The impact of packed lunches

So, Holden starts daycare next week. I can’t remember if I had posted a follow up, but we did get in with the awesome home daycare that I got such a good feeling from almost a year ago. I have been actually looking forward to it for him, as I think that he’ll really enjoy the socialization and all of the fun they’ll have, and I think he’s at a good age to start being cared by someone other than me or Brad. We’ve been very lucky to get to 16 months with just the two of us looking after him, and I think this is a good transition time. I have to admit that I felt a bit smug when other moms expressed reluctance and sadness over their babies starting daycare – I felt pretty level and pragmatic about it all, along the lines of it being Character Building! Fun! Good life balance! I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be shedding any tears over the transition.

That was until I went shopping for a lunch pail. Once we returned from our trip, I realized that August was half over and that the beginning of school was staring down at us. School starting means daycare for us, as Brad will be returning to teaching and I am working my (condensed) full time schedule now. I dutifully read over the daycare handbook, noted what items we’d need (lunch kit, bag, indoor shoes, muddy buddy, another Joel doll for naptime, a thermos, labels and more soothers) and made a lunch rotation and list of easy-to-freeze bulk baked goods. That was all simple enough. This weekend I popped out to buy the needed items, with a bemused reflection that several things on my list were conveniently located in the back-to-school displays at the front of the stores.

Even though I had my list, I was puzzled to find myself scattered and unfocused in the store. I went and got some soothers first, as that was easy – he has a preferred kind. I went to look at the backpacks, but they all seemed so big, with so many licensed characters. I returned to the baby section and selected a spoon and fork set. Browsed some shoes, but thought I’d look more elsewhere. Grabbed another sippy cup back in baby section. Returned to bag display and started staring aimlessly at the lunchboxes. How many pockets would he need? Where could an ice pack go? Would someone be able to take the lids of the containers off for him? Who would sing his special hand-washing song? My throat tightened and my heart started pounding. I felt sweaty and disoriented. I realized that I was feeling panicky, so I left the store and returned to my car. Later I would research more options and decide on a specific lunch system (yes, really) and the next day I would (with a similar amount of hand-wringing) be able to choose a simple backpack to ferry his stuff back and forth. But in that moment, staring at the steering wheel of my car, I let all of the worry, nostalgia, fear, reflection, heartache and – yes, tears, wash over me.

The best gift of all

For Mother’s Day weekend Holden and I took our first solo trip to a cabin on the mainland with a girlfriend and her one year old. This might sound like a recipe for mass chaos, but we actually had an amazing – and even relaxing! – time. The babies were fantastic on the car rides, particularly on the way home. H usually isn’t in the car for longer than 20 minutes at a time, so we had some protest in the beginning, but he settled in after that. We had a lovely time relaxing on the beach with the kids (the weather was really warm) and watching them interact and play together in the cabin (it was super adorable, including bath time!). I think most importantly it proved to both me and my friend how capable we are and have become over the past year. It was refreshing and empowering to enjoy that together. I came home to a clean house and dinner prepared, and some very thoughtful Mother’s Day gifts – a truly wonderful weekend to spend enjoying being a mother.

The kids are alright – but what about us?

This post isn’t directly about Holden, but is rather a commentary on something that frustrates me to no end – the tendency for older generations (even current young adults!) to shake their heads, wag their fingers and sigh “kids these days.” The following short article has popped up on my newsfeed a few times now, and seems to be widely shared within the Facebook community:

I get the overall sentiment (the whole ‘it’s only you that can make a difference! Carpe Diem!), but it’s couched in the language of blame and condescension that seems to be troublingly prevalent.

I particularly dislike the whole “no one owes you anything” premise. Of COURSE we do. These are our children. We owe them love, stability and kindness, as well as understanding and support when they go through one of the most turbulent periods of their lives. We owe them modelling of appropriate adult behaviour, instead of telling them “Start behaving like a responsible person”. Instead we show them that half of us are obese. Many rarely volunteer or give their own time to others. Global warming. Debt crises. Failure to save for retirement. Failure to take care of our own bodies so that the health care system is crippled. At the same time, ALMOST ALL teenagers I know are engaged, interested, interesting and passionate about something, even if it’s something their parents condemn. They often give their time and energy selflessly, and I have yet to enter a high school that’s not alive with a buzz of electric energy and an overwhelming sense of community. Brad’s school raised $100,000 in two weeks for Cops for Cancer, and hundred of kids shaved their heads (grade nine girls included). This is more the rule than the exception. The implications in this article are so general, so condemning and so hypocritical that it frustrates me to no end. We owe our children and teenagers so much, and half the time they’re already having much more of an impact on the world than we do as adults.

This is made even worse with the outright statement that our youth owe it to the world to save it from itself. What kind of expectation is that? It is a gravely selfish assertion to imply that ‘even though we’ve screwed up so much, you OWE IT to us to make it right.’ It is ludicrous to me that this idea can be justified. How can we sternly say to these young people to “develop a backbone, not a wishbone” when we’re not even bothering to wish, let alone act, anymore? The irony is that youth are notoriously the driving force of many social movements and have inspired positive change as a collective decade after decade. It’s time to ask ourselves seriously – why do we not hold ourselves as adults, and as a society, accountable to that which we expect of our children in spades?

For me, the bottom line is brutal and brief. If you think your children (or youth in general) are lazy and entitled, it’s your fault. Our fault for not raising them to be compassionate, active and motivated young people. It’s time to take responsibility for this rather than condemning and blaming our children and to show them how to be the adults we demand they become.

Screens screens screens – Which are good, which are bad?

I’d like to return now to one of the topics I had mentioned previously – media consumption/screen time. This is a subject Brad and I did not think we’d need to address just yet as Holden is so young, and we are aware of the widespread recommendation that children under two get no screen time at all (American Academy of Pediatrics). We generally agree with this recommendation and thought it would be pretty straightforward to keep our kid from watching TV while he was a baby. As at least 95% of our (minimal) television viewing takes place in the later evening, in addition to our screens mainly being downstairs where we don’t play as much, so television exposure isn’t really an issue in our house. We have both (in our professional and personal lives) read the science and psychology behind the no-TV recommendations, which generally indicate that media consumption has no value for the development of very young children and perhaps is even a detriment. There are myriad reasons for this assertion – that interaction and physical negotiation of their surroundings is what children require to thrive developmentally; diminishing of creativity when parameters for play are defined; exposure to media violence linked to desensitization, lack of empathy and poorer school performance, and a negative impact on executive function skills such as self-regulation and problem solving (for a nice summary of the research and overall consideration of the topic, see Facing the Screen Dilemma). Here is an interesting excerpt of the statistics reported (American):

On any given day, 29% of babies under the age of 1 are watching TV and videos for an average of about 90 minutes. Twenty-three percent have
a television in their bedroom. Time with screens increases rapidly in the early years. Between their first and second birthday, on any given day, 64% of babies and toddlers are watching TV and videos, averaging slightly over 2 hours. Thirty-six percent have a television in their bedroom (5).

I find those statistics surprising to say the least, particularly given the official recommendations. What it does illustrate is the pervasive reach of media into even the youngest of children’s lives. So how will Holden’s babyhood compare? As television doesn’t play a huge role in our lives, it’s easy and intuitive enough to keep Holden away from it for now. The uncertainty for us, however, exists in two main respects: the ‘grey area’ technology he is exposed to now, and the role media will play in his life as he gets older. One final aspect is his observation of our own relationship with media and technology, and how that will shape, inform and ideally not contradict with his own evolving negotiation of the media landscape. I plan to explore this in a series of three blog posts, beginning with his current exposure. Before I delve into these three considerations, I should explain for those of you who aren’t familiar with our backgrounds: I have an MA in Communication with a media education concentration, and Brad is a high school English teacher who integrates technology and media both as a teaching tool and text of study regularly in his classroom. This is not to say that we have any more expertise as parents in this regard, just that we have a particularly complex and often reflected upon relationship with media.

While Holden is largely unaware what the big black box  in the basement does, he certainly is keenly interested in our laptop screens, iPhones and iPad. It’s fascinating how he’s drawn to the bright screens, and loves pounding away on the keyboards. He even caresses the screen of the iPad, enthralled with the effect his finger strokes have. I find it both amazing and a bit terrifying how he seems to get how it works on some level – the way he’ll tap on the keys and look at letters appearing on the screen, how he’ll purposefully swipe a finger to engage with an iPad app. Wait, hold the phone (har har) – iPad app? That’s right. As a last ditch keep-the-baby-from-screaming-on-24-hours-of-flying effort over the holidays, we downloaded a few iPad apps to see if he would be interested. We did try them out a few times, and he was fascinated – one game is a ‘reverse colouring’ exercise which presents a black screen that a baby can rub a finger over to make a picture appear. Another is a keyboard that makes different noises and colours when different parts of the screen are contacted, and the third produces little shapes and colour bursts when you touch the screen. So – interactive? Yes. Engages the child in a learning activity? I’d say yes. A screen? Also yes. So, where does this fall in the broad “no screen media” proclamation for the under-two set? As parents, Brad and I feel that a small amount of exposure in this sense is perfectly fine and certainly not detrimental. After all, digital literacy and familiarity with interacting and engaging with media is essential for the current generation, beginning at perhaps the preschool years. Within reason, of course – other skills and experiences are arguably more important – a love of reading and conventional literacy, tactile free imaginative play, outdoor play and healthy living executive function skills, and literacy in social cues and interaction.

And what, then, of relationships with their friends and family? Well, with a 4,000 kilometer separation, Holden still manages to see his grandparents and cousins on a regular basis – albeit through a  screen. Where does his FaceTime ‘conversations’ with his extended family fall? Would the media limitation pundits recommend instead we settle for annual visits? It’s a no brainer to us that cultivating a close relationship with his family is far more important than being unyielding on the anti-screen rules. The truth is that as a society our relationship with media and the role of screens in our lives goes far beyond the TV blaring in the background. Screens are often conduits to our interpersonal relationships, our education and our self image at the same time as they contribute to sendentary lifestyles and (arguably) other social ills. A blanket screen ban for our children seems too blunt an instrument to approach this complexity, although clearly there are negative (and positive!) repercussions to our children’s and our own consumption of and interaction with screen media. In his baby and toddlerhood, while we’re not concentrating on cultivating his digital literacy, we as parents feel that occasionally engaging with media that require interaction and participation (versus the more passive consumption of television-based media) is a healthy and positive choice for our family.

My next post in this series will concern the next stage of his development.

Apple, meet tree

Tuesday was such a lovely day for Holden and me – for once, we didn’t have set plans, and I decided we’d stay in most of the day, hanging out and making him some baby food to freeze. He was easy going and cheerful, content to amuse himself on the floor while I pureed sweet potatoes, rice, salmon and squash. At one point I upended his entire box of toys on the floor and I swear I saw his jaw drop – he immediately started doing pirouettes in the middle of them, trying to gather them all up (such is his personality). It’s a funny thing, personality, particularly with babies. While they may all seem similar in their habits of drooling, gnawing on everything and wailing when upset, I have come to the realization, now that I have one of my own, that their little personalities are so strong, so engrained, that it throws the nature/nurture debate a curveball.

As he gets older and more mature, I can see the traits that were partially obscured by tiny baby-ness start to come to the fore. Holden is incredibly engaged and observant – it’s like his head is on a swivel when he’s somewhere new or stimulating. As I’ve described in the past, he’s also very adaptable – loves new situations and people, and has readily taken to most things we’ve thrown at him. In that way he’s easygoing – also smiley, goofy and loving. We’ve noticed that his fine motor skills are quickly improving, with gross motor skills following behind – this surprised us at first as he’s so active and busy (we thought he’d crawl early), but now makes sense when we realize how detail-oriented and intent he is. He will turn a block over in his hands and examine it carefully from every angle, tasting it every so often. He likes to gently close his little hand around a few strands of my hair. He will stare at, and pet, a small patch of sunlight on the floor.

I know I’ve also reflected for that he’s also impatient and quick to become irritated. This is still true, and I think part of who he is – it will improve as he gains more autonomy, but does seem part of his fabric. For that reason, today wasn’t so great. He had an off day, which used to be more frequent but are thankfully less so as of late. I had forgotten how draining they were. Part of it is that he’s balking at nursing right now – it’s common enough for babies to go through periods of ‘striking’ (I guess it’s karma after both of our unions went through job action this year). This means lots of fussing, crying, clawing – very upsetting for both of us. Eva gave me some great advice today (including just letting him be for a bit, he’ll get over it), which was very helpful – it is sometimes difficult with two stubborn, slightly irritated people spending all day together to have a broader perspective, particularly when one of them can’t talk. Stubborn, independent, silly, loving, intent, focused, determined, adaptable.

That is my baby. And my husband. And myself. Watch out, world.

The naked truth

In many ways I am very glad to have a son. Life seems easier for boys and men in many respects – somehow they escape much of the internal and external pressure that little girls and women experience. This is particularly evident as related to body image. Don’t get me wrong – boys and men can go through a great deal in terms of self-criticism and comparison to media ideals and societal expectations. It’s just that appearance-related judgement seems principally a female domain.

This is possibly no more evident than when a woman has a baby – first comes, of course, the ‘bump watch’ as is evident in all of the gossip rags. Somehow being pregnant opens the door even further for intense scrutiny of a woman’s body, and seems to invite physical contact that would be otherwise invasive – rubbing the belly, commenting on its shape, size and position. People even go so far as to ask you how much weight you’ve gained – it really does feel like all typical polite distance goes out the window when you’re expecting.

To be honest, I didn’t mind that as much when I was pregnant – I found the whole process to be quite exciting, and I would talk to whoever would listen about my experience. I didn’t receive an inordinate amount of belly rubs, and I particularly liked describing the ins and outs of pregnancy to my close girlfriends who had never experienced it and were intrigued. In addition, I felt better about my physical body than I had in a long time. For once, I didn’t have to worry too much about weight gain or calories ingested – it was actually encouraged! I was fortunate as well to have relatively slow gain, and mainly in the belly, so perhaps that’s why I felt mostly positive about my physical experience.  In the last month or so, however, Holden grew significantly after lagging a bit, so I did put on more towards the end.

12 weeks

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What nobody really tells you in advance, though, is that you will go through a physical disorientation in the days after giving birth that can be difficult, particularly as you adjust to life with a newborn, sleep deprivation, milk production and recovery simultaneously. It does take awhile for your internal belly to deflate, and everything has sort of shifted – I found that it does take a bit of time to relearn your body and to become comfortable in it again in a practical, everyday sense, particularly as its most important function is still to nourish another human. This is one aspect of the postnatal physical struggle – the lack of a sense of ownership over one’s own body.

The concept of body image doesn’t come into play until later. Celebrities have it the worst, I think – from minutes after birth they are scrutinized and closely monitored on how quickly they lose the ‘baby weight.’ And of course, judged. If they are back in shape too quickly, their motherhood priorities and nutrition are questioned. If the pounds linger, they are subject to intense public shaming . Even for mere ordinary folk, this transition can be difficult. I think that, even completely innocently, we tend to give our postnatal friends and family the once over when we see them, assessing how their body has changed.

I was lucky, really. Any of the pound-based weight I had gained disappeared in the weeks following Holden’s birth, and I was back to my start weight fairly quickly. And remained there. Thus resumed any previous misgivings or frustrations I had about my body and the neverending struggle to stay fit – alongside a number of changes that pregnancy and birth produce. Everything is a little bit different – orientation, size, overall feel. I’ve heard this reported widely from other new moms – I feel fortunate that by and large, I feel very similarly to before and am wearing most of the same clothes (despite feeling extra conscious about belly pooch). Still, pregnancy does alter one’s body significantly, in myriad ways.

What I have to deal with is the marks. Fortunately I escaped a c-section scar (although those are quite modest these days!). However, during Holden’s final growth spurt, angry, dark stretch marks rippled out over my belly where it had previously been unblemished. What I learned is that these don’t go away – the best I can hope for is a paling to a slivery sheen (with liberal application of Bio Oil). This, of course, is something relatively minor. I think my teeny weeny bikini days have long since past anyway, so really, what does it matter? But it does. During pregnancy, delivery and after with your new baby, your body never feels like it’s truly your own. You have to always watch what you eat, how much water you intake, along with trying to cram an exercise regimen into already impossibly full days. For those who have two children an average 2-3ish years apart, you essentially are pregnant or breastfeeding for 4-6 years straight. That’s a long time to give up what feels like ownership of your body, and perhaps you never feel like you get it back – or you receive back the equivalent of a soft, well-loved teddy bear after years of service. Its fur may be a bit rumpled, its eyes uneven, its felt nose worn off, but this wear represents the love it bore.

This is a lovely metaphor, and I’m sure we mothers feel like that occasionally, but sometimes it sucks. Back in August, Liev accidentally scratched me (again, argh) on the arm, and it will probably scar – a matching set with the lines on my shoulder that he gave me right before my wedding. Brad was comforting me afterwards, and I burst out – “You know what, I don’t even care any more. I have tiger stripes all over my stomach, scars all over my body and I’m sure my boobs will sag after breastfeeding. Who cares.” Such a sentiment to have at 28. I don’t really not care, of course, and there’s plenty I can do to be fit, trim and attractive for years to come. I’ve already launched back into my exercise program and have been following a clean eating meal list for our family, and am feeling really positively about it.

But still. The marks will remain. I can choose to feel negatively about my body to the point that I won’t take care of it. This is not an option, though, as I believe that to carve out my new sense of self amidst being a wife and mother I need to feel good about myself inside and out, and empowered to live the best, healthiest life that I can. After all, I am a role model for my child(ren). On the other hand, I can warmly and lovingly embrace the marks, sagging flesh and slightly reorganized body that comes with bearing someone into the world. There is a wonderful site that does just that: The Shape of a Mother, which celebrates all of these flaws as attributes and badges of honour.

In all honesty, I am somewhere in between. Sometimes I am discouraged when I catch sight of myself in the mirror with my changed and changing body. Sometimes I am proud of myself. Sometimes I am angry at the constant invasion into my physical self by others. Mostly, though, I just see me. And more often than not, I’ve got a little head peeping over my shoulder, smiling at me in the mirror. At this moment, any blemishes fade out of focus, melting into the background as what’s most important is brought into sharp relief.

Disclaimer: Some may wonder why I share such personal reflections/images on the web. Put quite simply, I love anything to do with sharing the human experience and finding common ground with those around me. As such, I’ve always been one who shares my thoughts and opinions, strengths and weaknesses in the hopes of connecting with others. While I’m mindful of not posting information or media of Holden that he may seriously begrudge me for later on, I feel that my own thoughts and body are fair game 🙂

Babies need a lot of crap: Our must-have list

So I’ve come to realize that being pinned by baby nursing many times a day + computer stationed on the couch + difficulty running lots of errands with baby = LOTS OF ONLINE SHOPPING. It’s getting to be a bit of a Thing for me now, and Brad says I need to tone it down lest we plow too quickly through my mat leave pay. But I say nay! I’m getting great deals. As many of you probably know about me, I am a researcher both at heart and by trade, so this extra computer time and incentive to get the best baby gear for the best price has been met with full (perhaps overzealous, Brad would say) enthusiasm. And what could be more fun than receiving packages every little while in the mail? Today, for example, I received a box of parenting books from Chapters (because advice like “sing the same song associated with diaper changes to help them with transitions!” is not inherent knowledge). I celebrated by ordering a 12-pack of cloth diapers*.

This sets me up to discuss what I’ve found to be the must-haves for new parents, and what products we’ve bought in these categories (note: just covers bigger gear, not the everyday essentials like baby wash, hats, booties, etc.).

Our newborn/young infant must-haves:

• Multiple babywearing devices. New babies especially love to be against you as much as possible, and they’re used to being in motion. Babywearing is thus the perfect fusion of these two elements, and has also been shown to reduce overall crying time and foster parental attachment. Our favourite early on was the Moby wrap – basically a 15 foot length of jersey fabric that you wrap around you elaborately to hold baby against your chest. We also have an Ergo, which he was so-so about, and we’re currently waiting until he’s a bit bigger for the legs-out hold. My newest go-to is the Maya Wrap – a ring sling that looks hippie-tacular, but is super handy for wearing Holden facing forward without using a carrier that supports babies from the crotch (see: Baby Bjorn. Much controversy here. I’m remaining neutral, but it’s just not for us).
• Multi-configuration stroller. By this I don’t mean the Graco-style travel systems; those are not favourably reviewed generally due to overall quality and an all-size-fits-none verdict. Instead, I’m referring to a stroller that can support various components – car seat, bassinet, larger toddler seat for example. After MUCH agonizing and forum searching, we went with the Baby Jogger City Select and absolutely love it. Its frame is aluminum and relatively lightweight for its size. For us, it was absolutely essential to have a stroller that we could clip our carseat into so as to avoid waking baby if he fell asleep in the car. The bassinet feature is also super nice so that a) your newborn is lying flat when you go out for a walk and b) so you have a portable bed for them – great for long days in the park. We’ve just begun putting him in the full seat – the almost-full recline is another feature to look out for, so you can recline it almost flat if the baby falls asleep on a walk (like today). As far as the City Select goes, it’s probably our favourite purchase. It’s relatively sleek and sexy, the wheels/manoueverability is amazing, and it’s simple to fold, operate and change out components. Yes I just referred to a stroller as sexy. What of it.
• Pack and play – for us, this was the only thing Holden would sleep in when really young, specifically the newborn napper (a little fabric basin that attaches) as he didn’t like to lie flat. Also good for portable sleep, travelling and keeping older babies contained.
• Baby monitor. We (well I) am a little paranoid, so we got the Angelcare movement and sound monitor, which also monitors the baby’s breathing and sounds an alarm if it doesn’t detect any movement for 10 seconds. We’ve been happy with the  monitor as a standard listen-to-baby device, and the movement aspect has provided peace of mind. Occasionally we thought it would be handy to have a video function, but apparently it drives parents nuts with the ubermonitoring, and we found it wasn’t ultimately necessary. An added bonus is if the monitor displays the room temperature – we’ve found that really convenient, particularly during hot/cool spells.
• Lots of small, inexpensive cloths- babies are SUPER messy (and so is feeding them). We had a couple packs of these, and bought at least two dozen more to station all over the house.
• A large plastic cup with a lid and straw – spillproof – like this one. This is invaluable during those early days when basic functions like staying hydrated can be challenging when pinned for hours on end.
• Swaddle wraps – we couldn’t get the hang of swaddling him tight enough with blankets, so velcro-based swaddle wraps were a necessity until around 4 months. Now we use sleep sacks.
• Soothers – we had a soother baby (some love them, some are indifferent, some hate them) – for us it was and still is a must-have for calming and sleeping
• White noise – you can buy fancy white noise machines, but if you have a smartphone there are some great apps that have all manner of constant noise options (our favourite was “brown noise” – a bit deeper and softer). A dock helps as well – we bought one for Holden’s room so he could have music and white noise permanently stationed in there
• The obvious things: car seat (to be honest I don’t think it particularly matters which. They’re all safety approved to the hilt and they all are heavy and cumbersome with a baby in it. We liked ours, the Chicco Keyfit, although the umbrella cover doesn’t come over very far); some sort of sleeping surface (ultimately we found a bassinet to work best after he grew too long for the newborn napper); clothes (people will tell you that you don’t need any of the newborn sizes, but if you end up having a smallish baby like we did, they will be in newborn stuff for a month or so. Basically they just need a crapload of footie sleepers); diapering stuff, bathing stuff, etc.
• Jolly jumper – Holden’s absolute favourite activity; he can bounce happily for quite awhile (read: free me up to do stuff around the house)
• A mobile – try to avoid the plush, musical ones as staring at plush feet isn’t particularly exciting for babies (though the movement is good). For a short phase, babies are ALL about mobiles, and we loved this one that featured bold designs and interchangeable cards for different developmental stages.
• 
• Grabby toys – you don’t need to go nuts with these, but when H started to reach and grab for things, they became super useful to hand off to him. The BEST one turned out to be cheap plastic interlocking links – he loves to pull at and chew on them
• Change pad/table. Many will say you don’t really need one, but we find it very useful to have somewhere in H’s room to set him/change him, and when he was young he LOVED being on it for some reason. We also use it to do our bedtime routine (wipedown bath, blowdrier).
• Hair dryer – essential for newborns, we found. Keeps them warm during changes, provides soothing white noise, is a changing cue. We had one for the change pad and for beside his bed. We’d literally blow dry him to sleep some nights.
• Breast pump – if you’re breastfeeding, you definitely need a pump to liberate you from your baby at some point. Also useful for building supply, having frozen backup milk and for getting your baby used to a bottle (essential to do when they’re young or they might refuse it completely later on, then you’re stuck to them every few hours for, oh, a year). I have this one, as per rave reviews. It’s decent and gets the job done, though I suspect most of them are a bit of a pain and time consuming.
• Lots and lots of bibs. LOTS. Holden, for example, spits up about a dozen times a day.
• Nursing pillow – some moms are lukewarm on these, but I find it essential and allowed him to comfortably doze on me after feeding. Also saved my back.
• Nail clippers – they grow sharp little talons pretty much every other day. They will scratch themselves occasionally, but more importantly, they will claw you to death unless you keep that in check. Some moms bite off their babies’ nails, but I found baby nail clippers to be easier and more precise.

 

Nice to haves:

• Activity mat for tummy time. It’s useful to have something official to do tummy time on and to provide entertaining toys to bat at, but a thick blanket and dangling toys for them will achieve the same result (perhaps better as it’s more interactive). The cheesy canned music can be skipped (that goes for most toys).
• Swing – we borrowed one. Some babies love them and will only sleep in them, some hate them, some tolerate them. H was in the latter camp – in the early days, though, it gave me a place to put him down briefly (which you WILL NEED TO DO) and as he got older he enjoyed the hanging mobile and the mirror.
• Bouncy chair – again, a very valuable surface to put a young baby so you can, you know, eat or something. H doesn’t mind it for short durations, and now that he can pull the hanging toys down he’s more into it. We also borrowed it. In general, try to borrow these types of things so you can see first if your baby likes it. At least one surface that you can put a newborn down onto safely is pretty much essential, though.
• Exersaucer/Jumperoo – becoming more of a necessity in our house; another good tool for independent play, and has helped H learn to reach better. Bought this one used – incidentally, it by far has the best canned classical music.
• A well organized diaper bag. Babies need lots of stuff on the go. My mom indulged me in the JuJuBe BFF, which is awesome (big, easy to sift through compartments, separate parent pocket, awesome change pad).
• Recliner- we found gliders kind of uncomfortable so got a giant La-Z-Boy for Holden’s room. It, in short, is amazing and allows us to sleep in his room if necessary.
• Baby bathtub – nice to have so they can watch you while bathing/if you do it alone. We found that it’s just as easy to bring them in the tub with you when they’re little, though. We do both with H now.
• Exercise ball – new babies generally like to be bounced. Some NEED to be bounced, so this would be a must-have for some parents. For us, we already had one and it was useful for Brad to bounce him in the Moby while he worked on his thesis.
• Some kids’ music (Raffi, Sharon Lois and Bram – I don’t know much about modern artists, clearly). Humming ad jingles and reciting poorly remembered and scattered nursery rhyme lyrics (as an aside, Rockabye Baby is kind of creepy) will only get you so far. Bananaphone is where it’s at.

 

Don’t Need/Don’t Need to Buy

• Very many new clothes – people will buy you tons. I generally buy used  when there are some things we need (there are tons of used baby clothes/item sales, or through something like Value Village) – just wash on hot and you’re good to go!
• Name/stroller brand accessories – Jolly Jumper makes awesome and inexpensive accessories like weather shields, parent caddies, child trays, etc.
• A full sized high chair. Ones that go directly on the chair are way less bulky, do the job and are really easy to clean/portable. We have this one.
• Bumbo – we had one for about a minute before they were recalled. H wasn’t super into it either. We find that the bouncy chair and now high chair serve more useful functions – in the high chair he’s actually able to see what I’m doing in the kitchen vs. a bumbo that you can’t (or are really not supposed to) put on raised surfaces.
• Burp cloths – we burped him sitting up, so if he spat up he’d do so on himself/his bib. Also, a receiving blanket will do.
• Wipes warmer – overkill.
• Any ‘classic’ books. People will buy you one, two, three copies.

Things that are worth spending good money on: stroller… yes, actually, I think that’s the one main thing I’d say is worth really splurging on.There are a lot more little things that new parents will want/need as babies need a ton of crap, but my general advice is – beg, borrow or steal (er, buy used) as much as you can. Babies really do just need food, love and interaction with you, so everything else is just gravy. In general, buy stuff that will supplement those basic needs, in addition to some stuff that will allow you to put the baby down/entertain the baby. Brief neglect = sanity saving in the long run.

*After much delay, periodic trials, and consideration, we’ve decided to cloth diaper during the day and use disposables at night and for travel. I may write a post about this at some point. No diaper judgement here, though. Both are good for different reasons.

The best day of the week

I was speaking with a friend yesterday (or rather, typing) who also has a four-month old, and we agreed that the uncertainty in decision making surrounding your infant can get overwhelming at times – as soon as you decide to go one route, you question if it would have been better to go another. Lest, of course, you Ruin Them For Life. More about this, and the Mommy Wars, later, but for now….

Today I feel like SUPERWOMAN! It’s a rare but welcome feeling. The baby is peacefully napping after a fun time in the park with Daddy. The house is fairly clean. We ate good, clean foods this week. I went to bootcamp yesterday and my hardcore step class (yes, you laugh until you try it) today. I had the dawn of realization today that Holden needs to go down for naps closer to waking up, and it’s working really well. He slept 8-7 with two quick feeds last night. The to do list is diminishing as well (wills signed last night – yes! Has been on my list for, oh, four months now). Plus, I just gave myself a mini manicure and pedicure and am thinking of heading out to relax in the sunshine.

Perhaps this is a renewed weekend high after weekends not meaning much prior to Brad being back at work and I’m sure it will dissipate quickly with a patented H tantrum or another wave of uncertainty, but for now I feel pretty damn fine.

The Socratic method: Birth under a midwife’s care

One thing I want to reflect on before it fades too far into memory is the amazing care we received from our team for the pregnancy, birth and postnatal care.

In BC, particularly Victoria, it has become increasingly common to choose a midwife practice for one’s pregnancy and delivery as opposed to a family doctor. Contrary to popular misconceptions, having a midwife doesn’t make you a hippie or preclude you from a hospital birth, pain medication or typical ultrasounds. In our case, we actually had a ton of scans, pretty much every labour augmentation possible and definitely a hospital birth! Instead, midwife care is patient-centered in that it focuses on the needs and wishes of the woman, her partner and the baby. This ranges from home-based water births to fully medicated hospital deliveries. Informed choice and whole-person care is what midwifery is truly about. In addition, if the pregnancy or birth is medically complicated in any way (even in small ways such as our slightly off blood levels), the midwife consults with an OB and further testing is conducted under a specialist’s care. To us, this was truly having the best of both worlds.

  Jill (L) and Julia (R)

The prevalence and uptake of midwife services varies widely across the provinces, although this choice is becoming increasingly popular. This is reflected in the fact that most provinces now fund midwives through the provincial health care plan. I have anecdotally heard that over 25% of the babies born at Victoria General Hospital are under the care of midwives (the highest percentage in the country). If you’re interested in learning more about this model of care, check out our midwives’ website: http://www.themidwivescollective.ca/ourcare/ or the Canadian Association of midwives: http://www.canadianmidwives.org/

As we had numerous friends and acquaintances who had been happy (some overjoyed!) with their midwife experience, in addition to seeing how the model of care mirrored our own hopes for the pregnancy and birth, we called The Midwives Collective as soon as we found out I was pregnant (from the US no less, the spots fill up quickly!). Jill Pearman came highly recommended, and she had recently partnered with Julia Stolk in her practice. In this model, Jill and Julia alternate office hours and on-call status on a weekly basis, so you get to know them equally during your prenatal appointments and have one of the two of them for your delivery.

Our prenatal care was first rate – our appointments were typically 45-60 minutes (longer with chatterbox Jill!) and covered a range of topics, from nutrition to mental health to preparing for baby. Each visit also included the typical health checks for the baby – listening to the heartbeat, measurements, and requisitions for samples and ultrasounds on a typical schedule (dating scan and anatomy ultrasound). They got to know us personally, and we really felt that we could ask any and all questions that occurred to us. And of course at each appointment I had my list of questions on my iPhone! When I had a slightly abnormal result in the early blood screen, I was referred to an OB who preformed some extra checks and ultrasounds throughout the pregnancy and communicated constantly with our midwife team. When our delivery went a bit funky, they also worked amazingly well alongside the on-call OB team at VGH.

As discussed at length in my birth story, Jill (there for the earlier stages ) and Julia (who delivered Holden) were absolutely amazing. Afterwards, Julia kept telling us how touched she was by the experience – it felt so fantastic to have that connection with our healthcare providers.

I think, however, that my most revered aspect of midwife care came after the delivery. Instead of packing up your newborn and going to a doctor’s office, midwives visit you at your home several times a week for the first couple of weeks, supporting your transition to life as parents, helping to get breastfeeding well established, providing aftercare to the mom, and monitoring the health and early growth of the baby.  As I have said previously, some of my fondest memories of those early days are Jill weighing Holden in our bedroom, and sitting in our bed with us talking to us about all of our new parent worries (picture below is a repeat, I just think it sums up the care so well!). We were all quite sad to say goodbye after his six-week visit.

And now, of course, this has gone on long enough so I will write another post at a later date featuring our doula Eva. In regards to midwife care, however, I would recommend it a thousand times over to anyone about to embark on the experience of pregnancy and childbirth. The personalized, sensitive and loving care we received contributed to the sense of joy and elation we now have about the entire process.

Month two

Holden’s second month saw our small family fall into more of a rhythm, Epic Grunting, the peak and lessening of the crying curve, a visit from Lola, and better sleep by the end.

As we rounded into June, we slowly started to adapt to life with baby, although it still seemed that sometimes his actions or reactions would have no rhyme or reason. As the analytic sort, I thrive on discovering logical patterns behind events and behaviour in order to best approach them. This all went out the window when dealing with a newborn, as their behaviour can be pretty erratic and obviously they are not rational beings. I spent much of the first few weeks surfing Dr. Google, forums and baby websites while nursing, attempting to seek out answers and reasons for every little event. He’s irritable at night – could it be gas? He squirms and grunts all the time – what’s the reason behind that? At one point Brad had to gently tell me to tone down the searching, as I was making myself crazy. I did, and it helped – and now I tell other even newer moms that their babies will cry, fart, groan, grimace, writhe, poop green, sleep a lot, sleep too little, sleep at odd hours – and it’s all normal, natural and ok. AND it’s short! Sure enough, by even 7-8 weeks, a lot of that early weirdness had dissipated – his stomach/digestive system seemed more mature, his cries were pretty much all rooted in something specific, and even his sleep evened out.

Oh, sleep. I think that was H’s biggest challenge for the first couple months (or perhaps our biggest challenge – he seemed perfectly fine!). He didn’t progress in terms of

All wrapped up for a nap.

nightime sleep (again, progress in our adult conception with the end goal of Sleeping Through The Night) very much in those first couple of months – still frequently waking, liked to be held to sleep, and even when he was asleep he would grunt so loudly and so often all night long that we couldn’t sleep! Eventually Brad learned to sleep through it, so our solution became for me to wear industrial ear plugs AND noise cancelling headphones playing loud white noise (in a room that already sounded like an airplane hangar due to fans, white noise machine and air purifier), and Brad shook me awake when Holden was actually awake and needing to be fed.

Midway through the month, I discovered I could put him to sleep using an elaborate procedure that didn’t involve falling asleep on us – I would wrap him up in a swaddle wrap (the velcro straightjacket kind, as he could houdini out of any blanket wrap configuration), give him a soother, put him in the swing with music for 10 minutes. Generally he would fall asleep, spit out the soother, wake up and we’d start the procedure again. Finally, when he was good and asleep I would oh-so-carefully transfer him to his bed, where he’d sleep for about 40 minutes after this 20-30 minute process. We also learned that if we swaddled him and danced around to Raffi, he would be asleep typically by the fourth track – much more manageable.

Finally, when he was around six weeks old I read that the single most important thing you can do when your baby is still very small is to put them down while they are drowsy but awake, in order for them to learn to fall asleep on their own. My first thought was that this would NEVER work for my busy guy who shunned sleep, but decided to try it out. To my surprise, after taking two minutes to wrap him up and pop in the soother, he fell asleep! I kept this up, and now he goes down great for both bed and naps on his own, and is getting better at soothing himself back to sleep when he wakes up at night instead of needing to be fed. We also started a nightime routine, which is also recommended in that it acts as a long-sleep cue. Ours is: wipedown (he gets too excited with a full bath), massage, PJs, reading with Daddy, nursing, soother and cuddle with Mommy, then into bed. I think it was the introduction of this approach which finally got him sleeping better by the end of the month, typically waking up 2-3 times per night instead of every couple of hours.

Captivated by his mobile

Around the middle of the month, it was actually quite remarkable how he suddenly ‘clicked’ and was so much more present in the world – he began really focusing on things and being captivated/entertained by things around him, such as his mobile, a mirror, or…the wall. He started to really react to faces, smiling and doing his little almost-a-laugh laugh, which sounds like coughing. His strength continued to develop, and by the end of the month was holding his head up quite well and enjoyed airplane games. I also started taking him out a lot – to mom groups, to friends’ houses, shopping, parks, walks, etc. In fact, he seemed to get irritable when we were just holed up at home all day! As he became more and more conscious of the world, the better his mood became and the crying lessened a considerable degree. And in turn, Brad and I began to truly enjoy the time spent with this little guy, and life got a whole lot easier – at least for now!

Brad’s mom was here in the middle of the month, and again it was fantastic having another set of hands around, as well as the chance for her to bond with her new grandson. She spent many an afternoon as a ‘couch,’ cuddling with Holden as he slept.

We also went out on the first time by ourselves on June 30th, when Holden had his first babysitter in our good friend Karen. Apparently he was fantastic for her, and we had a very lovely dinner and surprisingly barely talked baby! All in all, by the end of the month it felt like we were real people again, as opposed to being swept wholly away in the newborn fog.

All dressed up and ready for first dinner out while H stays with a sitter