Breastfeeding in Public

This week the internet tells me is World Breastfeeding Week. Finally got the chance in a busy week to sit down, write and post a bit about breastfeeding in public. I have had two different takes with my two kids.

With C, I completely breastfed in public, just about everywhere and anywhere, but with a cover. I bought some nice Japanese fabric I liked and sewed a breastfeeding cover for myself before she was even born. Part of using the cover was we were in a foreign country and I did not want to offend our host country and their culture by showing any breast or much less a nipple. Part of it is me and C used a cover from the beginning consistently in public and we were both used to it. It helped that she was a fall baby so it was not too hot to use the cover while she was really little. Part of it was just I felt more comfortable with the cover.

I have almost never used a cover with R. I packed along the cover for months in the diaper bag before I realized I had not used it once and stored it away in a keepsake box. Someday when I have time again I should reuse the fabric to make something memorable for me. Why no cover this time? Partly it seemed too much to manage with another kid to keep track of and R who clusterfed and snacked more. Partly, we are in the pacific northwest this time on the west (left) coast and breastfeeding in public is not looked at as odd or wrong. Partly, I think I’m now over 40 and really some of your give a care oddly goes out the door. I’m sure the little bit of breast and nipple someone might see does not offend me, and if it offends them they can look away. Instead of a cover I have invested in some good nursing shirts which makes it easier to cover breasts while not using a cover. Really I do not try to show anything in public, but I do and have breastfed R just about everywhere.

I will say to cover or not cover is a personal choice. If it gives someone the confidence to breastfeed in public then please use one. Mostly, I want women to feel like they can breastfeed in public. They should not be hiding in cars or worst on toilets just to feed their hungry baby. (Really they should not have to be crossing a mall, airport or other public place to find a private nursing room either, but it’s nice things like that are offered and that they make some feel more comfortable.) It’s been said so many times by so many people, I’m just repeating, but the way to normalize breastfeeding is to let people see it and see how much it is not a big deal.

Mobile Baby

R has been doing an army crawl since Mother’s Day. He had been working on moving for quite awhile, doing the fish out of water swim on his belly, and it finally clicked, possibly with warmer weather and thus bare feet and legs, how to go forward. He’s gotten progressively better at it and when he takes off can now be pretty fast. He’s started to also get up on his hands and knees. He’ll rock a bit, use the extra height to check things out, but gets back down on his belly to take off.

This means it’s been more than a month of watching him closely. Of only getting most productive things done while he’s napping. It is always surprising a bit just what all they can get into and where all they can go. It does not help that C has a lot of little toys only safe for kids over 3 years old, and everything that R can grab gets chewed on. Of course, sister’s toys always look more fun. Or that being a tiny baby he’ll crawl under furniture, C’s play table, the real table, he’s almost manged to get under our futon couch a few times. Also, a baby crawling on his belly picks up ALL the dog hair. My old dog sheds like crazy, I clean the floors and there’s hair again the second the vacuum turns off.

I think we may have finally managed an okay system. I had set up a play space for him, but he of course only likes that for a bit, and it’s out of the usual view of mommy. A gate at the hallway more to keep C mindful of keeping her toys closer to her room than R out of the hallway seems to be helping. That leaves the living room and sometimes kitchen/dining room for him to explore. Plenty of space and now mostly baby-safe if he’s watched.

I did not miss that phase of must-never-leave-them alone. I passed that with C a year or two ago and as long as I can hear her I don’t need constant eyes on her. Not so with R right now, and I remember how it only gets worse. He’s on his belly, so most things are out of reach. But he’ll likely get himself to crawling properly soon, then move on to pulling up, standing and cruising. Then, they take off walking and it’s all over. Hopefully I have half a year before he’s to walking, hopefully.

Preschoolers: First Names and Imaginary Friends

Two things I did not know or necessarily think about when parenting a preschooler, but two things my daughter has done at age 4, call me and her father by our first names and have an imaginary friend.

Last fall a bit before turning 4, C was all about calling my husband, her father, by his first name. I thought at first she was just copying me, as I call him by his name. She knew he was daddy, but she preferred to call him by the longer version of his first name.

Funny story with this is that when R was born C was at the hospital with us. A corpsman (medical tech) watched her to allow my husband to be in the operating room with me. Baby R, and the corpsman taking care of him, beat my husband back to the room since he was double checking I was okay before leaving the OR. My husband walked in the room and C calls my husband by his full first name and tells him there’s a baby. Both corpsmen got a kick out of her using his name instead of daddy.

She started calling me by my first name sometime this winter, about when she started again using daddy for my husband. She’s just about grown out of it now.

Both me and my husband didn’t make a big deal of it. Again, she hears us calling each other by our names. It was not that she was saying we were not mommy and daddy. It seemed developmentally a way of her realizing we are individual people, like she is a person, not just a mommy and a daddy.

The second odder preschool thing that also started last fall is C has an imaginary friend. She’s called “my sister”, no real name or a name that C keeps consistent about. I thought at first this was because she wanted R to be a sister not a brother (and in truth she kinda wanted a sister more, still does). I also thought this might be related to her being lonely. We had left behind all our friends in California last September and we still haven’t really found friends as good as some from there.

But, with some reading and noticing how she talks about “my sister”, it is clearly an imaginary friend. I hear about “my sister” all the time, although it is now only a half dozen times a day, it was once a few dozen times a day. “My sister” is sometimes older, sometimes a baby, sometimes an adult. She does all the things C wishes she could, whether it is a skill she hasn’t mastered or something C wants and I won’t allow, like driving a car (a big goal of C’s on occasion). “My sister” often already has done or already has things we are getting or doing. C must remark when “my sister” as a baby did every new thing R is doing now. “My sister” is kinda the perfect version C wants to be.

As off as it sounds I guess having an imaginary friend is not uncommon for kids C’s age. Mind you I don’t remember having one, or remember my brother or sister having one, why it threw me for a bit. It was certainly interesting to explain to family when we visited, or to have to explain to strangers who may not know that C does not really have an older sister like she just claimed. Supposedly children with imaginary friends are often more social and it is likely a good not bad thing. And C is certainly a social butterfly. She’s very talkative and interacts well usually with other kids and often with adults too.

I will note like the first names, “my sister” and how much C mentions her seems to be waning, although slower. For now, I just roll with it and agree with what she says and comment when she mentions something odd or weird about “my sister”.

Baby Toys Still a Big Hit

Years ago, we had friends with kids over for a party. Oddly the two older grade school aged kids played with all the baby toys. The babies and toddlers spent the evening carrying and fighting over gateraid bottles. Partly this proves that kids don’t need fancy toys. Partly that all those buttons and lights and noises are not just for babies.

Two Christmases ago C got a bunch of new toys. A play kitchen and food to go with it, Little People and puzzles, more preschool aged toys she still plays with today. Having too many toys in the house I weeded out the last of the baby and younger toddler toys. You know the stuff with 6mo to 18mo on the box as age recommendations. As I was pregnant at the time with the baby we lost, I didn’t sell them but instead stored them away for later.

When I went looking through C’s closet for the next size up in baby clothing I found that tub of older baby and toddler toys. (I hadn’t actually put stuff for storage in her closet, my husband’s awesome cousin who came to help us unpack did.) I pulled it out since some of it we will need in a few months. I also got a few new toddler toys at a recent consignment sale here. A new sorting toy as we’d lost the pieces to ours, and Little People cars and ramp ’cause boy.

C has been playing with them as much as her preschool toys. First, she unloaded the storage tub of toys, adding to the mess of toys all over the house already. It was cute seeing her enjoy her old toys again. I finally had to store them back away in the garage. She has also dutifully tested out all the new consignment toddler toys for her baby brother. Slowly I am storing those away too, or will in the next weeks after she plays a bit more with them. Hopefully I don’t end up with fights between them when I do get them back out for R. Especially as many of C’s toys have small parts and thus R can’t actually play with them.

Eating Solids

It’s such a big topic and yet with C we just winged it. For R I’ve researched a bit more and although I was going to wait until 6 months, we started just after he turned 5 months a few weeks ago instead.

With C we had been told at her 4 month well visit we could start cereals and so did on rare occasion, although she wasn’t very interested. Then at 6 months we started pureed baby foods. She wanted to feed herself with the spoon which was of course messy. A few months later, she started to show an interest in what we were eating and we did a modified baby-led weaning where she’s eat the mushy parts of our food and other easy to handle and chew foods.

One of my few parenting book buys I’ve made recently is The Science of Mom: A Research-Based Guide to Your Baby’s First Year by Alice Green Callahan. She has two chapters about introduction of solids. The first mentions how babies tend to use a lot of iron in growing and are running out of their stores by about 6 months. R has been exclusively breastfeed since 2 weeks, and it is breastfed babies who have the most problems with iron, as formula is supplemented with it. (C on the other hand had to have supplemented formula along with being breastfeed as my supply wasn’t enough for her.)

The other thing mentioned in the book is the sweet spot for introducing solids seems to be between 4 and 6 months. Doing so before or after can led to an increase in things like celiac disease, type 1 diabetes and other autoimmune problems. We don’t have either celiac or type 1 diabetes in the family, but we do have autoimmune issues on both sides of our families, and food allergies on mine, asthma on my husband’s. Making sure we hit that sweet spot seemed like a good idea and 5 months is right in between.

I mentioned to my husband I could pump and add that to the cereal. He said, why don’t you just use formula. First, I have a breast pump, and without one I would not have been able to have breastfeed either of my slow to figure out breastfeeding babies. I also HATE pumping. I’m one of those women who have trouble pumping and always feel like a failure doing it. I also have no issues with formula. R had to have a good deal his first 2 weeks while we figured out how to get him to breastfeed well enough and my supply increased enough because of that. I feel like he’s close to maxing out my supply when he can be always hungry.

So, when I got the rice cereal at the store, I also got a small container of formula. (And ouch, formula is expensive and I hope we use most of it before the 1 month expiration after opening.) He loves it! He’s much more interested in eating than C was. And he loves to be at the table with all of us for meals.

I will likely start to sometimes give the cereal as a half serving, so I can add in another solid feeding of a new food. He seems so young to be eating solids. But he’s managing it well, and interested enough to usually finish off what he’s offered. Also, the cereal is more like he’s being supplemented with solids, while C instead got formula from a bottle. He’s also getting the added iron he needs.

Meats and egg yokes was mentioned in the book as other good sources of iron. The baby food meat he HATED, boiled egg york he’s been fifty fifty on (He finished it all the first time, and was hungry but wanted cereal the second). We will also try out fruits and veggies. Having food allergies (both me and C are allergic to odd foods) I’ll have to introduce it all one at a time.

Of course, it has also been a long time since I’ve had a beginning eater. The faces he makes every time we start feeding him, even with the cereal he likes. That, “Are you sure you eat this?” look they give you. The half the food is pushed back out with their tongue move. The open mouth for more, with the face tilt up like that makes it easier to get the spoon in. The jerky little hand, not sure what to do with the spoon or bowl, but at some point, knowing he wants more of what it has. How much work it is for you to feed them, instead of throwing food at them and letting them have at it. He’ll be a pro at it all in no time, I’m sure. But for now, my little guy is growing up.

Legos

I loved legos as a kid. We had two big storage tubs of them and we’d take apart and build and rebuild all the time. This was before Lego was all about the fancy kits. Most of what we owned was just a bunch of generic blocks of various colors and sizes, no real instructions with them, or anything specific to build.

We bought C some mega blocks years ago, likely for her 1st birthday or 2nd Christmas (right after she had turned 1), but she mostly just stacked them up or wanted you to build something for her. Then I got her duplos, mostly from garage sales and thrift stores. It wasn’t until about 6 months ago that she fully got the concept of putting the blocks together to build something. For Christmas this year she got a duplo set from my brother and an easy junior Lego Cinderella set from us. Much building has occurred since.

More than a year ago I got one of these easy classic beginner lego kits, then forgot about it as a gift. My mother-in-law had given her some gift money, so we were in Walmart looking for a toy to buy and she saw these and wanted one. She wanted the blue one and I mentioned we already had it. She of course then said we should buy the red one.

They are really wonderfully made, and cheap for legos at only $5 apiece. Each colored kit (red, blue, green and orange) comes with parts and instructions to build 3 things, generally an animal, a vehicle and a building. Each item to build is less than 20 parts and each step of the instructions only adds 1 or 2 types of blocks at a time. We helped her the first time building them, but she can now do the easier of the instructions herself. They have on the box and in the instructions some other things you can build, by rearranging blocks or subbing out parts for the items. The point, she can build anything she can think of, and for the last few weeks this is what she’s done. Take apart, build again, take apart, mix it up, build again. She’s added them into the Junior Cinderella kit she already has, and a small TMNT kit that my husband has. (We own other legos, but most are stored away.)

I’m really glad this is her first introduction to legos, because it highlights what I loved about them as a kid, not kits that have be be done exactly, but pieces limited only by your imagination (and sometimes the pieces you owned). She’s having such fun, I am likely buying her the next one or two other kits in this style.

Sunny Weather

This Sunday and Monday were especially warm and sunny. (Yeah, I know the east coast just got slammed with more snow.) After our first winter in a few years, and with the extra rain here in the pacific northwest, it was a nice break.

Sunday, C got to try out her new sand and water table, with sand only, much to her disappointment. Since we have a good sized yard, for the first time in many years, I wanted to be able to use it this spring and summer. Many of the slides and outside equipment I found was build more for toddlers, not a tall four year old. I came across this sand and water table half price on Amazon though. C loved the beach in California, and as it was always too chilly to swim we usually just played in the sand. I figured she would love to be able to just do that, at home in our yard. It was a big hit, and she can’t wait until it warms up enough she can use water in it.

Baby R got a bit of sun while we watched big sister play. From the way he napped that evening, he got worn out too.

Monday it took an hour and a half to get C out the door. I did a run, then we had a picnic lunch and C finally got to play at the park. It was a nice day and spring break somewhere, so the park was full of kids. R got to watch all the bigger kids. C had a blast and was upset when I told her it was time to head home. All of us got some sunlight and fresh air.

Rain was back yesterday, and the forecast is for cloudy weather or rain for much of the next two weeks. So, glad we got to enjoy the sun while we had it. I am hoping that as winter becomes spring and then summer, we have more days sunny days to play and explore the beautiful nature that is the pacific northwest.

Yesterday

Was one of those days. They always seem to happen right before Daddy is back home. Not everything went wrong but enough to just want the day done by dinner and break out a beer after bedtime.

The kids tag teamed who was up from about 1am on, and baby was wide awake at about 4:30am. Already a great start. At least getting ready was not as much of a fight as it was picture day at C’s preschool, so we had already picked out her dress and tights for the day. And she held still for a ponytail and bow, while R chilled happy in his swing chair. Then, R was just a fussy clingy thing all morning. When he wasn’t wanting to eat or be soothed, he wanted to sleep on me. If I had plans to do anything while C was at school, they did not get done. And the few things like packing a picnic lunch, I had to do, were done with a screaming baby in the background. Put on my running shoes, to find they had been muddy and were now tracking dirt ALL over the house while I packed and got ready for school pick up.

(C trying to calm a fussy growing hungry R while I ran.)

We did a picnic lunch, which was chilly and without a picnic table, but C still loved it. And it saved me time as we just rolled from school pick up there. Then, I went running. Week 7 day 2 of C25K training. I didn’t do bad keeping the run/walk interval I wanted. Although, I swallowed a bug, during the difficult part at the end, while C wanted to chat about when we were getting to the cool down for her to get out and run along. But, run complete, and the sun was out, and it was a beautiful pacific northwest day.

Then, C misbehaved around the packing lot, although keeping her hand on the car while she went ahead and around the back of the car, and she got upset that I got mad. Baby at this point, R was hungry and crying, I’m struggling to unload the jogging stroller, take off one wheel to get it to fit in the back of our little car, and lift it to get it stored away. We got to base and parked at a play ground, after of course missing a turn and having to backtrack, and baby was back asleep, although I know still hungry.

C played. I fed baby. It was warm enough to be outside and do that without too much bundling. We got to commissary (grocery store for those not military). Again, warm enough to easily put now fed, changed and happy baby in baby carrier outside the car. There was a potty trip, but we had not gotten far from the bathrooms. C might have run too far ahead most of the time in the store. And she luckily did not get run over by other carts. I like the commissary as the aisles are all extra wide, but we had gone to the bigger one and it’s much busier than the one we usually go to. We got food, found a few good finds, have stuff for yummy food next week, and checked out. As the bagger helped us take out the groceries (another reason to like the commissary) it was no joke sleeting. Which woke up now sleeping baby. He’s crying and upset to be awake. C is luckily in the car without a fight. And someone else loaded the groceries while I put R in the car seat and re bundled him, then strapped in C. And then we of course ran into traffic going home and it took a while to get there. Then had to unload groceries, put away, clean off dirt from floor before C tracked it everywhere.

Luckily, R finally took his nice long nap. I got a bath, which was nice as I was sweaty. But, sleeping baby meant instead of sitting and sipping some afternoon coffee, I had to do ALL the THINGS on tired legs while I had two hands to do them. I did dishes, took out trash, did some laundry, fixed a frozen pizza for dinner, and likely more, I forget all. Then, R woke up just as we were sitting down to eat. But feed him and he was happy again. At this point C is in her usual run around with crazy tired energy part of the day. We have told her running is fine, being loud and dragging things while running is not. And she was just running. She also bopped R on the head twice. And I warned her to be nice and not hit anyone else. Then, we’re feeding dog and she’s dragging the dog away from the dog food by her tail. Dog is a lab, and can’t really feel much in her tail anyway, and C can’t really move the 55lbs dog much. Still, third strike and she got bedtime books (something she loves) taken away. (I’ve tried time out and generally it does nothing but rile her up further.) Enter sad upset preschooler who eventually at least got the point that her actions had gotten a punishment and it was not getting given back.

In the end, bedtime was pretty easy for C even without books. She was tired. And eventually got R settled as well. (Although baby and sleeping is needs its own post.)

(Happy baby by the end of the day with a nice long nap done.)

Hopefully, today is better. I’m writing this while being online for my paid work. Then, we will hopefully not have a fight over picking up toys to get the floors cleaned later. We’re doing story time at the local library and returning library books. That at least is leverage to get C to behave this morning. Then, if it’s not raining, we can do the park near the library and run off some energy. And husband gets back later tonight and it will be a few weeks before I have to solo parent again.

Gone Again

Part of being in the military is being apart. We’ve so far lucked out the last few years and my husband has not had to be away much at all. But, his current job, and thus the next possibly one and a half year, is going to have him gone here and there quite a bit and will include a deployment. While I’ve been parenting for more than four years now, I have not solo parented much at all, and it was mostly watch days which is only 24 hours apart and he was not completely unreachable.

This week the husband is just gone to a seminar, so we can talk at night, and text during the day, and he’ll be back soon. It’s a little different when he’s actually on a ship. Email is about the only way to communicate, besides an occasional phone call and perhaps more internet to skype when they have a port visit. I have done him being gone on a ship before. I am not new to underways or deployments even. I know how different it gets without him and more importantly how hard it is after he’s back home. But that was all before kids, when all I had to handle was the finances, house and pets.

I suppose you call this solo parenting, not single parenting. I have a partner and he is available, even if only by email sometimes, to discuss issues involving the kids. He is the one making most of the money so I can stay home. This parenting thing is still a partnership, even if I handle the everyday when he’s gone.

(Our first afternoon, just the three of us.)

So far my husband has been underway on the ship a few times since we moved, the first when baby R was only about 3 weeks, although my parents visited and were here for much of that time. It’s different being the only parent available and having to split my time between two kids. There have certainly been more tears and crying when I can’t fix problems for them both at once. There’s when do I find time for a bath, how many times must I cook while holding or carrying a baby, will I ever get a meal without juggling a baby on my lap? Bath and bedtime for my older child can be interesting while also holding or feeding the baby. Middle of the night, it’s only me to get up. It’s only me to change dirty diapers, only me to make meals, only me to calm a fussy baby.

That first underway being able to baby carry was great, and I carried a feeding baby while doing more than I’d ever thought possible when C was little. As R gets older and he needs less time and work it will hopefully get easier. Already he will often entertain himself on his play mat or in his new exerciser for a bit. Or C will help entertain him. She is a master at pushing buttons on toys to kept them playing. Also, naps have already gotten longer and more regular. Although, he also seems to ALWAYS leave a growth spurt for when daddy is away. Recently he’s been teething and just upset and wanting nothing but being held by mommy.

Of course, C is another issue. She has not yet had to deal with daddy really being gone much. It’s a learning experience for us all to deal with him being gone and her emotions of that. Things shift into just the three of us mode, and then back into a full family, and it can be jarring. She’s old enough to understand that daddy will be back, and young enough that she still worries if that’s the case, still doesn’t understand how to deal with the emotions she has over misses him. Hopefully the shorter times of him being away for a week or a month will help when he’s on deployment and gone for many months.

My husband is also missing out on so much. This wasn’t the way we planned it, having him miss a lot of those first 2 years when they change so much. There will be a lot of the next year and half that he misses. All those everyday things and changes I will see all the time. That’s a lot of baby R growing up and into a toddler he will miss. But, even C can and will change over that time. He loves us and misses us and would rather be here with us. However, his job in the military now is taking him elsewhere. We’re gonna try and enjoy our time when he’s here, and gonna miss him terribly when he’s gone.

This sleeper outfit

I put away the last of the newborn stuff the other week. Sorted into piles to either save as keepsakes or to try and sell or pass along to friends. It will be the last time that a baby in this house wears anything as small as newborn size. This sleeper was among the ones to save. It’s the only new newborn outfit that I had bought that R wore. It, however, was not bought for R. It was bought for his big brother.

During the pregnancy we lost, we had made it to 13 weeks, had our 12 week appointment the week before. Everything looked fine, at the time. That held breath you do when you’ve had a miscarriage before finally lifted and I was starting to feel like the pregnancy might be a real thing. C and I had gone to Target and found this sleeper on sale. It had space ships and was gender neutral in color, as we hadn’t known what we were having. So, I bought it. Later that day the nurse from our OB office called with news that a screening test showed a possibility of Trisomy 13 and started the most nerve wracking 6 weeks of my life.

That sleeper than sat buried up on a top shelf in C’s closet, tag still on, for more than a year and a half. I had figured worst case if we did not have another child I would gift it to someone. All while I hoped that we would have another child to wear it.

It was what R wore home from the hospital. It was a common sleeper for many of his pics because it was the one new newborn outfit he had. The others were either gender neutral colored girl ones from when C was a baby, or ones passed on from friends.

He was the first and likely only one to wear it. It was also the one baby item I bought for a very desired baby who didn’t make it here. R is certainly not a replacement for the child we lost. But he does exist because his brother was lost.

More than 2 years after buying this sleeper, I write this while rocking a beautiful, happy and healthy baby to sleep. Life is surprising sometimes. It never takes you on the road you plan out, sometimes not even on the ones you head out on. But today, while I hold one child forever in my heart, I’m glad I can hold another in my heart and arms.