BlogHer 2010 Pity Party

Last weekend, the little one and I drove across town in insensible traffic to park in the wrong spot, enter the park in the wrong side, not take a stroller or baby carrier for the 27 pound not quite walking yet baby, walk way to far along the wrong side of the park, finally phone Amber and get directions to the

Not Going to BlogHer 2010 Pity Party!

In which there are free burgers, and I finally get to meet Crunchy Carpets and Pomo Mama in person.

The little one enjoyed eating everything she could get in her mouth, including quite a bit of coleslaw and roasted veggies. It was loads of fun, once we got there.

World Breastfeeding Week

Last year during World Breastfeeding Week, my baby and I started breastfeeding and I noted it here.

For World Breastfeeding Week this year, my baby and I have finished our first year of breastfeeding. She's still going strong and while giving me a little bite every once in awhile with her new teeth, I doubt she'll wean any time soon. It works for the both of us so I expect next year I'll be saying that we've completed our second year!

A whole lot is being written about World Breastfeeding Week. Here are a quick few of my favourite breastfeeding related posts (though they may not be strictly WBW posts) (of the few I've had time to read!):

• Annie at PhD in Parenting outlined the original and some new reasons to boycott Nestle
• Honest to Betsy wrote a lighthearted bit on four and a half years of breastfeeding and worked in the polar bears.
• Elita at Blacktating asks where are the images of black women breastfeeding?
• Melodie of Breastfeeding Moms Unite! has done a nice round of some other posts.

Any standout favourite posts on breastfeeding that you've read recently?

Go Read This Instead...

Because I'm too busy to write up my own thoughts, go check out these posts that are resonating with me these days:

• Annie of PhD in Parenting is in Berlin and finding processed food in Europe are less problematic...
• and links to the interesting, typically off the handle Fox News coverage of bed-sharing with your baby.
• Harriet of See Theo Run shares her thoughts on the Angel's Cradle at St Paul's Hospital. I'm glad she brought this up - it's so sad that it's needed but important that it exists, because it is needed.
• Gina of The Feminist Breeder writes about and gets great comments back on leaving kids in cars.
• Arwyn of Raising Boychick writes, as always thoughtfully and provocatively, on teaching patience to children...
• and in an older post, writes about hating pink and rejecting the feminine.
• The Fearless Formula Feeder shares a provocative story about why one mom did not try to breastfeed her child.

Do you have any favourite all time or favourite right now posts you want to share?

Breastfeeding Wasn't Painful

Over and over again when I was reading about breastfeeding when I was pregnant, one message was repeated: it shouldn't hurt. If you have sore nipples, you're doing something wrong.

So when breastfeeding didn't hurt, I figured all was well. Baby seemed as happy as any newborn could be expected to be. DH once worried aloud, ironically about half an hour before my mature milk came in and I started leaking all over the place, that she wasn't eating enough. I confidently said she's fine.

I'm still not sure about that now, in retrospect.

The next day, at four days old, we had to take her in to see our pediatrician, because the hospital ped had been worried about her potential exposure to GBS during labour. He wouldn't release her from the hospital unless I promised to bring her to see our ped when she was four days old. Her birth weight was 9 lb 4 oz and at four days, she'd dropped to 7 lb 13 oz.

As Whozat sagely points out, having IV fluids during labour can artificially inflate your baby's birth weight. So I'm not sure if Em really wasn't eating enough and I should be glad that we had to see the doctor so early, or...

If she was fine, just lost a bit more quickly that extra fluid weight, and the subsequent cascade of pumping and feeding her other ways might have caused her to forget how to latch on properly and exacerbate her posterior tongue tie. I'll probably never know.

We fed Em with a bottle, with a spoon, with a cup, with a tube beside our gloved finger. I feed her with a tube beside my nipple, with a tube under the nipple shield. For seven weeks, we kept this up and I kept thinking maybe we were making progress. But feeding her in ways involving my breasts was so cumbersome and time consuming that I was about ready to give up and just pump full time, when we finally went to an ENT and got her tongue tie clipped.

Then, for a couple of days, as she learned to latch onto my breast as a seven week old, I had sore nipples for a few days. Stinging, ouch, this is what they're talking about, dreading nursing a little bit. And then it got better. And now I worry that she'll be one of these babies who wean really early.

Note: Not until months after my baby was born did Annie at PhD in Parenting publish this great post on pain in breastfeeding. Go read it! In case you don't have time, the short story is that some discomfort is normal.

Another note: I was in some pain during the first few days of pumping because I had a really crappy, cheap breast pump. Chapped, cracked, milk blisters, the works. As soon as I rented a good hospital grade pump, all was well.

Lansinoh Product Review and Giveaway!

I helped write a review of some Lansinoh products at www.breastfeedingmomsunite.com. Lansinoh gave us the products to review and is sponsoring a giveaway of diaper rash ointment. Go check it out! Also, Lansinoh run an interesting blog worth having a look at, By Moms, For Moms.

There will be a second review and giveaway coming soon!