night weaning

Knit Dresses, What I’m Reading, and More

June 24, 2018

Linking with Kelly and the gang for a late seven quick takes! Organic Knit Dresses are for sale tomorrow! I have so many fabrics and sizes range from 12-18 through 6/7! I’ll add them all to the shop at 10am central on Monday so keep your eyes out for them! It’s been a big labor of love to make them all ahead of time instead of custom orders but this way, they’re all ready to ship!! Swimming I’m not a swimmer by any way, shape, form, means, etc unless my life or my child’s life depended on it. I always got a nose full of water when I was on the swim team as a little kid and quickly decided that head above water, doggy-paddling was the life for me. Alas, I seem to have produced at least two children who also feel likewise. In the land of 10,000 lakes and lots of swimming pools, I’d like for them to have the basics down so they don’t drown. My oldest girl is staunchly against it. The oldest boy is like a fish. And the second boy, well, the jury is out. BUT I did take all four kids to our little neighborhood pool, with the youngest two in life vests, because, you know, in case. It went swimmingly. (ha) Reading I’m still reading this book to help me raise my spirited children. I don’t know that it’s helping immensely but I do see patterns in their behavior that mirror descriptions…

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A Sleep Sampler: Infancy through 12 Months Sleep Tips

June 3, 2013

Sleep. Babies. The first question people ask. Does your baby sleep through the night? No? Here are my suggestions as to how to achieve that! Okay, maybe it’s not phrased that way, but that’s their point. Followed by How much does she weight? Oh, she’s tiny. Oh, she’s huge. I got news for the askers of the world: my thirteen month old does not sleep through the night, nor does she weigh very much. *gasp* I must be a lousy parent. Despite my lousy parenting status, I’m going to share my sleep tips and transitions with you. Despite my poor tiny sleeper’s trajectory, I think I’ve got a few things that may help the sleep derangedly deprived parent. Why? How? Because I’ve been that person (am that person still?). I’ve written a lot about sleep. Starting with my unbearable smugness that SuperBoy slept through the night at 12 weeks, simply due to the fact he didn’t want to night nurse anymore. Clearly it was superior parenting skillz. Ending with the fact that SweetPea, although night weaned at 12 months (nota bene, months, not weeks), still awakens at least once a night to be comforted back to sleep. I must be awful at this gig. 1) Birth to 6 months. Shockingly, me and a bunch of other moms and a few experts feel that the first six months of life are to be led primarily by the baby’s needs. Keeping that infant on you, close to you, within smell-shot of your milk means you’re…

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When to Stop Night Nursing

April 4, 2013

She’s so cute. She’s just adorable. SweetPea makes every day fun, easy, and a joy to watch she and her brother roll through life. We often say if she weren’t so cute, there’s no way she would have made it with night nursing a full year. No. Stinking. Way. Am I crazy for having awakened every 3-4 hours to nurse a baby? Well, obviously when babies are born and the first several months of life it’s vital for their growth and development to nurse 8-12 times in a 24 hour period. That’s science and the standard medical recommendation. Most people probably aren’t still up with their 11 7/8 month old, though. We haven’t night weaned for a number of reasons. I’ll start with those and then move on to unroll our very big plan to night wean when she hits one on April 10th–coincidentally also my birthday!  1) Why not to night wean too early. When your newborn nurses, the suction & compression tells your body: “Make MORE” and in those early days and weeks, your milk supply becomes established. In my layman’s terms as a non-educated lactationist: you create the supply & demand set up so that your milk glands are geared toward producing a certain amount of milk. It’s hard to increase that later in the game. Nurse early, nurse often. When your growing baby nurses at night it packs on the pounds. If your baby is like SweetPea and on the smaller end of the spectrum (>25%…

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