breastfeeding terms

noodads had a great dictionary of breasfeeding terms for the -er new dad. irreverant definitions and sentences like:

"Used in context: "Dammit honey! You left that newspaper hanging off the table and I walked past and it grazed my engorged breast. Now I will kill you." make it a funny and educational read.
noodad via blogging baby

night weaning update #5

the B slept peacefully from 7:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. last night....hard to beleive what we went through a few short weeks ago

yes, i work too

in completely unrelated news, these are the photos from this weekend i am happiest with. i worked all day from 8-6, had a day off from being mommy, had all kinds of fiascos (no working memory card, lost subjects' names, arrived too late for an assignment) and somehow, even though i am so rusty, everything still worked out!

night weaning update #4

Guess who's been sleeping without boob in his mouth??

thanks to the things i have learned from other people's struggles and reflections. thanks to la leche league for the links they sent. thanks to friends, family, and readers for listening and being genuinely interested.

I know it's only been two days, but his whole experience on this planet has changed thanks to the night weaning. He is back to singing to us in the mornings, is as happy as ever, yet takes more independent naps and really sleeps at night. he's not getting up all the time! yay!

buy me things!

For any of you that are interested (dad, hint! hint!) these are the books and toys that i am drooling over right now for the sweetest boy.

and don't forget the sweet fisher price deal where if you spend $20 you get another $20 free!

night weaning update #3

i am having major guilty feelings about what we are doing.

the boy used to sing us a song, happily babbling away every morning before we started. now he doesn't do the "morning song of boy" anymore. he generally seems a little more agitated during the day too. i think it is because we are nightweaning *sniff*

it might just be because his bottom two teeth are just under the surface. we have been dosing him with tylenol and homeopathic remedies to help with the pain, but we don't want for him to be sad too.

my brain tells me that this is important to do and get it over with and that he does not need to eat every forty five minutes at night

my resentment is motivating me to find a schedule that works for all of us.

i tried to go back into the bed for a few nights b/c he was down to waking up once or twice, and as soon as i came back into the picture, he was sleep eating all night all over again.

my guilt is making me question if i shouldn't just throw in the towel and stay up all night with him every night until he grows out of it himself. i am even scared that i am doing something that is not in accord with "attachemnt parenting" and that he won't be as attached to me anymore.

placenta for hipsters

thanks to tom cruise for making placenta, and eating placenta, a topic on everybody's mind.

it even made hipster-bible vice magazine with lines like:The placenta preparation was one of the most ungodly rituals in which I have ever engaged...To the list of achievements on my résumé, I proudly added Cannibalism.
how can you resist reading it?

The thing that trips me out the most about eating one's placenta is all the chatter about it being a vegan food

and hey, if placenta posts have an effective way of raising readership according to GGC, so be it!

smart stroller spotting

I saw this stroller at the doctor's office on monday. It is the first intelligent tandem stroller i have ever seen that is not a behemoth or gracosaur. The bigger kid rides facing mom on a bench, while baby sits in front stroller or infant seat. it is called Joovy and it sells for under $200 and fits in the trunk of a small car. why is everyone not using these?

joovy tandem stroller

online shopping bargains

the first of a few shopping posts.

amazon.com has a killer fisher price deal right now.

spend $19.99 get a free toy up to $19.99

there is also a pretty good deal on seventh generation (diapers, wipes, paper towels, whatever)

spend $99 get a $30 gift certificate

preggo photo

37.5wks
Originally uploaded by lynanne.

draw a face on momma's belly and you've got an awesome pregnancy photo. wish i'd tthought of it!

night weaning part #2

Some of the (good and bad) advice i've gotten about the boy's terrible sleep habits:
-must be teething
-must need to start solids
-must have gas
-must be time to switch to formula
-must let him cry by himself
-must let him cry with the manny
-must stop co-sleeping
-must get him into his crib
-must actually be hungry

phew! everyone's got their $0.2, nobody has to deal with it like I do.

We decided to go with some gentle night weaning, where the manny is responsible for him between 12-6am and not to get me unless it is a crisis. He is getting tricked by the boy that he actually needs to eat. So he is bringing him into the guest room (where i am hiding out) which makes it so much worse because then the B can smell me and see me.

I am scared we are teaching him to cry to eat at night instead of eliminating feedings. i am scared that it is unfair for the manny to have this responsibility even though he knows he has to get up in the morning and go to work.

Last night was just a rough night. The good news is that the first two nights, he didn't do more than stir, snuggle with daddy and fall back asleeep.

night weaning

written in recent email to my doula:

ok. i admit. i have been really relaxed about putting the boy down to bed and naps. (want a breast? sure! pacifier? no problem!) and i have pretty much thought all the advice about getting those things out of his mouth as he's falling asleep was a bunch of malarkey. i mean, why not give him what he wants?

well, i think i'm paying the price now. the boy was up every 45 minutes ALL of last night. not up exactly, but crying and looking for boob and won't even accept the pacifier, only the breast. the past week or so hasn't been much better. last night was so bad that every time i got up i was cursing like a sailor, and the last hour i just straight refused to feed him and left boomer to console a hungry( hungry? how could he be he'd been gorging himself all night?) baby.

is this my doing? how do i undo it? do i just wait it out? does it have to do with starting solids? is this a clue that it's time to practice night weaning? (when boomer takes the boy, and lets him cry, but stays with him and consoles him minus the breast all night) what's the best (and kindest to mom and baby) thing to do?

looks like we're in for a rough spot with the whole night nursing thing.

moms gone bad

apparently an all out brawl broke outat a babyshower in massachusetts.

via daddytypes

babysitting: woooo hoooo!!

good news: i found a woman through my mommy and me class who babysits. she does it out of her own home, is very nice, and her home is neat and clean.

better news: she charges $5 an hour.

best news: she is down to arrange a barter for family portrats!!!!

i am so stoked.

oily and crying

"end times" by photographer Jill Greenberg is a series on oiled-up kids hysterically crying

to hear some of why this might not be a good thing, see the post on daddytypes

update: turns out she doesn't oil down her subjects. a great article on how greenberg achieves this effect can be found on her website

what i did wrong this week

what i did wrong this week:

-started the B on solids before six months (gasp!)

-let him eat in front of baby einstein (shock!)

-gave him rice cereal mixed with water instead of breast milk (double gasp!)

-let him suck on apple and orange slices (minor cardiac arrest!)

-gave him a taste of our smoothie before remembering that it had yogurt in it (major heart failure!)

and through all of it, he turned out okay, even if we did have a minor scare with constipation