I was perusing (I was really tempted to spell this like “paroozing” here) through instagram with the hashtag #naturalparenting one day when I came across this meme. It wasn’t that well produced, actually it was pretty shabby… but it was powerful. This homemade meme caused me to have yet again another mind reeling, stark realization that forced my American brain-washed head to get out of the clouds and “come to the light”. I mean come on – top right picture, I’ve seen this product in stores, I’ve seen women pinning it on their pinterest boards with captions like “Baby Must Have!”, “Ingenious Idea!”. So you’re telling me, not only can we not be bothered to breastfeed anymore, but now we can’t even be bothered to hold the damn bottle?! I’ve never used this acronym before, but I feel it is appropriate here… S.M.H.
I looked around my home at all of the items that I had asked for, that people generously and lovingly bought for us to celebrate the arrival of our first child.
I saw the baby swing that mimicked the motion of being carried. The manufacturer even had the courtesy to incorporate the sound of a heartbeat! How clever, so my baby will think she is being rocked to sleep in her mother’s arms when really I am lounging on the couch reading a magazine… A stress free Mom is more important than a happy baby right?! Isn’t that what they say….
I looked in my kitchen at the bottles and nipples I had just unpacked. The packages said things like “breast like!”, “slow-flow to best mimic breast flow“, “Anti-colic!” , “Found to effectively reduce gas“, and so on. On top of that, the drawer full of pacifiers I had managed to stock up on all looked like poorly replicated versions of my own “organic” nipples.
Formula samples that were shipped to me via formula companies in hopes that I failed or gave up breastfeeding said things like “Easy to digest!“, “Proven to help fussiness” and again with the “Anti-colic!” slogan.
(more…)
I have titled this post “The Anti “Cry it Out” Movement” because that is what I hope to achieve on some small level, someday.
The inspiration to start this blog all stemmed from one, short article that my sister in law shared on Facebook titled Screaming to sleep, Part One: The moral imperative to end ‘cry it out’ . To summarize, it is a devastating portrayal of what an infant goes through during the sleep-training method titled “cry it out” (CIO for short). I could not even get through the first paragraph before I felt a wave of nausea. I felt sympathy so strong, that I literally had a physical response.
This article continued to haunt me. I would be driving home and remember this article, and would feel sick to my stomach thinking of these babies. It was all I talked about to my husband when I would get home from work. I would bring it up in conversation whenever I could. Even today, I have to distract myself whenever this article pops in my head.
I know what some of you are thinking, this reaction is a bit extreme. Call it surging hormones, first-time mom syndrome, or hell to get really scientific maybe it all boils down to the empathetic portion of my brain being stimulated by a chemical reaction after childbirth (pause: mind-blown). Regardless of how or why, it set off a chain reaction. This one article affected me SO much that I feel a moral obligation to do something about it.
Hence, here I am typing away.
(more…)
Imitation Never Tastes as Good, Does It?
I was perusing (I was really tempted to spell this like “paroozing” here) through instagram with the hashtag #naturalparenting one day when I came across this meme. It wasn’t that well produced, actually it was pretty shabby… but it was powerful. This homemade meme caused me to have yet again another mind reeling, stark realization that forced my American brain-washed head to get out of the clouds and “come to the light”. I mean come on – top right picture, I’ve seen this product in stores, I’ve seen women pinning it on their pinterest boards with captions like “Baby Must Have!”, “Ingenious Idea!”. So you’re telling me, not only can we not be bothered to breastfeed anymore, but now we can’t even be bothered to hold the damn bottle?! I’ve never used this acronym before, but I feel it is appropriate here… S.M.H.
I looked around my home at all of the items that I had asked for, that people generously and lovingly bought for us to celebrate the arrival of our first child.
I saw the baby swing that mimicked the motion of being carried. The manufacturer even had the courtesy to incorporate the sound of a heartbeat! How clever, so my baby will think she is being rocked to sleep in her mother’s arms when really I am lounging on the couch reading a magazine… A stress free Mom is more important than a happy baby right?! Isn’t that what they say….
I looked in my kitchen at the bottles and nipples I had just unpacked. The packages said things like “breast like!”, “slow-flow to best mimic breast flow“, “Anti-colic!” , “Found to effectively reduce gas“, and so on. On top of that, the drawer full of pacifiers I had managed to stock up on all looked like poorly replicated versions of my own “organic” nipples.
Formula samples that were shipped to me via formula companies in hopes that I failed or gave up breastfeeding said things like “Easy to digest!“, “Proven to help fussiness” and again with the “Anti-colic!” slogan.
(more…)
The Anti “Cry It Out” Movement
I have titled this post “The Anti “Cry it Out” Movement” because that is what I hope to achieve on some small level, someday.
The inspiration to start this blog all stemmed from one, short article that my sister in law shared on Facebook titled Screaming to sleep, Part One: The moral imperative to end ‘cry it out’ . To summarize, it is a devastating portrayal of what an infant goes through during the sleep-training method titled “cry it out” (CIO for short). I could not even get through the first paragraph before I felt a wave of nausea. I felt sympathy so strong, that I literally had a physical response.
This article continued to haunt me. I would be driving home and remember this article, and would feel sick to my stomach thinking of these babies. It was all I talked about to my husband when I would get home from work. I would bring it up in conversation whenever I could. Even today, I have to distract myself whenever this article pops in my head.
I know what some of you are thinking, this reaction is a bit extreme. Call it surging hormones, first-time mom syndrome, or hell to get really scientific maybe it all boils down to the empathetic portion of my brain being stimulated by a chemical reaction after childbirth (pause: mind-blown). Regardless of how or why, it set off a chain reaction. This one article affected me SO much that I feel a moral obligation to do something about it.
Hence, here I am typing away.
(more…)
