alexist

I read the Andrew Roberts (A History of the English-Speaking Peoples since 1900) when I was under observation in hospital. It was spectacularly bad--pure, right-wing polemic of the worst sort. (Not that I prefer left wing polemic.) I knew it was going to be bad when the first chapter included a defence of British colonialism (suggesting that the reason the natives didn't kill the British was that really, they liked being under the colonial thumb). Not having anything else to read, and being stuck in bed for much of the time, I plowed on. It got worse. It's like that Flanders and Swann song: "The English, the English the English are best..." only "English" was traded for "Anglophone" and it wasn't a joke. I can't even remember half the criticisms I marked down as I read it. I DO remember a lot of attacks that bordered on ad hominem and had a very nasty tinge to them--all of leftists. I don't have sympathy for people who maintained allegiance to Communism even after they knew what it was doing in the USSR, but Roberts made the attacks very personal and vicious, and it didn't sit well with me. His view of Ireland is, as one Amazon commenter said, straight from Ian Paisley. His version of Ireland in WWII is that de Valera supported the Nazis. (My knowledge of post-1922 Irish history is poor, so I can neither confirm nor rebut.)

All left wing leaders and policies are dragged through the mud (the Beveridge Report was, apparently, the downfall of 1950s Britain--there's an interesting economic case to be made here about the cost of the 1950s welfare system versus the British economy's state at the time, but I think that Britain's postwar economic failure had larger causes and the cost of welfare was only a small part of it) whereas right wing leaders are let off without a hitch. There's no substantive discussion of Thatcherism beyond "salvation of Britain". Thatcher did make some necessary reforms, but they came at a great cost and not all of her policies were a success. He goes so far as to defend the basis of the Iraq war and Guantanamo Bay. Yes, comparing Gitmo to the gulag is hyperbole at best. That doesn't make it a good place. Oh yes, we feed our prisoners, how nice!

Overall, serious thumbs-down. Avoid.

CR has withdrawn their car seat article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/us/19seat.html

Aliza's had 3 feeds since we went to bed at 23:30. She's sucked down a full bottle (85mL) every time. This last time, Neil couldn't believe she was hungry as it had been 2 1/4 hours since her last bottle, but I've learnt to recognise her "hungry" cry and sure enough I was right.

As for my own efforts, still trying, no luck so far. If the domperidone and supplements have no effect after a couple of weeks, I'm probably going to conclude that I'm one of the PCOS women with extremely low milk supply. :-( We'll have to see then if something can be done next time, assuming that the cause is hormonal and not insufficient glandular tissue. (I would think this is unlikely as I developed PCOS in my 20s--in my teens everything was normal.) My next baby will be born in the US, so I have a better chance of treatment there. Among other things I can actually see an endocrinologist and have tests done.

I can't decide if it's a good or a bad thing that I can't fall asleep properly tonight...

Being a mother really is amazing, though. I still can't believe it.

Aliza woke up again for ANOTHER bottle at 7am. I gave it to her, then Neil went to take his turn at changing. Poor him, because she'd made an enormous disgusting mess in her diaper (hey, I got one yesterday morning). This necessitated a sponge bath and change of clothes. (Don't you love it when babies scrunch up their legs, and make the mess even worse??) Within five minutes of being put in a clean sleep suit, she realised how much milk she'd drunk, and burped some up... over said clean sleep suit, and the sheets. Naturally, I'd just put the last lot of dirty stuff in to wash. (We've gone through a lot of Persil this week!) She's got great timing.

She's drunk so much milk that I think the Aptamil will run out before Neil gets home with more. Luckily we've got a couple of ready-made cartons for going out, which can be used if necessary. There's no way she'll go through 400mL by this evening.

Maybe I can sleep for an hour now. At least my mother's coming over, so she can watch/feed Aliza and I can get some sleep. I suppose it's the one advantage of bottle feeding.

It would appear that someone lent Neil a Gina Ford book (I saw it on the shelf, and it's not new, so it must be a loan). I shall have to burn it. I can't stand Gina Ford the Nazi. Babies are different and there isn't a perfect baby routine. I wouldn't want an inflexible schedule imposed on me; why should my daughter like it any better? Patterns and habits are all well and good but their main origin has to be natural. What makes a contented baby is a parent who understands their needs and works to meet them--not trying to make the baby fit the model. I'm completely against "cry it out" for infants--they're not manipulating you; if they're crying they need something. (Exception made for severe colic where baby cries no matter what you do and you can't fix it. Distressing as hell, though.) Aside from that, her breastfeeding advice is completely incompatible with good practice (she advocates scheduled periods and limited feeding times, rather than demand feeding which is necessary to maintain a good milk supply), which makes me skeptical of the whole book. And she hasn't got any kids of her own--having been on NICU I can tell you it's very different from having baby home!

I much prefer the tone of Dr Sears, although as I've said before, he's a little overenthusiastic about some of his principles, and I don't think his family is necessarily a model either which he's prone to doing. I also don't like the very traditional gender roles presented--yes, he says "father has an important part" but the main emphasis is on Mommy as caregiver. Even all the drawings are of women, down to a separate section for how men wear the sling. I'm sure a man could wear it the same way a woman does, even if he doesn't use all the carries. Forget nontraditional families, they're not even addressed! But then, they also wrote a Christian parenting book. Overall, I much prefer it, though, as it does emphasise closeness and listening to your instincts. My mother even commented on how calm I was. I'm sure my meds are helping, but I do feel more confident this way, rather than trying to match myself to some idealised vision of how a baby should behave.

Sure, Aliza woke me up 4 times last night. But she was hungry. She nearly drained all her bottles (and I know she stops when she's full; she simply won't drink any more regardless of how much is left, and I don't fuss about how many ounces she's taken). Should I have let her cry all night so she'd feed at the "right" times? That would just be cruel. So I got up, she had her formula, and now she's sleeping happily. (Gina would probably disapprove there too--but let's face it, she's 2 weeks old; they sleep a lot at this age!)

I have no idea if GPs should be earning less, though I think the government were stupid for not realising that if they set incentives, GPs would try to meet them! What I DO think the government screwed up in the contract were hours. Getting rid of night coverage was one thing; getting rid of all weekend coverage was another. Almost no surgeries have weekend opening hours now that they're not required to, and it's very inconvenient for a lot of people. I think they should have required GPs to open for a certain time on weekends (say, one morning/early afternoon).

While we're on politics, I do think Ruth Kelly is a bit of a hypocrite. Not for turning to private education per se (although I do wonder if a £15K boarding school was really what was necessary), but because she was Education Secretary and oversaw the government's special needs policy! Good enough for everyone else, but not for her. Of course, as a letter writer pointed out this week, the SEN system has a fatal flaw: the council is responsible for both SEN evaluations and funding the statemented plans. That's a huge incentive to water down statements--or, as Surrey council was just told off for, being imprecise about what was being offered as help. IMO, the only fair way to do it is to have statementing done by an independent panel. Of course, then councils would go broke paying for it--but at least we'd have an accurate idea of what was needed, instead of trying to hide the problem.