To sleep, perchance to dream....HELP!

Well hello there, dear readers. In case you follow this blog and wonder why I don't post all that much, the answer is quite simple: the baby doesn't sleep and therefore neither do I and therefore I am beyond tired. All. The. Time.

So, I am asking for your help. We are completely tapped out of ideas. I will give you the back story and I would love your advice.

We are second time parents, so this should not be rocket science, but it is. Our older boy is now 3 1/2. Thomas is 13 months old. Jonathan didn't sleep more than a couple hours at a stretch until he was 15 months old, so this isn't new, but lack of sleep when you have one kid is much different than when you have two. Also, as I will detail below, we were able to deal with his waking in a different fashion.

Our philosophy is basically attachment parenting: baby-led weaning (I nursed J until he was almost two and I was five months pregnant with his brother); babywearing (see previous post); co-sleeping (see details below); and being very responsive to the babies.

With both of the babies, we co-slept full time for the first six months or so, and then brought the baby to bed with us after the first or second night-waking for the rest of the night. This was necessary with Jonathan, as we were in the middle of renovations and his crib was in our room.

We were somewhat desperate as he rounded his first birthday and was still waking up four and five times a night, but we realized that any of the sleep "solutions" were very hard with co-sleeping in the picture. So we were waiting until the renovations were finished and the crib went into his own room. And we functioned rather well, all things considered. Though I wanted more sleep, I was able to sleep between his wakings. He would nurse for a few minutes and then we would both fall asleep. It worked ok. It WAS annoying that the intervals between his wakings got shorter and shorter as the night progressed. Four hours, then three, then two, then one, etc. Which meant that he was the most wakeful after 3:00 a.m., which is JUST when I need to sleep the hardest. Nevertheless, we managed. And, miracle of miracles, the NIGHT that we moved into our addition and moved his crib to his room, he slept for ten hours straight. TEN. And the next night he slept eleven. And that was that. He is now a GREAT sleeper and rarely wakes in the middle of the night.

So. We never really had to do any sleep solutions for him, though we were prepared for the No Cry Sleep Solution as well as Dr. Jay Gordon's "program." Now, neither of those has worked for Thomas. And then my wonderful chiropractor, herself a mom of two small boys, sent me an ebook which had a gradual approach, which let the child cry, but we would be in the room with him, first beside his crib, and then a few feet away, etc. etc. etc. Supposed to do a few days on each segment. We have never managed to get away from the crib.

So here we are. I still nurse him, but he does not fall asleep, most of the time. And I am about 90% successful at putting him down when he is still awake, though very quiet. And about three quarters of the time, we are able to get him to go to sleep "on his own" at the beginning of the night. Starting with a book or two and ending with sleep, about 45 minutes. Which isn't bad. Same deal with the 3 year old, only his routine includes a bath and songs, etc. And it is ok if both of us are home, we split the tasks. The OTHER twenty five percent of the time, it takes an hour and a half for him to go to sleep. Much of the time is spent with him in the crib and one of us sitting next to the crib. Most of that time he is not crying, but if we try to leave, he starts screaming. Bah.

But as annoying as THAT is, the real problem comes after that. Some nights he will sleep for about six hours, until 1 or 2 a.m. Then he starts a waking cycle that is enough to make the strongest man weep. He wakes up with a roar and a scream, and continues yelling until we get in there. If it is me, and he nurses, he gets quiet instantly. If my husband goes in, he yells for another three minutes and then settles. About half the time we can get him quiet and back to bed in fairly short order: twenty minutes or so. (And occassionally, about once a week, he actually POINTS to the crib, or tries to throw himself back in it, and he goes right back down, two minutes, start to finish. And each time that happens, we have a glimmer of hope. Sigh.) But the other half of the time, it takes more than an hour for him to go back to sleep. Again, much of that time is spent with him in the crib. It is MUCH easier to rock him back to a deep sleep and put him down, but we are desperately trying to get him more used to falling asleep without being held. On good nights, he wakes only two or three times after he has gone (finally) to bed, usually at about 1 ish and 4 ish, and then 5:30 or so.

On bad nights? Every two hours. And it is making us crazy. Last night is a good example, and please bear with me with the details. Hubs got home at 6:45 and I immediately took the baby in to put him to bed. He was already dressed for bed. At 8:15, hubs came in to relieve me and the baby finally was asleep at 8:30. Did you get that? Almost TWO HOURS. He woke up with a yell at 11:30. I nursed him and put him in his crib and patted him. I was almost out the door at midnight when he jerked up and stood up and started yelling. I finally managed to leave at 1:00 a.m. Did you get that? An hour and a half. And then he woke up at 4:20. Hubs got up with him and got him back down and he crawled back in bed at 5:00. Baby woke up twenty minutes later. M got up again with him since he hadn't gotten to sleep. Baby slept on him for a while and then he was able to put him back in the crib. M lay down on the guest room bed (Thomas' crib is in the guest room) for another 20 minutes. Finally T was wide awake at 6:15. I heard him roar awake without the monitor and got up to give M a break. Marcus wasn't going to be able to sleep since he needs to be up and at 'em at 7 to get to work on time, but at least he could get some space. So, to sum it up, we had a crappy night, and Marcus essentially was awake from 4:20 on.

As I said up at the front of this super long post, I was able to deal with Jonathan because I just pulled him into bed with us. I have tried that with Thomas, but the problem is that he just does NOT unlatch when he nurses. He will nurse the entire time he is in bed with me. Constant. I can fall asleep and then wake up two hours later because I am in a cramped position and he is STILL actively sucking. And that created a real painful situation for me. I actually didn't think that was the problem, and got myself looked at. The doctor suggested not letting him nurse like that and magically, the pain went away. So....no co-sleeping now. We have him in a crib in his own room and we get up and go in there and rock with him or sit by the crib.

Some people say, "Let the baby fuss for a bit before you go in." Which we do, when he is just whining and fussing. But most of the time he is YELLING, at the TOP OF HIS LUNGS. (Have I mentioned that he is a loud kid?) His room is right next to his brother's room, and until we have a plan, we are loathe to just let him cry. And we realize that unless we are totally committed to a plan, if we negatively reinforce the crying by sometimes going in and sometimes not, it will get worse.

His sleep hasn't always been this bad. Couple times a night was routine for the first nine months. Once he started solids more, the sleep got really bad and he would wake up five and six times a night. That is when we started getting super cranky. But we weren't happy about letting him CIO because he really seemed like he was in pain. Finally we thought it might be reflux and the doc put him on Zantac. Worked well after about a week, and the sleep improved for about two weeks. (only waking twice a night) Then got bad again and we upped the Zantac. Better for two weeks and then not so much. So the doc put him on Prevacid. Got better for about two weeks, and now not so much.

I would say that now, about 20% of the time he seems super uncomfortable and REALLY gassy. And 20% of the time he seems really mad. And the other 60%, he is just awake. Sometimes for a looooong time. But I am loathe to let him just wake up and cry and cry and cry if there is a 1 in 5 chance that he is really uncomfortable. That just seems mean to me.

But we are both shattered and short-tempered. The 3yo gets the brunt of my short temper because he is a willful 3 and I don't have much patience for that at the best of times. My diet has suffered tremendously (who wants to eat veggies and fruit when you have had four hours of broken sleep....only cake gets the serotonin levels up to functioning capacity.) Marcus and I have ZERO time together as we HAVE to fall into bed the very second that Thomas has gone to sleep if we are to get any rest.

I am pretty strict about naps for T....morning and afternoon. I don't do things that make him miss them, if I can help it, since he sleeps so little. He rarely naps for more than 45 minutes, and often only 30. I KNOW that naps are important and sleep begets sleep and all that. He just doesn't sleep ever. ONE night this week, for the first time in two months, he woke at 1, got right back down, and then woke at 6:20 for the day. Heaven. I tried to replicate that entire day, as well as the naps and bedtime routine. FAIL. Very disheartening.

So people, I need help. If you have done any kind of sleep solution, could you give me specifics about how it worked for you? I can read the books, but it is disheartening when they say, "for a few nights" and it hasn't changed in two weeks. So I need real-world advice. Did ANYTHING work for you? What do you do about the yelling waking up the pre-schooler in the next room? How many days or weeks did it take to work? HELP!

Winter Babywearing

What do you do when there is 2 1/2 feet of snow on the ground and you have been cooped up inside for days with a 1 year old and a 3 1/2 year old. Well, you bundle them up in their multi-layered snow gear, of course, and head outside.

And the big guy will have fun climbing snow mountains.



But what about the little one, who is in the "drunken sailor" stage of walking? He is fine barefoot or with his little soft leather shoes, but boots? No way. No walk.

Well, you can plunk him in a snow pile and smoosh some against his back so he is braced.



But then, especially if it is still snowing, he looks like this:



And so you take him in, after thirty five seconds. (And after dropping your camera in the snow, but that is the subject of a different post.) So, the snow is still deep. Still needs shoveling. (The hubs, of course, is doing the lion's share of the shoveling, but one has to help out, doesn't one?) And most of all, everyone needs fresh air.

So, being a babywearing kind of a gal, you want to put him in the Ergo. But that doesn't work well over a coat. And it would be really uncomfortable with HIM in a coat, too. But it is below freezing out there. What to do? What to do? Well, if we had weather like this all the time, I would buy a babywearing coat or poncho. But I live in the allegedly temperate mid-Atlantic. We get snowfalls like this once every five years.

But mama can improvise.




And the baby likes it, too!




Now, we needed a third person (Hi, honey!) to help tuck the blanket around him, but I just tucked the top corners under the ergo shoulder straps and the bottom ones into the waist strap.

Done.

*Updated 10/4/2010 - There is a recent kerfluffle over the safety of babywearing. Stephanie Precourt is raising awareness of the Baby Carrier Industry Alliance (BCIA) which encourages safe babywearing. Go to her post to see more babywearing bloggers, and go see the BCIA Facebook page for more information.

Nearly the best quote ever

A prophetess (for lack of a better quick description), giving a message to a man about to die from his God:

“Your Father calls you to His Court. You need not pack; you go garbed in glory as you stand. He waits eagerly by His palace doors to welcome you, and has prepared a place at His high table by His side, in the company of the great-souled, honored, and best-beloved. In this I speak true."

From Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold

I'm 1 (not 2 not 3 not 4)

Thomas, our little baby, isn't so little, nor so much of a baby any more. He turned one year old on Sunday a week ago. We had a little family party. Big brother Jonathan oversaw the cake sprinkles, Aunt Kristen provided presents for both boys (what a good auntie!), God provided just enough snow that both kids could go sledding at Gramma and Grampa's.

It is hard to imagine that it has been a year since he was born. It has been a sleepless year, which seems to be getting worse, not better, but that is a whole 'nother post.

Thomas, though, seems little worse for the wear despite not sleeping. He started taking a few tentative steps the week before his first birthday. He now is taking more non-tentative steps, though he isn't proficient at all. But he is VERY tenacious. And excited. He THROWS himself in the direction he wants to walk, little feet trying very hard to keep up with his torso. His favorite activity is pushing a barstool around our main floor. The hardwood floors make it easy, and he very rapidly moves from room to room. Of course, he also flings toys around with abandon, and doesn't know enough to look at his feet when walking, thus tripping and falling to his knees with regularity.

He is a very happy child (more so when he is on his reflux medicine...we are giving it a break too see if his behavior is different, to report to the doctor tomorrow) and loves to laugh. He has a deep belly laugh, which sounds like it comes from a much older child. His favorite source of amusement (his favorite source of everything, come to think of it) is his big brother. Jonathan doesn't find him quite as amusing, but generally they are big fans of one another. Frequently they seem to need to occupy the same exact square foot of space at the same exact time. Wrestling and yelling ensues, some of it between the boys, much of it from Marcus and me.

Thomas is a bit more of a risk taker than Jonathan was, so I am learning the trick of turning chairs into the tables, so he won't climb on them. I went into the front room yesterday to find him attempting to do chin-ups on the shelves under the front window. Strong kid.

He is just as much of a cuddler as his big brother, which is nice, though he has a distressing tendency to fling himself backwards in your arms. He likes the feeling and he likes hanging upside down, but it is quite disconcerting if one isn't prepared. The baby is slipping away into the toddler. I feel a pang of regret that I wasn't better able to absorb his babyhood into my memory. We did a fair job off taking pictures, but I am not sure how much I was able to enjoy it, in my fog of sleeplessness. I am determined to enjoy his toddlerhood, though I greatly fear that much of it will be spent saying, "THOMAS! Nooooooo!"

How I cook: Rice Pudding edition **Updated**

So. This is a tiny peek inside my brain.

We had Chinese food last night and lots of leftover rice. Wanted to make rice pudding. Wanted a baked rice pudding. So I looked online.

Found this one. Looked good. And so I set out, preheating the oven.

1 C. cooked rice. Hmmm. I have a small takeout container. That seems to be about two cups. Probably fine. Smoosh up into casserole. SHOOT, forgot to grease pan. Oh well.

2 1/2 C milk. Well, I doubled the rice. But FIVE cups of milk? That seems like a lot. Let's start with 3 and see what we think.

3 large eggs. Obviously needs to be increased, but maybe not double since am not doubling milk. Will whisk up five.

3/4 C. sugar. Am thinking of avoiding white sugar when possible. Will use honey granules instead.* And since honey is sweeter than sugar, will only use 1C.

3/4 C. raisins. Hate raisins in stuff. Will use dried cranberries. And 1 C of them.

Spices. Will use pumpkin pie spice instead. Because I have a whole jar even though I don't make pumpkin pie nearly often enough for my husband.

Add honey granules to the milk, add whisked eggs into milk. Add cranberries to rice in bowl. Sprinkle spice onto of rice and mix with hands. GOOPY! Begin to pour milk/egg mixture into rice. Realize forgot vanilla AND salt. Add to milk, without measuring, in some quantity more than called for in recipe. Add rest to rice.

Find 9 x 13 pan. Realize that it (stoneware) is UNDERNEATH all other stoneware pans even though it is the only one ever used. Sigh. Do weight lifting for the day.

Follow directions for water bath and pop into oven.

Sigh satisfactorily for having successfully followed a recipe.

*If I have piqued your interest re: honey granules, don't buy from that link, it is way expensive. Buy from these people. It is where I buy grain stuff for my mill. The website is non-user friendly, but I trust the quality.

UPDATE: It turned out really well, though I cooked it about an hour and 45 minutes. And in the middle had to spin the oven up to 350 to quick cook some chicken. But when stuff is in a water bath on a low oven, it is hard to really mess it up. Next time I might add some grated orange peel. Because I didn't double the milk, it is a bit more solid than the picture of hers, which is fine with me. I served mine with a drizzle (ahem) of heavy cream.

More on the diapers

So, I have been using the GroBaby system for five months. Love it. Never thought I would like cloth diapers, since I hate laundry. And then I found out that GroBaby had launched a new product: biodegradable disposable "soakers", the inserts that snap into the outer shells. Well, since they are disposable, they don't have snaps, they have some adhesive where the snaps would be. GroBaby sent me a box of the disposable BioSoakers to try.

For FCC purposes, they sent me the box for free, and requested that I give them a try and let people know, via this blog, how I liked them.

I LOVE them.

They are just perfect for when I know that I will be out and about and don't want to deal with the cloth inserts (which isn't a huge deal since I carry little bags to put the wet soakers in to bring them home). In spite of the fact that the BioSoakers contain less than 10% of those super absorbent pellets that regular disposable contain, they were surprisingly absorbent. Yesterday afternoon my husband forgot to change the baby before a nap, and so the kid was in a GroBaby shell with a BioSoaker from 1:00 until about 5:30. No leaks! And I don't know what is on the outside of the BioSoaker, GroBaby says it isn't made of plastic, but it is nearly waterproof!

The one downside is that there sometimes is a bit of adhesive left on the shell from when you pull off the BioSoaker. I have noticed that if you let the whole diaper sit for a second, and cool off from the baby's body temp, the adhesive is easier to remove.

That isn't too much of a downside. The BioSoakers retail for $20 for a box of 50, and they are compatible with the GroBaby system, so they will work for all size babies. No more paying $20 for three diapers when your kid has gotten really big.

So, BIG thumbs up to GroBaby, for really great cloth diapers (and really great customer service!) and for giving cloth diaperers an alternative for when cloth isn't such a great option.

Cloth Diapering, most of the time.

Well folks, here I am again. Boy, it has been a while, hasn't it? I have had several posts on issues of vital and timely interest in the works. But by the time that I get to them, they are neither timely nor relevant. Bah.

Babies. They take up a lot of time. Especially when they are sick and/or have been growth spurting.

Anyhow, one of the aspects of having Thomas as a baby that I have really enjoyed is cloth diapering. In several of my other posts, I have mentioned that I was going to use the Gro Baby system. I got a couple of the diapers and inserts, and then decided to just take the plunge and buy the whole system. Even though I hate doing laundry, and cloth diapers definitely increase the frequency of laundry, I like using them.

There are several reasons that we started cloth diapering Thomas, even though we didn't for Jonathan. The primary one was cost. When I ordered the Gro Baby system, both kids were in diapers, though Jonathan basically potty trained about a week later. But I had ordered disposables for both and spent nearly $120 at one time. So, I realized that the cloth would definitely be cheaper.

The second reason was that Thomas had a bit of a rash that was unresponsive to treatment. And it occurred to me that maybe he was having a reaction to the disposables. One more reason to try cloth.

And the third reason was that I wanted to say that I had tried it. You know, just to see if I could.

So, we have been cloth diapering since the middle/end of July and have been very happy.

I chose Gro Baby because they are a "one size" diaper, with snaps to increase or decrease the rise of the diaper as your baby grows, or to accommodate a booster pad. I also liked the "all in two" aspect of the Gro Baby system. And all in two system has an outer part, in this case the Gro Baby shell, and an inner part, the soaker pad. The Gro Baby system is unique in that the entire outer portion is mesh/PUL so that it is waterproof (mostly...it isn't plastic, so that it is a bit permeable) and dries VERY quickly. The entire soaker snaps out and can be tossed in the laundry. You don't have to wash the shell every time. I go through about eight soakers and three shells a day. You just rotate the shells and they dry out between changes. I thought this would be smelly, but it really isn't.

There ARE more leaks at night, or, more accurately, in the early morning hours, depending on how much he has nursed. The leaks are mitigated somewhat if I close the diaper differently. Still experimenting with this.

They diapers wash beautifully. I have had no problems with smells at all. There are a few stains, but those do come out better if you can put the wet diapers in the sun. The rash that he seemed to have is mostly cleared up, and he seems to react well to the cloth.

And they are pretty darn cute.




However, when we went away on vacation at the beginning of September, we just took disposables. Too much to deal with when away for a week. And disposable work well. But Thomas' rash came back. Phooey. Took a week for it to clear up when we got back to the cloth at home.

But now, NOW, Gro Baby has come up with new "disposable" inserts, called Bio Soakers. They are similar to the cloth soakers, though they have sticky tabs instead of snaps to insert the Bio Soakers into the shells. I would LOVE to try these.

Conveniently, Gro Baby is having a blog contest and will give away, FOR FREE, a set of the Bio Soakers to try for free. This is my attempt to win one of those packages. Hey Gro Baby, if you are listening, please send me a package to try!

Potty training

Y'all can read this if you want to, but it is more for the family record than anything else.

So, we decided to try to potty train Jonathan earlier in the summer. Just for reference, he will be three at the end of August. He had shown very little interest in the little potty we had in the bathroom. Veeeeery occasionally he would pee in there, if someone put him on it at the right time. But he NEVER suggested it. Oddly though, he was dry in the morning, most of the time. Of course, by the time breakfast rolled around and then getting dressed, he had dumped the stored night pee into his diaper.

So I decided that there would be boot camp. And by that I mean that we had a week with NOTHING on the calendar for any of us. (Except hubs, he did have to go to work.) So, we bought some cotton training pants, some M&Ms, and I geared myself up for the week. We started on Sunday, the last week in June, so that dad could participate. Basically every 45 minutes we went in and he sat on the potty. I even broke out the DVD player, especially for the times that I wanted him to sit there for a while for pooping purposes.

Jonathan is a very compliant child, and only balked once or twice the whole week about going in and sitting on the potty. But he only peed about 20% of the time. And those were accidentally b/c of the amount of time he spent on the potty. He wet his pants at LEAST once a day, and seemed to have no idea that he was peeing. It was frustrating. It was a short week because of the July 4th holiday. By Friday, I was DONE. I ordered another two cases of diapers from Amazon (he wears a size SEVEN). We said, "Never mind, we'll try again sometime, GOOD JOB, son!"

We actually weren't upset. Marcus didn't have high hopes, anyway. I really was fine with it, though I DID have high hopes. So, we went to my folks for the weekend. Jonathan did spend some time naked in the kiddie pool in the yard (they live waaaaay in the country.) He did his share of open-air peeing, but was in diapers the whole time.

We came back early on Sunday morning of that weekend, to avoid the traffic. Got some stuff done around the house. Marcus grilled meat in the afternoon for the week. Jonathan loves hanging out with his dad when he is on the deck. Suddenly Jonathan came in the house and said, "Oh, I have to pee, can you help me?"

That was it. From that time since, in one solid MONTH, he has had only ONE accident. And that was my fault. We have used exactly six diapers of the two cases that arrived the morning after he asked for help peeing. We still do put a diaper on at night and for naps, because I am not willing to deal. But we use the same one practically, because he is DRY. We don't even use the cotton trainers anymore, just little boy underwear. Miraculous.

Pooping has been more of a struggle, and I think it is taking him longer to get comfortable doing that. But we have navigated even the public toilets ok with peeing.

So.

I have no idea what "worked" for us. Don't have any answers. It just is what it is.

Seven Quick Takes for the end of July

I keep thinking I am going to write a real post, but it hasn't happened. So, I am very glad, once again, that Jennifer at Conversion Diary started the "Seven Quick Takes" idea for Fridays.

1) This week was one for contractors. I called the tree guy (dead branch overhanging the house, about 40 feet up); the plumber (had to find a new one, hated the old one, to fix our upstairs tub which was totally clogged); the HVAC guy to come check our units (gotta keep them in tip-top condition given the usual need for a/c around here.); 4) the general contractor because two years later WE STILL GET WATER IN OUR BASEMENT WHEN IT RAINS!

Of course, the problem is that you call them, leave a message and check it off your mental list. If they don't call back, you forget about it. Which is why the tub was clogged for six months. (We do have another tub, so my children aren't filthy dirty.)

2) So, the plumber came this morning. Fixed the tub. The house was built more than 50 years ago, so the pipes are really grody. They won't be permanently fixed until we rip out that bathroom and re-do it. Hmmmm. Don't think I can take THAT on right now.

3) Potty training has been accomplished (more or less) for our nearly three year old. Still have him in diapers/pullups when we go places, because, well, just because. He is VERY proud of peeing in the potty, and we have to do a little dance every time he does. It goes something like this: "Woo hoo, you pee-eed in the po-tty (etc.) boogawooga wooooh!" The baby thinks it is funny if I am holding him when I am required to "dance".

4) Grammas and Grampas are great for giving breaks to tired mommies and daddies (when they can do it) but somehow the feeling of a break doesn't last for more than six hours. Why is that? Normally a weekend gets you through the next week. Ah well, this is just a season, isn't it?

5) Today was the first of a series of pre-school birthday parties. All the little almost-3s have their birthdays between the end of July and the beginning of September. There is a whole host of them. We are giving books. I have been assured by the parents that books are ok. The current favorite is this lesser-known McCloskey book. "Wentil, by Wobert McCwoskey."

6) Woo Hoo!!! Just got my GroBaby diapers in the mail. So excited. Must go do load of laundry......

7) Suddenly my almost three year old understands the concept of "mommy is going in the other room to nurse the baby and you need to be quiet". He came in the baby's room and whispered to me that he had to "go pee" and left. Then I heard the bathroom door and the bedroom door open and he came back in and whispered, "can you help me?" Poor tyke couldn't get the diaper open. So, I unhooked it for him, handed it to him. He said, "Thanks mommy" and took his diaper and little naked self and softly shut the bedroom door. The bathroom door was slammed shut, but you can't have everything.

Seven Quick Takes

I have had ideas for posts this week, but they haven't materialized much past a few sentences in draft. So, I am very glad, once again, that Jennifer at Conversion Diary started the "Seven Quick Takes" idea for Fridays.

1) This week we hit a couple milestones.

My older son, who will be three in a little more than a month, started asking to go to the potty. He has had a dry diaper since Sunday! And, of course, last Friday I ordered TWO cases of 92 diapers each for him from Amazon. Because he wears a SEVEN (He is a skinny tall kid and he needs the length). So, I have $90 of disposable diapers sitting in my front hall that are still unopened. We will see if I just jinxed everything by typing this.

The second milestone is that the six month old baby slept for SEVEN hours straight last night. After I awoke, in pain from engorgement, and pumped off a few ounces, I went in and checked on him. Remarkably, he was still breathing and deeply sleeping. Since I walked over to the crib, he stirred around and kindof woke up. So, I finished nursing him and he went down again for another hour before he needed to be brought to our bed.

2) I still worry about supply issues. I am still taking some supplements, probably not as regularly as I should. Nevertheless, as we all know, demand really does regulate supply. And the nighttime demand is really important. So, if this regular sleeping continues, I am going to have to decide how important it is to me to keep my supply up by pumping at night. Of course, I have just been EXHAUSTED by the nighttime parenting, so the supply issue is weighted against a happier, more energetic mama if I can continue to get five or six consecutive hours of sleep.

3) The baby has started solids. Sortof. I started feeding him a soft-boiled egg yolk about four weeks ago, but after two or three times, he would projectile vomit a few hours after the egg. So. No more egg. He likes yogurt, slurps that down. Though I am not sure that yogurt counts as a solid. I have tried one or two fruity baby foods. He will eat them, up to a point, but looks cranky the whole time. And FORGET cereal. He looks like I am torturing him.

On the other hand, I have been supplementing him with formula. Only about 4 oz every other day or so, so it isn't really adding to his weight, I guess. I am making it. This is a very good recipe and has none of the bad junk that manufactured formula has in it. If he is the slightest bit hungry, he sucks it back. And it hasn't really changed the content of his poo yet. Which leads me to:

3) The unchanged baby poo, and the potential for being done with diapers for Number One Son has caused me to think of cloth diapering, again, for Thomas, who just turned six months old. I talked it over with my husband, who is game to try. So I am ordering some GroBaby diapers. And "paper" liners. Cause I am a wimp. And this company had really cute Baby Legs severely on sale, so I got a couple of those. We will see if how they do.....

4) I need some more Birkenstocks. Mine sandals have finally bit the dust. I bought them in 1989, though, so I figure that is just allright. Bummed though, because the style that I like was discontinued, oh, a dozen years ago. Phooey. But since I wear Birks 90% of the time now that I am a SAHM and don't wear suits, even in winter (I have a pair of cloggy Birks that I wear with wool socks unless there is more than two inches of snow), I think that I need a new pair. Any suggestions of style?

5) We are thinking of home educating our children. For a wide variety of reasons, including probably all of the standard ones. So. Hmmm. I am reading and researching EVERYTHING. So far I have found an animated series of Bible stories that I like. Heh.

6) I need to lose weight. I also have no will power or idea of portion control. And my idea of eating veggies usually includes butter and bacon. And I hate to exercise. And I have been sitting on my butt for months now nursing the baby (see point above re: supply). So, I have bit the bullet and joined Jenny Craig for a bit, to get myself under control. AND we are eating veggies from our CSA. Veggies without butter and bacon, thankyouverymuch. Have lost eight pounds so far. Lots more to go, but hey, it is a start, eh?

7) Speaking of our CSA, we have received a bunch of stone fruit this week. And therefore I borrowed my mom's food mill to make baby apricot puree. YEAH!

Huh. Reading this post, what with the cloth-diapering, cosleeping, kid-led potty learning, breastfeeding, home-made formula and baby food-making, Birkenstock wearing, potential home-schooler, it makes me seem like a crunchy lib, not the traditional conservative I am. Boy, I LOVE bursting stereotypes!

EDITED to add: I totally forgot to add all of my babywearing nonsense to the list above. I am developing QUITE the little stash of carriers: two ring slings, one pocket sling, two Mobys, two woven wraps, one Ergo, and one BabyHawk meitai.

Things....

...no one told you when you were about to become a parent.

1) "Sleeping in" means 7 a.m.

2) Never going to the bathroom with the door shut. (I get tripped up with that one when I am at other peoples' houses....)

3) When feeding the children becomes a priority, your own food needs do not. (Lunch the other day for me was the crusts from the kids' grilled cheese sandwiches. Seriously.)

4) If the baby doesn't want me to sit down, I don't sit down. Sigh.

5) A good nights' sleep is a TOTAL of six hours. Double sigh.

6) The amount of laundry in the household that contains a new baby is DOUBLE the amount of laundry before the ten-pound child hit the scene....EVEN if you only change his clothes every other day.

7) You can love your child more than you can possibly imagine and yet want to pinch his little head off.

8) Little boys (and maybe little girls, too, but little boys is all I know) have HARD bodies: toes, fingers, knees, elbows, shoulders, heads, etc. And they will use every single one of those hard bits to pummel you on a regular basis.

9) Kids never walk anywhere. They trot.

10) Just when you think you cannot possibly get madder at them than you are, you do, but in the next second they do something so precious that your heart just melts and you nearly dissolve into a puddle of tears (or is that just me?)

Seven Quick Takes

This is about the only way I blog anymore. Which is why Jennifer came up with this idea, I think.

1) I own seven baby carriers. One Ergo (see side panel), two Moby's (one is a MobyD and I think it is going to go to my neighbor who is having a January baby), one ring sling, one pouch, two woven wraps (one is a lovely violet Didy and one is a red/orange Gypsy Mama gauze sling). I think I am going to trade in my Gypsy Mama and try to get a mei tai.

2) I love Twitter. I love touching base with bloggy friends I have made. I know Twitter gets a bad rap, but I think it is as much of a "water cooler" for the internet than anything else. Plus, I can hook into people who follow the news more closely than I, thus freeing me up from actually having to glean my own information.

3) I am mistreating my windows a la the Nester. Which makes me happier than I should admit. Maybe pictures are in the future.

4) The baby has some weird splotches on his lower amdomen. And he is really fussy, so we are off to the doctor this afternoon.

5) I bought a camera for my birthday. Because I am determined to take more pictures. Also, we had cake!

6) Am contemplating doing a post on choices. Working v. staying at home. Career v. family, etc. I left a reasonably fulfilling law career to become a SAHM, so I have made some choices.

7) Went to the Homeschooling Convention here in Virginia last week. Wow. Tons of stuff to take in. Since our OLDEST is only 2 1/2, we are just thinking about everything right now. But I did buy one of these DVDs. Looked very well done and interesting. We shall see.

I am not selling out. Really.

So, last week I went to the yearly convention of the Home Educators Association of Virginia. Jonathan stayed with my parents and Thomas came with me. It was a fascinating time, and will (might) be the subject of a different post.

The subject of THIS post is the banner add to the left, and why it is there. While I was at the HEAV convention, I got many comments on my Ergo. And I demonstrated how to use it three separate times. If I had some, I could have sold them out of my van.

So, serendipitously, I received an email from Ergo over the weekend asking if I wanted to be part of their referral team. If you want an Ergo baby carrier and click through the link on my page, I get a little referral fee for each Ergo sold. I don't get a whole lot of traffic here, but I am so SOLD on Ergo baby carriers, that I am willing to put a banner on my blog. So. There you have it. Maybe I will make a little money, but definitely I will be doing my part to share the Ergo love.

I am woman, hear me roar....or something.

Veronica has a stunningly funny post up. It isn't comically funny, it is funny because she takes on a feminist who takes herself too seriously, and yet somehow doesn't think that mothers who talk about motherly things should be taken seriously. Unless those mothers talk about Proust. And I commented on that post, but then realized that I had a lot to rant about on the subject. So, some of it is there, and some of it is here.

And then I realized that even more humorous was the fact that I have been composing a post in my head over the past week that is TOTALLY about my children, mostly how I wear them. Maybe I will do a 7 Quick Takes just about that. Because I have nothing else to talk about. So I must be uninteresting. And a traitor to feminism.

Beck had an interesting comment to Veronica's post. In part, she mockingly referenced the article, and said, "Being interesting means being ... full of academic interests and Man Style Achievements." And that, I think, is true for the author, much as she would protest. She rudely describes a dinner party in which she is "stuck" with the moms and at the other end of the table the men are engaged in a scintillating conversation: "This could in fact be a 19th-century novel where the men have retired to a different room to drink brandy and talk about news and politics." I think she has revealed herself. She wants to be with the men. Because THEY are having the interesting conversation. About things that THEY are involved in. Though today a "male" conversation seems to frequently center on sporting events rather than news and politics, but whatever.

The assumption that the "news and politics" is more important or objectively interesting and therefore those -- mothers -- who do not participate in those conversations are not, objectively, interesting, is irritating. Frankly, we all gravitate toward those whom we have something in common. If a woman is single, has no significant other, and is in a high powered career, she will have more in common with those in her same situation.

I worked on a presidential campaign for a while, years ago. In the middle of the seven day workweek and 12 hours days, I found a couple hours to go to dinner with some non-campaign friends. It was the strangest experience. They were talking about movies, and music, and boyfriends. I felt like I was underwater, hearing their voices in a muffled, distant way. I could not have POSSIBLY cared less about what they were saying. But I didn't assume that they were ignorant nobodies. I knew that I was a bit tunnel-visioned at the moment, and that it was better for me to just hang out with others who were as focused as I was. That time was going to pass, and I would shift into a different phase of life.

The same thing, I think, was true of those Victorian drawing room discussions. Women were as uninterested in the brandy and cigars as the news and politics. I don't know that they felt "banished" to the embroidery circle. They had important things in their lives to talk about with other women. And frankly, "feminists" who criticize mothers for talking about their children should perhaps be better served criticizing fathers who do not.

I talk about potty training, and breastfeeding, and babywearing, and discipline, and sleeplessness, etc, with my "mommy friends" because I want to tap into their knowledge base, and to feel not alone, and to be able to vent a bit. I don't tend to go where children aren't welcome because they ARE a part of me. They ARE my life right now. To pretend otherwise is a fantasy. My cousin got married and the invitation said, "adult only reception". And it was out of town. And my child (we only had one at the time) was still nursing. So we didn't go. No problem. It is a stage of life. And ONLY my childless, single friends even ASKED the question, "well, couldn't you just find a babysitter?"

So we don't go to dinner much. And we don't go to the movies much. Or to weddings. And it is a bit sad, but we have two precious ones who take up too much of our energy to really be upset by that.

But I was really happy to get a wedding invite from one of my husband's friends which said, explicitly, "children of all ages are welcome at the ceremony and reception." NICE!

Things to remember

Isn't this the cutest little picture of Thomas? Look at his little head, pillowed on his little arm:



I was volunteering last Saturday morning to get breakfast and lunch ready for a meeting we had and I couldn't work with him in a front carrier like I usually have him in. So, my friend Sherri lent me one of her woven wraps and we put him in a Tibetan High Carry on my back. NOT to be done without a spotter. It did take the two of us to get him in it. But he loved being there. Talked and jabbered, and drooled and finally fell asleep.

This is a better idea of what it looked like:




And that afternoon, his two bottom teeth broke through. And the next morning one of his top front teeth came in. Three teeth. At four months and one week. Wow. And, just for posterity, 13 lbs, 5 0z. 27" at his four month checkup. And he likes to stand (with help). And laughs belly laughs at his big brother.

Seven Quick Takes

Thanks again to Jennifer from Conversion Diary for hosting 7 Quick Takes Friday.

1) For those of you concerned about the fate of the stroller, it arrived somewhat directly the following morning. With just a few scrapes and bruises.

2) Spring has come!!! And we have had a couple really nice days here, amidst all of the heavy rain. But thankfully the 90 degree days that we had about three weeks ago haven't come back yet.

3) Ok, tips for traveling with an infant and a toddler: Have little "presents" wrapped for the older child to open during stressful times. Lots of snacks that take a long time to eat, like those little tiny "toddler dried fruit." And a water sippy for the child to drink from when taking off or landing. We brought a portable DVD player. It was useful, for a brief time, but don't rely on it. You can't use it during takeoff or landing, and if the captain has asked people to put away electronic devices, and then you sit on the runway for a while, the DVD player wouldn't help. Don't bring too many books, just a select few. Take more than one form of kid transportation. I have never been so glad to have thrown the ergo in the luggage at the last minute. Nurse the baby, if you can, during takeoff and landing. Helps with the ears.

4) It has been raining here for weeks. Which is good considering we had sod put down a week before we left for vacation and said sod is supposed to be kept "soaking wet" for four weeks after it is put down. On the other hand, all the rain brought down all the seed pods and our gutters are clogged. Which means that the water overflows over the side and not down the pipes unto the french drain which is supposed to help funnel the water away from the house and make the yard less soggy. Which is why we had to have the sod put down. A great big circle of problems.

5) Baby Thomas is teething. Enough said.

6) I love looking at cloth diapers. I don't use them. And I hate doing laundry. So I really SHOULDN'T ever start using them. But still. I am drawn to them. Like a fly to honey.

7) Need to cook with beans more. Need recipes that disguise the fact that they are, in fact, beans. Because my toddler will not eat them. Anyone have any good, mushed-bean, recipes?

Moms can do anything

So, what do you do when you have two small tired children who have been traveling all day and the airline loses your stroller?

This is what you do:


For those of you keeping track, the 13 pound four month old is in the Moby on my front. The 32 pound two and a half year old is in the Ergo on my back. It wasn't fabulous because the Ergo chest strap wasn't fastened. I couldn't be bothered to redo the Moby, so just slapped the Ergo on (sortof...I did have help getting the big kid up there) over top of the Moby. It all wasn't planned, because, well, we were supposed to have the stroller for the big boy. ANYWAY.

We had a good time away, but the going and the coming sortof negates the goodness of the trip. Sigh.

7 Quick Takes

1) I am so excited to finally be doing this. Jennifer from Conversion Diary had a great idea....blurbettes from the week that don't deserve their own blog post. This is point 1 because I have been wanting to do it, but Friday comes and I haven't gotten around to it. So, I am starting this on Monday night. I figure with the way my weeks have gone, this MIGHT mean that I get it up before Friday.

2) Hey! I participated in another bloggy carnival this week! Motherwear has a "Breastfeeding Carnival" every month or so, and this one was on "How To....". And so I contributed a post on the "supplement" extravaganza that I do. I really love the topic, and I think I had something to contribute. However, the stinkin' thing took me all day, what with the adding of the links of others, and the reading of those blogs, and the commenting on them, and the reading of my comments. Clearly I am not cut out to be a regular blogger.

3) I am thinking of homeschooling. But my older son is just 2.5 and my little guy is three months. Just in the "thinking" stage, we are. So, a friend who is also thinking about it, and I, and another friend (boy, THAT's a doozy of a sentence....) are getting together to do a co-op homeschool thingy for our preschool set. We are going to get together on Mondays for just a couple hours in the morning, and rotate the "teaching" among the moms. Start was this week. I "taught" first. OY! So much planning. And the littles didn't do the crafts right. ARGH. Actually, I think they had fun, since no one wanted to go home. And I had fun in the planning of it, if not the execution. I used the theme of The Very Hungry Caterpillar as a spin-off and wove some Easter theology in. Sortof. I dunno folks....don't know if I am cut out to be a teacher. So, "blog writer" and "teacher" can be checked off my list of "things I know I am cut out for."

4) I am a big fan of Twitter. I don't comment/update much because when I am on the computer I am usually using only one hand because I am nursing (See No. 2 above). But I love the updates. I feel like I know my bloggy friends better when I see daily bits and pieces. I also like Facebook for the same reason, though Facebook updates tend to be people that I know in person, though there is some overlap. Thank GOODNESS that I can do one update using a Twitter application called "Tweetdeck" and select it to update Facebook as well. Saves time.

5) Regarding No 4. above, I happily tweeted the other day that Thomas, age 3 1/2 months, had slept for 4 1/2 hours in one stretch the previous night. Well, in typical Murphy's Law fashion, the following day and night I could NOT. GET. HIM. TO. SLEEP. And, when he did go, he was all, "who needs to stay asleep for longer than twenty minutes, Mom?" and "Hey, life is so very interesting at 10:30, and 1:00, and 2:30, and 4:00 and 5:30!" Not fussy. Just UP. So, what am I doing now while he naps? Writing a blog post, of course, because Jonathan is at pre-school and I actually have TWO hands free and it is bright and sunny outside, and I had a mocha latte this morning. Anyway...advice: Don't tweet that which you don't want jinxed.

6) Sharp baby fingernails hurt. And are impossible to cut. But he is cute, so that counts for something, right?



7) We can't protect our children all the time. But when something happens RIGHT UNDER YOUR NOSE is is heartbreaking. The boys (my 2.5 yo and his little friend who is within three weeks of my son's age) were playing. And the other mom and I were just saying how nice it was that they were getting along so well. And they ran into my son's room. She was dealing with her older boy who had just awakened and was a bit out of sorts, and I was just preparing to nurse the baby. Suddenly I heard screams! I was more mobile than she was so I put the baby in his bouncy seat and went to see the source. The boys had been jumping on the bed. A no-no in our house, but ok in theirs b/c their bed is on the floor with no frame. However, ours has a frame, and a footboard, which, when the little boy fell and hit his mouth on it, bashed his mouth bloody. Poor little tyke. Gushing blood. My son was sitting there on the other end of the bed looking very confused.

The boy is probably ok, but the mother's nerves and my shirts will never be the same. If it is dangerous to have your kids in your house, right under your nose, in as protected a place as can be, and something like that happens, it is no wonder that we parents have a hard time even letting these little precious ones even out into our yards, much less the real world.

I lie awake at night worrying, sometimes. And then I remember: my children are God's children. He formed them in my womb. They are fearfully and wonderfully made, by Him. And I need to trust Him with them.

Harder said than done, eh?

How to Increase Breastmilk Supply Using Supplements

This is a re-worked post of mine from February 24, 2009. I am participating in Motherwear's April "Breastfeeding Carnival". This month's topic is "How to...." Welcome new readers!


Short background: I had a low supply issue with my first son who is now 2 1/2. Breastfeeding got off to a rocky start, and in spite of much effort, I needed to supplement him with formula, between 30 and 50%. Therefore, I was prepared with this latest pregnancy (Son No. 2 is three months old) that I might have to supplement the baby. I started out by stocking some frozen breastmilk from a wonderful friend of mine whose son was born about three months before I was due. And, several women in my LLL group suggested that I might not have so many difficulties since your body makes more milk making tissue with each pregnancy. Nevertheless, when the lactation nurse visited me in the hospital, she recommended some supplements for ME. My doula, who is also a lactation consultant recommended some others. Therefore, without further ado, here is my daily regimen:


Calcium citrate with magnesium - Two caplets per day - This is the form of calcium that is most easily absorbed by the body and the magnesium helps the absorption as well.

Alfalfa - Two capsules three times a day - A galactogogue among other things.

Milk Thistle - Two capsules three times a day - Ditto.

Goat's Rue - Two capsules three times a day - This was new to me, but is also a galactogogue and is marketed as such. The previous two are marketed for other purposes. You can find Goat's Rue from Mother Love directly, though an internet search will show you other "shops" that have it slightly cheaper. It comes in capsules and a tincture. Allegedly the tincture is more effective, and definitely cheaper, but when you are taking as many potions as I am, it is easier if they are all of the same variety.

Soy Lecithin - One capsule two or three times a day. This is an emulsifier, but also keeps the breastmilk from getting "sticky". I found it useful last time in helping prevent plugged ducts. I am taking it prophylacticaly now.

Fish Oil - One capsule two or three times a day. This should contain EPA and DHA. Good for you, good for the baby.

Probiotic - One capsule three times a day. Just to help keep yeast at bay. I use a shelf-stable probiotic so that I can add it to the pill container. Again, the refridgerated kind is better, but this way I take it.

I am also continuing to take my prenatal vitamins.

Now, some of these have special instructions. The Goat's Rue is supposed to be taken with very little water. The probiotic is supposed to be taken on an empty stomach. the milk thistle and the alfalfa have no special instructions. The prenatal should be taken with food so as to minimize any reactions to the iron. WHATEVER. I have to take them all at the same time or there is no hope that I will remember to take them all. So, the "with food" and "without food" get taken at the same time. And when I have to take nine or eleven capsules, you know darn well that they are getting taken with more than a little water. But I figure something is better than nothing.

And the galactogogues seem to be working. It appears that I have more than enough milk for the baby. In fact, I have even managed to pump a bit! I don't pump for supply purposes like I did with my first baby, just enough to keep about four or five ounces in the freezer as I try to give the baby one bottle a week, just for practice. I actually have to take the hospital grade breast pump back in two days, so I will limp along with my own double electric that sounds like an wheezy chicken.

I also eat a lot of oatmeal, and nurse on demand. Hopefully I will be able to exclusively breastfeed this baby for a few more months before having to add anything else to his diet. But, as I have said before, breastfeeding is not for wimps!

(Update April of 2011: This post is the most searched for on my blog. Hopefully this is helpful to those of you looking to increase your supply. I am still nursing my youngest who is 27 mos old. Even if you have low supply, you should be able to stop the supplements after the baby isn't using breastfeeding as his primary source of nutrition, and if you continue to nurse on demand, you should be able to continue nursing for as long as you and your little one want to nurse.)

And now, here are the other posts in the Breastfeeding Carnival (To be updated as more are added):

Breastfeeding Moms Unite: How to become a breastfeeding support professional

The Marketing Mama: How to pump successfully at work

Amber at Strocel.com: How to get breastfeeding off to a good start

Baby Carriers Down Under: How to breastfeed hands free

Milk Act: How to care for a sick nursling

Baby Ready: How to get baby to take a bottle

The Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog: How to help your baby kick the nipple shield habit

Mama Saga: How to breastfeed or just look like you know what you are doing

Breastfeeding Mums Blog: How to wean a breastfeeding toddler

Mama knows Breast: How to get a spouse to help

Blacktating: How to treat a cold while breastfeeding

It's all about the Hat: How to be comfortable around a breastfeeding mom

Zen Mommy: Using YouTube to stop nosy questions!

Natural Birth and Baby Care: How to improve supply with nutrition

MoBoLeez: How to increase your supply with seaweed

Breastfeeding 1-2-3: How to teach your baby nursing manners

Happy Bambino: How to deal with unsupportive family members

Tiny Grass: Tandem Nursing: How to do it without driving yourself and your nurslings crazy!

Things doing around here

Well. My three-month old baby rolled over, from his back to his front. There goes the ability to set him down on the couch for a minute. I haven't gone back and looked at Jonathan's baby book, but I think he did it at four months.

In other news, Jonathan went to bed last night without (much) dinner as he refused to eat what I gave him. Needless to say, he had a big breakfast this morning.

Also, we had some photos taken of Thomas at three weeks and three months. Email me if you would like the link.