Ezzo Bashing

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Time and time again whenever scheduling comes up with regards to a newborn baby, someone would bring up the Ezzos and then what I call the Ezzo-bashing would start.

Many of those who bash them haven’t even read their books. What they have read are comments or blogs by others who may or may not have followed the Ezzos’ advice in their popular books, Preparation for Parenting, Preparation for the Toddler Years and Growing Kids God’s Way*.

From what I gather, the Ezzos are mostly bashed for what they wrote in their first book, Preparation for Parenting, especially their controversial parent-directed feeding method and for their promotion of getting a child to sleep on his own. There circulating around in bloglands of horror stories of babies screaming for hours and mothers closing the doors on those babies just because it isn’t time for them to wake up or of babies who failed to thrive because the mother was an obsessive clock watcher and refused to nurse until it was the correct time. I am sorry to hear of those babies suffering but those parents should have understood the principle behind the Ezzos’ advice and not just follow it dogmatically.

With every method, there would be successes and failures. There would be tons of parents praising it and an equal amount of parents blasting it. I did not pay attention to the nay-sayers. Here’s why – their advice worked for me. It taught me that having a routine for the baby was helpful and reassuring for both the new baby and the new mother. Everyone knew what is expected. When the baby cries, the new mother does not need to guess why the child is fussing. She looks at the clock and is able to tell if the baby is hungry or plain tired. Yes, the more attuned mom does not need the clock to tell her that. Neither does the experienced mom. But the new, clueless, alone, sleep-deprived mom does! She does not end up continually nursing the baby just to keep him quiet, creating a habit that is hard to break later on. If it is sleep he needs, she puts him to bed, not offer him food.

If I had not read their books and applied their advice with modification (I nursed my babies every 2-3 hours, not 3-4 hours, and did not sleep train them to sleep through the night till they were at least past 6 months but usually past 1 year) I would not have been able to cope with so many little ones in the house with no external help.

Based on the Ezzos’ Eat-Play-Sleep cycle, the structure to the day was set and everyone knew it. Sure there were limitations (which method doesn’t?) in that once the babies learnt to fall asleep on their own beds, it was hard to get them to fall asleep anywhere else! But it also meant that I knew when my day started and ended, and when I could have my short little breaks for my own naps or quiet time or meal preparation. There was order in our day.

Some do not like this structure. They call it rigidity. It is to a certain extent. But it suited my personality and the way we lived. We generally would go out in between the children’s nap times. Was it restrictive? Yes. But it also meant we did not have children having meltdowns or running around like headless chickens because they needed to nap but mom and dad wanted to stay out.

For a season, we, especially I, would decline many outside engagements. Our season lasted longer than most with our every growing brood but for those of you with 2 or 3 children, your season will be much shorter. Once the children were down to one nap or dropped their naps, you could go anywhere, anytime! In fact, you may be wishing that they would nap so that you could catch your 40 winks! Lol!

For us, once we had more older children than younger ones, the dynamics changed. It was logistically not practical to keep everyone at home so that one baby could nap. So the younger 2 have had to be more adaptive. And yes, they had more meltdowns than the older ones ever did. But I also had more older ones to help out when that happened. So everyone adapted.

I am not here to say that the Ezzos’ way is for everyone. Some thrive on and love the no routine lifestyle. I am not one of those 😀 What I am saying is that the Ezzos’ method can work and does not even work against long term breastfeeding like many accused it of. The shortest I have nursed is 12 months to the dot (#3) and the longest was 34 months (#7). The rest varied between 14 months to 22 months.

The Ezzo method worked for us and we worked with its limitations. If the child-centred, attachment parenting way is what works for you and your family’s dynamics, go for it! But I just wish that people would read and understand their method before jumping in to add their 2 cents worth of negative comments when they don’t really know anything about it except the word scheduling and sleep training which somehow always gets people’s hackles up 😛

Every method has its pros and cons. Every family is different and every parent’s personality is different. We choose and share what works for us. There is no need to bash the other person’s choice. We don’t live their lives.

*For more information on the books put out by the Ezzos can be found on their website, Growing Families International or GFI. The secular version of these books are known as On Becoming Babywise.

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