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I just put in a print order for these and will have them available at the Doulas For All meeting at Borders on Tuesday June 29th. Donations of $1 per card will benefit Doulas For All! Great idea for adding to a baby shower card, or to keep in your diaper bag to present to a nursing duo, or to help educate…write to info@DoulasForAll.org or call 661-DOULAS-1 to get yours today!
We want to hold a fact-gathering + opinion-generating meeting with area doulas, birth advocates, and maternity care-providers to help build our organization into something that will benefit families in the ways that really matter! So, put your thinking caps on and plan to join us on June 29th @6pm at the Millcreek Mall Borders! Our website exists (but has no content yet!) at DoulasForAll.org and you can always email me at Justine@DoulasForAll.org for info or questions about this project. We also have a new phone number: 661-DOULAS-1
Would you (or someone you know and love) like to have a doula provide one-on-one support through pregnancy and the birthing experience? Are you worried that the cost may be out of your budget though? State of the Heart is raising funds to help families afford doula services here in Erie! Stay tuned for more details or contact me if you are interested in learning more about this exciting opportunity to help families have the birth that they deserve!
When our babies first arrive we know what we should feed them. It is encoded right into the newborn-DNA to seek out the breast moments after birth. Our breasts are perfectly positioned on our bodies so that when we nourish our baby we hold them off of the cold, hard ground—close to our heart—within kissing distance—within focus-range for the newborn eye. Our milk delivers all of the vital nutrients that our tiny new babies need. When our baby needs more milk, our breasts simply produce more. Simple. Elegant. Efficient.
Nonetheless, even while in the depths of this blissful symbiotic relationship of supply and demand—ebb and flow—providing and consuming—we doubt ourselves. We worry. We question everything. We get sucked up into the drama. Is my baby getting enough? Is my latch correct? Am I balancing the needs of my baby and also of my body? Is it okay to nurse in public? How can I help my mother-in-law understand why this is important to me? How do I deal with criticism about how long I am nursing? Why do decent nursing bras cost so much?
Bug and Food...a complicated relationship!
Now, flash forward to solid foods. To cereal or not to cereal? Avocado or chickpeas? Will this cause food allergies? Does this have high fructose corn syrup in it? Does Red dye really matter? Is organic better than local? More questions. More doubts.
Add in a picky eater to this equation and now you have all of the questions about food mixed in with all of the challenges of discipline. Nothing sparks a power struggle faster than dealing with a crying, kicking, screaming kiddo who is starving but won’t eat what they have in front of them.
Now, add ALL of those problems on top of a child who has a sensory processing disorder or falls on the Aspergers spectrum somewhere. The smell of all but the most bland of foods is so over powering it can cause nausea. Food textures conjure up descriptive terms like sandpaper, fiberglass and slime. Seemingly perfectly reasonable food tastes odd—the mac & cheese tastes like soap— the eggs taste like metal– the yogurt tastes spicy. They only want one food. They can’t have that food and this food at the same meal. Single ingredient meals. No sauce. No spice. No blending. There are plenty of days when even the most patient and tolerant of parents just lose it (like me). Especially the days before you understand what your child is going through. It is easy to think that they are just being difficult, or stubborn, or manipulative. Especially with all of the voices of the Ghosts of Dinner Past from your own childhood whispering in your ear:
“You can’t leave the table until you have finished your veggies!”
“You’ll go to bed hungry!”
“Clean your plate!”
or everyone’s favorite; “There are starving children in <insert third-world country here> who would be grateful for this meal!”
“If you eat everything on your plate, we’ll go get ice-cream!”
“If you don’t eat this, we will NOT go get ice cream!”
“Seriously, we will NEVER get ice cream ever again. Ever.”
“Can you finish just three more bites?”
“How ’bout one more bite of the green stuff?”
I could fill a book with what all of that is probably doing to kids (someone already has, I am sure of it). I sure know that I have a horrible love/hate relationship with food, a body that doesn’t use food efficiently, and a taste for things that are, frankly, very unhealthy for me. But that is not today’s post. Today, I want to talk about Bug and the relationship between her food and her behaviors.
If you’ve ever spent any time with our family, you’ve probably shared a meal or a snack with us. (And in the case of a few select friends, you may have been the victim of Food Theft—an inexplicable phenomenon marked by the disappearance of all–not some—but ALL of your banana’s, strawberries, and apple’s while my children are visiting your home. You know who you are. I owe you some fruit). So, you may have suspected that it can be a little chaotic to feed a family as large and as diverse as ours. And that we don’t have a fortune to throw away on food each month. I am sure that it comes as no surprise that we put a lot of time and thought into what we eat, where we get it from, and what it costs. Buying food no one will eat, that doesn’t pack a nutritional punch, or that is too complicated to prepare is a waste of our time and resources. We find a lot of inspiration from our subscription to Vegetarian Times. We share recipes and ideas with friends and family. We are blessed to have a wide-variety of whole and organic food choices to work with. With that being said, however, we still have the seemingly never-ending frustration of finding ways to get Bug, our 6 year old, to eat healthy foods.
Bug is challenged by many of the symptoms of Sensory Processing Disorder, especially the ones concerning food and smells. Her symptoms cause her to be a picky eater. Her picky eating has probably caused some nutritional deficiencies. It is likely that her nutritional deficiencies are exasperating her symptoms. And ’round we go. We are hoping that her issues are as easy to fix as learning some new recipes and cutting out some common culprits in the food-behavior chain. We do eat fairly healthy compared to the folks Jamie Oliver is dealing with. But we still enjoy a box of donut holes on Sunday mornings once in awhile (hello deep fried junk). And there are still some colorful dyes and high fructose nastiness lingering around in a few of our dirty-little-secret snacks (The first ingredient in Cherry Twizzlers is HFCS…and that bright red color is not from a natural source, sorry to say) . But for the most part we enjoy plenty of whole grains, a variety of local vegetables, fresh herbs, organic fruit, and “from scratch” goodies.
I had told myself that we would give Bug until the age of 7 to see if her emotional and behavioral issues evened out when her development was a little more advanced and she ready for more complex learning situations. We decided to homeschool her because of these concerns. We are approaching 7 in just a few months, and Bug’s behaviors, although changing in complexity and specifics, have not really improved significantly. So now the serious phase begins and we are committing to cutting out those few lingering no-no’s…eliminate the HFCS for real. Say goodbye to dyes…even for special occasions. Embrace the fact that many children with behavioral issues are suffering from food allergies…like wheat, gluten, and corn. We are amping up her green foods, calcium, and good fats to flush out lingering toxins and heavy metals. We’ve done these things in the past, for a few weeks, or until we fell off the wagon, or until Halloween–whichever happened first. This time, I am hoping that we have reached a place where making these changes will be more compatible with our lifestyle then they were before. Everyday, we become more and more committed to making positive and healthy changes in our lives since Sir Hubby’s father became ill last summer. Not just in our food, but in the way that we think, the way we interact with the world around us, with the community we live in. But those are all posts for another day…
So, we begin our serious journey into better health for Bug today…and hopefully a healthier relationship for all of us!
Thanks for being patient with me while Sir Hubby and I executed our fab new makeover. I know that the white text on the black background was hard on the eyes…hope this new look saves your eyesight! Suggestions? Bugs to fix? Leave me a comment so I can read it and then ignore it for months! 
"Your baby is so content! What is your secret?"
Parenting can bring out some pretty big emotions. Nothing kicks off a debate between adults quicker than the implication that YOUR/THEIR parenting philosophies might be half-baked…or wrong…or questionably legal…or safe. Say one of these words loudly at the mall, at your next family reunion, or at the office get-together: Circumcision. Co-sleeping. Breastfeeding. Spanking. Childbirth. These simple words can evoke so many different feelings depending on who you are talking to: Guilt. Pride. Jealousy. Regret. Joy.
But the feelings that I am trying to cultivate more in myself are: Empathy and Humility.
I recently watched the film Away We Go. Let me say first: I really loved it. Let me say secondly: I only knew the bare minimum about it, I had not read reviews or viewed any trailers for it. And finally, let me say: the scene about AP values really stung when I first saw it. Here is a clip from that scene. And another. Go ahead and watch them if you have not seen the film. Here is the trailer if you want to get an overview of the whole thing. I’ll wait.
The film depicted several families and several different parenting styles. There was the disrespectful family who seemed to believe that their children were deaf and dumb. There was the super-crunchy AP family. There was the open-arms adopt-a-lot-of-kids rainbow family. The single-parent family. It was very easy for Sir Hubby and I to scoff, guffaw, and feel superior when the disrespectful family was on the screen. What kind of jerks treat their kids like that! But there was an awkward silence in the room when the AP value family came on. Mostly it was quiet because Sir Hubby had fallen asleep. But also, because I could easily identify ALL of our AP values being depicted by these characters. At first, a sort of pride welled up in me…
Hooray for AP values being shown in a movie! Extended breastfeeding! Babywearing! Family bed! Doula’s! Yippeeee!
But then I realized that the film was not praising those choices, but depicting them as kinda crazy. Kinda over-the-top. Kinda awful. The pregnant couple shouts at the AP family, calls them horrible names, and finally flees the house.
Whoa. I start warming my fingers up to draft a strongly worded letter to the writers:
How dare you! Babywearing this! Family bed that! Baby-led breastfeeding this! Don’t you know that studies have shown that AP…
Wait a minute. THIS is what the writers of the film were making fun of! The passionately snobby caricature of AP parents. They were showing how non-AP parents are meant to feel when smug-AP parents berate them or humiliate them or shame them for not being superior enough to make the choice to AP immediately and instinctively. And maybe we don’t do it on purpose…but whenever we proclaim that our way is the best way– the ONLY way– if you want healthy kids, happy kids, gentle kids, smart kids, compassionate kids, then we have not turned someone on to AP…we have chased them away. They are fleeing the house just like the couple in the movie did. Continue reading 'Away We Go With Parenting!'»
The Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) released this warning today in response to infant deaths in last 20 years from the improper use of slings. However, there is no mention that they are specifically referring to bag-style slings– which are not what most dedicated babywearers would refer to as a sling, anyway. The Infantino Sling Rider in particular is one of the types of slings that are responsible for 14 infant deaths in the past 20 years. It is a poorly designed sling, and as Anne over at Dou-la-la points out;
“…these particular brands were created in a response to a trend, without much if any real research, and without a fundamental belief in babywearing as a practice.”
I completely agree that they are probably an ignorantly-executed attempt to get the Big Box Store Crowd on the sling bandwagon after some junior executive saw a picture of a celebrity wearing their baby in a sling on some magazine at the checkout line.
Most upsetting was the steaming pile of crap that came out of the mouth of Don Mays from Consumer Reports on CBS’s The Early Show:
“Don’t use slings at all,” Mays recommends. “There are safer ways of carrying your baby than in a sling.”
Mr. Mays. Ahem. You might want to get your facts straight. For the 10 year time period between 1995-2005, there were 22 stroller-related deaths for children under the age of 5 reported to CPSC. A majority of these deaths involved suffocation, entrapment or positional asphyxiation of an infant. 3x the amount of death in less time. And the leading item that injures and kills babies? INFANT CAR SEATS AND CARRIERS (and that EXCLUDES automobile accident related incidents). 14 deaths in 20 years from slings…meanwhile 182 children were KILLED by improper car seat/carrier use in only 2 years. And 65 infants died from CRIB related accidents. So it sounds to me that slings might be one of the most safe ways to carry your baby.
The CPSC does clarify that:
many of the babies who died in slings were either a low birth weight twin, were born prematurely, or had breathing issues such as a cold. Therefore, CPSC urges parents of preemies, twins, babies in fragile health and those with low weight to use extra care and consult their pediatricians about using slings.
By all means, let’s please include warnings that your sling is a parenting tool, not a replacement for common sense and observation…but saying that no one should ever use a sling is NOT a reasonable recommendation on the part of the CPSC or Consumer Reports. Shame on them.
It is well documented that baby wearing has numerous benefits for both babies and parents. Babywearing is a world-wide parenting tool. Babywearing is a centuries old tradition. Yet, we wore our baby to the grocery store early today, and I could feel people’s eyes on me…sending out judgey vibes…trying to warn me that I was KILLING MY BABY by giving me withering glares because they watched a 1-minute spiel on The Early Show and can now smugly claim to have been schooled in babywearing by the incredibly informed Mr Mays. Sigh. Usually, I love educating people about the benefits of slings, and usually my happy babies are the best endorsement for them. Now I will have to spend my time convincing people that my baby can breathe and that I am coordinated enough to avoid walking him face-first into the steam table at the Hot Asian Food Bar at Wegman’s. Dammit.
Well, I can just show them this vide0…or invite them to come to a babywearing seminar. What babywearing seminar, you ask? The one that I will offer for free to anyone who wants to learn more about slings. Call me. Text me. Email me. Facebook me. SERIOUSLY.
After having a pretty crappy week in which I did a lot of complaining about things that were not going well (post office debacle, too much snow, feverish toddlers, hubby’s who work too much, a belly that is still smooshy) I decided that what I needed was a bit of perspective. And here it is:
1) The Planet Wise Wet/Dry Bag does not suck!
2) The delivery guy from Hungry Howies did not suck!
3) The new coffee Sir Hubby bought did not suck!
4) The Vegetarian Times does not suck!
5) Thirsties diaper covers do not suck!
6) Home made ginger, lemon, sugar and olive oil body scrub does not suck! Continue reading '25 Things That Don’t Suck'»
Erie Times Announcement
I am sure that it would come as no surprise to anyone to hear that our family doesn’t usually read the newspaper. Reading the news online just seems so much easier these days. It is greener. No stacks of newspapers to store until recycling day. I can choose what kinds of news (regional, national, international, politics, health…) I want to read and just skip over the stuff that doesn’t interest me (sports, comics, obituaries…) So why would we care about going through all of the steps to make sure that our birth was listed in the newspaper?
Well, frankly, let me just say that I am a bit ashamed that we don’t read the newspaper. I think that our children could probably benefit from seeing us reading it and become inspired to read it themselves. Finding creative ways to reuse the newspaper seems like something our kiddos would be into as well…we just saw a PBS special in which grade school kids made a fairly complex engineering project with newspapers and masking tape. Not to mention the glass cleaning properties or using it to stuff into wet boots in the winter. But I digress. Continue reading 'Home Birth In The Newspaper!'»
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