Last week's Day to Day on Co-Sleeping

Last Thursday, NPR's Day to Day grabbed onto the Washington Post's coattails and had their own article on co-sleeping. Day to Day called up their local medical expert, Dr. Spesiel to offer his reservations on co-sleeping. Dr. Spesiel offered up that co-sleeping made him nervous and he alluded vaguely to some study where some babies died as a result of sleeping with their parents (but he didn't offer the details - if the parents were obese or drunk or drugggd etc).
As a new parent, I find these articles on co-sleeping where so-called experts are brought in to discourage new parents from sleeping with their babies so irritating. First of all, I find it fascinating that the people who are made nervous by co-sleeping are generally men. I don't think co-sleeping needs to become a gender issue, but I do think families need to do what works for them, and especially breastfeeding mothers who are the ones likely to be up with their babies throughout the night, so maybe we could leave it up to the people who are breastfeeding - since it is their sleep at risk. I mean really, until men lactate, maybe they could clamp it and defer to the ones who do lactate (my husband certainly does - but thanks to our co-sleeping, my husband is also sleeping through the night - and it turns out there's nothing he loves more than to snuggle with our sleeping baby).
I also hesitate to place a whole lot of value on the opinions of medical experts. If we just take a minute and review the history of the opinions of medical experts, we'll find more instances of where they were wrong than right - and not that there aren't things we should be grateful for - but can we just keep in mind that 50 years ago, these same medical experts discouraged breastfeeding because they thought (for some reason) that breastmilk was nutritionally insufficent. They also discouraged picking up your baby lest you spoil your baby. They encouraged feeding your baby on a schedule of every four hours then wondered why suddenly all the babies are colickly (when really they were just hungry). Medical experts, in the past, have thought some pretty weird things so do we really want to view them as the unquestionable authority on all things?
Lastly, humans are pack animals. Every night, I nurse my baby down on my side of the bed, then I get up and do a few things. When I come back to bed, my baby has scooched himself across the bed so that he is snuggling up against my husband. So how do cribs make sense? (never mind that just as many babies die each year alone in their cribs). As my friend Kristina says, just because something is common doesn't mean it's normal.
Anyway, at first I thought about our co-sleeping and thought, it works for us and really, it's nobody else's business. Then I found myself commenting on the Day to Day website and thinking "Oh hang it. I just became an advocate." So there you go. I outed myself. I'm all for co-sleeping - mostly because it entails sleeping. We're the most well rested family I know. So are all the people we know who do co-sleep. Why mess with what works?

Self-Love in New Mommyland

In today's New Moms' group, the topic was self-love. At first, the idea of self-love was a little hard for a few of us to wrap our heads around since most the time these days, there's a baby attached to the breast of ourselves and the line distinguishing us from baby can at times get a little blurry. So it took a little bit to get down to how self-love looks or how we express it post baby arrival. Finally, it hit me, that since I became a mom, a good haircut is imperative - and having my hair washed before my haircut is luxurious. A hot bath after everyone else in the house is asleep has always been a key component in my recipe for self-rejuvenation, but since I became a mom, showers are now equally important. And before I was a mom, those bottles of Whole Foods brand shampoo and conditioner for just a few dollars did the trick - I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it (however, the scents and quality of bubble bathes and bath salts were very worth putting some thought into), yet now, good quality shampoo, conditioner and shower gel are as imperative as good quality bubble bath. I mean, those ten minutes in the shower take on a meditative self-nurturing quality. Showers are no longer just about getting clean.
Other things that were important before mommyhood that become much more important in mommyhood: flowers in the house, morning coffee (and it better be good morning coffee), earrings, pajamas you love to be in, my journal, and make-up.
Probably the most important expression of self-love in new mommyhood? Compassion for our new mommyself we decided. Not beating ourselves up for not getting the dishwasher unloaded. Cutting ourselves some slack and trusting our instincts - sometimes you have to put those parenting books down (you can get too much in your head with too much theory).
And it turns out the cool thing about self-love in new mommyhood is that how we take care of ourselves is what teaches our babies how to take care of themselves - that it's okay to have time to yourself and sometimes having time to yourself means somebody else isn't going to get what they want - and that's okay too.
So with that in mind, this new mommy noticed that baby needed a bath - but we let daddy have his bath to himself first so he could relax and decompress after his day (and with this current rainstorm we're having in LA, it really is nice to sit in the tub and listen to the nighttime rain) then I added baby. It's good to pass the self-love along.

The New Yorker on Breastfeeding

Check out this week's New Yorker for interesting article on the evolution of breastfeeding, pumping and the related legislation in the U.S. It kind of makes you think - I'm all for women pumping and for them having the legislation that protects their right to do so (I mean not having that legislation kind of sends the message that we don't value the health of our children very much) - but I would much rather see women having much longer paid maternity leaves. Anyway, check out the article. It's good to see breastfeeding making the mainstream media in the New Yorker instead of just La Leche League newsletters. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/01/19/090119fa_fact_lepore?currentPage=all

In terms of clothes

Whatever you end up wearing as a new mom (some of us could spend weeks in our pajamas), I think you can get away with anything as long as you have a great haircut, lipstick, and an awesome pair of earrings. With that said, check out these cute new mom nursing clothes from Hadley Stilwell: http://hadleystilwell.com/collection/. Word on the street is that there's a 20% until the end of February.