In the months following the beginning...

Lila is now 6 (almost 7) months old.  Where has the time gone?  In this post I would like to share some of our best and worst parenting decisions thus far.

Lila on Easter Sunday ready for dinner.

1. Breast-feeding. This ranks in both the best and the worst category. Not a "worst decision", I think any decision a mother makes to breastfeed her baby for any amount of time is a good one, but that doesn't mean its easy. Breastfeeding and I have a serious love-hate relationship.  Without getting into too much detail I will say that breast feeding for me was awful and excruciating for the first few weeks.  I had cracked and bleeding nipples which ended up in two rounds of thrush.  For anyone out there who has had thrush you know how awful it is. I dreaded each feeding and felt incredibly guilty about not wanting to feed my own baby.  But, considering Lila came out sucking and lived (still lives) to nurse, we persevered.  I would say about six weeks in things got comfortable and even easy.  Now I can't imagine doing it differently. Despite the fact that we still nurse at least every two hours day AND night, I love it.  There is just something incredibly special about looking down at that sweet little face as she gazes up at me feeling the love!

2. Sleep.  Who needs it really?  I was always one of those people who swore I would never sleep with my kids and admittedly thought people who did were weird hippies.  Well, after trying many different sleeping arrangements (none of which have resulted in miss Lila sleeping more than 2-3 hours at a time) we are currently putting her to sleep in her crib around 8:00pm and then she joins us in our bed around 10:00pm (her first of many night wakings).  This way I can breastfeed and sleep all at the same time.  Its a beautiful thing, except when she uses me as a human pacifier making it impossible for me to move without feeling like my nipple might pull off... sorry that might be too much information for some! So we are bedsharing hippies... next week I'm thinking we'll do some tie-dying and smoke some pot (just kidding!). But really, lots of people bedshare with their kids but don't admit it.  I think more people do than don't....it just works for us right now and when it is no longer working then we'll try something new! Here is a great website by Dr. Sears on safe sleep sharing for anyone who needs some tips.  There is also lots of research out there that talks about the benefits of co-sleeping (beyond the fact that everyone gets more sleep).  Someday when I'm really ambitious  I'll post some of it.

3. Speaking of hippies, do you think they used cloth diapers?  We do.  We use FuzziBunz and Bum Genius all in one diapers.  They are awesome!  We also have a diaper sprayer by BumGenius (thanks Tanya!) which has greatly helped the poop situation as we transition from exclusive breastfeeding to introducing solids.  This has been a life saver and has truly cut down on the poop to hand contact which may have otherwise occurred. Yuck.

4. Baby-wearing.  Wow, I think I need to look up some recipes for making my own granola and maybe go hug a tree.  Seriously, babywearing saved my sanity, especially when Lila was a newborn.  She was a high needs baby who refused to be anywhere but in my arms.  In order to cook, clean, watch tv, check email and my Facebook account (all those important household tasks) I had to be able to keep Lila happy and have my hands free.  We used the Cuddle Wrap (similar to the Moby), a Maya Wrap Ring Sling, a Baby Hawk Mei Tai and most recently a Beco Gemini. I love all of these carriers for different reasons and will do a future post on the how and why I use each one.  I'm sure you all will be anxiously awaiting that one, literally sitting on the edge of your seats!

Lila snuggled in the Cuddle Wrap

5. Baby-Led Weaning.  This has been a life saver in terms of cutting down on the amount of time I spend in the kitchen and on the money we would spend buying commercially produced baby foods (potentially with lots of yucky additives).  Basically Lila eats what we do (within reason). See the main page for a separate page on our joys of baby-led weaning. I will just say that Lila LOVES mealtime.  She eats anything and everything we put in front of her and we have never had one of those famous spoon feeding battles.  Seriously,  no one in our house has to pretend the spoon is a little airplane or recite admittedly cute rhymes ending in the spoon going into babies mouth to get Lila to eat.  She simple picks up the food and puts it in her mouth everything from fruits and veggies to chicken and salmon, she likes it all!

Lila enjoying a dinner of rice, salmon and broccoli.

I think thats all I have in me for tonight.  Many people don't agree with a lot of the approaches we are taking to parenting and who knows, they may all be right.  Maybe Lila will want to sleep with us until she is 15, but I doubt it.  Maybe she will never learn to walk or be independent because I wear her so often, but I doubt that too.  Right no we are doing what feels right and natural to us and, like all parents, we are just hoping for the best! So, I'm off to climb into my hippie (hippy? really, what is the proper spelling of that word?) bed with my wonderful little family and hope as I do every night for a beautiful four hour stretch of uninterrupted, blissful slumber!