APtly Said – Page 107

5 Ways To Care For Yourself Postpartum

As soon as the blue line appears on a pregnancy test, many women go to great lengths to keep the fetus growing in our wombs healthy. We may stop drinking diet soda, or stop eating sushi. Some of us quit smoking. We sleep in a position that provides the best blood supply to the placenta, we go to the doctor or midwife frequently for check ups, we ask our husbands to scoop the litter box for the duration.

We also spend time making sure that our babies stay healthy after the birth. We interview pediatricians. We read about breastfeeding, kangaroo care, circumcision, vaccines and babywearing. We childproof the house and make sure all our gear meets current safety standards. We ask visitors to wash their hands.

After birthing a baby though, how many mothers pay as close attention to their own health as they did during pregnancy? How many of us quickly slide back into our bad habits of staying up too late, exercising too little, or drinking way too much coffee? How many of us put our physical health at the bottom of the priority list?

To be fair, it’s not always easy to be healthy. If you had a difficult delivery, convenience can trump healthfulness. When you’re sleep deprived, it’s hard to make the best choices. When you have other children to care for and a To-Do list a mile long, or if you’re juggling responsibilities at work with duties at home, it’s way too easy to let yourself slide to the bottom of the pile.

The problem is, it’s so important to take care of yourself after you have a baby, so you can heal, so you can be the healthiest mom you can be.

Here are 5 ideas to consider if you’re expecting, to make it easier to take care of yourself after your baby is born.

Take up yoga–Yoga is great because it can be done at so many levels. A beginner can benefit just as much as a guru who has been practicing for years. Most poses can be modified to your skill level, and because yoga is low impact, it’s a great way to ease a postpartum body back into exercise while sparing your joints and stretched out abs. You can tailor your practice to your needs and in the privacy of your own home if you’re shy. Check out Yoga Journal for poses, tons of info, and podcasts, and join Yoga Today for access to a free weekly class.
Freeze your dinners–Before my second child was born, I spent several days in the kitchen, cooking meals that could be frozen, such as Greek Spinach Pie, Lasagna Roll Ups, chili, soups and more. Having the freezer packed with wholesome, homemade food not only meant I was eating well after delivery, but it also made cooking dinner a lot easier. Simply thaw the meal and heat it up. This was one of the biggest things that saved my sanity because my husband went back to work after a week, and my baby took a long time to figure out the difference between night and day. At home alone with a newborn and a 2 year old, and up most of the night with the baby, I was absolutely exhausted. Knowing that we had something to eat for dinner was a huge weight off my mind.
Order your groceries online–Most of the large chains of grocers offer this service. There are pros and cons to it (you can be very specific about your produce, and your personal shopper collects your order and bags it, but you can’t usually use coupons and fuel and delivery charges may apply), but if you’re busy trying to establish breastfeeding, or limited physically because of a c-section, having your groceries delivered can be a huge help. Plus, you can shop online at 2AM in your jammies if you want! Personally, I also found that it helped me eat healthier because I stayed out of the junk aisles.
Fit exercise into everyday activities–Who has the time or energy to spend an hour on the elliptical when you have a new baby at home? Rather than writing off exercise altogether, try splitting it into smaller doses. Studies have shown that ten minutes of exercise three times a day is just as effective as thirty minutes at once. Do toe raises while folding laundry, push ups during commercials, or spend a few minutes stretching before bed. It adds up.
Identify your stress causers and then streamline to avoid them–Sleep when the baby sleeps is a great piece of advice, but it’s not always practical. Figure out what you’re okay with letting slide, and what absolutely needs to be done, then find a way to make it happen. For me, I’m pretty particular about the cleanliness of my house. Letting the laundry pile up or not vacuuming for weeks was just not an option because of the stress it would cause me. So before my baby was born, I spent a couple of days deep cleaning each room, so the house was nice and clean when we came home from the hospital. Afterward, I tried to stick to a rough cleaning schedule so all the usual chores were split up throughout the week. Changing the cat box on Sunday, bathroom on Monday, dusting on Tuesday, etc. My house stayed looking relatively neat, and I could rest easy knowing I didn’t have a huge mess to deal with when I did get a chance to take a nap.

What about you? What advice do you have to stay healthy while recovering from childbirth and caring for a new baby?

Overcoming Isolation When a Baby Arrives

Welcoming your first baby is a very overwhelming experience for many parents. In North American culture very few of us spend much time around newborns until we have our own. I probably clocked in about 17 minutes total holding other people’s new arrivals before my daughter was born. Most of us just don’t see a lot of babies in our daily lives.

Many of us live far away from our families of origin these days. This means that when our babies arrive, they often arrive to a largely empty house. Most fathers don’t get much (or any) time off following their child’s birth, so new moms find themselves at home alone with their babies pretty soon after giving birth. The adjustment came as a big shock to me, and I think it does to many working moms. I was accustomed to spending my days in an office environment. There was order and a schedule and treat time on Wednesdays. In the span of a few weeks it was just me and a tiny baby and I felt totally lost.

This experience of isolation with a newborn is pretty common, but I this is not the way it was meant to be. If we examine the postpartum practices of traditional cultures, for instance, we see a very different story. Most traditional societies held that in the first 30-40 days of life the mother and baby were vulnerable and required special protection. They stayed at home, in bed, and the mother ate special foods, prepared for her by other women. There were rites of passage, and special rituals marked the completion of this confinement period. Mothers were not alone with their newborns, struggling to find some lunch.

My husband Jon and I with our newborn daughter, Hannah
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Babywearing 101

So, you’ve decided you want to babywear, but when you begin looking for a carrier, you are overwhelmed by the many type of baby carriers there are. What’s a wrap? What is a buckle carrier? What’s the difference between a pouch and a ring sling? All these babywearing101 questions and more become so much clearer once you know the basic carrier types. There are six basic types of carriers. They are woven wraps, stretchy wraps, ring slings, pouches, mei tais and buckle carriers.

A woven wrap is a long piece of fabric used to carry a child in various positions, including hip carry, back and front carry. It’s often chosen for its versatility, as well as support and weight distribution on the wearer. The lengths vary from short to long and choosing the length for you is determined by your body size and the carries you’d like to do with the wrap. A woven wrap is the most versatile baby carrier and it can be used fro newborn through toddler hood.

Stretchy wraps are a long piece of fabric (usually comes in one size fits most) that, unlike woven wraps, has stretch to it. It’s similar to t-shirt material and is often used with newborns and young babies. It is used mostly as a front carrier and while there may be instructions on using it as a back carrier, it is not recommended, as there’s not enough support in the stretchy fabric to do a back carry safely. Stretchy wraps are a favorite for newborn babies and can be used through toddlerhood if wrapped tightly.
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Worn Down

I thought that having a newborn was difficult. And it was. I had a very “disorganized” baby. As time has gone on we have brought order to our lives. Together we have found a rhythm of sorts and though the disorganization is still there it is organized disorganization, if that makes any sense. It makes sense to me. It’s our life.

I thought that having a middle aged baby things were easing a bit. Or maybe I just found a way to function on four hours of sleep a night. And then he decided to wean himself and I lost the comfort tool. It wasn’t an option. I wasn’t ready. He was. End of story.

Now I have a toddler. Wow. Today toddlerhood has blown me out of the water. Today I am tired even though I got seven hours of sleep last night. I feel like I have run a marathon and he even took a nap. My brain feels like oatmeal.

I tend to get frustrated with myself for feeling tired and many times feel like I am not “doing” enough. Because how is it possible that one small child can drain ever last ounce of, well, everything out of me?

Really even though I have a very active child that really is not the reason for any of this. I don’t think that it matters what personality of child that we have. They seem to have been fashioned just right to completely wear down their parental unit.

I never knew that I could function with so little energy. How about you?

Feed With Love and Respect Blog Carnival Deadline is Friday

The second of the 2010 Attachment Parenting International Principles of Parenting Blog Carnivals is quickly approaching. This month’s blog carnival will focus on API’s 2nd Principle of Parenting – Feed With Love and Respect – and the submission deadline is this Friday, March 12, 2010.

Here is an excerpt from API’s 2nd Principle of Parenting:

Feeding a child involves more than providing nutrients; it is an act of love. Whether providing for the very intense hunger needs of a newborn, or serving meals at the family dinner table, parents can use feeding time as an opportunity to strengthen their bonds with their children.

Feeding With Love and Respect goes beyond the infant and preschool years and extends throughout childhood. In addition to stories about nurslings and toddlers, I am looking forward to reading about how families with older children continue to practice this principle beyond the nursing years.

To submit a post for the Feed With Love and Respect Blog Carnival, please use the API Speaks Contact Form. Also review the blog carnival details to ensure that your post has the required text.

A Different Kind of Baby-Led Weaning

When people talk about baby-led weaning, they are usually referring to the method of introducing solid food that involves introducing finger foods and allowing the baby to decide what and how much to eat, rather than the parents spoon feeding baby food. Over time, feedings at the breast are gradually replaced with self-feeding of the same types of solid foods eaten by the rest of the family.

But breastfeeding is about more than just food. So in families that have chosen child-led weaning, meaning that the child (not the mother) decides when to stop nursing, the gradual process of weaning involves not only introducing other forms of food, but also other forms of comfort.

In our family, our babies were always nursed to sleep. That meant that I, as the nursing mom, lay down with them at bedtime and nursed them until the gulps turned to flutters and they drifted off to sleep. I could then sneak out and go about the rest of my evening. If I wasn’t there, Daddy would do, but their preference was always to nurse to sleep. We never pushed or forced independent sleep, knowing that like eating, walking, talking, reading and so many other things, they would one day be able to do it on their own. It might require some guidance and some reassurance, but certainly not force.

As it happens, both of our children were ready to give up nursing to sleep before they were ready to give up having a parent present at bedtime. Nursing is a powerful sleep tool and our kids needed something to replace it. Something that would help them go off smiling and secure into the Land of Nod. They didn’t stop nursing at bedtime all at once. It happened gradually. With both of them, they went from nursing to sleep to nursing at bedtime but not falling asleep while nursing.

So then what do you do with a still awake child that has finished nursing?

In our case, in child-led fashion, each of our kids decided for themselves what comfort they needed that would help them doze off. With Julian, it was an involved process. He wanted his back rubbed while being sang to. The Thomas the Tank Engine theme song, the Elmo Song, the Wheels on the Bus, over and over and over again. He wasn’t always quick to fall asleep and I would find myself drifting away mid-song as I tried to get him to sleep. With Emma, who is now just shy of three years old and only nurses at bedtime about every third night or so, the request is clear and simple: “Mommy, cuddle my bum.”

So I cuddle. Because she wants me to, because it comforts her, and because one day she won’t want me to anymore.

Photo credit: ibu menyusui on flickr

Annie blogs about the art and science of parenting at the PhD in Parenting blog. She wrote this post after cuddling her little girl to sleep.

Staying Patient

patience Let’s be honest: toddlers and young preschoolers can wear on even the most patient person’s nerves. From the constant questions (“why?” “wat dat?” “where mama go?”) to the wild mood swings and outbursts, life with one to three year old kids can be difficult. But screaming back at your angry two year old is not going to help him learn how to handle his difficult emotions. Telling your heartbroken three year old to stop crying and “get over it” after she spills her ice cream is not going to make her feel better about the ice cream or herself. Smacking your twenty month old’s hand for pulling the cat’s tail does not teach him how to give gentle touches.

Here are a few tips for staying patient with your child (these don’t only apply to toddlers and preschoolers, but those are the ages I am most familiar with).

1. Be Silly and Play: Play is a child’s “main way of communicating, of experimenting, and of learning.” (1) Play is such an important part of children’s lives that there is an entire therapeutic technique based entirely on play. (2) And not only is it important to get regular play time in with your child, but you can also avoid arguments and stress by being silly and playing with your child when you foresee a problem. I recommend reading Dr. Cohen’s book Playful Parenting for more ideas in this area.
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Reflection on How Couplehood Changes with Kids

It’s 11 at night and I’m preparing for a rare evening with my husband. He’s coming home from a four-hour round trip to pick up a bale of hay for our goats and sheep, and called to say he was stopping to pick up a pizza. I’ve got one kid in bed and the other sleeping on the couch.

I almost don’t know what to do with myself. Do I dare say I’m a little nervous? Except for an occasional dinner out for a birthday or anniversary, my husband and I are surrounded by children every evening – for the past nearly four years. By the end of the evening, we flop into bed exhausted with at least one child sleeping in the middle.

I remember, before having kids, how my husband and I would curl up with one another at night. I would usually lay my head on his chest, and he would curve an arm around my shoulders, and we’d sleep snuggled together. Now, my arms are usually wrapped around a toddler who is separating me from my husband. Our bed seems to be divided into two; in fact, we each have our own sets of blankets now.
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