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.

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.

My friend told me before Ellis arrived that I should impose limits on people visiting after the baby arrives. Her rules were:

you are welcome if you bring food

you are welcome if you clean when you get here

you are welcome so long as you don’t mind if I tell you I’m going to bed

you are welcome if you offer to take the baby for a walk

If any of the above will offend you – don’t come.

It turns out she is not as daft as she sounds. The thing is, babies bring visitors to your door and there have to be rules.

One of the things I’ve noticed is that Oh my God babies bring out the consumer in everyone. It’s amazing how much stuff you get when you bring your first baby home. I’m not sure if this lasts throughout your little one’s life but it’s pretty overwhelming. There has been a continual stream of visitors all wanting to meet the new man. They all bring gifts, kind words and some even bring food. We’ve had a stack of clothes for him and lots of other stuff, a footprint making kit, photoframes, blankets and if you are looking for a stuffed toy then look no further. I appear to have a world surplus of blue teddies in my baby’s room. It’s lovely that everyone cares so much. I was particularly impressed with my other half’s work – they sent a lovely basket of flowers that were growing and alive! Well until I forget to water it and it dies. In the meantime it’s giving back oxygen and humidifying the place.

Looking good for 14 weeks!

Well I thought I ought to give you a preview! This is the bean at 14 weeks. We are nearly at due date now so bean is considerably bigger and sitting on my bladder most of the time! TMI? Thought so.

Ok so in order to prepare for the arrival of my little one we have gone a bit hippy dippy. Not only have I been doing a pregnancy yoga course run by Nerrisa Fields in Leicester, we have also taken a hypnobirthing course.

I think this fits into the recycledbaby.co.uk ethos because the aim is to reduce the resources you use and have as natural a birth as possible. I’m not planning on giving birth in a yurt on a mountainside and frankly if something goes wrong then I want all the consumables at the hospitals disposal.

The idea behind hypnobirthing (and the yoga) is to make sure the mother is as relaxed as possible during all the stages of labour. If she is relaxed then a mother is able to cope if things don’t go to plan but she is also able to use the power of her mind to help ease the baby’s passage into the world. So I guess I’ve lost some of you there and it does sound crazy but I’ve been using Neuro Linguistic Programming at work for a long time now and I’ve been hypnotized quite a few times. I use a very basic form of self hypnosis to cope with going to the dentist and I recently saw a tv programme where a guy used hypnosis instead of having a general anaesthetic for an operation and it really does work.

We are in the middle of going to see this lady http://www.haveagoodbirth.com and she’s taking us through the process. I’ve got homework and hypnosis cds to listen to and I’m being pretty good about doing it most days. The postman caught me putting on my silver glove of numbing the other day – he watched me through the window and now thinks I’m insane!  The nice thing is that there are a lot of positive affirmations. Everything you do reinforces the fact that this is my birth and whatever happens I am in control of myself. I guess we’ll see how it goes.

This story is so on the money. Go into any new house and there is barely enough room for one bin, let alone the three you need to recycle properly. Every new fitted kitchen should have a special vertical cupboard to store stuff in before you put it out.
In my area we just have one green box that you put stuff into but it’s huge and there is still nowhere to put it.
All new houses should come with a special, covered, gated area in the garden for the wheelie bins and the recycling. It would make life sooo much easier.

Here is a great article from the Guardian newspaper on why you should recycle properly.

Now this is a bit disturbing. I’ve read about the BPA bottle scandal and now you are getting BPA free bottles in all the supermarkets and baby stores. Scientists appear to have found Bisphenol A in Bisphenol A free bottles. Have a look here and decide for yourself. Looks like someone has to do some more research.

The alternative is glass bottles and breastfeeding. It’s a hard thing because it’s not always possible to do either. Glass bottles aren’t hugely practical and breastfeeding is best if you can do it but not all little people take to it. We really need scientists to stop looking for faster, bigger and cheaper but looking at what’s right for people and the planet. Faster, bigger and cheaper might be good for profits but it is not the way to secure our future.

Russell Crowe is making charity shops trendy by paying a visit to a Cancer Research shop in Berkshire. Well actually he didn’t buy anything, he just made a donation, but like I say, it’s a start. Read the full story here.

I just wish they would do something about the smell of old dog, it pervades every charity shop I’ve ever been in. Why must we suffer to recycle?

So women who live near busy roads while they are pregnant could have children with lower intelligence. Another reason to get on your bike or the bus in town. The Guardian newspaper has the facts and some sensible thoughts here.