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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!
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!
"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!'»
Following the Principles: Parts 7 & 8 in a series of 8
Baby Lazlo~ 1/6/10 ~ 11lbs~ 23"long ~ Born Safely at Home!
Now that we have finally welcomed our newest addition— an 11lb son named Lazlo who was born safely at our home — I can take the time to sit down and write again. The swelling and the restlessness of late pregnancy made computer time just one more form of torture in a sea of physical discomforts. Fortunately, those discomforts are behind me now (although I vow to never, ever forget the challenges of the third trimester, just in case I am ever stricken with Baby Fever again years from now) and my recovery has been a joyous time of healing, snuggling, nursing and marveling. Well…for the most part.
Our first tandem nursing session a few minutes after Lazlo's birth.
There, of course, is my sweet little 22-month-old T-Bird to deal with. While she is thrilled that there is breastmilk on the menu again, she is not as enthusiastic about her new little brother trying to enjoy that milk–with or without her. Nursing them together is a terrific way to get a worry-free 20-minute power-nap, but can also backfire and result in T-Bird’s numerous attempts to unlatch the baby, to poke him the eye, to cover his face with a blanket, to elbow him… fun times. So then, I will go with the other extreme and nurse T-Bird first, or nurse her in another room, or nurse her after I get Lazlo to sleep. She then proceeds to spend that time constantly unlatching and relatching asking “Where’s Lazlo? Baby wants nursie?” while pulling, scratching and patting the unoccupied breast…more fun times. Not to mention the all-new behaviors when we are not nursing—throwing, hitting, screeching, drawing on walls, stomping food into the carpets. Continue reading 'Practice Positive Discipline & Strive for Balance in Personal and Family Life'»
Principle Number 2: Feed With Love and Respect
Long before I knew I was pregnant with LF#5 (Loin Fruit Number Five), I’m pretty sure that T-Bird knew something was different. We had just moved into a new home, in a new city, and I figured T-Bird was seriously ramping up her nursing efforts in order to establish some of the security she was missing. Surely, it would pass soon enough. Then I assumed I had come down with the flu—crippling fatigue and all day nausea. T-Bird needed to nurse more to receive those healthy immunities. Surely, it would pass soon enough. Sir Hubby was at work more and more growing the business we had moved to a new city to support. T-Bird wanted to comfort nurse because she missed her daddy, or sensed the added stress I was under when he was away so much. Surely, it would pass soon enough.
It hasn’t passed. Continue reading 'Breastfeeding While Pregnant'»
1. Exhaustion. More than the usual level of fatigue that I have become accustomed to as a momma to a busy toddler.2. Overpowering cravings for my father’s homemade venison jerky (I’m a vegetarian)
3. T-Bird becoming a non-stop nurser. I thought this was what was contributing to the sore breasts, but in fact it looks as if they might be its very own symptom. My milk probably taste different or is less bountiful than usual, so she is trying to make up for it. If I were paying any attention, I would have realized that my supply should have caught up with her new schedule after a few days, but I just let it go on for more than 2 months without thinking about it at all. Continue reading 'Top Ten Things That Should Have Tipped Me Off to the Fact That I Was Pregnant, But Didn’t Because I Am Kinda Slow.'»
Just getting started
Here we are at six weeks postpartum and I have seven more days before I am returning to work. I don’t feel like someone who is fully recovered and ready to return to my pre-baby life. Who came up with this six weeks thing as the magic number for all things returning to normal? I am fortunate that my job is supportive enough to allow me to work reduced & flexible hours and bring T-bird to the office while I am at my desk working (I obviously cannot take her with me when I visit families in their homes). I can’t imagine an entire day away from her yet; T-bird is still so tiny and needs me so desperately. Not to mention the fact that, though technically healed, my body is in this limbo between pregnant and non-pregnant–choked full of hormones and churning out a constant supply of food for my baby. Sure, I am no longer medically at risk for infection or hemorrhage…but is that all that matters? Isn’t there more to parenting? Continue reading 'Six Weeks: Not The Magic Number'»
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