Serving doubles at the breastfeeding bar, straight up with a twist of peaceful parenting.
This weekend, I joined with advocates from across the nation to Chalk The Walk with our favorite peaceful parenting messages.
As always, this is a family-friendly event and all ages are welcome to participate. Perfect for us — especially this time with a 1.5-day-old baby and a 3.5-year-old kiddo in tow!
A variety of peaceful parenting topics were on display: Informed birth choice, breastfeeding, nighttime parenting (no CIO), cloth diapering, babywearing, gentle ‘discipline’, genital autonomy…
Last weekend I hosted a Peaceful Parenting table for Intact Houston/Intact Texas, local chapters for Saving Our Sons (the not-for-profit organization Peaceful Parenting/Dr. Momma‘s focus on circumcision).
My challenge was to include genital autonomy as one crucial component of the peaceful parenting lifestyle … without calling it by name.
I had spoken with a marketing director at my local Babies ‘R’ Us about setting up inside the store to hand out information. After browsing the Dr. Momma web site, she said she’d love to have us there. In fact, as a company they’re very welcoming toward many of the topics mentioned, she explained. Ones like co-sleeping, breastfeeding (they hold regular classes there for newbies) and child-led weaning, babywearing (regular classes at Babies ‘R’ Us for this too), encouragement of gentle discipline and alternatives to punitive parenting (i.e. spanking and crying-it-out) and so on.
But…(there’s always a but, isn’t there?)
Anyone who follows this site will understand this post is *OBVIOUSLY SATIRICAL.*
Newcomers, take a moment to think about what the above picture symbolizes to you. The mother, naked and vulnerable, preserves a bubble of peace with her baby, in seemingly necessary quarantine from the bold, harsh words that hope to infiltrate their haven with little concern for the affect it might have upon them.
Here are not-so-uncommon perspectives (inspired by actual commentary I’ve seen or heard) that demonstrate how to upset and further isolate yourself from the not-so-uncommon kind of woman described above.
1). Let him cry… it’s good for his lungs.
Then try to convince her that dropping him on his head is good for his brain.
2). You’ll spoil her.
A baby spoils by being carried just like an apple spoils simply by being carried. That’s how it works.
3). She’ll never learn to walk.
Then you can explain how it’s better for both of them if the child is forced to walk everywhere. It’s not like it’d inhibit the mother from moving about in a timely manner or result in the child feeling abandoned. Read More
We were all proud. We have been proud, actually. So we showed up ready to nurse.
We did it modestly, though not one of us bothered to “cover up.” We did it with discretion, being that we nursed exclusively among supporters — though we wanted to be seen and heard. So we shared our experiences on every format far and wide with a movement of hashtags and brelfies and nurse-ins to prove that breastfeeding can work (more on that in a bit).
We wanted to count; in fact, we made sure we were being counted.
And we broke the standing world record: 14,889 children (simultaneously!) latched on to nurse for at least one full minute on Friday and Saturday all over the world for the Global Big Latch On. I attended one of the Houston events as a local representative for peaceful parenting/Dr. Momma. There, 73 moms and 82 children were officially latched on!
This event kicked off World Breastfeeding Week, for which the year’s theme is “Breastfeeding and Work: Let’s Make it Work!” The idea is to draw attention to issues faced by working mothers who want to breastfeed.
It also reminds of all the things that hope so badly for breastfeeding to not work.
Co-sleeping saved many a mother and her sanity since the dawn of mamakind. Safe co-sleeping has saved many a baby, too — after all, the best place for a baby to sleep is next to the ultimate protectors … mom and dad!
I went to Gearapalooza 2015 Thursday night at Baby’s & Kid’s 1st store to check out Arm’s Reach Co-Sleeper. It was included as a raffle prize after the product demos by The Baby Guy, Jamie Grayson. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see much of the Co-Sleeper and it wasn’t removed from its original packaging during the demo (though all the other baby gear had been set up), and he only talked about it for 30 seconds. Boo!
So, it turns out you can’t just install your baby onto your chest (like a car seat, top-end up and rear-facing), then just kinda expect feeding to happen. Nope, you are the car seat! Which means you’ll have to figure out how to buckle your baby around the boob using the rest of your body.
If you’re new to holding babies, don’t stress if you thought you’d instinctively know how to hold yours while nursing. Sometimes, a change in positioning is all it takes to make breastfeeding snafus less snafu-y. Most likely, you and your baby will find a favorite position that works best with each age and stage.
Mama's Milk, No Chaser 