Nursing Your Kids

Forums and Message Boards
Over at Breastfeeding 1-2-3, Angela has provided an excellent list of breastfeeding forum and message boards - her Top 10 list. I tend to be more of a blogreader, than a message board lurker, so I appreciated seeing what’s out there. I definitely recommend checking it out!

Baby Pool
I keep mentioning this whole “I’m having a baby thing”, but it’s no lie. I am due to give birth in 2 weeks. Therefore, by 7/13 at the very latest, I should have a wee one sucking up all my free time. As such, I thought it would be fun to have a Baby Pool where you guess her weight and I will dispense some sort of prize. To give some background, I have gained 19 lbs so far. With my son, I gained 22 lbs and he weighed 7lb 7oz. So, what you are waiting for? Scurry out to the comments and make your guess!

Jackie at Kids Dish tagged me for the 7 Random Facts About Me Meme:

1. Once I start a collection of something, it drives me nuts until it is finished. Nancy Drew, I’m talking ’bout you!

2. I love high places and I usually ask for the highest floor possible when staying in a hotel. What I don’t like is an elevator. Seriously. It’s one of my recurring nightmares - different variations of being stuck in an elevator, being injured in an elevator and having it go up and down and up and down without letting me off.

3. I have a thing for sunflower seeds. I’ve been hooked on them since I was in 3rd grade. I am particular about the storage of them (freezer-only) and if they have been sitting out for even a day, I can’t eat them because they are stale by then. I have a special bowl set for the seeds/shells. My very favorite thing to do during naptime is hunker down with a book and bowl of seeds. Currently, David’s distributes the best quality, although sometimes I will still run across a bad bag of them.

4. I like washing dishes and cleaning my kitchen. I can’t relax if the kitchen is dirty and I find the warm water and sudsy bubbles are soothing. Our dishwasher was broken for over 2 months and I finally made myself call the guy to get it fixed. It didn’t bother me to wash dishes, but we may sell the house next year and the dishwasher will need to be fixed by then anyway. I still hand-wash quite a few dishes.

5. I love maps! I love just laying on my spare bedroom bed and gazing at the world map there trying to get the “lay of the land”. I love it when I travel - arriving in a new city with map in hand, trying to figure my way around.

6. I usually read 2-3 books at a time. They are always from different genres so I usually have at least a few non-fiction going and one fiction.

7. I love to knit but not because it is artistic or creative. I am not good enough to come up with complicated patterns on my own. Rather, I call my knitting Productive Relaxation.

I’ve been tagged for a meme. I LOVE doing memes and steadfastly declare it to be the Rodney Dangerfield of blog fodder. Memes are deliciously egotistically. What’s not to love about that?

Bryan at Sympathy Pain tagged me for the 5 Reasons I Love to Blog Meme:

Friends - I have made some incredible friends through the power of blogging. I’ve been blogging for nearly 3 years and over that time, I’ve shared my highs and lows with some incredible people. I’ve had several Blog Friends morph into Real Life friends.

Connection - I stay home full-time with my son. Granted, I am not actually AT HOME that often, but am in and out of the house all day. The blogosphere is a great way to stay connected with the “outside” world because it’s interactive (keeping in mind, many of my Real Life friends blog as well). Sure, I keep up with the news via feeds and news sites, but keeping up with people is just as important. My friends and I are often busy scurrying about in our lives and may not have time to hop on the phone - blogs have proved invaluable for keeping in touch. I’ve heard many SAHMs say they feel isolated - I’ve never felt that way.

Reflection - Writing your thoughts and experiences down can be dicey. Once you have written and published, your words are out there and it’s difficult to withdraw. Since I’ve been blogging, I have found myself having to face the fact that occasionally I am wrong (I know - scandalous!) However, I wholeheartedly believe this sort of reflection is good. In the short time I have been maintaining Nursing Your Kids, I have already had to really think about some of my previously held notions about such things as “weaning timelines” and “formula”. Life is not static and I certainly don’t want to be, either. Blogging provides for a great way to work some of those grey areas of life out in your head.

Inspiration - I read a ridiculous number of blogs. Between my Bloglines and Google Reader accounts I am reading easily over a 100 blogs. Blogs that make me laugh, cry, and shake my fist in my anger. But most importantly, they make me think.

You- In particular, for this Breastfeeding blog, the knowledge has flowed BOTH ways. I have learned an incredible amount from reading the news, reading publications and doing research. However, I’ve learned so much from all of you commenting - some great bits of advice and experience that I may not have considered before or read on a website. Thank you for commenting because I am learning as well. And I fully intended that to the point of this blog. I had the opportunity and the time to attend a breastfeeding support group for 13 months. However, many gals out there may not have that chance to do so - lack of resources or perhaps, they have to go back to work. I want to provide a space where everyone can come and freely offer their opinion without fear of recrimination. The more that we share our experiences, the more support we provide anyone happening upon this little neck of the woods.

Whether you are a Reader or Blogger - Why do you love blogs?

Sad
As I perused all the Breastfeeding Headlines today, they just made me sad and I couldn’t muster up the energy to post about them or link to them. Most were about a variety of laws, world-wide being passed to protect a mother’s right to nurse in public - Boston, Toronto, and the UK, for example. It’s the same story over and over, just insert a new place, city or country. Sigh. I realize now that I must have been just incredibly lucky or was blissfully in ignorance when I was breastfeeding my son those 15 months. I traveled to so many places during that time without a problem and seriously, I must have been LUCKY. I was definitely not as aware of the all the controversies back then as I am now that I am writing this blog. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I am now afraid of being more paranoid while nursing my daughter. And that? Makes me sad.

Happy
I discussed my co-sleeping post with my doctor on Friday during my OB appointment (36 weeks, folks! Yee haw!) Regarding safety, she added the good point that women with long hair should keep it tied back while sleeping and to be aware of any long strings/ties on shirts and nightgowns. She has a friend with long hair who had a frightening situation when her hair became entangled around her baby’s neck - her hair had to be cut, but everything ended up okay. We discussed co-sleeping in general and my doctor admitted that she thinks everyone should co-sleep. I guess all this talk of breastfeeding and co-sleeping are making me very excited about having a new, snuggly newborn. And that? Makes me happy.

Welcome, Carnival of Breastfeeding Readers! This month’s carnival theme is dedicated to Fathers. The following is my submission - the other carnival participants are listed below it. Please feel free to share your own experiences in the comments or if you decide to write about it yourself on your own site, let me know in the comments, so I can check it out!

Partnership
In December of 2004, my husband and I decided to start trying to have a baby. By the end of January 2005, I was peeing on home pregnancy tests in disbelief. I’d been told for 9 years by my doctors that I might have trouble conceiving (some were downright negative about it), but per usual with fertility, you really don’t know until you actually begin with The Trying. Therefore, we were overjoyed that it happened so easily, so quickly. Before our marriage, I suspected that Manoj would be a good father, but honestly - does a woman ever marry her husband thinking he would not be a good father? And I’ll admit, I felt like I had an extra Parental Ace up my sleeve because Manoj is from India. In my experience, all the Indian fathers I know are totally into that “All Up In Their Kid’s Business” stuff. For the most part, children are the center of everything when it comes to Indian families. I knew this when I married my husband and fully appreciate it now that we have a child together.

Manoj has never made me feel fat and pregnant, even when I AM fat and pregnant (um, how about right NOW?) He was all on board with the breastfeeding and never suggested giving up. We still chuckle over a very Tense Moment when I was nursing Arun on one side and he held the breast pump on the other side - I was so engorged it was a bit comical. He felt so bad for me in those early days and helplessly kept asking if there was anything he could do. He’s never bemoaned the fact that my breasts have pretty much been “out of action” for Adult Activities for nearly two years now. He was the one who pushed co-sleeping, thought Ferber was a fool, refused to use our stroller and still carries our son everywhere instead (even through a 3 hour trek at the zoo). And he thinks weaning a baby at 12 Months Sharp is silly - if a kid needs more time, why push it? Manoj didn’t even care that our kid wouldn’t take a bottle and instead, when I was hanging out with friends he would bring Arun to me for nursing so that I could still get a little time away. It turns out, my fancy business-attired, Ferragamo-wearing husband is more Granola than I had given him credit.

Often, Manoj will take our son Arun for walks to our neighborhood park that is about 3-4 blocks away. I haven’t been going much this year with them because that is pushing the limits of my 35 Weeks Pregnant Bladder, so generally I let them go on their own while I get some things done around the house. Last night, my bladder and I threw caution to the wind and we went with them. All along the walk, Manoj and Arun would stop to do a variety of activities that have become part of their routine - stopping for special trees, greeting certain dogs behind fences, pausing by a particular house that has a KU Jayhawk statue (folks, the hazing of my alma mater starts EARLY). I felt like I had been granted access into their secret, special time together and it was simply beautiful to witness it. And it was totally worth the mounting protest my bladder subjected me to on the way back during that last block and a half.

This year for Mother’s day and Father’s day, we decided to skip the flowers, ties and gifts in general. Instead, we are pooling the money we would have spent on gifts and are parlaying it into a Fancy Dinner with menu items that will have me running for the spell checker. It was actually my idea because this year, I wanted to celebrate this parental partnership we have created. It’s not just about ME as a mother and HIM as a father.

In the end, it’s about US and this little unit we’ve created together.

Be sure to check out the other cool bloggers writing about Fathers and their role in this Baby Business…….

Breastfeeding 1-2-3: A Father’s Take on Breastfeeding Perception vs. Reality
Breastfeeding Mums: My Hubby, My Best Breastfeeding Friend!
Mama Knows Breast: Dads and Breastfeeding. My Husband, My Co-Author.
Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog: Proud to be the Father of a Breastfed Baby
The Lactivist: Fathers and Breastfeeding, The Importance of Seconds.

Guestbloggers:
Crunchy Domestic Goddess: My Hubby, the Lactivist
Hepatitis-EPI: A Father’s Support
Down With the Kids: Mother’s Milk - A Dad’s Perspective