A friend of mine sent me a link last week to a list of the “Most Outdated Pieces of Baby Advice”. A couple of the myths I hadn’t heard of, but most, for anyone who has taken a recent caring for baby class are very obviously myths. No real shockers here. What I find amusing are the comments that follow the article.
1. Myth: Infants need to be bathed every day.
I know a few people that bathed their babies every day, but I had never heard it as a piece of handed down advice. Unless my baby has a blowout, was slathered in sunscreen, or just needs to be cooled down after a hot day, I only bath the kids once a week. In the cases where the baby just needs to be cooled down I just use water.
I love the comment thread for this one though. One person said, “a person that poops and pees on themselves all day needs a bath”. Another reminds them that there are these things called wipes and it’s not like the baby is sitting in the same filth all day. Then there was a comment about wipes leaving a film. I’ve never seen this “film”. Another comment referring to the people that don’t bathe their kids or themselves daily, said what she was learning on the thread was that some have “dubious hygiene”. I think dubious hygiene would be not washing hands not refraining from daily bathing.
I actually think this is a non-issue. The kids I know/knew that were bathed daily are just fine and hove no skin issues that I know of. I simply prefer not to bathe my kids so frequently, and Lukas has sensitive skin, so bathing him more often would cause his baby eczema to be worse.
2. Myth: Babies sleep best in a room that’s silent and dark.
In my experience that is true, or should I say, for my two kids that is true. I’ve tried to get Lukas used to sleeping with noise. It just won’t happen. If his sister is home and awake. That boy won’t sleep. At. All. A lot of people say kids will get used to anything. I believe that’s true for the kids of a lot of people. Not mine.
3. Myth: When infants are running a high temperature, rub them down with alcohol to lower their fever.
I’ve never heard this one, but I imagine doing that would dry out the baby skin worse than bathing every day.
4. Myth: Letting your little one stand or bounce in your lap can cause bowlegs later on.
I have heard this one and when I did it was hard to not laugh in the face of the person that told me this and sincerely believed it. I honestly can’t understand how anyone could believe it.
Picture taken 11/24/2007. Me causing my two-month old daughter to become bowlegged *scoff*
5. Myth: Listening to classical music will raise your baby’s IQ.
One comment on this one had me cracking up. “What I’d like to say is that while classical music may not increase anyone’s IQ, it IS scientifically proven that it does in fact access and grow higher function parts of the brain. They use it for something called musical therapy, with other types of music, but generally classical music is used because of what it does neurologically. We had to go through this with our child because of some significant learning issues – and I’ll say, it really, really works well!”
Any boost classical music gives is temporary, and the study was only done on adults, not children. “Rauscher et. al. show that the enhancing effect of the music condition is only temporary: no student had effects extending beyond the 15-minute period in which they were tested. The study makes no statement of an increase in IQ in general, but in participants’ spatial intelligence scores.” Marketers just took the results and ran with it.
6. Myth: Let your baby cry it out; if you pick her up whenever she’s wailing, you’ll spoil her.
I like the answer given, “Babies under 4 months of age have few self-soothing strategies; they know how to suck to soothe and like being swaddled, but that’s about it. Picking infants up when they cry helps them learn that parents will always be there to take care of them.”
Of course, the myth and the answer invoked a lot of back and forth about the “cry it out” method, which is a method for sleep, not daytime pick-up-the-baby “spoiling”. I used the “cry it out” sleep method on Sophia when she was four months and it worked beautify. I’ve tried it several times with Lukas and it has failed miserably.
There was one commented that said, “fact actually, I have seen babies older then the age you list, constantly cry when someone wasn’t holding him/her. The mother would basically have the kid on her hip all the time, so that trained the child.” Really? I think it depends on the kid. I think believe are born with their basic personality already installed, but the way some of these people comment it seems they think babies are born as blank slates.
Sophia has been clingy from the very beginning. Whereas Lukas I could leave to amuse himself for long periods, also from the beginning. When he cries I still go get him just as I did for Sophia. I don’t believe an infant can be spoiled especially not one under four months. I just don’t. Also somewhere between six months and nine months infants go through a clingy phase because they recognize some people as strangers, so they’ll want to be held by their caregivers more. Maybe that’s what the commenter saw. Because not every baby is looks at new people simply as, friends they just haven’t met yet. My first child sure as hell didn’t.
7. Myth: Babies should be woken up in the night to have a wet diaper changed.
I have never in my life heard anyone ever recommend waking up a baby for any reason. Ever. When the little shit finally passes out you just don’t wake them up. Don’t do it.
Actually, that’s not true, in the hospital I was told to wake the newborn up to feed them every two to three hours. I never woke up either kid to do that after coming home from the hospital. I figure that if the baby is hungry, their little tummy will tell them to wake up. I want my damn sleep. Changing a poor sleep pattern might be another reason to wake baby. Emergencies aside, I can’t think of another valid reason to wake up a baby.
8. Myth: It’s dangerous to immunize your infant if he has a cold or a low-grade fever.
I don’t think I’ve ever asked or gone in for a baby wellness check while either baby was sick so I don’t know what our doctor says about it, but whatever his response is, I’ll just go with that over the assvice from some random Yahoo parenting blog. I’m just sayin’.
9. Myth: Never apply sunscreen to an infant under 6 months of age.
In the article, it says that the risk of skin damage from the sun is worse than risk from chemicals in sunscreen. I don’t know about that. I’m thinking it just better to keep the baby out of the sun especially during the more sun intense hours of the day. Personally, I think if you’re going to be out in the sun with a baby under six months a baby hat and umbrella should be added to the baby baggage instead of sunscreen. If needed sunscreen used sparingly as the second line of defense, not the first.
10. Myth: During the first month of a baby’s life, it’s critical that all baby bottles and nipples be sterilized.
I don’t know about this one either. I wasn’t bottle feeding the first month so it wasn’t something I concerned myself with. I’d ask a doctor or take a baby feeding class through the hospital prior to having the baby. Really, I don’t see anything wrong with playing it safe. I don’t understand why this made the list.
11. Myth: The safest way to put an infant to sleep is on her stomach.
I’ve seen the statistics. It’s much safer for a baby to sleep on their back. The comments against the back-to-sleep campaign sort of boggle the mind. One commenter believes it’s “baloney” and that the major cause of SIDS was from parents using puffy blanks, pillows, and inappropriate sleep surfaces. It’s true that the majority of crib-death incidents were more likely to been found with the nose or mouth completely covered by bedding, and those of us born before the 90’s were most likely put to sleep on our stomachs and lived to tell about it. So no, it’s not an absolute guaranteed death trap to place a baby on their stomach, but why take the chance when studies show that the rate of SIDS dropped more than 50% since the back-to-sleep campaign started? I haven’t seen any stats showing the rate of SIDS cases with babies sleeping on their backs verses stomach without cushy bedding, So I can’t say without doubt that putting a baby on their back to sleep is overkill.
The same commenter said, “Another thing about back to sleep- it gets taken too far. After a while, when even the most paranoid mother thinks it’s “safe” to let their baby nap on their tummy the baby is used to sleeping on their back and prefers it. Take a look around the next time you’re around a group of toddlers and babies…. there’s a lot of kids with flat and misshapen heads nowadays. I even know a woman who had to get a helmet to reshape the baby’s head b/c of this. It’s ridiculous.”
First I’d like to say that I’d rather have a baby with a misshapen head than risk having a dead one, but that’s just me. I’m odd that way. I’ll agree that in reading the comments of others, some people appear to take it too far. I was told that once a baby rolls from back to front at night it’s fine to leave them that way. I’ve never woken my child for sleeping in a different position than the one I laid them down in (see my comments on Myth 7).
Many people keep their kids in strollers and car seats in addition to sleeping on their back and *maybe* don’t allow enough daytime “tummy-time”. That can cause the flat heads. For the helmet child, I believe that is from a genetic trait highlighted by following the back-to-sleep program and it doesn’t mean that the parents took the back-to-sleep too far or kept the baby in car seats or strollers all the time. The child would probably have a perfectly round head if he or she had slept on his/her tummy, however, again, I personally would rather risk a misshapen head than risk having a dead baby. Odd, I know.
Other information on SIDS:
Study: Babies’ low serotonin levels cause SIDS
12. Myth: Putting rice cereal in your infant’s bottle will help him sleep.
In the article they say not to do that for babies under four months because they’re more likely to be worse sleepers. I don’t know how any of that can even be measured. Both of my kids were breastfed only for the first four months. From birth, Sophia only ever woke up once or twice at night. Lukas wakes up anywhere from three to seven times a night even now at ten months. At my son’s four-month baby wellness checkup the doctor suggested we give him some rice cereal before bedtime. It didn’t help him sleep, but his sleep pattern isn’t any worse than it was before.
They also say in the article that feeding before four months has been linked to increased obesity later in life. Seriously? Tell that to the older and thinner generation that, as babies, were fed solids much sooner than we’re doing for the current generation. I’m guessing it has a lot more to do with how the whole family deals with eating and if food and eating are a constant topic at home, as in everything revolves around food. I swear they make child rearing seem like an exact science. If it were, and each misstep had lasting affects into adulthood we’d all be fucked. Each. And. Everyone. Of. Us.
13. Myth: It’s critical to keep your baby on a strict feeding schedule.
Seriously? Wow. You know, if someone were to hand me assvice like this I like this one I’d ask…and how do you think people kept such a schedule prior to the invention of the clock? I mean if it’s “critical” to regiment the schedule of an infant it would have had to be done even in times prior to everyone having a wristwatch or wall clock. I’ll just feed by the demand of the baby, thanks.
A commenter to the article that said babies with jaundice need a strict feeding schedule. I’d like to call bullshit to that one as well. I’ve had two babies with jaundice. They were both fed by their own demand. If a baby has jaundice it’s important to make sure they’re eating well so that the liver can do it’s job and process the bilirubin, but not necessary to set a timer. (Assuming the baby’s doctor hasn’t prescribed lights or given other instruction)
14. Myth: Infants need hard-soled shoes to protect their delicate toes and keep their feet properly aligned.
Much like the previous myth (number 13)…What do you think humans do prior to the invention of the shoe? If we needed hard-soled shoes to keep our feet properly aligned, I don’t think we would all be born with bendy feet and monkey toes.
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