Sleep monster

Sometimes I find myself getting caught up in the world of babies, especially the social media world. I belong to countless new mom groups on facebook, which is helpful to ask for advice or words of encouragement from other moms. Unfortunately it also allows for little voices to get into you head. There are so many questions every day regarding sleep. When you become a mother, no doubt your world changes. All of a sudden you have this little person to care for to the best of your ability. In the first few weeks to months, it's pure survival mode. Once you gain your footing, you begin to really develop a parenting style and form opinions on certain topics. The biggest source of anxiety for me is sleep.

THE TOPIC OF SLEEP IS THE DEVIL.

The way Avi and I sleep was not planned or thought out, it just sort of happened. We began co-sleeping (bed sharing to be exact) around 2.5 months. I planned to put her in a crib at 6 months, but then she had a sleep regression, so I thought, maybe later, and then we went on a vacation, so I thought, maybe after we returned. Now she's 9 months and I stop and think to myself, what are my goals and wishes with this little human and her sleep habits?

I've gotta be honest here. I am HAPPY with my sleep situation. It's become a comfort for me, and no doubt Avi. She reaches for me at night, our bodies close, I know her breathing pattern. I somehow only wake for real cries and continue to sleep through the rolls, position changes and coos of a little baby. When she's sick, I'm able to monitor her closely and it also brings me peace knowing my closeness makes her feel better.

Although I am happy with our sleep situation, I still feel the lurking voices of western society creeping into my thoughts. Is she sleeping through the night? Is she still nursing at night? Get her into her own crib, let her cry it out, teach her to self soothe....I start to panic and doubt my ability as a mom. Have I created a monster? I talk to sleep consultants, I read books, I scour the many questions regarding sleep posted on all my mom facebook groups. I start to think, yes, I am going to sleep train her and get her out of my bed.

But then I slow down and think about this. Why am I changing how things are? I start thinking about all the other cultures outside the western world, bedsharing often being the norm. I work with many Filipino women who also bedshare. When I asked some of them about cosleeping, they talk about it without question or shame, it's the norm, almost like there's no other option. They bedshare until their child is ready for their own bed, no longer wanting to be with mom and dad. That is their normal. That is what has worked for them for centuries, even as that culture has merged with our western one.

So, this white American girl may be going against the grain, but I am doing what feels right, and more importantly what is working. I have to be honest. Some nights are a battle. Avi won't go to sleep; we try rocking, I hold her, we let her cry for a bit, I nurse... it's all a guessing game. Sure, it may be easier if we do a training regimen teaching her to soothe herself and be quiet when put in bed, but I am also not sure I believe she should be forced to get there right now. Maybe she's not ready to self soothe. Maybe there's a reason she is crying and doesn't want to sleep alone in the crib. On those nights I tell myself, "this too shall pass," she won't cry forever, she will eventually sleep, and she will not go to college still sleeping in my bed.

Am I creating a monster? Absolutely not. I am loving and nurturing my child the only way I know how. I'm listening to my heart and my instincts. I know that life is short, and in the blink of an eye she will be a teenager thinking of things to do besides hang out with her un-cool mom, so for now I relish in the moments where I am her everything. I am her source of warmth, food, happiness and joy.

This will not last forever.


These are choices I have made. I choose to nurse my baby when she cries, sometimes to sleep. I choose to sleep next to her. I choose to snuggle and sometimes rock her to stop the tears. I make choices as a mom that I feel are the best for me. So stay out of my head societal opinions. We are gonna rock this.

babywearing is full of rainbows and unicorns

I am going to give you a glimpse into the world of babywearning. Babywearing many of you may not know is a hardcore cult, I'm not taking wearing your baby in a Moby or Ergo, I'm talking woven's and stalking and unicorns and rainbows. It's my new hobby. I can't get enough, it consumes my every moment. Is that the baby crying? Don't care, I gots to scroll the FSOT wall on the swappers page. That's "for sale or trade"... alright here we go.

Ain't nobody got time to do a bunch of research on the history of babywearing, but I'm sure it goes something like this: Rural village of poor country with lots of women working in fields and long walks with small children requiring women to wear them, usually in woven wraps. Modern women of those same countries now look down on the woven wraps because it's how poor women carry their children, and they want to be western and use fancy strollers. Now here in the western civilization we have crazy granola-wanna be women like myself who drop serious cash for a woven wrap and choose that over our modern Mercedes of a stroller. I like to pair my wraps with preppy J. Crew outfits. That's obnoxious.

Babywearing, specifically with woven wraps has become a crazy thing, and I only know the basics. Woven wraps are great because they can carry babies and toddlers, unlike the moby, or other stretchy wraps, which maxes out around 16 pounds because of the stretchy material. Woven wraps are either hand or machine woven. And if you can get your hands on a handwoven... holy unicorn batman. Many of the woven buying and trading happens on Facebook and Etsy, however Etsy listings are really only known through FB. Confusing I know. I spent the last few weeks scouring the pages of babywearing swap to find my next woven, hopefully a handwoven, and hopefully less than $400- seriously. I found one. A used Warped and Wonderful handwoven, oh my god it's mine, it's coming to my house, I can't wait to touch it. When wraps get delivered, people call it fluff mail. I told you we were all insane.

my Warped and Wonderful handwoven fluff mail!

 So it's so hard to get your hand on a handwoven because they are made by little fairies and in batches of like one per decade, and you can't just buy it from a store or rarely online, you purchase through a raffle or draw or fucking magic. For example, Warped and Wonderful has hadwoven's and on their FB page they will show you delicious pictures of the next best thing. Cushy, smooshy, blanket-worthy hand woven by angels-wraps that you hope to get your hands on, hope to be the next luckiest mom in the western world. Then you wait, your baby starves, you don't shower, you refresh your facebook in hopes of finding out when they will release that ONE wrap. You  look away for a moment and within seconds, it's bought by some [bleep]. Shit.

That's one way of hoping to get a wrap.

Sometimes they go up for a draw. You sign up and enter to win the RIGHTS to purchase. Yes, that's crazy. If you win by random stoke of stupid luck, then you can pay them $800+ for the handwoven of your dreams. You read that correctly, woven wraps can go for over $1000...Like people live in trailer homes and eat Ramen noodles so they can have this woven. Fine, whatever, but I still haven't been lucky enough to win the damn rights to buy anything. UppyMama handwovens are gorge, like colorful pieces of magic woven together. I always enter their draws in hopes of one day someone will congratulate me and give me 24 hours to divorce my husband so I can give them a bunch of money for their woven, because let's be real, I cannot spend that much money and still be married. (love you boo!) The handwoven I purchased was from another mama's "for sale" listing, hopefully there's no cigarette holes or barf stains on it- she said there wasn't.

Also what fabric blend are you interested in? Oh man, there are soooo many blends you can get! Obviously the most common is 100% cotton, but then there's wool blends, cashmere blends, mercerized cotton- who the hell knows what that is, hemp blends, bamboo, unicorn tail blends, so on so forth. I may or may not have a second wrap coming that's a wool blend, because- Chicago winter.

**If the husband is reading, I absolutely do not have a second wrap coming.

You can even buy wraps as "dye blanks" that are white or cream, a neutral color and send them off to professionals to dye it in your own custom way. holy jesusmausadkajsfa. What this is all telling me is that I should buy a weaving loom and start my own damn business- "Fatty Tuna Wovens" Boom.

Learning to wrap with these wovens is almost another blog post in itself, but I'm rolling it into this novel. I started off with the Moby wrap and there's like one way to wrap the baby, which is fine for newborns and beginners. With a woven there are almost an infinite number of carries you can do and the crazy cult people all abbreviate, FWCC, CCCB, TUB... I can't even think of more than that because I'm basically brain dead from all this nonsense. The best thing about woven's is the ability to wrap a baby on your back, you can't do this with a stretchy wrap for safety purposes. But there are multiple ways to wrap, and it depends on the length of the wrap too, if you have a long size or if you get down with a shorty. Ugh. I can't even.

I'm new to the wrapping world, especially the world of wearing Avi on my back. I sweat, cry, sometimes vomit, but sometimes we are successful and then spend the day taking selfies of our successful back carry. No joke. I'm a loser. Some people are awesome enough to actually do this in public. I would for sure drop Avi on the cement and someone would call CPS on me. That's Child protective services, not Chicago public schools... although maybe same thing?

Well I'm off onto a new adventure of seeing all the new fall wraps come alive on my facebook stream. Maybe someday I will be a lucky winner of a draw. Until then, me and my three wraps will continue playing and practicing until I master a FWCC or CCCB.. whatevs.

My new Didymos wooly arrived in time for this blog! The picture doesn't capture the hot pink and red gorgeous color with Indian elephant print. LOVE.

Happy babywearing!

babyled weaning is the pits

So I wrote a post earlier about baby food and babyled weaning, yada yada yada, I thought I was cool shit with my BLW futuristic yet prehistoric ways, but then I decided that BLW is the pits and really for the privileged few. Here's why:

Once the sun starts setting, babies similar to gremlins start turning into a less cute monster version of themselves. If you're anything like me, evenings are a stressful, chaotic mess to try and get things done before bedtime, and those things are really just dinner.

Avi starts full meltdown around 7:30, so I have to find time somewhere before then to stuff my face and sometimes hers. Recently I decided that the "meal" I would start adding routinely would be dinner so that we could both enjoy dinner together. In all honesty, my goal is for me to eat some food with both hands free and baby not gremlinizing me.

I get my dinner all set and ready around 6, put Avi in her high chair with some sort of food nuggets for her to chomp happily on while I eat and throw back some shots. Just kidding. Kinda.

In reality, here's what takes place.

I'm so paranoid about her choking that I'm constantly staring at her while trying to get my own food into my mouth. The dog is breathing his hot breath at me begging for anyone's scraps. Food is flung onto the floor and into hair, basically anywhere but mouth which as you can imagine is frustrating which equals baby whining. This is like watching your drunk friend eat late night food. It's just awful. I have to give more food globs to gremlin baby and shovel more food quickly into my mouth with a swig of something alcoholic.The clock is ticking. In about 5 minutes I've consumed my entire meal of who the hell knows what and some beverage. Relaxing right?

Dinner time is over, but then I look at my child who is a food-filled sticky gooey mess. I dry heave slightly just from looking at her. How the hell do I clean this? Nothing will wipe all this down. The second I wipe one hand and move to the other, the clean hand is grabbing some goo again and the process continues for eternity I suppose. So apparently it's bath time.

I have to gather all the bath gear (we do bath's in the kitchen sink), so then I have to clean anything that's in the sink and prepare for a baby butt to be there. Off go the crunchy clothes and in goes baby. Luckily Avi loves bath time and all things filled with water.

The real exciting part is that once I get Avi to sleep and have time to myself, I get to clean the rest of the goo mess in the kitchen. Wipe down the highchair and all the nooks and crannies, finding old dried goo in there. Gag me. If the dog has wandered off and there's a mess on the floor, now I'm on my hands and knees like Cinderella wiping up food excrement and dust bunnies. Oh, that's right, the clothes have food drool on them, which will stain unless I start the soaking process now. Better go back downstairs to do that.

Finally everything is cleaned and I'm exhausted and think, "did I have dinner?" Oh yeah, I can barely remember because I swallowed it whole. I should just start having smoothies for dinner.

This is why it's nonsense to do BLW unless you have a cleaning crew like damn Martha Stewart. All I want is some organic, non-processed, real food that comes mushed up and ready for baby to eat so I can fill my pie hole with processed greasy dinner and we can all go to bed happy. Seriously. The alternative is to exclusively breastfeed Avi until she is probably around 6 or whatever age these gremlins can get food into their mouths without a mess.

The idea is cool, but lets face it, I'm way too lazy and just not trendy enough to do BLW full-time.

breastfeeding fashion for world breastfeeding week!

In honor of world breastfeeding week I thought I would talk about nursing fashion, and I'm not talking about scrubs for nurses, I'm talking about clothes that allow quick acccess to those boobies.

1. Baju Mama tops- First of all these tops are my all time favorite nursing tops. They can be worn on the weekend with leggings or jeans, but I also pair with skinny J. Crew crops for work. They are easy for both nursing and pumping. Not the cheapest, however they're amazeballs. If you're a little hesitant to nurse in public without a cover, these are the tops for you, super discreet, just get that 'lil nip out and you're ready to go. Baju Mama top from Figure 8 maternity, also, Figure8Maternity is my go to store for all things nursing, they steal my dollars.

Hard to tell but the top has a slit across the top and one part of the top folds up so you can nurse.                  Super sleuth style.

2. Another fave top is by Molly Ades, again not super cheap, but doesn't look like a nursing top and allows for very discreet nursing plus pumping. Molly Ades awesomeness. When I talk about tops being good for both nursing and pumping it's because some tops have slits on the sides for nursing as opposed to a slit across the whole top, and are horrible to try and pump from...no bueno.

The left picture I'm nursing Avi during a baseball game, super discreet I doubt anyone could see a thing.

3. Want to get crafty? The easiest style to throw together uses really stretchy tank tops as a base layer.  They need to be stretchy enough to pull down and under boobies, so make sure to test that out. No joke, my favorite stretchy tanks came from Costco. So weird, but like $10 for a 2 pack. Put tank on and any top over, then when going to nurse, just lift up first layer and pull down tank. Voila! No tummy exposed and no fleshy top boob exposed either. Good for nursing and you can still do this with pumping. Bottom left picture displays the fancy turquoise tank top from Costco layered with a black tee. I'm pretty sure these are the tanks Costco tank tops. Thank me later.

4. If you are smaller boobied (lucky you), there are nursing tanks that you could just wear around or pair with a cardigan and then you can skip the nursing bra altogether. I however, would be arrested if I unleashed these beasts without some sort of holding contraption. These should be a staple in your hospital bag and will also get you through the first few weeks/months post-partum. Love Glamourmom nursing tanks.

5. Another funky wardrobe staple that is good for pumping and nursing is the Undercover Mama tank, which allows you to wear a nursing bra, but only deal with the nursing bra straps, Undercover mama tank is strapless and attaches to any nursing bra. This gives you tummy coverage when you pull up another top and pull down this tank by un-clipping nursing bra. God that sounds complicated, probably just go look at the picture and you'll get it.

6. As far as nursing bras are concerned, there are so many brands out there and it really depends on chest size in my opinion. I think everyone should have a sleep bra, especially for the first few months, however I still sleep in mine. Bravado makes the most popular sleep bra. Since my milk tanks are the size of your head, my bra selection is limited. Nordstrom will fit you and they have a good classic selection of nursing bras, they will also take a non-nursing bra and convert it for you for a small fee. 

Some people get lucky with Target brand nursing bras, again, you have to have at least close to normal boob size, so those are a joke for me. I would recommend getting fitted professionally so the bra fits and doesn't cut into breast tissue which can cause plugged ducts and mastitis and decrease in supply and just pure awful. Also wait until 4-6 weeks to drop cash on a real nursing bra (other than sleep bra), because your full supply of milk won't come in until then and your size could change, which means you just threw money away on a bra that will give you a double bubble in your top.

HAPPY WORLD BREASTFEEDING WEEK! 

TAKE THEM BOOBIES OUT LOUD AND PROUD AND FEED THOSE CHILDREN!