ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

at one point when i was grabbing his stuff michael started crying in one of the swings and the other kid toddled over, patted him on the arm, and then kissed him on the forehead.

Well, that made me a little teary. Not in a bad way - in an "I'm already a big ball of barely controlled emotions" way.

I think once I see her again and verify that she's well fed and clean and happy (not that I have any reason to think she won't be cared for!) I will be calmer. And we're able to swing just three days/week in daycare so I feel better about that, too.

Now, navigating the ins and outs of pumping at work is a whole new subject. Thank god we have a nicely outfitted "mother's room" here with a lock on the door, because the dress I wore is not as boob accessible as I thought so I ended up sitting around in my slip with one of those hands free pumping bras strapped on and feeling like the world's biggest doofus. Also managed to spill breast milk on my dress before going to a meeting. Yup.

skipped baby food altogether, just went from breastmilk to the gradual introduction of whatever we were eating (this was a different strategy than with our first kid) and it's worked out pretty well. although now he just wants to eat whatever's on our plate (his plate isn't good enough for him)

One of my favorite K memories will always be when we were sitting at an outside table at a fish restaurant on the tel aviv waterfront, and K started demanding "Lemon! Lemon!" and I finally just told H "Look, just give it to her. She'll realize what it tastes like and she won't want it. And the little bugger took the thing and started sucking on it and chewing it and going "Mmm!" in the most contented and delighted way.

I LOVED eating lemons when I was a kid.

I think I've read that babies'/toddlers' taste buds are still developing and strong flavors don't get quite the reaction they will get a year or two later. Our daughter once ate a whole bowl of pickled onions at a restaurant because she was enjoying our reaction and the laughter from surrounding tables...her diapers the next day were straight from hell.

I still eat lemons like that. Except I add a lot of salt.

in the northwest of Spain this summer I checked out the baby food aisle at the supermarket and the flavors were like cod, mackerel, and the like. that's a way to develop a love for seafood! my kids are a bit more ambiguous about fish (though we'll move to the south of France this summer for a year so I hope they acquire a taste for seafood, since we'll live like 1 mile from the Mediterranean)

I'll eat the damn peels with the lemon too. Not the seeds though, that's gross.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/02/27/breast_feeding_study_benefits_of_breast_over_bottle_have_been_exaggerated.html

Meh. No mention of £££ savings or way less smelly nappies with BF.

Colen’s conclusion is the same one I came to when I wrote about a British pilot program that would pay women to breast-feed: Breast-feeding is good, but it shouldn’t be such a huge societal priority. As Colen put it, “We need to take a much more careful look at what happens past that first year of life and understand that breast-feeding might be very difficult, even untenable, for certain groups of women. Rather than placing the blame at their feet, let’s be more realistic about what breast-feeding does and doesn’t do.”

How about we address the circumstances that make breast feeding difficult or untenable? Like having no paid maternity leave (and only three months unpaid) or having weak-ass (and only just now brand new) federal laws about allowing women to pump at work, insurance (or WIC) coverage for not just a breast pump (oh and close the ACA loophole that allows insurance companies to only cover a manual pump) but for breast milk storage bottles and nursing pads. None of which is to say that anybody has to breastfeed, but if someone wants to (for the $$ savings* if nothing else) there shouldn't be structural problems stopping them.

I mean, I am biologically and circumstantially very fortunate in this realm and have been able to exclusively breastfeed Ivy and don't foresee any reason to stop early (I mean, anything could happen but if things continue as they are, we're in good shape) but even with my supportive employer and their mother's room stocked with bottled water and a fridge for storing milk the whole endeavor is still a huge hassle. I can't imagine even having to do this at my old job where the place to express breastmilk they provided was an unused hearing room (that varied depending on the day) that didn't lock and had a window in the door, much less a low wage job or a job in a male-dominated profession (or even one where the supervisors were all male).

* I converted £££ to USD.

complete OTM carl

*completely, even

EVERYTHING IN THAT POST IS GOSPEL

agree with most of that expect the breastfeeding = free. It's only free is your time is worth nothing.

Hang on though, bottle feeding isn't exactly quick...

But other people can do it, not just the mom.

I didn't say it was free, just cheaper, but it's a good point about labor costs. Other people can feed a baby breast milk but the mother still has to pump, which is definitely labor.

As more and more research comes out showing that the benefits of breast-feeding are modest at best, I’m starting to come around to the French feminist theorist Elisabeth Badinter’s views, which I once thought were overly radical and sort of bananas. I’m all for women breast-feeding if that is what is right for their families, but as Badinter does, I am finding the cultural push for all women to breast-feed, no matter how difficult it is, to be more and more oppressive.

in france it's conventional wisdom that breastfeeding is an outdated relic of a more sexist age, which is ironic given how outdated and sexist they are about pretty much everything

the French probably just want breasts kept as sexual toys

CAN YOU BLAME THEM

http://aubignynewbuzz.hautetfort.com/media/00/00/3718310004.jpg

Liberté, Egalité, Seins

This study is looking at outcomes ages 4-14, which is fine, but whenever it's been discussed with us many of the arguments against bottle-feeding are about the drawbacks it has well before age 4.

More infections, higher rates of infant eczema, more gastro-intestinal problems (higher rates of vom, squits and constipation) are all things we've been told about. Very little time has been given to any "will do worse in high school" stuff.

Also, given the reactions women still report getting when they BF in public, I think it's fine for it to be moving up in "societal priority".

My parenting advice: DO WHAT YOU WANT.

Similarly, my mantra = WHATEVER WORKS.

My parenting mantra : ALWAYS KEEP THE CHILD CONFUSED

Tiger Mom eat your heart out.

Similarly, my mantra = WHATEVER WORKS.

OTM

I have always wondered how breast milk works exactly. If you eat junk food and don't take vitamins etc...is it as "healthy" as the breast milk from a woman who follows a very deliberately healthy diet? It is tailored made for baby but how?

I am still breastfeeding August and every day I wake up amazed that I still have milk. I have days of juiced veggies and much fruit eating, other days are chips, Hershey bars and toast. Vitamin taking is off and on. I hope it is doing all they claim it does. It's not easy having to stop everything to take a milk break. August does much acrobatics while feeding too leaving me feeling me as far from French as you can get.

My understanding is that the milk gets all the proper components from you, so as long as you're not malnourished or actually vitamin deficient, the milk will be fine.

It's like how in the first trimester if, say, you are wildly nauseated all the time and averse to 90% of the food in the world and can only manage to eat buttered toast and baked potatoes for days on end and call your OB frantically worried you're harming your fetus, they will reassure you that your baby is getting all it needs from you and as long as it's growing properly, all is well.

Or so I've heard.

yes, this is basically what i've come to understand as well.

The quote unquote crack baby study provides a lot of perspective on the issue. The factors that really do a number on babies and children aren't so much what their mothers ingest, but all of the social and environmental factors that come with living in poverty. If it makes someone feel better to manage their diet very carefully while pregnant or breastfeeding, that is awesome and they should do what makes them happy. But I wouldn't stress out about having days where you eat a lot of chocolate and toast.

Obv that's only one lesson to take from that study. The biggest one should be that we need to fix our fucked up country.

Don't know about other people who breastfeed, but I'm getting all the extra calories I need from Haribo right now. Might cut back if F begins to take on the appearance of a gummi bear.

I had the most insane intense unstoppable sugar cravings in my life for the first couple months of breastfeeding, especially any kind of sugar coated gummy candy like those "fruit slices" and also some Trader Joe's fruit gummy square things. It was kind of scary! The internet told me it's pretty common, though, so I just went with it. It's better now than it was but I still consider ice cream and chocolate to be staple foods.

Not gummy candy. Jelly candy. I felt it was very important to clarify.

The factors that really do a number on babies and children aren't so much what their mothers ingest, but all of the social and environmental factors that come with living in poverty.

I JUST opened this thread for the first time. My wife and I, after a miscarriage in 2005 and almost a decade of infertility stuff after that, attended the two-day seminar at the open adoption agency we're working with this past weekend. We met with birth moms one day and adoptive parents the next, telling us about their experiences.

This sort of thing was a running theme, as a huge percentage of their moms are homeless, use various drugs to varying degrees, smoke, don't eat well, and so on. The agency basically tries their best to keep them housed, fed, clothed, gives them phones to stay in touch and bus passes to make it to the doctor. The adopted kids all seem to turn out just fine, though the people at the agency were quick to point out that alcohol abuse is by far the worst (though surprisingly least common) thing that they see in terms of child development.

The part that sort of summed this up to me was the rather tightly wound, very focused and disciplined organic-everything stereotypical upper middle yuppie adoptive mom talking about meeting her birth mom for lunch the first time, who had requested massive amounts of sushi and a pack of smokes after lunch as well. Later as they were getting to the hospital she asked for grape swishers and a can of chew.

I'm just amazed that someone pregnant could even think about grape flavored cigars without barfing everywhere. Bless.

That's very exciting about the adoption agency!

Really anybody pregnant or not...

Grape flavored gum makes me want to hurl, and I'm not a fan of cigars and I need to stop thinking about this now.

Thanks. This whole thing has been super intense - we had to submit full financial information about every single dollar we have or owe to anyone and the past couple years tax returns, get fingerprinted for a full FBI background check, fill out a massive questionaire / autobiography about ourselves, our relationship, our families, and our strengths and weaknesses, get physicals and doctor approval, and have questionnaires vouching for us by four couples with kids that we've known for at least five years. Not to mention the home study and the brochure we have to put together for the birth moms to browse through.

We're now in the waiting pool and could be picked by a birth mom at any time with very little warning, hence me finally feeling ready to poke around in I Love People-Making.

My general feeling on all of these parenting movements/trends is that there are a lot of factors that go into shaping a little person, and you can't really ever pinpoint one as being make-or-break (beyond basic nutrition, sleep, love). Kids have thrived in both more and less "attachment oriented" families, in more and less disciplinarian families, etc. And they've been screwed up in all of the above as well. I think if you are focused on trying to be a good parent and do what you think is in your child's best interests, you probably will!

That whole process is bananas. Not that our path with IVF was easy, but the only gatekeeping was financial. We could be axe murdering scientologists for all the fertility clinic knew.

following a couple of people i know through the adoption process really opened my eyes and made me sort of politically evangelistic about it - the hurdles are ridiculous, and the fact that one of the "loopholes" that got closed in the tax code is the deduction for adoption costs is completely fucking maddening to me.

basically if you want a great "system is broken" talking point, economically discouraging people from adopting unwanted children in need is a pretty good flashing neon sign imo

We opted out of IVF mostly cause of the money, we weren't comfortable essentially gambling when we could go for a sure thing. Though honestly after years of random doctor visits I don't know if we could have subjected ourselves to the necessary routine for that to work even with unlimited funds.

We know a couple people who've used this agency, and the women who run it have been doing so for 30+ years and are pretty badass - they've seen some shit and have a really grounded take on the realities of what kind of women are in the position where they need to give up their child and really emphasize that to the adoptive parents.

It was actually really touching to hear a lot of the rather sheltered, upper-middle-class adoptive parents sharing their experiences and how it opened their eyes to and changed their opinions about this vast, invisible underclass that they never encountered in their daily lives and now are essentially part of their extended family. Bitching about how the nurses treated their dyed-haired / tattooed / dentally-challenged birth moms like garbage, having a new sympathy for street kids, understanding the need for a social safety net, that sort of thing.

Sorry to get all logorrhetic here but it's been a long-ass time since I've felt like I'd ever actually get to be a parent and now sometime in the next 12 months or it's probably going to happen and I'm pretty ecstatic about it.

omg I just got so excited for you I got butterflies.

being a parent is the best, even when it's horrible

haha so true

That is so awesome, Joygoat, very exciting!