philosophy calls for the suppression of all crying. Thus, greater value is
placed on suppressing a child’s cry than teaching good sleep habits. Try
placing an “attached” baby in his own crib and in all probability there
will be a great deal of crying.
How do feelings of security fit in? PDF babies move naturally from
dependence to independence because the nature of the program fosters
relational security. A baby’s security is tied to his or her developing
relationships with mom and dad, not simply the proximity of mom. The
child who is physically attached to mom through baby slings and shared
sleep is not necessarily experiencing relational attachment. That
statement is easily proven. Just remove the child from mom at any point
and observe how secure he or she appears. It’s disheartening for a parent
to see and hear her own child in a state of hysteria under the stress of
independence.
Basic conditioning also plays into the mix. A mom who picks up her
baby and offers the breast each time her baby cries is teaching her baby
that food is the source of comfort, not mom. This explains why Marisa is
not easily comforted by secondary caregivers. It may also help explain
the obesity problem of our nation’s youth and why so many adults turn to
food for stress relief. They have been trained that way from the
beginning. We are not trying to express an inevitable cause-and-effect
relationship between a fat baby and a fat adolescent later on. However,
poor eating habits in infancy may result in eventual obesity. Overfeeding
or disregarding healthy eating patterns early on could be to blame.
There is another consideration. Babies not only become conditioned
to being picked up at a whimper, but they also become abnormally
dependent on it. A child like Marisa has been conditioned to expect
immediate gratification. What will happen to Marisa when her parents no
longer can satisfy her immediately? What happens when a second or third
child comes into the family? Think of the emotional trauma both Marisa
and mother will endure. This painful scenario is described by mothers as
the child becoming “completely unglued.” The child has been so
conditioned to immediate response that he or she simply cannot cope
with a delayed response. Now the child is emotionally fragile, rather than
nora
(Nora)
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