The Internal Struggle

Although I consider myself an AP mom, I had never heard the term before my children were born, and for a long time, I didn’t know that the techniques I employed as a mother were considered Attachment Parenting.

A lot of the principles of AP came to me naturally: I breastfed both kids, practiced infant massage, and wore my babies in slings and carriers. I knew from the very beginning that cutting my work hours and staying home as much as possible was the right choice for my family. And I knew that I never wanted to spank my children.

Other principles came about when facing challenges as a parent. When my son was having some sleeping difficulties, so many people told me to just let him cry it out and he’d be sleeping like an angel within a week. But it didn’t feel right to me. I started to look into other, more gentle ways of sleep training, and that led to part time co-sleeping, and my discovery of the “AP Way.”
Continue reading “The Internal Struggle”

8 Tips For Successful Pumping

As a brand new mom to my first child, now 5, I suffered a lot of common breastfeeding ailments. Sore cracked nipples, engorgement, thrush, etc. With the help of a fantastic lactation consultant and plenty of advice from other moms, I was able to overcome those early difficulties and settle into the groove of nursing my newborn.

When it came time to start using a breast pump, however, advice was not as easy to come by. It was crucial that I make it work, though, because I was returning to work part-time and needed to express milk for my husband to feed while I was away. I figured it out eventually, but some help would have been nice.

If you are new to pumping or will eventually be pumping, here are eight pieces of advice to keep in mind.

  1. Choose the right pump for your needs–This one is probably the most important. You won’t be successful at pumping if your pump is incapable of meeting your needs. I started out pumping just a couple of times per week and the inexpensive single pump I had was fine for that. But when my milk supply suddenly dropped and I was constantly pumping to bring my supply back up, the cheap pump couldn’t keep up. I replaced it with an Ameda Purely Yours, which I bought through my lactation consultant and was very happy with its performance. If you’re returning to work full time, be sure to get the double electric pump to save time. If you’re a stay home mom pumping infrequently, you could probably get by with a cheaper pump or even a good quality manual pump. Earthmoving Brisbane deliver cost effective and versatile solutions for all your concrete pump rental and excavation needs across the north Brisbane area. Contact them today and speak to one of our friendly booking staff to discuss your needs and offer expert advice or request a customised quote.
  2. Get comfortable–Pumping takes time, so make sure you have a comfortable place to sit that is not too hot and not too cold. If your baby is napping, turn off the monitor so you aren’t distracted. Have a drink or a snack handy if you need one, and make sure you have something to do. I used to catch up on TV or read magazines while I pumped. And be sure to visit the bathroom first!
  3. Check your pump parts frequently–If you feel like you have milk to express, but nothing is coming out, check the valves and connections on your pump. With repeated use, some parts will wear out and can change the effectiveness of your pump. At one point with my son, I knew I was full but wasn’t able to express much milk. When I changed the valves, suddenly I was able to express milk again. Routinely inspect your pump when cleaning it to to make sure it’s in good working order.
  4. Consider herbals for increasing your milk supply–If you are a working mom and are pumping to store milk for your childcare provider to feed, consider using herbal supplements to increase your supply. You can find a list and helpful tips at Kellymom.com.
  5. Check your suction–If the pump isn’t correctly positioned on your breast, you won’t be able to express milk and you can even injure your breast. Read the manual for your pump for suggestions. You should feel a definite suction of the flange to your breast when the pump is turned on, and your nipple should be pulled into the neck of the flange. If you don’t see and feel this, you don’t have enough suction. Turn the pump off and reposition, and if that doesn’t work, check your pump to make sure it is assembled correctly and everything is working.
  6. Encourage letdown–Pumping is hard if you are stressed or worried about not being able to pump enough. Try to relax and concentrate on your baby and how much you love him. Having a photo or a blanket with his scent on it can help. You could also try a lavender scented neck wrap while pumping.
  7. Keep in mind the last time you pumped or fed your baby–If it’s only been an hour since you nursed your baby, don’t be surprised if you aren’t able to express a lot. If you are working, try to pump at frequent intervals to avoid engorgement.
  8. Have reasonable expectations–Even the best pump is not as efficient as a baby. With the right tools, you can be successful at expressing milk, but it takes effort and not every mother is able to pump enough to exclusively feed breastmilk. Whenever possible, feed your baby from the breast.

Pumping moms, do you have any other tips to add?

Breastfed Babies and The Growth Chart

I am not a large person. At 5 foot 8, I’m taller than average, but I’ve always been a healthy size and my weight gain during both my pregnancies was well within the range recommended by my doctor. My husband isn’t a big guy either.

So it was no surprise to me that both kids seemed to follow those same growth trends. Both were the same size at birth, just over seven pounds. My daughter was an ounce heavier and an inch shorter. Both were healthy. I was happy. So why were so many others concerned with their size, or lack of it?

Among the many comments I heard from mostly strangers were:

“Is your pediatrician okay with you breastfeeding?” (Of course she was.)

“When are you going to stop breastfeeding?” (None of your business.)

“Wow, my baby is the same age and he’s much bigger-was he premature?” (No, actually he was born on his due date. And hey, guess what, it’s not a contest.)

“If you give her some formula, she’ll grow more.” (Actually, she’s growing just fine, thanks.)

I got to be pretty good at brushing off the comments and ignoring the unwanted advice, but the more I looked into it, the more stories I heard about parents of breastfed babies being hassled by family members, strangers or even their own doctors about the lack of “adequate” weight gain, regardless of the size of the parents or the health of the child. Why, in the face of a childhood obesity epidemic, does bigger continue to equate with better? Why are growth charts considered to be the number one indication of a child’s health, rather than just one tool of many to assess wellness?

Consider the following:

**Ounce for ounce, breast milk contains far more naturally occurring ingredients than cow’s milk-based formula does. According to Dr. Sears, when vitamins and minerals are added to formula to compensate, it makes it harder to digest. Breastfed babies generally need to eat more often because of the easier digestibility of breast milk.
**A 1992 study at UC Davis showed that breastfed babies tend to be leaner than formula fed babies. Specifically, while weight gain for each group was similar, the breastfed babies had a lower weight for length ratio.
**Many doctors in the USA are still using the charts from 1977, which are based on decades of measurements of actual children, most of whom were formula fed. The CDC updated the US growth charts in 2000, and these charts can be used to track the growth of exclusively breastfed infants, but don’t take into account how breastfed babies tend to grow. In 2006, the WHO published growth charts that represent healthy breastfed babies, but many doctors don’t use them.

While both my kids are at the bottom of the US growth charts, they score significantly higher on the WHO charts. In addition, while small, both mostly stayed on the same growth trajectory as they got older. While my son did have a milk protein allergy, removing any traces of milk from his diet fixed his symptoms. And two years later when my daughter was born and she grew in almost the exact same way her brother did, without a milk protein allergy to complicate or slow things down, I didn’t worry. She was healthy, and was just growing the way her genes had programmed her to do.

Still, I wondered. Are breastfed babies doomed to be the shorter members of their classes, simply because of how their mother’s choose to feed them? Out of curiosity, I posted a poll on my personal blog, titled “How Large or Small Were Your Children On The Growth Chart?” 30 people voted and the results looked like this.

I breastfed and my babies were smaller than average. (5/30-16%)
I breastfed and my babies were larger than average. (11/30-36%)
I breastfed and my babies were average size. (8/30-26%)
I formula fed and my babies were smaller than average. (1/30-3%)
I formula fed and my babies were larger than average. (4/30-13%)
I formula fed and my babies were average size. (3/30-10%)

I didn’t know what to expect from the poll, but the results show one thing candidly–babies come in all shapes, sizes and weights, regardless of how they are fed. Yes, both my children were little, but it wasn’t because they were breastfed or because there was anything wrong with my breast milk.

Both kids are older now, and they remain small. My almost three year old is a twenty-five pound bundle of energy that eats anything that doesn’t eat her first. At my son’s recent five-year well child visit, his BMI categorized him as underweight, but his pediatrician isn’t concerned. He did gain both weight and height over the past year, is rarely sick, is meeting or exceeding his milestones. He’s just on the skinny side–just like his dad, his grandfather and other assorted male family members.

How about you? How were your breastfed babies sized, and did anyone hassle you about it?

Not My Best Day

A couple of weeks ago, I woke on a Thursday morning with a scratchy throat and some tightness in my chest. From there, it was destined to be the sort of day that starts poorly and goes steadily downhill.

On that day, I was not a good AP mom. I was not a good any kind of mom.

I had ten quiet moments to myself to make my bed and feed my cat before both kids were awake and bouncing off the walls.

On a usual day, I like to get up, shower and dress before my children wake up, and on a really good day, I’ve also eaten something and spent some time on the Internet. Being dressed and ready to go, even if it’s in my gym clothes, helps me to handle their early morning energy more easily.

Only on this day, here were both kids awake and raring to go, and I was still groggy and unshowered, not to mention not feeling well.

Three beverage spills, two tantrums and one time out later, I decided we had to get out of the house and head to the pool. I asked the kids to please start picking up their toys so we could get ready to go, and my son immediately bopped his sister on the head and earned himself another time out. Right after that, my daughter informed me, “No. I’m not going to do it.” And I lost it. As I went stomping into the living room to tell my stubborn daughter that she needed to take off her slippers and start putting her dolls away NOW, I leaned over to scoop up a loose toy and….it happened. One of those freak things. A tiny stray piece of wood that was on the floor was suddenly and painfully jammed up under my fingernail, all the way to the cuticle. It felt like fire. I couldn’t get it out on my own, so I placed a hysterical phone call to my husband, then shaking and crying, bundled both kids into the car and drove to the nearest urgent care center.

In the waiting room, I was short with my kids. While waiting for a nurse to bring me an ice pack, my son told me that he wanted to sit in his sister’s chair and she wouldn’t move. It’s difficult to feel sympathy over a silly sibling squabble when you’re fighting back tears of pain, your finger is swollen to the size of a sausage and your entire hand is throbbing. “Figure it out on your own,” I snapped. “There are eight other empty chairs, pick one and sit in it.”

It continued in the exam room. As I played the guilt game with my kids–the pool would have been more fun, right? So next time do what I say and pick up your toys–a little voice in my head was saying, “Stop talking to your kids that way.” I was not feeling loving and I was not being respectful.

Eventually, the doctor showed up, numbed my finger and cut off part of my fingernail to remove the stick. In the absence of pain, I started to feel some remorse for my behavior that day. Having had some time to reflect on it, I came to the following conclusions. Please understand that I am not trying to make excuses for my behavior; rather, I’d like to identify the reasons my day was so horrible so I can avoid them in the future.

**My morning routine was thrown off. I am a creature of habit, and even one tiny thing throwing off my expectations for my day can send me into a tailspin. I can work on this by being more flexible and looking more closely at my priorities. Is it really the end of the world if the carpet doesn’t get vacuumed?

**I was under the weather. Everything in life, except maybe sleeping, is harder when you don’t feel well. I need to give myself a break. Our shining parenting moments rarely happen in the middle of an Urgent Care center while suffering from acute pain and distress.

**Both kids were overtired. A tired child is a cranky child, and both of mine had not slept well the night before and rose earlier than usual. I need to cut them a little slack too.

**My older child is in a phase where he questions everything and tests every limit. My younger child is feeding off of him and establishing her own independence. The younger one is also old enough to have the communication skills to fight with her brother. This is probably the biggest one. I already know that I have a temper, and an easy way to make it flare is for someone to purposely and willfully ignore my instructions. In addition, I have a very low tolerance for sibling rivalry. Listening to an argument over something as absurd as whose socks are whiter makes my blood pressure go up and my good sense drain away. I need to focus on the fact that, despite what it sometimes feels like, my kids don’t bicker with each other to make me crazy, they’re just being normal siblings. Putting them in charge of their own relationship has helped somewhat. They know that if they can’t come to a mutual conclusion on their own and need me to mediate, there will be consequences, and they usually don’t like them. I just need to find a way to tune out the racket while they figure it out.

Out of my terrible day came a good lesson for all of us.

For me, it’s easy to be a great mom when the kids are behaving and everyone is healthy and well rested and the day is going as planned. It’s not so easy when a person is sick or tired or has a tree limb jammed under her fingernail.

For my kids, they saw that even moms have bad days and they learned that there are consequences for their behavior. (In this case, not picking up the toys caused mom to turn into a crazy crying woman who made everyone go to the doctor for impromptu surgery.) And when we talked about it later, they realized that it’s okay to have a bad day–as long as you apologize to all those you were nasty to at the end of it.

How about you? What are your triggers and how do you make up for a bad day?

The End Of Fertility

A few weeks ago, Justine wrote about coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy.

I’m coming to terms too, but I’m not pregnant. Instead, I’m coming to terms with the fact that I won’t be having any more babies.

There’s nothing wrong with me, nothing wrong with my husband, nothing wrong with my fertility. We have two children, a boy and a girl, and we have decided that those two will be it.

Sometimes it’s an easy choice to come to terms with. Like when we’ve spent an exhausting day with two cranky children and bedtime didn’t go as planned and tempers are flaring and we’re burnt out and the idea of one more kid is just too crazy. Continue reading “The End Of Fertility”

What’s Wrong With Parenting Books?

Of the many things that changed in my life after my children were born, one of the biggest was my attitude towards food.

Once my son started eating solids, I was careful to avoid artificial sweeteners, food dyes, certain types of fat, etc. One day, while peering into my refrigerator and seeing “his” organic ketchup on the shelf next to the non-organic ketchup I bought for my husband and myself, it struck me how silly it was to buy more than one kind of ketchup. I wondered why I was so careful with what I fed him, but not nearly as careful with myself. If organic ketchup was good enough for him, why wasn’t it good enough for me?

It was like a little cartoon light bulb appeared over my head. That realization, combined with a gift subscription from a friend to Prevention Magazine, and a desire to no longer feel fat and frumpy, changed my life and my outlook when it came to food.

Nutrition became a personal interest, and in addition to starting to exercise, I overhauled the way we eat. Continue reading “What’s Wrong With Parenting Books?”

Is Pumping A Breastfeeding Requirement?

Way back when I was pregnant with my first child and reading up on breastfeeding, almost all of the literature I perused mentioned the cost factor. In comparison to formula feeding, breastfeeding costs significantly less and can even be free.

It wasn’t free for me, because I had a Boppy pillow, a couple of nursing bras, storage bottles and bags for expressed milk, bottles for other people to feed my baby. Things that may not be strictly necessary, but are nice to have.

Then there was the pump.

Oh yes, the pump.

Breastfeeding might be free, but you’ll also find “breast pump” appearing on every list of must-have items for every woman who intends to breastfeed, especially if she is returning to work.

I started with a cheap, single electric pump, because I was planning on returning to working very limited hours, and because my husband wanted a chance to feed our son. The cheap pump was perfectly adequate for pumping a couple of times per week, but when I needed more out of it, it died on me. I ended up purchasing a better quality double pump, offered at a discounted priced through my lactation consultant, but it was still 200 dollars.

The advantages to expressing and storing milk are many. Continue reading “Is Pumping A Breastfeeding Requirement?”

Part-Time Co-Sleeping

In my almost five years as a mom, I’ve been lucky to avoid most of the controversial issues that pit parents against one another. I received mostly positive reinforcement and reactions over my decisions to breastfeed, stay at home, use discipline other than spanking, return to work part-time, wait an additional year to send my son to kindergarten and avoid processed foods.

Obviously, I’ve met those along the way that disagree with me and my methods, but for the most part, they’ve been respectful of our differences.

Respectful, that is, except for the issue of co-sleeping.

My husband and I have co-slept with both kids at some point. Our son and the two of us in our bed, or one of us and our son in his bed. Me on the couch with our daughter, or her in the bed with my husband, or even all three of us in our queen size bed when she was a days old newborn. My son was just two years old when my second baby was born, and had stopped napping. It took my daughter eight weeks to sort out the difference between night and day and she wanted to nurse approximately every 27 minutes. Having her in the bed with us was the only was I got any sleep. And I feel that I am spoiling her cause last week when I happened to visit the SleepSoWell website, I happened to read a ton about the best Egyptian cotton sheets and got them. Now our little one only loves sleeping on them.

It worked for us, but when people found out we were co-sleeping, the reactions were definitely negative. One person called it “unnatural.” Someone else said “weird.” I also heard “gross,” and “unacceptable.” One person went as far to tell my husband that under NO circumstances should our son be in our bed. Plenty of people have offered their advice for how to “get that kid out of your bed.”

They are two and four now and I’m still no closer to understanding why so many people have such a problem with co-sleeping, or why they think we do it reluctantly instead of purposely.

There’s more. I wish the detractors would understand one simple thing: co-sleeping doesn’t have to be an all or nothing deal.

My family are what I call part-time co-sleepers. We do it when it works for us, and we don’t do it when it doesn’t. If one of the kids is sick or not sleeping well or needs comforting, we share a bed. If my spouse or myself need some space or the kids are happy, healthy and sleeping well, they sleep in their own beds.

They do share a room, although they are in separate beds and I do feel that that has helped make our choice to part-time co-sleep easier. Room sharing has it’s pros and it’s cons, but that’s another post.

Each morning, when my son wakes up, he comes down the hall and if I’m still in bed, he climbs in with me and we snuggle. It’s my favorite part of the day.

More often than not, these days the kids sleep in their beds in their room, but the frequency of co-sleeping has waxed and waned over the years.

Part-time co-sleeping has been the perfect way for us to find balance between two extremes. On one hand, I like to sleep sometimes without little feet digging into my ribs and having the kids in the bed with us all the time is too intrusive. On the other hand, making my children always sleep away from us, in their own beds and ignoring the benefits of co-sleeping is an idea that makes me uncomfortable and isn’t the right choice for us either. By choosing the middle ground and doing a little of both, we’ve arranged things so our number one priority is met–everyone is happy.

How do you feel about part-time co-sleeping? Has it worked for you?