Here’s my philosophy on balancing the responsibilities of a baby and the housecleaning: Your only job as the parent of an infant is not to cross the line from untidy to unsafe. I have found that being the type of parent I want to be has required me to lower my standards when it comes to keeping a home.
When my child is an infant, my child comes first — first before the dirty dishes in the sink, and first before the unfolded laundry. Those dirty dishes don’t pose a hazard to my baby, nor does the unfolded laundry. So when …read more

Photo credit: benklocek

In this video Dr. Jack Newman guides a woman in using the cross-cradle hold to latch her baby onto the breast. While there are many different breastfeeding positions, the cross-cradle hold can be particularly helpful for newborns. Note how the mother is not forcefully pushing the baby’s head onto the breast, but rather is simply supporting the head and bringing the baby tummy-to-tummy and using her arm on the baby’s back and hand under the baby’s face. This position also allows for breast compressions (using the mother’s thumb on top of the breast and four fingers underneath the breast to …read more

It was bound to happen eventually. We made it all the way to the third week of school before my first grader and preschooler brought home the first colds of the season. I reminded my preschooler not to kiss or touch the baby (if anything she gives her a little too much love) but I knew we were history when she accidentally sneezed on Nicole.
At 10 weeks, Nicole is weathering the cold just fine. She’s generally as happy as ever, and she quite enjoys the sneezes! *sneeze* *coo*! The only time she gets upset is when she wants to …read more

Photo credit: Mike Hanlon

I have had two dreams — nightmares — that Nicole turned out not to be mine. The first dream happened when she was six weeks old. In the dream, my husband and I were staying at a hotel. There was a knock on the door, and in walked one of my old neighbors from Michigan. He had come to pick the baby up. “Thanks for watching her!” he said, and walked out the door with her. I was positively heartbroken to realize that I had only been babysitting and I had fallen so in love with her that I had …read more

Nicole is almost seven weeks old now and I’ve already breastfed her:
~ at the midwife’s and doctor’s offices
~ a wedding
~ a pool party
~ a La Leche League meeting (of course!)
~ in various parking lots
~ at the grocery store
~ while house hunting
~ and yesterday at the first PTA meeting of the school year.
For me, it is convenient to be breastfeeding. It means I can go anywhere, anytime, without having to think about whether I have enough supplies for the trip (as long as my purse is packed with enough diapers). And the best part is my baby is content in all …read more

Nearly 200 voters expressed their opinions on the age, if any, that breastfeeding in public becomes in appropriate. I was glad to see that 35% of voters felt that nursing in public is always appropriate. I was surprised to see 6% of voters say it’s never appropriate. The overall breakdown:

Vote in the new poll in the side bar!

When my newborn was two days old, my six-year-old came to sit next to me on the bed and asked conversationally, “Is baby nursing well? Does she like it? She’s a funny baby. At first she won’t latch on and then you have to get her on and then she nurses and likes it.”

My newborn and I had our first “official” outing (other than to the offices of the pediatrician or midwife) on the day she turned three weeks old. We attended the community talent show at the local library, which I was pleased to see had a huge display of breastfeeding information (see above) in honor of World Breastfeeding Week! The talent show was so great. There is nothing cuter than: a 3-year-old belting out How Great Is Our God, a 4-year-old barely whispering the ABCs, another 4-year-old humming the Indiana Jones theme song, and a darling girl tap dancing on industrial …read more