Mama's favorite myths debunked

1. If your baby isn't sleeping through the night (STTN) by 6 weeks, its a good time to start sleep training.  Becky Bailey has a lot to say on this topic.  While I agree that sleep training is a personal choice, its not for me.  I don't think that my 6-week old daughter was manipulating me when she cried in the night.  I think that if she was dry and her tummy was full, then the need I was fulfilling was a baby's (and any human's) need for physical touch and affection.  I may have spent the first year of Ayla's life exhausted, but I know that I was meeting her needs in a way that felt right to me.  Mother's instinct, right?

2. Rice cereal will help your baby STTN.  Research proves that this is a myth or, at best, an old wives' tale.  To sum it up, when babies are being offered rice cereal, it is often around that age that some babies (not mine!) start sleeping through the night naturally anyway.  Not to mention that rice cereal can be aspirated when inhaled through a bottle.  But I digress...  Again, not judging, but rather venting my frustrations.  I've had so many "been there done that" mothers tell me how to parent, and I'm just saying I do things the way I do because a) it feels right and b) research, though fallible, backs me up.

3. Formula feeding is evil!  Okay, this really isn't a myth, and I know and believe that breast is best and all that good stuff.  BUT I have to put this out there for all the formula feeding mamas I know are out there.   Instead of gloating about your awesomeness and motherly perfection of breastfeeding (this excludes my awesome and supportive breastfeeding mamas) when you see us formula moms, take a minute to think.  Maybe the mother you are criticizing has suffered from post-partum depression.  Maybe she failed to realize that the 103 degree fever is mastitis because, unlike all the books she read, it is not painful for her.  Lucky?  I think not.  Maybe that mother would've gotten on antibiotics and saved her milk supply.  Maybe if that mother had not been allergic to peanuts, she could've taken fenugreek to boost her supply.  Instead, that mother pumped day in and day out to produce nothing but 1/10th an ounce per pumping...or even less. Visited lactation support almost 45 minutes away for nothing but one precious successful nursing session on one side.  Maybe that formula feeding mom tried every tried and true piece of breastfeeding wisdom from beer drinking to oatmeal to hours of skin-on-skin with baby.  She leaked colostrum from 6 months pregnant, only to dry up not even weeks after having her precious baby.  Anyway, the point is that I was that mom.  I did my best, and after that, I did the next best thing.  

Most people will agree that despite the 10-1/2 months of formula feeding, my daughter is beautiful.  Ayla is smart.  She can say "pee pee" and "poo poo" in the context of the potty, she can do all kinds of signs from "milk" to "more" to "please" and beyond.  She smiles and laughs, she dances with a beat like her mother has never had, and she sleeps through the night.  Building with legos, she creates Taj Mahals.

My brillant, non-sleep-trained, formula-fed 17-month old.