Constipation Crisis Resolved

Little Bear was constipated last week due to too many bananas! She gobbled them up so joyously I kept giving her more of them ... only to discover that too much banana can cause constipation in babies! I felt terrible. It took her a few days, and some uncomfortable poops, but we finally got past the worst of it.

As mentioned in my previous post, I decided to take a natural route in dealing with the constipation. It was obvious she was uncomfortable while pooping, yet it had only been a few days since her last poop - so I figured I'd let a few more pass before I got overly concerned. I cut out all solids from her diet and went back to the basics: exclusive breastfeeding. We nursed a lot the past few days. I had been feeding Little Bear solids both morning and evening, so cutting out both meals meant more time at the breast. It also meant waking up at night more often (at least, I think that is why she woke up three times last night and twice the night before).

The first day of exclusive breastfeeding ended in her finally pooping! It was painful for her, though, and the stool was harder than I liked. So we exclusively nursed again yesterday. This morning her stool was much softer and didn't appear painful. Today we exclusively nursed, also. Tomorrow I will begin adding solids into her diet again, but will definitely avoid too many bananas! For now we will stick with peas, pears, sweet potatoes, and other non-constipating foods! That was one lesson we learned the hard way!

Bananas + Little Bear = Constipation

Several weeks ago we began adding various foods to Little Bear's diet. We started with avocado, sweet potato, and pear. Last week, I added bananas. And oh how she loved bananas! Dad even had a song he would sing to Little Bear as she gobbled them down: B-A-N-A-N-A-S, eat bananas, let's eat bananas! I mashed them into everything, since she seemed to enjoy them so much. I added them to her sweet potatoes, her avocado, and her peas. So yummy!

Until yesterday. We've been using Elimination Communication with Little Bear, which means that she uses her little potty for peeing and pooping. Her poops have been much more solid since beginning solids, and it takes her a lot longer to go now. Yesterday, however, I noticed that she sat and pushed and cried. And not a whole lot happened. Just a little bit came out. She got very worked up and I could tell she was uncomfortable. Later that day, she tried pooping again, with the same result. I got online and read about babies, adding solids, and constipation. What I gathered from my research is that there are certain foods babies should either avoid altogether, or only eat in small amounts at first. These foods include: rice cereals, apples, and bananas. Yes, that's right, bananas. I really had no idea!

Several of the suggestions I read included giving prune juice and checking her temperature rectally (to stimulate her to poop). We decided that we would simply skip all solid foods today and stick with just breastmilk. I think I'll keep doing that until her poop is softer and less formed, then slowly start adding back the non-constipating foods like sweet potato and peas.

As a mom, I felt terrible, knowing that I caused this. It's an awful feeling knowing that something I did made her physically uncomfortable. Today she sat and strained for a while on the potty while crying, still very unhappy. I'm hoping that by tomorrow or the day after we are back on track. Until then, I'm watching her carefully and breastfeeding her a lot.

Things I read NOT to do: give water or glycerin, unless instructed by your nurse or doctor. Suppositories can be given to babies, but I don't feel it is necessary yet. Everything I read states that babies can go quite a few days without pooping before we need to worry. It has been about 3 days since she has had a good poop, so we'll wait it out a few more. Mixed with the teething, the change of environment (our family is in the middle of moving), and now the constipation, it has been a more difficult week than usual with Little Bear!

Why I Chose a Midwife.

My mother delivered me at home in 1981 with only my father and a midwife present. It's a beautiful story, one she told me many times growing up. I loved listening to the intimacy in her voice as she would remember that night. In my mind, I could imagine the Douglas fir trees rustling all around our cozy little house in the middle of winter as a new life was born. My very first memory as a child is of my mother in labor. Not with me, of course, but with my younger brother. I remember being in the room with her while she lay on the bed, moaning in pain. It scared me, so I ran out of the room into the arms of my grandmother. Before I ran out, though, I recall my mother reassuring me, telling me "It's okay, honey, it's a good pain ... mommy's okay." And she was. My brother was delivered not long after into the loving hands of another midwife.

Perhaps it was these stories and memories that made me know from a young age that I would deliver my children under the guidance of a midwife. Perhaps, though, it was also what I learned in nursing school, at Johns Hopkins University, one of the best nursing and medical schools in the nation. I learned that in a normal pregnancy, home births are just as safe as hospital births. I learned that having a midwife made you less likely to have a cesarean section or epidural. I learned that pain medications DO affect the baby and mother. I learned that using continuous fetal heart monitoring on mothers does NOTHING to better birth outcomes ... it only increases risk of having a cesarean. I learned that the only reason mothers are placed in the lithotomy position during labor is because it is most comfortable for the doctor who is delivering the baby ... and that the lithotomy position is actually one of the most uncomfortable and least productive ways for a woman to labor. I learned that a campaign against midwives started in the early 1900s because doctors wanted their business ... and that the damage done to their reputations still rings loud and clear today, nearly 100 years later.

The more I learned, the more emotion I felt. Sometimes I felt angry. Angry that men (traditionally the doctors) would dare to intervene in a woman's most intimate and powerful work (delivering a baby). Angry at the fear tactics still used in the medical system to keep women in the hospital and out of their homes and birth clinics. Sometimes I felt sad. Sad that women are told they are not strong enough to handle the pain of birth and must be medicated. Sad that so many women miss out on the opportunity to really know their true strength as a woman. Sometimes I felt confused. Why are we allowing this to happen in our culture? Is it all about money? Is birth really that dangerous? Most of the time, however, I felt resolved. Resolved to have a midwife attend my birth and assist me in the natural delivery of my daughter. Resolved to share with others my story, which is not unique or special, but simply the story of a birth as it was for me, and my mother, and my mother's mother, and my mother's mother's mother, and my mother's mother's mother's mother.

What I did not want: 1) To be strapped to a fetal heart monitor in a hospital bed, 2) To have doctors and nurses rushing in and out of my room as I labored, 3) To be told that I needed an epidural or pain medications because it would "help me" labor better, 4) To have a plastic wrist band with my name and a number being used for identifying me, 5) To have everyone staring at a monitor that told them when a contraction is beginning or ending (as if I didn't know already), 6) To have some person I did not know telling me to "push" and counting to 10 for me, 7) To be surrounded by blue surgical scrubs and masks with a bright light shining on my yoni during the most miraculous, amazing, and powerful moment of my life. No thank you.

And so I chose differently. I chose a midwife. And I wrote out my birth plan. And we talked and connected over my pregnancy. And she came to my house when my water broke. And she slept on the futon while I labored. And she drove to the hospital with me (because of insurance reasons, she is no longer allowed to do home deliveries) when I was 8 centimeters. And she stroked my back and legs. She walked with me to the shower. She whispered in my ear. And she gently lifted my newborn daughter onto my bare chest when it was time. And I felt powerful and beautiful and strong and ALIVE. Not a drop of anything but my own oxytocin rushing through my blood, and the blood of my daughter.

If we are someday blessed with another pregnancy and another birth, I will again choose a midwife. Only this time I will not choose one because of my mother's stories or the things I learned in nursing school. This time I will choose a midwife because of my own story. A story I will someday share with my own daughter. As it should be.

Baby Food Making!

We have decided to make our own baby food for Little Bear for several obvious reasons:

1) Saving money! The cost of baby food at the store is outrageous! I saw a very (and I mean VERY) small jar of mashed sweet potato for $1.00. I could buy 2 whole, organic sweet potatoes for about the same price!

2) Waste reduction. Buying all those tiny glass bottles with metal lids just seems like one more thing to have to recycle. And while they might be recyclable, the process of recycling still takes a toll on the environment. Better to reduce!

3) Nutrition. By making our own foods we know exactly what is (and more importantly, what is not) going into Little Bear's body. So many foods require heavy processing and preservatives to maintain a long shelf life. By making our own foods, we know that the ingredients are fresh - with no additives!

4) It's easy! While this is not the driving factor behind making our own baby food, it's a nice bonus that it is SO easy! More on that below ...

We mash Little Bear's foods in a BabySteps Hand Crank Food Mill. It cost us about $10 online. You can also find them at Whole Foods and other natural grocery stores for about the same price. There are all kinds of fancy baby food mills you can buy. One is call the Beaba Babycook Baby Food Maker. It cooks, grinds and warms. Seems a bit excessive to me, but if you have an extra $150 lying around, it might be worth it? Any sort of food mill/grinder will obviously work. I chose to buy the hand crank one because it is easy to wash and easy to pack up and take out of the house.

As of now we have introduced Little Bear to: avocado, sweet potato, banana, and pear. Her favorite so far is banana. The sweet potato is the only one I cook, and I do that by simply placing several sweet potatoes (in their skins) in the oven for about 45 minutes. When they are nice and squishy and soft, I take them out, skin them, mash them in the grinder, then separate them into an ice-cube tray to freeze. After they are frozen, I take out the sweet potato cubes and store them in a plastic bag in the freezer until ready to use. I set out one or two cubes in the fridge the night before and they are ready to go by the morning.

On most days, I feed Little Bear solids twice a day: mid-morning and in the evening. I usually mix 2 foods together at this point. Since she likes bananas so much, we are using that to mix with the less sweet avocado and sweet potato. She LOVES it.

When Little Bear was first starting foods, she would gag on the thick consistency of the mashed foods. Because of this, I added quite a bit of my own breast milk to the mash to make it very thin. This made it easier for Little Bear to swallow without gagging. Two weeks later, we no longer have to thin out the foods and she can take the thick mashed sweet potato and banana without any difficulty.

Here is a good link of foods to avoid with babies: Baby Foods to Avoid. I don't know how scientific it is, but most of what it says makes sense and reaffirms what I have heard in the past about avoiding wheat products, dairy, honey, etc.

The most important thing to remember (in my opinion) is that babies still need to continue to be breast-fed until 2 years of age if possible! The World Health Organization and La Leche League both recommend 6 months exclusive breastfeeding with continued breastfeeding with appropriate complimentary foods up to 2 years. If unable to breastfeed, still continue to give formula as it contains many important nutrients/fats in the right proportions that foods alone cannot provide at such a young ago.

Elimination Communication: Little Bear Goes on Strike

I read that sometime in the later months of EC-training (especially during teething), babies will often "go on strike" with the potty. In other words, they won't use it. The words of advice I gathered from the articles and chapters I read on EC suggest that you simply keep putting baby on the toilet and they will eventually resume where they left off. In some cases, they will even show a big improvement!

For about 6 days now Little Bear has been "on strike." She simply refuses to pee in her potty most of the time. Today we have had zero pees. Yesterday I think we had one, perhaps two. At the same time, we have been catching almost all of her poops! She only goes every few days now and waits until I give her the "shhhhhhhh" cue to push it out. Makes cleaning up messy diapers much easier!

Little Bear IS teething right now (she turns 6 months on January 24th). We also recently moved, so we have all been under more stress than usual. So I'm not sure if it is the move or the teething that has caused the current pee-strike. Either way, we continue to put Little Bear on her potty and I'm positive that we'll be back on track in no time!

PS - As I am finishing this post, Dad just hollered from the other room that Little Bear just peed in her potty. So the count for today stands at one.

Going Organic

About a week ago Little Bear started to show more interest in food. She would stare intently at our forks during dinner, watching them move from plate to mouth, and back again. She also started grabbing at food in our hands. My goal with Little Bear was to exclusively breastfeed for 6 months since that is what La Leche League, the World Health Organization (WHO), and my midwife suggested. Apparently, exclusively breastfeeding babies for 6 months lowers the risk of food allergies later on in life, as well as continues to offer them a really great immune system! Since we were 5 ½ months along, I thought it was time to start adding a few bites of food here and there.

Everything I have read, as well as talking with many mothers that I respect, suggests beginning a baby on mashed sweet potato and/or avocado – NOT canned, mashed rice cereal, like they used to. And personally, that makes a lot of sense to me. If we are going to introduce something to Little Bear, it might as well be packed full of great vitamins and nutrients! I also decided many years ago that my children would eat ORGANIC whenever possible. It was this resolution I had made that caused me to stop and ponder … If it is so important for me to feed Little Bear organic foods … and if I’m willing to spend extra money to make sure those foods I give her are organic … why am I not willing to spend extra money to feed Kyle and myself organic foods!?! This question has been nagging me for several weeks now, and the only honest answer I’ve come up with is this one: I’m too cheap! And while that may be an honest answer, it isn’t a good one!

Not that I haven’t tried to buy organic things over the years. I buy organic half-and-half for our morning coffee. I try to buy “natural, hormone-free” chicken and meat. And if I see organic produce at a good price, I will pick it up. But when I see an organic avocado for $1.99 – I usually go for the non-organic that is only $1.00. This behavior, I finally realized, has to change. We are on a pretty tight budget right now while Kyle is job searching and going to school. That means that I’m still not able to buy 100% organic right now for us (Little Bear, however, is getting 100% organic as she eats so very little!). But I am doing better. Today I bought organic apples, salt, butter, zucchini and spinach. The oranges are not organic, but I’ve heard that fruit with a think peel will often carry most of the chemicals in the peel. I hope this is true. Did it cost more? Yep. Is it worth it? I think so.

I’m also focusing on using more and wasting less. That means saving bacon grease and chicken fat for cooking. It means boiling bones and saving ends of vegetables for broths and stocks. We’ve cut down on sugar and white flours – which really helps curb one’s appetite … so we actually end up eating less throughout the day.

We also are trying to eat out less. We make coffee at home every morning so we don’t have to spend $2.00 on a cup at the store. Kyle especially enjoys grabbing food outside of the house (goes back to his bachelor-day habits, I believe) … so I’m trying to send him out the door with plenty of snacks, a sandwich, etc. It’s not going to be easy, though. We just relocated to the Portland area that offers an amazing variety of really good restaurants! But for now, I think we are going to try and limit our eating-out to once a month. Wish us luck!

Elimination Communication: Little Bear's Story

As mentioned in the previous post on Elimination Communication (EC), I started working with Little Bear when she was about 6 weeks old. Everything I read said you can start right from birth, but I was so overwhelmed with becoming a new mother I didn't feel ready to add EC to the mix. So right around 1 1/2 months we decided to get serious. I had noticed that upon waking I would go to check her diaper - only to have her actually begin peeing with the diaper open. As soon as I would see her begin to pee, I would begin to make a pssssssss sound close to her ear. I noticed a very similar pattern after eating. Usually within 10 minutes of breast-feeding, Little Bear would fuss due to a wet diaper. Then another 10 minutes would go by, and another wet diaper would appear!

This is the beginning of EC training: learning your baby's patterns and cues. To make it easier for me, I actually undiapered Little Bear for several days, simply laying her on a cloth diaper (cloth diapering is a MUST if using EC as it alerts the baby immediately when they have wetted). This helped me to better learn the subtle cues she would give off right before peeing. It wasn't always an easy process. We had (and still have) a lot of "misses" (wet diapers). But slowly, over a period of days and weeks, I noticed progress. Immediately upon awakening I would hold Little Bear over her potty (she was so small at that point that I would simply hold her legs in a squatting position over the Baby Bjorn). I would make a psssssss sound and, more often that not, she would pee! Similarly, about 10 minutes after eating I would offer her the potty as well. Sometimes it would take 30-60 seconds of holding Little Bear over the potty for her to finally go. At first I could count the number of successes each day: "We had 4 pees in the potty today!" Most days now, I count the number of misses!

There are two points I must make on EC. First of all, we still have "good" and "bad" days. A lot of this, I believe, is simply related to whether or not I am really listening to Little Bear. Some days I am more focused on other things and less tuned in to her needs. She fusses, and I ignore her. Inevitably, she wets herself (I still use cloth diapers on her because of this). Other days, I am very focused on her and offer her the potty immediately when she fusses. Those days, she uses the potty. So having a "good" or "bad" day, I believe, is more related to how tuned in the caregiver is to their baby. Second, don't get overly attached to the outcomes! I found myself (a type-A personality to begin with) falling into this trap the first few weeks. I would get frustrated that sometimes an entire day would go by with only one (or zero!) successful pees. This only frustrates you as a parent, which your baby immediately picks up on. Some days Little Bear would scream and cry when I'd try to put her on the potty, but I was insistent and would keep at it. I'm not sure this was the best technique. Now I try to be more lenient with her. If I am pretty sure she has to go (first thing in the AM) but she arches her back and cries - I usually calmly talk to her and make her sit longer. If I'm just offering her the potty because I think it's time, I don't make her stay on it when she is upset. I'm trying to use my mother's intuition more and more.

With all that set, she is not as consistent as I thought she might be. Sometimes I will take her to the potty and she is sitting in a SOAKED diaper, with no complaints! When she is playing and laughing a lot, she won't bother to tell us that she had to pee, either.

We've also started giving a sign with our hands while she is peeing. Supposedly this will help her to communicate her need to use the potty when she is not yet verbal. We'll see!

All in all, I am VERY happy to be using EC with Little Bear. It is not for everyone. It is also more work in some ways. It is definitely more work than simply tossing away a disposable diaper several times a day. Yet it is SO rewarding to know that Little Bear and I are communicating. You can almost see the sigh of relief from Little Bear when I "get" her cue and take her directly to the potty. I feel like she is saying, "Thank you! I really didn't want to pee on myself!"

Elimination Communication: An Introduction

During my pregnancy a friend gifted me with a subscription to Mothering Magazine - a magazine dedicated to "natural family lifestyles." It is filled with a wealth of wonderful information and ideas about pregnancy, birth, and parenting children of all ages. It was there, in Mothering Magazine, that I first learned about Elimination Communication (EC). I was fascinated. Here was an article stating that over half the world's population to not diaper their babies! That from day one, mothers learn the cues of their infant son or daughter. Just like a newborn cries when she is hungry, a newborn will also alert a parent to when she needs to pee or poop! I was disbelieved. As a nurse, I had learned that babies were unaware of their elimination needs. Yet the article gave story after story of mothers using EC with their infant children. It stated that it is only after diapering a baby (specifically, diapering with disposable products that absorb urine so that the baby feels dry despite sitting in a wet diaper), that a baby loses this ability to recognize when she needs to pee or poop (roughly around 6 months of age). They must then relearn this ability while toilet training.

Everything I've read on EC states that most children raised using this method are exclusively using the toilet for peeing and pooping by 14-16 months. Before this time a baby is aware of his need to eliminate, but lacks the ability to "hold it" for any length of time. It is like they are aware of the sensation that they have to go, they give the cue (fussing or squirming seems to be the most common cue), and then it is up to the parent to quickly get them on the potty. Otherwise, they will eliminate wherever they are at. However, by age 14-16 months (according to the research I've done), children appear to have more control over their bladder and bowels. They can, at this point, clearly communicate a need to go potty, as well as hold it for a period of time.

I liked the idea of EC because: 1) it reduces the amount of laundry each week since we exclusively use cloth diapers on Little Bear, 2) when most parents are beginning the process of potty training, we will be completely finished with it, 3) it fosters a deeper level of communication between Little Bear and myself, and 4) once I realized that Little Bear was trying to tell me she was uncomfortable and wanted to pee ... how could a stand ignoring her needs!

Little Bear and I have been using EC since she was 6 weeks old. I will write a separate post on our personal methods and experiences. Below is a list of several websites I used when researching Elimination Communication:

Excerpt from "Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering" by Sarah J Buckley, MD

Youtube video

Babies Today

Discovery Health

To Work or Not to Work, THAT Is the Question ...

I am over-educated. Or, at least, it seems like it ... at times. I have undergraduate degrees in English, Spanish, and nursing. I also have a graduate degree in English education. I spent the majority of my 20's either in college, applying for college, or graduating from college. I guess you could say it was an addiction. Looking back on it now, I think perhaps school was (for me) a time filler. I wasn't sure what I was doing with my life ... and so I kept on studying. And studying. And studying. And so, with those degrees, I've had a variety of jobs ... everything from teaching high school to working nights as a nurse at a hospital to fighting fires with the Forest Service to pouring coffees as a barista. It came as a surprise to me, then, that after the birth of my daughter in July 2010 ... all I wanted to do was to "be a mom." And that's where things get complicated in our culture.

What it means to "be a mom" any more can mean any number of things. There are single moms that work 2 jobs while raising kids. There are moms that stay home while their partner works. There are moms that work part-time, moms that work full-time. Sometimes children go to childcare. Sometimes they stay home with dad, or another family member. We live in a society that really doesn't have any steadfast "rules" around working and mothering ... which leaves the decision completely up to us. This, I believe, is a good thing. And yet ...

During my pregnancy I thought I would definitely want to work part-time as a nurse. After Little Bear was born, I got confused. I felt I should want to work part-time. I felt I should help contribute financially. I felt I should be using all that education I spent so much time and money on. So why didn't I want to work? And should I want to? These questions can only be answered by each individual mother. I must be honest, I've struggled with the idea that perhaps I am one of those moms that just wants to stay home (and has a spouse that supports me in that decision)! My mother stayed home with us. And I LOVE staying home with Little Bear. Of course there are moments each day when I think, "I need a break!" But when I weigh the alternative (being away from her at work), I am grateful for the opportunity I have to be with her morning, afternoon, and night.

I am grateful that 1) I am married to an amazing man that supports my decision to work or not work, and 2) we have made financial decisions that are allowing us to live off of one income (his). To even have the choice to work or not to work is something that many mothers have never experienced. I am very, very blessed to have this freedom. And yet, as a college-educated woman of the 21st-century, I still can't shake that feeling that I am somehow "letting down" someone (I still can't quite figure out who that "someone" is). I feel like, perhaps, I am not doing enough. Or that I'm "wasting" a "good education." I hope I'm not. I hope that everything I learned as a teacher and nurse will enable me to be an amazing mother and wife.

Perhaps I will find something that I can do out of the house. Perhaps I can take up writing again (outside of a blog post every now and then). Until then, I am slowly growing more accustomed to the idea of being a stay-at-home mom. And I am slowly, ever so slowly, growing proud of it.