When I read about someone blogging about Ferberizing or Sleep Training (neglect cry-it-out) their poor little dependent being that wants nothing more than her mama’s love, and will be denied.

Just makes me want to throw up, it’s so sad.

That’s all.  I need to stop reading some blogs, but it’s like driving by a car accident – I don’t want to see the gore, but I read out of some sick sense of curiousity.

Then I get sad.  And then I hug my babies closer.

Very interesting chapter on the “entwined relationship” between a baby and her mother and father.  Again, this is from the awesome book “Our Babies, Ourselves” by Meredith F. Small.  Here’s my blog #1 and blog #2 about some of the great research and information.  Get this book… you won’t regret it!

…More remarkable, lab research has also shown that the connection between babies and parents is deeply physiological.  In one study of infant reaction to mothers, fathers, and strangers, an infant girl was brought into a lab and set in a plastic seat that was curtained off from distractions.  The baby was then approached by her mother, then her father, and then a stranger.  Chest monitors on the baby and the adults showed that the baby synchronized her heart rate to that of the mother or father when they approached, but she did not synchronize her heart rate to the stranger’s.  The data suggests that babies and their caretakers are entwined in a homeostatic relationship, with the baby clicking in with the parents to achieve some sort of balance.

(my note:  this is perhaps why co-sleeping is safer than crib sleeping, since baby synchronizes her heart with ours?  Reason #572 to have a family bed!!)

…We are convinced that a “good” interaction, mother and baby synchronize with each other from the beginning, and that the pathways may be set up in intrauterine life ready to be entrained, especially by the mothers, immediately after birth. 

Entrainment then explains why infants left alone will cry.  They are dealing with the unexpected – they are alone.  Being tiny primates, the are adapted to expect an entrainment, and physical and emotional attachment, a connection with a more mature version of their kind.  They cry out of surprise, out of confusion, out of an unconscious “knowing” that something is wrong.    … Regulatating its world by sleeping, crying, or staying quietly alert is the most powerful thing a baby can do, says Brazelton, and we should respect this ability and tend to it (emphasis mine).

(my note:  notice they do not cry to “manipulate”, that word seen all too often written by “experts” who advise a mother to ignore their baby’s basic needs and leave them to cry – to “train” them… makes ME cry!)

From all we know, every primate baby is designed to be physically attached to someone who will feed, protect, and care for it, and teach it about being human – they have been adapted over millions of years to expect nothing less.

And yet there are parents out there that believe neglecting their crying child is the right thing to do.  Somewhere in their minds and hearts, they lost that nurturing, loving connection, and I hope they will learn it before it’s too late.

We had a great time “down on the farm” (hubby’s parent’s home). After the girls got up and found their hidden eggs and baskets, we packed up for the long drive down home. Before we left, we had a quick “impromptu” photo session of the girls in their pretty little dresses:

Once we got down home, the scenery was stunning so there were lots of great photos to be had:

Then the hunt began!!  Ayla passed out from all the walking we did, so she missed the Easter Egg Hunt while she was napping.  We won’t tell her.

The boys spent most of the day at Uncle Bobby’s shooting off rifles – I think they were in HEAVEN!  Then after the sun went down, the “big kids” (pre-teens and teens) participated in our annual Flashlight Easter Egg Hunt.  It’s a riot to watch 15 flashlights wandering up and down the hills looking for hidden eggs with money or lottery tickets inside… I’m amazed no one has broken a leg yet… it gets DARK in the country! 

I hope everyone had a great holiday, and God bless you and your family… if you’re still reading, I compiled all of our pics into a SLIDESHOW, if you’d like to see!

http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/04/10/shuler_easter/

By Bill Shuler
Pastor, Capital Life Church

1.    The faith of multiplied millions throughout history rises and falls on an empty tomb.

2.    Many have tried, but no one has ever been able to disprove the Resurrection.

3.    According to Sports Illustrated, the greatest comeback of all time was Jesus of Nazareth in 33 A.D.

4.    Jesus’ disciples were willing to be beaten, imprisoned, and executed for what they witnessed.

5.    Jesus fulfilled every Old Testament prophecy foretelling the Resurrection.

6.    After His crucifixion and death, the risen Christ made numerous appearances, over 40 days, to over 500 people.

7.    The amount of evidence, and the number of witnesses, for the Resurrection would be a slam dunk in a court of law.

8.    The Resurrection proves that truth will never be subservient to death.

9.    The Resurrection told believers that God brings forth live, not mere rules and regulations.

10.  Jesus said, because I live, you will live also.

The true meaning of Easter must never be lost amidst painted eggs and rabbits. Mankind was forever changed, when the angel proclaimed, “He is not here, because He is risen.”  It has been said that if the Resurrection is false, the earth has no hope.  But if the Resurrection is true, it represents the earth’s only hope.

4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
A small splash of vanilla extract
1 large coffee mug (MicroSafe)

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly.

Pour in the milk and oil and mix well..

Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla extract, and mix again.
Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts.

The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don’t be alarmed!

Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.
EAT ! (this can serve 2 if you want to feel slightly more virtuous).

And why is this the most dangerous cake recipe in the world?
Because now we are all only 5 minutes away from chocolate cake at any time of the day or night!

The kids decorated the Easter eggs last night, and we had so much fun (and made such a mess!):

And then we made gift baskets for the grandmas, so they can have an Easter decoration made by Autumn!

We used real eggs that we had blown out:

Then picked up some pretty little bows:

Then used hot glue to affix them to each egg:

I picked up the little colorful baskets at the Dollar store, along with the moss… put a drop of hot glue on the bottom of each egg, and now they have pretty little centerpieces for their tables this holiday:

This is such an easy and fun project… it’s just that your family will have to eat lots of omelettes or scrambled eggs while you are making them!

a college freshman.  As of 10 minutes ago.

At 41.

This is scarier than… well, anything I’ve ever done in my life!  Ack!

http://mothering.com/guest_editors/quiet_place/quiet_place.html

God bless Peggy O’Mara, for articulating and researching what we already knew, that Rosin is just wrong:

In her article, Rosin describes her cursory review of the medical literature on breastfeeding to shore up her personal decision to possibly forgo it, and concludes that all the talk about the benefits of breastfeeding is just “magical thinking.” But it’s irresponsible to imply that such a brief and biased analysis of the medical literature could somehow trump the conclusions of the world’s leading health organizations and medical authorities. By now, the superiority of breastmilk to formula is axiomatic.

Peggy asks us:

This is no time to waver: Powerful economic and political forces are continually undermining breastfeeding progress. Surely, we need state and federal protections for breastfeeding—that’s a given. To achieve our national health goals, we—like our sisters around the world—also need guaranteed health care, paid family leaves, and caregiving credits. Bottle-feeding is an old-school feminist solution to inequality. The equal-rights arena of today is breastfeeding.

Read the article – it’s fantastic.

(insert ominous music).

Brett wants his temporary license.

He could’ve had it February 8, but he got in trouble, and delaying his temps two months was the hugest punishment I could come up with, being the mean mom that I am.  Killed him, I tell you.

But I asked him what the Easter Bunny should bring him this weekend, and he said, “My temps”.

… and so it will be so.

I will take him later this week to pick up his testing package and pay the fees.  I’ll have to help him study then take him down for his vision and written test.

And then it happens.  I have to give him 50 hours of my time, driving my van.  I don’t even let my husband drive.  I’m too much of a control freak.  I would’ve driven to the hospital when I was in labor but he won that battle.  I’m serious.

I’m not sure why I’m scared, he seems like he’ll be fine.

 

 

 

 

I guess I’m more scared that my first baby, my number one miracle, the little redheaded boy that I cuddled for years, is about to be driving.

*sniffle*

http://www.mothering.com/how-stats-really-stack-cosleeping-twice-safe

How the Stats Really Stack Up: Cosleeping Is Twice As Safe
By Tina Kimmel
Issue 114 September/October 2002

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the Juvenile Product Manufacturers Association (JPMA, the crib manufacturers’ lobby) recently launched a campaign to discourage parents from placing infants in adult beds or sleeping with them, based on data showing that infants have a very small risk of dying in adult beds.1,2 The CPSC implies that infants in adult beds are at greater risk than infants in cribs, but as we know, and as they know, babies also die in cribs.

What we need to do is calculate the relative riskiness of an infant sleeping in an adult bed versus a crib. We can do that by dividing a measure of danger for each situation by the prevalence, or frequency, of that situation, and then comparing them. (Oddly, the CPSC never presents relative risks.) Using government figures, we can perform a rough calculation to show that infants are more than twice as safe in adult beds as in cribs. This is aside from the many other advantages of cosleeping or bedsharing, such as increased breastfeeding and physiological regulation, the experience of having slept well, parents’ feeling of assurance that their child is well and happy, the enhanced security of psychological attachment and family togetherness, and family enjoyment.3

Let’s begin by looking closely at the CPSC data. The anti-cosleeping campaign is based on a dataset that contains the 2,178 cases of unintentional mechanical suffocation of US infants under 13 months old for the period 1980 to 1997. CPSC-authored articles about these data reflect only the small portion of deaths that occurred in adult beds.4 However, these data also have been published with summaries of the cause-of-death codes on all 2,178 cases.5 This complete dataset is further summarized in Table 1.

Of these 2,178 infant suffocation deaths, we are certain of only 139 occurring in an adult bed. For 102 of these, we know that a larger person (presumably a sleeping adult) was present, because the cause-of-death code is “overlain in a bed.” That does not tell us exactly what caused the death-that is, whether the baby died and then was lain on, or died as a result of being lain on. We can assume that the 37 deaths involving waterbeds occurred in adult beds, since few child waterbeds exist. That gives us a total of 139 infant suffocation deaths known to have occurred in adult beds in these 18 years.

The same data show that 428 infants died due to being in a crib. It is likely that there were preventable risk factors (such as using a crib in need of repair) involved in these crib-related deaths. But that doesn’t change our calculations, because the deaths did occur. Similarly, our calculations do not change due to the preventable risk factors (such as intoxication) involved in adult-bed deaths (and other overlying). Note that advocates are raising public awareness to increase the safety of both these sleeping arrangements, with the hope that all these deaths will decrease.

We can’t use the other 739 bed- or bedding-related cases in our analysis, because the place of death is not specific enough; these deaths may have occurred in a large adult bed, a single-size adult bed, a child’s bed, or a misused crib. Nor can we include the remaining 760 deaths, as we have no idea whether they took place in a sleep situation at all. We also know nothing about the presence or absence of an adult, although a nearby, aware caretaker could have prevented many of these deaths.

So for only 567 (139 plus 428) of the deaths do we know whether they took place in an adult or infant bed. Thus, from 1980 to 1997, 75 percent of the mechanical suffocation deaths of US infants with a known place of occurrence took place in cribs, while 25 percent took place in adult beds.

While it is tempting to make the observation that three times as many babies died in cribs as in adult beds, if three times as many babies were actually sleeping in cribs as in adult beds, the risk would be the same in either place. Based only on this crude death-certificate data, we do not know which is safer. We still need to know how many babies were actually in adult beds or cribs-that is, an estimate of how common cosleeping was.

To estimate cosleeping prevalence, we can turn to the CDC’s Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS).6 PRAMS has been surveying mothers of infants, usually between two and six months of age (but occasionally up to nine months), since 1988. Approximately 1,800 new mothers are sampled each year in each participating state. The sample is rigorously selected to represent essentially every birth in the state, and the response rates are high (70 to 80 percent). Most of the 100 or so PRAMS questions involve prenatal and well-baby care and stressors.

States have the option of adding their own questions and have asked about cosleeping. The basic question asked is, “How often does your new baby sleep in the same bed with you? Always; Sometimes; Never.” (Some states add “Almost always.”) PRAMS data, therefore, can be used to ascertain cosleeping prevalence in participating states and may be the only data of this kind.

Table 2 shows the results of this question on the PRAMS survey from 1991 through 1999, the most recent data available.

We see from these data that roughly 68 percent (100 percent minus the 23 to 43 percent who “never” coslept) of babies in these states enjoyed cosleeping at least some of the time. Data from the United Kingdom are similar: Helen Ball’s Sleep Lab found that around 7 percent always coslept, 40 percent did so for part of the night, and 33 percent never coslept.6

Now let’s try to estimate a single cosleeping prevalence rate from these data. Let’s say that babies who “sometimes” cosleep do so about half the time. Over all the years of this sample, around 42 percent of babies coslept “sometimes.” Let’s also say that “always” or “almost always” means 90 percent of the time. Roughly 26 percent of infants coslept “always” or “almost always.” Adding “always/almost always” (90 percent of the time x 26 percent of babies) to “sometimes” (50 percent of the time x 42 percent of babies), we get 44 percent of babies ages two to nine months who were cosleeping at any given time, presumably in an adult bed.

Now we can use these figures based on CPSC and PRAMS data to calculate the riskiness of these two sleep arrangements, although it’s important to understand the limitations of doing so. For example, these PRAMS data are from only five states (although more will be available in the future), while the CPSC data are from the entire US. The years in which the PRAMS cosleeping data were collected are not the same as those covered by the CPSC dataset, although they overlap. The CPSC covers infants zero to thirteen months, while PRAMS asks about infants two to nine months. The CPSC collects demographic details such as state, income, race, and age of mother (as does PRAMS), as well as time of the death, but they are not easily available to do a more detailed analysis. One or both of these data sources lacks information on impairment of caretaker and other known sleep risk factors, exact sleeping and furniture arrangements during different times in the night, overcrowding and other motivation for cosleeping or crib sleeping, clinical pathology findings, previous health of the infant, etc. Plus, a complete risk analysis should include all causes of infant deaths, including SIDS.

Nonetheless, these data are important population-based sources of information on sleep risks that we would not have otherwise. So let’s go ahead and use them to estimate a risk ratio for cosleeping. We take the 25 percent of the suffocation risk in the CPSC data linked to being in an adult bed and divide it by the 44 percent of babies who were actually in adult beds. Then we divide that fraction by a similar fraction for cribs, i.e., 75 percent divided by 56 percent. (If we multiplied each of these fractions by an overall infant death rate, we would have the actual risk for each group.)

This result shows that it was actually less than half (42 percent) as risky, or more than twice as safe, for an infant to be in an adult bed than in a crib. Based upon these calculations using the CPSC’s own data, we can say that crib sleeping had a relative risk of 2.37 compared with sleeping in an adult bed.

Therefore, cosleep with impunity-but, of course, be sure to follow the safe cosleeping guidelines described in this issue of Mothering.

 

Tina Kimmel, MSW, MPH, is a PhD student in social welfare at the University of California-Berkeley and is writing her dissertation on “The Effect of Welfare Reform on Breastfeeding Rates: Findings from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System.” Previously she worked as a research scientist for California’s state health department. She would like to acknowledge the state PRAMS epidemiologists who shared their analyzed data for this article: Rhonda Stephens, MPH (Alabama), Chris Wells, MS (Colorado), Ken Rosenberg, MD, MPH (Oregon), Melissa Baker, MA (West Virginia), and especially Kathy Perham-Hester, MS, MPH (Alaska) for her valuable insights. Tina has two children, Rosie (27) and Jesse (21), and one grandchild, Eli (4)-all born at home and all cosleepers.

 

 

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