long holidays and how lonely she is and how many changes she has had to go through (not seeing her friends, having a pregnant Mumma and little contact with Dadda) and how much of a release she needs with other people.
As I often do I will link this back to trends of sleep training. A child ‘crying out’ is being ignored…we are teaching them not to make a scene…we are teaching them to block their emotions, we are teaching them not to communicate with others well using the right words, we are teaching them not to ask for the best, and we are teaching them not to ask for help.
We are passing on the English Disease.
Controlled Parenting…oh um Crying September 16, 2008
Posted by Megan in Belief in Baby’s Crys: Cry It Out/Controlled Cry, Beware the Baby Trainers, Human Development/Mental Health.3 comments
“…Why did these ideas of controlled parenting develop? One imagines mainly to increase the hours of sleep parents wanted or felt they needed. Ask any group of women who are well into the third trimester, ‘How many of you slept through the night last night?’ and you will find that nine out of ten have needed to get up at least once during the night. How many books have been written about Bladder Taming in Pregnancy and even if they were would the reader feel a failure and not tell her friends that she was still getting up for her bladder because they might think she was not in control? …” for more click here to read
I can really see the Bladder Taming going down well…I mean how many times would the poor husband get woken up as one stumbles to the bathroom. How many hours do we get robbed of sleep.
It brings back the days when our bathroom was outside and I was 8 months pregnant…I really didn’t want to go…oh man that damp grass the cold wind and yes sometimes the rain…but I had the company of my cat every time and the candle was quite lovely in the night.
But I suppose when its not apart of you and you don’t “feel” the pain then it can be ignored. People can say it’s for their own good and they need to learn how to self soothe and turn over and go back to sleep.
But if its morning sickness (all day sickness) or needing to pee they hey you’ve got to go….is it a different story?
If the baby is crying answer the call as the consequence’s of not answering are just like not answering the Nature Calls…you may not have troubles now but you will have later on in life.
Oh goodness August 14, 2008
Posted by Megan in Beware the Baby Trainers, Personal.add a comment
Please see this post from Bilingual Baby
What are we doing to our children?!!!?
Our children need a watch to tell them what time it is to go for a pee. What happens to learning and understanding how your body works.
I can see kids still going to school with these on…what about adults.
Stuck to a watch telling you your every move…eat, sleep and pee.
I remember being so stuck to a watch.
I was self employed and I lived in 15min blocks.
My friends broke me out of work for a week long hike around some lovely lakes.
The deal was I had to leave my watch behind (I was a work-a-holic who had not had a break in years – this is also where I meet my lovely husband…just imagin if I’d not had time to go for that walk).
On my first day walking I kept asking what the time was and no one knew.
Finally one friend said after me absently asking for the time again “Megan what time would you like it to be?”
From that day on I’ve tried to do things when they needed to be and this was my beginning to live life a little less stressful…its still taken me all the years till now to really understand…how stressful life like that can be.
Again I come to my tango with Tizzie Hall and her Clock watching schedules and how they really just don’t work for humans…droids and commuters yes…but not someone with body functions.
A Legacy of training your baby to sleep August 3, 2008
Posted by Megan in Beware the Baby Trainers.add a comment
How well do baby training books really work in the long run when we look at the parent child relationship?
If you look at the Baby wise selection you can go from Infant to Adolescent, as once you start your ridged control you’ve got to keep it up.
But with most books you’ve really only got information covering from infant to about 2 years old – AND it’s about the 2 year old mark that things really start to get interesting.
What do I mean by get interesting?
As a parent this is a time we really need to start “listening” to our child as this is when their personality really starts to shine and words start to come out and even more things are learnt.
If a parenting style has been used which does not involve “listening” to the child, things start to become a little unstuck or the parent needs to up the ante and use more threats (or smacking) to keep control.
Many parents early on in their parenting life seem to find that their non listening style is really easy – as it’s easy to do things to or for someone who does not know how to communicate (to a non listener) – but then as the child develops it becomes more and more like hard work and many parents will quickly shuffle their young charges off into care – as threats, time out and smacking become most of the day’s work and that’s just no fun for either side.
Often we can see parents fall into becoming a “them and us” relationship. The adult knows best, the adult must do what they feel is right. Some of us might be able to think back to their own childhood and remember a parent “pretending” to listen but still go about what they think is right and miss acknowledging their child might have feelings towards an activity or situation which is happening around them.
Autonomy and Independence is what people mistakenly call the terrible 2s and is what the non-listening style of parenting fail to see as important.
While parents often use forms of Baby training to control their children’s sleep habits (and even feeding times) and falsely think that this is creating independence they seem to be unaware that it is actually creating dependence of someone else making important decisions for them.
How many of us still look up to someone else to tell us what to do – in work especially.
How many of us have no self control – smoking, drinking, drugs, food and even spending money?
Generation of the quick fix June 24, 2008
Posted by Megan in Beware the Baby Trainers, History: Cultural Beliefs and Society Pressures, Human Development/Mental Health, Myths: Sleep through the Night/Self Soothing.add a comment
I’m guilty
Yes me
I wanted out
I’d had enough
Can I give it back!
Oh man I do remember being sooooo tired. I just wanted someone to tell me what to do…well hey all my life I’d been told what to do…My parents, My teachers, My boss…and then it was up to me to do it all on my own.
It was up to me to make up my own mind on what to do with my tiny little daughter that would just not sleep. No one had told me what to expect…I mean we are all independent adults we shouldn’t need help now should we?
Then it came to me…”well if no one wants to tell me what to do I’ll find a book and learn”. Well that’s what I feel can I can do to fix things, I read and the I try it out. For others they prefer to ask the experts like Doctors, Nurses, Midwifes and Nannies. Some still feel that its their parents or family that have the answer (well maybe they do depending if the line of information has not been interrupted in the last 150-200 years of infiltration of expert information).
This is all just reassurance…and for some people if they don’t like what they hear they will keep asking until they get what they want. (Like me I didn’t think it was right to let a baby cry themselves to sleep and so I stopped asking the people who told me it was ok and I looked at why they thought that this was so…hence my blog and my look into history and mental illnesses)
One thing that we often forget it that all good things take time.
How long did it take for you to learn how to drive a car? Did you know exactly what to do how to change gears (if you started with a manual like me) could you park the car, do a hill start…all first pop?
How long did it take for you to learn a second language? Did you just listen to your teacher speak then speak back and know exactly what you were saying?
How long did it take you to learn how to cook? Did you know how to buy, prepare, and cook a meal. Did you know how to stir the pot so the food would not catch and burn. Did it just come to you out of the blue that if you wanted to roast some vegetables that you might have to wash them possibly peal them then if its your fancy herb and oil them…then know how long it would take to cook them and when they are done and how hot to have the oven.
Ok I rabbit
BUT my point is
Good things take time.
A baby (person) takes time to learn MANY things and sleep is one of them.
For me we needed a method – a routine to follow (not strictly but lovingly and thoughtful and watching and understanding)
The understanding to take things slowly (thank you Elizabeth Pantley) you may go many nights sitting on the bed in the dark breastfeeding/feeding your bub and as you slowly pop them off and lower them to the bed (feet touching first)…they wake up. So you do it again…and again…until you’ve done it.
Then they wake up in 45minutes time so you go back in and you use quiet words of love and reassurance…and do what you feel is needed….for some its back on the breast for some it’s a pick up and a hug a shhhh and then gently back down on the bed….shhhhh….for others its putting your head down beside your bub while rubbing their back softly humming and shhhhing….and understanding that crying is because they are learning how to sleep…its frustration and confusion but who best to be there but the best parents in the world…..YOU!
Would Letting them Cry Solve the Problems? May 17, 2008
Posted by Megan in Belief in Baby’s Crys: Cry It Out/Controlled Cry, Beware the Baby Trainers, History: Cultural Beliefs and Society Pressures, Myths: Sleep through the Night/Self Soothing.add a comment
“…If a day or two of letting a child cry to sleep would solve all problems, there is no way that the previously quoted percentages would be so high (they are in the book on the other page). In addition, if those who tried it found immediate, simple success, it would be impossible for word not to spread quickly around the world. The truth is that even though cry-it-out advocates try to tell you that it’s a quick fix, it often takes weeks or even months of very intense crying (and very little sleeping) for a child to finally succumb and start sleeping better, only to relapse after teething, illness, vacations, schedule changes, and growth spurts. So to imply that “a few nights of crying” would solve everything is naive and unrealistic….’
This is from one of my new books…Elizabeth Pantley. I’ve been getting new books in the subject of parenting for over a year now. Dave and I were just discussing how far we have come and how educated we are now to what we were before.
We don’t need this book as Ara is sleeping just fine but I’ve become a bit of a “sleep helper” and in my search for help/ideas it seems that information has become very slim as children become older…so the book the “No Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers and Preschoolers” is just great.
As I have found through my looking over the past year not only does this idea of crying (no matter what type) to sleep it;
1. Does not seem to last and
2. Does not seem to be very good developmentally for a human child
3. Seems to have lasting affects to adulthood (even though some people may not see it as a problem cause they are so wrapped up within themselves – lack of empathy, or they do not realize that the problems they are having stem from childhood)
Save Our Sleep by Tizzie Hall or Tizzy Hall Book Review May 6, 2008
Posted by Megan in Belief in Baby’s Crys: Cry It Out/Controlled Cry, Beware the Baby Trainers, Not good books.add a comment
When looking over some of the other reviews of the book “Save Our Sleep” words like no nonsense, easy to follow and schedules are used but there is a big lack in some key words like:
- Pediatric advice
- Medical information
- Sleep research
- Human brain development
- Human behaviour
- World Health guidelines
- SIDS research
- Attachment research
Tizzie Hall has written this book like many other authors who have written baby help books without actually having the benefit of having her own baby….
This is one of the five top most viewed posts on my other site
