Nursing in the Short Front Cross Carry
I dedicated yesterday to my 3.6 meter Inka Storchenwiege. It is one of my very favorite wrap colorways, has been used plenty and is floppy soft, and I used it in July in Florida, albeit mostly indoors.
I am something like 5′3 and 115 lbs. The 3.6 was too short for FWCC or BWCC, but there were a lot of carries I could do.
Front carries with 3.6 Inka:
Hip carries with 3.6 Inka:
Back carries with 3.6 Inka:
- Rucksack and Tibetan Carries
- Back Wrap Cross Carry with rucksack straps (instead of crossed over chest)
- Double Hammock Carry tied under bum (instead of tied in front)
Robins Hip Carry
Instead of our usual format, our moms circle invited a guest speaker today. Doctor Holly Johantgen is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, an Acupuncture Physician and a Primary Care Physician in Clearwater Florida, as well as a mother of two young children. She fielded questions about vaccines, and we snuck some other questions in, too, while we had her.
What I took away from her talk was that there are prevalent assumptions about vaccines that should be questioned.
- Vaccines may not protect your child from disease. Some people feel that getting the whooping cough vaccine will not necessarily keep your child from getting the whooping cough. If it doesn’t work, this simplifies the whole decision-making process–so it’s worth doing your own research into the subject.
- The benefits may not outweigh the risks. Vaccines carry known risks, a fact well illustrated by the existence of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Trust Fund. Each vaccine could be examined individually as to the risks, and the risks of the relevant disease should also be investigated. If a vaccine does effectively prevent a disease, it may still have side effects or risks that are worse (or likelier) than the threat of catching the disease naturally.
- Some vaccines may not be necessary for every individual. Investigate each one individually to decide whether your children need to be protected from Hepatitis B, polio, chicken pox, tetanus. Consider that some vaccines can be administered later if and when they are deemed necessary (ie when you are ready to take your child overseas or when your child steps on a dirty nail).
- The standard recommended vaccine schedule may not be best. Vaccinating infants does, without a doubt, compromise their otherwise (hopefully) healthy immune systems. Many doctors recommend delayed vaccinations. Doctor Holly recommended waiting until your child is at least two years old, but said that according to oriental medicine, a person’s body would be better able to handle vaccinations between five and seven years old.
If you are worried about a particular disease outbreak, ask whether the kids contracting the disease have been vaccinated or not. If they are vaccinated, there is no reason to sabotage your child’s immune system at this critical time with a vaccine that does not work!
If you are unsure about vaccinations, Doctor Holly’s advice is to WAIT. Don’t vaccinate until you are sure, because it is a decision that cannot be undone, and which has lifelong ramifications. You can always decide to vaccinate, but once done you cannot become un-vaccinated.
If you do choose to vaccinate your children, do everything you can to support their immune health before and after the vaccines are administered. Nutrition is the biggest contributor to your child’s health. Leading up to a vaccination, keep your child’s diet free of sugar and as packed with nutrition as you can! You can also visit with a Doctor of Oriental Medicine for herbs or supplements that might assist your child’s body in handling the vaccine. If you do choose to vaccinate, read ingredients, insist on thermisol-free vaccines, and record the batch number.
If you choose not to vaccinate your child, it is also important to support their immune health. Again, nutrition is the best thing to tweak. In fact, I could just say that if you are a parent–regardless of whether your child is vaccinated–look to a good diet to keep your children healthy!
Tuesday the Pinellas Cloth Diaper Chatter group had a meet-up at the beach. We love cloth diapers, but for me, everything is about baby wraps!
Amy has a new Lou Neobulle in a shorter size than her other wrap and wanted to know what carries she could do with it. She knew she had a good rucksack going for her, but what else? We played around and discovered that she can do an abbreviated Front Wrap Cross Carry, a Short Front Cross Carry, or a hip carry. She did a good Hip Cross Carry, and we considered some variations of the Poppins Hip Carry and Robins Hip Carry, neither of which have I managed to get instructions for up on my site yet! Another back carry option with a shorty is the Reinforced Rear Rebozo Rucksack.
Somehow I managed not to take any pictures of all that, but I did snap one photo of Angela in her new Silver Waves Didymos–I loved it!
Silver Waves Abbreviated Front Wrap Cross Carry
I never quite got around to writing about this moms group, but with such a beautiful collection of mamatoto dyads, I had to share the photos! The last one is the babywearing gang we formed–flashing our gang sign…
Today I helped Amanda and Julie get their babies on their backs in double hammock carries, and helped Dana’s cousin wrap her itty bitty up in her Moby.
In conversations we addressed topics as varying as coping with potential medical problems (and the question of trusting doctors), to boundaries in the physical relationship of parents and children (I think as a group we agree that every family must find what is comfortable for them) and how the kind of relationship we establish with our little ones will impact their future relationships.
We discussed how to get better rested when your baby is waking more often. Dana pointed out how fleeting babyhood is, suggesting that a tired parent remember that a) this wont last forever and b) it is worth treasuring now.
We briefly touched on cloth diapering, specifically for newborns. Since it’s my blog, I have the privilege of remembering and relating only my recommendation: for contour diapers with elasticized legs. Cheaper than fitteds, containing of that liquid breastmilk poop, and able to fit snugly around a tiny newborn with a snappi.
At our Moms Circle today, we decided to form a mothering co-op. We’ll start next week at my house. Tuesday, 6 July 2010, I’m opening up my house at 9am for a playdate in which some of the moms will stay and hang out, and some moms will drop off their babies/kids and go take some “me” time.
This is our first get together. It’s something of a trial. We’ll see how many people show up, and how many plan to stay versus how many want to leave. We’ll play it by ear and see how we can improve it to make it the most beneficial for each of us.
If you want to come and don’t know where I live, email, comment, or send me a message on Facebook.
In summary, come at 9am or any time later. I have somewhere to be in the afternoon, so I’ll probably need to kick everyone out by 1pm or soon after. That means you should be back to pick up your kids by then or they may be sold to gypsies. Hmmm, I guess I should make everyone sign a form to that effect when they show up!
Evelyn began our discussion today with an admonition that we are here to support each other, and not to nitpick the particulars of our parenting choices. We are better mothers when we are emotionally (and physically) available to our children. As the mother, we are often wholly responsible for our children all the time, without someone playing a similar role to our needs. As a group we can provide that for each other, emotionally recharging each other.
Perhaps it was this opening suggestion, but we had rather a teary time today. It was amazingly wonderful to get together with moms and babies and siblings, and also get to hear out the travails and hardships some of us are facing. We have enough in common that we can share the experiences and feelings even when the circumstances are different.
The discussion touched on loss of a loved one, dealing with our emotions while raising our babies and the effects it will have on them, fear of changes and an unknowable future, communication with spouses and relationships, feelings of not contributing enough or not being appreciated, and we shared advice on teething, sleeping, and, of course, babywearing!
We glowed happily for Ainsley and Susan who missed the group today because they are home with their brand new nurslings, and we congratulated Susan’s husband and son who came by to visit. We welcomed Michelle who drove down to our meeting from Alabama, and who we’ve missed since she moved, and marveled at her growing girl. We were happy to see moms who haven’t made it for several weeks, and a new mom, too. We joyfully met with the moms who make it every week and who we look forward to seeing each Wednesday.
We had to disperse rather rapidly at the end as it had gotten late and everyone had to go but no one wanted to.
I’ve hardly been on the computer the past week. I haven’t blogged, I’ve let my messages and emails go stale, and I couldn’t take pictures because the old ones weren’t uploaded.
I did:
- spend the Solstice with my daughters and some friends (aged 5 and 2). We made suns out of clay and out of tissue paper, and blew big, rainbow bubble spheres to dance around with.
- clean my house and hide gifts for a daddy scavenger hunt.
- have family over for a Father’s Day Party.
- paint bookshelves, and color code our books.
- rearrange the dining room for more crawling space.
I had a lovely, slow, non-technological kind of week. But I missed blogging about our last mom’s meeting, and I had a lot of messages to catch up on. The fact is that I love writing, love staying touch, and have an internet business to keep up with. I love technology too. The fact is, there just aren’t enough hours, so we juggle as best we can!
The end is a happy, thriving child; a relaxed, loving mama; and a strong bond between them. The means is the baby wrap.
Wrapping made mothering less stressful and more fun. Let’s face it, this society isn’t exactly tailor made for women with children. Sometimes it’s a pain to function with children in this society. Wrapping made it easier.
I love wrapping, and I love helping other moms and babies get wrapped up together. But lets be clear here, not wearing your baby is not a problem for me. If you think I looked at you askance when you said you didn’t want to wear your baby, it’s likely because I was trying (and failing) to imagine how that would work. I wasn’t passing judgment, just hoping it worked out!
When I promote babywearing, I am doing it because it can help moms. I believe we all want to keep our babies happy. This is the best and easiest way I know of doing it. So it helps babies, too, because babies are kept happier, easier.
“It’s not so wonderful. In Africa, we just carry our children or let them roam. They can’t sit like lumps.”
The above is my favorite quote from this article about trying to introduce this staple of modern parenthood into the mothering routine in Kenya.
In the US, we talk about babywearing enhancing the relationship between mother and baby. In Kenya, where strollers are not the norm, they worry that the introduction of the stroller “may damage the relationship between a mother and a child.”
The shift in viewpoint produces more dramatic language that specifically calls out the stroller as a potential danger. It’s interesting to note that even those of us who shun the device are colored enough by our culture to refer to babywearing–and not strollers–as the alternative, discussing babywearing benefits instead of stroller hazards.
“It’s just not Kenyan…For the child, the love will not be there if the child is cooped up in such an antisocial device.” Do we really want that description labeled “American” instead?
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