This Finngarian Mama

We went to the doctor yesterday and everything is fine, except that I’m not feeling the love for my doctor anymore. I had complained that Sophie doesn’t sleep and she told me I needed to let her cry because as long as her physical needs are being met, “she is manipulating you!” WTF!!!! I guess this is a good example of why doctors are better at caring for your medical needs than giving parenting advice. She always tells me how wonderful my kids are so I wonder if she understands that a lot of that is because we tend to their needs during the day AND the night? AND, she didn’t “get it” that Sophie just got a tooth, has learned to sit, is learning to crawl and has started to babble? And that those developmental changes can disrupt sleep? Again, doctors = good for diagnosing an ear infection, but bad for child psychology. THANK GOODNESS I’ve got my LLL knowledge and the confidence of already helping one child sleep at night under my belt so that I could tell her I would never let my baby cry at night… I told her, how awful would I feel if something was upsetting me and I was crying my heart out at night and there were people in the house who were deliberately ignoring me? She still insisted I was being manipulated. So I guess when Sophie turns 18 she will rob me blind because I help her in the night. The next 17 years won’t matter a bit what I do, because THIS YEAR I am helping her at night. Whatever. I’m going to put this in the BS category because that kind of advice is just that – **********BS*********

Of course she is really for breastfeeding and since genetically my babies are just big, there was nothing critical said about my nursing… in fact she tells me I’m a good nurser (LOL). What would happen if I made smaller babies, would I be a bad nurser? ROFLMAO

Now, for the stats: She weighs 18 pounds, and is 27 1/2 inches long (you can subtract an inch from that because I’ve seen how the nurse measures and she always tends to measure long). My husband thought she was going to be 20 pounds and I thought she’d be 17 so we were both wrong! I told her that we’d started on a little food but that she doesn’t digest it. Dr: “What do you mean, she doesn’t digest it?” Me: “What she eats comes out exactly the same way in her poop – bits of banana come out looking like bits of banana, sweet potato comes out looking like sweet potato!” What the H*** else would I mean? Anyway she asked if there have been any food intolerances at all and I told her that she’d gotten some rice cereal and was crabby all night… but that was OK because it’s just starch fortified with vitamins, nothing she needs now! Of course I got a funny look from her about that, and I told her she could have real rice later (I’ll cook up some brown rice nice and soft for her!). Will liked his baby cereal but he just couldn’t tolerate the texture of any cereal other than that for a long time. I’ll see how she does. I’ve got a ripe avocado on my counter that she might get a taste of today. I hope she likes it because if she doesn’t, I’ll be eating a LOT of guacamole in the next day or two! I’m the only one in the house who likes it (that I know of)!

As you can see from the tone of this post I’m still pretty peeved at my doctor… I just didn’t think she was “that” kind of person. But, her kids are all grown and she’s got grandkids so she is probably just falling back to the parenting advice of her day… miserably outdated of course… she must not have seen the Harvard Cry It Out study that just came out!! Maybe I’ll print it off and mail it to her. Actually what a good idea.

ETA:  THAT STUDY CAME OUT IN 1998!!!!!!  Freakin NINE years ago!!  Check out the date on the link.  Arrrrgh!  I hate it when people who are supposedly educated don’t know basic things like this but a regular old mother does?