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celticdragonflySo I was chatting with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
joyeuse13, who recently posted about looking for advice on parenting. I was telling her some things about my day with the kids, and told her a list of parenting advice that was what I ought to be passing along. She said I ought to write all this down, and share it with her and another friend who's anticipating a baby in the near future.
joyeuse13, who recently posted about looking for advice on parenting. I was telling her some things about my day with the kids, and told her a list of parenting advice that was what I ought to be passing along. She said I ought to write all this down, and share it with her and another friend who's anticipating a baby in the near future. - Chickfila has the best play areas, and puts the best toy (or often book!) in the kids meals.
- Nordstroms is the department store with the nicest changing areas.
- On the road, Cracker Barrel makes for good kid resttops, reliable restrooms with a changing shelf always in the same place.
- It's worth getting good shoes at Striderite, but most kids clothing can be better bought 2ndhand - just be picky when you're going through them.
- anything with a Disney or other cartoon characters on it is a) too expensive and b) too cheaply made
- and buy little boy pants for little girls - I put Maggie in the girly pants her great-aunt sent, and regretted it - they are cut so differently, it really restricted her being able to play and climb at Chickfila. I gotta remember to just stick with the boys sweatpants she usually wears. That or when she wears loose cut dresses with tights or stretchpants under them.
- And boppy pillows are a Mama's best friend.
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adding to your list
Date: 2005-02-21 07:12 pm (UTC)- commercial baby food/snacks. Check the label. If the first ingredient is sucrose, why are you buying it? I have an immersion blender (the wand blenders) I bought a pair of plastic ice cube trays for a dime apience when he was still on the breast. When I made veggies for the adults, any leftovers in the pan (green beans, peas, whatever) got drained and blended (whirr whirr and rinse) and into the ice cube trays. Pop 'em out into a zippie and keep 'em in the freezer. One ice cube = about one serving. I don't eat "beef and banana" so why should my son? He's been eating what we eat since he was weaned. Minus the Tabasco. Well, usually. there was the incident with the Chinese mustard when he was two.
- That being said, how did mothers of teething infants survive before Cheerios? Dude. Buy stock now.
Re: adding to your list
Date: 2005-02-21 07:32 pm (UTC)Personally, I LIKE changing tables. I know parents who insist "oh, just change the kid on the floor" - I do that when we're traveling, and my back pays the price. I'm not doing it at home. And for handy counters, the other argument I hear from other parents, I am really short on those - I don't want to lay a kid down where they can grab tons of stuff they shouldn't, or where I may be preparing food later. I like having the wipes at one end, the diapers reachable underneath, the trash can handily placed to one side.
Now, I don't spend much on them. The upstairs one, bought when Brendan was a newborn, was the cheapest available and we put it together ourselves. The downstairs one, set up when we moved into this two story house, was bought cheaply 2ndhand. My mom has one she picked up at a thrift store that she brings out of storage when we visit with the grandkids, and man do
we appreciate it.
commercial baby food/snacks
Yeah, I agree with you on that. I've done it some, I will admit it. But I try to minimize it. I don't start babies on solid food as early as is usually done in our culture - newborns shouldn't be eating that stuff! I just nurse them for months and months, I think 6 months is the earliest you might need solids, and mine didn't show interest until well after that. There's a narrow window between when they need to start solids and when you can just hand them a subset of regular foods.
I'd heard the ice cube trick, but I don't usually cook that kind of food for us, so it's not helpful. The most common veggies in our household are salad stuff.
That being said, how did mothers of teething infants survive before Cheerios
OH yeah. Teething or not, yes. (Although doesn't it seem like they're ALWAYS teething?) Let me refer you to Pouncer's lovely post on Cheerios are the Parent's Friend.
Re: adding to your list
Date: 2005-02-21 08:02 pm (UTC)Bunny Bear pushed himself to start cereal. On our pediatrician's advice, we started feeding him rice cereal mixed with formula as his last meal of the day to try to get him to sleep through the night. Which still didn't work, but he gobbled it down and then woke up to nurse four hours later. But we didn't start to feed him pureed veggies until, golly, nine months? I think? And didn't wean him until a little over a year. I don't remember it as being particularly early and he certainly took to the veggies hastily enough. Then again, he's never been bashful. 8-) Two fisted eater, that's my boy.
Re: adding to your list
Date: 2005-02-21 08:16 pm (UTC)I find the seatbelt things, on regular changing tables and on ones in public restrooms, TOTALLY useless. If you strap around the baby's middle, you can't lift up the baby's bottom to clean it. Nope. Just my hands, that's all I need.
Maggie and Jamie didn't eat solids until something like 9 or 10 months. Neither of them ever had a bottle, and none of my kids have ever had formula. Brendan weaned around 20 months, Maggie at just under a year - because I was preggers again and lost my milk. Jamie hasn't weaned yet, but man, I'm thinking about it. Trying to cut back generally just means he keeps me up more of the night nursing, gah.
Right now they're having macaroni and cheese. Jamie was SO giggling when I served him some more, he's enjoying that, and the last leftover muffin from breakfast.
Disclaimer: Entirely My Problem, Nobody's Fault
Date: 2005-02-21 09:37 pm (UTC)Yesterday I was talking to a friend who's breastfeeding a newborn, much more successfully than I did. I was surprised that it turned out I still have high-pressure seething layers of fear/guilt/anger about nursing just under the surface.
I'm still convinced that a kid who was that skinny (and below birth weight) nearly 3 weeks old really was malnourished, no matter how much breast time he was getting. And I'm still convinced that La Leche League would NEVER have looked me in the eye and said "yes, this kid needs outside food" no matter how thin he was. At least, not without loading me with (principles before people) a lot of quitter/shill of the Evil Formula Companies/neglectful-uncaring mother guilt that I'm genuinely not sure I could have survived at that point. As in the occasional thoughts of suicide didn't get an internal "what a stupid idea" in reply, but instead "no, I have to much work to do, nobody cares what *I* want, it's all about them..."
If I ever manage to have another baby again (look! another Hot Button) I'm going to use a hospital-grade pump and damn well _measure with my own eyes_ that the child is getting actual food instead of a sort of built-in pacifier.
Yes, I remember that you never once tried to hit me with a guilt trip and were in fact very supportive when I was going through all this. It's mostly me beating me up for that failure. I just still have the scars, that's all.
Signed, TBF.
-- it's not just depression, it's not just PMS. I'm depressed _because_ it's PMS.
Re: Disclaimer: Entirely My Problem, Nobody's Fault
Date: 2005-02-21 10:51 pm (UTC)Something I discovered too late to do me any good was a combination drip-line and syringe/bag. The line was so small and fine that you could tape it to your breast right next to the nipple, drape the rest of the line with the bag attached around your neck and let the gravity flow drip the contents into your infant's mouth as she suckles.
I bought one and set it aside for my sister in case the little Breast Commissars try to do a number on her.
Re: Disclaimer: Entirely My Problem, Nobody's Fault
Date: 2005-02-21 11:54 pm (UTC)As Louann said, I have done the best I can to be helpful and sympathetic to her, and understood and believe that she did the best job she could. I think she's an excellent mother.
But it makes me feel pretty crappy, as a mother who did manage to get the nursing relationship down, to be grouped in as a "Breast Commissar" and a "Stalinist-wannabe". I have done all I can to be a helpful and supportive fellow mother. I've donated milk to other babies in all three nursing periods.
Those who can't nurse don't deserve to get nasty treatment. Those who CAN don't deserve it either. Please don't do it in my space.
Re: ACK! Excluded Middle! Excluded Middle.
Date: 2005-02-22 12:27 am (UTC)Soooo, if you, too, are pushy, inflexible, self-righteous, and, when you have power over the new mother, cruel, "for her own good", then, yes, you too are a Nursing Commissar. But you're not, and we both know you're not, so the post didn't apply to you! At all.
Re: ACK! Excluded Middle! Excluded Middle.
Date: 2005-02-22 12:45 am (UTC)I know damn well that anyone out there ranting about "careless selfish bottle-propping mothers who don't care about what's best for their baby" isn't really talking about the kind of mother that Louann and you are. Heck no. But I bet that mothers in your position feel pretty bad when they hear that. So does the other kind of comment hurt those of us who are successful nursers and want to help other mothers succeed at it if they can.
I ran into something similar after the election - people who assumed those around them all totally agreed with them, and went off ranting obscenely about those on the other side, willing to paint anyone who wasn't precisely with them as Blackest Evil. When I objected, they assured me they didn't mean ME, they meant all those evil people that thought differently than they did, who were trying to Ruin The World. So since they said they didn't mean me, they thought I should be just fine with it. It made me really feel sick, and I gave up on some people entirely. I wish people would be more accepting of people who differ, would be more tolerant, and realize that most people are probably doing the best they can from their position. And yes, this applies to anyone giving Louann a hard time about her nursing experience, too.
Re: ACK! Excluded Middle! Excluded Middle.
Date: 2005-02-23 01:35 am (UTC)But, but, they were. I'm not kidding, Laura, that's exactly what I got from two of the nurses and the mean lactation consultant at the hospital (there was also a nice one, but I met her after it was nearly too late). That's why there's a continuum of behaviour from "nursing enthusiast" through, well, the kind of people who did me dirty.
It's the same politically, too you know. I'm a conservative (which for some folks = Blackest Evil), but if I anyone wants to go on ranting about the general awfulness of White-Pride Jew-Hating Paleo-Con conservative jerks (like, oh, Sam Francis), I'm not going to object. Shoot, I might even join in. Just so long as they find some way to distinguish them from the run-of-the-mill breed, to which I belong.
Re: ACK! Excluded Middle! Excluded Middle.
Date: 2005-02-23 01:39 am (UTC)Well then, you want to be like them, but to me? They were wrong, don't do it yourself to me.
I do object.
Re: Disclaimer: Entirely My Problem, Nobody's Fault
Date: 2005-02-23 01:48 am (UTC)Could you maybe suggest some good books/sites on breastfeeding ?
DV (who likes to do lots of advance research)
Re: Disclaimer: Entirely My Problem, Nobody's Fault
Date: 2005-02-23 02:25 am (UTC)I will think on what books I can recommend.
Re: Disclaimer: Entirely My Problem, Nobody's Fault
Date: 2005-02-22 12:01 am (UTC)We all run into different challenges. I haven't had many problems with nursing (well, not that repeated thrush infections were any fun, but better than what you got stuck with), I've been a good cow. Mooo. But then, none of my kids yet have learned to talk in a normal sequence. Hm, got the mammalian bits down, would like to succeed with less help on the sapient bits.
Re: Disclaimer: Entirely My Problem, Nobody's Fault
Date: 2005-02-23 01:47 am (UTC)((((Louann))))
DV
Re: adding to your list
Date: 2005-02-21 08:48 pm (UTC)Re: adding to your list
Date: 2005-02-21 09:19 pm (UTC)My son's going to turn 13 in May, and uses it for his clothes to this very day. His Lego Hogwart's 'castle' sits on it now, with Slytherin dungeons and the Chamber of Secrets below...
Re: adding to your list
Date: 2005-02-21 10:43 pm (UTC)Commercial babyfood: Gerbers pureed veggies are as good as anything you can make at home (contents: veggie + water) and are wonderful when travelling.
Tricking your infant: Mixing the pureed home-cooked veg with the ground turkey/chicken/beef can yeild meatballs which are 50% veg if you have a stubborn little bunny who won't touch any veg. but carrots.
You can do the same w/whole milk and fresh fruit to make smoothies if they won't touch ANY fresh fruit.
Picky eater? What picky eater?
Re: adding to your list
Date: 2005-02-21 09:28 pm (UTC)Frozen waffles ROCK for teething babies!
Kids clothes
Date: 2005-02-22 01:45 pm (UTC)I was surprised how upset she was at not being able to outfit him from the high end stores. I mean, Talbot's clothes are well made, and will last you 20 years. I recently gave http://www.livejournal.com/users/joyeuse13/ a skirt I'd had for 10 years. Still in great shape. But the boy will grow out of them in 3 months.
My mom set up a hand me down circle, and the same set of clothes got worn by a sequence of kids throughout the neighborhood. The girls' items might make it through 3 or 4 kids before wearing out.
Everyone loved the setup, except of course, my sister, the budding model.
Re: Kids clothes
Date: 2005-02-23 02:27 am (UTC)