Webinar addiction, or research-based parenting, part one

The moment I even began considering having a child, I took on a second job. Monitoring my monthly hormone cycles, modifying my exercise routine, and generally thinking about what I needed to do to bring a healthy baby into the world gradually became a significant part of how I spent my time. Since that life stage began some two years ago, I have read countless articles on the internet, tens of books written by former RNs and ‘sleep consultants’, and become the kind of person who actually reads Internet forums. (What to Expect When You’re Expecting’s forums were my favourite pregnancy guilty pleasure). An entirely new energy outlet entered my life post-COVID and post-parenthood, though, and that is the educational webinar. 

Since Khalil was born, I have attended webinars on breastfeeding, breastfeeding in a pandemic, breastfeeding a baby less than twelve weeks old, and on breastfeeding a baby more than twelve weeks old. I have attended a webinar on how to play with a newborn (which, I will tell you, is definitely something you need to attend a webinar on, because newborns can barely focus  their eyes on objects). I have attended a webinar on swaddling (we swaddled my son for about a week). I have attended a webinar on how to introduce a bottle. (My son has never successfully drank milk from a bottle). I have attended a webinar on how to let a six month old feed themselves. This list does not include any of the webinars I attended on sleep. Sometimes, in my more cynical moments, I think that I spent more time in the infant stage learning about sleep than I spent sleeping. Thankfully, this is hyperbole.

 I would say that I deserve a prize for webinar attendance, but, judging from the wealth of webinars that are advertised on my Instagram feed, there are women out there whose webinar attendance would put me to shame. The only prize I would get for webinar attendance is a participation trophy.

Somewhere in my mind, I believed that this was a phase. I believed that after my maternity leave I would have figured it out and that I would just have undergone the necessary mom-compatibility upgrade that takes place during a baby’s first few months of life. As my son’s nine month birthday approached, I mentally prepared to graduate from my webinar-attendee status. My devices must have sensed a decline in activity, because they were activated.

‘Did you take Feeding Littles’ Toddler Course?’ A new mom friend asked in a text message. I had not. Wasn’t toddler-hood light years in the future? ‘They recommend you take it between ten and twelve months.’ (Translation for people who do not intuitively use their child’s age as a unit for measuring the passage of time: they recommend you take this course when your child is between ten and twelve months old). Ah. Toddler-hood was around the corner, and I had not taken a single webinar yet to prepare.

Within minutes, an email arrived in my inbox reminding me to renew my subscription to a learning platform. They would be with me through toddler-hood, they promised. I worried. Was I behind on toddler-hood? My not-yet-nine month old was getting close to toddling. I fretted. How was I going to find time for all these webinars? I chafed. How much money did I need to spend on correcting my seemingly bottomless ignorance about parenting? And yet. When I went to write this blog entry, I renewed my subscription. And while I wrote, I took short breaks to watch a video on developmental milestones for nine month olds.

Let me be clear: these webinars have been life-saving for me. Feeding Littles taught me how to do baby-led weaning, which has been one of the most enjoyable experiences of parenting so far. There are few things in the world that bring me as much happiness as watching my son stuff a baked potato into his face with both hands, and I would not know how to back off and let him do that without the guidance of the delightful Megan and Judy. Taking Cara Babies is my starting point for sleep questions, and sleep questions are easily my most urgent questions. And I honestly credit Emily and Jamie of Boston NAPS with making me into a confident mother. Without these women and their library of common-sense, real-talk webinars, I would have spent a lot more of the past year lost and in tears. Before everything went online, lactation consultant extraordinaire Nadiya Dragan, hypnobirthing instructor Duna Abu Jaoude, and Joanna Nawfal of Sophia Maternity in Beirut, as well as the midwives at Rizk Hospital, helped me get ready for my delivery and everything new-mom-stage. It shouldn’t be surprising that someone who elected into as much education as I did sought out education as a way to be ready for this life transition! What was pleasantly surprising is how wonderful and caring the women (it was all women, without exceptions) who did this educational work were and how much they addressed my explicit and unspoken needs.

Parenting webinars have been a godsend for me. They soothed my anxiety, armed me with tools to use when I saw basic parenting challenges looming scarily large and complicated, and made me feel connected to a universe of other mothers who were going through the same things. 

Now that I am going back to work soon, though, and considering how much of my life I spent watching these sorts of videos, I am … well, I am amazed. I am amazed at how little other support I had, first. My friends who are moms were wonderful and supportive, and shared their experience and feelings in deeply helpful ways. But when there was something serious to be addressed, their pro tip was to refer me to a book or a webinar. Now, when I see someone who really needs a fix, I do the same! I just don’t know as much as these pros do. 

In my life, more ‘traditional’ sources of support simply were not that knowledgeable. My mother and my mother-in-law were far enough away from their parenting experiences to be unreliable, even by their own assessments. They have also been ocean-and-continent distances away for most of my son’s little life. Of my three sisters-in-law and one sister, three did not have children when I delivered, and the one who did have a kid made the essential contribution of referring me to Boston NAPS! Arguably that sister-in-law was my guardian angel. And, since I delivered at the height of COVID19, I had limited access to in-person help.

The truth, though, is that I craved (and crave) expert, correct, reliable opinions about parenting. I do not feel reassured by grandparents’ saying, we did this, and you all turned out fine. I wanted (and want) guidance that has some kind of facts behind it. Research-based methods gave me confidence. Which is both predictable (I am a researcher, after all) and surprising, since I previously fancied myself so liberated from these discourses. A critical perspective on the medicalisation of birth, for example, or on the professionalisation of literally everything, made me think that I was going into parenthood armed with neutrality and objectivity. This was not my experience at all.

There’s so much more to say on this — it will be continued in another post.