Chewymom

Part 1 of a series of blogs on GFI.

A huge part of my almost 15 years of parenting has involved the Ezzos. I have either been using their materials, heavily involved in their organization, questioning their ethics, or opposing them, pretty much in that order. This is the first of what I am sure will be many blogs on the subject. Although I have written bits and pieces, the whole thing is overwhelming. It spans almost 15 years. And writing all of that at one time…well, it just feels too much like a term-paper! So I’m breaking it down into manageable chunks and telling it bit by bit. Here’s part one, “How I got involved with GFI.”

My dh and I got married, packed up the wood-panelled station wagon and headed off across the country so he could attend seminary. Soon after we moved, we got involved in a church and met a kind, wonderful, godly family who had one daughter. Every Sunday night after the worship service, they would invite us to come over and order pizza together and just hang out! We had many hours to watch how they interacted as a couple, as parents, and just as Christians.

A few years down the road, this couple had had a son, and I became pregnant with my first child. During the course of talking to my friend “A,” I learned that she breastfed on a schedule. She had copied a schedule from a book–she wasn’t sure which one. But it was a 3-hour schedule, and it had worked quite well for her. “A” was a very disciplined woman with never a pot out of place or a dust bunny to be found anywhere. I longed to be more like her!

I knew there were basically two different philosophies of breastfeeding: scheduling or demand feeding. I decided to go around and “interview” all of the older mothers I could find in order to help me decide how to feed my little one. I questioned both families whose children seemed well-behaved and ones whose children I did NOT want mine to be like. I wanted a good feel for how every family handled child-raising, and specifically nursing. Most of the families I asked either had not thought about it, saying, “I just fed the baby whenever he was hungry!” or said they consciously demand-fed. There was a handful who used a schedule. Interestingly, all of the “scheduled” families were ones we respected, admired, and wanted to emulate. The “demand-feeders” seemed to go either way–some had kids we wanted to avoid like the plague, and some had extremely pleasant children. So we took that information, coupled with the fact that I like structure and order, and we decided to schedule-feed our baby.

Meanwhile, before my baby was born, we went up to the LA area to visit a friend who was enrolled at the Master’s Seminary. Their family had a baby who was probably about 6-7 months old at the time. They were using, you guess it, Prep for Parenting. Turns out, it had a schedule! I was thrilled, and flipped through the pages of the book. Everything I saw seemed to fit with the kind of person I was (loving order), the kind of family I wanted to have (obedient children), and it was coming from a Christian perspective. On Sunday, we attended Grace church with these friends, and I stopped at the bookshop to pick up PFP, only to learn that they were in the process of publishing a new edition. I promptly ordered a copy, although it likely wouldn’t be ready until after I had my baby. But I had read enough that I felt confident beginning the schedule without the materials in hand.

So DS14 was born a few months later, and we got the shocking news that he had Down syndrome. I’ll write that whole story another time in another blog. Let me just say that he was extremely healthy, but he did have to spend five days in the NICU while they ran tests and put him under the bili-lights for jaundice. During that time, he was fed on a 3-hour schedule, and I went home and pumped every 3 hours. I produced amazing amounts of milk! So much that I was able to donate a zillion bottles to the NICU to feed to other babies.

DS14 finally came home from the hospital, and we tried to settle in to a good routine. Nursing went absolutely horribly. He would scream, I would cry. But I was determined. Through cracked, bleeding, and engorged breasts, I would spend almost an hour trying to help him learn how to latch on. At the end of each “feeding,” I would supplement with a bottle of expressed breastmilk, at our pediatrician’s orders. That went on for a while, but the whole time, I still used my schedule. Ds14 was fed every 3 hours, exactly (from beginning of one to beginning of the next). If it was 2 hours, 55 minutes, I would hold him off. I could look ahead and see that if I gave in by 5 minutes this feeding, and that continued all day, the whole schedule would be thrown off, and then the nights would get messed up, and the week would be off, and then the month, the year, his whole life would be a mess! So, I kept to that 3-hour schedule faithfully.

After a bit (maybe 2 months?) my Prep for Parenting materials finally arrived, and I listened to each tape and read the manual hungrily. I learned that my schedule didn’t have to be exactly three hours. I know it probably seems shocking that anyone could go through the Ezzo’s materials and RELAX their routine, but I did.

Over time, my supply was great, the schedule fit very well with DS14’s very busy therapy schedule, and we were all happy. I successfully nursed him until he was 10 months old.

Eighteen months after DS14 was born, I gave birth to my second son and immediately put him on a 3-hour schedule as well. He also thrived on his schedule, and it still fit really well with DS14’s therapies. I successfully breastfed DS13 for 6 months, at which time I chose to switch to a bottle to make my life easier.

I don’t want to totally give away the conclusion of this probably-long-series of blogs. But let me just say that in 13-year hindsight, I probably could have continued to breastfeed without feeling stressed about fitting it in with therapy if I had cue-fed.

Stay tuned for:
The Toddler years and losing my supply with DS10
Becoming a Contact Mom for GFI
Red flags
Disassociating from the Ezzos
How I parent now

CM

P.S. For more truth about the Ezzos, GFI, and their various programs, please visit the following websites:
Ezzo Info
Adventure in Ezzoland
Ezzo Parenting Debate
Tulip Girl
Former CM and Lactation Consultant, Laurie Moody