Case Histories
Two case histories serve to illustrate the manner in which primary reactive characteristics may affect the infant’s organization of behavior in feeding under selfdemand conditions. One neonate fell asleep after two and a half ounces and was awake and crying in three and a half hours. His crying stopped only for a moment when he was picked up; it continued until the bottle was introduced into his mouth. At other times he might cry in between feedings; he would be found to be wet or soiled, and if changed, he would go back to sleep. Whether the last evening bottle was given as usual or was held off in the hopes of a larger meal and a longer sleep, the baby woke after the same threeandahalf to fourhour interval and cried until fed. The implications for child care practices are clear. This infant has a rhythmical pattern; he is intense, persistent, and nondistractible. The sooner the mother trains herself to follow his pattern of rhythmicity and to identify his needs, the sooner will her nurturing become more effective and satisfying to the infant.
A second infant fed inconsistently. Sleep was irregular. When he cried he could be quieted by stimuli such as rocking or holding. Frequently it was difficult to identify his need when he cried, since he was not wet, soiled, or apparently hungry, overclothed, or cold. For this infant optimum care practices could not be identical with those optimal for the first. Since the child did not have good rhythmicity or specific responses to defined conditions of need, it would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for the mother to train herself to follow his rhythms or identify his needs. When an attempt was made to pursue a selfdemand feeding schedule, the result was chaos and a complete disruption of family life. Peace was restored upon instituting a strictly scheduled regimen. When a measured amount of food was given and strict timing of meals observed, he rapidly formed habit oat testing patterns which were consistent with normal parental and societal requirements.
Fortunately for the parents the majority of the children in our group showed patterns involving adaptability with reactions of moderate and graded intensity. Our evidence suggests that within broad limits such babies did well with differing child care practices, as long as a given parent was consistent in approach. Accordingly, the application of a self demand regimen resulted in the ready acquisition of acceptable patterns of socialization. It would be anticipated, however, that the course of habit acquisition and the development of desired behaviors and skills in the modal group of children would have been acquired with comparable ease had a more structured regimen been applied. Very likely it is this group of children that represents the substantial basis for the support of claims made concerning the efficacy of different childrearing test strategies.
From decade to decade child care practices have varied widely, and all in their time have been advocated by authorities as being clearly applicable to children’s needs. While there has always tended to be a small group of youngsters whose behavior was not in keeping with the predicted outcome, a striking variety of practices seems to have been assimilated equally well by children of different periods, cultures, and classes. . . .
In certain respects a variety of child care practices may be equally helpful with an equal proportion of youngsters. However, the small proportion of children who fail to adapt and thrive with one type of child care practice may be totally different from those who fail to thrive with another type of practice. During the centuries when infants were fed whenever they were hungry, most children apparently adapted to this approach. When feeding by the clock according to a predetermined schedule became the advocated pattern, most children adapted to this. When once again it was decided to feed children when they were hungry— now called “selfdemand feeding”—in response to the awareness that a small group of children did not adapt to clock feeding, again most, but not all, children adapted to this method. While it is likely that those who failed to adapt to clock feeding had idiosyncratic behavioral characteristics dissimilar to those who failed to adapt to demand feeding, the majority of infants can adapt to either type of timing.
