"Any time you force the child to rely on their own resources prematurely, you must expect deleterious consequences. When the child's needs are met through person-to-person interaction with its mother, you establish the primacy of social contact, and the interdependence of human beings, rather than encouraging/forcing the child to meet its needs by itself.
This may be a crude analogy, but consider this: If you have two adults, married to each other, who have all the children they want and don't want to get pregnant, but still have strong sex drives, would you consider it better if they each went into a separate room and masturbated? This would certainly allow them to "self comfort" and would make them independent and autonomous, so that one wouldn't have to wait until the other was ready or "in the mood." Would you really consider this an improvement?"
"Evidence based on cross-cultural research and analysis of human breast milk content suggests that human babies are designed to nurse *several times an hour* around the clock. One would expect that their has been selection for a strong instinct to suck in this pattern, and nursing *on demand* can be altered significantly by the mother, who of course has other things to do. I'm not suggesting that all babies must be held continuously by the mother with continuous access to the breast -- just that that is what they have evolved to expect, and their sucking instincts have evolved accordingly. When you look at mothers who say they are nursing *on demand* but the baby only *demands* every 3-4 hours, you usually find subtle and not-so-subtle messages from the mother that nursing more often is not allowed. Thus, baby may turn to his thumb or fingers, and since mom thinks "baby can't be hungry again" she lets him pacify himself."
"My own research suggests that the absolute minimum time human children have evolved to expect breastfeeding to continue is 2.5 years, with a range of 2.5 to 7 years. Thus, one would expect that for many of them, their sucking instincts will remain strong throughout this period, and thus one would expect a child nursed for 2 years to be very likely to still have the instinctive urge to suck til 6, 7, 8 years or even longer."
I would agree with her. If any mother allowed her hcild to nurse for 2 yrs you can bet it would be a war to wean them. That is why I wasnt going down that road. No way ever would I nurse my children at 7 or 8 years old. YUCK!
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http://www.kathydettwyler.org/detthumb.html
"Any time you force the child to rely on their own resources prematurely, you must expect deleterious consequences. When the child's needs are met through person-to-person interaction with its mother, you establish the primacy of social contact, and the interdependence of human beings, rather than encouraging/forcing the child to meet its needs by itself.
This may be a crude analogy, but consider this: If you have two adults, married to each other, who have all the children they want and don't want to get pregnant, but still have strong sex drives, would you consider it better if they each went into a separate room and masturbated? This would certainly allow them to "self comfort" and would make them independent and autonomous, so that one wouldn't have to wait until the other was ready or "in the mood." Would you really consider this an improvement?"
http://www.kathydettwyler.org/detthumb.html
"Evidence based on cross-cultural research and analysis of human breast milk content suggests that human babies are designed to nurse *several times an hour* around the clock. One would expect that their has been selection for a strong instinct to suck in this pattern, and nursing *on demand* can be altered significantly by the mother, who of course has other things to do. I'm not suggesting that all babies must be held continuously by the mother with continuous access to the breast -- just that that is what they have evolved to expect, and their sucking instincts have evolved accordingly. When you look at mothers who say they are nursing *on demand* but the baby only *demands* every 3-4 hours, you usually find subtle and not-so-subtle messages from the mother that nursing more often is not allowed. Thus, baby may turn to his thumb or fingers, and since mom thinks "baby can't be hungry again" she lets him pacify himself."
http://www.kathydettwyler.org/detthumb.html
"My own research suggests that the absolute minimum time human children have evolved to expect breastfeeding to continue is 2.5 years, with a range of 2.5 to 7 years. Thus, one would expect that for many of them, their sucking instincts will remain strong throughout this period, and thus one would expect a child nursed for 2 years to be very likely to still have the instinctive urge to suck til 6, 7, 8 years or even longer."
Well by your own link you have been proven wrong.
In some infants this need is more pronounced than in others.
So it ISNT universal...it varies from child to child. Just what I thought.
Well I have no idea what to tell you. Neither of my children used a pacifier and neither ever sucked their thumb.
"In some infants this need is more pronounced than in others.
So it ISNT universal...it varies from child to child. Just what I thought."
We've already been over this.
From post 3340:
"We aren't discussing the NEED to suck as much as others, simply the BIOLOGICAL NEED TO SUCK."
Honestly, I can't make it any clearer for you here (see below).
"Infants are hardwired to need and enjoy sucking as a separate experience from feeding."
"Some form of non-nutritive sucking has been common in every society we know."
Nope, that's not the one.
PumpkinAngel
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