Mama Monday: Cloth diapers (nappies) by Fiona

So, Elizabeth asked me for a blog on a topic I'm passionate about. It took me a few days and then I was ordering my son more modern cloth diapers and it hit me - this, I am definitely passionate about.

Proof of Passion: Too Many Diapers for One Baby  ;p

Most people I know never even considered cloth diapers- they either didn't think there was an option beyond the old fashioned terry squares our parents and grandparents used, or are worried about the washing and dealing with the poo, or because they tried some cheap ones and they leaked. All of which are legitimate concerns and cloth diapers are definitely not for everyone.

They are definitely for us though. We are full time cloth, including overnight. Now that my son is in daycare, he does have disposables there because they refuse to do cloth- we change him into one there at drop off, and change him back before we leave or as soon as we get home, depending how urgently he wants to get out of there.

For this post, I will first discuss modern cloth diapers generally then discuss our wash / care routine.

Modern cloth diapers can most easily be described as diapers that are still shaped like disposables (no pins, etc) but that are washable and reusable.

In the world of modern cloth diapers there are a lot of options though and it can get confusing pretty fast. Hopefully this post will break things down for anyone just starting out.

First up - sizing. Disposable diapers come in sizes, getting bigger as your baby gets bigger. Cloth diapers do this too- these are called sized diapers. Cloth diapers also have what is called a One Size Fits Most (OSFM) style, however, which is impossible in disposable diapers as far as I know. OSFM diapers are designed to grow with your baby, so that you can buy less of them. With sized diapers you'll need enough of them in each size your baby grows into, but you can in theory buy less if you buy all OSFM.

OSFM are a great money saving option. Because the diaper is designed to get bigger however, they can be bulky especially when your baby is smaller.

Our stash is half OSFM and half sized. We originally bought only OSFM and then had a premature baby that didn't fit them until he was 4 months old, so added some sized nappies and had to get more. The bonus of our sized nappies is that they are really really 'trim' fitting - basically, they are the ones we have that are as small as a disposable. On my son they're actually better than the disposables he gets at daycare, cause the disposables have a bunch of extra between the legs that bunches on him (he is wearing the correct size, I promise you), whereas his sized cloth diapers don't have that, but are just as trim and easy to put his pants over.

The trickiest thing with any diaper is getting the fit right, especially around the legs to prevent leakage. I found with both disposables and cloth this is a little bit of trial and error, and that it changes as your babies shape changes, so I can't really recommend one over the other in that regard.

Next up is fastening. Cloth diapers generally have either snaps (similar to a baby onsie) or velcro (otherwise known as aplix).

Snaps are our preference, but a lot of people prefer Velcro. Velcro often lets you get a more precise fit whereas the spacing on snaps is set. We find with snaps though we always know which snaps we are aiming for on our child (i.e. currently the third centre ones on the diapers that make up most of our stash) which is really helpful when getting the diaper on a thrashing toddler.

With snaps you also have a choice between side snaps and front snaps.

Front snaps mean the wings of nappy cross over the front and snap over the front. Side snaps mean the wings snap under the front. My son had chunky thighs comparative to the rest of him before he started mobile, and I would recommend side snaps for the best fit on chunky thighs when you don't also have a chunky waist. Our toddler can also undo his front snaps himself, whereas his side snaps still defeat him.

Next up is materials. Modern cloth diapers have what is called the shell, which is the waterproof layer to keep everything contained. There is then a variety of absorbent layers inside the shell. Some of the most popular options include bamboo or microfiber material, with a layer or microsuede or microfleece that actually goes against babies skin. Microsuede and microfleece form what is called a stay dry layer- they pull the wetness down into the bottom layers of fabric that are actually absorbent, so baby's skin still feels dry similar to a disposable. You can't put microfiber directly against the skin, and bamboo or cotton will feel wet against baby without a stay dry layer. Bamboo, hemp or cotton inners without stay dry layers are known as natural inners. Some people prefer this and we are one of those - our son is allergic to synthetic fabrics like fleece and polyester so he can't wear diapers with stay dry inners, or even use polar fleece blankets. All this means is that his diapers feel wet against his skin. It has never bothered him, and for him this means none of the horrible rashing he gets with a stay dry layer. He also started toilet training himself at 17 months, and I do personally think part of that is because he knows immediately when he's gone because he feels wet immediately.
Other babies will rash if they don't have a stay dry layer though, so it can be a bit of testing to find what works for your child, similar to finding which brand of disposable works best.

The amount of absorbency in a specific brand of diaper varies - it's all down to how much material is in the diaper and how heavy a wetter your child is. For us, we use two primary brands, one with layers of cotton and one with bamboo, and either will last us 4+ hours, though I try to change him more frequently than that anyway because I always dislike the notion of him sitting in a wet diaper. (His daycare changes every two hours minimum also :) )

The most confusing part of modern cloth diapers is the sheer number of available styles. What we use are called All in Ones (AIO) and Snap in Ones (SIO), so I will start by explaining those. All in Ones mean that the nappy is a single piece - waterproof outer layer and absorbent inner all sewn together, so all you do is throw it into the wash and then put it back on baby once it's dry. Snap in ones mean that the absorbent layers, called inserts, attach to the shell by press snaps - this means faster drying time, but more time putting them back together after washing so baby can wear them.

Using a dryer can damage the waterproof layer in some brands of diaper, and we don't have a dryer anyway, so we do find that our snap in ones dry faster. With snap ins you can also out the inserts into the dryer while the shells dry separately so as to not damage the waterproofing in the dryer, if you do want to primarily use the dryer.

There are also pocket nappies, where you put the absorbent layers into a pocket in between the inner material and the waterproof shell of the nappy. We tried two brands of this and I disliked needing to stuff the pocket before use (cause I'm lazy and snap ins are easier IMO :p). We also can't use them because I've never seen a pocket that doesn't use a stay dry inner material, so my extremely limited experience was as we were discovering our sons allergy to synthetic material. Pockets are hugely popular, and are great for being able to add more absorbency into the pocket section for heavy wetters.

Then things start getting a bit old school. Old school terry towelling squares still exist, but you can use them with what is called a snappi instead of pins. There are also prefolds, which are cotton or bamboo in a square shape like a terry toweling square, but with extra layers sewn in the centre. Again, they fasten via snappi. A shell can then be used over the top  as a cover for waterproofing. I'm told Prefolds or terry toweling squares are good for getting a solid fit around skinny newborn legs, so I'm intending to try prefolds with a cover next time around now that I'm comfortable with cloth diapering.

Then there are fitted nappies. Fitted nappies are still shaped like disposables and have either snaps or velcro, but do not have a built in water proof layer, so still need a shell put on over the top.

So how many do you need? The answer is variable depending on the style you choose, how often you want to wash, if you intend to use cloth overnight, and how you intend to dry them.

For us, I found 30 AIO and SIO sufficient for one child (the rest are just cause I have a cloth diaper addiction and like getting new patterns :p). 30 lets me get through 8-10 diapers a day comfortably without getting too close to running out. This is in a sub-zero overnight but no snow winter without a dryer, where they dry under the heating vents in the house. If you live in a warmer climate, or use a dryer, etc, you could probably reduce that number. If you're using disposables overnight or at daycare, you can use less. I could get by with say 15 and not run out now that my son is at daycare 4 days a week.

We generally go through approximately 5-8 diapers on a home day now, though often less now we are toilet training. With a newborn we were going though 12ish with both cloth diapers and before that when we were using disposables, simply because of all the extra soiling - my toddler only soils his diaper with a poo once, maybe twice a day, which is so much easier than a newborn.

We wash every day on a home day, and once every second or third day when it's daycare days because then he only uses one or two cloth diapers a day. It isn't advised to wait any longer than three days due to urine starting to damage the fabric of the diapers when it's left to sit.

We dry pail, which is what is recommended for modern cloth diapers. This means no soaking in buckets of water. We just chuck them into a waterproof bag (called a wetbag in the cloth diaper world) and then just tip straight into the washing machine. There really isn't much smell, but the bags do zip closed if you get a stinky one. We keep one wetbag in the nursery for wet only diapers, then another in the toilet for soiled diapers.

And now the question I always get asked - what do we do with the poo?!

This always amuses me cause by the time you get to toilet training, almost all the parents I know are fairly immune to the poo factor, and you'll most likely have to deal with poo in undies or leaking out of a diaper at least once, but anyway I digress.

For poo, we put it in the toilet. We use flushable liners in our diapers, which are designed to catch the poo so it can just get dropped into the toilet and flushed.

This works now that now we are up to solid poo, there's no point in liners with breastfeeding poo for a newborn. With newborn poo, we just rinsed and then washed, it just washes straight out. We have a hose attached to our toilet that lets us rinse diapers straight into the toilet - I highly recommend this if you do cloth diapers. It's great for newborn diapers and for all poosplosions that don't stay neatly on the liner.

We always try to dry in the sun because the sun is the best thing for stain removal and bleaches and stain removers aren't recommended for modern cloth diapers. Really though, some staining isn't the end of the world since they're clean because it's just going back on babies bum anyway. I am happy to say though, that the majority of ours come up with no stains after some sun even after 20 months of use.

We use the Grovia modern cloth diaper specific detergent Tiny Bubbles, and add in some anti bacterial rinse periodically (just had our first round of gastro, so used the antibacterial rinse during that, for example). As long as you wash well enough you shouldn't get any smell issues- I do a full cycle with detergent then a second rinse with no detergent for ours cause our machine isn't the best. If you do get smell issues, a strip wash will usually fix it (just google it ;) )

I also always get asked about brands since we do use cloth diapers full time at home so I will include that information here at the bottom of this out. I will note however that our brands are driven by our preferences (snaps, natural fibre inners, AIO/SIO) and others will have different preferences. When we started we got a couple in a half dozen bunch of brands in different styles to see what we liked, and if we would stick with cloth at all. I do highly recommend that approach because it does let you refine your preferences and fit, and also discover things like fabric allergies in our case. If you can find a diaper library, that could work really well for trialling cloth diapers.

So anyway, Grovia AIOs are the primary diapers we use. Cute patterns, smooth outer material, all cotton inner, but they do take a while to dry. We also have a large number of Australian brand itti bitti- these are our sized diaper brand so we have these in small, medium and large. My 11kg son is still in medium. Itti have fluffy minky patterned outers. Itti uses a microsuede layer but only on one insert, so we just don't use that one, since they use a two insert snap in set up and the other one is just bamboo.

We then also have several Australian WAHM brands - Tiny Cheeks Modern Cloth Nappies, for fancy embroidered outers, Couture Cloth, and Chubby Cheeks, all with custom made bamboo inners.

We used itti fitted nappies with Grovia Hybrid shells and some extra boosting for overnight when our son was wetting heavily overnight, but now we are generally using his Couture Cloth for this.

We are shortly to have two in cloth, so I'll provide an update once we get there in approx six months. My oldest is toilet training, so I might end up with only one in cloth after all, but I still expect to have two since I still don't expect my son will be able to hold for extended periods of time when we are out and about and need to try and find a toilet.

Feel free to to ask any questions, I'm happy to answer if I know the answers :)

- Fiona

The word gap

I've been reading about (and hearing from mom friends) the importance of talking to your baby. This article explained the 'word gap', the fact that babies from poor families hear fewer words every day than babies from richer families and, the researchers theorize that this is part of why they are behind in literacy in kindergarten.

Even before kindergarten, they found that a difference in how the children could process information could be seen at 18 months old!

The researchers emphasized the importance of direct, meaningful communication between caretakers and child.  They specifically mentioned that overhearing phone conversations and words heard on TV didn't help and didn't make a difference in cognitive development.

TAKE AWAY: If you want your baby to grow into a communicative, literate child, talk to the baby about any and everything happening around you. Describe the colors of the objects. Ask them questions, even if they are rhetorical. Talk about the things in the environment. Ask lots of questions.


Annotated Bibliography

Closing the 'Word Gap' between rich and poor. NPR. http://www.npr.org/2013/12/29/257922222/closing-the-word-gap-between-rich-and-poor? 29 Dec 13

Babies from poor families hear fewer words everyday than babies from richer families and this leads to a disadvantage in school.

Another study against spanking

Another paper came out earlier this year against spanking. If you are thinking about putting together a well researched method of discipline, I urge you to look at all the evidence against spanking.

Research on spanking: It's bad for all kids

When I talk to parents about how they discipline their children I almost always hear stories from parents who say their kids were SO SO bad and SO unruly this was the only thing they could do. It's always a story about having three boys who just ran wild or having a kids who was so stubborn that nothing else got through to that kid.  They never tell me what else they tried, however, or how consistent they were with their discipline.

Spanking is the easy way out. You don't have to keep an eye on the kid like with time out.  You don't have to endure the whining like with taking away a privilege. I've even heard parents say there was something satisfying about spanking the child and asserting their authority.

I hope I don't go for the easy way out. I hope I am able to guide my kids with work, love, consistent boundaries, and patience.

The coolest girl in school: IUD

Anytime I mention birth control on my Facebook the IUD evangelists come out en masse. I don't think I've ever seen such a passionate response to a way to not get knocked up.

This little t shaped item causes religious fervor in sex positive women all over my Facebook.

Picture from here.

I've heard lots of singing and praising of this little guy, but I've also heard horror stories. As a pseudo-scientist, I've decided to do some investigation.

There are a couple kinds of IUDs (Intrauterine device) but I'm going to talk about two kinds. 

1. Copper

These IUDs are made out of copper. You put a piece of copper in your reproductive tract and VOILA, you are impregnable. Apparently copper disables sperm. They touch copper and they can't swim anymore. No more swimming, no more babies.

Maybe save a little money and stick a penny up your vagina before you have sex instead*.

According the internet, copper increases levels of copper ions, prostaglandins, and while bloods cells within the uterine and tubal fluids and those disarm the sperm.

2. Hormonal

Another kind of IUD also progestogen, which thickens the cervical mucus and can stop ovulation. The advantage of this method of hormonal BC vs pills is that you can get a much lower dose of progestogen and it mostly stays in your uterus, instead of traveling all over your body.

Advantages of IUD:
1. Very low failure rate
2. Very convenient (get the doctor to stick it in and forget about it)
3. No or low dose of hormones

Disadvantages of IUD:
1. Painful to get put in
2. May worsen bleeding and cramps (copper IUD)
3. Can stab you or your partner in the genitals

When my partner read disadvantage #3 he begged me never to think about IUDs ever again. LOL. I also have a friend who had a horrible time with one and have read horror stories that keep me disinterested. On the other hand I've had many many more people recommend IUD to me with absolute manic enthusiasm. It was the best thing that ever happened to them.

So, there are lots of options here in 2013. Look into them all. Talk to your healthcare provider. Go to Planned Parenthood's website and take a quiz to find out if a method you hadn't considered matches your goals and lifestyle. Ask your friends about their methods.

As for me, I'm going to do fertility awareness and barrier method (probably diaphragm and spermicide).  I want to try to give my body a chance to start getting back to nature again and if I did get pregnant sooner than we are planning it wouldn't be a big deal at all. The method I'm choosing has a 90 - 95% success rate and that's honestly good enough for me for now. If I were not at all close to ready for kids I might be tempted by a copper IUD with it's staggering 99.99% success rate and lack of hormones. I'd have to find a way to convince Noah that his penis would be safe first though...

*Disclaimer regarding pennies in your pussy: that was a terrible joke and not actual medical advice. Sorry, I'm not good at jokes. Do not put currency in your crotch. Unless that's something you are into. No judgments.

Mama Monday: Applied Behavioral Analysis, an overview by Sarah McCroan

This is a continuation of a discussion started here. 

ABA now has this rap as being ONLY for those with autism.  That’s a poor misrepresentation.  One that has negative consequences for millions of children who could benefit from some amount of behavior therapy from someone competent in ABA.  Applied Behavior Analysis in short is the study of human behavior.  The best definition was written in 1968 by Baer, Wolf & Risely:

               “Applied Behavior Analysis is the process of systematically applying interventions based upon the principles of learning theory to improve socially significant behaviors to a meaningful degree and to demonstrate that the interventions employed are responsible for the improvement in behavior”

                I don’t see anywhere in there that indicates it’s for those with autism only.

                So here’s a quick break down of ABA Therapy.

All humans exhibit a behavior (if you weren’t behaving, you’d be dead)
All behavior occurs for a reason (it serves a purpose, a function)
The behaviors you exhibit now are the result of your past experiences with punishment and reinforcement.
Punishment is ANYTHING that decreases the likelihood of a behavior occurring again in the future Reinforcement is ANYTHING that increases the likelihood of a behavior occurring again in the future

For example:
Kid acts out at the dinner table. Told to go to time out. Kid stops acting out at the dinner table. Punishment.
Different kid acts out at the dinner table. Told to go to time out. Kid starts acting out at dinner more often. Reinforcement.

In ABA, there are only 2 types of functions : To Gain something or To Avoid/Escape something
Humans like to gain: attention, tangibles and stimulation.
Every behavior is to gain attention, gain a tangible, self-stimulation or to avoid/escape something (or some complex combination of multiple functions)

You hit the snooze button on your alarm to escape the annoying buzzer sound.
You hit the snooze button BEFORE it goes off to AVOID the annoying sound you know is coming.
You say, “Can you pass the salt please?” to gain the tangible: salt.
You bite your nails when you’re bored because it gives you sensory stimulation.
You snuggle up with your hubby on the couch to gain his attention.

This is human nature.  There is nothing to argue about.  Case closed.

Haha.  Seriously, why do people argue against ABA? It’s just like saying the sun doesn’t rise in the east and rain isn’t wet.

The behavior modification part comes with what you do with the function.  Once you know the function of the behavior – you can modify it to increase the behavior or decrease the behavior.

You modify it through “Punishment” and “Reinforcement”.

I'm going to go over a couple of terms here that are used a little differently in ABA than they are in casual speech. Stay with me.

Positive means adding a stimulus.
Negative means taking away a stimulus.

Now I know I said punishment and reinforcement is based on how it affects the behavior, not necessarily the exact intervention/item your using. But here some common examples that are commonly used that affect most people in the way I’ve described.

Positive Punishment: Spanking, Writing Sentences, Pink Slip
Positive Reinforcement: Hugs, Stickers, a Paycheck
Negative Punishment: Time-out, A fine, the cold-shoulder/silent treatment
Negative Reinforcement: Crying baby  (You rock him/her to stop the crying) Cold (you put on jackets to get rid of the feeling cold).

The exact intervention or modification can be of your choosing.  You have so many to choose from.  Just remember to think of the function of the behavior first otherwise you’re wasting time at best, or worse – reinforcing the behavior you’re trying to punish (get rid of).

This is why I have a problem talking with people about “punishment”. I always have to start with, “It depends on what your definition of ‘punishment’ is”.  Because to me, it just means anything that decreases a behavior.  From spanking to praise – it could be anything.  I know you’re thinking Praise? How could praise possibly be a punishment?

Think of a high school teacher praising a boy in front of his peers for doing a great job reading out loud to the class the assigned reading. The kid is really shy and the lavished praise embarrassed.  He never again volunteers to read aloud again.  That was not reinforcement.  That was punishment.

Whether you’re trying to quit smoking, or teach your kid to have better table manners (seriously, have you volunteered in your child’s school’s cafeteria lately??) or stop the tantruming – ABA can help you.

Just remember folks, as you try and modify your kids' behaviors -- they are also modifying yours!

See: http://wps.prenhall.com/chet_cooper_appliedbeh_2/
http://www.bacb.com/index.php?page=2
http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/f/behanalysis.htm

Another interesting CRACKED article

This article doesn't really tell me much about what I can do to make my baby the best baby ever, but it does have some interesting things that I can look for so that I'm not surprised when baby Maze grows up to be a sociopath.

Six things science can predict about you in infancy

For those of you who don't want to read it all, here is the summary:

1. 4-year-olds who can handle delayed gratification grow up to be more successful adults. This was tested by leaving kids with candy on a table and telling them that if they wait 15 minutes, they will get two pieces instead of one. Kids who waited the 15 minutes grew up to be more successful in post tests.

2. Babies who are fed when they want to be fed grow up to be smarter than babies who are fed on a schedule.  Basically if you are attentive to your baby's needs the baby will have an higher IQ later in life. I think I went over this in previous blogs.

3. This one was weird: a baby who snores is more likely to grow up to be an ill behaved child. They think it has to do with the amount of oxygen vs CO2 that gets to the baby's brain while sleeping. Creepy. I wonder if there is a way to help the baby!

4. Babies with low birth weight tend to do worse on exams when they grow up. How strange.

5. Moody toddlers are more likely to grow up to have a gambling problem.  They watched kids for 90 mins and took notes. At age 21 and 32 they checked back in with them to see how life was going and the wild kids were 2x as likely to be gamblers. How weird.

6. Babies who don't exhibit normal fear responses are more likely to be criminals.

So there you go. My take away from this is to feed my baby on demand (already planning to do that) and to try to make sure to intervene if baby Maze is a snorer. Not much else you can do about the other things, as far as I can tell.

Fertility Signals - summary of some videos I watched

I'm watching a video series on fertility and ways to identify your ovulation. Ironically, I'm doing this to avoid getting pregnant before I'm ready, not TO get pregnant. I feel like it's opposite day because the videos are all focused on getting pregnant.

Here are my notes of the highlights.  Feel free to comment with additional information if you have any.

• The widest possible fertility window is 6 days because sperm can live in a woman for 6 days. The typical window is actually only 3 days.
• Estrogen and progestrone are the hormones related to fertility
• Estrogen peaks just before ovulation, progestrone peaks after ovulation.
• Best indicator of high estrogen is cervical fluid
• becomes wet and stretchy closer to ovulation
• comparable to egg white
• thick mucus indicates ovulation
• Best indicator of high estrogen is basal body temperature (BBT)
• corpus luteum produces higher temperature
• temperature rises AFTER ovulation 
• If tracking cervical fluid and BBT look for pattern of when fluid is thick and BBT goes up the next day
• Tracking notes
• cycle day one is first day of period
• BBT taken first thing when take up with special thermometer everyday
• BBT increases at ovulation and decreases at the end of the cycle, before period

Annotated Bibliography

Fertility Signs Videos. Fertilityfriend.com. http://www.fertilityfriend.com/videos.html

Read the blog.

Birth Control

This may seem like a strange topic to cover on a baby making blog, but it is one that really interests me: birth control.  I DO think it is an important topic because it can effect your fertility AND unexpected pregnancies can (but don't necessarily) negatively impact your ability to care for your children.

Abstinence: 99.999% effective.

Photo from here. 

Ever since I've been sexually active with men, I've been on hormonal birth control.  The risks are really scary: blood clots, migraines, cancer, mood swings etc etc.   I've tried switching up my pills, patches, and rings to find a method that works for me with minimal problems and yet I continue to get migraines right before my period and, on this latest method, I think my moods are being effected as well.

My partner and I have just decided to switch to more 'natural' methods (condoms, pull out, fertility awareness) in an attempt to help me with my recent migraines and mood swings. What methods work for you and why do you use them?

Annotated Bibliography

Birth Control. Mayo Clinic. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/birth-control-pill/WO00098

An extensive list of the positives and negatives of different birth control methods.

A couple tips from science for setting your child up for a happy, healthy, and successful old age

I've been reading a handful of interesting articles that look at the long term effects of childhood decisions. It is so fascinating to me to know that choices I will make about my diet and what my child is exposed to will continue to effect my son or daughter for his or her whole life.

The most obvious has to do with maternal diet.  The fuel you provide your growing baby with as it is forming impacts the way its mind and body form.  One thing I found really interesting was that omega3s in your hips go to the babies brain development in the third trimester!  Once I read that I went right out and bought a big slab of wild Alaska salmon, chopped it up, and I've been eating it bit by bit. I want to make sure my baby's brain is a well oiled machine. There are lots of different vitamins and minerals that the baby will pull out of my bones and fat when he or she is developing. I'm working hard now to develop great vitaminy fat stores by eating nutritionally dense food! I would like to once again recommend 'Real Food for Mothers and Babies' by Nina Planck if you are interested in maternal diet.

Another really really interesting study linked low rates of Alzheimer's Disease in elderly men with having has a nurturing and emotionally available mother. WOW!  Life long happiness and resistance to some other diseases also were linked to caring, loving, nurturing mothers. By loving, nurturing, and being available to my child I can help him to grow into a healthy man and possibly help him avoid Alzheimer's.

Things like this are why I am so passionate about arming myself with information before I start my breeding program. I have many goals and wishes for my children and I hope to make the choices that will help those goals and wishes to manifest.

I want my children to be kind, curious, and persistent. I want them to care about other people in an active way. I want them to love to pursue knowledge. I want them to set goals and work towards their realization, even if its hard.

So now I just have to continue to see what other people have done to help shape their little people into kind, curious, persistent people.  I know my children won't be exactly what I want them to be. I know they will have their own personalities. They will have some genetic dispositions. I just want to try to guide them towards being ethical people and those are the ethics I've chosen to highlight in our family.

On another note, I read and really interesting article that says that maternal exposure to farm work (while baby is in utero) helps reduce allergies in children. Sorry baby Maze, you are going to have allergies. I love you but I'm not going to work on a farm.


Annotated Bibliography

Eternal Curves. Will Lassek, Steve Gaulin, Hara Estroff Marano. Psychology Today. http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201206/eternal-curves 3 Jul 12

75 Years In The Making: Harvard Just Released Its Epic Study On What Men Need To Live A Happy Life. Brent Lambert.
http://www.feelguide.com/2013/04/29/75-years-in-th-making-harvard-just-released-its-epic-study-on-what-men-require-to-live-a-happy-life/ 29 April 13

A longitudinal study of the lifestyles, trials, and successes of a group of men. The results were surprising. A good childhood relationship with a caring mother was a huge indicator of lifelong happiness, resistance to dementia, and a healthy old age.


http://www.parenting.com/article/the-new-science-of-mother-baby-bonding?page=0,3
More evidence about the long term effects of child-parent bonding.


A cute for allergy epidemic. Moises Velasquez-Manoff.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/a-cure-for-the-allergy-epidemic.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1384108233-3ky/t6pbhSr8kwlptJLpqA 9 Nov 13

How you can help your child with allergies, starting in the womb.

Co-sleeping

People love to talk about co-sleeping. It is something I think I am for but, also, honestly nervous about. I want to start a discussion about experiences with co-sleeping and also dig into the science.

Co-sleeping is when parent and caretaker sleep together. It can be in the bed, on the floor, on the couch, in a chair... where ever.

Advantages:
* It is easier for a nursing mother to feed her baby at night.
* Close proximity means caretakers respond more quickly to baby's needs, reducing anxiety
* It aligns with the carry animal instinct, baby is right there safe and warm
* Some research indicates that baby breathes better and heart rate is more steady when co sleeping


Disadvantages
* Every year babies die from being smothered, strangled by blankets, or falling between the bed and the headboard


So,  I love the list of possible advantages but if I'm risking my baby's life, is it worth it?

A possible compromise is a co-sleeper cot that attaches to the side of the parents bed. The baby sleeps in the safety of the cot next to the bed and is very close to the parents.

Or, another choice, is a baby bed that goes in your bed. It keeps baby next to you but safer.

What about you? Where did you put your baby to sleep?

Annotated Bibliography

Maximizing the chances of Safe Infant Sleep in the Solitary and Cosleeping (Specifically, Bed-sharing) Contexts. Dr. James J. McKenna, U of Notre Dame. 

Emphasizes that the decision can only be made in the context of the family situation. Breastfeeding, non smokers, non obese and the surface the baby sleeps on makes a difference.

Co sleeping: yes, no, sometimes? AskDrSears.com  http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/health-concerns/sleep-problems/co-sleeping-yes-no-sometimes

A huge article with a lot of information about both research and anecdotal evidence for co sleeping. Highlights: helps regulate baby breathing and heart rate,

Co sleeping and your baby. Kids Health. http://kidshealth.org/parent/general/sleep/cosleeping.html

Overview of advantages and disadvantages of co sleeping

Great advice from Louis C.K.

Should you give your kids whatever they want so that they won't feel left out or weird? Louis C.K says no.  Here's a great five minute video of him explaining how he works towards making him children into the best possible adults.

http://www.upworthy.com/the-hilarious-and-kinda-dark-way-bruce-springsteen-touched-a-tough-father?c=ufb1

I love how he wants to craft his daughters into full functioning, feeling, and thoughtful adults who know how to cope with not getting what they want. 

I understand that as a parent it is often easier to give your kids what they want so that they will be 'happy' or quit bothering you. Where do you draw the line? Where is the line between giving your kids a gift of love versus spoiling or overindulging them?

ALSO: When do you think it is okay to give your child a phone?

Mama Monday: ABA and Autism by Sarah

So picture this. Your husband is holed up in the man-cave like converted garage playing an online role playing game, your daughter is sleeping soundly in her crib, you’re eating steak and sweet potatoes by yourself at the kitchen table wondering what you’re going to do with yourself this evening, and your best friend asks you to be a guest blogger on her baby-making blog. Well why not? Sure!

At first I was overwhelmed with, “What would I even talk about?” “She looks like she’s eventually going to make her way through every parenting topic out there”, etc. Then I knew what I would blog about. I would blog about what I know. And what I know is behavior.  I am a Board Certified Behavior Analyst.  Which means I have a Masters of Education in Special Education, a Post-Graduate Certificate in Applied Behavior Analysis and over 1500 supervised hours of conducting ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) Therapy to children.  On top of that I was a Behavior Intervention Teacher for a school district for 7 years.  So I’ll talk about that.

Probably the only people who have heard of ABA Therapy are those who know and love someone with autism.  Currently it is the only approved therapy for those with autism by the American Academy of Pediatrics, it is the only therapy with scientifically valid proof that it works for those with autism. Here's a long list debunking other therapies I hadn’t even heard of!). 31 one states require private insurance companies to cover it. Not chelation therapy. Not dolphin therapy. Not hyperbaric chamber therapy.  Not special diets, etc.  ABA Therapy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_behavior_analysis  - look at just their list of studies under the heading ‘efficacy in autism’).  

In hyperbaric chamber therapy, they increase the amount of oxygen in the brain of the patient to stimulate the creation of new blood vessels in the brain. Mmmkay...

Photo from here.

What’s horrible is the kids that have actually died, or been hospitalized by these unscientific treatments. At best it’s wasting time and money that could be better spent elsewhere, wasting valuable time a child has to learn, grow and overcome their disability.  Autism Speaks did an informal survey of parents asking them which therapies worked best for their child and only Speech and Occupational Therapies were ranked higher than ABA.

Even RDI (Relationship Development Intervention) which is an up and coming popular parent choice has yet to be studied by someone other than the one guy who created the program and has the sole financial stake in people buying his program. How do people suddenly think , “Oh I definitely trust this program that hasn’t been studied yet except one time in an unscientific way by the one guy who gains a profit by proving that it works!”

I guess the same way people still out there believe that vaccines cause autism despite study after study proving this false.  Another study came out just this year looking at over 10 years of data, over 1,000 children and found no correlation. which seconds a previous study in 2004 also showing autism not caused by vaccines. Seriously, why do people believe a Playboy Bunny over an actual scientist? The man who started this whole myth conducted an unethical study on TWELVE kids in 1998 lost his license to practice and his paper has been redacted from all published journals.  Lo and behold he had a patent related to a new MMR vaccine that he would thus be rewarded handsomely if the old MMR vaccine was somehow proved to be ineffective – or better yet, dangerous!! And people believe this crap? For a really cool graphic showing # of deaths to certain diseases pre-vaccine era and post vaccines go here.

Why should the average person care about autism? With 1 in 88 children being diagnosed with autism – this is important information for everyone.  A study conducted in 2006 found that it costs society $3.2 million to care for an individual with autism over his or her lifetime and that it costs society an estimated $35 billion EACH YEAR to care for all individuals with autism. Your health insurance premiums could go up 1-3% just because of the rising cost of providing coverage to the rising number of people with autism.

SAFETY ALERT - no coats in car seats

This will be a short one. I just read an article that warned parents against putting the baby into a car seat with a fluffy coat on. Apparently, it can be dangerous. Please be careful with your little ones! If you know of any other common practices that are dangerous, please let me know.

Annotated Bibliography
Coats and Car Seats: A lethal combination? Keren Perles.http://www.education.com/magazine/article/coats-car-seats/

Don't strap your kid into the car seat with a coat on. The coat interferes with the car seats functioning.

Free books for kids!

I will definitely post about the importance of child literacy and reading to your kids in the future. For now I just want to bring this fabulous event to you attention:

http://blog.hpb.com/hpb-blog/2013/11/13/booksgiving-day-free-childrens-book-for-kids-who-come-to-sto.html

Yes! A free book for every child. Go and get them!

Carry Animal

So, as you may have seen in the previous blog, I just read a great book that was mostly about diet from conception through nursing. It had a lot of great info but one of the things that really caught my attention was a breakdown of the different kinds of mammal parenting styles: cache, nesting, following, and carry. By looking at the competence of the offspring and the composition of the milk produced by the mother.

I have several friends who call their babies 'little monkeys'. That is actually inaccurate. They are little apes, y'all.

Bonobo baby with mom Kiri. Photo credit: Laura Horn, Memphis Zoo.

According to the research, the babies of animals that are meant to be left alone for long periods of time (cache or nesting mammals) are much more competent at birth. Those babies can keep themselves warm, can move around on their own some, and are natural hiders. The milk of their mothers is very rich and fatty and can keep them full and happy for the whole day, while mom is away hunting or scavenging. That milk takes more energy to produce.

Carry animals, on the other hand, have babies who are totally helpless. They don't have thick fur or fat deposits to keep them warm. They don't know how to hide. They can't control their movements well. They are basically big needy sacks of flesh. The milk of the mother is less rich, less filling, and has much less fat. The babies need the mother to be RIGHT THERE all the time keeping them warm, safe, and fed.

Which one of those sounds like a human? :D I'm going to go with the useless crying flesh bag. No offense, human babies.  I feel like this is really great evidence FOR attachment parenting, against cry it out, and for some degree of co-sleeping. I am interested to hear rebuttals, though.

The reason WHY human babies are so helpless is also one of the reasons why our species has done so exceedingly well: the brain. Competent, independent animals babies are born with their brains pretty much totally developed. Human babies are born with such undeveloped brains that the first three months of life is often referred to as the 'fourth tri-mester'. I'd love to get into more detail about that, as well!

If the human baby was born with a more developed brain, its little head would not fit out of the birth canal. We would have to evolve bigger vaginas!

So human babies are born very immature, developing, and helpless. If they don't get physical contact they will actually die. They need loving touch to feel secure and appropriately socially bonded. There are LOADS of important, feel good hormones that are released by touch. The baby needs to feel safe, secure, and protected because it has no way to protect itself and no way to know that it is safe without you. Amazing.

If a baby is left in distress its brain releases cortisol. Cortisol is a strange hormone. It is great in appropriate doses at the right time in development. Cortisol is crucial in fetal lung development. It has a lot of important functions in the human body BUT in large doses it damages neurotransmitters, stifles growth, and can cause permanent brain damage. A stressed out baby is a baby possibly causes brain damage to itself.  We gotta help baby feel safe and secure by making sure a caretaker is with baby as much as possible. In the wild, that baby would be carried around nonstop for the first many months. I hope I am a carry mom and keep my little ape safe and happy!

Annotated Bibliography

Real Food for Mother and Baby: The Fertility Diet, Eating for Two, and Baby's First Foods. Nina Planck. 2009. 

An overview of good eating choices from fertility on.  This break summarizes the evidence that humans are carry animals and therefore should be nursing and carrying their babies as much as possible until the baby self weans.

Why newborn babies can't walk. Lin Edwards. http://phys.org/news180340234.html 18 Dec 2009. 

Human newborns can't walk because the time it takes an animal to start to walk is related to how it walks (heels or toes) and the complexity of the brain in relation to the gestation period.  Human beings fit perfectly into the model with other animals when these things are compared. (I love how animal we are!)

Science Says: excessive crying could be harmful. 

http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/health-concerns/fussy-baby/science-says-excessive-crying-could-be-harmful

This goes over in great detail the problems with excessive crying. 

Something to look forward to...

So, I've gotten a little flack about speaking with authority over parenting when I am not, in fact, a parent. My goal is to inform myself and to create a resource for other parents. Your kids will create the world my kids will live in so I am only benefited by helping to spread good science-based  information to other parents.  I want to give my kids the best world I can.

Anyway, to add some more perspectives into this experience, to further my pursuit of knowledge, and to gain a little ethos (always a good thing) I'll be inviting some guest MOM bloggers to tell it like it really is on what I will be calling 'Mom Monday'. So you can look forward to reading real moms balancing my theoretical blogs.

If you are an actual parent and you have something you'd like to blog about, please feel free to email me. I'm really wanted to build a resource here that I can depend on when I'm in the trenches and, like I said before, that other parents can consult if they want a little advice.

My goal is to take BIG HEAVY information and to break it down into manageable, accessible chunks that give the heart of the information so that when life is crazy I don't have to spend hours researching.

I am so looking forward to Mom Mondays and hope you are, too. :)

Book Review - Real Food for Mother and Baby: The Fertility Diet, Eating for Two, and Baby's First Foods

When a mother you know who is gorgeous and healthy and smart with a gorgeous and healthy baby recommends a book to you you definitely read it. This is why I read real food for mother and baby by Nina Planck.

First of all in general I want to say that I really enjoyed the book because Nina has a very interesting voice. The way she presents her information is approachable, accessible, and informative. She uses a lot of science, which I love, but made it accessible, which is great, and she gave a lot of tips on how to specifically prepare for different parts of the baby creating process, which as you guys probably know by now that is something I am super into. I especially liked how she went through the different stages of development told which kinds of vitamins and minerals the baby will be using at each step in the pregnancy.

So, in general, Nina's philosophy on food is to eat when she calls 'real food', eating food that has been around in human evolution for a long time. Now, she's not totally paleo but the overall idea is at the longer humans have been eating a kind of food, the better it is for you. Nina is completely against processed foods and she is against refined sugar but it notes that even she can't resist it sometimes. One thing that I really liked about her approach is that she gives the information with some science to back it up and explains why she would recommends it but she even admitted she exercises all these things with some flexibility and moderation. She gives some fun examples of times when she breaks her own rules because its what she wants to do because it suits the situation that she's in.

I would recommend this book. It starts by giving you a general overview of conception diets and foods that have long been considered appropriate for potential mothers across many cultures. I really like her look back in history and anthropology at I think it's very interesting to learn about the diet of people in cultures around the world. I love the connection that she finds in cultures on opposite sides of the world when it comes to newlywed women who are expected to conceive soon.

I think that people who are vegan might not enjoy this book because Nina is definitely against a vegan diet and is a former vegan herself. She does over a lot of vitamins and nutrients that cannot be found naturally in a vegan diet and since she is a big advocate of natural vitamins, natural minerals, and natural eating she really cannot advocate a vegan diet because it requires a lot of supplements. However she does admit that many mothers are very nauseous when they are pregnant and supplements might be necessary because they can't keep food down anyway.

I also really enjoyed the section where she looked at how humans compare to other similar animals and how some of her opinions are backed up by biological research on other similar animals. I specially enjoy her section explaining how we should be nursing and caring for baby based on the fact that we are carrying animals not nesting animals. I thought that this is very interesting and helpful and will definitely inform some of my future decisions when it comes to how I will take care of my baby. Basically when you look at the level of competency of a newborn baby and you look at the composition of milk it is like that of other carrying animals not like that of nesting animal. I want to write a blog on this so I will leave it at that because I think the topic is well worth exploring.

I didn't agree with everything that she had to say, there are some risks said she takes that I don't think I would be willing to take (like raw milk and some alcohol consumption) but, on the whole, she gave really great advice. Again, I really respect the fact that she presented her information and says this what I have found but  I have broken my own rules and you have to do the best you can with your resources and your family.

A disclaimer: I'm not trying to tell you how to raise your child. I promise. :P

Hello readers,


There has been some feedback to me lately that it seems that I am trying to tell people what to do. I'm not an expert on child development. I'm a linguist and a curious person.  Above all, this blog is a resource for future me who is tired and frustrated and hormonal. I'm taking research and putting it into manageable pieces so it is accessible to me when I need it.


I'm not about forcing other people to make the same choices I make. I don't know you or your baby. I don't know your struggle. I don't know how your kid reacts to anything. I just want to make information available to you and to myself, which I do here, and then you can make whatever decision you feel is best for your situation.  


For example, I know, through research, that religion lowers suicide rates and increases lifetime hope and happiness but I'm still raising my kids in an atheist household. On paper, I'm making a poor choice but it's my choice to make. I think it's the same. Other parents have to make the choices they want to make and then their kids will live with those consequences, good and bad. The only thing that bothers me is when parents don't seem to realize that their actions and choices do have long term consequences. I just want to empower people with information so they can make thoughtful choices.


Science is powerful and I love it but it's not always going to work every time. Science is about averages. Science is about what usually happens. Science is about observing.  Every person on the planet is different and, even though there are averages and usuals, there are also outliers.  There is no way I can know if what I post here is going to apply to your situation or your child. This is just the best information I can find about each topic, based on scientific research.  Try it out and, if it doesn't work for you, try something else.

I know you love your child. How do I know? You are here reading this, trying to get more information on how you can be a better parent. Make the decisions that work for you and your family. All I ask is that you give science a real fighting chance because, chances are, your baby is going to benefit from scientific research.

Love yourself. Love your baby. Forgive your mistakes. Equip yourself with knowledge. Do the best you can. Keep it up.

Kids' behavior: Expectations and reality

I just read a very interesting article that claims that sugar DOES NOT make kids more hyperactive. It is the parents' expectations and perceptions that make it seem so.  They references a bunch of research that had been done but the one that really struck me showed that parents who THOUGHT their kids had had sugar rated their child's behavior as much more hyper than parents who thought their kids had had a sugar free drink.  None of the kids had been given any sugar. The extra hyperness was all in the minds of the parents!

No research has been conducted on whether or not swelling up and 

turning violet because of experimental bubble gum is perception or reality.

Pic from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Here is the article.

Excellent pregnancy diet chart from Oz

This is a really useful pregnancy diet chart from Australia. I am putting it here for future reference. It has long explanations as well as a handy color coded chart of does and don'ts!

http://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/_Documents/consumer_pdf/pregnancy-brochure.pdf

Giving "mom" advice

I have to start this blog with a huge THANK YOU to a dear reader and friend, Fiona, from Australia for a safety warning she gave me.  I had posted on my Facebook that I have started eating liverwurst to increase my vitamin a and b-12 because a great book I'm reading recommends a small amount of liver as part of a conception / pregnancy diet. She showed me an article that warned against consuming deli meats/smoked meats when pregnant because of the risk of listeria, which can cause a miscarriage. Wow. Thank you for that advice!

How can something so delicious be bad???

Pic from here.

The interesting thing was the way she framed the advice. She was very careful to hedge the info with clarifications that she wasn't judging or preaching or anything like that but that she hoped I would read the information she had.  I TOTALLY get why she hedged it like that, too. People get absolutely crazy when it comes to advice about their kids.

Last year I was sending very helpful science-backed advice to my cousin, who had just had a baby, when I noticed her making what appeared to be bad choices. One that really stuck out to me was she would leave my one month old cousin in front of a movie for extended periods of time. As a linguist, I know that screen time for an infant can lead to speech delays so I told her so and sent her an article to read. She flipped out at me and it wasn't long after that that we stopped speaking. We still don't speak to this day. She absolutely could not STAND me sending her information from experts giving her any advice about how she was raising her child.

I get that I can't really understand what it's like to be a mother yet and to have all that pressure and all those opinions thrown on me and all that guilt and worry. I get that I can't fathom how the hormones will change me and how I will be tired and worried and stressed. I just hope that I am NEVER in a place in which people are actually afraid to share valuable scientific knowledge with me and to warn me when I'm possibly harming my child. I crave advice, especially when it is based in science, and hope that I always am open to it.

I SO appreciate that my friend was careful to present the information in this way that, even if I were being sensitive, I would be likely to receive the information that could protect me and the baby.

How about you? Are or were you sensitive to advice about your kids? Have you experienced negative feedback from a new mom like I did? Am I definitely going to turn into a crazy person who won't listen to peoples' advice when I have a baby?

Science of baby bonding

This is a topic I absolutely adore: the physiology of love.

Love is considered a sacred thing, by spiritual and nonspiritual people alike. Love is considered special, untouchable, divine.

However, when you actually study the science of love, you find that love is another system in a well-oiled machine. Love isn't sacred, divine, spiritual, or special. Love is just another series of chemical interactions we have evolved as human animals. This includes romantic partner love AND parent child love. :D

Come on baby... mommy needs another dose of oxytocin...

Photo from here.

The most important chemical for human bonding is oxytocin. It activates the reward centers of the brain and makes you feel relaxed and happy, it reduces stress and increases trust. It makes you feel awesome. It's the chemical that is released during orgasm that makes you bond with your partner. It's also released in a high concentration during child birth, when you lactate, and when you gaze into your baby's eyes.

Babies are basically bundles of manipulative chemicals. It's awesome. Oxytocin is released from child to parent through touch. That is why it is so important that all caretakers of the baby get lots of baby cuddling in. Babies need to be loved and hugged and cuddles and snuggled. Skin to skin contact is so important to bonding, for baby and caretaker. Anyone who should be bonded to the baby should have lots of skin to skin cuddling with the baby. This literally creates a physiological bond!

Babies release more than oxytocin. There are other very handy pheromones and hormones being released to keep caretakers interested in caring for the baby.

Vasopressin is an interesting hormone that mostly effects men. A pregnant mate causes men to release this hormone and it causes men to feel more loyal, closer, and more protective of their mate. It also helps men feel an attachment to the woman's offspring. How cool! Some people call it the anti-testosterone because it decreases aggression.

Have you ever loved someone so much that when you saw them you were completely swept away with feelings of bliss? Those are probably opioids being released! This is an awesome pleasure hormone that your body releases to reward you for building close family relationships. They are specifically related to mating and parent child relationships. Cuddling, nurturing, and feeding the baby naturally create opioids in parents and children. One thing I thought was REALLY interesting is that you can become tolerant to opioids BUT that our old friend oxytocin stops you from becoming tolerant.

SO, in summary, your baby is a sack of chemicals, and so are you. A lot of beautiful, wonderful chemicals are coming off that baby and if you are touching the baby, you get dose with the hormones. The more you love your baby, the more love you will feel for your baby, and the more you will love your baby. Love, cuddle, hug, snuggle, and feed your baby as much as you can!

Annotated Bibliography

The Chemistry of Attachment. Linda D Palmer.  http://www.attachmentparenting.org/support/articles/artchemistry.php 2002

This is an excellent article breaking down the specific chemicals involved in bonding and explaining how they work.

The new science of mother-baby bonding. Patty Onderko. http://www.parenting.com/article/the-new-science-of-mother-baby-bonding.

Mother-child bonding gives long term benefits to baby. Attachment parenting prevents diseases, increases immunity, boosts IQ. Nipple stimulation from breastfeeding releases oxytocin. Oxytocin activates the reward center of your brain. Babies also release pheromones that cause mothers to bond with baby, in fact, mothers can distinguish their baby's smell from all other babies. Your own baby's smile also triggers brain reward center.

New Research proves mothers who do this bond better with their children. Mercola.com. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/07/03/is-breast-milk-the-key-to-motherbaby-bonding.aspx. 03 Jul 11

Breastfeeding increases the production of oxytocin, the bonding chemical. Breastfeeding mothers have stronger brain responses when they hear their baby cry than mothers who feed formula.

Why do people people want to eat babies? Eoin O'Carroll.  http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0923/Why-do-people-want-to-eat-babies-Scientists-explain. 23 Sept 13

Babies release a pheromone that makes people hungry. The theory is that hungry moms take better care of themselves and are able to better provide for the baby.

Men and oxytocin, creating an attachment to nurture your newborn baby. What to Expect. 30 May 13. http://www.whattoexpect.com/blogs/daddydazemycoworkersweardiapers/men-and-oxytocin-creating-an-attachment-to-nurture-your-newborn-baby
Oxytocin also works on men.

Mother-baby bond: the biology of love. The Visual MD.  ttp://www.thevisualmd.com/health_centers/child_health/mother-baby_bond_the_biology_of_love/mother_baby_bond_the_biology_of_love

Reinforces the significance of bonding with baby.