recycledbaby.co.uk

We have gone for a huggababy sling. After a great deal of wrapping ourselves up in various bits of cloth we are now carting our little one around in one of these. I did try and buy a second hand one but they seem to go for the same price as brand new ones so I got a new one in a colour I like. I have to say there are a number of slings out there designed by the colour illiterate. The only excuse I can come up with is that they are trying to hide the vomit stains. My sling is khaki green and very comfy.

Hopefully it will be very useful. I am trying to be the earth momma but it’s a moniker that doesn’t quite fit somehow. It seems that there are women out there who were born to breast feed, carry their little one in a sling, recycle everything, knit their own sanitary protection (there are people that really do that….). I wonder sometimes what they are trying to prove to themselves. I sometimes count it as a good day if I clean my teeth.

from the greenpeace website in the US

Sinar Mas are a big company that make paper and palm oil. They do it by slash and burning then clearing huge areas of rainforest and peatland in Indonesia releasing massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and making this third world country the world’s third worst CO2 polluter.

Greenpeace have stuck their head above the parapet and revealed which supermarkets in the UK take products from Sinar Mas…. Tesco (no surprises there) and Walmart (Asda).  Other famous brands that do business with them are KFC, Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts and Campbell’s soups.

So it’s up to us to decide where we do our shopping and whether we want to spend our hard earned cash on companies prepared to do business with world wreckers.

To be fair – this Greenpeace article says Tesco has stopped buying from them but it’s the principle of the thing.

I think I want a baby sling but I have no idea which one to get. There are so many different types. Do I go for metal frame? Ring? Just cloth? I have no idea which is best. We saw some at the baby show that made you look like a Jedi warrior when you tied them up but I’m not sure I’m ready to wrestle with five metres of cloth to tie my baby in. How do you do that when you are alone in the house with the little one? It looked like fabric origami but the overall effect was cool! That’s a point actually – it will be hot in summer!!

My friend says he just uses a sarong tied across him with the baby on his hip and I’ve seen a few people carrying babies African style with a sarong tied across their back. I’m not sure that’s good for you though. It’s bad enough carrying them on your hip and throwing your back out of alignment without having to lean forward to balance the weight out. There don’t seem to be many cons to having a sling but I guess you just have to try a few and find out what works. I read this  but I still have no idea. They seem to be quite easy to make if you believe some of the crafty type blogs and sites out there, but only if you can get the rings for them. Personally I don’t seem to have time to brush my teeth let alone buy the material and the rings to make a sling. Maybe that will ease up as he grows but for now I’ve got to look to borrow one or buy one second hand and see!

We have a Bumbo – it’s been purchased for less than £15 including postage and it arrived in its genuine Bumbo box. It’s not a Chinese fake, it’s real and it’s brilliant except for the faint smell of cigarettes. I HATE people who lie about their non-smoking home on their eBay sales. OK so it’s only happened this one time but I still hate it. I found out because I picked it up off the floor and sniffed the bottom. I don’t make a habit of sniffing things but my baby’s stuff is important and I picked it up and just had a sniff and there was the cigarette smell. I guess it will disappear in time in my non-smoking home but it does spoil the excitement a little.

Husband did all the things I either can’t be bothered to do or physically can’t do – like picking sales that end at midnight when I am asleep, to place bids on and searching for weird spellings of Bumbo (although that could yield some very strange items!)

I got my boy to model his new thing for you and he looks happy… although he may have been having a pee at the time. It can be hard to tell the difference some times.

Boy in his new chair!

The Bumbo buying has been taken out of my hands. After several abortive attempts to purchase Bumbos from eBay which resulted in me running around swearing like a trooper and taking it out on him indoors, husband has decided he is going to buy it for me (deliberate or cunning, you decide). Trouble is he says he’s not going to pay more than a certain amount for it. We could be waiting until the baby is walking.

Toy libraries are just the best. I’ve discovered one near me and because our neighbourhood is next to a council estate and therefore we must all be deprived, it’s free! Free to join. Free to borrow toys. Free strawberries when you turn up with your little one. I love it. This week I have borrowed a Bumbo and it’s amazing. If you haven’t seen one before – it looks kind of like a high sided, rubber potty with a really high bit that sticks up between their legs. It helps them to sit upright and stops them from slumping over. You can get them with play trays on too which is also ace. Little one has decided it’s OK…..must get me one of these. Time to get onto eBay and have a look. Do I have to worry about fake Bumbos on there? I guess the Chinese can copy anything but how do you know if it’s real.

The Bumbo from the toy library

I called the La Leche League helpline for breastfeeding assistance. The lady I talked to called me back and talked me down off the ceiling. She was great. She said it doesn’t matter if Ellis feeds all the time which was alright and a bit frustrating at the same time. It really is all a bit much sometimes. Ellis is losing weight and my mum is hovering practically poised above him with a bottle. Throw in the whole “I’m a failure if I can’t feed my own baby” thing then I’m what you might officially describe as a mess.

I keep having mad hormonal highs and lows so I’m in tears over rescue dog adverts and breastfeeding and then I’m giggling like an idiot at something in the newspaper. Either I am bi-polar or I’ve just had a baby! Looking at the small creature in the cot next to me, I think it’s the latter.

This is an e-mail I sent to a friend:

Any sage thoughts on this one….little bugger keeps falling off after a couple of minutes…then screaming blue murder. So he snacks through the day – We’re having to top him up with bottles of formula which I suspect is compounding the problem so I bought a breast pump which is getting a stupidly disappointing 2 – 3 oz a time….so how do you increase supply….someone suggested pumping more..but he’s eating all the time so when am I supposed to do that!

This was his wife’s response – I love my friends, there’s nothing they can’t solve.

Here are some things to check out:
* if he keeps falling off after a couple of minutes, he’s not getting a full feed. A fast-sucking experienced older baby still needs at least 5 minutes to get most of a breast and most young babies start out kind of inefficient. He needs lots of practice and time. Can you take a breastfeeding vacation (e.g. a few days) where you just lie in bed naked with him (with a blanket pulled over you two) and let him sip and suck and feed whenever he feels like it? Some babies need to feed continuously until your supplies build up and he learns how to get the milk he wants.
* DO NOT use formula; it’s going to sabotage breastfeeding when the baby is so small and learning how to feed properly. Formula is sweeter than breastmilk and easier to get out of a bottle–he’ll prefer bottles of formula to breastmilk from your body. But he needs to work his jaw/tongue/mouth muscles to get breastmilk from you; it will help him later on with teeth and jaw alignment, as well as talking.
* Feed in a calm, quiet room where he can look at you and feel safe, cuddled and warm. Talk or sing to him softly if you don’t like the silence.
* This is what I did with mine when she wasn’t gaining enough weight: Start her off on one breast, then when she fell off of that one, switch her to the other, when she fell off of that one, just switch back, back and forth until she absolutely refused to feed anymore or fell asleep. Soon enough, she started to feed longer at one breast and there were fewer switches between the breasts. Her eventual routine became breast 1 as a snack or thirst-quencher, breast 2 for quite a while, then back to breast 1 until she was full and happy or asleep. It didn’t matter whether I started with the right or left breast either. She just liked that rhythm.

If he’s angry and falling off the breast, make sure these basics are working before heading for formula…
LATCH and POSITIONING:
* Babies aren’t born knowing how to feed; they have to learn and some are poor suckers or bad latchers. This is a great site for help with getting a baby properly latched and feeding: http://www.breastfeedingonline.com/newman.shtml
Read the handouts (especially latching and breast compression) and/or take a look at the videos. (Dr. Newman is one of the best in the world when it comes to breastfeeding–if he helps you, you might want to support his work. Breastfeeding is so important and yet gets no money or support…whereas multinationals get huge tax breaks and government support to sell formula.)
* Another excellent site for breastfeeding and more: http://www.kellymom.com/bf/index.html (She’s a certified lactation consultant and her information is well-researched and consistent with best practices around the world.)

SLOW LETDOWN
A colleague of mine in Hong Kong was a cow–she literally released so much milk when her son started feeding that he’d sometimes choke on the flow. She could also get about 10 oz. of milk pumping AFTER he finished feeding. I was not this miraculous creature. I have a slow letdown and it takes about 30 seconds of solid sucking because any substantial amount of milk starts flowing. If he’s too hungry when he latches on, sometimes he gets red in the face and howls because the milk isn’t instantly there. I try to feed when mine starts mouthing, sucking his fingers or fussing–well before he starts crying for food (crying is one of the last signs of baby hunger, not the first).

When he has been kept waiting too long and is already crying, I will squeeze my nipple to make sure that there are a couple of big drops of milk on the nipple when it goes into his mouth. He tastes the sweet milk, calms down and sucks greedily to get more.

If you have a slow letdown, that could frustrate your baby who sucks and sucks when not much comes out at first. In this case, a pump can come in handy: you get your letdown started BEFORE the baby latches on so that with his first suck, he’ll get a mouthful of milk and so his sucking is rewarded and he sucks harder and more.

PUMPING
Some women are slow or low producers of breastmilk but they can increase their milk by pumping (fenugreek tea or fenugreek pills have also been shown to work, up to 900% increase in some women). In this situation, you don’t pump to save and store milk, so it doesn’t matter if you only pump 1 oz. or even less. You are convincing your breasts that the baby is still hungry and they need to produce more for him. (That’s why formula can be so sabotaging for breastfeeding moms. When a baby gets formula, it takes LESS milk from the breasts, which primes them to make less milk, which makes baby less satisfied when he feeds and often leads to him getting more formula because he still seems hungry. It becomes a vicious cycle unless one plans very very carefully or gets professional help from a lactation consultant.)

A two-pronged plan:
1) fenugreek tea/pills
2) after every feed, pump till your breasts are empty or definitely feel lighter
Your breasts will respond with more milk within 48-72 hours.

Another possible reason for your baby seeming to be hungry all the time: When a baby goes through a growth spurt, he will feed more and more often (often seeming fussy), signalling the breasts to produce more but it takes about 2-3 days before the breasts increase their capacity to meet the baby’s new needs. Growth spurts happen often in the first month, then at 4-6 weeks, 3 months, 4 months, 6 months and 9 months approximately. It’s not just physical growth but also when babies need more energy to reach developmental milestones such as rolling over and crawling.

I have been watching kids tv recently and this song is being played on the Cbeebies channel a lot at the minute. It fits right in with what this blog is all about and Ellis likes it.  Enjoy!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/presenters/songs/recyclesong/

Ellis enjoying the massage.

Health visitors seem to come in two moulds. They are either evil devil’s spawn or nice people. I have seen one of each kind since Ellis arrived. The nice health visitor who has been coming round and helping me with breastfeeding has suggested a massage class she is running. It’s free which is awesome. I’ve never run into so much free stuff before. It’s great being a stay at home mum! I also get to use the massage oil I never used on my perineum. Ellis doesn’t seem to mind one little bit.

Ellis is incredible but I can’t believe how tired I am. I’m struggling with the breastfeeding. He seems to want to be drinking all the time. I’ve got a book that works on the Easy system. Eat, Activity, Sleep, You. This appears to be rubbish because he just wants to eat all the time. He cries all the time and I have no idea if what I am doing is right.

It all started off badly when he didn’t want to latch on in hospital. I couldn’t feed him straight away because he wasn’t interested immediately he was born and then I was whisked up for some needlework so I was out of the picture for a couple of hours. I thought we would be home that night but because I lost a lot of blood they wouldn’t let me go. The first night was a nightmare – poor little thing was bawling his eyes out and I got seriously manhandled by a couple of midwives trying to get the latch right. I was so tired I could have cried, so the fact that she was squishing my boob into his mouth seemed perfectly acceptable and normal. I was stuck in a ward for three days with three other mums and babies and they were all awake in rotation so there was no sleep to be had. In the end one of the midwives suggested a bottle and it seemed cruel not to feed him. I fear that was my first mistake. He never really got back into it and now he’s just desperate to be fed with a bottle and I’m just desperate to feed him myself.

It is truly overwhelming sometimes and it’s difficult to put into words how confusing, frustrating and uncontrollable this all is. There is conflicting advice. Not much help available for when you don’t know what to do and a lack of support from everyone who just thinks the baby should  be on the bottle and done with it.