Baring your breasts in public

     No, I'm not talking about the new "Girls Gone Wild" episode.  Rather, I'm referring to those breasts charged with carrying milk.  That's right . . . the topic is breastfeeding.

     Breastfeeding in public has hit the headlines again, with a mother being kicked off of a city bus for nursing her child.  In the United States of America, where the youth can walk around with pants down to their knees and there are underwear ads on billboards at every other block, mothers are still condemned for daring to feed their children outside of the home, a restroom, or a dressing room.

     And those same mothers are constantly bombarded with conflicting messages.  Doctors and nurses constantly tell us that "breast milk is best," yet if our babies don't latch on correctly right away, they shove formula from their sponsors at us.  At the same time, mothers who do breastfeed successively often face family members who are less than supportive.  Those of us lucky enough to have encouragement at home then face the big, cruel world where we are at least occasionally going to run into an individual who questions our right to feed our child in public.

     Those who express their disgust outright don't bother me.  I'm aware of my (and my children's) rights, and I simply ignore people who give me dirty looks or dare to say something when I am nursing my baby.  You know who really annoys me?  The individuals who act like they are all for breastfeeding in public and then say something like, "Well, as long as you cover up."  You've obviously never tried to nurse a fidgety baby or even a well-behaved one in 100 degree heat.

     I've breastfed three babies, and all were very different eaters.  My first got down to business, was done in twenty minutes, and didn't want to eat again for 4-6 hours.  Because of that time frame, I didn't have to nurse her very often in public, and when I did, she would happily eat with a blanket over her head.

    My second, a boy, wanted to eat every one-and-a-half hours.  No, I am not exaggerating.  For the first three months of his life, that's how often I nursed.  Needless to say, with my oldest enrolled in preschool and other activities, that meant I was breastfeeding in public.  A LOT.  Luckily, he would also happily chow down under a blanket, and I didn't have too many people look askance in my direction.

     Enter our darling third.  From the get-go, she needed to be on the move, even when eating.  It was almost as if she got bored easily, and her attention span only allowed her to nurse from one side in a feeding.  This meant she would eat for about 10-15 minutes, take a 15-20 minute break, and then want to eat from the other breast.  Needless to say, it took forever to feed her.  Even when she started wanting to nurse from both sides in a single feeding, her need to know everything that was going on around her kept me from being able to cover her up.  I tried numerous times to use a blanket or nursing cover.  She would arch her little back and scream bloody murder, refusing to latch on.  I had to make a decision to let my child starve or bare my breasts to the world.

     She is now five months old, and sometimes we have feeding options.  I've been known to nurse in the car . . . and no, I don't get in the back seat.  I'm in my own vehicle, and if you look into my car and don't like what you see, you are free to look the other way.  I've also sat in a corner and used the stroller to "block the view", so to speak.  But one time, when it was 97 degrees, and we were at Kings Dominion, I had no choice but to sit in the open, pull up my shirt, and feed my child.  I was so pleasantly surprised when there were no dirty looks, and a few people even still looked me in the eye!

     So, when you see a mother nursing in public, please know that most of us don't want to be showing off our breasts, either.  And the fact of the matter is, once the baby has latched on, there isn't much to see.  Please don't act like I'm causing a problem for you because now you have to "explain something" to your own children.  Adults are the ones who want to make it into a sexual thing.  Children are naturally curious, and seeing someone breastfeeding is the perfect opportunity to talk about how amazing it is that the female body is able to provide for infants in that way.  My older children's friends have asked questions, and it has been my privilege to have a little conversation with both them and their parents about it.

     Also, if you are a breastfeeding mother, please don't feel that everyone out there is against you.  When I was sitting outside the farmer's market, waiting on my mother and children, and nursing YET AGAIN, I saw an elderly woman headed my way, looking at me pretty intently.  I braced myself for another derogatory comment or lecture.  Instead, she made eye contact, smiled, and gave me a thumb's up.  That was the best endorsement I could have received.

Organized couponing and spousal support

Everyone knows someone who has jumped on the couponing bandwagon lately.  As the cost of everything from milk to gas continues to rise, we are all trying to find ways to save and cut corners.  Three months ago, a friend convinced me to give couponing a try.

I'm not talking about that extreme couponing you see on TV.  Really, who needs 138 boxes of couscous?  (Unless you are going to donate it to the local food bank, which is a great way to help those in your community who are less-fortunate.)  I wanted a way to get stuff our family actually likes at a lower cost so that my husband wasn't having the "money melt-down" every week.

With baby number three, my immediate concern was saving on diapers and wipes.  Then, my friend happened to mention all the other stuff she was getting for free or under $1.00 . . . and the things were items we actually used, like milk, bread, cereal, and pasta.  I decided to give it a try.

I guess the media is calling this new technique "organized couponing."  It is in between the extreme of getting 127 free yogurts and those people who only cut out coupons for items they need that week.  My process calls for getting an extra copy of the Sunday paper and using online sources to compile lists and print coupons.  Also, this strategy asks you to stock up when there is a good sale rather than just buying things as you go.

Like any project I tackle, I dove in head-first and full-force.  I thought I needed to utilize every grocery store in our area, as well as Rite-Aid, Walgreens, CVS, and Target.  If you like your sanity, DO NOT start out this way.  Pick one or two stores, learn their couponing pros and cons, and see how those places work for you before adding any others.  I used to shop exclusively at Giant.  Now, I go to Harris Teeter and Kroger and rarely have to enter a pharmacy.  While I do still visit Target on occasion (I just love going in there), I have combined our shopping into one day a week rather than several.  For a mother of three kids, that's a blessing in time and money savings!

As I was learning the ropes, I sat down every evening to pore over lists and clip coupons.  It is no exaggeration to say that my husband was not very supportive in the beginning.  He was having to do more of the night-time chores so that I could get my coupons ready.  Also, I told him that at first, this was going to be more cost out-of-pocket because we had to start our stockpile.  His lack of enthusiasm was like a cold water shower for me.  My first time out, I called him, ecstatic because I saved 38% on our grocery bill.  His response was fairly noncommittal.

I stuck with it any way.  Around Week 4, I realized I must be making a difference in our budget because he wasn't moping around the house, wondering how he was going to pay bills that week.  It took him until Week 6 to admit that the whole thing really was working.  Now he thanks me for all the time and energy I put into couponing.  When I come home with seven bottles of detergent, he smiles and says, "Must have been a great sale!"  He also know we won't have to buy any more for three to four months.  Even more exciting . . . we can occasionally go out to dinner again or buy something special for the kids.

If you are wondering how to get started, I suggest finding an online source that compiles all the sales for you week to week.  This will save a huge amount of time for you.  Many people start with couponmom.com because it was the first.  While she includes some great tips, the layout of this site didn't really work for me.  My absolute favorite is southersavers.com.  Jenny, the woman who runs this, works diligently to provide people with a site that is user-friendly while saving you the most money possible.  At first, although I loved the site, I was disappointed because my favorite grocery store wasn't covered.  I decided to switch stores for awhile and see how my shopping went.  I've been thrilled and haven't missed my old store at all.

There are two other sites I use occasionally - dealseekingmom.com and hip2save.com .  I like checking these to make sure I haven't missed out on anything major.  Also, all of these sites offer great ways to contribute to various charities.  At the very least, you can get free groceries and donate them to the food bank.  All of these sites are also wonderful for finding explanations about various places on the web where you can get even more savings (swagbucks.com, savingstar.com, and upromise.com, just to name a few.)

While my couponing does take time out of my day (wouldn't it be nice if we could just snap our fingers and save?), it definitely has been worth it for our growing family.  I hope that you can take some of the above suggestions and start saving for you and yours, as well!

Sleeping . . . a dream come true

Ahh, sleep.  The dream sought after by many a parent of a newborn.  It is often an elusive goal, especially if you have more than one child in the house.  If you are like us, we thought we were getting sleep, but we were really just deluding ourselves.

You see, our first child spoiled us rotten.  She slept through the night at eight weeks old.  And I don't mean five to six hours at a stretch.  She slept for ten to eleven hours, woke up, nursed, and slept for another hour or two.  Then she took a three hour nap in the afternoon.  Before you rub your sleep-deprived eyes and decide to hate me . . . it wasn't like that with the other two.

Our second, a boy, was a different ball game.  First of all, he had reflux.  Once I figured that out and placed him in either his swing or car seat to sleep, he slept better, but nothing like oldest.  Also, you may have noticed if you have a boy and all your friends have girls . . . they want to eat more often.  Okay, a lot more often.  You may think they don't do this until they are teenagers, but boys are born voracious eaters and need a constant influx of calories.  For me, that meant nursing every hour and a half during the day and about every three hours during the night.  Even when I felt my body couldn't keep up anymore and started supplementing him with formula, he still needed to eat more often than his sister.  It wasn't until our son was eight  months old that he slept through the night, and then it was a seven to eight hour stretch.  He has never done the marathon sleep that his sister did, and even at almost-five-years-old, he does not require the same amount of sleep as his older sister.

Enter baby number three.  You'd think she might be something like one of the other two when it comes to sleep, but no such luck.  Oh, she suckered us in the beginning.  Around six weeks, she started sleeping five to six hours at a stretch, and she didn't want to nurse as often as her brother.  At three months, that all changed.  She started waking up every two hours and refused to go back to sleep unless I fed her.  Needless to say, I usually fell asleep while breastfeeding, and the baby ended up staying with me.  (I know I just gave all the pediatricians out there heart failure, because co-sleeping is currently a big no-no.  Those of us who live in reality know that you do whatever is necessary to survive with an infant.)

So, the baby and I slept together, and I naively thought that I was actually getting enough sleep.  You know that saying "slept like a baby?"  Total misnomer.  She fidgeted constantly, and I would wake up at the smallest twitch, terrified that she would be up again and we would have to start the whole process over.

Time for the four-month-old check-up.  Our pediatrician is actually a woman with whom I went to college (we lived in the same dorm our first year and were in some of the same science classes.)  Because of our history, I have an easy time talking to her, and I made up my mind to bare my soul and let her know I was at my wits' end.  Before I could launch into my saga, she asked, "So where is the baby sleeping?"  My almost-hysterical laugh said it all.  She said my darling child had figured out the "game" and that she definitely did not need to be eating that often.  Our doctor recommended immediate sleep training using the Ferber method, and she said it would only take two nights to get our little one on a schedule.

Many people are either unaware of the Ferber method or only understand it as "that guy who wants you just to let your baby scream until they finally exhaust themselves and surrender to sleep."  I highly recommend that those individuals read up on what Ferber actually believes.  The basics are that you establish a bedtime routine (whether that's bath, book, snuggling . . . that part is up to you), then you place your child in their crib and leave their room.  If they fuss or cry, you allow them to do so, starting at fifteen minute intervals.  After fifteen minutes, you check on them but DO NOT pick them up, leave, and start the process over.  Each night you gradually extend the time you are gone until the child learns to soothe him or herself to sleep.

So, I steeled myself to endure a couple of nights of endless crying.  I mentally focused on the (hopefully) positive outcome of all of us getting a good night's sleep.  I talked my husband through the process, warning him that no matter how tired he may be at 2:30 AM, he was NOT, under any circumstances, to pick her up and allow her to sleep in his arms.  At 7PM, I began the ritual of bathing and one last feeding.  Half an hour later, I laid my darling upstairs in her crib, wound her mobile, and said,"Nighty-nite, Momma loves you, sweet dreams, and God bless."  I went downstairs, and three minutes later, the wails began.

I had previously decided that I couldn't handle fifteen minutes of screaming.  I set the timer for ten minutes and forced myself to wait it out.  She bawled the entire time, and I started to doubt the wisdom of this process.  The timer went off, I trudged up the stairs, rubbed her little face, and started my mantra of sayings again.  This time, the cries started before I even left the room.  Back to the kitchen timer, where another ten minutes was set.

With thirty seconds left on the timer, I prepared to go through the soothing process again, steeling myself against picking up my child.  I had one foot on the bottom stair when, miraculously, the sobs stopped.  I waited awhile, then went and peeked in the crib, where I saw a little cherub snoozing away.  She slept until 6 AM the following morning.

The next night, we went through the pre-crib routine.  This time, when I put her in her bed, she smiled at me, her eyes already blinking heavily.  I left the room and she never made a peep.  This time, she slept for twelve hours, and that 's pretty much been her pattern ever since.  She rarely fusses when I lay her down, and she's actually wanting to go to bed earlier and earlier.  Most nights she is asleep by 6:30 PM, and she stays that way for twelve to thirteen hours.  What a relief!  She will occasionally wake up in the night, but she usually is back asleep within five to ten minutes.

I'm functioning much better as a mother now that I'm back to slumbering seven to eight hours again.  If we could just get my husband to go to bed rather than playing on the computer or falling asleep in front of the TV, maybe we could banish exhaustion-induced grumpiness around here altogether . . . :)