Letting go

I am 100% convinced that (most of) the things that we're doing to raise our son are the best we can do and what he needs. Depending on what things I'm talking about, some of the people in our lives are not as convinced. I suppose I'm referring more to peripheral people (acquaintances and coworkers mostly) rather than close friends and family who are all in general very supportive. The other day at the office I got looks of horror when I said that yes, my son is still sleeping our bed, and yes he is still waking to nurse every few hours (sometimes more frequently). Eyebrows went up, heads were shaken back and forth, "how old is he now???" was asked incredulously... and instead of doing what I know I'm supposed to do when people ask "is he sleeping any better now?" I got defensive and snippy with them and of course felt guilty immediately afterwards. I'm supposed to answer "Yes he sleeps just fine, thank you for asking." But I have always had a hard time lying to people (or simply omitting details for that matter). Here is how it actually went down:

Coworker comes in for evening shift: "You look tired! Is baby not sleeping better yet?"
Me: "I've got a cold so I'm really tired."
Coworker: "Oh so he's sleeping better now?"
Me: "Yes, he sleeps fine." Maybe I would have been able to leave it at that if this hadn't happened:
Another coworker who is also an at-work friend comes over and joins the conversation: "So he's sleeping through the night now?" she asks optimistically.
Me: "Well, no."
At-work friend: "So he doesn't sleep fine, if he's still waking up..."
Me: "Um..." not sure what to say, getting defensive and frustrated "He still sleeps in our bed, it's because he's still nursing!!" I almost yell, then walk away quickly and weirdly. I have NEVER in my life been good at navigating these kinds of situations. I am terrible with unexpected conflict (whether it be "healthy debate" or out and out fighting) and I'm not good at defending myself calmly and intelligently. I pretty much always feel stupid after an encounter like this because I know how I came across and it's not even REMOTELY the whole story.

I have come to a few conclusions recently about the whole extended breastfeeding, cosleeping (which isn't really the right term, technically we're "bedsharing" with our 20mo old), and nursing to sleep THING that we do. None of these are particularly new discoveries for many of you experienced parents out there, but it has been a long road of denial and finally acceptance for me.

1. When you do all 3 of these things with a child like mine, he is going to wake up a lot at night looking to nurse. Why not? Wouldn't you if you napped and cuddled within inches of the best restaurant in town and knew it was open 24 hours a day? My son wakes up for the optimal interaction with me, as Dr. Gordon says (whose ideas I like very much for the most part). For me it's a million times easier to roll over and nurse and go back to sleep, than it would be to get up, go to a different room, nurse him, put him back down into his bed, go back to my bed and try to fall asleep.

2. I am not at all comfortable with cry it out methodology, or any methodology at all that recommends very specific tasks like pick-up, put-down (what the dingy heck is that?); go in and say "Time for bed honey" and leave for X amount of time, come back and say something else, pat-pat, etc. etc. These things don't feel natural to me at all. I would have to print out the instructions and use a fricken timer!!! People have been parenting for millenia. Did they use stopwatches to "sleep-train" their children? And don't get me started on the whole concept of "sleep training." What a bunch of hooey. I've felt guilty about my aversion to this stuff for too long. I'm finally outgrowing the feeling that I have to do what everyone else says I should (no longer a new mom, now I'm a mom to a toddler!!! WOOHOO!) I like askmoxie's advice, either read ALL of the sleep training books or none at all.

3. People tell me I'm neurotic (or at least they say it behind my back) and yet... to me these methodologies and concerns about children sleeping in your bed forever and nursing until they're 10 are pretty neurotic. Isn't it a little paranoid to imply that a baby (he is still a baby even though he's walking) who is sleeping with his mommy and daddy in the family bed is still going to be doing that when he's 10??? That is over 8 years from now!!!! Or that he'll still be nursing at that point? They change soooo quickly, no one hesitates to point that out. Isn't it possible that my son will change those habits on his own when he's ready? And that it may happen before our "deadline" of his 3rd birthday? We are endlessly amazed by children when they seem to just do something on their own (like potty training for example). I've read and heard many parents say that "one day she just peed and pooped in the potty on her own and never had a problem after that. I didn't have to do anything really!!" I believe that most healthy, normal children have this "ability" to decide and act on a change when they are emotionally and physically ready to do so, not according to some arbitrary deadline, IF we allow them to do so and teach them to trust their instincts and bodies. In no way shape or form am I advocating for allowing our children to do dangerous things so they can learn on their own. That is not at all what I mean. I'm saying that we are allowing our son to develop and grow up according to his own inner timetable. BUT as he gets older, we are slowly setting more limits and boundaries on things like nursing because he is ready for that and it's time for mommy and daddy to start having lives again :)

I don't know if me writing this could actually help some parents out there but it might. Basically what it comes down to is trusting your instincts (with or without external advice). Even if this is your first child, you've never babysat, had any siblings, anything related to parenting, you are still the parent and you have inborn instincts that have been there since the beginning of humanity to help you. The other part is to trust your child's instincts. They are more in tune with them, they know what they need. They don't always know what they want, but somewhere inside them they do know what they need. And the more you can help them keep in touch with that, the better off you will all be.

NSTTN Support Group

Let's start an online support group for moms with children who don't sleep through the night yet, no matter what age they are. Ok? Problem is I have no idea how to do this. I suppose we could do an email group or something, and just email each other. I don't know how to start an online forum. Anyone know how? Anyone want to help me make this happen? Pretty please...

Seriously though. We are in a decent phase right now which is great (you kinda forget how traumatic the sleep regressions were when you're not in one) but I think it would be awesome to have some kind of support in place when things go awry and I feel like I want to jump off a bridge. Ya know? Email me at vacationlandmom@gmail.com if you feel like joining up.

Another rant...

It’s all very clever and all to come up with anti c-section slogans (like “the uneccesarean”) but unfortunately I think it demonizes the women who elect to have them and the doctors that perform them. Why do we care so much about what a woman does with her own body? I know, I know, there’s a baby involved. But why do we seek to control, even as we are “trying to help”? I am with you’all- I agree that c-sections are performed too often and that it can make the birth experience traumatic and full of regrets for the mom. But one of the side effects of anti-c-section-ism is that the mother who had one now has regrets because supposedly she wasn’t supposed to get one! Or all the backlash against epidurals and pain medications during labor. Why do we have to make it out that the woman was weak to have accepted the offer of pain meds, or even worse, if she asked for them!

We MUST learn to respect the laboring woman, both during labor, and for the entire lifetime afterwards! Labor isn’t a one time thing, oh 24 hours and it’s over. Labor is just the climax, then there’s the afterwards, the afterbirth, the PARENTING the child for the rest of its life, the new roles to adjust to, the physical healing. Once you have a baby you are never the same again as you were before you got pregnant. You start to feel like yourself again at some point, but it’s a new you, a new and improved you! I don’t care if you never felt a single contraction, etc. you GAVE BIRTH, regardless of how. Don’t let anyone make you feel like you didn’t. Heck I had a vaginal birth but I still feel regret because I read all these natural childbirth stories, and I think to myself, I was weak, I shouldn’t have asked for pain medication, I shouldn’t have let them “sleep me,” etc. BUT the reality is that everything happened the way it was supposed to. And I did a great job. I had a herniated disc at the time, I was in excrutiating pain 24 hours a day for 3 months before I gave birth. I couldn’t walk around during labor. I couldn’t even sit up or squat. I basically ended up in the traditional position, legs up on a bar, on my back, etc. I literally couldn’t stand up. And I had back labor. And I pushed for 1 minute shy of 3 hours. And I had Pitocin towards the end of the birth. Pretty much all the things I didn’t want to happen, happened. I mean WTF- there are many many of us who have health problems, etc. that prevent us from having “natural childbirth,” from breastfeeding, etc. I’m sick of the judgement. It needs to end because it’s getting us nowhere. All it's doing is alienating us from each other at a time when we need each other the most.

Random rant, sorry

A few months ago a friend who has very different political views than me started going off that Obama supports partial birth abortion. "They deliver a baby and then puncture the back of it's skull to kill it!!!! It's horrible!" etc etc. I was completely caught off guard because I felt like I couldn't say that she was wrong. I didn't know what the heck she was talking about. Why would that ever happen? Why would Obama think it's OK? So I did some research on the good ole internet. I typed in "Obama and partial birth abortion" and up came a ton of propagandistic right wing sites. Finally I said screw this and went to NARAL.org. What I read there was that Obama voted against a ban of partial birth abortion for 2 reasons: one is that rarely partial birth abortion is medically necessary, and the second reason is that the language in the bill was murky and could lead to undermining a woman's right to choose. It doesn't mean that Obama thinks partial birth abortion is great or even OK. It's a horrible thing. Rarely it is medically necessary. When I was reading about it, and of course there were horrible pictures and drawings, I felt sick. As a mom to an infant (well, almost-toddler), I can't even *think* about anything happening to a baby cuz my heart skips a beat and I feel nauseous and it's awful.... BUT I believe in a woman's right to choose.

TANGENT ALERT: How many times have I heard of men who don't want to get vasectomies because they don't want anyone messing with their junk. Hello? It's quite noninvasive day surgery. Not like ANY of the procedures/pills/etc. that women have to deal with in order to prevent pregnancy. "OMG, wear a condom? No way. I'd prefer that you get a copper thingie inserted into your uterus for the next 10 years so I can do whatever I want. Oh and by the way you'll probably have heavier periods and more cramping. Or you can get the one that has hormones and have like no period but possibly slip into depression." WTF?

I think it's particularly sad when women listen to right-wing propaganda and spread it around as if it's truth. If only we could stop judging each other. Yes there are women who abuse the use of abortion. There are people who abuse everything, who break the rules, who mess things up for other upstanding citizens. There are WAY MORE women who have abortions because they feel they have to for their own safety and sanity. We can never fully understand the choices another person makes because we can't walk in their shoes.

Upper-Lower Class

This one has been rolling around in my brain for awhile now. On the internets all I can find is something about white trash... which is not quite what I'm thinking of. I'm thinking of people like me, who on the outside might appear to be middle class but if you looked at my actual income/expenses/debt you would think otherwise. I'm not below poverty level, but hovering above it.

I don't mean to offend anyone but here I go anyways.

I think a lot of the mommy bloggers here on the web are if not wealthy then at least middle class. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I just think that the perspective of those with limited or low income is not very well represented in this sphere. When I read discussions of many issues that new moms and moms in general have, they are often skewed in the general direction of money is not an object. I guess the presumption here (which can be true, don't get me wrong) is that people who don't have much money/low income are consumed with thinking about meeting their basic needs and don't have the time/energy/resources to think about broader social issues. Like a Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs type thingie.

"Baby should sleep in his/her own room, in his/her own bed." Do we see the expectation here? What if you live in a 1-bedroom (like we did until our son was about 6 months old)? What if you can't afford to drop $100 or $200 for a nice, safe crib?

Honestly I don't know how we would have gotten by if we'd had to buy formula. Luckily I was able to breastfeed and fulfill my son's needs that way for quite a while (also he was late with starting to really eat solids). Breastfeeding is free (except for the EXTRA gobs of food you need to eat in order to avoid growly belly at 3am after your child has been nursing every hour since you both went to bed at 9pm and dinner was early at 6pm... but I digress)

There are many who probably judge me thinking, well if you couldn't afford to take care of yourself, then you went ahead and had a kid, whose fault is that? I'm not blaming anyone. I don't think it's right however to say that unless you are middle class and financially "comfortable" that you are not allowed to have children!

I don't necessarily feel comfortable representing any type of class or population of people. But I also feel like my situation does not fit in either lower or middle class. My and my husband's annual gross income might put us into the middle class, but when you subtract out all of our expenses and our debt, and if you take out taxes (which you should when you're analyzing cost of living/applications for assistance, etc. You never see your gross income, you see your net, that is your REAL income, the actual money that you get in your bank account that you can spend) then we're looking not so great. Like "how exactly are these people getting by?" Which we are, but barely.

I'm sure I have more to say on this subject but my break is over so back to the grind.

SIO and the summer-tease

Alrighty, so last week our weather was surreal. It got up to the 80's in some parts of midcoast Maine. Holy crap, 80 degrees in March??? It was AWESOME but also heartbreaking because it ended and now we're back to cold, cold, cold, windy, possible snow. UGH.

And SIO is my new theory regarding the family bed. Forever my husband was sleeping on the couch. Not just because I asked him to frequently after our son was born, but also because he has a nasty habit of falling asleep with EVERYTHING on and waking up at 4 am, like WAAAHHHH??!!! So lately he has been trying to come to bed with us. AND even if he wears a Breathe Right strip, he snores like a freight train for the first 45 minutes or so. During which I lay there with the ineffectual pillow over my head while my son sleeps like a... um... baby and I can't fall asleep cuz everytime there's a break in the snoring and I start to dose off, he starts up again. I used to kick/punch/poke him to say "Roll over, please!" and get a snoring break. BUT what I realized is that every time I do that he is cycling back up in sleep and therefore has to start the stages all over again. Now I do SIO (Snore-It-Out) which is I let him snore away, don't touch him or try to wake him or get him to roll over. Eventually he stops snoring and I fall asleep, and then we're generally good from there! This is for wives out there who have snoring husbands (and you've tried everything else)... it could work for you too :)

Now if the kid would just STTN we'd have it made in the shade.

Can I just say something?

I love my midwife. We had a rocky start (well, she probably didn't notice anything)- in my 1/2 dose of Welbutrin, dealing with PG and herniated disc, 7-months pregnant mind, she wasn't my ideal midwife. BUT she was fantastic during my labor, and looking back everything was the way it should have been. Yes, I had Pitocin upon her recommendation, yes I ended up in the traditional, not good for anybody position during the pushing stage, yes I had morphine midway through because I hadn't slept in 48 hours, but she didn't doubt me, she was stern yet kind. At one point during my labor she told everyone else in the room to "shut up" (not my hubbie, just the other myriad of nurses, docs, pedis, etc. who were all saying "you can do it, you're almost there" etc while my son was crowning) and told me to focus on her voice and only listen to her. Since I had my son I've seen her several times at the doc's office for appts and a few times as she calls it "out in the community." Her husband performed the ceremony at a good friend's wedding. It was such a nice surprise to see her.

Sometimes I think about baby catching and how she caught my baby. I remember her telling me that I did a fantastic job and I should be really proud of myself. She asked me if I was, and I think I said "sorta..." because I was still hung up on how the birth wasn't completely natural, how I gave in to interventions that may not have been necessary, etc. I feel differently now. I KICKED ASS. I still KICK ASS. I am a great mom.

I saw her last week for my annual PAP, etc. (I forgot how much a PAP hurts! it's not a q-tip guys, it's got metal on the end, OWWIE) and instead of being all business like some, she let me vent and chatted with me for a good half hour about sleep and extended breastfeeding. She has an only child, a son, who just turned 23. She validated our experiences, that my son is normal even though he wakes up constantly freaking out, there's nothing wrong with him. That it's ok and wonderful to do attachment parenting (cosleeping, EBF, child-led, etc.) BUT that if we decided to do CIO, our son would have had a great start towards independence and good self-esteem because of the sacrifices we've made (mostly loss of sleep! LOL) so far. She congratulated me and told me that I am a wonderful mother. I started crying because I had no idea how much I needed that validation, especially coming from the person who delivered my son, and who has been there, done that. She gave me a hug at the end of our visit and also gave me her home phone number so we can talk about parenting. She is intuitive, she knew right away that I needed some local, in-person, support around attachment parenting.

Wow 2 posts in one day. Go me!