... Or do they?
I've heard this a lot in my life, especially while pregnant. I had days where I would succumb to the stress of an unexpected pregnancy during our own personal economic crisis during the global economic crisis, while living with my parents (due to said economic crisis and unexpected -though not unwanted- pregnancy) and just had total emotional breakdowns. I think whack-a-do pregnancy hormones played a part in the breakdowns also. Hearing that my kid was also to be placed in my arms with little more information than how to bathe him (HOW useless is that?) and that I would be expected to care for this tiny, vulnerable human being without any prior knowledge of how to do so was terrifying.
I figured that I could sustain his tiny life and figure the rest out along the way. Most days, that was good enough for me. Other days, well, you could find me crumpled on the bedroom floor weeping hysterically as I realized that I had no freaking clue how to raise a person.
I never read any parenting books. Other than chatting with friends and family and hanging out on Baby Center from time to time, I really had no real idea of what to expect. Looking back, I think most people really exaggerated one or two things, whether they were positive or negative. In my opinion, there is no real way to prepare for parenthood. Go ahead, read as much as you want, I dare ya.
Anyway. We brought this brand new person home and quickly began working our way through destroyed notions of what new parenthood would be.
I had always assumed, since "everyone" did it, that babies just went into a bassinet or a crib and slept. I assumed that I would be up several times a night, putting miles on the glider and walking a trench into the carpet. I was half right. My son would not have sleeping in that bassinet. He did fine the first couple of weeks. Not that it mattered, having not only brought home my first child, I brought him home from the NICU. He was no longer attached to cords that made a machine beep loudly if his vitals went askew. No, now that was my job. I spent a lot of hours just watching him sleep, or snapping out of a dead sleep to make sure he was still breathing. I can't tell you how many times I have woken my son up while nudging him to determine if he is actually breathing.
I tried everything. I put a heating pad in the bassinet while I rocked him to 'floppy baby stage', then removed it and placed him, all swaddled, on the warm spot. He would wake 15 minutes later. I would lean over that bassinet and shush him and hold him until I was sure he was sound asleep then creep to my bed. 15 minutes later, he was awake. I tried playing nature sounds, turning the vibrate option on on the bassinet, shaking the bassinet. He would always wake up. He would never settle back to sleep without me picking him up.
I was told to let him cry and he would eventually fall asleep. I'm not sure who this is supposed to help. In the beginning, let him fuss for a minute or so, hoping maybe he would settle down and go back to sleep. But he always escalated to full blown crying. How am I supposed to sleep through that? If he's going to sit in there and cry, I'm going to be there, wide awake next to him. How does that help either of us in the long run? I get more sleep by picking him up, comforting him until he goes back to sleep and starting all over again.
Within a few weeks of his birth, and after weeks of running on almost no sleep at all, I just couldn't fight it anymore. I had placed Flynn in his bassinet, sound asleep as every other time. I laid down in my own bed, exhausted. And, once again, 15 minutes later, Flynn was kicking and fussing. I asked Shane to pick him up for a little while until he fell back to sleep. Shane picked him up and put him in bed next to me. He laid down on the other side of him and we all crashed. Every one of us slept seven hours straight through the night. I woke up in a panic. Thinking, naturally, the first time I actually fell asleep with my son in my bed, I smothered him. Nope, he was laying there peacefully slumbering. Seems he just needed to be close to me to sleep well. (Trust me, the seven hour thing was a fluke...)
Ah-ha! Isn't that a clever little trick of nature? One could almost consider that an instruction... One way wasn't working. The one way everyone else told me would work, I just had to deal with this or that. When I finally did it the way that didn't make my stomach hurt (to listen to that baby fuss), we all got more sleep and were much happier for it.
Hmmm...
Flynn hated to be put down. He fussed the second I would lay him down almost every time. I dressed holding him, cooked and ate holding him, bathroomed and brushed my teeth holding him. I even frequently showered with him. I also frequently only washed one pit.
I developed a permanent kink in my back. It killed from holding him all day, every day. And he only weighed nine pounds then. I knew I needed to do something. But what?
Of course, I was advised to "put that baby down". I wasn't doing him "any favors", I was "spoiling him" and he was going to end up clingy and whiny.
As with the sleeping issue, I couldn't bare to hear him fuss or cry. I *had* to pick him up. So, I went out and bought a Moby wrap. I learned how to use it well and started strapping him to me. His fussiness was reduced, he nursed more often, I had both hands to do most things (still showering one handed and frequently only washing one pit though).
Huh. Yet another instruction. I listened to baby. I listened to my heart. And I ended up getting a happier baby out of the deal.
While pregnant, I had wanted to do cloth diapers. I had no idea how to go about it. I didn't even realize this was such a commonly done thing and had no idea that I could just go around on the internet gathering information on cloth diapering. Shame on me for not bothering to look. A friend gave us a small stash of pocket diapers, but we started out with disposables. Within two weeks, he had a diaper rash. We tried different brands and a few different creams, but the rash continued on some level of severity or another. By the time he was eight weeks old, we had switched completely to cloth. We've had some small rashes crop up here and there, but otherwise nothing like we had when doing disposables. After switching to cloth, we started noticing he was urinating a lot more than we had realized with the disposables. So followed Elimination Communication. It just made sense. And within two weeks of starting EC, it was a full blown habit and we couldn't imagine raising a baby any other way.
Go figure. Things just keep making sense...
Oh but this list isn't exhaustive. There are so many other things we had to let our son take the lead and show us what we needed to do to meet his needs. I have found that while some parenting advice books and magazines and what-nots can be a good resource, none should ever be relied upon wholly. Particularly these programs like Ezzo and Babywise which regiment every aspect of baby's life. Every baby is different and has different needs. Every parent has a different skill set and capacity for learning and interpreting baby's cues.
EC and cloth diapering is not right for everyone. And some babies don't actually want to cosleep (although I still marvel at how many babies sleep apart from their moms, especially in the first days and weeks.)
BUT, what I'm really trying to get at here is that, no, babies do not come with pamphlets detailing just how to take care of them as an individual. You do not get a book of the month as you reach milestones and move into toddler years (then childhood, adolescence and ::gasp:: the teen years). It is our jobs as parents to tune into our own abilities, to pay attention to the needs and cues of our children, to explore our own ambitions as parents. This is nature's instruction manual. Without some level of ability in parenting, we would have died out as a species long ago.
Did you know that about 99% of women instinctively place a baby on the left side of her chest? This position aligns the hearts of infant and mom and help to regulate the rhythm of the baby's heart. No one told them to do it, they just do because we have the innate ability (though typically not understanding) to do what is best for our children.
I am so drawn to parenting our son the way we do because it feels like what is most natural. Not just to us, but on a whole. I cannot wrap my brain around parenting with the strict ideal that babies can be left to cry for minutes or even hours, or that babies only need to eat at certain times. I literally could not leave my son to even fuss for a few minutes, how does one just leave their child to cry and cry?
Despite occasionally seeking advice from friends, family or even books, I find my best teacher in parenting has been my son, from day one. He is why we are 'crunchy' parents and never knew we would be.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Permission to Fail Part I: Running Errands
I have always been extremely efficient when it comes to running errands. I frequently need to run to more than one store for various things, which I do for a number of reasons (avoiding box stores, needing specialty items only available in small stores, better prices on certain items in some places than others... you get the drift). When I lived in Minneapolis, I never had much of a problem. I lived in fairly close proximity to the things that I needed and was within walking distance of much of it. But since moving back to my hometown, I need to drive about seven to ten miles to the bigger city next door to get to run most of these errands. Before the baby, this was not a problem. After baby is another story.
I like to save gas. Even when gas was cheap, I tried to conserve. One way I do this is to clump all my running into one day. If I don't have to return to the neighbor city on another day, I'm saving 14-ish miles worth of gas. But it's not just gas, it's time. It just seems more efficient to me to dedicate a day to running so that I can use other days to do things around my house or be out and about in my own town.
When I was pregnant, I really had this impression that my baby would be totally portable. People confirmed this for me all the time. "Oh, they just hang out while you do your running." To a point, this is totally true... but only to a point.
I didn't really attempt errand running for several weeks after Flynn was born. We did some light grocery shopping, but that was about it. We prepared in advance of his birth and it was cold anyway so we didn't bother venturing out much. But, by the time he was two to three months old, I was really trying to settle back into the routine I once knew. I was never so naive as to think that my life would continue on exactly as I knew it, just with the addition of a tiny person, but I really expected there to be little interruption with the way I did certain things, most especially errand running.
But it was not so for me. It was drastically different than I thought it would be. I would get so flustered and end up coming home long before my running was through. I complained casually, more conversationally, to a friend (and mother of three) on one such occasion. She says, "Look, you've got a baby now. It will be many, many years before you can get back to doing things the way you used you. You cannot expect a baby to just be okay with running errands all day. You have to adjust to this change."
I understood all of this before she said it. But, I never wanted to admit to myself or anyone else that I thought this, that I couldn't handle it all. But her saying this simple thing to me felt like a release... permission to let certain things slide and to learn to go with the flow (the flow, in this case, being the baby).
This was one of my first lessons in child-centered parenting (my very first was learning my son's needs to nurse and be worn).
Eventually, we slid into a new sort of routine. I still plan all my running for one day, but prioritize by importance rather than location. While I once ran my errands based on which stores were the closest (as in, exit the highway and head to store B because it's on the way to store A, then I can dip down the side road to store C and back towards the highway, ending with store D). Now, by priority, I exit the highway and run errands by order of importance, even if it means doubling back a time or two, and constantly gauging my son's mood. 'Will he make it through another in and out of the car seat plus an hour of grocery shopping?' Sometimes it means I have return to the neighbor city the next day or later that week, but I'm fine with that. Groceries are more important than a new dog nail clipper.
Errands are one of those things I give myself permission to fail. Not that I consider a day a failure because my son was cranky and made it too difficult for me to do everything I needed to do, but more that I can't stand putting pressure on myself to complete too many tasks in one day, that would simply lead to me actually feeling like a failure.
Part of my child-centered parenting philosophy is acknowledging that Flynn has limits too. To expect him to preform above and beyond what he can tolerate in a day will only set us both up for a very disappointing experience. I feel that in the long run, if I force him to endure my errand running, he'll eventually associate negativity with running errands and will respond negatively when errands need to be run. I figure, if I keep the list of 'to-dos' short and bring as much levity to them as I can, he can associate positivity to running errands.
Oh but it's so difficult, sometimes, to keep a positive attitude, or at the very least, to maintain composure. I really, really get that.
For example...
It's really cool when I hand bags of frozen veggies, on at a time, to Flynn and he throws them into the cart behind him. It is NOT cool when I hand him bags of frozen fruits a moment later and he throws them on the floor and while I'm stooping to pick those up, he starts unloading the frozen veggies from the cart.
It's really cool when Flynn focuses on his water bottle and ignores my Grande Peppermint Mocha in the cart cup holder for the first 45 minutes of the grocery trip. It is NOT cool when I turn my back for a moment to choose some spaghetti sauce and he takes that exact moment to try to drink said mocha then chuck it to the floor at my feet... and I'm wearing khakis.
It's really okay with me when Flynn wants to get down and walk around with the cart. I get it. He can walk now, and he wants to do it. It is really not cool when he tries pulling trash out of the garbage can behind the register in the checkout line, then tries unplugging everything from one outlet and then goes completely nuts-o over the buttons on the register. All while I'm trying to do math to split payment between two cards.
I really see taking my son shopping as a learning experience. From the get-go, I wore him out and about. If he was awake (and often when he wasn't) I talked to him the entire time. I told him what things were, what we would cook them with, what time of day we would eat them, if they were sweet or salty, green or red. Now that my son is older, we still do the same. He points at bananas and smiles excitedly (the kid is crazy for bananas). He loves holding the bags of grains or beans and squeezing them. He likes to wave at passers-by and say 'hi' to other babies and kids. We sing songs and dance in the isles. We make funny noises and silly faces. I get a lot of strange looks.
There are times when I definitely need to leave Flynn with dad or grandma and go do my thing. There are definitely times I get really frustrated at not being able to finish my errands. And I'm sure there will come a day when shopping with him will be more than a hassle than I am willing to deal with, but, for the time being, at the end of the day, I'm really okay with it all. I like spending time with my kid. And a big part of having a baby (I find more and more everyday) is learning to adjust your own life around the new human.
In the simplest sense, they are a brand new mass in the same size space as existed before they came along. We can't, as fellow creatures, just ignore them or their needs. We would just end up trampling kids left and right. We need to shift the space we inhabit to make room for the new addition to the earth, on a grand scale, and to our personal space, on a much smaller scale. Once I realized this, it became a much easier coexistence with my son. Heck, I needed to reach the same realization when I moved in with Shane. Our babies are not meant to bend to our every will, they are meant to meld into our lives, find a place and exist along side us.
I like to save gas. Even when gas was cheap, I tried to conserve. One way I do this is to clump all my running into one day. If I don't have to return to the neighbor city on another day, I'm saving 14-ish miles worth of gas. But it's not just gas, it's time. It just seems more efficient to me to dedicate a day to running so that I can use other days to do things around my house or be out and about in my own town.
When I was pregnant, I really had this impression that my baby would be totally portable. People confirmed this for me all the time. "Oh, they just hang out while you do your running." To a point, this is totally true... but only to a point.
I didn't really attempt errand running for several weeks after Flynn was born. We did some light grocery shopping, but that was about it. We prepared in advance of his birth and it was cold anyway so we didn't bother venturing out much. But, by the time he was two to three months old, I was really trying to settle back into the routine I once knew. I was never so naive as to think that my life would continue on exactly as I knew it, just with the addition of a tiny person, but I really expected there to be little interruption with the way I did certain things, most especially errand running.
But it was not so for me. It was drastically different than I thought it would be. I would get so flustered and end up coming home long before my running was through. I complained casually, more conversationally, to a friend (and mother of three) on one such occasion. She says, "Look, you've got a baby now. It will be many, many years before you can get back to doing things the way you used you. You cannot expect a baby to just be okay with running errands all day. You have to adjust to this change."
I understood all of this before she said it. But, I never wanted to admit to myself or anyone else that I thought this, that I couldn't handle it all. But her saying this simple thing to me felt like a release... permission to let certain things slide and to learn to go with the flow (the flow, in this case, being the baby).
This was one of my first lessons in child-centered parenting (my very first was learning my son's needs to nurse and be worn).
Eventually, we slid into a new sort of routine. I still plan all my running for one day, but prioritize by importance rather than location. While I once ran my errands based on which stores were the closest (as in, exit the highway and head to store B because it's on the way to store A, then I can dip down the side road to store C and back towards the highway, ending with store D). Now, by priority, I exit the highway and run errands by order of importance, even if it means doubling back a time or two, and constantly gauging my son's mood. 'Will he make it through another in and out of the car seat plus an hour of grocery shopping?' Sometimes it means I have return to the neighbor city the next day or later that week, but I'm fine with that. Groceries are more important than a new dog nail clipper.
Errands are one of those things I give myself permission to fail. Not that I consider a day a failure because my son was cranky and made it too difficult for me to do everything I needed to do, but more that I can't stand putting pressure on myself to complete too many tasks in one day, that would simply lead to me actually feeling like a failure.
Part of my child-centered parenting philosophy is acknowledging that Flynn has limits too. To expect him to preform above and beyond what he can tolerate in a day will only set us both up for a very disappointing experience. I feel that in the long run, if I force him to endure my errand running, he'll eventually associate negativity with running errands and will respond negatively when errands need to be run. I figure, if I keep the list of 'to-dos' short and bring as much levity to them as I can, he can associate positivity to running errands.
Oh but it's so difficult, sometimes, to keep a positive attitude, or at the very least, to maintain composure. I really, really get that.
For example...
It's really cool when I hand bags of frozen veggies, on at a time, to Flynn and he throws them into the cart behind him. It is NOT cool when I hand him bags of frozen fruits a moment later and he throws them on the floor and while I'm stooping to pick those up, he starts unloading the frozen veggies from the cart.
It's really cool when Flynn focuses on his water bottle and ignores my Grande Peppermint Mocha in the cart cup holder for the first 45 minutes of the grocery trip. It is NOT cool when I turn my back for a moment to choose some spaghetti sauce and he takes that exact moment to try to drink said mocha then chuck it to the floor at my feet... and I'm wearing khakis.
It's really okay with me when Flynn wants to get down and walk around with the cart. I get it. He can walk now, and he wants to do it. It is really not cool when he tries pulling trash out of the garbage can behind the register in the checkout line, then tries unplugging everything from one outlet and then goes completely nuts-o over the buttons on the register. All while I'm trying to do math to split payment between two cards.
I really see taking my son shopping as a learning experience. From the get-go, I wore him out and about. If he was awake (and often when he wasn't) I talked to him the entire time. I told him what things were, what we would cook them with, what time of day we would eat them, if they were sweet or salty, green or red. Now that my son is older, we still do the same. He points at bananas and smiles excitedly (the kid is crazy for bananas). He loves holding the bags of grains or beans and squeezing them. He likes to wave at passers-by and say 'hi' to other babies and kids. We sing songs and dance in the isles. We make funny noises and silly faces. I get a lot of strange looks.
There are times when I definitely need to leave Flynn with dad or grandma and go do my thing. There are definitely times I get really frustrated at not being able to finish my errands. And I'm sure there will come a day when shopping with him will be more than a hassle than I am willing to deal with, but, for the time being, at the end of the day, I'm really okay with it all. I like spending time with my kid. And a big part of having a baby (I find more and more everyday) is learning to adjust your own life around the new human.
In the simplest sense, they are a brand new mass in the same size space as existed before they came along. We can't, as fellow creatures, just ignore them or their needs. We would just end up trampling kids left and right. We need to shift the space we inhabit to make room for the new addition to the earth, on a grand scale, and to our personal space, on a much smaller scale. Once I realized this, it became a much easier coexistence with my son. Heck, I needed to reach the same realization when I moved in with Shane. Our babies are not meant to bend to our every will, they are meant to meld into our lives, find a place and exist along side us.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Science Saturday: A cautionary tale on the side effects of the sleep deprived Mom Brain.
My son is teething... AGAIN. This means very little sleep for mom. We're talking, waking up screaming bloody murder several times a night, despite homeopathic pain relief.
Last night, a got a grand total of 3 1/2 whopping hours of sleep.
We've been trying to break our coffee habit. We're down to a couple cups of coffee a week rather than per day. Green tea is alright, but it sure isn't coffee.
My son was running around crazy from one thing to another, none of them toys, bare-bottomed because he wiggles and screams when I try to put a diaper on him and I think, "Yep, today I really need some coffee."
Now, we have a pour over pot. It takes up less space and I like the flavor of the coffee better. Not as much as a French Press, but we don't have one of those (one of those always-on-the-list-of-things-to-buy-when-we-have-a-few-extra-bucks-to-spend things). So, I filled the kettle and put it on the back burner where I always put it to heat up. I turned on the burner and turned around to ready my mug (a splash of evaporated milk and a spoonful of turbinado sugar).
Something is starting to smell kind of good... All roasty and savory. This should have been my first clue, but, I didn't take it as such and started straightening up dishes from the night before. (I really need to get in the habit of doing dishes at night, but it just never happens). Now something is smelling burn-y. I figured it was something on the burner and turned to find the loaf pan with remnants of last night's lasagna dinner smoldering on a red hot burner.
I had turned on the front burner instead of the back burner. Brilliant.
Shane is always getting after me about setting stuff on the burners on the stove. I get his point about more flammable items like plastic or paper, but I never thought twice about leaving a pot or pan on the stove top.
The pan looked slightly misshapen. My stomach did a small flip. I used a large knife to pull the pan off the heat, turned the burner off and called to the dog while I ran out of the kitchen, dog on my heels (Flynn was in the living room playing, thankfully). The dog no more than crossed the threshold and...
BOOOOSH!
I quickly gated off the kitchen and cleaned up the glass. It looked like crushed ice cubes covered in singed tomato sauce and burned cheese. Awesome.
The kitchen remains gated. Flynn hates being cut off from me so I'll wait for his nap to sweep again, vacuum and mop the kitchen. We're talking glass flew clear across the room- A good 10 feet!
Lesson learned. Glass cannot be rapidly heated then cooled.
Last night, a got a grand total of 3 1/2 whopping hours of sleep.
We've been trying to break our coffee habit. We're down to a couple cups of coffee a week rather than per day. Green tea is alright, but it sure isn't coffee.
My son was running around crazy from one thing to another, none of them toys, bare-bottomed because he wiggles and screams when I try to put a diaper on him and I think, "Yep, today I really need some coffee."
Now, we have a pour over pot. It takes up less space and I like the flavor of the coffee better. Not as much as a French Press, but we don't have one of those (one of those always-on-the-list-of-things-to-buy-when-we-have-a-few-extra-bucks-to-spend things). So, I filled the kettle and put it on the back burner where I always put it to heat up. I turned on the burner and turned around to ready my mug (a splash of evaporated milk and a spoonful of turbinado sugar).
Something is starting to smell kind of good... All roasty and savory. This should have been my first clue, but, I didn't take it as such and started straightening up dishes from the night before. (I really need to get in the habit of doing dishes at night, but it just never happens). Now something is smelling burn-y. I figured it was something on the burner and turned to find the loaf pan with remnants of last night's lasagna dinner smoldering on a red hot burner.
I had turned on the front burner instead of the back burner. Brilliant.
Shane is always getting after me about setting stuff on the burners on the stove. I get his point about more flammable items like plastic or paper, but I never thought twice about leaving a pot or pan on the stove top.
The pan looked slightly misshapen. My stomach did a small flip. I used a large knife to pull the pan off the heat, turned the burner off and called to the dog while I ran out of the kitchen, dog on my heels (Flynn was in the living room playing, thankfully). The dog no more than crossed the threshold and...
BOOOOSH!
I quickly gated off the kitchen and cleaned up the glass. It looked like crushed ice cubes covered in singed tomato sauce and burned cheese. Awesome.
The kitchen remains gated. Flynn hates being cut off from me so I'll wait for his nap to sweep again, vacuum and mop the kitchen. We're talking glass flew clear across the room- A good 10 feet!
Lesson learned. Glass cannot be rapidly heated then cooled.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
A Real Gift
I can't believe I haven't talked about this yet, but I'm finally going to broach the topic of my breastfeeding relationship with Flynn. It's really odd to me because breastfeeding is the original reason I really got involved with the "crunchy" community. I began going to La Leche League meetings and through them met some wonderful mamas with some wonderful advice.
I didn't always know that I wanted children, but I did know that if I ever did have children, I would want to breastfeed. It's something that I felt compelled to do, not just because it's 'natural', but because I truly felt it was the absolute best thing I could do for my children. I was so confident that I would have no issues, I laughed when I got formula samples in the mail and stowed them in a cupboard with a box of bottles and a bottle drying rack that I had received as gifts. I was sure I would have no need for them right off the bat.
I dreamed for months about nursing my son. Especially those first few minutes after birth where I would take him and put him to my breast and enjoy the peace after the hectic hours of labor and pain.
You can read my birth story here on this blog, but pertinent to this post is that my son was taken from me shortly after he was born. I was only allowed to hold him for a few moments before he was whisked away to the NICU. I wasn't reunited with him until a few hours later, and then was told I couldn't nurse him yet. Twenty four hours went by before I was able to put my baby to my breast. I cried when I was finally able to hold him to me in the way I had imagined for so long. I nursed him for 45 minutes. No nurse peaked her head into the curtained area. No lactation consultant made herself available. When I put Flynn back under his heat lamp, I thought I had done something wonderful. I woke up a few hours later when an incredibly sore nipple... His poor latch had given me a terrible blood blister.
It was another twelve hours before a lactation consultant came into my hospital room and asked how the pumping was going. I said I hadn't received a pump. An hour later, she was back in my room explaining how it worked. (If you're counting, this is 36 hours after Flynn was born).
The next few days were just as shoddy. A nurse would call me after Flynn had already been crying for who knows how long. An LC tried working with me briefly here and there. Then the neonatalogist said his output was good enough and we would need to go to formula.
Everything in my brain screamed "NO! Absolutely not!"
I said I would prefer we not go the formula route.
I was told he would be released much sooner because his output would go up to an acceptable level. I acquiesced.
I gave Flynn his first two ounce bottle of Similac. He took a little over a half an ounce and I found that amazing. I bragged to the nurse.
His intake stayed around a half an ounce to an ounce for his next several feedings. I told Shane we would need a membership to Sam's Club when he hit puberty. I found it amazing that a baby with a stomach the size of a marble could drink so much.
Meanwhile, if I wasn't in the nursery with Flynn, I was back in my room, eating hurriedly and pumping. I never accomplished much more than a few dropped until about the last day when I managed about 30 milliliters of breast milk.
The neonatologist then told me he still wasn't eating enough. I was totally confused.
On his third day of life, he finally starting take about an ounce and a half. Apparently this was enough.
He was released the following day. The NICU sent us home with several bottles of formula. The LC told me she would call in the next few days and said I should be pumping every two hours.
I culminated HOURS of pumping over the next six months. I took fenugreek until I could taste maple syrup, I drank lactation teas, baked lactation cookies and ate oatmeal like Goldie Locks. I took domperidone, blessed thistle and GoLacta. I drank beer. All different kinds of beer. I dragged my pump everywhere with me. I pumped while I drove. I pumped at friend's houses. I pumped while my son slept. I pumped and nursed through thrush and sore, sore, toe-curlingly painful nipples. I avoided sage and mint... in everything. I still brush with orange flavored toothpaste. I did skin to skin, wrapping Flynn close to me in a Moby wrap for much of the day and sleeping topless next to him at night.
I experimented with different supplements. I hated formula. The more I learned about it and the companies that manufacture it, the more I detested feeding it to my son. I looked up Dr. Sear's homemade formula recipe and went with that for a while. Eventually, I found Baby's Only formula. I felt more comfortable with that formula, and it was a lot easier to deal with than mixing the goat milk formula, so we went with that. Baby's only is marketed as "toddler formula" because the company feels 'breast is best' for the first 12 months. However, it does meet the nutritional requirements set by the FDA for infant formula. This formula is worlds better than other formulas on the market. They are the only one that uses brown rice syrup rather than corn syrup (an appetite stimulant). My 11 month old still takes 4 ounce bottles, unlike most formula fed babies. The DHA is egg derived, rather than by being stripped from an algal source with hexane (a toxin). There is no detectable amounts of melamine or BPA as in other commercially available formulas (including Earth's Best). Can you believe the FDA has actually set 'allowable maximum limits' for melamine and BPA? Gross.
Anyway, "failing" to have a successful breastfeeding relationship with my son has really dragged on me. It certainly didn't help the PPD. I cried often, pumping for a half hour and producing only drips. It was devastating. I felt it was a judgment on my ability to care for my son. What kind of a mother was I? Unable to produce enough milk? I felt especially guilty when my son was so constipated, I would have to hold him over a toilet, with his legs flexed up to his chest, talking softly to him, encouraging and consoling him while he tried to push out a monstrous poop (these moments eventually led to full time ECing). I should have been nursing him then he wouldn't have gone through that pain...
I went to a LLL meeting one night, at the urging of a friend, despite being too tired and despite feeling like, "What's the point? I don't think I can learn anything I haven't yet tried." But I went anyway, sucking down a HUGE Starbucks Frappuccino.
We were talking about surplus milk. A mom mentioned that she had a deep freeze full of milk that was about to expire. The leader suggested a few uses for it. The mom said, "Can I just give it to someone?"
I flung my arm into the air and said (practically shouted), "I'll take it!"
So began my experience with milk sharing. My son has been "Tribally Fed" on the milk from nine women, including myself. I've said it time and again, the only thing more amazing than completely growing and sustaining a tiny (but chubby) human on mama's milk, is doing that through the kindness and generosity of an entire community of women!
We have gotten milk from various donors almost consistently since Flynn was about four months old. I have made connections with women through Eats On Feets, Diaper Swappers, La Leche League and within my community. A friend I made shortly after we started getting milk from our first donor turned out to be a big over supplier and has been really wonderful about donating milk to us on a very regular basis. We've never had enough milk to feed Flynn exclusively on donor milk, but, I'm extremely grateful for all that we've gotten. Nothing is better than milk from his own mom, but it was certainly better, to me, that he was getting human milk as often has he has.
My son self-weaned when he was 7 1/2 month old (the same time he cut his first tooth). He slowly went down from nursing several times a day and through the night to only a few times, refusing to nurse at night, to just once or twice a day to done. I tried for weeks to get him to keep nursing, but he wouldn't have it. I cried quite a bit around then, realizing all that hard work I had put into his nursing, was done. I enjoyed nursing at that point. I was over trying to up my supply (I stopped pumping except every now and then and taking supplements after he turned six months). It had just become a thing he did at night and for comfort and sleep. (You betcha I went out and grabbed a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream a few weeks after realizing I could have mint again though!)
There are a lot of questions surrounding milk sharing. The government has recently come out as warning against milk sharing. Some people simply aren't comfortable with it. I may have been overly trusting with my donors, but, I simply ask some basic questions like, "Do you take pharmaceutical medications, if so, what?", "Do you have any communicable diseases", and "Do you smoke or drink regularly?" But other than that, I pretty much view breast milk as better than formula in most cases. Even in the cases of pharmaceutical use, it really depends on the medication.
If you're deciding whether to use another mom's milk or not, you'll need to decide what is important to you. Flynn has no real sensitivities or allergies, so I don't have to worry about that, but it's definitely an important thing to keep in mind. In my experience, most moms who are willing to donate their milk are also willing to be open about what they ingest. Some moms pump to donate, others simply donate what they have pumped. I would say most of my donors have given me their milk because it is near expiration (six months in a regular freezer, 12 months in a deep freeze) or, in one case, they couldn't use their pumped milk because their daughter had been found to have allergies to numerous things. You can pay to have the milk tested if it makes you feel better. I've never done it, I have no experience with it or what it entails, but you can get some information here through Milk Share.
Basic etiquette of receiving donations is to offer new milk storage bags in exchange for the ones you're receiving. (The cheapest I've found is Lanisoh brand sold at Walmart. I actually like this brand the best for ease of use too.) I've heard of moms selling their milk. I've never been asked to pay for milk, but consider it polite to at least cover the cost of the storage. If you get a donation through an online source and it requires shipment, you'll be expected to pay for the shipping.
My breastfeeding experience was disappointing, but filled with a whole lot of learning. Despite never establishing a full supply, I still reaped the benefits of nursing my son, above and beyond the nutritional benefits. By the way, milk from moms who produce a low supply still has the same number of antibodies as milk from moms with a good or surplus supply. So even if you can never fully breastfeed your baby, anything you can and do give him or her is still extremely beneficial. But more than that, I spent so much time nursing and wearing my son, we bonded in ways I never imagined. I don't regret the time I put into trying to increase my supply. And more than that, with the knowledge I've amassed with my first, I'm expect a successful breastfeeding relationship and milk supply with my future babies.
For more information on milk sharing, check out:
Milk Share
Eats on Feets (This link will take you to EOF of Wisconsin, but you can search on Facebook for the EOF in your state.)
For more information on breastfeeding (search around any of these sites for information on supply issues, latch issues, etc...):
La Leche League International
Kelly Mom
Mothering Magazine
Dr. Jack Newman Breastfeeding Clinic & Institute
Right here on my blog
Information on:
Goat milk nutrition
Baby's Only Formula
The FDA on melamine in baby formula
I didn't always know that I wanted children, but I did know that if I ever did have children, I would want to breastfeed. It's something that I felt compelled to do, not just because it's 'natural', but because I truly felt it was the absolute best thing I could do for my children. I was so confident that I would have no issues, I laughed when I got formula samples in the mail and stowed them in a cupboard with a box of bottles and a bottle drying rack that I had received as gifts. I was sure I would have no need for them right off the bat.
I dreamed for months about nursing my son. Especially those first few minutes after birth where I would take him and put him to my breast and enjoy the peace after the hectic hours of labor and pain.
You can read my birth story here on this blog, but pertinent to this post is that my son was taken from me shortly after he was born. I was only allowed to hold him for a few moments before he was whisked away to the NICU. I wasn't reunited with him until a few hours later, and then was told I couldn't nurse him yet. Twenty four hours went by before I was able to put my baby to my breast. I cried when I was finally able to hold him to me in the way I had imagined for so long. I nursed him for 45 minutes. No nurse peaked her head into the curtained area. No lactation consultant made herself available. When I put Flynn back under his heat lamp, I thought I had done something wonderful. I woke up a few hours later when an incredibly sore nipple... His poor latch had given me a terrible blood blister.
It was another twelve hours before a lactation consultant came into my hospital room and asked how the pumping was going. I said I hadn't received a pump. An hour later, she was back in my room explaining how it worked. (If you're counting, this is 36 hours after Flynn was born).
The next few days were just as shoddy. A nurse would call me after Flynn had already been crying for who knows how long. An LC tried working with me briefly here and there. Then the neonatalogist said his output was good enough and we would need to go to formula.
Everything in my brain screamed "NO! Absolutely not!"
I said I would prefer we not go the formula route.
I was told he would be released much sooner because his output would go up to an acceptable level. I acquiesced.
I gave Flynn his first two ounce bottle of Similac. He took a little over a half an ounce and I found that amazing. I bragged to the nurse.
His intake stayed around a half an ounce to an ounce for his next several feedings. I told Shane we would need a membership to Sam's Club when he hit puberty. I found it amazing that a baby with a stomach the size of a marble could drink so much.
Meanwhile, if I wasn't in the nursery with Flynn, I was back in my room, eating hurriedly and pumping. I never accomplished much more than a few dropped until about the last day when I managed about 30 milliliters of breast milk.
The neonatologist then told me he still wasn't eating enough. I was totally confused.
On his third day of life, he finally starting take about an ounce and a half. Apparently this was enough.
He was released the following day. The NICU sent us home with several bottles of formula. The LC told me she would call in the next few days and said I should be pumping every two hours.
I culminated HOURS of pumping over the next six months. I took fenugreek until I could taste maple syrup, I drank lactation teas, baked lactation cookies and ate oatmeal like Goldie Locks. I took domperidone, blessed thistle and GoLacta. I drank beer. All different kinds of beer. I dragged my pump everywhere with me. I pumped while I drove. I pumped at friend's houses. I pumped while my son slept. I pumped and nursed through thrush and sore, sore, toe-curlingly painful nipples. I avoided sage and mint... in everything. I still brush with orange flavored toothpaste. I did skin to skin, wrapping Flynn close to me in a Moby wrap for much of the day and sleeping topless next to him at night.
I experimented with different supplements. I hated formula. The more I learned about it and the companies that manufacture it, the more I detested feeding it to my son. I looked up Dr. Sear's homemade formula recipe and went with that for a while. Eventually, I found Baby's Only formula. I felt more comfortable with that formula, and it was a lot easier to deal with than mixing the goat milk formula, so we went with that. Baby's only is marketed as "toddler formula" because the company feels 'breast is best' for the first 12 months. However, it does meet the nutritional requirements set by the FDA for infant formula. This formula is worlds better than other formulas on the market. They are the only one that uses brown rice syrup rather than corn syrup (an appetite stimulant). My 11 month old still takes 4 ounce bottles, unlike most formula fed babies. The DHA is egg derived, rather than by being stripped from an algal source with hexane (a toxin). There is no detectable amounts of melamine or BPA as in other commercially available formulas (including Earth's Best). Can you believe the FDA has actually set 'allowable maximum limits' for melamine and BPA? Gross.
Anyway, "failing" to have a successful breastfeeding relationship with my son has really dragged on me. It certainly didn't help the PPD. I cried often, pumping for a half hour and producing only drips. It was devastating. I felt it was a judgment on my ability to care for my son. What kind of a mother was I? Unable to produce enough milk? I felt especially guilty when my son was so constipated, I would have to hold him over a toilet, with his legs flexed up to his chest, talking softly to him, encouraging and consoling him while he tried to push out a monstrous poop (these moments eventually led to full time ECing). I should have been nursing him then he wouldn't have gone through that pain...
I went to a LLL meeting one night, at the urging of a friend, despite being too tired and despite feeling like, "What's the point? I don't think I can learn anything I haven't yet tried." But I went anyway, sucking down a HUGE Starbucks Frappuccino.
We were talking about surplus milk. A mom mentioned that she had a deep freeze full of milk that was about to expire. The leader suggested a few uses for it. The mom said, "Can I just give it to someone?"
I flung my arm into the air and said (practically shouted), "I'll take it!"
So began my experience with milk sharing. My son has been "Tribally Fed" on the milk from nine women, including myself. I've said it time and again, the only thing more amazing than completely growing and sustaining a tiny (but chubby) human on mama's milk, is doing that through the kindness and generosity of an entire community of women!
We have gotten milk from various donors almost consistently since Flynn was about four months old. I have made connections with women through Eats On Feets, Diaper Swappers, La Leche League and within my community. A friend I made shortly after we started getting milk from our first donor turned out to be a big over supplier and has been really wonderful about donating milk to us on a very regular basis. We've never had enough milk to feed Flynn exclusively on donor milk, but, I'm extremely grateful for all that we've gotten. Nothing is better than milk from his own mom, but it was certainly better, to me, that he was getting human milk as often has he has.
My son self-weaned when he was 7 1/2 month old (the same time he cut his first tooth). He slowly went down from nursing several times a day and through the night to only a few times, refusing to nurse at night, to just once or twice a day to done. I tried for weeks to get him to keep nursing, but he wouldn't have it. I cried quite a bit around then, realizing all that hard work I had put into his nursing, was done. I enjoyed nursing at that point. I was over trying to up my supply (I stopped pumping except every now and then and taking supplements after he turned six months). It had just become a thing he did at night and for comfort and sleep. (You betcha I went out and grabbed a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream a few weeks after realizing I could have mint again though!)
There are a lot of questions surrounding milk sharing. The government has recently come out as warning against milk sharing. Some people simply aren't comfortable with it. I may have been overly trusting with my donors, but, I simply ask some basic questions like, "Do you take pharmaceutical medications, if so, what?", "Do you have any communicable diseases", and "Do you smoke or drink regularly?" But other than that, I pretty much view breast milk as better than formula in most cases. Even in the cases of pharmaceutical use, it really depends on the medication.
If you're deciding whether to use another mom's milk or not, you'll need to decide what is important to you. Flynn has no real sensitivities or allergies, so I don't have to worry about that, but it's definitely an important thing to keep in mind. In my experience, most moms who are willing to donate their milk are also willing to be open about what they ingest. Some moms pump to donate, others simply donate what they have pumped. I would say most of my donors have given me their milk because it is near expiration (six months in a regular freezer, 12 months in a deep freeze) or, in one case, they couldn't use their pumped milk because their daughter had been found to have allergies to numerous things. You can pay to have the milk tested if it makes you feel better. I've never done it, I have no experience with it or what it entails, but you can get some information here through Milk Share.
Basic etiquette of receiving donations is to offer new milk storage bags in exchange for the ones you're receiving. (The cheapest I've found is Lanisoh brand sold at Walmart. I actually like this brand the best for ease of use too.) I've heard of moms selling their milk. I've never been asked to pay for milk, but consider it polite to at least cover the cost of the storage. If you get a donation through an online source and it requires shipment, you'll be expected to pay for the shipping.
My breastfeeding experience was disappointing, but filled with a whole lot of learning. Despite never establishing a full supply, I still reaped the benefits of nursing my son, above and beyond the nutritional benefits. By the way, milk from moms who produce a low supply still has the same number of antibodies as milk from moms with a good or surplus supply. So even if you can never fully breastfeed your baby, anything you can and do give him or her is still extremely beneficial. But more than that, I spent so much time nursing and wearing my son, we bonded in ways I never imagined. I don't regret the time I put into trying to increase my supply. And more than that, with the knowledge I've amassed with my first, I'm expect a successful breastfeeding relationship and milk supply with my future babies.
For more information on milk sharing, check out:
Milk Share
Eats on Feets (This link will take you to EOF of Wisconsin, but you can search on Facebook for the EOF in your state.)
For more information on breastfeeding (search around any of these sites for information on supply issues, latch issues, etc...):
La Leche League International
Kelly Mom
Mothering Magazine
Dr. Jack Newman Breastfeeding Clinic & Institute
Right here on my blog
Information on:
Goat milk nutrition
Baby's Only Formula
The FDA on melamine in baby formula
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)