kim through
   the looking glass

… is about to get a whole lot more difficult!

The past two weeks, I’ve had some combination of Brad and my mom here with me. An extra set of hands to wrangle Gwen into her coat. A pair of hands to get a snack ready. Hands to hold Gil while Gwen and I enjoy our special time together snuggling down for her nap.

Sadly, I will be all alone tomorrow.

And I’m more than a little scared.

Gil is a very frequent nurser. As in, when he’s awake, he’s generally attached to the breast. The. Whole. Time. He’s hard to wear for extended periods because I’m frequently switching him from breast to breast. He’s very rarely awake and settled, happy to be carried around - his need to suck is great, and I’m happy to meet it. Unfortunately, that makes it hard to attend to Gwen’s needs as well!

I know I’ll survive - goodness knows other mothers have been met with more difficult challenges (ie. twins/triplets, two closer in age that mine, developmental disabilities, etc.) and survived - even thrived! Think of me while I find my way to mother another, would you please?

I was recommended the book Diaper Free: The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene (Ingrid Bauer) by a number of parents on an email list in which I participate. At first the idea of Natural Infant Hygiene (NIH), or Elimincation Communication (EC) as it is often called, totally grossed me out - after all, aren’t babies and diapers part and parcel?

I figured it couldn’t hurt to read the book and maybe it would give me some interesting things to try with Gwen, so I picked it up from my library and dove into it. People, I love this book!

The idea behind NIH is that babies are born with the ability to consciously relax their bodies and urinate or defecate just like an older child or adult, but that we train them to use a diaper instead. From pages 98-99:

“Elimination Communication begins with the baby’s awareness of subtle sensations, which indicate the filling of the bladder. The baby may then signal the parent, or the parent may anticipate the need through timing or intuition. The parent holds the child over a receptacle and make a familiar sound. The child then voluntarily relaxes and releases the urine before the bladder has become uncomfortably full. Over time, as muscles strengthen and conscious control increases, the baby is able to retain and hold in larger quantities of urine for longer periods of time if necessary. This occurs gradually with no particular focus or effort as a natural and inevitable consequence. About the time the sphincter muscles fully develop, the diaper-free baby achieves consistent continence.”

Bauer then goes on to contrast this with conventional potty training, in which a child has learned to pee in its diaper only when the bladder is very full and it cannot hold any more urine. When we then ask that child to begin using a toilet or potty to urinate in, he or she must contract the sphincter muscles and make it to the potty or toilet to release the urine. These kids just literally don’t sense the subtler signals that their bladder is sending to their brain in order to pee voluntarily before the bladder is full until much later than the toilet learning has begun.

I think one of the most interesting things I learned in this book is about the differences between the Western world’s concept of ‘toilet readiness’ - that a child cannot possibly toilet train before at least 18 months because they don’t have the ability - and the Eastern world’s belief that children are quite able to communicate effectively about their elimination needs. I enjoyed this quote a whole lot - from pages 70-71:

“One of the most glaring problems with the concept of toilet training readiness is its heavy ethnocentric focus. The “readiness” theory can only even begin to be considered viable if one pretends that the vast majority of the non-Western world does not exist … Millions of mothers around the globe know that babies are “ready” and aware from birth. The empirical evidence is overwhelming and stretches back for eons. Why has the experience of the majority of the world’s mothers and babies been ignored for so long? Are only modern North American and European babies subject to this maturational lag?”

The book then describes the suspicious timing of the release of scientific literature to promote the ‘toilet readiness’ theory by Dr. Brazelton during the year the first disposable diapers - Pampers - were released. Not to mention that Dr. Brazelton happened to sit for a time on the Pampers Parenting Institute Pediatric Roundtable. Coincidence? I happen to think not!

The book is filled with stories and instructions as to how best support your child’s elimination - whether you start at birth, after a few months, or start later with a toddler. I’m planning to start pretty early with Love Bug - we’ll see how it goes!

Here are some other resources for learning about NIH:

• borntopotty.com
• diaperfreebaby.org
• tribalbaby.org - Learn about Elimination Communication
• Free to EC! My Journey to Elimination Communication

If you don’t frequent Hathor the Cow Goddess‘ comic site, check out the comic Extinction!

I love her comics … although this one’s a little bit scary!

Is this article here @ Peaceful Parenting: Tackling Distress Tantrums with Brain Research.

I don’t know about anyone else, but Gwen has been full-on tantruming since about 9 mos of age, so although we are getting significantly LESS tantrums now, we definitely have a few meltdowns per day. My gut reaction is always that she’s really in distress - she certainly appears to be in distress - but culturally, it’s expected that she’s tantruming because she’s asserting herself and wants to manipulate the situation.

I feel good knowing that the research suggests that says she’s truly in distress and needs my help to manage her emotions.

Wow. Can I say wow?

The Continuum Concept, by Jean Liedloff, is in my opinion, largely a social commentary. The writer spent a great deal of time living with and observing Native South Americans in their tribal communities and contrasts their methods of child-raising to our very different North American methods.

Basically, Liedloff postulates that these tribal humans live much closer to the natural human state (the ‘continuum’) than we “civilized” humans - a postulation with which I’m sure none of us would disagree. However, she also asserts that as such, their children (and adults!) are happier, more well adjusted, and enjoy a higher quality of life than do their Western counterparts. She stresses that we have come to rely so much on our intellect and so little on our inborn instincts that we miss out on much of the truly human experience. Read the rest of this entry »

As you may have noticed, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about parenting types and styles. I am completely confident that attachment parenting is for Brad and I, but beyond that, how does one discipline?

I’ve got a couple of books that I’m hoping to read soon. With Gwen well into toddlerhood - my goodness, I feel like she’s had a toddler’s mentality since she started crawling! - we’re thinking more and more about discipline and I’m finding myself more and more confused as to what feels right for us. The only thing I do know is that I don’t want to hit, and I don’t want to punish. I want to discipline - to teach our children the correct way of being in relationship with others.

Here’s my list of soon-to-reads (I hope!):

• The Continuum Concept - Jean Leidhoff
• The Natural Child: Parenting From the Heart - Jan Hunt
• Grace-Based Parenting - Tim Kimmel
• Parenting for a Peaceful World - Robin Grille
• Biblical Parenting - Crystal Lutton
• Disciplining Children with Confidence - Grace Chou

I have spoken to enough moms about this subject to know that in mommy-land, I am playing with fire. Please, if you are going to leave a comment disagreeing with my position, I am happy to read it and have a discussion about the subject. Please keep in mind that just because we have chosen a different parenting style does NOT mean that I think you’re a bad parent. If any nasty/derogatory/flaming comments are posted, I will not respond, and I will delete them. Let’s be courteous everyone - thanks!

A couple of weeks ago I was at the park and met up with some friends. One asked me how Gwen was sleeping and I replied with a “Oh, the same … she still wakes up really frequently.” After a bit more chit-chat, she asked why we didn’t let her cry-it-out (CIO) so we could all get some sleep. I’m afraid my answer was woefully inadequate to convey why we are not advocates of the CIO method.

I thought about her question some more once I got home and came up with some better reasons than just “studies show it’s bad for babies’ brains” and “it just doesn’t feel right”. I thought I’d write them down here so I won’t be tempted to forget next time Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve had some requests to update my blogroll, and honestly, I’ve been wanting to do it for a while but I didn’t know how with my new wordpress.org blog. I finally figured it out! I’ve cleaned out some of the blogs I don’t read anymore (or who update very rarely) and added some of my new favourites. Check them out:

• Adventures of Being a Mommy - my friend, Jen, who write about her life as a mom to her gorgeous son, Anderson
• Breastfeeding Moms Unite - written by the mom of two little girls, this is a great blog about breastfeeding - she’s actually in the midst of writing a book about it!
• Hathor the Cow Goddess - another breastfeeding blog - this one comprised of mostly breastfeeding, attachment parenting comics which are sometimes hilarious, sometimes serious and ALWAYS thought-provoking, written by Heather Cushman-Dowdee
• Mama is … - written by the same author as the above blog - more comics, with a bit of a wider range of topics
• Stand and Deliver - I’ve actually been reading Rixa’s blog for ages and I still love it - she’s got a tonne of information on childbirth in those pages!
• Tammy Is Blessed - a blog about Tammy’s family … I’ve known Tammy online for a number of years
• The Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog - is exactly that … a breastfeeding blog written by the folks at Motherwear

Happy reading!

I just filled out a quiz on Facebook: Top 5 People I Want to Punch in the Face.

It made me howl.

Here’s my list:

Dr. Gaius Baltar

Gary Ezzo

PeeWee Herman

Marissa Cooper

Sarah Palin

So tell me - who’s on your list?