Fivemonthababy!

Mar30

Somebody is five months old already! How can this be?! I have a thing in which I’m startled by the realization periodically that this little person is somebody’s future grandpa…Silly, I know, but it is something that catches my heart and arrests my action to consider. (All grandpas were once some mother’s snuggly delightful baby treasure. WAHHHHHHH!) My friend linked to a classic poem by Mary Oliver on Facebook this morning: how will you use your one wild and precious life. The Somebody’s Grandpa thought serves as a similar touchstone for me, while also doubling as potential future band name.

This thought process is partially why I hold Tanner 22 hours a day. The other reason is because he doesn’t want to be put down. He also weighs 18 pounds now, which explains why I’m often heard to whine about my arms being tired and that I feel worn down and “old” lately. Parenting an infant feels considerably more physically wearing for me at 35 than it was at 24! He is also the most held baby in our entire family because when I do put him down, it is into someone else’s arms. There are four other willing family members usually around to hold him, plus grandparents and sometimes an aunt or uncle waiting too. I feel annoyed with myself that we wasted money on a little swing and bouncy seat (gift, so it actually wasted someone else’s money!) this time. I already know that we just aren’t a swing and bouncy seat kind of family, but I didn’t realize just how very not so we would end up this time around. With past babies, for whom Mark wasn’t home during the day, the bouncy seat was how I managed to shower and sometimes get some other two-handed tasks done.

So far, Tanner hasn’t seem particularly fond of baby-wearing either, leading me to wonder if I’d just gotten out of the habit (the aforementioned putting-him-down-in-someone-else’s arms thing) or if he isn’t the kind of baby that is into babywearing. My aunt bought us a wonderful new Boba that is so cute and fresh, but unless sleeping already, Tanner most often wiggles to get out of it. It also feels a little stiff to me overall, though it worked better on my back than Ergos ever have. However, on a hunch the other day when I was lamenting not being able to put him down for a good nap so I could make some new sculpture prototypes, I got out my older Ergo from Alaina. Putting it on felt like putting on a nice, broken-in shoe or comfy sweater. And, lo and behold, Tanner likes it too and has spent hours in it over the course of the last two weeks. I feel like I’m rediscovering babywearing! (And, also feeling bad about wasting someone else’s dollars on a new purchase!)

T-bot is our worst sleeper really. He either naps being held on my chest in the rocking chair, in the Ergo, or lying pressed by my leg in the bed while I work on my laptop (post currently being composed in a combo of the two–he is sleeping on my chest with my laptop held on the knees of my stretched-out legs, his head jostling a little with the movement of my fully extended arms trying to type. Why am I trying to type and hold a baby at the same time anyway?! Somebody’s Grandpa, remember?!) Luckily, I really love holding him while he sleeps, I know it doesn’t last long, and I have plenty of work I can do digitally while he types. This works because I can shut myself up in the bedroom (like a veritable nap retreat!) while Mark has an eye on the other kids and brings me lunch in bed.

Participating in online Spring Equinox event, while in our favorite spot.

Tanner is also my first baby to have picked up some kind of virus as this young of a baby. Last week he had a fever and diarrhea. The fever only lasted one day, but the diarrhea for a whole string of unpleasant days with a plaintive, unhappy, whiny baby and stressed parents (particularly since I went back to class on Tuesday night). He has seemed somewhat fretful continuing into this weekend, but we finally realized that he wasn’t getting enough sleep (back to the bedroom nap retreat plan rather than the standing-Ergo-sculpting plan) and also that he seems to be going through a growth spurt and needs to nurse more often than I was realizing. He doesn’t dive in towards the breast yes or show other nursing cues really, so if I already nursed him recently, I thought he was just cranky and didn’t realize he was actually hungry! You’d think I hadn’t already been a breastfeeding mother for 11 years! As I’ve mentioned before, despite the many other willing baby-holders, he seems to need me more than any other baby and has even developed a wearing habit of screaming for me and stretching his arms out and rolling to the side reaching for me, when Mark is trying to change him before bed and I’m trying to brush my teeth. He does love going outside though and will happily ride away with Mark to check on the greenhouse and the chickens.

All this working while baby-holding prompted a new version of my “grind my corn” sculpture:

Despite all of the holding, he is also interestingly capable of moving himself along the ground. He is after everything and is the first to seem like he’s going to crawl any second. I’ve had a bunch of chubby late crawlers, so that’s what I expected again this time, but I think we’re going to follow a new pattern. He is also thisclose to sitting up unaided. He attempts to reach items constantly with a sort of tortured, deprived grabbing style, rather than an interested, exploratory style (more common to first babies, I think. This one is certain he is constantly missing out and that siblings are getting all the good stuff all the time, while he is forgotten and overlooked with no good stuff in his hands!). Due to frenzied grab-attacks and ability to launch self along floor and out of arms, he has now gnawed two pizza crusts (homemade, organic), one cauliflower floret, one bite of banana (gagged), and two pieces of paper (fished from roof of mouth). No fanfare or induction into the “first solid food” milestone. Just grabbed and chomped.

He is getting quite a bit more hair and remains a blondy blonderson!

Happy Fivemonthababy! I can hardly believe you are somebody’s grandpa!

World Doula Week!

Mar23

Happy World Doula Week! In addition to offering 15% off on all items in our shop through March 28 (code: DOULAWEEK), we’re pleased to have contributed some prizes to the Improving Birth Project in honor of Doula Week this year. Make sure to check out their Facebook page for details on how to contribute your story about your doula for their World Doula Week campaign.

I’d also like to give a shout-out to Soul Shine Mama, Tanya Malcolm, who is doing a neat free series with some of the world’s top doulas!

And, here are a couple of past posts about doulas for your reading enjoyment…

Doulas at Homebirths? | Talk Birth.

Book Review: The Doula Guide to Birth | Talk Birth.

Book Review: Doulas’ Guide to Birthing Your Way | Talk Birth.

Where are the women who know? | Talk Birth.

Wednesday Tidbits: Mother Care | Talk Birth.

Guest Post: Infertility Doula | Talk Birth.

Tuesday Tidbits: The Role of Doulas… | Talk Birth.

“I believe that this is one of the important things about preparation for childbirth–that it should not simply superimpose a series of techniques, conditioned responses to stimuli, on the labouring woman, but that it can be a truly creative act in which she spontaneously expresses herself and the sort of person she is. Education for birth consists not, as some would have it, of ‘conditioning,’ but aims at giving a woman the means by which she can express her own personality creatively in childbirth.”

–Sheila Kitzinger via More Thoughts on Birth as a Creative Process | Talk Birth.

Small Business Saturday: Pewter Figurines + Sacred Pregnancy Class Supplies

Mar21

We got our pretty new business cards this week! I have several other business tidbits to share today as well. We are discontinuing our line of pewter figurines and reduced the prices of the remaining few we have in stock. If you have been eying one, this is your last chance, because after these are gone, there will be no more made!

While we’ve sold our little “scrap goddesses” individually for while, we have some new ones available in small lots. A friend called these “gummy bear goddesses,” and that is how they look! These are very small, have rough edges, and do not sit on their own, but they would make a lovely little token to give to birthy friends, to clients, or to transform into your own projects (magnets, glued to a candle holder, etc.). These are only available by the lot and only as we happen to have them available!

I also want to mention that we are happy to put together small lots of items by request at a discount, particularly for Sacred Pregnancy Retreat Facilitators, but for other birth educators and doulas too. These can be custom arranged for things that we don’t necessarily have listed in our etsy shop (for example, we recently sent 12 tiny goddesses and 12 tree pendants to a Sacred Pregnancy retreat in Canada). We have “beauty” charms and goddess charms and spiral charms that aren’t available by separate listing, but that can be mixed and matched to create something nice to give to the beautiful women who come to your retreats and classes.

We do not provide these for free (though we always include secret, surprise bonus goodies for free!), but we are happy to do bulk pricing. Why not free, you might ask? We actually do make donations of our work each month to nonprofit events and organizations, but if you are a for profit business, then a fair energy exchange is appropriate rather than a donation. 🙂 We are a small, two-person home business ourselves and we love to collaborate!

Weekly Tidbits: Birth, Postpartum, the Triumvirate, and Anthropology

Mar20

My sister-in-law shared a link to a really potent article from The Guardian about birth, midwifery, postpartum, and supportive friends. When she shared, she brought tears to my eyes by thanking me for being part of her own “triumvirate,” described by the post author as…

I needed a maternal figure, a dedicated and present midwife, dear and loving friends. I was blessed with one out of three. It could have been worse.

The only people I know who did just fine in the postpartum period are those who score the triumvirate: well cared for in birth, surrounded by supportive peers, helpful elders to stay with them for a time. The others, wild-eyed at the supermarket, prone to tears, unable to nurse or sleep or breathe, a little too eager to make friends at baby groups – I can spot them at 20 paces. We form a vast and sorry club.

via My friend breastfed my baby | Life and style | The Guardian.

I’m lucky enough to have also scored the triumvirate (I find it takes pretty careful planning and active attention to put it into place!). When my midwife came to visit me postpartum and commented that I was looking good and I replied that people kept telling me that, she said that rather than just saying “thank you,” I should point out my looking good was directly related to having excellent postpartum care. And, she was right. I did not look, feel, or sound depleted, exhausted or overwhelmed precisely because I was being taken care of. I had great prenatal from my midwife along with six weeks of postpartum follow-up visits. I had a postpartum doula for immediately post-birth support and several follow-up visits as well as meal calendar coordination. I had my mom, who cooked for us and cared for our other children. I had my sister-in-law who came to stay for several days and helped with cooking and cleaning. I had friends who brought me dinners and took my kids to playgroup. I had my husband, who got to enjoy our new baby with me because he wasn’t trying to do all of the above!

When I think of my triumvirate, a specific moment comes to mind. I am sitting in the bathroom holding my brand new baby, still attached to me by his cord. We are waiting for the placenta to come. My midwife is close by, peeking over, but not being hands-on or aggressive. My mom leans over to take pictures. My doula is standing in our bathtub to make room. My husband is kneeling near me and my other children are gathered around to cut the cord. In the driveway outside, my friend waits with her three children to take my kids to playgroup. This is what birth support looks like. I am surrounded with love and care.

The author of the article quoted above did not have the same experience…

Two weeks later, I gave birth at home, after a 13-hour posterior, or back-to-back, labour, which the long-practising, well-respected midwife did not bother to attend. Frankly, it felt like staring death in the face, by which I mean an altogether normal and intense physiological process that has nothing to do with the ordinariness of daily life. Throughout, my husband and doula repeatedly called and texted the midwife, whom we had found privately. She told us it was “probably” early labour. From inside the grip of what turned out to be very active labour, I managed to flat-out demand that she join us, speaking at the phone while the doula held it to my ear. The midwife sounded annoyed, vaguely put-upon. It was another three hours before she arrived. Minutes later, with a great and unbridled roar, I delivered my son into bathwater.

We wept with joy, held him, kissed him, named him. Eventually, I got out of the bath. My husband lay in bed with our new son on his chest. I showered in a state of trembling, happy shock. The midwife perched on the sink and told me a story about her estranged sister. She handed me a towel, and I remember commiserating, trying to comfort her about her unfortunate relationship with her family, as though we were two cool girls hanging out in the bathroom at a party. One of us just happened to be naked and bleeding, immediately postpartum. I didn’t care; I was too ecstatic. Having just given birth, I felt omnipotent. Epic. Heroic. Unstoppable.

via My friend breastfed my baby | Life and style | The Guardian.

I wrote about the value of breastfeeding support here:

But, what happens after the birth? I’ve often thought that my role in breastfeeding support, while less “glamorous” or exciting than birth work, has had more lasting value to the women I serve. Breastfeeding is the day in, day out, nitty-gritty reality of daily mothering, rather than a single event and it matters (so does birth, of course, it matters a lot, but birth is a rite of passage, liminal event and breastfeeding is a process and a relationship that goes on and on for every. single. day. for sometimes years). Anyway, sorry for the brief side note, but I enjoyed reading this article about the celebrity culture surrounding pregnancy and birth with its obsession with who has a “bump” and then how after the birth the main deal is losing that weight and having a fabulous bod again! Woot!

via Tuesday Tidbits: Birth Thoughts | Talk Birth.

I shared this pic on Instgram this week in honor of the theme of “self-care” in the online Equinox 15 event I’ve been taking part in.

I’ve only recently recognized that while I was surrounded by excellent support for birth and postpartum, I’m not really giving myself much credit lately for still having just had a baby. Yes, Tanner is almost 5 months old, but that moment in the bathroom was only five months ago. I still need quite a bit of help and that normal and okay. I need to recognize what I’m capable of, which is a lot, while also still recognizing what I need and what the pace of my life can be and can handle at this point in time. I also recognized that I have difficult admitting or expressing how difficult it feels sometimes to be incorporating a new baby into the family, to be working around “baby time” again, and to be physically bound to a baby again. It is hard to admit, because Tanner is such a treasure of a baby and I enjoy him so much and love having his adorable, babiest of babies self in our lives. However, it also sometimes feels hard to be doing this all again and I often feel “old” and kind of worn out and ragged lately.

This brings me to a lovely article about vulnerability as strength (something my doula reminded me of several times following Tanner’s birth):

…Today I stood swaying my daughter to sleep in my mommas group shedding tears because of the intense sleep deprivation over the last 6 weeks. My tears fell and I was held with empathy, no one solved my problems; women just heard me and held me in my challenge. We heard each other, others cried, we softened, we opened ourselves up to the wisdom that each expressed and afterwards our hearts felt happier and lighter. Something sacred unfolded. I was in a container that was safe to share my soul, to be naked in front of these women, to admit I was not perfect and I didn’t have all the answers. And I felt better. I was not alone.

The more I allow myself to be vulnerable, the more I receive, the more I soften, and the more I open myself up to support. We are not meant to mother alone. The first year of our child’s life is a raw experience. It is amazing; it is illuminating, joyful, and raw.

via Vulnerability as a Strength | Mothering Arts.

This container is so important. Though, I will also acknowledge that for my personality, being told to “take it easy” or to “lower your standards” or “don’t have such high expectations of yourself,” often registers for me as being told: You’re not capable. I don’t believe in you. Give up. So, I personally, when trying to create a container of safety or support for other women I will not usually use those sorts of phrases.

Related to the idea of postpartum tenderness and triumph, I enjoyed this photo series of newborns and mothers: Born yesterday: mothers and their newborn babies – in pictures | Life and style | The Guardian.

Bringing the discussion around to anthropology and birth though, this interesting recent article suggests that it is the mother’s metabolism (and energetic reserves) that creates the human gestation length rather than the size of the pelvis as often commonly theorizes:

We’ve been doing anthropology with this warped view of the male pelvis as the ideal form, while the female pelvis is seen as less than ideal because of childbirth,” she said. “The female births the babies. So if there’s an ideal, it’s female and it’s no more compromised than anything else out there. Selection maintains its adequacy for locomotion and for childbirth.

via Long-held theory on human gestation refuted: Mother’s metabolism, not birth canal size, limits gestation — ScienceDaily.

In a past article about the wise women behind and around us, I included this interesting quote from Tsippy Monat:

“Anthropology describes trance as a condition is which the senses are heightened and everyday things take on a different meaning. Communicative competence with other people may increase or may not exist. Facts of time and place are revealed differently than in normal everyday consciousness. This description reminded me of situations encountered at birth because birth is a condition in which the mind is altered. When I accompany births, I experience the flooding of oxytocin and endorphins. In Hebrew, the root of the word birth can also mean ‘next to God’” (p. 49).

via Thesis Tidbits: The Wise Women Behind, Within, and Around Us | Talk Birth.

And, speaking of historical experiences of birth support, I re-visited this guest post about birth witnesses:

The only way to understand birth is to experience it yourself. The ONLY way? That comment stayed with me, haunted me. I became a doula after my daughter’s birth because I wanted to be able to provide women with support and knowledge that could give them a different experience, a better memory than what I had. I just couldn’t believe that there wasn’t a way to understand birth at all except to experience it firsthand. Certainly there wasn’t always this fear and unknown around birth that we each face today. Not always. I began studying that idea. What about other cultures? What about our culture, historically? What about The Farm? There wasn’t always this myth and mystery about birth! I realized there was a time (and in places, there still is) when women banded together for births. Mothers, sisters, cousins, daughters, aunts, friends. They came together and comforted, guided, soothed, coached, and held the space for one another during birth. These women didn’t go in it alone – they were surrounded by women who had birthed before them. Women who knew what looked and felt right, and what didn’t. Women who could empathize with them and empower them. In addition to that, girls and women were raised in a culture of attending births. Daughters watched mothers, sisters and aunts labor their babies into this world. They saw, heard, and supported these women for the long hours of labor, so when they became mothers themselves, the experience was a new, but very familiar one for them. Birth wasn’t a secretive ritual practiced behind the cold, business-like doors of a hospital. It was a time for bonding, learning, sharing and sisterhood. Girls learned how women become mothers, and mothers helped their sisters bring forth life. It was a sacred and special part of the birthing process that has become lost in our institutionalized, over-medicalized, isolating and impersonalized system today.

via Birth Witnesses | Talk Birth.

And, another regarding women’s rites of passage:

“I love and respect birth. The body is a temple, it creates its own rites, its own prayers…all we must do is listen. With the labor and birth of my daughter I went so deep down, so far into the underworld that I had to crawl my way out. I did this only by surrendering. I did this by trusting the goddess in my bones. She moved through me and has left her power in me.” ~Lea B., Fairfax, CA (via Mama Birth)

via Rites of Passage… Celebrating Real Women’s Wisdom | Talk Birth.

In just a few hours, I’m headed into town for our first local Red Tent Circle. I took this photo yesterday in honor of the spring equinox and the themes of manifestation, intention, and creativity. May we walk in harmony with each other and may we be surrounded by circles of support.

Happy Spring!

Tuesday Tidbits: Women’s Work

Mar10

“The minute my child was born, I was reborn as a feminist. It’s so incredible what women can do…Birthing naturally, as most women do around the globe, is a superhuman act. You leave behind the comforts of being human and plunge back into being an animal. My friend’s partner said, ‘Birth is like going for a swim in the ocean. Will there be a riptide? A big storm? Or will it just be a beautiful, sunny little dip?’ Its indeterminate length, the mystery of its process, is so much a part of the nature of birth. The regimentation of a hospital birth that wants to make it happen and use their gizmos to maximum effect is counter to birth in general.”

–Ani DiFranco interviewed in Mothering magazine, May/June 2008

via International Women’s Day, Birth Activism, and Feminism | Talk Birth.

It is Women’s History Month and we just passed International Women’s Day this Sunday, so today I have a collection of posts either about International Women’s Day or the theme of women’s work in general.

The first is this article about the basics of natural birth intended for the “non-hippy” reader:

“But is that really it? Is birth so simple as that? Is it really so simple as just having faith in your body and protecting and working with your natural hormonal flow?

Well mostly – yes!

It is that simple. Natural birth occurs when women feel safe, feel loved, feel listened to, are surrounded by calm loving people, and go with their natural birth flow. In all its intensity – your body was designed to handle it. Even if you don’t know it yet.

It IS hard work. It IS intense. It does help if you’re a bit bendy. It does help if you are active throughout pregnancy and vaguely fit. But no yoga required if that doesn’t float your boat. All the drugs and pain relief you need are right inside you. All the strength you need is right inside you. If you can find birth attendants who will mirror that belief back at you in their eyes, in their hearts, in their hands, in their attitude and manner, and in their language to you – in effect, saying ‘I believe in you’, you are one step closer to discovering the greatest, and the most ordinary and yet extraordinary power known to woman – natural birth…”

go-with-the-flow » Natural homebirth – not just for hippies!

This post made me think of one of my own on the “rest and be thankful stage” that has been linked to a lot over the last few days:

I always make sure to tell my birth class clients about the possibility of experiencing a lull like this, because it is during this resting phase that labor is sometimes described as having “stalled” or as requiring Pitocin to “kick it off again” or as requiring directed or coached pushing. Also, think of the frequency of remarks from mothers such as, “I just never felt the urge to push.” When exploring further, it is often revealed that what the mother actually experienced was no immediate pushing urge instantly following assessment of full dilation. Depending on the baby’s position, this can be extremely normal. The way I explain it to my clients is that the lull represents the conclusion of the physiological shift happening in the uterus—the transition between contractions that open the cervix and the contractions that push the baby down and out.

via The Rest and Be Thankful Stage | Talk Birth.

I came across the not-just-for-hippies post when the author shared the link with me in the self-publishing class we are both enrolled in. (The current class is already in progress, but you can get information about the fall session here: Be Your Own Publisher – the self-publishing e-course.) This course was developed by Lucy Pearce (author of The Rainbow Way and The Moods of Motherhood), who recently wrote a post that really spoke to me about the “labyrinth of self-imposed limitations” we may find ourselves in when pursuing creative work (or any work we feel “called” to do):

Many of us live in a “labyrinth of self-imposed limitations” (thanks to one of my self-publishing students, Linda English, for that phrase).

Especially when it comes to our creativity.

And double-especially when it comes to owning ourselves as writers, or artists, or whatever creative pursuit or ambition we’re holding off on…

via I Will Be a Writer When… – Dreaming Aloud.

I also read this interesting post on the Fortune magazine site about mothering and working and thriving…

I wish I had known five years ago, as a young, childless manager, that mothers are the people you need on your team. There’s a saying that “if you want something done then ask a busy person to do it.” That’s exactly why I like working with mothers now.

via Female Company President: “I’m sorry to all the mothers I worked with” – Fortune.

And, I thought about my past Women’s Day posts, the first about a body prayer that I wrote, but that also quoted some information about the original intention of the day:

“International Women’s Day is not about Hallmark. It’s not about chocolate. (Thought I know many women who won’t turn those down.) It’s about politics, institutions, economics, racism….

As is the case with Mother’s Day and many other holidays, today we are presented with a sanitized, deodorized, nationalized, commoditized version of what were initially radical holidays to emphasize social justice.

Initially, International Women’s Day was called International Working Women’s Day. Yes, every woman is a working woman. Yes, there is no task harder perhaps than raising a child, for a father and a mother. But let us remember that the initial impetus of this International Working Women’s Day was to address the institutional, systematic, political, and economic obstacles that women faced in society…”

International Women’s Day: Body Prayer | Talk Birth

The second offering a prayer for mothers:

…hear your value
sing your body’s power
and potency
dance your dreams
recognize within yourself
that which you do so well
so invisibly
and with such love.

Fill your body with this breath
expand your heart with this message
you are such a good mother…”

International Women’s Day: Prayer for Mothers | Talk Birth.

I re-visited a past post in honor of Women’s (Birth) History Month:

“…we need to grasp an honest understanding of birthing history – one that tells HERstory not HIStory. Because birth is about Women. It is a woman’s story. And we need to also understand why and how this herstory compels women to make the choices they make surrounding birth in the present day.
People become the product of the culture that feeds them…”

Women’s (Birth) History Month | Talk Birth.

And, I did my own work creating our March newsletter covering Women’s Day, Shining Years, Red Tent Fundraiser, and More: Happy International Women’s Day! I’ve also made a lot of changes and additions to our website recently including a Womanrunes 101 page and other pages explaining more about our jewelry and and sculpture work.

I have so many ideas for what I’d like to do and create this year (we also have what feels like a lot of kids, including the babiest of adorable babies who is getting so big, so fast!) and I am trying to hard to do what makes sense and to choose wisely. It is hard to tease out the difference between self-limiting (or self-sabotaging) thought patterns and being sensible/practical/realistic for this stage in my life. I made a huge mind map today to try to help me clear some of this stuff out of my brain and I was going to share a picture of it, because it is freaking intense, but it also made me feel (or look) a little crazy, so I decided not to share it after all!

What Should I Feed My Baby? Answers through the ages…

Mar9

“My doctor said since my baby is four months old, I can start giving him solid foods.”

“My mother-in-law said that if I give my baby rice cereal at night, she will sleep better.”

“My friend says her six month old eats three jars of baby food a day, but mine doesn’t seem interested.”

“At the La Leche League meeting I went to, no one seemed interested in starting their babies on solids and one mom told me that babies don’t really need rice cereal.”

A lot of conflicting advice and opinions about babies and solid foods swirls around the internet and in the opinions of others around us. Why is there so much concern and conflict about what babies should eat and why? What should you feed your baby? Interestingly enough, the answer depends very much on your time and place in history, rather than on any hard and fast rules about what a baby actually needs! If you were a mother at the turn of the twentieth century, you would get a much different answer than a mother in the 1930’s! Many contemporary people express a lot of concern about wanting their babies to try a variety of foods and sometimes a bit of a parental competition can emerge regarding whose baby has the most varied palate. However, if you were receiving advice as a parent in 1906, you would have learned from doctors at that time that eating many different foods would likely result in child death: “And how many [parents], after a time, do we hear lamenting the loss of this child saying: ‘Poor thing! He was eating everything when he died.’ They do not understand, unfortunately, that it was precisely this that caused the baby’s demise more than anything else.”* Something that doesn’t change is the value of watching your baby rather than the calendar and listing to your instincts rather than the experts.

So…what ARE the medical answers through the ages to the question of what should I feed my baby…

When should I introduce solids?

1906: 12 months, 10 at the earliest.

1927: Six to eight months old.

1932: Eight, or better yet 10, months.

1947: six months

1979: three months

2008: 6 months

2015: once baby has doubled birth weight and weighs at least 13 pounds and is around six month olds

What should I feed my baby?

1906: At one year old—3 breastfeedings per day, plus at night after midnight. Also, gruel made with flour only (no fats) at noon + breastfeeding for dessert. At 7:00 p.m., you may give 130 g of milk.

1927: First food should be a bread and garlic soup. At one, baby should be having four breastfeedings a day, plus salty soup at noon and sweet gruel at 7:00. Salty soup contains bread, salt, and garlic and sweet gruel contains oat or rice flour and milk.

1932: Garlic and bread soup.

1947: “salty soup,” which can include cheese, chicken, or fish. At 7-8 months old some children can tolerate half an egg yolk or a teaspoon of grated cheese or a teaspoon of butter, or a teaspoon of pureed liver. Offer a different food each day.

IMPORTANT: “At one year old, it is essential that the child eat more than just breast milk. If the child is raised only on this lacteal secretion, he will become white and flabby. These are ‘curd babies.’” ( 😉 )

1979: At three months, begin with two servings of flour and milk gruel and one serving of fruit. At four months, add vegetables. At six months give egg yolk and liver (you may possibly begin this at four months).

At six months to one year, for breakfast baby should have sweet gruel with crackers or bread. For lunch, soup or strained vegetables or potatoes with added meat, liver, brains, etc. Fruit for dessert or some cheese. Afternoon snack should be strained fruit or fruit yogurt or crackers. For dinner, offer sweet gruel with egg yolk or soup with egg yolk, ham, fish, or white sauce.

At one, you may begin to give cocoa, dried legumes, fruits, sauces, candies, and cakes.

2008: Cereal should be first food. Once your baby learns to eat cereal, gradually introduce other foods such as strained vegetables, fruit, and meat. Give one new food at a time, and wait at least 2-3 days before starting another. Give eggs last, because they occasionally cause allergic reactions.

Your baby can start drinking juice at this time also. Apple juice and white grape juice are well tolerated by most babies. You may want to dilute the juice with an equal amount of water, as undiluted juice can cause diarrhea, diaper rash, and excessive weight gain. Many babies are sensitive to orange juice and other citrus fruits, so they should not be given before 6 months of age.

Within 2 or 3 months of starting solid foods, your baby’s daily diet should include breast milk or formula, cereal, vegetables, fruits, and meat given over three meals.

Once your baby is sitting up, you can give him finger foods to help him learn to feed himself. Some examples include well-cooked and cut-up squash, peas, potatoes, and small pieces of wafer-type cookies or crackers.

2015: For most babies it does not matter what the first solid foods are. By tradition, single-grain cereals are usually introduced first. However, there is no medical evidence that introducing solid foods in any particular order has an advantage for your baby.

Though many pediatricians will recommend starting vegetables before fruits, there is no evidence that your baby will develop a dislike for vegetables if fruit is given first. Babies are born with a preference for sweets, and the order of introducing foods does not change this. (via Switching To Solid Foods – HealthyChildren.org.)

What should my 14 month old be eating?

1906: Once your baby is 14 months old, you can add one egg yolk to the morning gruel and give an additional serving of plain gruel in the afternoon.

At fifteen months, you can add egg yolk to both gruels.

1927: At 15 months, two servings of gruel made of flour, four nursings. An egg yolk may be added to the gruel once a day.

Between 15-18 months, you can introduce mashed potatoes, eggs, and pastas.

1947: four to five daily nursings, plus strained fruit with crackers in the morning and strained vegetables with liver at noon. You should also give one feeding of gruel with strained egg yolk. At 8:00 p.m., give wheat, tapioca, or oatmeal gruel and juice, plus additional gruel at 11:00 pm.The child may have 2 crackers per day or a small piece of bread.

2015: Generally, meats and vegetables contain more nutrients per serving than fruits or cereals. Many pediatricians recommend against giving eggs and fish in the first year of life because of allergic reactions, but there is no evidence that introducing these nutrient-dense foods after 4 to 6 months of age determines whether your baby will be allergic to them.

Within a few months of starting solid foods, your baby’s daily diet should include a variety of foods each day that may include the following:

Breast milk and/or formula
Meats
Cereal
Vegetables
Fruits
Eggs
Fish

via Switching To Solid Foods – HealthyChildren.org.

What should my 18 month old eat?

1906: At 16-18 months, add broth, legumes, and crackers (no more than once a day!).

1927: Between 18-24 months, meats and fish.

Pureed vegetables can be given in small quantity, they are not very nutritious.

At 18 months, you can give fruit, but only if it is cooked. Only during the 3^rd year will we authorize the use of fresh fruit in small quantities.

1932: You can start bread with butter, egg yolk, tomato, grape and orange juice, pasta and legumes.

When should I wean?

1906: At 20-21 months cease breastfeeding and give crackers three times a day. At 22-24 months, you may add chocolate, fish, and brains.

At 3 years, you may give whole egg and chicken croquettes (make sure to follow special recipe). Three 10 g servings of milk per day also.

At 3 ½ you may introduce fruit and vegetables at 4 years, but only a little, the same with veal

1932: You may give fish at 2 ½ years and chicken at age three.

1979: 10-12 months

2008-2015: Breastfeeding should continue for 12 months and then as long thereafter as desired by both mother and child.

*This tongue-in-cheek look at the solid food advice given by medical professionals during different decades of American history was gathered from information provided by the wonderful book My Child Won’t Eat by Dr. Carlos Gonzalez.

Small Business Saturday: Shining Year Meditation and International Women’s Day

Mar7

Our collaborative business planning and progress is so intimately tied to our work with Leonie Dawson’s annual workbooks, that when I saw the theme of this year’s workbook—Create Your Shining Year—the wheels starting turning about how to communicate that in a pendant format. A friend then made the suggesting of making a Shining Year pendant with a sun at her center, so I found a sun stamp and set out to create some Shining Year goddesses. I also wanted to make a connection to the sun symbols used in Womanrunes, which are about laughter, healing, and letting go—all messages I need to receive into my own life this year!

Shining Year Goddess meditation

Take a minute to put down anything else you are carrying, doing, or thinking about. Let your shoulders relax and release. Let the breath move easy down into your belly. Then smile. Smile from your roots up through your branches. Feel joy suffuse you, filling you, bathing you, and laugh. Laugh from your belly. Laugh from your heart. Laugh with the wild abandon of freedom and release.

Let go. Feel the release and freedom that comes with unclenching your life. Remember to trust yourself and what makes you smile. Are you afraid to laugh? Are you scared to let go? Do you fear the loss of control that comes with hilarity? It is time to shake that off. Don’t be afraid. Laugh, sister, laugh. It is time to have some fun!

Know that you are as free as you allow yourself to be.

Why the twisty legs?

Recently the same friend who suggested the sun image, asked me why some of my pendant sculpts have twisty legs and I realized that sometimes the why I’m trying to communicate through my work isn’t always immediately interpretable! To me, the spiral leg form represents the energy of rising. I think of these goddesses as joyfully dancing, twirling, expressing themselves actively and energetically in the world. Indeed, the sensation of moving energy is so palpable through this design, that as a high-energy person, I have to be careful how and where I wear them, because the sense of being activated is so strong with them, that it can be too much for me! However, if you feel in need of activation and mobilization, however, then these dancing, moving, energetic goddess pendants are the designs for you! Any of my pendants with dancing legs represent Shakti rising in an energetic dance of creativity, freedom, and personal power. She is unapologetically fully inhabiting her own personal power and her being is enlivened by an exuberant flow of passionate, inspired energy.

Other new designs

As you may glimpse in the opening image, we’ve also created two new miscarriage mama goddess pendants, a new dancing moon goddess, and a mastectomy goddess pendant.

We’re excited to have donated several pieces of our work to a Red Tent fundraiser project in the UK. Please check out all the details about the Community Red Tent and join supporters from around the world for the online auction taking place via Facebook on the spring equinox: Community Red Tent Auction & Raffle

In honor of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, we’re also offering a 10% discount code on any of the items in our shop through March! Use SMALLBIZSATURDAY.

Fourmonthababy

Mar6

THIS BABY.

Sometimes that is all I can say. I hold him up and stare at him and show him to Mark: this baby. THIS BABY! He may be the most babiest of babies we’ve ever enjoyed.

It is hard to turn four months old for a baby who is born on Oct. 30th, because February only has 28 days. He managed though. Because, this baby!

I did a fourthmonthababy comparapic:

A month or so ago, I saw a picture of him that looked familiar and so I dug out one of my own baby pictures instead of the baby pictures of my other kids and did a side by side of both of us at two months old:

Yes, familiar!

So, I went ahead and did a four months one too!

Unfortunately, one thing this baby isn’t known for is sleeping without being held or in being put down in general, which makes it hard to write effusive blog posts about him (or any other blog posts at all). I jotted down the following notes in my notes app though…

He has more hair. Still blond. Sticks up. Twists heart. I’m trying not to miss anything. At same time, feel like I am missing things with my other kids—there are only so many hours in a day and I feel like I spend them on Tanner and my work mainly (poor Mark hardly rates on my “pay attention” scale at all!).

I use this meditation bracelet as I sit in my nursing chair feeling like I’m not getting “enough” done.

Alaina is still having a hard time with the adjustment/displacement, perhaps the hardest I’ve experienced with a kid. She can be relentless and exhausting and needy and also very intentionally push parental guilt buttons. She went with my mom to KS for four days recently to visit and I think the time and more focused attention was good for her. Speaking of heart-twisting though, watching her walk away in her little purple pants with her little skinny legs, I realized that I will never, personally spend four days alone with my four-year-old-daughter in my life. Feels sad.

My mom also crocheted her a mermaid tail!
Back to Tan-baby.

Has large levels of what we call: Intent to grab. This involves serious, devoted staring at an item, with spasmodic hand twitches towards it and a full-weight leaning body. ITG progressed over the last two weeks into actually grabbing and moderate reaching for things being handed to him, including skills in swiping/knocking things from counters, trying to chew laptop cords, and screeching with outrage when thwarted.

After having his neck and chest develop a horribly red, chapped, and chafed looking areas, I finally caved and started putting bibs on him to protect him from copious drool. I always feel kind of sad for babies wearing bibs for drool, like it is embarrassing somehow! He also super-freakishly chews own lips/tongue in a weird mouth movement that can only be seen to be believed (and he stops doing it as soon as you say anything or try to take a picture or video and instead smiles hugely).

Sleeps on me for naps and on my arm all night.

Rolls over both ways on 2/20. Plays Boo for first time on March 2—prior to this day, “boo’ing” was unamusing. March 2 produced laughter and kicks to keep playing the game.

We’ve been snowed in off and on for weeks. All hours filled with kids. Has been surprisingly “vacationish” feeling for a large part, with a sprinkle of oversaturation.

Seeing if UPS would deliver them to Baba and Tom’s house

I’ve made myself feel sad in advance to see the easy intimacy and connection of my kids now at their wide age ranges because in my own experience with my much younger siblings, it totally ended (as do all life stages). Seems like this is how it will be “forever.”

He definitely tries to be one of kids—watches the “show” (but wants to be on or with me while watching).

My babies have all gotten propped up in pillow nests so this prompted another comparapic:

Boogerectomies are an ongoing issue. This baby has the most terrible booger problem of any baby I have ever known. We had to buy a special device on Amazon to extract them and it is miserable torture for us all, but his nasal passages actually get so occluded at times that he cannot breathe well enough to sleep or to nurse and then a traumatic boogerectomy is required.

He intentionally gives kisses by responding the word “kiiiiissssses!” with an open-mouthed dive at your cheek. Weighs 16 pounds according to step-on-step-off-step-on scale method. He also seems to be getting ready to sit up and will actually stay balanced in a sitting up position for a few seconds instead of immediately flopping over. He likes to hear Daddy play the guitar. And, he still seems to say “hi.” It is funny and startling, because you will look at him and say “hi” and he looks right at you and says “hi” back.

I feel like in the last month particularly we’ve really been watching him develop…how he is grabbing, reaching, noticing stuff. It feels like we are watching it as it actually happens for the first time. Mark and I both stood there looking at each other and at Tanner as we watched him purposefully reach out for something for the first time in his whole baby life. And, the entire family gathered around just a few days ago and watched him grab his feet for the first time when he was getting his diaper changed. I’m kind of surprised that we have time to watch him so intensely and pay so much attention to these changes. Is it because there are more witnesses than ever in the house? Is it because it feels like a treat to get to watch someone new’s development unfold one more time? I’m not sure, but I do know that he has more attention paid to each developmental milestone he reaches than any baby who has lived in our house before!

Sporting an outfit he got for a Christmas present. The hat was amusingly out of proportion and cracked us all up!

Getting in on the sibling LARPing as a Ninjababy.

Tanner is now almost twice as old as he was when the three of us ventured off to class for the first time since his birth. Now, 8 weeks have passed and we successfully made it all the way through the session! The last week has been pretty stressful for me as I struggled to grade all the papers for both my classes as well as the final exams for the seated class, but I did it. Mainly like this:

We joke that he experiencing the world through eyebrows (in addition to mouthing things)…

What a most fabulous four-month old Tan Tan we have in our house!

Tuesday Tidbits: Placentas, Of Course

Mar3

“…Lately under the lunar tide
Of a woman’s ocean, I work
My own sea-change:
Turning grains of sand to human eyes.
I daydream after breakfast
While the spirit of egg and toast
Knits together a length of bone
As fine as a wheatstalk.
Later, as I postpone weeding the garden
I will make two hands
That may tend a hundred gardens…”

–Barbara Kingsolver

via Two Birth Poems | Talk Birth.

This week I enjoyed this interesting article about the placenta:

The picture draws attention to an organ that, while ephemeral, once sustained us all. “The placenta really is a marvel of design,” says Barker. “It is the only organ designed to be disposed of after it performs its function.”

via Picture of the Week: Human Placenta.

I keep hoping to write a post about Tanner’s placenta and its velamentous cord insertion, but keep running out of time to develop it. Someday! I did write about the placentas in general and how to honor them in this past post:

…I think the reason the placenta might not get as much acknowledgement and appreciation as it deserves is because it then pales in comparison to the miracle of a whole new person suddenly showing up on the earth as well. Forget growing a new organ, I just gave birth to a new person!!!! And so, the placenta may be cast aside with hardly a glance or even much thought to its powerful role in pregnancy and the sustaining gift of life it offers.

via Placenta Magic | Talk Birth.

Not related to placentas, I was also extremely interested by this article about medicating women’s feelings:

…Women’s emotionality is a sign of health, not disease; it is a source of power. But we are under constant pressure to restrain our emotional lives. We have been taught to apologize for our tears, to suppress our anger and to fear being called hysterical.

via Medicating Women’s Feelings – NYTimes.com.

In my classes, I tell my students that it we must be aware of whether we are putting people into untenable situations and then expecting them to cope “normally.” When their coping with a completely abnormal, unbearable situation isn’t “normal behavior” then it is pathologized (and may be medicated). The thing that really needs to change on many occasions is the environment surrounding the stressed person, not the fact that person personally is experiencing stress.

It makes me think of my own past article about the “Of Course” response:

You feel healthy and beautiful, but now your doctor tells you that you’ve “failed” the GTT and are now “high risk,” of course, you feel stressed out and…like a high risk “patient.” You tried really hard to labor without medications, but you were “strapped down” with IV’s and continuous monitoring, of course, you felt like a trapped animal and like you had no other choices but medications. Of course, you feel upset and discouraged that your baby is ‘rejecting’ you and your breast after having been supplemented with bottles in the nursery. Of course, you are crying all the time and wondering if you are really cut out to be a mother, when your husband had to return to work after two days off and you are expected to be back at your job in five more weeks. And, so on and so forth.

“The ‘Of Course’ response affirms that those who feel crazy, powerless, alone, confused, or frustrated within unhealthy systems such as patriarchy are experiencing just what one would expect of them.”

via The Of COURSE response… | Talk Birth.

An example of what I mean can be found in the same article about medicating women:

But at what cost? I had a patient who called me from her office in tears, saying she needed to increase her antidepressant dosage because she couldn’t be seen crying at work. After dissecting why she was upset — her boss had betrayed and humiliated her in front of her staff — we decided that what was needed was calm confrontation, not more medication.

via Medicating Women’s Feelings – NYTimes.com.

Maybe it is okay to be upset when things are upsetting. What a revolutionary concept! 😉

Talk Birth passed the 800,000 hit mark earlier in the week. I plan to have a special giveaway to celebrate this milestone soon, but I have to finish up my end of session paper and exam grading work first.

Despite all the grading, I did manage to get some of our new line of mindfulness bracelets up on etsy this week though and I just love them!

Wednesday Tidbits: Mothers Writing

Feb25

…we write
to connect ourselves
to this circle
these circles
of women writing
each time we pose
pen or pencil
to paper.

–Wendy Judith Cutler

via Circles Writing | Talk Birth.

Writing our Womanrunes book feels like it unlocked something and I’ve got about eight other books in me now that want to be born! The challenge is organizing and focusing my time and energy in order to work on them (particularly since I’m on baby time now!). I also can’t forget that I’m also trying to write a dissertation this year. When I get frustrated by my pace, I try to keep in mind that the notes I jot down and the ideas I have and quotes I share and books I read and blog posts I write can all be, in their own ways, pieces of these evolving projects and are sort of like writing all the time. I’m looking forward to settling down with a free interview series about self-publishing, Be Your Own Publisher, from Lucy Pearce and her team at Womancraft Publishing. The speaker on the agenda for today addresses writing and motherhood. Last night, I also decided to sign up for the full course!

I wrote about mothering and writing in a past post for a the Rainbow Way blog carnival:

As I’ve been reading Lucy’s book The Rainbow Way, reflecting on my own work, and looking around my home, I’ve had a realization: While I have struggled and cried and planned, while I have given up, and begun again, and surrendered, and refused to quit; While I have been present and been distracted, created and been “denied” the opportunity to create, while I have nursed babies and “written” in my head the whole time; While I have been filled with joy and filled with despair and while I have given myself permission and berated myself and then berated myself for self-beratement, my husband and I have created a home and family life together that is full of creativity.

via Releasing Our Butterflies | Talk Birth.

This week I read some powerful articles from other mothers writing. This piece from the author of After Birth is about the loneliness of new motherhood:

“To Marianne, Ari’s feminism doesn’t make sense. Reclaiming the singular power of the female body is too radical or too way-way old fashioned or some weird combination therein. That’s stale thinking on Marianne’s part, and a pretty major failure of imagination. Problem is, a feminism that “liberates” women from biology turns out to not actually behoove anyone. Women still aren’t equal, and if we buy into that old feminism, now we’ve also divorced ourselves from something primal and arguably vital, and signed ourselves up for some pretty extreme new forms of violence in the process—forceps, shaving, enemas, episiotomy, the lithotomy position, induction, surgery.

Unmediated physical connection to childbirth and nursing is wildly magical. You see a lot of backlash to that idea, like, I don’t buy the magical birth/nursing bullshit, and you can’t make me, to which, you know, OK, to each her own, and Godspeed. But Ari wants to get back that essential connection to the body…”

via After Birth: An interview about motherhood, feminism, and loneliness with novelist Elisa Albert.

And, this piece about the ordinary but powerful realities of mothering

…But in each of those moments, the ones that are heavy and the ones that are hard, here’s the thing that I have settled on: We keep mothering…

When You Just Want to Quit Being a Mom | Sarah Sandifer.

I also enjoyed this post about Facebook reality vs. real reality. I keep meaning to write a similar post. I like her example of too much FB being like too much sugar…

But plenty of research has surfaced over the last few years indicating the psychological effects of social media are rather costly. Too much time on Facebook has been likened to eating too much sugar. It’s easily digested with little to no intrinsic value, and it weighs in heavily on users self-confidence, stress levels, comparison and overall satisfaction with their lives.

via Don’t Judge a Life by Its Facebook | Fort Worth Moms Blog.

Past Talk Birth posts about writing:

I’ve spent a lifetime writing various essays in my head, nearly every day, but those words always “died” in me before they ever got out onto paper. After spending a full three years letting other women’s voices reach me through books and essays, and then six more years birthing the mother-writer within, I continue to feel an almost physical sense of relief and release whenever I sit down to write and to let my own voice be heard….

Birthing the Mother-Writer (or: Playing My Music, or: Postpartum Feelings, Part 1) | Talk Birth.

…The body of a writer

is a political action

with each swing of a letter

each truth written

the world is broken open…

–Sarah Jones

via A Writer’s Prayer | Talk Birth.

“As long as women are isolated one from the other, not allowed to offer other women the most personal accounts of their lives, they will not be part of any narratives of their own…women will be staving off destiny and not inviting or inventing or controlling it.” –Carolyn Heilbrun quoted in Sacred Circles

via I am a Story Woman | Talk Birth.

“I know that for me, writing has something in common with nursing the baby. I can’t do it if I don’t do it all the time. Put it aside to build up strength, the flow will dwindle and finally disappear. When the baby was at my breast ten times a day, I had a rare secret feeling that we were violating a law of nature, defying a form of entropy…One cannot hoard some things. The more I gave the baby, the more I had to give her, and had I tried to conserve myself, I would have found that I conserved nothing.” –Rosellen Brown

via Writing and Nursing | Talk Birth.