Baby Calamity’s aka Parenting

To Breast or to Bottle

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Studies show that breast feeding baby for as long as you can has many benefits to both Mom and baby. Being a breast feeding Momma, I highly recommend it, but I also know it’s a super huge commitment. Breastfeeding can be time consuming and a lot of work. It can be draining and sleep depriving and it can make hubby feel left out. The decision to breastfeed or bottle feed is a highly personal choice. You should NEVER make anyone feel bad over their choice. Many people try and fail because of reasons beyond their control. That being said this is what I learned. . .

1. Get a support group. Mine consists of the hubby, a few girlfriends with experience and a FB mommies group. I cannot stress enough how helpful it is having a community of women you can turn to when you first have a baby, whether it’s friends, family, or a virtual group. (Which is where I give a shout out to all the wonderful mothers of NHCM)

2. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. (There will be questions many questions.)

3. Understand going in that it takes dedication to be successful. . .research tips and tricks to help. I immediately tried nursing the baby after he was born. All the tests they need to do in the hospital can wait a little bit. I also exclusively breastfed in the hospital. No bottles. I read that giving bottles too early can lead the babe to prefer the bottle because its easier to nurse from bottle than breast so I waited weeks before letting a single bottle hit his lips. (I also tried not to use a pacifier for the first few weeks for the same reason.)

4. Patience is key. Sometimes it feels all you do is nurse, it gets easier as time goes by. (I promise it does, but it takes patience and dedication and uh, more patience.)

5. Experiment with different positions to find what works for you. You’ll be surprised at just how many different positions there are to try.

6. Don’t be afraid to use contraptions to help you out. I used a nipple shield on multiple occasions to make nursing easier for both of us. The nipple shield can be helpful if you have a fast letdown (translated to English this means you have a strong spray when you first start nursing), it can help when you first introduce the babe to a bottle and are going back and forth between bottle and breast (and it can also help when baby is teething…as protection.)

7. Get a good pump if you planning on nursing while you work. (And watch the video that comes with it to make sure you are using it properly.)

8. To pump at work you need a quiet room preferably with a lock on the door (Or for those with a sense of humor, a sign of a cow that says milking in progress). I am lucky that I have a lock on the door to my office and that I could close my door for prolonged periods of time and no one bothered me. Pumping can take between 10-30 minutes. I pumped up to 5 times while I was at work especially towards the end when my supply started to drop.

9. Every time you think you’re not pumping enough double check all your pump parts. Every time I was having bad pumping results it turned out to be something silly with my pump, but until you figure out the pump is the cause (and you really aren’t defective) it is super frustrating.

10. A couple of good resources:

HTTP://KELLYMOM.COM/

WWW.WORKANDPUMP.COM/

If you are up for the challenge of breast feeding, kuddos to you, cheers and good luck!

Getting Your Child to Eat Well

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One of the biggest challenges of parenting is getting your child to eat well.(Sometimes it’s just getting your child to eat at all!) One of my sisters lived in France for a while and talked about the cultural differences between the United States and France which I found fascinating, so when I happened across a book called French Kids Eat Everything by Karen Le Billon (http://karenlebillon.com/) I immedietely checked it out from the library (and then bought it because I didn’t have time to finish reading the borrowed copy). If you have a picky eater I highly recommend checking out this book!

In it you will find the 10 rules of eating:

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1. Parents, You are in charge of Food Education! Educate yourself about the food you are putting into your body. Let your children know what they are eating! Talk about what is in the meals you are making! Teach the children how to cook! Let them be involved!

2. Avoid Emotional Eating. This is where I like to say you are not a dog, food is not a reward.

3. Parents Schedule Meals and Menus, KIDS EAT WHAT PARENTS EAT. Okay, parents, this is where a lot of us go wrong. Our children won’t eat what we make, so we get them something else. Kids are pretty smart little creatures and if they have figured out that if they don’t eat their food you will make them a grilled cheese instead, they will repeatedly not eat their food to get to the grilled cheese sandwich. Solution: Don’t make the grilled cheese sandwich. The child can eat what’s on their plate, or they can NOT eat and NOT have a snack later. I promise you your child will not starve by missing one or two meals here or there. I recently pulled this with my own child. He would not eat dinner and then wanted a candy (left over from Easter). I told him he did not eat his dinner so he could not have a candy, but if he wanted to eat some of his dinner (that I had left out because he hadn’t eaten it) he could have a candy he proceeded to eat enough of his cold dinner to satisfy me and got his candy. Dessert is fine if they eat their dinner but no dinner, no dessert which in this case was a childs size handful of mini M&M’s.

4. Eat Family Meals Together. This is part of healthy families on so many levels!

5. Eat your Veggies. Try to provide your child with a variety of vegetables, even try letting them pick some from the produce aisle that they want to try! You might be surprised in their choices. (I have been known to get stuck buying an extra head of Broccoli if the babe is left within arms reach. If I step away from the cart for the 5 seconds it takes to grab a different vegetable, I turn around and he has a head of broccoli up to his little mouth and is taking a big ole’ bite out if it. . . better add that to the cart. . .)

6. You don’t have to LIKE it but you do have to TRY it! A women I worked with for a short while said in her house she had the rule of three. You weren’t allowed to say you disliked a certain food until you had tried it at least three times. I thought it sounded like fantastic advice. (She was Canadian.)

7. No Snacking! This is a hard one in my house as my husband is a big snacker. . .and it’s hard to tell the child NO when he sees you (or your spouse) snacking. So I’ve told my husband if he must snack he needs to do it where the babe cannot see. If the child snacks before dinner, getting him to eat dinner is a battle. More often than not if he hasn’t snacked he is hungry at dinnertime and will eat dinner (He will also go from fine to starving in 2.2 seconds and have a meltdown when dinner has 5 minutes left to cook if it is not ready at exactly 6:30.)

8. Slow Food is Happy Food (and as my husband likes to say Happy Food tastes better). Eat slowly, enjoy your meal.

9. East Mostly REAL FOOD. This means you might actually have to learn how to cook! Processed foods have so many things in them that are so incredibly awful for us. Try to eat mostly foods that don’t come in a packages. Someone taught me a trick about staying on the outer rim of the grocery store this is where you will find the veggies, fruits, meats, dairy; the processed foods tend to be in the aisles in the middle. Limit your trips in the middle.

10. Relax. Again, Eat slowly, enjoy your meal, throw in some conversation and make it a time to enjoy your family and/or company.

Check out author Karen Le Billons website for recipes and tips or to buy her books French Kids Eat Everything and Getting to Yum http://karenlebillon.com/

(Illustration by Sarah Jane Wright for French Kids Eat Everything)

Children’s Parties

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The babe is fast approaching the two year old mark and the internal debate of to throw or not to throw a party for him rages within me. I’ve hosted a few parties in my day and I never find them to be “fun”. I am usually so busy running around to make sure all my guests are entertained that I rarely find time to enjoy myself.

In this case the party would not be about me, rather it would be about the babe. So I ask myself, how would the babe feel about a party? Honestly, I don’t think the babe would care either way. My husband and myself are still his main world, with his teachers and Grammy following in at a close second.

I have received upcoming birthday invitations from two children at his school plus two more invitations from friends with children ranging 2-5. (Yes, my son has a better social life than his parents do.) When I received the invitations from the school children I thought to myself… “These parents are insane! There are 12 kids in his class plus whatever family friend kids they would invite… I can’t imagine 20, two year old’s running around my yard” (and we live on almost a ½ acre.) After attending one of the parties over the weekend I quickly became convinced that a small party for the babe with just family will suffice quite nicely… and this is how I came to this conclusion…

1. Throwing children’s parties, even at your home, can be costly!Most people feel obligated to provide some sort of entertainment be it a petting zoo, bouncy house, or other rent for the day something or other. Tables and chair rental (if you don’t own enough), cakes, food, decorations, party bags… all of these things add up quickly, even if you do everything yourself.

2. We are currently working on paying off our debt, not accumulating more. A rough estimate is that a “simple” child’s party can costs $200+. (And what I’ve seen some parents spend is far beyond that, especially if they host the party at a place designed to entertain children or buy a bouncy house.)

3. We have a pretty large family. If just my immediate family were to come (this isn’t even my husbands) there would be 10 people. So I don’t think the babe would miss out on having people around to celebrate him. (I’ve also heard you should have as many children as your child’s age, which really would make a party a lot more manageable).

4. I am not convinced the babe will remember his 2nd birthday… in which case I’d rather wait and spend exorbitant amounts of money when he is older and might actually remember.

5. I should have already sent out invitations if I want to have a party…apparently I am not as organized as other mothers because my child’s birthday is 4 weeks away and I didn’t decide until last week we weren’t having a huge party. If we were having a party, I’d already be behind in sending out the invitations because like a wedding you should have them sent out 6 weeks in advance…

I decided that in lieu of a “children’s” party the babe, the hubs and I will play hooky on his birthday and take a trip to the zoo. Then the babe will have lunch and cake surrounded by family on the weekend before or after his birthday (we still haven’t even figured that part out). I want to keep it simple and enjoyable for all involved.

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There is a tiny bit of Good Baby Advice

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When you are pregnant, and after you have your little bundle of joy, you get bombarded from all directions with unsolicited advice. Friends, family, your doctors and even strangers feel the need to tell you: what you will need, what you will want, what you should and what you shouldn’t do with your baby. A few words of caution: most of the advice you will receive will be utterly worthless. Did you read that, utterly worthless! But…a few randomly tossed pieces of advice will stick to you like glue and you will rack your post pregnancy brain to no end trying to remember what saint of a person delivered you such advice so you can send them a Thank You note with a gift card for their genius.

1. Have a diaper party and buy diapers once every paycheck while you are pregnant. If you aren’t part of the cloth diaper revolution I suggest you start stocking up on diapers! This technique lets your wallet feel the pain in advance and then if you get in a pinch with money a little later on your baby’s butt can still be covered. Buy all different sizes newborn-6. Yes, it will take up some of your precious storage, but let me tell you how awesome it is to NOT have to buy diapers all the time during the first year of baby’s life, you just open the door to the closet and, wham, take your pick. (On a side note your husband will thank you for not having to make a run to the store in the middle of the night because you thought you had enough diapers to make it through until morning. He got his fill of that when you sent him for hummus and watermelon at midnight while you were pregnant.)

2. Sleep when baby sleeps. I think a lot of us have heard this one and don’t think much of it, until we actually do it! I cannot tell you how much you should heed this advice! I still do this and my baby is almost two! Most mothers are sleep deprived and can use every extra wink of sleep they can get. If you put your baby down for a nap and try to accomplish anything, that little sucker will wake right up, babies have a sixth sense that kicks in anytime you try to get something done and they will immediately put a stop to progress of any kind. If you sleep while they are sleeping, you feel better and I swear they sleep for longer because they can sense they aren’t missing anything. (For hands free cleaning try wearing baby in a sling/carrier of sorts.)

3. Get a good baby monitor. You will appreciate this for the few nights the baby actually sleeps in their own bed. You can spy on your spouse while they are in with the baby, so you know if you need to come flying in to fix something they are doing wrong. And if you need to go outside for a minute to scream and release a little tension of your own, you can watch your little angel on the monitor to make sure your own screaming doesn’t in turn cause their screaming.

4. Find a good online mommy group and join! Because, let’s face it, the only other people that are awake at 2:30 in the morning who willimmediately respond to a question you post (because they are also up) is another mom. If you have a good mommy group you can post all sorts of questions you are too embarrassed to ask your friends or family and you will get NO JUDGEMENT because they know exactly what you are talking about and want to help you through it the best they can!

All the advice on what items you need for baby are opinions. Different things work for different babies and parents. Take all this advice with a grain of salt (even mine). It’s all trial and error when it comes to yourbaby. You will hear people say you can’t live without “blah, blah, blah”… but the truth is, if you didn’t know it existed, you might just be able to.

Cheers!

What to give for a Baby Shower Gift

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Even before I had a child of my own I would sometimes look at people’s baby registry’s and think “Do these people even know what they need for a baby?” The truth is before you have a child of your own it really can be hard to wade through all the hundreds of baby items that are supposed to simplify your life and figure out what it is you will really need. When I make up gift baskets for baby showers I try to give the parents to be things I feel like they will actually use. I also like to try to add a personal touch.

Some of the staples I like to include in a basket of baby goodies are as follows:

Diapers- You can never have enough diapers and the good thing about diapers is you can give a box of a larger size so the baby can grow into the, babies grow fast and aren’t always in the newborn/1 size for very long so even size 2 or 3 can be appreciated by the parents. (If you know the parent’s are going to be cloth diapering I would ask them what brand they are looking at using and maybe get them one or two of these or just skip the diapers altogether).

Wipes- Dirty bottoms, spit up, sticky hands… Wipes are just convenient to have around, everywhere in the house. My child is almost 2 and I probably have a package in almost every room of the house. I always go with a natural type of wipe because some babies are super sensitive and I also personally can’t stand the smell of some of the scented wipes.

Bottle/Sippy Cups- Bottles are always good. Even for a breast feeding mom, bottles are good to have around in case Mom needs a break. And I promise almost every child at some point will use a sippy cup (even if only in the car). Everyone has their own opinions of what bottles/Sippy’s are best. I loved our Advent bottles/Sippy’s, but they are a little pricey compared to some brands. My main recommendation is the less parts the better, it’s easy to forget parts when there are a bunch or lose them and when there are less parts the cups/bottles are easier to keep clean.

Bottle Brush- I can’t tell you how many bottle brushes we went through with our own babe. They are inexpensive, but appreciated. Throw a couple in the package.

Clothes- Hand me downs are okay to give and are usually greatly appreciated, just make sure they are free from stains and tears and in good condition. I usually give these in a separate box and don’t include in the basket of goodies. If you want to buy something new for the babe I recommend buying larger sizes of clothes, anywhere from 12 months-2T. I promise someone will give the expectant parents really cute newborn size onesies. What they might not get is larger sizes that they will need in the near future because overnight it seems like your baby grows out of one size and into another.

Blanket- If you are super crafty you can make a blanket. I haven’t yet attempted this, but instead give light muslin swaddle blankets. I like the Aden + Anais blankets. And if you’re anything like me you find that babies come in bunches so you could buy one pack of blankets and split them between goodie baskets.

Books- You can never have enough books for your child. Get them one of your childhood favorites, or your child’s favorites. For children under two I really recommend board books as babies find tearing and eating pages amusing.

Butt Balm- This is one of my personalized items. I tried making my own butt balm and found that it works so much better than commercial products I have vowed to never use or promote the commercial products again. I will warn you if you aren’t into essential oils the butt balm can be a little pricey to make, but it lasts for a long time, so I think it’s worth the investment. I use a recipe from The Hippy Homemaker, but I also add tea tree oil to mine. You can find the recipe on her blog at http://www.thehippyhomemaker.com/the-best-homemade-first-time-moms-kit-or-any-new-mother-for-that-matter/ (Also her blog is awesome!)

Homemade Anti-Bacterial Spray- Another personalized item. Because really, who wants to use chemicals on or around their tiny newborn? This can be used on hands or on surfaces and is great to keep tucked in a diaper bag. I will again refer you to The Hippy Homemaker for the recipe http://www.thehippyhomemaker.com/the-best-homemade-first-time-moms-kit-or-any-new-mother-for-that-matter/

Name Flag- I like being crafty and adding a personal touch so I usually add a little name flag in the basket of goodies. It isn’t hard or super expensive and it’s something I can hand sew in about half an hour (If the babies name isn’t terribly long). You can use Felt, Ribbon and pre-cut felt letter that stick on, and I promise everyone likes something with their babies name on it.

Container- When you have a child you can NEVER have enough storage containers. Give the gift in something that can be used for storage! A basket, a plastic container with a lid, a sturdy cardboard box with a lid (like photo boxes) anything that can be re-used as storage.

I promise with these few items you can’t go wrong and the gifts will be used and appreciated.

FTC disclosure: I may receive monetary compensation for my endorsement/recommendation/testimonial and or link to retail products in this article to support my blogging habit. I will never link to a retail provider I have not used. I will only link to providers I would personally recommend.

My Take On Cry It Out

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When people talk about how their “such and such” month old baby sleeps through the night I used to get a little hot and bothered. The ears of the little, green, monster would pop up on my shoulder and I would clench my teeth while silently thinking “Eff you and your baby who sleeps.” I happen to have an almost 2 year old who still doesn’t sleep through the night on a regular basis. I remember a friend texting me when my babe was about 9 months old and hers was a few months old asking me “When did you letbaby sleep through the night?” I almost lost it. How could she ask me a question like that? Did she not see my FB posts at two in the morning because I was up yet again? Did she not remember that I had complained repeatedly about my baby who rarely napped for longer than 30 minutes and didn’t sleep long stretches at night either? I typed back a very long and mean text back and then deleted it because the rational me kicked in and said, you should never say anything in anger, if you can help it (especially not in writing).

After finding a good mommy support group of other mothers and having the discussion on sleeping or non-sleeping babies I soon discovered I was not alone. I discovered that there are many other mothers out there who are going through exactly what I was. I could finally breathe a sigh of relief, my non-sleeping baby was normal, AND there are other mothers out there who could relate and sympathize with me. (My family doctor also admitted to me that her own son was a non-sleeper during one of my appointments.) Just the gain of this knowledge lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. When you reach out and connect with other people and find out you are not alone your spirit lifts, you gain a little more confidence and you realize you can tackle your problems in a whole new light. (I highly suggest all first time Mom’s find a support group, either one that meets in person or online, and use them!)

Now, with non-sleeping babies comes a slew of advice from other parents on how to get your baby to sleep through the night and the big ones that comes up is “Let the baby cry it out”. I don’t know about you, but I’m not a huge fan of loud noises and my initial instincts when I’m subjected to loud noises is to make them stop. For me the baby crying feel into this category. It went against my every instinct to let my baby cry while I did nothing. It felt so incredibly wrong. Then I read this article http://sarahockwell-smith.com/2014/06/30/self-settling-what-really-happens-when-you-teach-a-baby-to-self-soothe-to-sleep/by SarahOckwell-Smith and I was glad I went with my instincts.

I just couldn’t do cry it out, so I struggled and learned and struggled and learned some more. For me the biggest challenge was getting the babe to go to sleep. (Although he would wake several times during the night, a quick change of diaper with some patting or cuddling or a bottle with some paddling or cuddling would usually do the trick. On the rare occasion a mid-night episode lasted longer than a few minutes I figured out fairly quickly it was usually related to illness and I would just suck it up and be up with him.) Back to putting the babe to bed… I tried a routine. Bath, then books, nursing or bottle and bed. He would seem like he was falling asleep while sucking away at the bottle, then BAM, bottle done, AWAKE. I tried patting him. I tried rocking him. I tried walking and singing and bouncing. I tried combinations of all the above…Sometimes one of these methods would work (after I tried and tried for 30-60 minutes). Sometimes my methods would fail and I would give up and let him play for a while longer until he tired himself out a little more. Somewhere along the way I got the idea to just try to tire him out before bedtime with physical play. I let him play outside every day I can weather permitting. This seemed to help. I also tried signing with him when he was a little older giving him a warning before bed time. I would sign and tell him “after we read these books it will be time for a bottle and to go to bed.” This seemed to help too. I figured out he was easily stimulated so it was best to stick to routine and also to limit things like the TV being on. (Note I say the TV being on. It doesn’t seem to matter if he is actually watching the TV. Just it being on seems to rev him up a little, so no TV exposure before bed for him seemed to work better.) Sometimes using a drop of lavender behind his ears (we do this when treating ear infections) seemed to help him sleep better so I started incorporating a little lavender into our routine. All of the things combined really helped me. I started to relax and enjoy putting him to bed instead of dreading it. I realized that being able to cuddle my baby to sleep would only last a short time and I was bound and determined that I was going to enjoy it and not be counting my minutes until freedom. My change in attitude seemed to help too. So if you struggle at all with putting your baby to bed, know this: You are not alone and it will get better!

Peace and Blessings and Good Night!