Ask Moxie

"Are you breastfeeding?" response

Joe wrote back with an update and some context!

“Moxie, many of your readers wanted to know why I asked the question. Here’s the context:  Our Lake Association always has a picnic following Lake Clean-Up Day chores.  Our new neighbors brought their new 3-week old baby to the picnic.  Everyone loved seeing the new baby. My wife and I had sent a cute card to the new parents.  When you opened the card, one of those musical cards, it played, ‘Rock around the Clock’.  When I had a chance to talk to the new Mother, I asked if she was spending a lot of time rocking the baby, and she expressed their appreciation for the card.  I said I appreciated how much time and effort a new baby requires and are you also breastfeeding (because that requires even more effort on your part)?  It was at this point that a neighbor overheard the conversation and said, ‘What kind of question is that?  Your wife can ask that question, but you can’t.’  Of course, I don’t know which was worse, my question, or my neighbor’s interruption of a private conversation.  Later, when I sent him Moxie’s response, he said he was only joking, and suggested I forget it.  So, that’s the context and the reason for the question.  It was more of a commiseration with the new Mother of the effort required, and of course, the fun and rewards associated with a new baby.”

How does knowing the context change your answer? Since I didn't actually give an opinion the first time (on whether I'm in Camp 1, 2, or 3) I'll leave it all up to you guys.

News:recall, internet safety, placental health studies, free newsletter for young musicians

Big recall notice: A bunch of the red-painted Thomas the Tank Engine trains have been recalled because they were manufactured using lead paint. Read about it here and scroll down to the bottom of the article to see the names and a photo of all the recalled toys. How many of them do you own? We have four of them at our house.

In an effort not to freak myself or anyone else out, I put Dr. Google to work and came up with a few facts about treating lead exposure:

• The best way to deal with lead exposure is just to separate the kid from the lead. Get rid of the toys.
• There's a treatment called chelation that a doctor can do in severe cases of lead poisoning, but chewing on a caboose probably hasn't caused severe lead poisoning.
• It wouldn't hurt to use nutritional therapies to try to prevent the absorption of lead. Calcium, iron, and Vitamin C all help prevent the absorption of lead. The state of Missouri put out this cute PDF with info on foods to push to prevent lead absorption.

If I hear any more on this I'll keep you posted.

Also of note:

1. The 2 SMART 4U campaign is trying to get the word out to kids and parents to be smart about what they post and don't post online. Click here to get information about social networking sites (Myspace, Facebook, etc.) and best practices for being on the internet safely, and to order a free, groovy-looking stainless steel ring that reminds teens to be safe while typing.

2. Kate writes:

"My first pregnancy ended in an early miscarriage.  My 2nd ended at 25 weeks with an extremely small-for-gestational-age baby girl (1 pound, 1 ounce).  She was in the hospital for 4 months.  She's now 2 and perfect & we're so incredibly lucky.  I had midwives (whom I loved) for both pregnancies.  I didn't have any tests after the first miscarriage, and I opted out of much testing during the second following the advice of my midwife.  I didn't want to do the Down screen because friends of mine had received false positives and had endured much difficulty because of it.

Anyway, it turns out that the miscarriage & the premature birth were caused by placental failure, which itself was caused by a genetic clash between my husband & myself.  This is surprisingly common.  In fact, a huge number of pregnancy problems are caused by placental abnormalities, and until recently not a lot could be done about it.

A doctor at Mt. Sinai hospital in Toronto, Dr. John Kingdom, has recently come out with a study showing that early testing can identify placental problems. One is a blood test (the PAPP A) which is done as part of the Down screen.  Ultrasounds are also part of the protocol.  If there seems to be a problem, women can receive heparin injections which will lessen the chance of premature birth.

I wish I had known about this very simple screen before enduring the trauma of such an early birth and long hospital stay.  Our story turned out well but I know how rare that is.  Not many doctors know yet about this new screen so women will need to ask about it.  I just want to get the word out so that other families don't have to experience what we went through.  I do understand why people are hesitant to go through testing - I'm now pregnant again and this heavily medicalized experience is a far cry from my lovely time with a midwife - but I think it's worth doing these tests, especially if you've had issues with recurrent miscarriages or preterm births.

Here's a link to some more info about the study:

http://www.nationalreviewofmedicine.com/issue/2007/04_30/4_patients_practice05_8.html"

Extremely interesting. Thanks, Kate.

3. Dan Meagher from the Oklahoma City University Performing Art Academy writes:

"We are the music outreach education department of OCU's Bass School
of Music, which for 80 years has inspired and educated students for
professional music careers - including Tony, Emmy and Grammy Award winners.

As part of our education mission, we produce a free, monthly music
e-newsletter, which provides parents and students with helpful articles for
young performers and musicians of all ages on a wide variety of music
topics. We invite your members to receive our e-newsletter. Past newsletters
have included information about:

* Preparing for college music school auditions
* How to pay for a college music education
* How singers can avoid sore throats
* How instrumentalists can travel with their instruments
* How to introduce young children to music

Our newsletter is free and available to parents who want to help their child
reach their musical goals. Currently, over 3,000 parents and students from
around the nation and the world receive newsletter. Your members may sign-up
by visiting: http://www.okcu.edu/music/academy/newsletter.aspx. We are ad
free and our member list is not sold or used by anyone else. You may
unsubscribe at any time."

Sounds like a great resource for parents of young musicians. Thanks, Dan.

Q&A: "Are you breastfeeding?"

Joe writes:

"Give me a break!  Recently I was criticized for asking a neighbor at a party if she was breastfeeding.  The criticizer said, “Your wife can ask that question but you as a man cannot.”.  I say that’s a lot of BS.  In an age where businesses provide for mothers to breastfeed and the topic is not as personal as, “Have you started making love with your husband since your baby was born?”, it seems to me that we’re making too much over the natural act of breastfeeding.  When is it OK for my wife to ask and not me?  Is there a similar question that would be OK for me to ask a male neighbor but inappropriate for my wife to ask?  I’d be interested in your answer and a reference to a “well-known” etiquette book where such a question is covered.  Thank you."

I really doubt that any etiquette book will ever cover asking about breastfeeding. The purpose of etiquette is to establish rules so things can become not-personal that otherwise could hurt people's feelings (for example, who gets introduced to whom first, who sits next to whom at a dinner party, etc.). When it comes to something that has to do with other people's bodies in such an intimate manner, I think it'll be nearly impossible to come to some kind of hard and fast rule about what's acceptable and what's not.

It seems to me that there are three major ways a person could think about asking "Are you breastfeeding?" All of them are valid, which is the problem.

Camp 1: It's a natural thing, part of having a baby, so it's not a truly "personal" question. No one should feel bad about asking, male or female, and no one should feel insulted by being asked.

Camp 2: It's a totally personal decision and is about both a womans body and her autonomy, so no one should ask. It's none of anyone else's business, and being asked is demeaning and offensive.

Camp 3: It depends on why the person is asking. Satisfying idle curiosity or proselytizing are not valid reasons for asking if someone else is breastfeeding, but commiseration or exchange of information are. Thus, unless you have a follow-up ready (such as, "Because I feel like my supply drops at the beginning of each menstrual period and I was wondering if you have the same problem") you really shouldn't ask. But if someone asks you shouldn't feel uncomfortable.

Basically, unless you have a real reason for asking, you're inviting trouble by asking someone you're not super-best friends with. It doesn't matter if you think its not personal, because if the questionee does, they're going to be offended. (And so many women are the victims of judgment and criticism from so many angles that they just don't want one more person asking them something that opens them up to attack.)

The alternative is to figure out what you really want to know (assuming you're not just curious, in which case you can just MYOB) and ask that in a different way. If you want to share a nursing story, just share it. If you have a question, put forth the question and say, "I don't know if you're nursing or have had this problem, but we're looking for other opinions." If you just want to say, "I'm so glad my wife is breastfeeding," then go ahead and say that!

Readers, what do you think?

Q&A: picking up your toddler too much

A reader writes:

"I didn't see this one addressed in the archive. I'd be very interested in opinions of picking up your toddler or baby too much. I have a 15 month old son and am often being told by my husband that I am picking him up too much.  He is in a real needy stage. He will hold my legs and cry or whine, when we are  at the park he wants to hold my hand while he walks- i usually try to encourage him to walk alone. He is also a screamer- this has been going on since he was 8 or 9 months old and he does it for glee or frustration- but seems to freak out a lot of people. I personally feel like he is going through some real independence issues and needs to work through them- ie. he weaned about a month ago, and just learned how to walk alone about a week and a half ago. Also- is this different for stay at home moms? Which I am.

So I guess when is it too much?

Signed,
I feel like people have been telling me not to pick him up too much since he was born."

You answered your own question: He's in a real needy stage. If he needs something, you're helping him to grow and develop by giving it to him*. If he gets what he needs emotionally, he'll go through this stage and move on to the next one. If he doesn't get it, this stage won't be resolved.

What's the absolute worst thing that could happen if you pick up your kid whenever s/he wants to be picked up? You end up with a kid who's accustomed to being picked up. (Some people say that's a bad thing. I think there are far worse things than having a child who's comfortable with physical touch and used to asking for what they need.) But for how long ("for...how...long?") will you have to keep picking your kid up if you get them "hooked"? All kids are different, of course, but most kids do go through extreme independent stages when they want to do everything themselves and wouldn't let you pick them up for love or money. Your 5-year-old will not want to be picked up (trust me) unless he's really sick. I'm sure there are 3-year-olds who like to be carried, but I don't see a lot of them (most of the 3-year-olds I see are too busy running away quickly or trying to boss their parents around).

A separate issue is whether you can stand to pick up your child much anymore or not. There are stages in which it sometimes makes you want to jump out of your skin to have to pick him up one more time. Kids can really suck you dry emotionally and physically. But that's a separate issue. Just because you don't want to pick your child up doesn't mean it's not good for your child to be picked up.

And just because it's good for your child to be picked up doesn't mean that you can stand to do it right now! A big part of your job is teaching your child to live with other human beings in the world, and to learn balance and boundaries. At the beginning you're as gentle and loving and giving as you can be (or past what you can really be), because a baby has to learn trust before learning anything else. But once the toddler years hit it's really about the dance of balancing needs, respecting and caring for your child with love while also showing your child by example to respect you and care for you.

Saying "no" because you just can't do it isn't going to hurt your child if you can say it with love and respect. But don't let anyone con you into thinking that withholding just for the sake of withholding is helping anyone. A kid who's clingy needs more connection to feel comfortable enough to venture out. Some of it is personality and some of it is stages of development and some of it is the weather and some of it is totally random.

Now, if someone's telling you not to pick up your child, your easiest bet is just to use the path of least resistance. Listen to them, say thoughtfully, "That's an interesting idea. I'll think about that." And then do whatever you want to do. Because you're the mom and it's your child.

Hang in there. This half-mobile stage is hard. A this time next year you'll be in a completely different place emotionally.

(Here's a past post about the screaming. My ears are ringing just thinking about it.)

* Note the difference between a toddler needing to be picked up and cuddled and a teenager "needing" a new Playstation.

Food for thought: WOHM vs. SAHM divide

I promised a better post today, but the kids are still sick, so you're getting this instead.

Last week I went to Kindergarten orientation at the school my older son will go to in the fall. I was dressed for work (nothing fancy, just a wrap dress and heels). I noticed that many of the women dressed for the playground didn't meet my eyes and looked through me. The other women dressed for work talked to me, as did all the women I knew from preschool and the playground, and I met several very nice women dressed for the playground who mentioned that they worked freelance or part-time. But it seemed to me that the pure SAHMs weren't mixing with the WOHMs they didn't know.

Remember that this is my first time on this side of things, since I was a SAHM (actually a freelancer, so not a pure SAHM, but I dressed like one) for 5 years. I sometimes felt a little scorned by the WOHMs if we met on a day I looked particularly dumpy, but any real friction I attributed to personality differences or having a bad day. Of course, I hardly encountered WOHMs, so the sample size was really small, and the ones I know well are from preschool and are crazy, hilarious, fun women.

I've thought for awhile that it was really up to the SAHMs to make the first move to friendship. I thought that while I was one, because it seemed to me that SAHMs are the ones with the network and the face time at school.

So my question to all of you is, is this just going to happen? Or is there something we can actively do to stop the snubbing? Is it up to the SAHMs, or is there something WOHMs, WAHMs, part-timers, freelancers, goldbrickers, dilettantes, and others can do?

If I hadn't known any of the other parents (and there were plenty of dads there, but I don't think they have the same issues women do around working) I would really have been hurt and lost. It makes me feel bad to think that there might have been other women there (or in thousands of other Kindergarten orientations across the world) walking away feeling like they were less than because of their work situation one way or another.

Thoughts?

QA: Gifts for new parents?

Too much stuff to do + sick kids = short post today.

Rachel writes:

"If you were my friends who just had a baby this weekend, what kind of present for them as people (not just parents) would you want?"

I'd want Netflix, a few six-packs of beer (Guinness in particular), or a gift certificate for massages.

Or else a homemade gift certificate for a certain numbre of hours of babysitting from you.

What else?

(Better post tomorrow.)

Looking for The Wonder Weeks

Apparently this miracle book is way backordered on Amazon, and the Rodale Store doesn't carry it anymore. Which makes no sense, since Rodale is the publisher.

I sent them an email asking about it, and got a very clipped email telling me to go to Amazon. And then no reply to my reply.

If you'd like to help figure out why we can't order the Wonder Weeks anymore, please send an email to readerservice@rodale.com asking them to do another printing of the Wonder Weeks by Vanderijt and Plooij (ISBN 1579546455). Maybe if they get a bunch of emails about it they won't ignore us.

Q&A/Reader call: Developmental spurts after one year

Fahmi writes:

"I was wondering something. I think our almost-seventeen month old is hitting a Wonder-Week or some kind of a regression because he's been generally clingy and cranky lately. At your recommendation, we got the Wonder Weeks book and it was wonderful - but now that we've passed the year mark, we feel adrift, lost, confused.

From your experience, and with everyone else that comments on your site, what are some of the regressions, wonder-week like moments that we can look forward to after the first year? I've read about the 18 month one, and the hump from two to three years old. Any others?"

I know. It's awful not to know when the next spurt/regression is coming up. These are the things that I've observed. Please, everyone, confirm or deny my observations and add any of your own.

15 months: Kids who have previously not been sleeping through start to sleep through the night and/or go down more easily. This is useful because after 15 months of no sleep you're almost ready to hurl yourself off a bridge.

16 months: Just when your life was getting back on track, your toddler will start to get cranky and want to do everything him- or herself, but won't be able to. Constant whining and battles ensue. You reconsider the bridge plan.

18 months: Your little pumpkin starts waking up 2-5 times a night. Even kids who've been sleeping through (and not just that "sleeping through" that means five hours at a time) start waking up again. "What fresh hell is this?" you ask, but no one seems to know the answer. Breathe deeply and stay away from bridges.

20 months: Your child starts sleeping through the night again. as if nothing ever happened. You feel like you're being gaslighted, but are a little more rested. At least the nights are back in shape, because "pain in the ass" is a true understatement for the daytime.

21 months: Something strange clicks in your child's head and s/he seems to be more mature, competent, and calm overnight.

22 months: This child is a joy! I could eat those chubby cheeks and listen to that lisp all day long. Let's have another baby right! now!

That brings us mostly through the second year. Does anyone have anything to add?

Reader call: Spacing children

I've gotten a bunch of requests to talk about spacing children. Before we start, I want to say that I think this is a relatively unimportant topic because a) it's an incredible luxury to be able to choose how far apart you want your children to be, and b) any spacing will work out well if the parents make an effort to facilitate understanding between siblings (and, conversely, any spacing will suck if the parents increase the competition between the kids).

Also, I'm not going to argue for any spacing being best, because all I have is my own experience to draw on. That's what you guys are for, is to give a whole bunch of data points. All I can do is tell you what worked for me and why I chose it.

My brother and I are three years apart (I'm older, quelle surprise) and I always felt like it was a great distance. We were far enough apart not to be on top of each other, but close enough to play together easily. I didn't think I could handle kids two years apart or closer, so I tried for three years, and my own two are 3 years, 2 months apart. I'm very happy with the spacing (although, really, are there that many people who are unhappy with the spacing for their kids for more than just the first 6-12 months?), but here are the things I learned:

1. At that point it was already too late, but when my older son was 2 1/2 I had this feeling that he and I could both have handled it easily if another baby showed up right then.

2. One thing that was amazing about having an already-three-year-old and a newborn was that when I needed to nurse the baby down, I could stick the three-year-old in front of a Bob the Builder episode and know he'd stay glued to it like a younger child wouldn't. That was a lifesaver for the first six months.

3. A three-year-old was verbal enough to tell me what was bothering him emotionally and logistically.

4. If I'd had my kids 18 months apart I would have gotten the excruciating 18-month and three-year-old stages over with at the same time, instead of dragging out the angst.

5. My two started playing together constantly from the time the little one was nine months old or so. But so did the kids of my friends who had their kids four years apart.

So you can see that there are benefits to all sorts of spacings, and you'll always second-guess, even just a little.

Now you play. What did you do? What worked for you? What worked or didn't with your own siblings, if any? What would you like to do? What do you wish you had done? What role do you thing parental stress level and mindfulness has on the equation?

Book Review: Operating Instructions

Review of Operating Instructions

Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott is one of my favorite books about parenting of all time. I try to reread it every year or so, just to remember what it was like to be back in those first scary and beautiful few months of being a mother.

For those of you who have read Lamott (Bird by Bird, Traveling Mercies, Plan B, etc.), Operating Instructions is just like those books, but explores the first year or so of her son Sam's life. For those of you who haven't read Lamott, she writes personal memoir in a very real, raw, humorous way. She takes life seriously, but pokes fun at herself and really draws out the fallible, human moments she experiences.

Lamott herself is a single mother, a recovering drug addict, a fierce Christian, and a Liberal with a capital L. The book takes place during the presidency of George H.W. Bush in the '80s, and boy does Lamott hate his presidency. Her loathing of him is cartoonish, and I think probably offensive to his hardcore fans, but to me it reads as a real record of the times, of how hopeless half this country felt in the years before Clinton's first term and the carefree days of thinking single payer healthcare might be just around the corner. She's equally passionate about her faith in Jesus and her conviction that he asks her to be his arms on earth.

I also think her vehemence about politics and religion are testament to the phenomenon many of us go through when we become parents. Suddenly the things we believe become even more clear and important to us. Things we thought were kind of imporant become vital, and it's our job to save the world for our children. Lamott simultaneously conveys a sense of that urgency and the is-it-3-am-or-3-pm-I'm-too-tired-to-know timeless haze of those first dreamy, dreamless months of parenting.

And the book is funny, too. Lamott is constantly poking fun at herself for the silly thoughts she has and laughable things she does. I'd tell you about some of the hilarious episodes in the book, but they're just funnier when she writes them in that deadpan way she has.

I've started buying this book for friends, but sending it to them when their babies are around 6 weeks old, just when it starts to sink in that This Is The New Normal and they start to worry that they may not be as competent at parenting as they'd assumed they'd be. Reading about Lamott, who you know is a great mother, and the idiotic things she did at the beginning makes you feel a lot better about yourself.