CoSleeping

How interesting to find this study the day our crib mattress is due to arrive!

Notre Dame CoSleep Study

The author does a good job of putting some perspective to this much talked about topic.  The study reminds us that co-sleeping has occurred for generations and it continues to occur across the globe.  When looked at on a global and historical scale, there are truly no links between co-sleeping and increased risk of death to the infant.  The study does remind us there are many different forms of co-sleeping, that are all listed under the umbrella term of co-sleeping; some of these habits have proven to be in fact dangerous, while others clearly have not.

I did not really want to co-sleep.  I wanted my bed to remain just mine and Mr.'s.  For the most part, that is how things have gone, but ideas dis change once Jr. arrived and we all found what worked and what didn't for all of us.

Jr. has spent most of his sleep time in his mosses basket.  This is where he naps and where he is put to bed at night.  When he awakes in the middle of the night, initially I nursed him in the rocking chair and returned him to his basket. Eventually, that gave way to bringing him into bed, where sometimes he is put back into his basket, sometimes he remains in bed.  It usually depends on me.  I never sleep really well with him in the bed.  So today the mattress for the crib is due to arrive, as he topples out of the basket now! We shall see how the transition goes. Since the crib will still be in our room, we are still co-sleeping according to the study.  The safest kind of co-sleeping.

Baby Food

Jr. is eight months old now. Even though most of his nutritional needs are still met through breastfeeding, he is highly interested in food and his mood is directly related to whether or not his food needs are being met.  Over the last few months, his happiness with solid food is not just reached merely through being fed.  Now he must control the process.  He has moved from pureed foods to bite size pieces that he is learning to grab.  At this point most of the control is in his palm, rather than his chubby phalanges.  This means the food is stuffed into his mouth with little accuracy.  Much of it lands on the floor, and I admit I have allowed him to later graze on certain bits of left overs...(sorry grandma)!  Only after twenty minutes or so of him feeding himself, can I come in and actually get some food into him.  He is learning though, and that is what is key.
I worry about the order of the foods I feed Jr. He started on advacado mushed up like guacamole and thinned out with breast milk.  I figured the healthy omegas would be good for his rapidly evolving brain.  Then came yams and beets.  Apples, bananas, peas, string beans, blackberries, grapes, brown rice and farro.  He likes it all.  I have been following a food introduction guideline from Emerald City Birthing Clinic.  I want more than anything for Jr. is for him to be allergy free.  I vacillate between whether I want it more for his sake or mine.
Next on the menu is pureed chicken.  I want him ready for the best meal of the year- Thanksgiving. And time is ticking as we wind our way into the second week of the best month of the year.

Bloggers Block

OK.  I haven't done this for a while. Bloggers Block is even worse than writers block.
I create this false pressure to make some spectacular entry in order to make up for lost time... So instead, I completely avoid the blog site like dancing around an elephant in the room.

I can list a myriad of excuses:

For a while, I was just trying not to turn on the computer. Period.  Besides the usual need to purge myself from this ever-increasing digital world, we were also experiencing some technical difficulties with our power supply at the yurt.

I have been sick.  For the first time ever, I am the one with a persistent cough and Mr. is remaining healthy.  Wow.  Lack of sleep really does get to you!

Then there has been the deliberation over which kind of mattress to buy for Jr.

Wow.  Sounds silly when I write it all out.  That is why I should be writing more often.  But this week, a good friend reminded me:

"Don't should on yourself".  So from today forward I will no longer should and just do or do not.

To do is to write.  No matter how trivial; how short; how exciting. No matter what.