We normally don't watch TV particularly with my daughter, but my father called last night to tell me of a preview he saw of the 20/20 segment on full-term breastfeeding, as he knows we plan to let my daughter self-wean (I nursed until I self-weaned at 18 months). So later, there I was sitting on the couch nursing my 10-month-old daughter who has 8 teeth and sweetly asks "meh? meh?" when she wants to nurse...
As we were watching the segment, my husband and I had to laugh. He joked to the baby, "that's it, talkie toothie, no more nursing, you have to learn to self-soothe, and next week, you have to start sleeping in your crib, and the week after that, don't expect us to get you food from the kitchen, you have to start doing it yourself and learn to be independent" She popped off the breast, smiled and said "meh!"
So this morning I added my comment to their site.
"As a physician, I found the entire segment ridiculous. To accuse a mother who is nurturing her child in the most natural way possible essentially of abuse or at best of a misguided parenting style that will eventually land her child on a therapist's chair is sad and distorted. The psychologist who was featured on the show stated his personal opinion "I think a child really needs to learn to develop the capacity to soothe oneself, the capacity to tolerate frustration" and that breatfeeding thwarts that. There is absolutely zero research to support his personal opinion, but there is much research, at least at younger ages, that directly opposes his opinion. His concern, that a child learn to self-soothe is a valid and appropriate one, but I am sure that these mothers featured do soothe their children in other ways, and most mothers of a two-, six-, or eight-year-old would not turn away from a child who is hurt and say "sorry, but you have to learn to soothe yourself." Other mothers meet their child's need for attachment in another way besides breastfeeding quite often.
The best parents I have seen, with the most confident and secure children, are those who do meet their children's need for comfort and security. Our culture is distorted in that from the earliest ages we have an obsession with a child learning to self-soothe (placing our children in cribs to cry it out alone, raising their levels of stress hormones which have been found to have a negative effect on brain development, breastfeeding on demand, etc.) and parents who allow themselves to be their child's primary attachment objects are accused of selfishness or bad parenting.These children are at a disadvantage not because of the nurturing parenting style their mothers perform and their fathers support, but because of a society that has major issues with breasts being used by children for nutrition and comfort.
There is no evidence whatsoever that there is an age at which human breastmilk is no longer nutritionally or immunologically a valid food substance as a part of a comlementary diet. My concern for these children who are weaning themselves furthur along in childhood than is typical in our culture is not their development, which in the mammalian world is extremely age-appropriate but the horrible judgment that our society as a whole grants them. The peope who think that these children are such an anomaly even outside our country because the average age of weaning world-wide is 4 should do some basic mathematics. For all the infants in our country and others who are weaned at the ripe old age of 2 days or 2 weeks, or 2 months or even 6 months, there has to be a child nursed PAST four years old in order for the average age of weaning world-wide to be four."
As we were watching the segment, my husband and I had to laugh. He joked to the baby, "that's it, talkie toothie, no more nursing, you have to learn to self-soothe, and next week, you have to start sleeping in your crib, and the week after that, don't expect us to get you food from the kitchen, you have to start doing it yourself and learn to be independent" She popped off the breast, smiled and said "meh!"
So this morning I added my comment to their site.
"As a physician, I found the entire segment ridiculous. To accuse a mother who is nurturing her child in the most natural way possible essentially of abuse or at best of a misguided parenting style that will eventually land her child on a therapist's chair is sad and distorted. The psychologist who was featured on the show stated his personal opinion "I think a child really needs to learn to develop the capacity to soothe oneself, the capacity to tolerate frustration" and that breatfeeding thwarts that. There is absolutely zero research to support his personal opinion, but there is much research, at least at younger ages, that directly opposes his opinion. His concern, that a child learn to self-soothe is a valid and appropriate one, but I am sure that these mothers featured do soothe their children in other ways, and most mothers of a two-, six-, or eight-year-old would not turn away from a child who is hurt and say "sorry, but you have to learn to soothe yourself." Other mothers meet their child's need for attachment in another way besides breastfeeding quite often.
The best parents I have seen, with the most confident and secure children, are those who do meet their children's need for comfort and security. Our culture is distorted in that from the earliest ages we have an obsession with a child learning to self-soothe (placing our children in cribs to cry it out alone, raising their levels of stress hormones which have been found to have a negative effect on brain development, breastfeeding on demand, etc.) and parents who allow themselves to be their child's primary attachment objects are accused of selfishness or bad parenting.These children are at a disadvantage not because of the nurturing parenting style their mothers perform and their fathers support, but because of a society that has major issues with breasts being used by children for nutrition and comfort.
There is no evidence whatsoever that there is an age at which human breastmilk is no longer nutritionally or immunologically a valid food substance as a part of a comlementary diet. My concern for these children who are weaning themselves furthur along in childhood than is typical in our culture is not their development, which in the mammalian world is extremely age-appropriate but the horrible judgment that our society as a whole grants them. The peope who think that these children are such an anomaly even outside our country because the average age of weaning world-wide is 4 should do some basic mathematics. For all the infants in our country and others who are weaned at the ripe old age of 2 days or 2 weeks, or 2 months or even 6 months, there has to be a child nursed PAST four years old in order for the average age of weaning world-wide to be four."
great comment! So well put.
.
Great letter! 
