Freedom post-BabyWise

[KarenBoo]

Thank you for sharing your story. We did Ezzo for 2 months with our oldest, and I still get sad when I think about it. So much of your story resonates with me!

[rjy9343]

Originally Posted by jenny_islander

Or, we can avoid the endless aaaaangst over "high-chair manners" that authors like this tend to inflict on nervous first-time parents by...not using a high chair. Problem solved!

I had to look up high chair manners. I want proof that isn't a joke.
I like high chairs. They give me a safe place for the baby to sit and watch while I cook or clean the kitchen. They also make meals easier on me since he is up high and I can feed him and he can babble at us.

[Zooey]

Originally Posted by Aerynne

I can't even read Ezzo because if I even read it, the entire time thinking "this is poison" I STILL absorb it and find myself thinking in that direction after reading it.

I bought two Ezzo books at a yard sale last Saturday so I could recycle them. I always buy used copies when I see them and I put them in the recycle so no one else can be poisoned, at least not by those copies.

I have used them (deconstructed) as a liner for the cats' litter box....

[MariJo7]

Originally Posted by rjy9343

I had to look up high chair manners. I want proof that isn't a joke.
I like high chairs. They give me a safe place for the baby to sit and watch while I cook or clean the kitchen. They also make meals easier on me since he is up high and I can feed him and he can babble at us.

What are "high chair manners"? I'd love to hear a good joke!

I can't remember it myself but my aunt and my parents have told me I liked the high chair when I was little. I liked to be on the same level with the rest of the family and to have eye contact. But I doubt I had any kind of "high chair manners". I have seen a picture of myself as a baby, sitting in the high chair, my mom feeding me spinage. I'm green all over in that picture and looks like I'm having great fun.

[ViolaMum]

Originally Posted by MariJo7

What are "high chair manners"? I'd love to hear a good joke!

I can't remember it myself but my aunt and my parents have told me I liked the high chair when I was little. I liked to be on the same level with the rest of the family and to have eye contact. But I doubt I had any kind of "high chair manners". I have seen a picture of myself as a baby, sitting in the high chair, my mom feeding me spinage. I'm green all over in that picture and looks like I'm having great fun.

Yeah, Ezzo would consider that bad High Chair Manners. Babies are not allowed to throw or drop food on the floor, it must stay clean. They are not supposed to get covered in food or spit it out either.

I read this review of Babywise on Amazon when I had a little toddler in the midst of throwing food. The reviewer praised Babywise up and down saying that because of Ezzo HER child was neat and respectful and NEVER needed a mat under HER high chair because she wasn't a Bad Baby who threw food. SHE could actually take her baby to a restaurant. (Those parents who take messy babies to restaurants should be ashamed.) It was such a self-righteous and quite frankly hostile-to-children post that I felt badly for her child.

[rjy9343]

Oddly enough my ap baby never needed a mat under her high chair and could be taken to any restaurant we chose without a mess. I just never saw it as a moral issue.

[knitlove]

My mil was forever praising me and my parenting based on how neatly early bird ate. I always looked at her and said that it was all the child and not me. She still doesn't seam to believe me even though wiggle worm was much messier, but apparently still much neater than the cosins that mil is comparing to.

[CelticJourney]

Originally Posted by MariJo7

What are "high chair manners"? I'd love to hear a good joke!....

Baby sits nicely in the chair, does not reach for the spoon, does not fuss for more, opens their mouth on command, eats whatever is given to them, etc.

According to Anne Marie Ezzo 'there is nothing glorifying God about a baby with carrots in their hair'. What a lie!

[MariJo7]

Sounds ridiculous indeed. But one can not laugh about it.

[rjy9343]

Originally Posted by MariJo7

Sounds ridiculous indeed. But one can not laugh about it.

It's not even close to funny. I meant that I thought is couldn't be true that someone who turned a baby doing normal baby things into a moral issue is taken seriously. My daughter is autistic and was very neat because she couldn't stand the feel of food anywhere other than her mouth. My son who has some physical delays can't feed himself and doesn't seem to want to play with his food either. I would give anything to clean carrots out of hair and anywhere else.

[jenny_islander]

Besides the terrifying aspect of having a high chair in a house with tile floors, I knew that dealing with a baby throwing food in a high chair would drive me up the flipping wall. So I solved the problem of Baby's high chair manners by...not having a high chair. I had a low table instead.

Problem solved. Chew on that, Ezzo!

Also, if you're feeding something messy to a baby, there is no law on God's earth forbidding you to feed them in the bathtub.

[CelticJourney]

I just had the 'three dogs in the house' option for floor clean up. I guess Ezzo isn't a dog person and that's how is theology got so screwed up.

[rjy9343]

My parents thought feeding us in the bathtub was too much work (I suppose four kids five and under would have been a lot), so they fed us outside and hosed us and the table down afterwards. We thought it was so much fun.

[rjy9343]

I wonder how Ezzo would like dinner at my house. Ivy insisted on holding a spoon so she could knock offending food out of my hand or to knock the spoon out of my hand if she was full. (Ivy always thought turning her head was too subtle). Jacob screams with everything he has if I don't give him a spoon to hold so I can dodge it while feeding him the foods he likes. He bangs the tray with food in his mouth so I don't forget him. Since he can't drink from a cup, he just tosses it down when he get s board.
Then there are all the requests for forks to eat soup or a spoon for steak. The need for comments like eating your food directly from the table isn't considered socially acceptable or we eat at the table, not the table.
We won't discuss table conversation since Ivy is still trying to figure out what is and isn't okay and why.

[SalH]

I felt emotional reading the OP. What an amazing husband you have, and what an intuitive mama you are, and always were.


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