A child has a natural way of growing that is right for them. They know how much they need to grow the right way. If you do your job with feeding and let them decide how much they want to eat, you generally don’t need to worry about normal growth- it will happen. There are many different shapes and sizes that are normal. The fact that your child is short and stocky or tall and slender is determined mostly by genetics, not your wishes. Children usually grow in a predictable pattern. [1]
So what happened to my daughter as a baby? She was born two weeks early and was given the label of Low Birth Weight (LBW), weighing in at 2.7kg (6 lbs). My dream was to only nurse. This dream was put on hold by my fears of my daughter’s size and my own strength after a difficult labor. I decided to nurse and then supplement if she was still hungry. I did this for two months and she grew well. The doctors calmed down and this helped me calm down too.
One day a friend and neighbor came to talk and asked me how my nursing was going. I said ok. I told her I was supplementing and thought that I did not have enough milk. She encouraged me and said the more I nurse the more milk I would have. I decided to try. I nursed night and day for a week. I am not exaggerating! I actually enjoyed all this bonding time with my daughter. It was like a time out, just to work on developing our mother/daughter relationship. My body started to produce more milk and I was able to attend to my daughter every time she showed signs of hunger.
Now let’s fast forward a few years. I started to learn new nutrition counseling methods and wanted to practice with my own daughter. On our last visit to the nurse, at the Well Baby Clinic, I asked the nurse to print out my daughter’s growth card. The growth card shows every time I took my daughter to the nurse, her weight, and her weight percentile. At first glance, I could not help to notice how my daughter’s weight fell so low on the fourth month and sixth month visit. I called my sister to share my discovery, “I knew I did not have enough milk!”
A couple days later I sat down with the raw data I was given from the nurse and decided to plot them on a standard growth chart for girls from ages 0-24 months. I also reviewed the material I was studying and read, “Breastfed babies may shift downward as much as a percentile curve in weight between 3 and 12 months.[2]” I breathed a sigh of relief. This is exactly what happened to my daughter. Once we got over the breastfeeding hump and transitioned to solids, slowly my daughter’s weight jumped up from percentile curve to percentile curve. My daughter is still thin and tall (no big surprise… both my husband and I are as well) but she has remained on the 60th percentile curve, which she has maintained for the last few years.
This made me reflect. It made me think of the times in my life where I did not have much external success, whether it be infertility or in my professional pursuits. Where my growth seemed slow and I might have even fallen off of the percentile curve of success. Those years were a time when I was nursing myself back to attachment with Hashem.
You may be asking yourself what is this attachment I am referring to? It is the second stage of development according to the Developmental-Structural Theory of Stanley Greenspan. Attachment occurs around two months, when the baby begins to smile and take delight in your presence. Healthy attachment is encouraged during breastfeeding when you share control with your baby by feeding them when they want to be fed. This makes them feel loved and understood; they are seen, heard, and cared for.[3] When attachment goes well the infant develops a sense of trust and confidence and is ready for the next stage of development called separation and individuation. During this stage which begins around eight months, and a baby wants to start trying to feed themselves with finger foods and drinking from a toddler cup. A baby develops this autonomy when you share control, not letting the baby control you or you control the baby. At this stage a parent must set structure and limits by having regular meals and snacks.[4] The stages of development have been extremely helpful for me to understand the fundamentals of building healthy feeding relationships with children in order to help foster normal growth.
Additionally, after learning about what normal growth looks like for children and about the stages of development, I could not help but compare it to my own stages of growth and development as a ba’alt teshuva.[5] The stage of attachment for a baby seemed to parallel the struggles I faced after a few years of being a ba’alt teshuva. During this stage I felt determined to stay connected to Hashem even as I faced the challenges of being a newcomer to Israel and struggling with infertility. Strong connections with friends and finding a community helped me see Hashem’s hand in my life. The next stage separation and individuation, that a baby goes through as they become a toddler, also seemed comparable to when I started to feel more confident in Israel as I became fluent in Hebrew and with Hashem’s loving grace, became a mother. While going through this stage I realized that from the challenges I faced and by staying strong in my Emunah[6] I could now be more sympathetic and encourage others on their journey back to Torah. Most importantly I learned that normal growth can also have slumps along the way. For a baby these slumps might be natural due to breastfeeding. A parent should monitor their baby’s growth with the help of medical professionals but should also know that there are many benefits to breastfeeding, including encouraging healthy attachment and developing a healthy feeding relationship. Just like in my own life, I see that my slumps have fostered a lot of personal growth and greater connection with Hashem. A similar concept is discussed in Chassidus, “When a person needs to reach a new level in the service of Hashem, he first needs to have a decent before he ascends, because the decent is for the purpose of ascending. [7]” May all of our stages of descent, whether in raising healthy children or in our own service of Hashem, always propel us forward to our next stage of ascent.
[1]Satter,E. 2000: Child of Mine: Feeding with love and Good Sense. United Sates: Bull Publishing Company, p. 34.
[2] Satter,E., et al p. 449
[3] Satter,E., et al p.132-133
[4] Satter,E., et al p. 304
[5] Returnee to Torah observance
[6] faith
[7] Meshivas Nefesh, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, Part I Paragraph 5
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