Piggy Back Rides

This is the sequel to the stroller post – our neo-hippie attachment parenting gear. The Baby Bjorn was a major timesaver when she was younger. Although we did use the stroller to take her from the car to our destination and around said location if she was asleep in her carseat when we arrived, this almost never happened. Our baby, adorable and brilliant as she is, is allergic to sleep. Apparently something about not being awake to experience every last moment inspires in her deep anxiety and panic. But I digress once again . . . so we used the stroller occasionally at stores, we brought it on vacation and trips to haul around her carseat that we traveled with, and we went on long walks to the park and the zoo and around the neighborhood in it. But just as often, or really, more so I admit, we used our Baby Bjorn carrier. Again, there are lots of carriers out there, but why save money when you can blow part of her college fund on the accessories of her infancy and toddler years? And as an added bonus, it really is one of the best reviewed carriers on the market.

So we have nothing really extraordinary to say about the Bjorn really. It is small and we left it primarily in the car so we would have it anywhere. It fit in the bottom basket of the stroller and that was convenient too. And more importantly, our baby loved it - no matter where we went or how disgruntled she was with the car ride (this is before the "Brain Rot" blog about the car DVD system), the instant she was snapped into the Bjorn, there was peace on Earth as far as she was concerned. She loved being at adult height, she loved being held, she loved being able to freely kick her legs and wave her arms. It was a beautiful thing. But apparently we may have used it slightly beyond what is customary. We realized this when she was 16 months and two things happened: (1) strangers kept staring and pointing when they saw her in the Bjorn (and very helpfully, one woman said pointed to her partner "see, you can still use it when they are much, much bigger") and (2) I caught sight of the two of us in the mirror when she was in the Bjorn and realized how ridiculous we looked as she was half my height. She's always been a lean child, so strapping her in wasn't a problem, but I did notice we had to, uh, push a bit and pull a bit to get her in when the weather became cooler. Okay, so on to the new and currently preferred carrying system (that is, when she allows us to carry her and doesn't insist on running everywhere herself, or isn't permanently perched on my hip). The back pack carrier . . .

For once, I didn't do a ton of research in finding and purchasing this. It was more of an impulse buy as I was stocking up at the local Babies 'R Us. I remembered those amused looks from strangers about the Bjorn (she was 16 months old by then) and decided to add one of the back pack carriers in the adjacent aisle to our cart. It's a Chicco and although this is entirely superfluous, matched the deep red of our stroller (this somehow reassured me that it was the right one, despite the fact that we would never have both the stroller and the carrier out at the same time).

And I have to admit, it's worked out pretty well on the one long vacation that we brought it on. It folds relatively flat for travel, but is too tall and bulky to be given any extra points for portability. It has nice padding everywhere, although anything would be an improvement over the spine crushing weight the Bjorn was starting to confer on longer trips (hefting an extra 25 pounds from your shoulders for hours is not a minor discomfort). It has a five-point harness which I like, and more importantly, has a very large canopy which is a great advantage over the Bjorn (I would often carry a big floppy hat to hold over our hat-a-phobe baby's head). Two main disadvantages to the back pack carrier over the Bjorn surfaced quickly however.

Getting the baby carrier on is, shall we say, difficult. The baby is strapped in while the carrier is in a stable open position on the ground. No problem, as any mobile parent has used five-point harnesses on strollers and carseats hundreds of times by the point their child is 18 months old. But then you have to somehow magically transport said baby strapped in carrier on the ground, onto your shoulders and stand up. This feat is worthy of Cirque Du Soliel. First, I would sit cross-legged on the ground with my back to the carrier, then carefully wind my arms through the straps, behind my back (like an incredibly heavy and badly tailored, narrow jacket). Then I would strap the waist band around my waist, and here comes the fun part, slowly rock forwards shifting my weight to my hands as I moved my legs out from under me until I looked like a more vertical cat on her hands and knees. Then ever so carefully, and minding the fact that my now alarmed child is clutching my hair painfully and firmly, I would plant my feet and slowly lift from the legs to standing. Years of latent ballet skills came in quite useful here. Luckily, we figured out that a large, sturdy table made a far better location for insertion and removal of baby.

Also, you don't fully appreciate the larger foot print you and your carrier make until you enter a store, or a crowded area, and realize that you have become a minor King Kong in your ability to destroy store displays and knock people down at will or whim. The Bjorn is a very trim package. It is easy to maneuver any crowded area with your baby securely tucked under your chin, which is one of the reasons we used it so often. Not so the back pack carrier . . . I think there may still be entire tourist areas throughout the Caribbean that we visited that have banned us from their port. Ah well. At least our baby didn't run off in the crowds to join a motorcycle gang and her translucent, fair English skin didn't burn to a crisp within seconds of being outside. Oh, and once her deep and real fear of being dropped receded, she quite enjoyed being transported around all of those lovely areas that we visited (which is good, because we may not be allowed back).

But in the end, stroller, Bjorn, back pack carrier . . . the preferred mode of transportation for our baby is still balanced on one hip with a firm arm around her waist and her tiny arm around my shoulder. Not the easiest way to get things done, but for now, it's still incredibly sweet, and she will be too heavy one day soon for this half-hug transport system.

Milk, milk, everywhere

One of the more heated debates in motherhood these days is breastfeeding versus formula and some variation thereof. The public health campaign of “breast is best” has had both positive and negative effects on new mothers everywhere. On one hand, more woman are trying breastfeeding than in a generation (both my husband and I as well as many friends in our generation were bottle fed). Many scientific studies, both laboratory and population based, have found the benefits of breast milk on various development systems in infants, both physical and mental. The evidence seems mounting that overall, breast milk has definite positive effects on an infant, both the actual content of the milk as well as the psychological effects on the bond between mother and child, and the physiological benefits to the mother. But in all of this positive propaganda, a murkier, more subtle negative undertone pervades. If “breast is best,” then what do we make of women who “choose” to bottle feed?

Well, as in all matters regarding parenting, it’s just not quite that simple. First of all, breastfeeding isn’t instinctive and easy as the campaign (or Hollywood) would have you believe. Some women have real difficulties producing enough milk, or have some physical problem early on which creates difficulties resulting in a lowered production, resulting in further difficulties satiating a hungry newborn. Some newborns have actual physiological difficulties latching on due to the shape of their mouths and tongues. Also, more cesarean sections are performed than ever before, and newborns are often given a bottle or two or more of formula in the hospital while new moms are recovering and dads and other caregivers assisting the recovering mom continue to give bottles of formula upon arrival home. In addition, many women have short maternity leaves and cannot or do not wish to pump upon return to work and this has a strong impact on continued breastfeeding after the initial weeks. All of these reasons, and many more reasons, mean that fewer woman are breastfeeding. But the pressure remains from doctors and the public health community and perhaps even friends and family to breastfeed, when perfectly valid barriers exist to prevent many women from breastfeeding at all or as long as they may wish.

So in addition to sleep deprivation, overwhelming anxiety to be successful at parenting, an almost obsessive-compulsive watch over weight gain (baby’s not mama’s) to measure ability to thrive, and still finding time for the basic daily needs of food and shower (or at least a vigorous brushing of the teeth and mouth wash), new moms are also under pressure to succeed at breastfeeding and to continue to do so for the 6 month recommendation from the CDC and public health and doctors. I would personally encourage anyone and everyone to give it a good try (“good” in my opinion being at least two weeks when your milk has finally come in and should be at it’s highest supply and latching has become more accomplished by baby). However, I would also strongly emphasize that anything to allows a new mom to be the best mom she can be for her baby, is what is best for that baby.

Stress and anxiety will not help either mom or baby, and an entire generation or two of children have been raised on formula and thrived and succeeded just fine. Breast or bottle, children respond best to moms who are (relatively) well rested and happy and comfortable in their new roles. No amount of health benefits from breast milk are worth the amount of guilt and grief many new moms face when turning to formula and bottles. It’s not poison, it’s not even a poor substitute, it’s just food, and the baby will be fine, really and truly. There are enough worries, real and otherwise, that face parents today, let’s at least agree that as long as baby is fed, we’re doing just fine. Now if we could only find a surefire way to get them to sleep . . .

[in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that we are still nursing at 21 months, only at bedtime and first thing in the morning, and when we wean is a topic for another day and another post . . . ]

To preschool or not to preschool . . .

We are grateful everyday for the simple fact that we both get to work from home and our daughter is watched by her nanny just upstairs from our home office. This meant that we didn’t have to choose between work and missing a single moment of her infancy, breastfeeding versus pumping or formula supplementation, dealing with recurring childhood illnesses, or concerns about safety or sanitation or enrichment of an out-of-home day care. This is not to say that there haven’t been other conflicts when it comes to how to parent or feelings of overwhelming guilt at not being able to spend more time with our baby, but at lease we can pop in anytime for a kiss and a cuddle. But our “baby” is quickly approaching two years old and the time has come to make a few decisions.

Although she has always been very social and appreciates the company of other babies (and children, but she still refers to them all as babies), she has also been granted the gift of one-on-one interaction since she was born. There is always a minimum of one adult interested in her actions and chatter and newly learned behaviors and a non-stop cheering section to reward her. For our efforts, she’s a confident, loving, happy child with an expanding vocabulary and a growing understanding of counting and reading and interactive role-play. She’s reasonably good at sharing (given that her natural instincts as a toddler is to hoard and protect) and is sweet and generally polite (again, given that they are natural sociopaths at this age) and compassionate about the pain and suffering of others (“baby cry!” is often followed by a soothing pat on the shoulder, which is an improvement from the sympathetic crying she used to engage in upon hearing a baby cry). But all of those admonishments to “be gentle” and “be kind” and to share and not to hit or shove or bite (luckily a very short and transient phase) or throw have caused her to be overly passive in a group setting.

It’s a fine line between raising a sweet, compassionate child and fostering a future victim of bullying. Her father’s solution to this dilemma is to train her in four martial arts and let nature sort it out. Practical as this may be, currently we have a sweet little girl who is often the victim of being pushed or shoved or sat on (which happens more often than one would think). But how do we correct this without going too far in the opposite direction?

And on a completely different vein, are we doing what is best for her to submerse in her a daily environment of mostly adult-to-child interaction? Would she benefit from greater contact with other children on a regular basis? Would she learn greater self-confidence and assertiveness if placed in a take or be taken environment (I thought kill-or-be-killed was a bit much for this example)? So we have come to the point when we must decide whether to start preschool when she turns two this summer or wait another year.

Selfishly, I love having her home with us and being able to hear your tiny, sweet voice at lunch and snack breaks calling out “mommy!” at the baby gate to the home office. I love how she runs unerringly into my arms and hugs me oh-so-tight and delivers a sloppy, wet kiss on my cheek (“kiss too!”) as she settles into my lap. Granted, I’m fully aware this is because I happen to be the gateway to her preferred addiction to Sesame Street on my computer, but I’m willing to take it wherever it comes. I have had the privilege and great pleasure of putting off actually leaving my child for work for almost two years. Can I willingly now place her somewhere out of the home for 8 hours a day? I have a hard enough time with business trips that take me out of town for a couple of days, knowing that I will have plenty of cuddles to come back to when I return. But is my selfish need for her time and attention preventing her from healthy social growth?

For now, we continue to do what we believe is best for her and give her all of the love and affection and time and attention that she needs. She will be two soon enough, and three too for that matter, much sooner than we would like. So why rush a decision that the future versions of us can handle when that time comes. For now, we’ll just enjoy our biweekly playdates and family outings to kid-friendly environments and memorize every cuddle and kiss for the inevitable day when she boards that kindergarten school bus for the first time.

You could eat off of this floor - oh wait, you already did?

I was a bit of a hypochondriac in college - my medical file when I left was a healthy two inches thick. I should feel embarrassed or at least sheepish, but mostly I still feel a bit proud and that is sick and twisted (no pun intended). So you can imagine the hyperdrive that started as soon as I became pregnant. A good number of hard working, very nice waitresses have sustained the third degree from me about the contents of dishes and the menu and any microscopic trace of unpasteurized cheese or mercury-laced-fish or heaven-forbid-deli-meat. It didn't get much better when the baby was finally born and I was -that- parent that went around sanitizing everything she might touch in public. The edge of that restaurant table that she might chew, that disgustingly sticky high chair that was brought around (very infrequently as we bought a portable high chair almost immediately after she learned to sit upright), that infernal petri dish of germs that is the baby swing at the park, etc. And the octaves that my voice attained when I warned her away from the sandbox were both operatic and comical. But then, life happened.

She dropped her fruit bar on the grass at a picnic and well, it was her last fruit bar and she really loved it and had polished off the "emergency fruit bar" the day before. She decided that eating cheerios was much more fun when dumped on the carpet at home and picking them up one at a time. Some other kid at a playgroup decided that her fruit puree was interesting and wanted a sip before giving it back, or she decided that some other kid's sippy cup was more colorful and therefore worth trying out . . . and then she learned to kiss me with her lips. All of these things facilitate the passage of icky germs (and yes, "icky" is the technical, scientific term I am using here).

But over time, I relaxed and basically just gave up on many of these types of situations. I still wash my hands over twenty times of day (and therefore have doomed my hands and knuckles to a dry, leathery, blood-stained crackling finish, but that's another topic for a different blog), but rather than be the parent who freaks out and alienates everyone else, we deal with the occasional cold and "ick" factor that is parenting and childhood. Perhaps it was the time that we went out for the family-matinee showing of Mama Mia and I realized that she had a blow-out dirty diaper that had exploded all over both of us, or Christmas Eve morning when she threw up for the first and only time all of the spinach and pear puree (it's better than it sounds) over both of us or the time that projectile newborn-poop came flying in arc in front of my face and landed on everything within a three foot radius . . . Fear Factor has nothing up on parenthood. Bring it.

Sleep "Training"

We have discovered many new things as parents, some comical, some depressing, and some just outright nonsensical. Both of us love sleep. If you were to present us with a Vegas style buffet and a really comfortable bed, there would be no contest. The perfect weekend used to be a fun-filled Saturday followed by a good party that evening followed by the inevitable hangover on Sunday and a day of lounging in bed. There would of course be much sleeping in and napping throughout said days. So it came as an outright shock that we would give birth to a baby that seems downright offended by the idea of sleep.

It used to be funny when we were pregnant and she would rumble around at all hours of the day, giving a very accurate impression of an earthquake in the belly. It was less amusing when she was born and decided that life was far more interesting than sleep, even at the age of 1 week when her motor skills consisted of kicking her foot in and out or at 3 months when she practiced rolling over (and then complained about being on her stomach) or at 6 months when she rocked back and forth to prepare for crawling, etc. A hamster in its wheel had nothing up on our baby.

So like all sleep-obsessed parents, we fell into the usual traps: pacifier, swaddling, rocking, and holding. We had read "The Happiest Baby on the Block" and the "No Cry Sleep Solution" like any self-respecting hippy-liberal-treehugger, and thanks to all of that wonderful advice, our baby was swaddled and pacified and rocked for months while cosleeping for the hour at a time that she deemed necessary for sleep. These crutches, and our unwillingness to let her cry, resulted in a baby that didn't and couldn't sleep through the night on her own until she turned 1.

That was the day her father had had enough (luckily he's made of far sterner stuff than I, coming from a brutal, war-hardened place like England . . . ). He popped her in her crib, kissed her goodnight, told her he loved her, and then closed the door. And didn't go back in until morning. The first night, she cried for almost four hours nonstop, and then fell into an exhausted sleep. The second night, she cried for 45 minutes, and the third night 30 minutes. It was torturous, I would hate to relive it, but after three days of crying, she slept. And she has slept ever since.

There was the one anxiety-inducing day a few months back when we realized during an enforced nap, when she was not in her sleepsac that she was capable of climbing out of the crib. One moment she was complaining about her nap, the next she was over the rails, across the room, up on her rocker and sitting there looking petulant and unrepentant when we raced in. So we learned many things that day: (1) she can't be left in her crib without her sleepsac (custom made on Etsy because kiddopotamus sizes are too small for a toddler!), (2) she knows how to manipulate the zipper on her sleepsac so now she goes in with the zip up the back, and (3) she will only sleep if given no other option.

And then yesterday at 21 months old, she spiked a fever of 105 and was miserable. So we regressed to our namby-pamby ways and cuddled her and nursed her and gave her tylennol and decided she could fall asleep in our arms again until she drifted off. Well, she didn't drift off. She doesn't "just" drift off. So eventually, she was kissed and cuddled and told she was loved and then placed in her crib and left alone. After the requisite 30-second yelps of complaint, she was fast asleep. The same thing occurred again at midnight when the tylennol wore off and she needed another dose. So for all of the cynics who believe poor sleeping may be a phase, an age-related issue, our baby at least seems to defy such definitions. So we continue to abandon our baby, night after night, and she continues to complain for the typical minute, and then all is quiet. It's not what every parents dreams of, but I'm no longer losing sleep over it.