Commitment, or lack thereof...

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-10-2003
Commitment, or lack thereof...
1085
Tue, 01-08-2008 - 1:56pm

So I just saw something somewhere else (won't specify where, but I bet a few of you will figure it out!) where a woman indicated that she WAS planning on breastfeeding, but now because of a heated debate about it, she doesn't want to anymore.


Ummmmm, are you kidding me?

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iVillage Member
Registered: 01-04-2005
Wed, 01-30-2008 - 8:34pm
I would agree - fear would be the right feeling to ascribe.
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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2003
Wed, 01-30-2008 - 8:59pm

"I never understand why we don't treat our new relationship with babies like we do other new relationships - why we are so desparate to manage our baby.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 12-12-2006
Wed, 01-30-2008 - 9:10pm

"Page 103 1998 edition...If you question your milk supply (under monitoring your baby's growth) he offers a 4 day test which says to offer 1or 2 ounces of formula after nursing, while you pump to see how much milk you are producing.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 01-07-2005
Wed, 01-30-2008 - 9:26pm

"I also think you are wrong about the PPD/depression claim.







Lilypie




iVillage Member
Registered: 01-07-2005
Wed, 01-30-2008 - 9:30pm

I had a terrible reply to what AP was however many others got there for so I am not going to even bother.







Lilypie




iVillage Member
Registered: 12-10-2007
Wed, 01-30-2008 - 11:28pm

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adriennesiggy.jpg picture by ansevey

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-10-2007
Wed, 01-30-2008 - 11:31pm

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adriennesiggy.jpg picture by ansevey

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-10-2007
Wed, 01-30-2008 - 11:42pm

Sorry, Toni, I now this is a little late, but I wanted to point out the importance of uninterrupted sleep.

adriennesiggy.jpg picture by ansevey

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2003
Thu, 01-31-2008 - 11:06am

One of the things I noticed was different with my FF 1st son in his own crib in his own room, and my BF 3ed son, who co-slept - is that with the baby in the next room, I was often woken suddenly from a deep sleep to him screaming, and I would jump out of bed on a run, and be next to his crib before I was even fully awake. I found that very stressful, and never felt rested, even though he slept thru the night from 6w on.

With my youngest, I often found myself waking up just seconds before he would begin to waken, so I could start him nursing, and both of us would drift back to sleep quickly - so my rest was much less disturbed - even though he woke up sometimes hourly at night.

This is because moms & babies that sleep close by, tend to fall into the same sleep rhythms.

"There is no evidence that mothers who are separated from their babies are better rested. On the contrary, they are more rested and less stressed when they are with their babies. Mothers and babies learn how to sleep in the same rhythm. Thus, when the baby starts waking for a feed, the mother is also starting to wake up naturally. This is not as tiring for the mother as being awakened from deep sleep, as she often is if the baby is elsewhere when he wakes up.

The baby shows long before he starts crying that he is ready to feed. His breathing may change, for example. Or he may start to stretch. The mother, being in light sleep, will awaken, her milk will start to flow and the calm baby will be content to nurse. A baby who has been crying for some time before being tried on the breast may refuse to take the breast even if he is ravenous. Mothers and babies should be encouraged to sleep side by side in hospital. This is a great way for mothers to rest while the baby nurses. Breastfeeding should be relaxing, not tiring."
Source: http://pregnancy.about.com/cs/breastfeedinginfo/a/aanho1.htm



~*~ Catherine, mom to three grown men - Jason, Michael & Joshua and Granma to Christopher & Leia.


iVillage Member
Registered: 01-29-2004
Thu, 01-31-2008 - 11:21am

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http://www.dbsalliance.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_sleep_why>>>

I'm not Toni, but I have to disagree with this assessment. Eight hours uninterrupted sleep is a very recent concept, before electricity allowed us to extend our waking hours into the night, people slept very differently, with periods of sleep interspersed with periods of wakefulness.

"we now also know that pre-industrial families commonly experienced a "broken" pattern of sleep, though few contemporaries regarded it in a pejorative light. Until the modern age, most households had two distinct intervals of slumber, known as "first" and "second" sleep, bridged by an hour or more of quiet wakefulness. Usually, people would retire between 9 and 10 o'clock only to stir past midnight to smoke a pipe, brew a tub of ale or even converse with a neighbor.

Others remained in bed to pray or make love. This time after the first sleep was praised as uniquely suited for sexual intimacy; rested couples have "more enjoyment" and "do it better," as one 16th-century French doctor wrote. Often, people might simply have lain in bed ruminating on the meaning of a fresh dream, thereby permitting the conscious mind a window onto the human psyche that remains shuttered for those in the modern day too quick to awake and arise.

The principal explanation for this enigmatic pattern of slumber probably lies in the nocturnal darkness that enveloped pre-industrial households — in short, the absence of artificial lighting. There is a growing consensus on the impact of modern lighting on sleep. The Harvard chronobiologist Charles A. Czeisler has aptly likened lighting to a drug in its physiological effects, producing, among other changes, altered levels of melatonin, the brain hormone that helps to regulate our circadian clock.

In fact, during clinical experiments at the National Institute of Mental Health, human subjects deprived of light at night for weeks at a time exhibited a segmented pattern of sleep closely resembling that related in historical sources (as well as that still exhibited by many wild mammals). The subjects also experienced, during intervals of wakefulness, measurably higher levels of prolactin, the hormone that allows hens to sit happily upon their eggs for long periods.

These elevations of prolactin reinforce historical descriptions of complacent feelings at "first waking" and, back then, probably helped calm people's worries about the night's perils. Prolactin is also what differentiates segmented sleep, with its interval of "non-anxious wakefulness" that nearly resembles a meditative state, from the tossing-and-turning insomnia we medicate against. "Let the end of thy first sleep raise thee from thy repose: then hath the body the best temper; then hath thy soul the least encumbrance," wrote the moralist Francis Quarles.

Remarkably, then, our pattern of consolidated sleep has been a relatively recent development, another product of the industrial age, while segmented sleep was long the natural form of our slumber, having a provenance as old as humankind. (Homer even invoked the term "first sleep" in "The Odyssey.") For experts like Dr. Thomas Wehr, who conducted the experiments at the National Institute of Mental Health, some common sleep disorders may be nothing more than sleep's older, primal pattern trying to reassert itself — "breaking through," as Dr. Wehr has put it, into today's "artificial world."

It just seems odd to me that a normal, natural sleep pattern for mothers and infants would cause physical and psychological problems. The majority of infants (over 80%) do not sleep more than a few hours at a stretch until after six months. Expecting an infant to adapt to a different sleep pattern based on modern practices does not sound reasonable. I have to wonder if the reason so many babies today "get their days and nights mixed up" is because of the effects of artificial lighting?

I also found it interesting that natural sleep patterns were associated with elevated levels of prolactin... the breastfeeding hormone. :-) I have to wonder if our unnatural goal of 8 hours uninterrupted sleep may be the reason some women have trouble producing enough milk. The study showed that the "historical" sleep pattern results in a "higher" level of prolactin... isn't that really a NORMAL level for humans with a (historically) normal sleep pattern? Wouldn't that mean that our artificial 8-hour-stretch sleep schedule results in LOWERED prolactin levels?

It's also true that co-sleeping (historically normal)makes long stretches of uninterrupted sleep unnecessary for most moms, because mom and baby quickly synchronize their sleep patterns so they are both coming into light sleep at the same time, allowing mom to tend to her baby without being wakened from a period of deep sleep. (this would be the "non-anxious waking" of a natural sleep pattern) I wonder if the reason parents are so sleep-deprived when they have a new baby is that we force our bodies into an unnatural pattern of sustained sleep, so that when we ARE wakened in the night, it is much more stressful than a natural, "non-anxious waking" would be? It's like we try to cram all our sleep into one 8 hour stretch instead of a more normal 10-12 hour period with occasional wakeful periods. Before electric lights, this would not have been the norm... you went to bed soon after dark and got up when it was light. I'm not suggesting everyone should go back to this (although it would probably be healthier) but that you can't expect infants to adapt to this abnormal schedule when they are hard-wired for a different one.

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