Since he was born, A has been sleep­ing in our room. He slept in a pack n play for a while. Then, for a while, he slept with us. Then, back into the pack n play. Last week, we decided to move him into a crib in the same room as K. I thought that it would be a rough tran­si­tion for A. He’s always been a baby who needed to be close to Jason and to myself. I fig­ured it would take two good weeks before we could tell how things were going. Well, he sur­prised us. After a cou­ple ini­tial strug­gles, he has done just won­der­fully. He nurses. Then, Jason takes him to bed where he lays down and falls asleep. K has been strug­gling with the tran­si­tion more though. Unfor­tu­nately, I think this came at a bad time for him. He’s also at a stage where he’s kind of ready to start potty learn­ing. He’s not able to get through the day with­out a nap, but if he does take a nap, then he strug­gles to fall asleep. I think that hav­ing both of those things to deal with and this tran­si­tion of A mov­ing into his room has been tough on him. Poor guy. I’ve been try­ing to give him some extra love and mommy time. He has ramped his nurs­ing up, too. Now, I just have to laugh at my wor­ries a few months ago that he wouldn’t still be nurs­ing at 3. I think he nursed 5 or 6 times yes­ter­day, and 3 or 4 today. Some­times, I won­der if A will wean before K.

Now that K is three, I see some big changes com­ing. First, I’ve noticed that he’s becom­ing a preschooler and no longer a tod­dler right before my eyes. He puts his own shoes on when he wants to. He is start­ing to use the potty. He has great con­ver­sa­tional skills. He has a great imag­i­na­tion. He is drop­ping his nap. He is telling us that he wants to start wear­ing under­wear and using the potty. It doesn’t seem real that he could go from such a tiny baby to this lit­tle boy. It is amaz­ing and a lit­tle sad all at the same time.

A is grow­ing up, too. I know it has to hap­pen, but at the same time I’m not quite ready. A is walk­ing. He’s danc­ing. He also pushes cars and makes a car-like noise. He is also slim­ming out. When I look at pic­tures of him from his birth­day in July and now, I can see how he’s grow­ing and look­ing more and more like K and Jason. If it weren’t for his blonde (WHERE DID HE GET THIS???) hair, I think he’d look almost exactly like Jason and K. As it is, I reg­u­larly get com­ments about the resem­blance between the three of them. Luck­ily, I was the con­tainer that car­ried both K and A, so I can get at least that much credit.

I’ve always heard peo­ple say the same sorts of things about lit­tle kids. “Enjoy them when they’re small.” “They grow so fast.” “Before you know it they’ll be… (going off to school, dri­ving, get­ting mar­ried, you name it).” Recently, I’ve been think­ing about another say­ing. “The days may go slow, but the years go fast.”

And, because I’ve been over­load­ing with pic­tures lately, here are a few more.

Baby K

K with his lego tower

Baby A

A eat­ing a caramel apple

Lately I’ve been think­ing that I need to spend more time writ­ing about nurs­ing, tan­dem nurs­ing, extended nurs­ing, and other thoughts on those top­ics. This is a breast­feed­ing blog, right? I just seem to have a writer’s block in that area though. I told Jason tonight, the rea­son that it is harder for me to write about nurs­ing now is that it just is. What do I mean by that? Both K and A are nurs­ing reg­u­larly. They’re both nurs­ing well. They are both able to get what they need, and I am able to feel like my bound­aries and needs are respected. I don’t feel like I have any angst to share with you about this!

I sup­pose that could be a topic in itself, right? Tan­dem nurs­ing for almost 16 months, and nurs­ing for 36 months straight, and happy with my choice and how things are going. (Ter­ri­ble gram­mar and sen­tence struc­ture there) So, it’s likely that I will be spend­ing less time writ­ing about nurs­ing and other nurs­ing issues for the time being. Maybe if Baby #3 rolls around at some point (in the dis­tant future), I will have more to say about it again.
Until then, how about a pic­ture of K tan­dem nurs­ing Baby Ellie and Mr. Monkey

Nurs­ing Baby Ellie and Mr. Monkey

to tide you over?

that Inter­na­tional Baby­wear­ing Week is Novem­ber 12–18? I didn’t know that until today.

One of the blogs that I reg­u­larly read is Adven­tures in Baby­wear­ing. In honor of Baby­wear­ing Week, Steph posted a give­away. She is giv­ing away a Pop Nest Sling or a Spar­row Hatch­ling Sling from Nonny & Boo.

If you are inter­ested in win­ning, click on over to her site, and sign up on the Mr. Linky with some baby wear­ing pic­tures or some thoughts about baby­wear­ing if you don’t have any pic­tures. Here are some of my pic­tures. Happy Baby­wear­ing Week!

In Line to See Obama in April

A in the Kozy

K wear­ing Baby Ellie

I think that K has cabin fever already. Start­ing on Wednes­day, it got pretty cool here. It started to rain. It rained and rained and rained! Then, it snowed, and it all froze. Right now, it’s cold and frozen out­side here. This morn­ing, I got up and one of the first things K did was to run laps. He ran through the kitchen, into the din­ing room, and back to the liv­ing room. He did this about 15 or 20 times in a row. Jason and I just laughed at him, but I got to think­ing that it’s only Novem­ber 9. We have a LONG win­ter now before it’s going to be spring and nicer out­side. I know that we can play out­side in the win­ter, but it’s just not the same. *sigh* I think we’ll be scout­ing out indoor play places.

Wow! I never thought that K would actu­ally be a 3 year old. I also never thought that he would be a breast­feed­ing 3 year old. When he was born, my ini­tial goal was 6 weeks. Then, I thought 3 months would be doable. After that, I decided to fol­low his cues.

K has always been a child who needed a lot of phys­i­cal con­tact. He likes to be held. He likes to hold hands. He likes to climb into my lap and play. For him, I think that nurs­ing has been more about phys­i­cal con­tact and recon­nect­ing than the milk. Of course, he likes the milk. When I recently went on a week­end trip, I left frozen milk pri­mar­ily for A, but I think that K drank as much as A did. Some peo­ple crave Coca-Cola. Some peo­ple like milk or water or beer. K LOVES a glass of “mommy milk.” In fact, the first time I gave him a cup of pumped milk, he stood in the kitchen and chugged it. When he was done, there was milk run­ning down his face. Jason and I were laugh­ing so hard. Now, if I’m going to be gone at bed­time, he’s on the look­out for a glass of milk.

I have got­ten some looks and some unsup­port­ive com­ments about my choice to 1) nurse K for almost 3 years and 2) do that while tan­dem nurs­ing A (15 months). If I’m hon­est, I think that it makes me sad more than any­thing else that peo­ple think that there’s some­thing weird, wrong, or odd about our choices. I don’t think that every­one should or can nurse for 3+ years or tan­dem nurse. I just wish that peo­ple would real­ize that it’s an option and it’s not as crazy as it sounds.

5MinutesForMom is hav­ing a sleep­ing angel con­test. They are giv­ing away a South Shore Children’s Bed­room Set from Home & Bed­room Fur­ni­ture. They are ask­ing peo­ple to post pic­tures of their sleep­ing babies, and the win­ner will have their choice of either the Lily Rose or the Sum­mer Breeze set. I would def­i­nitely choose Sum­mer Breeze if I were to win.

So, here is the pic­ture. It’s adorable, and it’s one of my favorites. We were at Jason’s par­ents’ house one day this sum­mer. I ran a few errands, and when I came back, I walked in the front door and saw this…

My Sleep­ing Angels

Wel­come to the Sep­tem­ber Breast­feed­ing Car­ni­val! Thanks for vis­it­ing, and be sure to read all the way to the end of my post so you can visit oth­ers who have shared their thoughts on Learn­ing to Breast­feed.

When I was preg­nant with my first child, I knew I wanted to breast­feed. I did some read­ing. I searched the inter­net for what I felt were infor­ma­tive arti­cles. By the time my breast­feed­ing class at the hos­pi­tal rolled around I felt pretty con­fi­dent. My con­fi­dence increased when I went to the class. She didn’t tell me one thing in an almost two hour class that I didn’t already know! I knew I was going to be able to do it. As a sort of insur­ance, I found a breast­feed­ing forum/message board and asked if there was any­thing else I should do to be pre­pared or informed. The answers were pretty run-of-the-mill. “Just keep on going!” “Don’t let any­one talk you into quit­ting.” “You can do it!” I knew that I was set.

When K was born, I had a bit of a sur­prise. Maybe shock is a bet­ter word. He was born nearly 4 weeks early and he wouldn’t latch. He looked at my breast. He half-heartedly opened his mouth. Then, he fell asleep. What?!? This wasn’t the plan. He was sup­posed to know what to do, because I had done my part to get informed about breast­feed­ing. Well, after three days in the hos­pi­tal, we were dis­charged. I had a nip­ple shield and a baby who ate for 45–60 min­utes every 3 hours. Not exactly fit­ting my plan.

For­tu­nately, my mom had breast­fed both myself (for around 18 months) and my brother (for nearly 3 years). She was an amaz­ing sup­port. She kept telling me, “Trust your­self. You know best. You know what is right for you and your baby.” She got up with me for the mid­dle of the night feed­ings and held K after­wards until he had his burp and could fall back asleep. She vis­ited with me when I thought I was too tired to do another feed­ing. She was won­der­ful, and that was a major com­po­nent for my suc­cess. I am sure of it.

When she left and I was home alone with my baby, I began to doubt myself, so I went back to the mes­sage board where I had asked for help so many weeks prior. I began post­ing ques­tion after ques­tion after ques­tion. I got won­der­ful sup­port, and I got great infor­ma­tion. There was one per­son in par­tic­u­lar on that mes­sage board who I still feel a debt of grat­i­tude toward. Her name was Joan, and she was a mod­er­a­tor of the breast­feed­ing forum. Sure, other peo­ple would answer my ques­tion, but I didn’t feel like I had the real answer until I heard from Joan. Over the weeks and months, I gained con­fi­dence, and I also gained a friend­ship. Joan is still one of my close on-line friends. She and I have kept in touch over the past few years, and when a friend of mine had a baby who had nurs­ing trou­bles (over­sup­ply and over­ac­tive let­down, some­thing I knew very lit­tle about) Joan was avail­able over the phone to help her out, too. I also began read­ing www.kellymom.com dur­ing any spare moment I had. I loved that web­site. It was so easy to nav­i­gate and so easy to read and under­stand. It is where I got the bulk of my early breast­feed­ing knowledge.

Almost two years later, when I had my sec­ond son, I was pretty con­fi­dent again. I had been through so much with K that I thought I should have it under con­trol. But, as almost any­one who has breast­fed knows, every baby is dif­fer­ent. With A, I had dif­fer­ent issues, and again I turned to www.kellymom.com and a sup­port­ive on-line com­mu­nity to help me get through the first weeks that were tough.

Now, I’ve been nurs­ing K for almost 35 months, and I’ve been tan­dem nurs­ing K and A for 14 months. I feel like each day I can learn some­thing about breast­feed­ing whether it be from a book, a web­site, a friend, another nurs­ing momma, or one of my kids. I think it’s one of those things where you can keep learn­ing more and more, but I’m not sure that you can ever say that you have “learned to breast­feed.” To me, it’s a jour­ney more than a destination.

Check out these blogs for more thoughts on Learn­ing to Breast­feed (updated through­out the day):

• BreastfeedingMums.com
• Breastfeeding123.com
• Hobomama.blogspot.com
• Breastfeeding.blog.motherwear.com
• KateWicker.com
• Babyfingers.blogspot.com
• StopDropandBlog.com
• NurturingNotes.blogspot.com

Right now, I have two sons.  Both are at the age where they reg­u­larly have melt­downs or tantrums when they don’t get what they want.  Luck­ily, K is get­ting to the age where he can under­stand some­times when he doesn’t get what he wants.  He doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily like it, but he can under­stand that some­times things just can’t hap­pen in a way that he wants them to hap­pen.  Unfor­tu­nately, A is still pretty young and we’re not to that stage of under­stand­ing the whys and why nots of deci­sion mak­ing.  How­ever, his tantrums are often pretty short lived, so that is a plus.

To be hon­est, this is one stage that I didn’t ever antic­i­pate.  I thought about what would hap­pen when they were both nurs­ing and how to han­dle that.  I thought about what I would do when A became mobile and wanted to take K’s toys.  I thought about what I would do when we were at the mall and one child went left and the other went right.  I just didn’t think about hav­ing them both be in the tantrum stage at the same time.  Whoops.  I wish I would have thought more about this stage so I could have had some ideas on how to pro­ceed when it arrived.  Instead, I’ve had to take each day as it comes and learn from the one before.

Right now, K’s tantrums or melt­downs tend to hap­pen when he is hun­gry or tired.  Gen­er­ally, when he starts to yell or cry, my first thought is when did he last sleep (and how was the sleep qual­ity) and when did he last eat.  If either of those is con­tribut­ing to the issue, I try to remem­ber that.  Of course, it doesn’t excuse a tantrum, but it does put the cause into per­spec­tive.  He’s pretty seri­ous about being mad, but I have to admit that I have a pretty hard time keep­ing a straight face when he starts to jump up and down and wave his arms at me in an attempt to show me just how angry he is.   Unfor­tu­nately, if Jason and I don’t catch the tantrum early or if we don’t react in a con­struc­tive man­ner, it can go on for a while.  That is def­i­nitely the draw­back of an older child’s tantrums.

A on the other hand tends to explode into melt­down mode as soon as he wor­ries some­thing might not go his way.  In fact, today, he and K were play­ing in our play kitchen area.  A thought that K was tak­ing a toy from him when actu­ally I put it on the floor instead of let­ting it fall.  A turned toward K and had his mouth WIDE open in antic­i­pa­tion of a good, hard bite.  When he saw his toy on the floor, he just sat down and started play­ing with it.  Luck­ily, the tantrum was avoided.  Unfor­tu­nately, he is cur­rently in a phase when he hates, hates, HATES hav­ing his dia­per changed.  Some­times, all I have to do is move toward the dia­pers and he starts get­ting mad at me.  He is eas­ily dis­tracted though, so once the dia­per change is over, he’s happy again.  Yay!

Right now, I don’t think that I have a “good” or 100% effec­tive way of respond­ing to either one of them.  I’m not sure if I ever will.  I do think that par­ent­ing isn’t always about find­ing the most effec­tive or effi­cient way of deal­ing with a sit­u­a­tion.  I think it’s more impor­tant to respond in a way that is respect­ful of the child and myself.  I haven’t read the entire book, but I’ve seen Har­vey Karp on a few tv shows.  His book, The Hap­pi­est Tod­dler on the Block has some good tips.  Also, Eliz­a­beth Pant­ley has a book called The No Cry Dis­ci­pline Solu­tion.  I haven’t read the entire thing, but the one part of it that suck out to me was that a child will not learn from what you are say­ing once he/she is cry­ing.  I think part of par­ent­ing is seek­ing out solu­tions and then using what works.  For us, we haven’t found a fool­proof method, but that won’t keep me from con­tin­u­ing to look!