Parenting
Surely you’ve heard the phrase “skin-to-skin” contact with your newborn. You haven’t? You’re not alone. I was 7 months along with our first before someone mentioned it to me in passing. Skin-to-what? And now my daughter is almost three weeks old and hasn’t worn clothing except for when she had to leave the house. She’s always wrapped up in a blanket or on one of our chests for skin-to-skin! Refrain from separating your child from you, especially when he or she is snoozing. Just keep close to the little one! It’s wonderful for both of you. This scientifically proven method of bonding with your newborn child is both beautiful and bio-meta-physically powerful. It is when you put your newborn on your chest as close to after birth as possible, and that contact has a deep impact on you both. It makes initiating breastfeeding easier, stabilizes the baby’s temperature, calms the baby after the big entry into the world!, and actually regulates ex-utero brain development. The baby was close to her mother for 9 months, and to separate her from the sounds, smells, and other sensations of closeness is just sad. This is also why we wear our child. Here’s a beautiful table from Skin to Skin’s website on what exactly it is: Skin-to-skin contact is A PLACE SSC is a place where CARE is provided! Our *care* does not change… it is a place where any *care* we give works with our biology. Skin-to-skin contact is OUR BIOLOGY It…
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What’s best for healing and adjusting to a new family member? Take care of your body, rest, relax as much as you can, and snuggle with your baby. A midwife friend of mine calls the first few weeks a period of “lying in” wherein you do as little as you can around the house, leave the scurrying and worrying to your family and friends who come to help, and just bond with your new family member. Be as present as you can! Here are a few things that have helped me acclimate to a new child, and recover faster. 1) Soak in the tub. Sitz bath, tub, whatever you’ve got. Just soaking for 8-15 minutes in a warm water tub will greatly aid in postpartum healing. After my first birth I posted about bath salts here. It’s a great little recipe for bath salts, but even just plain old warm water has healing properties. Try to get in the tub every day for a few minutes for the first few weeks, or as necessary. Yes, if you have any tearing, it is going to hurt to go to the bathroom. Use the peri bottle that the hospital or your provider gives you. Have it filled with warm water so it’s ready to go when you are. You may experience the funny thing that when you need to use the toilet, you need to use it NOW. If you have any bruising, it is going to hurt to sit down, sit…
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Wear your baby! I’ve written about different carriers before, here, but having a new baby again reminds me that the initial hassle of getting a sling or wrap on is worth it. Your babe is close to you, your hands are free, and you can immediately comfort or tend to her without worrying about crossing the kitchen. Best of all, it carries her close to your heart, breath, and helps her through what they call “the fourth trimester” or the first three months of life which are a sort of continuation of life in the womb. Read a very thorough article on wearing your baby over at the UK publication Green Parent (here). It gives an overview of traditions of baby wearing internationally along with a list of all the health benefits. Want your baby to cry less, sleep better, and be more engaged with the world? Wear her! I’ve promoted my friend’s wraps before–Rockin’ Wraps–and gotta say, I just love her work. It’s similar to a Moby wrap, but rather stretchier and beautifully crafted. Support homegrown mama artists! She hand designed this wrap for me with a horse head, due to my love of the equine. Thanks, Larissa! See my girlfriend’s blog post here about different carriers on her blog, Natural Mommas. Her assessment is very thorough!
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Last week was particularly difficult. My beloved godmother and close friend passed away at a young age (only early 60’s!) from cancer. In lesser and hardly comparable news, I’m not sleeping hardly at all; J has erupted into regular night wakings again; and the in-laws were in town this past weekend. Needless to say, I think stress propelled me into “false” labor on Friday night. I put the term false in quotation marks because “false” labor does not mean you are not really having contractions at regular intervals, it means they don’t progress toward the end goal of effacement and dilation. It also means you’d better have your hospital bag packed and a car seat ready because when you’re almost 37 weeks pregnant and your baby has “dropped,” you know neither the day nor the hour, to quote the Good Book. 1) Signs of pre-labor. There’s the usual gambit. Discuss what the signs are with your healthcare provider. Think things like: mucus plug loss, feeling your baby “drop” or “lighten,” regular contractions that increase in length, intensity, and interval. Even these don’t necessarily mean that you are in a labor state that will progress. If you experience any of these, contact your doula and midwife/doctor. They will probably tell you to take a bath, drink water, lay down, and keep them posted. Check out this comprehensive article on pre-labor signs and the last month of pregnancy, here. I had about five hours of regular 5 minute interval contractions, but they…
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We enjoyed such a magical weekend: trips to the River, a little friend’s birthday party, a sweet and peaceful afternoon family nap, glorious weather, and lots of good food. But what about those weekends when your partner is working? Or you’re working? Or your child is tantrum-city? We’ve had our fair share of those kinds of weekends too. With a 21 month old, and a 35 week pregnant mama, here are a few things that have helped AA and I support each other, even while each of us is in dire need of a break. 1) Let go of all non-essential activities. For us, I’m the majority time-with-kiddo-parent. That means the few hours AA sees J at night, and those precious weekends, are truly gem times for them. I try to be sensitive in planning non-immediate family activities to ensure they don’t encroach on the boys’ time together. If it’s something we can all do together happily (e.g., NOT running errands as that’s not generally J’s forte), then I’ll go ahead and plan it in. If it’s an adult only activity, or one that requires not paying much attention to J, we try to keep those to later evenings when he’s asleep. Does that mean that once you have children you are totally boring? Yeah, probably. 2) Don’t keep score of who’s doing more. So long as you have a balanced relationship with your partner wherein you know he or she is giving the proverbial “all”–try not to keep score.…
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So we’re down to six weeks out, give or take a bit. It’s not a due date, right? It’s a “guess” date. They always say that in Blooma yoga classes (haven’t been? Hello?! prenatal support group, work out, and affirmation session!). And I like that. So instead of saying “I’m due April 16.” I say “I’m due sometime in April. My birthday is the 10th, AA’s is the 3rd, my brother’s is the 21st, so she could come and squash any of our birthdays 🙂 But truly, my beloved readers, how do the logistics of two children work? J is good about (and happy to) play by himself often. He thrives in our Montessori-esque set ups, with access to all sorts of exploratory toys, all his senses involved, etc. But what about when all 30 pounds of him needs to be hauled to time-out? What about when he screams “NO!” when I gently but firmly tell him it’s time to change his poopy diaper. (My sister should be laughing here because I’m certain our perfect goddaughter will be potty-trained by 20 months. See her post on Elimination Communication here :). What about when he needs help eating his soup? Thankfully babies are small, and wearable, and sleepy, and snuggly. Thankfully J is sweet, for the most part, and self-sufficient, as much as he can be at his age (his daddy has this whole teeth-brushing routine down with him that I’ll share later. So cute!). But two children? Any aged…
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