From infancy children are given immense freedom, but without any responsibility (obviously one can't really expect a 6 month old to be responsible). To keep from having to "stifle" their curiosity, we baby proof the whole house (we is a general term, and is not actually referring to everyone, and not even me most of the time), put up things they can't touch and allow them to roam the house. Even though we did all this baby-proofing, they still can't be trusted to move freely around the house, because they are not capable of making ANY reasonable decision, or of obeying almost any commands. So we follow them. All day long we follow them around the house. They are our whole day, and not in a fun way. In a stressful, "oh look its 5 o'clock and the house is a mess and I have no idea what to do about dinner" sort of way. We also let them pick and choose what and when they eat (breastfeeding on demand with small infants is healthy and necessar...