Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Ferber Recants

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10056203/


Does anyone else imagine heartbroken, lonely little babies saying "Too little, too late! Ferber sucks baby formula!"?

6 comments:

gojirama said...

Yes- I know. On another board I'm on someone just posted for advice about her three week old- and someone suggested Ferberising. I posted that article, and some Dr. Sears stuff.

Saints and Spinners said...

Um, that article is NOT about Ferberizing. That article is about letting your child cry it out. When we finally read the Ferber book, we found that the big thing was sleep associations. Yes, we went into Lucia's room at intervals to comfort her and let her know that we were still there, but we had a whole series of sleep associations: the stories, the songs, the prayers, the PILLOW (Lucia did not sleep through the night until she got a pillow in her crib. She was 11 months old.) I was highly skeptical of Ferber based on the conventional wisdom as to what Ferber advocated. Anyway, I know you all have done your research, and I do not wish to imply otherwise! I just wanted to let you know that yes, we "Ferberized," and no, we did not let our baby "cry it out."

Lone Star Ma said...

Encouraging or discouraging (depending on what you are trying to do) certain sleep associations can be a valid coping mechanism to be sure, but his book did also originally advocate periods of crying it out (interspersed with parental visits to let baby know that parents were still there) and that's what I and many object to about ferberizing during the stage of psychosocial development when an infant's most important task is to develop trust in her primary caregivers (and a time when out of sight means forever to them no matter the five minute and up intervals because they live in the present). His was certainly a very moderated version of cry-it-out and I always thought he meant very well, but I do think its popularity has been risky for babies whose temperaments are not geared to easily accomplishing that psychosocial task of trust and security. That is what he now acknowledges...that you have to do what your baby can handle and that crying alone isn't good for at least the under-one set. He actually started saying that quite some time ago, to my understanding, and my beef is that he didn't say it loudly enough to refute the fervor with which some people insisted on carrying out his old interval advice to the letter no matter what...getting out his knowledge that this was not a necessary or good thing for all babies didn't seem to be as important as being famous for something. For allowing such misunderstadings to persist, rather than bad original intentions, I think he has some real responsibility. The only one of those parenting advice folks who I really think is wicked is Ezzo.

Veloute said...

I am glad he did clarify himself (again, I believe)...I, too, picture lonely babies being left behind :*(

And, yes, it is the "crying it out" method I object to. Cringe.

Ezzo is truly evil.

Saints and Spinners said...

I don't know Ezzo. Time to do research, I guess. Or will I just barf?

Lone Star Ma said...

You'd barf. He basically takes the baby-training to a cult level. Bunches of starving babies in his wake...excommunicated from his church...warnings from the AAP...but people still keep buying his book and he hasn't changed his tune at all. People think it's Christian...um....