Category: APtly Said

The Great Co-Sleeping Survey

A new survey launched this week by two long-time advocates of co-sleeping lets co-sleeping families, so often marginalized or misrepresented as radical, irresponsible, or just plain odd, the ability to stand up and be counted.

The Fennells have been involved in promoting safe co-sleeping for many years. As parents of six and inventors of the Humanity Family Sleeper, they know first hand how misleading media coverage of co-sleeping can discourage families from using this important bonding and nurturing tool. Now they have launched “The Great Co-Sleeping Survey” to help raise awareness about co-sleeping, and how to do it safely. Please participate in their survey!

Here are several fine resources for parents hoping to safely share sleep with their children:

As a family who co-slept with both children when they were infants and who welcomes both children (now aged almost 4 and 2) into our bed (the little one more often than not!), I look forward to seeing if the Fennells will meet their goal of getting 50,000 co-sleeping families to complete the survey before the end of the year. Normalizing what has until the last 50 years or so been the human beings’ normal sleep arrangement, while at the same time educating families who want to co-sleep on how to do it safely, seems like a win-win for everyone involved.

Nursing your toddler

Nursing your toddler can be quite fun. Especially when they have a special word for it and can ask for it. And then there are the times, when they want you to breastfeed their favorite toy, in our case it’s the monkey, with whom we also co-sleep 😉

However there are difficult times as well. Right now we’re going through such a phase.

My daughter, who’s 17 months old now, has began to play with the opposite nipple! She squeezes it, pinches it, twiddles it…and it really hurts, even though her nails are trimmed short.
I have learned that all mammals do this instinctively as they want to increase the milk flow.
I’m sorry but I really can’t stand it whether it’s for the milk flow or for another reason.

I searched the internet and came across this link on Kellymom:
Nursing Manners. My understanding is that it’s better if you can discard such behavior early on, before it turns into a habit.

I read about a mom on the Mothering forums. She let her child twiddle the nipple, she wasn’t disturbed by it. One year later, she is pregnant now and has very sensitive nipples and doesn’t know how to convince the child not to do it. A really difficult situation, me thinks!

It is suggested that we should give the child something else to play with. I thought that a teat would be nice 😉 We have a bottle that we use when I express my milk (in reality we only used it a few times!). Daphne is very happy playing with it during the feeding times. And then she discovered other uses for it as well: It becomes a nice hat for the monkey! Naughty girl!

Senstivity strained by boundary pushing

Responding with sensitivity. Keeping everyone’s dignity in tact. Using positive reinforcement and active listening instead of punishment and negative reaction. All of these practices are something I firmly believe in. I believe children are incentivized to behave well when their needs are met, their work praised, and their failures patiently worked through, instead of harped on. I believe in teaching my children about consequences, instead of punishing them for their actions. I am a big believer in patient parenting.

And then I met six.

Six has strained my relationship with my daughter, my role as an attachment parent, and all my fancy new fangled parenting skills. How exactly does one parent with patience during daily doses of the following:

“Mom! Can we play on the playground?”

“I’m sorry honey but not today, it’s raining.”

“Awww… but I want to! Just for a minute?”

“No dear, the playground is all wet and we need to get in out of the rain.”

“I don’t mind if I get wet. I want to play on the playground.”

“I understand that you do, but the answer is no.”

“But I never get to play on the playground!!”

“Monkey, you have played on the playground every day this week. Today it is raining. We are not playing on the playground in the rain.”

“Can I just go see if the playground is wet before we go?”

“No, clearly the playground is wet if it is raining. We are not staying, we are getting in out of the rain.”

“But I won’t play on it, I just want to look at it!”

“Monkey, you have asked me at least five times, I have answered no each time. There will not be a change in my answer. If you ask me again I will have to take away a privilege. Do you understand me?”

eyerolling “Yes” sigh “I wish I could play on the playground.”

It is enough to drive all notions of attachment parenting right out the window. To make things worse, if I ask her a question she doesn’t want to answer, she will just pretend I never spoke. It has gotten to the point where both my husband and I will reassuringly say “It’s okay honey, I heard you, you did actually speak out loud.”

What is a parent to do? I am trying not to envision my child with ugly green horns and bulbous spots when this behavior rears its ugly head, but I go not have endless reserves of patience. I can’t just turn off all my feelings and not react, even though I know her behavior is developmental, that she is testing her individuality and my boundaries. I know she is not out to get me, but it’s hard to know that in the middle of an argument.

I thought I would share a few of the coping methods I have attempted to employ in staying calm in the face of her powerful persistence.

1. Hum The Girl from Ipanema in my head and imagine I am all alone in an elevator that no one, especially my arguing child, can get into.

2. Envision myself on a beach drinking an icy cold fru-fru drink while a massage therapist works all the argument caused knots out of my shoulder.

3. Remind myself that calm and consistent responses will make a strong and healthy child.

4. Take a deep breath and warn Monkey that she is about to make me very angry. “Honey, I am getting very frustrated, if this continues, I may yell at you.”

If those don’t work I try to forgive myself for yelling, and her for pushing. I also try to apologize for losing my cool, and explain to her why I did. I use I statements when doing so; “I am sorry I yelled, I was feeling like you weren’t listening to me, and that was frustrating for me.” Usually she will apologize too, and we will hug, and the day will go on. On really bad days, we just have a fight, and then I lock myself in the bathroom alone for twenty solid minutes (after hubby is home) and either: read a book, do my nails, or take a long hot shower so I can recover some of my resources.

What do you do to stay calm in the face of unbelievable, epic persistence? What techniques do you use to keep your cool and respond with sensitivity? I would love it if all of you would share your ideas with me in the comments. I think we can all parent more patiently if we have a larger arsenal to draw from.

On breastfeeding while pregnant

This month’s Motherwear Carnival of Breastfeeding is on the topic of pregnancy and breastfeeding.

When my husband and I decided to try to have another baby when our son was 10 months old, the realities of breastfeeding while pregnant were far from my mind. Like so many other aspects of parenting, I did not really know anyone who had breastfed through a pregnancy, but, as always, I was determined that it was natural and that I could do it.

A nanosecond later, I was pregnant (OK, maybe it was a week or two later, but regardless, we missed the fun of “trying”!). My parents were in town early in the pregnancy and as I sat down to nurse Gabriel, my father exclaimed, “But you can’t nurse while you’re pregnant. Give him a bottle.”

One of my biggest fears about nursing while pregnant was that it would cause my progesterone levels, which were dangerously low with Gabriel, to plummet even lower. There was not a lot of literature out there about what happened to hormones while nursing and pregnant, but I figured if nursing suppressed my hormones enough to keep my period from coming back for 8 months after Gabriel’s birth, it was at least possible that I could have a problem during this pregnancy. Instead, my levels were much higher than they had been during my first pregnancy. Whew! Armed with this news, I mentioned casually during a prenatal checkup that I was intending to continue to nurse my son. My OB-GYN’s reaction, while more understated than my father’s, still expressed surprise mixed with a sort of cautious, grudging approval since this was not a high-risk pregnancy.

Just when it seemed that I was well on my way to my goal of tandem nursing, my plans went awry. Apparently I’d forgotten to tell my son that he should continue to nurse even if there wasn’t any milk. He was just under 14 months old when I entered my second trimester and my milk supply, bountiful enough to soak shirts, spray restaurant tables, and sate my hungry son, was suddenly non-existent. Easy-going Gabriel did not complain, but he also went from nursing 6-8 times per day down to 4-6, then to just nursing before nap and bedtime. By 15 months old, he was down to nursing just once a day, upon waking in the morning.

I tried to draw out these morning sessions both because I enjoyed the extra hour in bed and because I suspected that we wouldn’t make it to tandem nursing land. But the truth of the matter was that my nipples were sore, I was tired, and I didn’t enjoy nursing Gabriel except in those peaceful morning sessions. I felt guilty that I didn’t want to nurse him anymore, and I felt sad that he didn’t want to nurse for comfort, just for milk. Before he was 16 months old, the last of those morning sessions went away too. It was a gradual weaning, but I couldn’t help feeling neither one of us was ready for it.

Looking back 2.5 years later, I have a different perspective. Now I know children who nursed through a pregnancy even when there was no milk, and I know mamas whose supply did not disappear like mine did. But I also know other mothers who experienced what I did, with children who no longer wanted the nurse once the milk was all gone.

I also had the pleasant surprise, a few weeks after Lily was born, of a 20-month-old who decided to try to nurse again after nearly 5 months without. He never did relearn a proper latch, or go back to daily nursing, but that bountiful postpartum supply allowed him to get milk in a cup or from the breast (after baby sister nursed) a few times per week well into his second year. “Yummy milk, Mommy,” he would say, smacking his lips. That did it for me: no more guilt, no more regret. Just a little boy and a mama sharing a cuddle and some milk.

Please visit this month’s other Carnival of Breastfeeding participants:

– Julie

Babywearer in Disguise

I’m the type of person that likes to be active about the things I am passionate about. In parenting spheres my passions include “extended” breastfeeding and carrying my child, usually in a sling. I remember when littlepixie was tiny, I used to get very excited whenever I saw anyone nursing an older baby in public, because it gave me hope during the first few difficult weeks, and I thought “well if they can do it so can I”.

It’s funny, when you’re pregnant, you smile at all the other pregnant women who seem to be everywhere. When you have your baby all bundled up in a wrap you seem to see slings all over the place. When you breastfeed you quickly recognise other breastfeeding pairs, the little hand stuffed down mum’s shirt, the new mum trying to undo her bra clasp, the way the baby is snuggling, a passerby might think the baby is asleep but you know he’s hard at work feeding.

I feel that by nursing my toddler in public, or carrying her in a funky wrap, maybe someone like me might see us and feel reassured, or maybe a pregnant woman might pass by and think “I’d love to do that” or indeed maybe nobody notices, and that’s cool too as littlepixie doesn’t care if she’s changing people’s minds, all she wants is milkies and to be up on her mama’s hip waving at all the people in town.

But the practicalities of life often intervene. Littlepixie doesn’t feed very often outside the house now, she prefers to be up on a chair eating big person food with the rest of us. But I make an effort to give an encouraging little smile to any nursing mamas I see on my travels, they may think I’m nuts, maybe we should have a secret sign, one nursing mama to another!

And we choose to be car-free, which means I use a stroller when I go to town with littlepixie, mostly to carry the groceries but also so she can nap on the bus. And when she’s not napping, she prefers to be walking. The wraps and Mei-Tais which were once so snuggly are now too constricting for this active bundle of joy who needs to jump down onto the grass right now! Which means that my beautiful slings, wraps and Mei-tais are usually left at home, apart from the ringsling, of course, which is always hiding somewhere on the stroller ready to do its job at a moment’s notice.

I guess what I’m saying is littlepixie is growing up and we’re entering a new phase in our family life, it’s so exciting. She’s over two stone now, that’s almost a quarter of my weight, so she’s getting heavy to carry! It may be coming close to my time to retire the “babywearer” label which I wear so happily, and instead to stick on a new “runs after crazy toddler” label. The good thing is my strong Scandinavian Mei Tais will be perfect for piggy back rides on daddy’s back when she’s bigger and once again realises the benefits to being carried on a long walk or a cross-country hike!

Is this a trial run for the day that we move on past our breastfeeding relationship? Is our good old reliable ringsling the same as that snuggly bedtime feed that no-one wants to let go of? If that’s the case, then I’m glad littlepixie is weaning me so gently and still claps her hands when she sees the ringsling, and still enjoys the occasional hip carry, usually when she really needs her mammy!

I am thankful that littlepixie loves to walk everywhere and I’m thankful that she’ll nap in the stroller, these things definitely make the gradual transition from “babywearing” to “running after crazy toddler” easier but a little part of me misses carrying her everywhere and that part of me wants a sticker for my stroller that says “Babywearer in Disguise“!

The Transformation of a High-Needs Child

For the entire first year of my son Leif’s life, I could not go anywhere or do anything without him. He did not want to be left with anyone, not even his dad. He would cry and scream and be generally miserable for however long I was gone. We found this out for the first time when he was 4 months old and I went with some friends to see a debate put on by two of my former teachers on a topic I was very interested in. I was so happy to have some time to myself again but my son didn’t feel the same way.

My husband said he first put him in the sling which Leif protested loudly over, then tried the Baby Bjorn carrier (my son’s favorite) and went for a walk. Usually, the outdoors would calm him down right away from whatever he was distressed about but not this time. I was gone exactly 4 hours and once he saw me, he was immediately better, overjoyed even. I tried just 2 more times that year to get a break and do something on my own for about an hour and the same thing happened. I just knew in my heart that for some reason, he needed me to be there for him and it wasn’t worth putting him through distress for no reason – he wasn’t ready or able to change yet.

Once he got a bit bigger, he still always wanted to be held. I was able to switch to wearing him on my back in an Ergo baby carrier which he loved and I was able to get more things done that way. He was happy, not screaming to be picked up and could see everything I was doing. I could talk to him about whatever was going on. We both were happy and Leif got the contact that he craved so much.

Now at four years old, I can see a big shift in his personality. Recently, we went to Santa Fe, NM on vacation for a week. Usually, Leif loves to travel and wants to stay and explore with us wherever we are. On this trip, by about day four, he started saying, “I want to go home, I want to see my friends.” Then in the next sentence he’d say, “No, I want to stay in Santa Fe!” He was clearly conflicted between missing his friends and the joys of traveling but my husband and I were so happy to hear that he missed other people so much.

Nowadays, Leif is happy to leave me in the morning and excited about going to preschool. He has been going for the past year and has formed strong bonds with both his teacher and some other children. This has been monumental for me to witness. All of that babywearing, co-sleeping, attending to his needs and working with his sensitive personality has paid off in spades and he’s only four years old!

Dr. Sears writes in his recent newsletter:

Therapists whose offices are filled with former high-need children who didn’t get responsive parenting tell us that most of their energy is spent in helping these persons get close to someone. These people have difficulty getting connected. They do not have the capacity for feeling close. Not so high-need children who are the product of high-giving parents. These children thrive on interpersonal relationships. Being connected is their norm. The AP infant is more likely to become the child who forms deep friendships with peers and the adult who enjoys deep intimacy with a mate. These are deep children, capable of deep relationships.

Leif still currently wants the security of sleeping in our room at night – but he only wants to sleep in his own bed next to ours – even on vacation. He is very clear about this. When we ask him if he’d like to try sleeping in his own room now, even with one of us in there with him he says, “No, maybe when I’m five.” As we’ve done with everything else so far, we don’t force him and work with where he’s at. I don’t mind him sleeping in our room, he has his own twin bed and he sleeps peacefully all night long (which means so do we!).

These small steps he is taking everyday moving towards his independence at his own pace leaves me feeling overjoyed at seeing his progress. I really believe that our following of the attachment parenting ideals especially at the beginning of his life is behind his sense of confidence and independence and general happy-go-lucky, loving way of being. He feels safe and secure in the world and knows he is loved very much.

Toddler Communication

When my daughter Erika was a baby, several of my new mom-friends were practicing sign language with their children, but I was never interested. I really couldn’t figure out what the benefit would be, as it didn’t seem to me that I had any trouble understanding what she was trying to communicate. She pointed at things she wanted, made gestures and vocalizations, and by the time she was 15 months old, used several words on a regular basis. Besides, we were already speaking two languages with her, and I wasn’t sure adding a third into the mix would be all that helpful.

Fast forward a couple of years, and we had a different situation with our son Karl. At fifteen months, he wasn’t using any words on a regular basis, and was screaming at the dinner table in frustration at his inability to express his needs. So I introduced sign language, which he embraced with enthusiasm. Within two days, he was regularly using one sign. Within a week, half a dozen. In a month, a dozen. He can now tell me about birds, dogs, motorcycles, cars, airplanes, and a variety of food-related desires. I find that our communication is indeed richer than what I experienced with my daughter at this age, and that I’m learning more about his thoughts than I would have otherwise.

For example, I had no idea that he anticipated seeing motorcycles at a particular place until the day he made the sign for motorcycle before their usual parking spot was even in view. And I was amazed the first time I put him down, seemingly asleep after a car ride, only to see him furiously signing for milk with his eyes tightly shut. I don’t regret not using sign language with my daughter, as I feel that it was the right decision for our family at the time. I also know other children Karl’s age whose interest in sign language is very limited, so it’s clear to me that his enthusiasm isn’t universal. But I’m certainly glad I paid attention to my son’s frustration and was aware of a tool that might help!

The Big “W”

Originally posted March 30, 2007, when my daughter was two and my son was five.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about weaning. Not as in, “I’ve been thinking a lot about the fact that my daughter should wean”, but more like, “I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the process of weaning, and what that means to me and to my daughter.” I suppose I could have just used that as my opening sentence in the first place.

When my son was born, I set a goal of nursing him for two years. But because I didn’t want to overwhelm myself with such a huge undertaking, I made it a series of smaller goals. My first mini-goal was one year. The next was 18 months. The final goal was two years.

Before he was 18 months old, he started cutting back his nursing sessions. He had been nursing eight to 10 times a day, but when he was about 15 months, he nursed just six to eight times per day. The next month he cut it back to five or six times. The next month was three to four times, and the last month was just once per day. I neither encouraged nor discouraged it. My son weaned completely of his own accord and on his own schedule. I had talked to many women during my time nursing him, and so many of them had told me that when their babies weaned before they (the mothers) were ready, they were heartbroken and disappointed. I knew I never wanted to feel that way. So when my son began his weaning process, I was surprised to realize that I was ready; I was at peace with the whole process. When he was completely weaned, I felt no sadness, no disappointment. It was a good transition that he and I made together. I didn’t make my time line goal of two years, but that didn’t matter, because the end had been so peaceful.

When I became pregnant with my daughter, I did not set an arbitrary time limit, but as a more experienced mom, I knew I just wanted to follow her lead. I very soon realized that she was a completely different nurser than her brother. My son liked to do his bit, take in his nourishment, and then leave; he was never big on comfort nursing, or nursing at times when food is not the first goal, but rather the cuddle time and the calming effect of suckling. My daughter has always been a big comfort nurser. My son was a very difficult baby to nurse, (which I know now is because of all his oral difficulties) while my daughter has always been such an easy baby to nurse. He was a biter; she has always been so gentle. He was a concentrated little nurser, who focused on nothing but the task at hand; she has always been so distractible!

Time passed, and my daughter reached her first birthday, and she was nursing as much as ever. She hit 18 months, and showed no signs of slowing down. She’s now two years old, and is still as excited about nursing as she was 18 months ago. This was fine with me. I have no problem with nursing a toddler (either in theory or practice) so I just took it in stride. True to my beliefs, I continued to follow her lead. She seemed to still needed to nurse for comfort and security, so we continued happily.

But after a recent very bad day, where one of the many many things that went wrong that day was that my daughter started biting me seemingly out of the blue, I began to consider the possibility of weaning. My son was a biter, but being bit by a six month old is completely different than being bit by a two year old toddler! No comparison, really. I was in pain, I was angry, and as everything, everything had gone bad that day (with both kids) I was at the end of my rope and out of patience. I made the decision to wean.

Weaning lasted exactly six hours. Weaning is a huge decision, and I realized that I want my daughter’s weaning to be as peaceful as my son’s. To wean her suddenly would be traumatic for her, and that’s not how I wanted it to end. But she had reached two years old – the age that I said my goal was for my son. Was that not also my goal for her? We had reached two years!

Over the next two days, I flip-flopped between the decision to wean and not wean about twenty times. I finally realized that my decision to wean had been made when I was at a very vulnerable point, and I know myself enough to know that I don’t want to have to live with any regrets or guilt about weaning. But on the other hand, how wonderful would it be to wear pretty bras again? To have my body all to myself! To sit down and read the paper and not be asked to nurse! And she did have two years of nursing – I had given her a great start in life!

But, after a few days of experimentation with weaning, I realized the fact that my daughter herself is not ready to wean. She still relies on nursing for comfort and safety. That was made very clear to me during those days, as she was in obvious distress. How can I take such an important source of comfort and nurturing away from a two year old? It seems cruel. And I know that in my heart, I will not feel good about weaning unless my daughter is the one to initiate it, as my son had. I will not be at peace with with the process if I am the one to force her to wean when she is so obviously not ready. Instead setting the goal according to the calendar, my goal is set to her.

So here I am, still lactating after all these years. My daughter will nurse until she decides she is done. She will sleep with us until she decides she is ready for her own room. (My son was 2 1/2 when he chose to go to his own room. I suspect my daughter will be later.)

And no, she has not bitten me since that one day, and that is the only time she’s ever bitten me. It took me three days to heal enough to not wince when she latched on.