July 11th marks the 50th anniver­sary of the book “To Kill a Mock­ing­bird.” Did you have to read it in school? I did and I didn’t fall in love with it until I was a few years older and re-read it because I wanted to. The lyri­cism of the words, the descrip­tion of the small, South­ern town and the char­ac­ters drew me in like a fly to honey. I grew up in the South and felt a kin­ship with some of the peo­ple and wished I had been able to know oth­ers. And I am very sorry to say that I did know a few peo­ple who bore more than a pass­ing resem­b­lence to a few less than savory characters.

I got to think­ing about Atti­cus Finch, Scout’s father in the book, the other day. And I real­ized that there was much to learn about par­ent­ing from Atti­cus and some of the folks who inhab­ited that world. (more…)

So there I was, going to the movies for a lit­tle mind­less chick flick and the movie was “Sex and the City 2″. Never did I sus­pect that I would find a nugget of moth­er­ing truth in it, but I walked away think­ing about a scene with the film’s two moms, Char­lotte and Miranda. In it they are sip­ping wine and telling “Mommy Truths”. (At least, that’s what I call them.) It’s a funny scene and it gets fun­nier and more hon­est with each truth that they reveal.

You’ve never heard of Mommy Truths? Allow me to intro­duce you. (more…)

I have a friend who is about halfway through her first preg­nancy and lives across the coun­try from me. Recently I vis­ited her Face­book page and dis­cov­ered that she has been shar­ing pho­tos of her grow­ing “bump” with her loved ones in a way I hadn’t seen before. She holds a piece of fruit in the pic­ture in front of her tummy to indi­cate the size the baby was at that many weeks. Ingenious!

As a child­birth edu­ca­tor I am always try­ing to think of ways to help expec­tant fam­i­lies relate to the size of their grow­ing baby. It’s a lit­tle chal­leng­ing some­times, but some­one on the web­site The Bump has cre­ated a chart of com­par­ing the size of your lit­tle one to the size of fruits and veg­eta­bles!

This is one of those ideas that make me think, “Wish this had been around when I was preg­nant.” Have a look and see what you think. If you have sug­ges­tions for food that you think is more com­pa­ra­ble, let me know!

Once upon a time in 1950s-1990s Amer­ica, moms and dads were told to fol­low Dr. Spock (not Mr. Spock from Star Trek) and do as he said. Before Dr. Spock there was Dr. Her­man N. Bun­de­sen who pro­duced “Our Babies: Their Feed­ing, Care, and Train­ing” in the ’20s-the ’40s. In other words, there has ALWAYS been some­one who thinks they have the right to tell par­ents how to par­ent. Let’s break the myth that this is a recent trend right now!

I have sev­eral “how to care for your baby” books from the first 2/3rds of the 20th cen­tury on my book­shelf. They all have one thing in com­mon: some­one you’ve never even met is in charge. No one knows how to par­ent your baby, except you. And you will learn how to par­ent in your own good way, in time. I found a fab­u­lous blog that I am encour­ag­ing you all to read: www​.secret​sof​baby​be​hav​ior​.com. It uses evi­dence to back up what it says and it encour­ages par­ents to use their own com­mon sense. It’s writ­ten by the staff at the Uni­ver­sity Cal­i­for­nia Davis Med­ical Cen­ter and I think you’re gonna love it. Read the back posts — the four part series on sleep is over-the-top fabulous!

Vive la com­mon sense!

Yes­ter­day the AP News Wire reported on an arti­cle in the new issue of the jour­nal Pedi­atrics. The gist is that if 90% of US babies were breast­fed exclu­sively for the first six months of life, nearly 900 babies would be saved each year, along with bil­lions of dol­lars. As a lac­ta­tion con­sul­tant, doula and child­birth edu­ca­tor when I read it I first thought, “Duh”. This is my world — the world of what could be. But I also know that there are obsta­cles to help­ing fam­i­lies make this hap­pen. And I want to make one thing per­fectly clear: I am NOT blam­ing the moth­ers. There is enough blame to go around and I am, in part, point­ing the fin­ger in my own direction.

The moms I meet who choose to breast­feed, who desire to do so, do not usu­ally face an easy path. They receive a lot of infor­ma­tion — much of it over­whelm­ing and con­fus­ing, if not down­right incor­rect. Their fam­ily and friends who tried breast­feed­ing often regale moms-to-be with sto­ries of their own breast­feed­ing expe­ri­ences — and not usu­ally the good ones. Or they are told that they them­selves were formula-fed and turned out fine, so why bother. (more…)

Twenty-two years ago today my life was about to change.  I hon­estly had no idea how soon the change would come or what sur­prises it would bring. Twenty-two years ago tonight I ate Chi­nese food and went to sleep and kept dream­ing about weird sen­sa­tions. In the morn­ing I ate a bowl of Lucky Charms and it slowly started to dawn on me that I might be in labor. And it scared me to my core.

Twenty-two years ago on March 20th I did what I thought I absolutely could not do — I gave birth to a baby. That sounds so sim­ple, so trite when I read it on the com­puter screen. Let me say it again: I did what I thought I absolutely could not do:   I.   GAVE BIRTH.   TO.  A.  BABY!!!!  My baby, my Alyson. (more…)

Since Sep­tem­ber we’ve held two Sling Flings at Colum­bia Cen­ter because it’s an impor­tant topic and many folks don’t real­ize that using a sling, car­rier or wrap can be a great way to care for your baby. At both events we emphasized—just as we would with any other product—safety. In fact, we gave out “safety tip sheets” at the events. We believe that safety and babies is always pri­or­ity one.

I wasn’t sur­prised this week when I saw that the Con­sumer Prod­uct Safety Com­mis­sion (CPSC) will prob­a­bly be issu­ing a warn­ing on slings. After all, they are sup­posed to be the gov­ern­men­tal agency that is look­ing out for the safety of our most pre­cious resources. But since Tues­day, March 2, 2010 their head has been say­ing how dan­ger­ous these prod­ucts are and that their warn­ing would be com­ing out last week. I have seen noth­ing more than a week later from them that is infor­ma­tional, edu­ca­tional or helps par­ents to know what to do. I was taken aback that they didn’t empha­size that this is an issue of edu­cat­ing the pub­lic. To cre­ate this level of worry and then not fol­low through right away is irre­spon­si­ble. (more…)

Tonight, along with many Amer­i­cans, I watched “The Office” as Pam and Jim had their baby. I laughed a lot and thought about how com­edy is based on truth and how there was much to learn from this episode. Here’s my list of “Top 10 Things I Learned From Pam and Jim’s Birth”:

1. Labor and birth are nor­mal. It might not be your own “every­day” nor­mal, but it’s meant to work. And most of the time it does.
2. Dis­trac­tion can be help­ful in labor. Focus­ing on a movie, a game, going for a walk, etc., gives you a chance to let labor do its work and gives your mind a break.
3. Lis­ten to your body. Your body was so smart that it grew a whole other per­son. It doesn’t get “dumb” in labor. Your body will guide you to do what is needed to help your baby into the world.
4. It’s really a mir­a­cle. It sounds so corny, but it’s true: grow­ing a baby and giv­ing birth IS a mir­a­cle. How can you not believe it is when you see your incred­i­ble, gor­geous, and yummy baby in your arms?
5. Breast­feed­ing can have chal­lenges in the begin­ning. It’s a rela­tion­ship and it takes time to find the rhythm of give and take in any rela­tion­ship. Give your­self and your baby time.
6. One minute you feel on top of the world and the next you feel incom­pe­tent. Again, this is a new per­son in your life. Parts of par­ent­ing are so pre­cious and oth­ers are more frus­trat­ing than you ever imag­ined. In a few days you will be a cham­pion diaper-changer and baby-soother. In the mean­time, the more upset the baby gets, the calmer you will want to become. It really does help, I promise.
7. New­borns need to be held. A lot. Seriously——A LOT!!! They were held 24 hours a day prior to birth. They need your warmth, your voice and your heart­beat. You can’t spoil a new­born — they have needs, not wants.
8. Hav­ing a new baby means you will some­times snap at one another. It’s ok. Cou­ples often think that they will NEVER raise their voices or lose their tem­pers. Babies cre­ate amaz­ing highs as well as amaz­ing stress. Rec­og­nize that you can love one another and still get grumpy. Nobody’s per­fect, even if they want to be. You’ll laugh about it later — honest.
9. Allow friends and fam­ily to bring you food. You have a lot to learn in the early days and weeks. The peo­ple who care about you want to help and you need to eat. It’s per­fect! Let them bring you food. It may be the only way you get a hot meal in the first month.
10. Take a few moments just to enjoy it. The begin­ning of par­ent­hood has a really fast, steep learn­ing curve. Give your­selves per­mis­sion do noth­ing else but sit and stare at this sweet baby. You need to smell that incred­i­ble baby aroma every time you snug­gle them under your chin. Do what we here at Colum­bia Cen­ter rec­om­mend for par­ents and their babies: Cud­dle, Rock, Repeat…

One of the fates of being a new par­ent is that you can’t wait ’til your baby finally ___________ (fill in the blank). Finally smiles, finally sits up, finally crawls, finally walks. The other side of the “I can’t wait ’til” coin is the wist­ful thought, “OH! I wish he was still a lit­tle baby!”

If this rings true for you, imag­ine the feel­ings of this British fam­ily:
Their 6 month old son began walk­ing — before he could even crawl. (more…)

Today I went online to see what was new and found, yet again, that cribs are being recalled. And I felt nau­seous. That’s 500,000 cribs in the newest recall. Why do I say “newest”? Because in Novem­ber 2009  the Con­sumer Prod­uct Safety Com­mis­sion recalled 2.1 mil­lion cribs and just last month another 500,000 cribs were recalled. In fact, in the last 2–3 years alone there have been well over 7 mil­lion cribs, play yards and bassinets recalled. These cribs run the full range of prices — the least expen­sive to the most. (more…)