Posts Tagged ‘breastfeeding’

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Gentle Night Weaning IS possible!

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
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Night weaning is the process of weaning your baby from having breast milk during the night. There are several different approaches to night weaning. Most of the tips here are for older babies (approximately one year and up), however you could possibly adapt for a younger baby. One important thing to keep in mind is that gentle night weaning is a process that takes time, patience, creativity, and flexibility. It also takes a certain readiness on baby’s behalf.

There are different reasons for wanting to night wean your baby. Obviously a primary incentive is for mom to get more quality sleep. However other factors can influence the decision as well. Sometimes family planning/fertility plays a role. For example, some woman’s monthly cycle does not return until she stops nursing through the night. “The milk-making hormones that suppress ovulation are highest between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m” (Ask Dr. Sears, Breastfeeding and Fertility). A pregnancy may encourage a mom to night wean as sleeping comfortably becomes more and more difficult. Or if a new baby is on the way, a mom might decide to night wean so she only has one night time nursling. Another situation might be if baby needs to spend the night under the care of someone other than mom (due to any number of circumstances) having baby night weaned becomes necessary.

A first step would be to examine baby’s current night time sleep and nursing patterns. This will give you an idea of where to begin and what is a reasonable expectation. For example if your baby is still waking up several times a night to nurse every day of the week, then you might want to start with the goal of reducing night time feedings rather than eliminating them altogether. If baby is only nursing one to two times a night, your baby might be more ready for night weaning.

Once you have determined what your ideal outcome is (number of feedings, length of time between feedings, or to completely eliminate feedings, etc) the next step is to talk to baby about it. I feel like this is a really important step regardless of baby’s age, developmental level, and understanding of language. Breastfeeding is a relationship you share with your baby and if you are proposing changes to that relationship, explaining that to baby is honoring and respecting the reciprocity of the relationship.  You might pick a time when baby is calm and use really simple langague. For example when my oldest was 15 months, we decided it was time to night wean (sleep deprivation peaked for me at that time and we wanted to start trying for baby #2). One day while nursing him I gently told him that mama’s milk was going to start sleeping at night because we all needed to get better sleep. Using simple, kind language I explained that I knew it might be a hard for transition for us, but that I believed it would be okay. The conversation was obviously one sided since he was so young, but definitely think it helped going into the process by providing a sense of peace/comfort to us both.

Night weaning is typically much easier if you have the help of someone else to comfort baby during the night when he/she wants milk. It is typically very difficult for mom to offer alternative comfort to a baby who really just wants mama’s milk. Often this may be a spouse or a partner, but it can be anyone the baby has a close, trusted relationship with. For example, a friend of mine who is a single mom, had her mother help with night weaning. My husband would be the one comforting baby back to sleep during the night weaning process, so we started by inserting daddy into the role of providing comfort during non-sleep times. For example if baby tumbled, daddy would be the one to comfort him. Whatever the reason, if baby was upset and daddy was present, we had daddy be the one to comfort baby. This was to help establish him in that role both for himself and for baby. We did this for maybe close to two weeks before beginning night weaning. If you have the opportunity to do something similar with whomever your support person is, it can be a helpful step in the night weaning process. It’s a conscious shift in providing alternate comfort by an alternate person.

Another important factor to consider is that baby is accustom to getting some of their nutritional and calorie needs met during night time feedings. Therefore providing a dense, high calorie, protein snack before putting baby to bed starting a week or two before night weaning might help re-adjust baby’s food intake needs.

Now that you have done some preparation for night weaning by talking with baby, eliciting help from a support person, and establishing the habit of a bed time snack, you might feel more prepared and at ease about approaching the night wakings. How this looks for each family is going to vary greatly. Sometimes this entails a new sleep arrangment. I personally find it’s easiest to only make one transition at a time, however some families do use night weaning as an opportunity to transition baby to his/her own sleep space.  Another important element is timing; trying to night wean a sick or teething baby will be far more difficult so be sure baby is healthy, well, and comfortable when night weaning begins.

When baby wakes up asking to nurse, have daddy (or whomever the support person is) offer baby comfort by holding, rocking, offering a sippy cup of water, talking to baby, singing to baby, etc. Here’s the hard part…baby is probably going to cry. BUT while some may disagree with me, I do feel this is a different practice than crying it out. In this process someone is still offering comfort to baby and assuring them they are loved and safe. Another important factor is knowing your baby’s cries and assessing the intensity of it and responding accordingly. My husband and I had agreed ahead of time we were comfortable with about 10 minutes of daddy trying to soothe baby and if crying continued to esculate I would nurse baby back to sleep and we would just try again next time baby woke up. It really was a delicate balance of imposing our desires on baby while still respecting his needs.

With my fist son, night weaning was relatively easy the first go-around. After the prelimanary steps we took and a few nights of daddy providing comfort he was night weaned. I think a big factor in the ease of the process was readiness on my son’s behalf as well as his adaptable nature. With my second son, the process was a little more difficult. The first attempt ended after a few days of trying. We decided he wasn’t ready and that we would try again in a month or two. About six weeks later we tried again and in just a few relatively easy nights of soothing from daddy, he was night weaned. We have yet to approach night weaning with my 3rd son as he is only 11 months old. He still needs/wants access to mama’s milk at night and I am happy to provide that for him.

Have you night weaned in a gentle way? If so what tips or suggestions do you have? Would love to hear your experience! :)

-Sarah

Tags: alternatives to crying it out, breast milk, breastfeeding, dr sears, family planning, fertility, gentle parenting, night time parenting, night weaning, weaning your baby
Posted in breastfeeding, Parenting, Sarah | 1 Comment »

Motherhood and Marathons

Friday, January 6th, 2012
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For the past several months I have been training for an upcoming race. Like almost any adult orientated activity this is not always easy to do with small children. However we have settled into a comfortable groove with running where I feel good about my weekly mileage and training schedule. Furthermore I have realized running with small children has some incredible advantages…I will get to those in a minute. First let me share what running with three small children and a dog actually looks like.

My oldest, age 5, rides his bike. My youngest, age 10 months, sits in the double jogging stroller. My middle, age 3, wants to ride his bike but cannot maintain the speed, distance, or attention for that. Our compromise is that he runs with me the first several blocks and then sits in the stroller. My dog’s leash is attached to the stroller. Okay so now you hopefully have a visual of the five of us running together. :)

Initially I spent a great deal of effort trying to run without my kids; waking up early, succumbing to the treadmill, or going for late evening runs. For various reasons these options just didn’t work and I was dissatisfied with my running. I decided I needed to somehow make it work that I could run during the day with my kids. I will be honest that I initially viewed this as a burden, but slowly over time I actually started to really enjoy having them as running partners. Additionally I quickly realized during races the benefits of having done most of my training with the kids. Here’s how:

Preparedness - Pre-kid days I could just grab my shoes and go for a long run. Now getting us ready for a run is almost more work than the run itself. Like most outings with small children, I pack water, snacks, and little toys to occupy them in the stroller. I nurse my youngest and change his diaper so that (hopefully, fingers crossed) he will be content to sit in the stroller  for the duration of the run. I always bring my ERGObaby carrier with just in case. I make sure kids are dressed comfortably; not too warm and not too cold. I have learned little things like this can make or break a run. I also briefly inspect the tires on the bike and stroller. We’ve done way too many runs only to discover half way through the run there was a slow leak in a tire that eventually becomes flat  (desert terrain = lots of unfriendly thorns). Not a fun experience by any means! However the need to physically prepare for a run has translated into feeling more mentally prepared to handle any surprises a race throws at me.

Accountability – My oldest son really enjoys riding his bike on our runs. Often he will ask me “are we going for a run today”. His spirits keep me motivated and on track with training. We do between 15-20 miles together during the week and I largely attribute that to my oldest son’s enthusiasm for our runs. Maintaining a consistent running schedule is much easier when you have a five your old nagging you about it.

Resistance Training – Pushing 50lbs of kids definitely adds to the running experience. However the real challenge is the 70lb frisky dog pulling the stroller off center or at a different pace. So while I am pushing the stroller, I am also often pulling it. Whenever I get to run without having this added upper body workout, it’s tons easier to simply just run.

Focusing inward- We get a lot (a lot is a kind of an understatement here) of looks and comments when we run together. Add occasionally talking on the cell phone while I run or running in barefeet and the stares and comments multiply. It’s really forced me to turn inward and not be distracted by the energy of others. During a race there are so many distractions both visually and auditorily that sometimes it can be difficult to just simply focus on running. Running with the kids brings a lot of unwanted attention that I have learned to easily tune out extraneous stimuli and maintain a positive space.

Increased Speed- Running with kids and a dog make it incredibly difficult to pace myself. If there is another dog ahead of us on the trail, my dog significantly speeds up. My 5 year old often rides his bike faster than my comfortable running pace which means I am sometimes running rather fast to catch up to him. Also sometimes my little ones are simply just done with being in the stroller (ie-lots of whining and fussing) in which case I pick up the pace to get us home quickly. During a race when I am stripped of the need to care for anyone else, it’s quite liberating and my running feels so smooth.

I used to run away from my kids…both literally and figuratively. The act of running was completely mine. It was my escape from motherhood and I felt really resitant to including my children depsite running being one of my favorite activities. Once I opened up myself to sharing this activity with them, my running changed for the better. I really believe they truly are among the best training partners one could ask for!

 

Me and my training team post race

rah

Tags: breastfeeding, ERGObaby Carrier, jogging stroller, marathons, running partners
Posted in New Mothers, Parenting, Sarah | 4 Comments »

Breastfeeding is a Journey

Thursday, January 5th, 2012
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(pictured above my current nursling and my daughter Heidi)

I am a mom. I have 4 children, all of whom were (some currently) breastfed.  I am the oldest of 5 children that were breastfed. In the end, you really don’t know what you think you know about breastfeeding. And this is my journey.

I exclusively breastfed my first baby, Graeme, for 7 months, and then I weaned him. I was working full time and I was having a hard time pumping and neither my husband or I had the knowledge or support system to continue any longer. My husband thought he shouldn’t be nursed to sleep, and I wasn’t knowledgable enough to defend my case. So I stopped. Graeme was rattled with ear infections after that and ended up with tubes in his ears at 18 months. Ouch. Lesson learned, and hindsight is 20/20.

My next baby came along when my son was 2.5 years old. This little girl was my pivot point, and just as spirited then as she is 5 years later. I exclusively breastfed Heidi and when the time came at 3 months to go back to work, I sent her to day care for 9 hours every day with several bottles of breastmilk. She refused the bottle. She refused the bottle forever. Sooo, she made me work. I did research. And lo and behold, there is this thing called reverse cycling. I fed her when she woke, I fed her when I dropped her off at day care, when I could get away, I would come and feed her at lunch, I would pump during the day, I would feed her when I picked her up, and then we would nurse LOTS during the night. We did this until I quit working 9 months later. We did add some solids around 7-8 months as her weight had hit a plateau, but she was only moderately interested in them. Her doctor was very supportive and not worried. Eventually weight began to increase slowly. I am thankful to my stubborn, bottle refusing girl, because she made me her only source of food, and I rose to the tiring, very inconvenient challenge. She taught me that I am enough, and we CAN work out our challenges. She continued nursing until she was 25 months – I was pregnant with my 3rd and my milk had pretty much dried up.

I had my third baby 2 months after Heidi weaned. I was a little sad about her weaning because we had made it so long and I was hoping she would help with those early weeks of engorgement. I even offered to nurse Heidi after the baby came, but she didn’t remember how.  So much for tandem nursing. I exclusively nursed #3 (Kaatje) until she was about 12 months. Until that point, she just didn’t have any interest in foods. I would make her a plate with the rest of the family, but she preferred to nurse.

I had my 4th son when Kaatje was 34 months old and she was still nursing. My milk dried up a lot towards the end of my pregnancy, so we were only nursing for a few minutes a couple times a day. I was excited to be able to embark on the tandem nursing experience, even if I felt like Kaatje was almost weaned. Oh boy, was I wrong…my milk came in and Kaatje turned into a newborn!! Whenever the baby was being fed, Kaatje decided that she should be too. “Why is baby having milkies? I want milkies too!” So, thankfully I have two breasts that produce ample milk, as Kaatje claimed one to herself and the baby got the other one.  For the first few weeks, Kaatje went on a total food strike and started coming in at midnight to nurse. At first, I nursed her, thinking that this wouldn’t continue, but after a month, this double newborn thing really took its toll. My husband was not supportive of this (neither was I), but thankfully he put his foot down and started putting her back to bed. She stopped waking up so early and doesn’t come in now until around 6 am. That, I can handle as the baby sleeps with us and I don’t like being sandwich in between two nursers…it’s too tiring. Mamas of twins (+) I commend you!!

So, here we are 6 months into tandem nursing, and the baby is doing great. He was my best latcher! With all the others I had cracked, bleeding nipples, but not so with him (sooo thankful!). However, Kaatje would prefer to nurse than eat and still wants to nurse whenever she sees the baby nursing. She has a good relationship with the baby as long as the nursing is equitable, so I am continuing to let her self-wean. There are many times that I enjoy our nursing time, and I like to cuddle her. She has beautiful brown eyes that always appear very thankful when she is being held in my arms.  I struggle.  She asks to nurse a lot and throws quite large fits when she can’t – like when I am trying to make a meal for everyone or the baby is asleep in a carrier on my back. I try to accommodate when I can, but to be honest, sometimes I don’t feel like nursing her. She isn’t ready to wean, but sometimes I am.  My husband’s support is there, but waning.

If Heidi taught me anything about breastfeeding it is that I shouldn’t give up. So, this is my ongoing journey. This is my new adventure….this is what tandem nursing looks like for me…sweetness.

My two nurslings

My two nurslings

 

 

 

 

 

 

~ Abbie

Tags: attachment parenting, attachment parenting international, baby, breastfeeding, breastmilk, ear infections, reverse cycling, tandem nursing
Posted in Abbie, breastfeeding, New Mothers, Parenting | Comments Off

True Confessions of a Baby Wrap Rookie

Monday, December 12th, 2011
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So, if you haven’t noticed by now I am a structured carrier kind of gal; a cranberry ERGObaby carrier to be exact. I have dabbled a bit with a ring sling, a Mei Tai, other structured carriers, and of course the Moby Wrap with a newborn with some success. However show me a long piece of woven fabric (ie- a woven wrap) and I was completely intimidated by it. I could appreciate how truly beautiful mamas and babies look in woven wraps, but didn’t think *I* could ever get the hang of it. But then this arrived in my mailbox one afternoon:

 

I was now the proud owner of a seriously GORGEOUS woven wrap; a 100% organic Dolcino in Stromboli to be exact. I guess that meant it was time for me to confront my wrap anxiety and learn something new! Thankfully my good friend Rachel, who is a jedi babywearing master, happen to be coming over later that same day. I eagerly showed her my new wrap and her purely excited response was contagious. She immediately said “let’s try it out!”.

So together we spent about a half hour playing with my new toy, er I mean my new wrap. She put her son in it; she helped me put my son in it. Meanwhile my house was filling up with the 20 other guests arriving for the pool party so we eventually had to put the wrap away and socialize. :) BUT we decided to meet again soon so she could teach me how to use the wrap more proficiently.

We actually video taped ourselves to share with you all! If you are interested in learning how to use a woven wrap with your little one, be sure to check back all this week for our wrap videos (not to be confused with rap videos, lol!).

Apparently, he's pretty excited about our new wrap!

Okay, so let me share a bit more with you about the Dolcino Woven Wrap. First of all, the colors are amazing! The rich gold, red, orange, and maroon tones remind me a of a perfectly crisp, sunny fall day where you stroll around enjoying the abundant beauty of Mother Nature. Coincidentally these are the colors I have decorated my house in, so I could honestly hang this wrap up as a decorative piece in my house…that’s how beautiful it is!

So besides the aesthetic value of it, let’s get down to function.  Dolcino is simply wonderful to touch! It’s super soft, yet slightly textured and feels really great against your skin. Also it looks like it would be a heavy piece of material due to the richness of the fabric but it’surprisingly light weight! It would be easy to tuck the wrap into a diaper bag or backpack to bring with you wherever you wanted. The medium size (4.60 x 0.70 Meters in length) is long enough to use for any variety of carries you wanted to do with it.

I was actually quite surprised by the versatility of a woven wrap. You can do front, back, and hip carries with all ages from newborn to preschooler. You could easily invest in this one carrier for all your babywearing needs. There is definitely a learning curve to using a woven wrap, however it’s not quite as difficult as I thought it would be. The Front Cross Carry only took a few attempts for me to learn how to comfortably and quickly wrap baby.  The other day I actually found myself reaching for my wrap instead of my beloved ERGObaby carrier which is a HUGE step for me.

9 month old Iz in the Front Cross Carry...I did it all by myself!!

The advanced carries such as the Rucksack or the Kangaroo Hip Carry definitely take more practice, but are not nearly as intimidating as they once were for me. In fact I really, really like the Rucksack and think it’s a perfect carry for a long hike. In fact I hope to have some lovely photos of me and baby hiking with our wrap to share with you all very soon! :)

Do you use a wrap with your baby? What carries are your favorites? How long did it take you to learn?

-Sarah

PS. Come back for fun wrap demonstration videos all this week!!

Tags: babywearing, breastfeeding, ERGObaby Carrier, mei tai, moby wrap
Posted in babywearing, How to, Product Reviews, Sarah | Comments Off

Top 5 Benefits of Co-Sleeping

Monday, September 19th, 2011
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Co-Sleeping as a Conscious Parenting Choice

When I became pregnant with my first child we were living in a rather small house at the time. I was a bit concerned about all the “stuff” that usually accompanies a baby. How would all of it comfortably fit into our small space? I decided I would research to determine the top 5 pieces of baby equipment to purchase and limit ourselves to those. Surely I would discover if a swing was more important than a bouncy chair or an Exersaucer. Or perhaps I would find out if a changing table was really necessary.

Well, my research ended up taking me in a very different direction as I happened upon the concept of a “Family Bed” in an article questioning the need for a crib. See, I had assumed a crib was an essential, non-negotiable piece of baby equipment but here was this article that offered the idea of a “Family Bed” as an alternative. Needless to say my interest was definitely peaked and I googled “Family Bed” to learn more. Eventually I came across the term Co-Sleeping and the more I read, the more enchanted I became with the idea. So instead of buying a crib and associated nursery furniture, we upgraded to a king-sized bed to allow plenty of room for our soon-to-be co-sleeping baby. As I shared our co-sleeping intentions with others, I quickly realized what a controversial topic it can be from people thinking it’s unsafe, inappropriate, or just plain weird to sleep with your baby.

Thankfully there is a rather extensive body of research available that supports co-sleeping as not only a safe practice but also a beneficial one. Additionally, when we examine the anthropology of co-sleeping, we discover an innate desire to sleep close to our young has prevailed up until more recently. A shift has occurred in our cultural expectation of a baby to sleep independently through the night at a very young age. Where did this cultural expectation derive from and who does it benefit? While it might ensure parents get more sleep, I believe this cultural expectation to be potentially disruptive to the biological function and physiological sleep patterns of infants and young children.

Historically speaking, humans are a co-sleeping species just like all other mammals. A multitude of factors have influenced the current mainstream practice to have infants sleep independently. A few possible influences include medical institutions, consumerism, business entities, social class, as well as changes in family structure and dynamics. Of course, all of these factors are a valuable part of our culture and society, but they do not surpass the need for individuals to make educated, empowered, and personal decisions in regard to any parenting approach. In other words, if you feel drawn to the idea of co-sleeping explore it fully to make an informed decision for your family. Don’t be scared off by one individual claiming it to be unsafe and/or unhealthy. Honor the instinctual intuition you have to keep your little one close to you during the night knowing it is an enjoyable, beneficial and inherent tradition. The more you listen to your intuition as a parent, the stronger it becomes.

Daddy co-sleeping with his one week old son

Here’s a few ways co-sleeping has benefited my family:
1. Supported successful breastfeeding.
2. Allowed for bonding time and physical contact with working parent
3. Ease of traveling and flexibility in sleep space. We travel often and have never needed to pack a portable crib or request one at a hotel
4. Fostered sibling relationships
5. Made room-sharing an easy, practical arrangement. If every kid had their own bedroom it would impact the size of home we are comfortable in. A smaller living space has both economical and ecological benefits.

What are your thoughts on co-sleeping? Do you or did you co-sleep? In what ways has it benefitted your family? I would love to hear from you!

- Sarah

PS. When my second son was a few months old we participated in a co-sleeping study that was a collaborative effort between the State Department of Health and the local University. I was quite honored to be a part of an exciting project that aimed to re-evaluate state recommendations around safe sleeping arrangements for infants. Ultimately their agenda was to improve breastfeeding statistics and they recognized co-sleeping positively impacted a breastfeeding relationship.

Tags: baby, breastfeeding, children, co-sleeping
Posted in breastfeeding, Co-sleeping, New Mothers, Sarah | 20 Comments »

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