My Rants – Page 10 – a hippie with a minivan

Ramblings…. About Sleep….

Last night I has trouble going to sleep… Maybe it was the Coffee that I took mid afternoon that I am just no longer used to having (DH and I stopped drinking Coffee regularly because we don’t want the addiction) Anyways… I stayed up and checked Homeschooling sites… I am still debating with my self about how I want to homeschool but keep on reminding myself that it is ds that will take the lead and show me how he wants to be taught…
Anyways… I finally went to bed and was starting to fall asleep when Colin woke up… Dh got up (without even waking up I think) went to get him and brought him into bed… I nursed him and fell asleep right away… Something about being cuddled to a little ball of warmth just makes me relax completely… I don’t know what we would do if we didn’t co-sleep… I can’t imagine if at that moment I would have had to physically get up and get Colin back to sleep.. How do parents do that? Why do they do it?
Someone on a newsgroup I read mentioned something that really made sense to me… It is not our children that have sleep problems… it is the parents… the kids are getting enough sleep even if they wake up during the night, it the parents that are the ones losing out on sleep because they go to sleep later, and they get up at night and wake themselves up completely in order to get their kids back to sleep….
A friend of ours has two micro-preemies… born at 27 and 28 weeks (11 months apart)… her daughter born at 27 weeks is a very bad sleeper… she wakes up many times a night and they have lost so much sleep… they have tried everything to have her sleep better and longer and nothing has woked… The leave her CIO, they rock her, they have sleep therapy, drugs etc but have never brought her into their bed… I wonder sometimes how much sleep would have actually been saved if they would have done this… Why is it a bad habit for so many people? Why do people expect a newborn, or even a toddler to be in their own room in the dark and alone while they are snuggled next to the one they love… Why do they expect their children to be so independent….
Don’t get me wrong… I know that co-sleeping is not for everyone… but it is not a bad habit! It is a great tool… there are some nights that Colin wakes up quite frequently especially during a growth spurt and I don’t lose more sleep because of it… I just give him the breast without even really waking up and both of us are back asleep within seconds… Call me lazy or call me brilliant but I am just not able to accept that I have to get up during the night to tend to the needs of my children… I would rather do it from the comfort of my own bed….

NIP (Nursing in Public)

OMG!! How can people be so ignorant! There has been so much talk about nursing in Public since Barbara Walters and Star Jones made really awful comments on “The View” (and then of course BW lied about them after a Protest was done!)
Anyways… What can be more natural then feeding a baby… As time goes on I am just getting sick and tired of hearing about the Guilt that is laid on the backs of mom’s that Formula feed because they are tired of hearing about the importance of Breastfeeding… Get Over it… It is proven that Breast is Best! There is no way around it and there are serious risks to not breastfeeding and risks that are associated with Formula Feeding.(Hello!! It is not even TESTED!!!) Of course we never hear about them because we don’t want to make those moms feel Guilty!! OMG Wake up and get over your selves! If you are so confidant in your child being healthy and happy on formula and you really think that Formula carried no risks and that it is just as good as breast milk then you wouldn’t feel guilty!! It is because you know that it is best but you don’t care and just don’t want to breastfeed for reasons that are completely selfish that you feel guilty… and I am not talking about the 1% of Moms that physically can’t breastfeed, or the ones that tried and didn’t have the right support etc… (They didn’t make the choice not to breastfeed, the choice was made for them and that is why formula exits)
No, I am talking about the ones that made the conscious choice not to breastfeed (or weaned very early) for stupid, immature and selfish reasons. The ones that care about taboo’s and that see breasts as sexual items or just don’t want to take the time or the “effort”… I just wish people could get over their hang-ups of the female Breastâ€¦ What do they think they are made for? If they where made solely for their husbands pleasure it wouldnâ€™t be milk in them but Beer!
Seriously… If someone wants me to use a blanket to cover my childâ€™s head while they are nursing I want them to do the same thing to their child… Formula feeders always use the worst term for NIP and I am sick of it… If I hear “She just whipped out her boob and stuck in her babies face” one more time I am going to yell “at least I am not shoving a artificial nipple full of toxic sludge into my baby, and at least I care enough for my baby to breastfeed him“
OK… Of course not all Formula feeders are like this but as time goes on there are more and more (or I am just hearing it more and more) I am tired of hearing about the right to Formula feedâ€¦ Thatâ€™s your right yesâ€¦ but donâ€™t tell me that the artificial way of feeding a child is better and should be seen and that breastfeeding shouldnâ€™tâ€¦
I will Breastfeed my Child in Public when he is hungry and when he needs it! I will hide the fact that I am breastfeeding just because it may make someone feel uncomfortable. If I am expected to do that I expect that women will no longer were Tops that show any amount of breast and that Bottle Feeding Moms will also have the same expectations put on themâ€¦ Hey I feel uncomfortable too when I see a baby being given a bottle (but guess what! I donâ€™t say anything and I just look away!!!)

Then and now…

I was thinking about how in the past women were the heart of the family. They cooked, cleaned. took care of the house and took care of the kids without any help. They seemed to have done it all without missing a step. How did they do it?I wonder if they complained about how their husbands didn’t do anything at all. I mean not only did they do it all but they did without the help of all the new mashines that we have. No dishwasher, no washing machine just elbow grease and alot of hard work. They also didn’t have all of the distractions of phones, internet, TV, radio and just everything that seems to pull you away from whatever you are doing.
I love being a SAHM but I can’t seem to get everything done… and most days I can’t seem to get anything done. So as I was cleaning the kitchen today I realized that I have to learn how to do it. My mother was a single mom and though she cleaned I had to get out of the way and it was not a daily thing but a once a week thing. I never learned how to clean as part of a daily routine. I never saw others being SAHM’s. In the past women where taught by example and saw mothers mothering, learned to cook, sew, garden and take care of a household. With women going to work now we have lost this and the SAHM’s of the future need to learn it all by themselves.
Look at breastfeeding… not long ago in history women breastfed without a problem not only because they haad no choice but because they had always been exposed to it and saw how it was done through this exposure. Not only would a new breastfeeding mom have seen what breastfeeding was but she also had all the suport from all the women around her who had done the same…
So as I cleaned my kitchen, I understood that in our time we don’t only have to do it all but we have to learn how to do it also. I am so thankful for my husband in this respect, he does so much around here but I feel so guilty that I don’t do more. However, I am trying to do my best and hopefully I will be there to set the example for future generations.

This is my Rant!

Ahhhh…..the joys of Parenthood… before I had kids I had a completely different idea of what being a mom was and what children were really like… Having a child changes Everything!
To be Honest, I knew this but I didn’t know to what extent it was going to be… the thing about it all is that the more I understood this, the more I accepted it, the easier and more fulfilling life as a mom became.

I quickly understood while watching my first son sleep in my arms that my life was never to be the same again, the life before ‘motherhood’was gone.
But that was what being a mother was… Wasn’t it?
Should I try to be the person I was before but with kids?
Can’t they just come with me everywhere?
Life will never be the same, but is it bad?

No, of course not… I am going to the next level, I am now a Mom.

Going back I have always been the black sheep in my surrounding. My ideas always seemed radical to those that surrounded me. Parenting has not been different.

When I was pregnant I knew that I was going to breastfeed. I didn’t know anybody that did, but I never understood why. Why give a chemical soup instead of breastfeeding. It is proven to be best, it is the natural way to feed our young, it is free and it is so much less hassle.

Everyone around me had an excuse why they couldn’t breastfeed…
“My breasts are too big”
“My breasts are too small”
“My milk never came in”
“My milk wasn’t rich enough”
“My baby was too big”
“My baby was too small”
“I had to take Meds”
“It hurt too much”
Etc, Etc, Etc, Etc……

Could it all be true… I had to read up on it more….
Then I started seeing it.. “99% of all women can breastfeed exclusively”, “It is very rare that a women can’t breastfeed” etc…
I understood 99% the excuses that I heard came down to two things
1)they don’t want to breastfeed and just make up excuses (because it is easier then trying to defend themselves and their thoughts)
2)they do want to breastfeed but lack the confidence in their body to do it and get caught up in the bad advice of Doctors, Family and/or friends.

I wouldn’t be one of those… I will breastfeed, I will give my child the best start in life.

When my son was born I knew that I could do it and I knew that my body was made to nourish this child that I had given birth too. I knew I was going to succeed because I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Other things came over me when he was born also. My insticts took over completely. I knew that he needed to be in my arms often, he was inside me just hours before, the world could be a scary and cold place and he needed me and I needed him. We brought him into our bed, I fed him when he was hungry, It didn’t feel right if he cried… these ideas where always seeming to clash with others around..

They thought he would be spoiled, that he was manipulating me…
“Let him cry, it’s good for his lungs”,
“Babies just need to cry sometimes”,
“He has to learn to be by himself sometime”
“He’ll never be able to go to sleep/be on his own”
“He has to learn to Self-Soothe”

None of this made sense to me… Wasn’t he just a baby?
Isn’t Crying the only way that he can communicate what he needs?
Isn’t he the one that knows what he needs and when?
I dived into books and internet sites and slowly I started seeing the words Attachment Parenting more and more while searching for things and searching for support…
Surely I wasn’t the only one that thought this way? Maybe “they” are who I am looking for? Maybe “They” are who I am!

From then on I identified myself as an AP Mom and from then on I have had trouble being comfortable in the mainstream world and way of thinking…

This is my Rant…