Priorities

[ailbhe]

I am sick. Linnea was sick. Rob is sick. Rob and I didn't even notice we were sick until Linnea got better.

It takes at most 6 hours to visit friends in Dublin by plane, door to door. It takes at least 8, sometimes 10, by train and ferry. But it's easier by train and ferry because Linnea prefers it. It's also more eco-friendly and it may be cheaper.

The most important thing about a restaurant is whether they allow children to wander around in the lobby or similar between courses. Oh, and whether they accommodate dairy-free food.

Seeing pregnant women buying baby formula is painful, but I am too much of a coward to come up with something to say to them, and I can't think of anything to sayanyway. Would you change your parenting decisions based on something a random stranger said to you when you were shopping 7 months pregnant with varicose veins and a desperate need to pee? the best i've come up with is wandering off saying to my companion "I'm glad I never had to get up in the night to mess with bottles," but frankly that's weak.

Ethical shopping pales when I see a fantastic piece of slave-manufactured plastic in Linnea's hands in a shop, as she demonstrated a previously unknown skill - colour identification, for example, or counting. I usually manage not to buy the thing, but it's a lot harder than it used to be.

I am much, much angrier about certain stated opinions, and much, much stricter about both foul language and cigarette smoke. It's not just me it might offend now. It's a child who doesn't even understand what's going on and might absorb it anyway. I have a horrible feeling she said "shit" when she dropped a tub of bicarb the other day.

Comments

[datagoddess.livejournal.com]

Please, please, don't say anything to women you see buying formula unless you know why she is. I was a formula baby because the medication my mom took to prevent seisures went through milk, which she discovered when no one told her not to breastfeed my brother. He was getting drugged daily, and she, being 18 and a new mom, had no idea that a baby sleeping 18 hours a day was a bad thing. His doctor about lost it at his one month check up. My mom felt guilty for years that not only could she not breastfeed us, but she accidently drugged my brother for amonth.

And if she said "shit" in context, be glad she knows when to use it properly :-)

[ailbhe]

18 hours isn't that long - at least, 16h+ is normal, so 18 hours doesn't seem like that much longer. Yes, it's too long, but there's no reason a new mom should notice.

And I never do say anything. It's just painful when a pregnant woman is obviously not going to try to breastfeed. Many of them, in fact, are being bought the whole formula-feeding kit by their own mothers - bottles, steriliser, formula. That's sad.

[artela.livejournal.com]

Probably best not to say anything on the formula thing - you might well upset someone like my sister who desperately tried to breast feed but physically couldn't :-(

[ailbhe]

Before she had her first child? That's what's so sad - it's ok watching people with babies buy formula, because (a) it's totally too late to help them if they're already choosing it, and (b) a good 2% of them will have a physical reason for being unable to breastfeed, and (c) a further 30% of them will have been given appalling advice often including totally erroneous information, and had their breastfeeding relationship sabotaged by ill-informed healthcare professionals. But watching people who haven't even been given a chance to try yet - that's sad.

[artela.livejournal.com]

So, you're guaranteeing that every "new mother" you're seeing buying the stuff is having their first child? There's no possibility that they've left an existing child/baby with a relative to make it easier to go shopping? At least when my sister had her second child she was prepared for the fact that she wouldn't be able to breastfeed. Judging others without all the facts isn't a nice thing to do.

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

I was saddened to see that a 5 week pregnant lj friend of mine has bought some bottles. I bought a breast pump, breast pads, nursing bras etc when pregnant each time. Though, not a pump the first time as I couldn't bring myself to use one & had no feeding support. A totally different experience the second time around.

Andy is sure that he heard Kate say "fucking bum" this morning when she didn't know he was listening. It is highly probable as there are some rough children in her nursrey class who swear constantly. She's never, ever said anything like this in front of us.

[ailbhe]

I bought bottles because people told me one had to pump when one breastfed. I didn't use them until she was 8 months old. Crazy waste of money. Though the lids make good cups, I suppose.

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

I suppose you have to be careful as I actually feel guilty every time I make up a bottle (did one an hour or so ago) & feel like a bad mother when I buy formula milk. I assume Holly refusing the breast was connected to my PND & I had no support as my HV told me to stop pumping & buy formula.

[ailbhe]

I never do say anything, because there's no point in saying something to make someone feel bad - it's not going to change their minds. And I can't walk up to a stranger and say "Have you thought about maybe breastfeeding at all?" and then go into my shpiel about how when it works, it's easy and pleasant and so on, and immunity blah blah. That's not on, either where I come from or where I live.

But seeing people's own mothers set them up for failure to breastfeed... so, so sad.

(Re: Holly refusing: I personally think it's mainly down to lack of support, because you were willing to work through all the issues, as I recall, but you didn't get ANY help - yes, she refused, but with proper support from your medical professionals that could probably have been overcome).

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

It was very strange as Holly arched away for 2 days every time I tried to feed her & went bright red & screamed & screamed & screamed. I was diagnosed with PND the week after, so I wasn't in a fit state to make decisions. The HV told me to stop, so I did. If she'd encouraged me to carry on & had asked me to demonstrate a feed, I would have done.

I try not to feel guilty too much as it meant I could take the anti-depressants & I do finally feel that I'm getting better.

[sidheag.livejournal.com]

Might it make you feel better to know that it might have been absolutely nothing to do with anything you did? I have an IRL friend whose baby never latched. As far as I could see - and we were close - she did everything normally advised for such cases. She was well informed, she had a drug free home birth, she didn't jump straight in and supplement, when she did she used a syringe not bottle feeding, lots of calm trying, trying in the bath, expert advice... just didn't happen. At the next level down (in the sense of EBM being the next best thing to BF) she was lucky, and determined, and fed EBM for almost a year, but that baby just wasn't going to latch. Before I saw this, I don't think I really believed in the idea of a healthy baby who just wouldn't, but I do now.

[thereyougothen.livejournal.com]

do you know if she tried cranial osteopathy with the baby? sometimes babies won't latch and it's mechanical, even a drug free home birth can leave a baby with a "kink" for lack of a better word.

N's "kink" caused him to puke all the time, at least he latched on, but he was sorted by a CO. (Sorry for butting in, but I always find myself evangelising about cranial osteopathy in these circumstances)

[sidheag.livejournal.com]

Actually I'm not sure - I remember that she was considering it at one point, but I'm not sure whether she actually did it. Sorry!

[thereyougothen.livejournal.com]

thanks for answering. it's just that having had it work so well for us and knowing others that it works for, I go into this "every baby should see a CO whatever their problem" mode. I really do believe that it helps in many if not most cases, and that it doesn't do any harm in cases where it doesn't. well, except harm to the wallet, I suppose. and it's all really bugging me now because a friend (w/no LJ) is not taking her baby who has a lot of feeding and sleeping issues, but she goes to see one herself! gah! I despair.
as for your friend, she deserves enormous congratulations and medals for the lengths she went to for her baby, and I hope she got them!

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that. Holly would only actually feed from 1 side as well. We had several sessions at a cranial osteopathy thinking she must be having neck pain or something in that she wouldn't latch the other way, but no joy. I knew what I was doing as she is my second child & hadn't anticipated any problems, so it was very upsetting.

[pariyal.livejournal.com]

I bought one bottle the first time around because I had a list from the baby clinic and I was told that at seven months, someone would come round to check that you had everything. They never did, and I never used the bottle. When N was three and had a vocabulary test in preschool, "zuigfles" (baby bottle) was the only word she didn't know; she'd never used one or seen one used.

[biascut.livejournal.com]

Can you get a train to the ferry, then? I've not really looked into ferries because it seems like an awfully long way to Wales, but perhaps I should if you can get a train directly there.

[oldbloke.livejournal.com]

Yeh, there's trains to Holyhead. Dunno about the other ferries, but I imagine so. You can probably even through-ticket train-ferry-DART.

The eco bit of train+ferry vs plane may not be as clearcut as seems immediately obvious. I don't _know_, but I'm aware that sometimes the intuitive answer is wrong.

Re breastpumps: anybody lucky enough to have a bit more milk than they need should donate the the milk banks the SCBUs use.

[pne.livejournal.com]

Assuming they have one.

We inquired about donating to the hospital where Amy spent a week in the NICU, since Stella was producing enough for two, but they said they had given up their milk bank program because the hygiene restrictions (IIRC) on donated milk were so stringent that it had become impractical for them. Which I thought was a pity.

[rmc28]

My housemate did an OU course on the environment (I think it was this one last year. Among other things they compared car, train+ferry and plane for getting places. He told me that train+ferry is always better CO2-wise until you start travelling to the USA or Australia. He now refuses to fly anywhere in Europe, and is really enjoying planning holidays based around taking trains everywhere.

fanf & I have decided never to fly in Europe again either. It's actually faster to visit his father in France by train than by plane, and an experimental trip to the Netherlands by ferry was successful last October.

[pariyal.livejournal.com]

Seeing pregnant women buying baby formula is painful, but I am too much of a coward to come up with something to say to them, and I can't think of anything to say anyway.

Amen, sister. I was the only one in the maternity ward (both times) who even started breastfeeding; the first time I was only in there for the night and after 30 hours of labour all I wanted was to sleep, so I didn't talk to anyone, but the second time I did talk to people and most of them honestly thought their own milk wasn't good enough <boggle>.

Another rationale was that someone else could feed the kid, which I can at least understand (though I don't agree).

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

i'm skipping the breast feeding thing, to simply say that most sociological research shows that curse words do not harm children in the slightest.

see www.thisamericanlife.com, and look for the episode "Propriety". streaming free on the internet now :D

(waves to Linnea)

i hope you and rob feel better soon.

n.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Seeing pregnant women buying baby formula is painful

Agreed, but I also agree that it would be dodgy to say anything.

And for me, it's not as painful as seeing heavily pregnant women SMOKING, which really pushes my RAGE buttons.

[richtermom.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure the other day K was testing me: She said "Oh SHIT" about a dozen differnt times, and I swear she was watching me for a reaction. I gave none and she stopped.

Phew.

Now on to the next round....