Some Things About Childbirth & Beyond, Part 3.

One last thing about breastfeeding. The best book out there on the subject in my humble opinion is The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding. The section on the how-to's of nursing is so informative. I'm very glad I read this before my first guy came along.

Marching right along, I'll now talk about diapering.

We are disposable diaper users here. We are definitely fans of Huggies, but who can afford them when you have two in diapers? Not us! Great alternatives are Walmart, Safeway and Aldi. Some of my friends don't like Walmart's generic brand, but we've never had problems with them. Aldi has great generic diapers as well, but only come in sizes 3, 4, and 5. Walmart and Aldi are the cheapest and have done this family great.

I do not like Target's generic diapers. They work great for so many of my friends, but the tabs on Target diapers snap like crazy for me and my husband.

Another piece of advice in regards to disposable diapering: when in doubt, go a size up. I learned through many a' trial and error with our first that once they leak through three outfits it's time to go up a size. We would have saved at least a dozen cute onesies if I'd known this trick early on!

Now a few words on sleep.

We love to co-sleep with our babies, and find so much joy in waking with our snuggle bugs next to us. Done safely this is a great way to bond with your child, and find lots of rest without having to get yourself out of bed to attend to your child for night feedings. We still co-sleep with Ignatius, but there are ways to wean children from the family bed without much fuss. A great book about this is The No-Cry Sleep Solution which helped us with Julian when he was ready to transition.

There are many who find other ways to a peaceful night sleep that differ from co-sleeping/bed-sharing. I could list many of those ways, but I'm sure Google's search bar can do the trick for you! :) I only want to write about what we do in this regard, and to tell you that your intuition is really your best guide to deciding what is best for you and your child. Please remember, however, that whatever path you take make sure that your milk supply is in tip-top shape before you wean your little one from night nursing. This is one of the controversies of parent-led nursing which I should hope you will take into consideration.

There are really so many things I could say, but I think it all narrows down to one piece of advice that I'll pass along to you, which is something I work on every day and am no where near as good at doing as I ought to be...

Pray.

I've been thinking about how each mother is different, and every child given to her is different. How can we know we're doing what we're supposed to do with all the complexities of life? The one thing that kept coming in my brain and heart was this prayer, "God, how shall I help Your son/daughter to _____?" The blank here could be so many things: sleep better, be nourished properly, deal with his emotions, and so on into infinity. We're given the task of raising them, but as Christian parents we believe that our children are really God's children first. How special is that? How privileged are we to raise God's children, that He has a plan for them, and we were called to be instrumental in this plan from the Mind and Heart of God Himself? This is a revelation I couldn't help but share. Yes, the first thing we all need to do is pray, and the Holy Spirit will gently help us to the answers. He speaks to us so often through the quiet intuition we're given as mothers. Listen, and you'll be ready to face all kinds of challenges.

My next topic is handling your baby's personality.

Every baby is different. Some love the limelight, others shutter from crowds. My eldest son was an incredibly shy baby. He was super happy and full of personality at home, but for the most part when around more than a few people he clung to me like white on rice. Some people who, through no fault of their own, reacted to his shy ways with curious expressions and sometimes thoughtless comments. One incident in particular I remember really bothered me. Julian was almost a year, and in a crowded room was he and another very lively, bubbly, personality-plus baby. Someone in the room made all kinds of comments about how happy this other baby was, and proceeded to ask the baby's mom what her secrets were to having such a perky, lively baby. To me and my Julian there was no attention. I at the time took great offense to this. I shouldn't have, because people are naturally going to talk about the outgoing and bubbly baby. It's not like this person was insulting me directly; she was just making harmless small talk. But when you're a new mom, your mamma bear comes out in all kinds of ways. I'm way, WAY over it and now look back and laugh at how sensitive I was. I want to say, however, that quiet babies are happy babies, too. Don't sweat it if your baby's personality is not automatically attracting positive attention from everyone you meet. Take it as a compliment that you are SUCH a great mom that your baby doesn't want to be with anyone but you! :)

I can't think of any other topics as of right now, but I may continue with this series down the road if I'm inspired.

Have a wonderful rest of your Thursday! Yay for tomorrow being FRIDAY!