A couple people have brought to my attention that when they leave comments on my blog, they are receiving an error. I’m sorry about that! I didn’t even realize it was happening. Normally, I get an e-mail telling me someone has left a comment. When I realized that I hadn’t been receiving them, Jason started to investigate. He tried a few things, and he thought maybe it was the theme (background) that I had on my blog. He thought maybe it wasn’t compatible with the newest version of wordpress. So, I changed my theme. If you’re reading this on a feed reader, stop in. It looks really nice if I say so myself. Anyway, Jason is still working on it. If you leave a comment, they are going through. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

Yuck. I do not like those transitions. Going from three naps to two didn’t seem to be too tough. Going from two down to one is not pretty at our house. Lately, A has been fighting his morning nap. He used to go down okay, and then about three hours later, he’d take his afternoon nap. Well, in the last week, the morning nap has become a struggle. So, for the past few days, we have tried to go without it. Neither option is great. Today, A had a 8 minute nap on the way to town to get gas and go to the library. Then, he was pretty sleepy during lunch, so I laid him down thinking that he should sleep for at least an hour or two. Well, after forty-five minutes, he was up. I tried to help him go back to sleep, but he didn’t think that was a good idea. So, right now, we’re at 12 months old, awake from 7am to 7 or 8pm, and 1 hr of sleep give or take 10 minutes. Maybe tomorrow will be better?
I keep trying to remind myself not to get too frustrated, because as with anything else at this age, it’s a phase and it can change overnight. Hopefully tonight is that night!

Well, it looks like I started the Great Lipstick Challenge a little too early. According to the “official” blog, it doesn’t start until August 1st. So, I revise my previous post. Don’t look for my lipstick today or tomorrow. Wait until August 1. Then, I’ll share the results of my step out of my comfort zone.

Since A is now one, I guess I am now officially an extended, tandem nurser! Woohoo! K is two and will be three in November and still nursing. I recently had someone ask me how I decided to nurse him for so long. Really, it wasn’t a one time decision that I made. It was several smaller decisions made along the way. Many people decide to stop nursing at twelve months and are surprised when I tell them I don’t plan to wean A any time soon. Those same people are generally even more surprised to find out that not only will I not wean A soon, K is still nursing, too. :

Since I decided to put a link to my website in my Facebook page, I thought now is as good a time as any to answer some of those questions. I don’t feel like I need to defend my decision, and I’m not trying to tell anyone else what they should do for their family. I simply like to talk about breastfeeding and other parenting issues. Thus, I have a blog pretty much dedicated to doing just that!

When K was born, I had my share of struggles learning to nurse him. He was early. He needed a shield to latch. He didn’t latch for the first several days of life. He had jaundice. He was a sleepy baby. I am sure there are a couple others I could list, but luckily, those first weeks have faded a little in my memory and now I remember them mostly with rose colored glasses. My first goal was to nurse him for 6 weeks. Once I made that goal, my next goal became three months. Once I made that goal, I decided to go big and made my goal twelve months. Well, by the time K was a year old, I was pregnant with A. I knew that statistically most babies will wean during a mother’s pregnancy. I also knew that K still depended on nursing for comfort and nutrition throughout the day and sometimes through the night, too. I figured that since 70% of babies wean during a mother’s pregnancy, he would too, and I would let him decide when that time was instead of deciding for him.

Well, as my pregnancy progressed, K still seemed to need “mommy milk” in a very real way that wasn’t met in any other manner. I can’t say that nursing while pregnant was the easiest thing I have ever done or the most comfortable. However, it was something I did for K because he needed, wanted, and liked it

K was 20.5 months old when A was born. At that point, being able to nurse both K and A was a tremendous help in the transition from one child to two. K was still very young and still needed a lot of mommy time. Because of that, I decided to allow him to continue nursing on demand. I felt as though choosing to have A was a decision that Jason and I made. K had no part in that decision, so I didn’t think that having A should be the reason he was no longer able to nurse. At that point, it became my goal to allow K to choose his own date for weaning. I reserve the right to change my mind in the case of any unforseen circumstances, but at this point, I hope to achieve child-led weaning.

Now, I am currently nursing A who is also past twelve months. Because of the positive experience I have had with nursing K, I hope to also allow A to make the decision of child-led weaning for himself. Also, with A being sensitive to dairy, we won’t be introducing cow’s milk or other dairy products to him for a while. Continuing to nurse him helps me to ensure that he’s getting fats, proteins, calories, and other immunological benefits during his toddlerhood.

What I’ve written are my personal reasons for choosing extended and tandem nursing for my family. There are also several resources that encourage and support extended nursing. If you are interested, here are a few:

Extended Nursing Fact Sheet

Are there health benefits to nursing past one year of age?

Breastfeed a Toddler- Why on Earth?

Breastfeeding Beyond a Year

Breastfeeding and the Use of Human Milk (AAP)

Pediatricians and parents should be aware that exclusive breastfeeding is sufficient to support optimal growth and development for approximately the first 6 months of life and provides continuing protection against diarrhea and respiratory tract infection. Breastfeeding should be continued for at least the first year of life and beyond for as long as mutually desired by mother and child.

The World Health Organization’s infant feeding recommendations

As a global public health recommendation, infants should be exclusively breastfed(1) for the first six months of life to achieve optimal growth, development and health(2). Thereafter, to meet their evolving nutritional requirements, infants should receive nutritionally adequate and safe complementary foods while breastfeeding continues for up to two years of age or beyond.

Maybe instead of my post being called Wordless Wednesday, I could call it Wordy Wednesday.

For some time now, I’ve been looking for a fabulous recipe for hummus. I’ve found a few that are fine. I found one that was decent. I also found one that was not good at all. I just haven’t found one that is great, though.

I really like the hummus from the store. It’s so expensive though for such a little container. I should be able to make my own for a fraction of the price, right? Well, I can make my own, but it’s missing…something. Mine seems to have a bland taste and not be rich and deep like the flavor of the store bought hummus.

My recipes are all pretty similar. They all contain chickpeas/garbanzo beans, olive oil, lemon juice, tahini, garlic, and salt. I just vary the proportions of each ingredient, but I just can’t get it right! Heather! Do you have any gourmet magic? Anyone else? Even sitting here, I’m getting a craving now for some really good hummus. Too bad the stuff I made on Sunday is just okay.

Last week, I signed up to join The Lipstick Challenge on a fellow NaBloPoMo mommy blogger’s site. I got my samples in the mail today. Thanks, Heather! So, for the next 7 days, I have at least one guaranteed post for each day!

I’ll be posting a picture a day through the challenge. Come back and check out my lips!

I think it’s been pretty obvious in previous posts that A has not made it a priority to spend any great amount of time asleep either at naptime or at night. In fact, there have been times when I’ve wondered if even as a teenager he would be waking ever hour or two for something. I know that’s not going to happen, but sometimes it’s hard to see further ahead than the next day or week or month.

So, in a (successful) effort to get more sleep, we decided that we would start sleeping with A in our bed. There were definitely mixed reviews on our decision, although we weren’t really asking for others’ opinions. We heard things like “Oh, do you really want to start that?” “That will be a hard habit to break.” “Oh, you should get so much more sleep that way!” and a few other variations of those sentiments. After about six months, I ended up sleeping on the couch for several days while I suffered through some pretty annoying allergies. A slept in his bassinet in our room for those nights and seemed to do better than he had been in our bed, so we went with his cues and kept him in there.

Because we were a sleep sharing family, I have been reading other people’s thoughts on co-sleeping and sleep sharing with a different point of view lately. I have been noticing that there are usually a few people in any discussion or debate on this topic who offer the “I knew someone who slept with their children, and now they are four and seven and still can’t sleep well” point of view. Hoping that wouldn’t be me, I got stuck thinking about it over and over.

One day, I realized something. Many parents who sleep with their children, don’t set out to have that happen. I think a lot of parents visualize a child coming home from the hospital, sleeping in the bassinet for a couple weeks or months, and then sleeping in their room after that. That’s what I thought would happen. It did not. So, many parents who sleep with their children start out doing so because their children are not great sleepers. They sleep with them because it’s the only way anyone gets any sleep. They have a family bed for a while, then eventually, the child goes on to sleep in their own crib or bed. Will this child suddenly become a great sleeper? Probably not. Will they still struggle getting to sleep or staying to sleep? Maybe. Will they be a “bad” sleeper? Possibly. Will the fact that they are not a good sleeper or some may even say bad be because they shared a bed with their parents for a couple weeks or months? No, not in my opinion.

That was what I was thinking earlier while I was laying down with A to help him fall asleep. Unfortunately, now I cannot remember just what that great idea was. I’m sure it will come to me as soon as I post this one or even better, while I’m in the shower. So, be on the look out. I may have a flash of brilliance coming up in one of my future posts!

When I was nursing K, those words were sometimes enough to make me stay home. I used a nipple shield with him for the first 3 months. He also took forever to finish a feeding. Maybe it wasn’t really forever, but 45 minutes is a long time when you are sitting at the DMV or in Burger King. As I’ve said before, A is a different nurser completely. He eats a lot more often, but he is much faster. Compared to K’s 45 minute nursing sessions, A is an olympic sprinter!

With K, I was usually able to plan my outings and errands around his rather predictable 3-4 hour eating schedule. A has been completely different. Until he was 8 months old, he was still eating at least every 1-1.5 hours. Since then, he’s spread his daytime feedings out to about every 2 or 2.5 hours. Because of that, I’ve had to nurse in public far more often than I did with K. In fact, just this past Tuesday, I had the opportunity to nurse in our local Applebee’s. Many of you who follow breastfeeding news know that Applebee’s hasn’t had the best publicity in regards to nursing moms. I am pleased to say that no one batted an eye. A was nursing when the waitress brought our food. Then, when she came back to check on us, he was still nursing. So, while others have had other experiences, I have to say that Applebee’s is one place that is on my list of “thumbs up to nursing” places in our area.

This little guy has now brought us a year of love, blessings, and memories.

Now:

Then:

Excuse the eye makeup under my eyes. The previous 40 minutes were a little intense.