Bye, bye Bottle!

With A & L, they both took pacifiers from day one.  I have come to realize how much of a blessing that actually was, despite it taking awhile for me to wean them off (A was 2 and L was 3).  However, they were beasts to get to sleep.  You had to lie with A until she fell asleep and you pretty much had to walk with L until he fell asleep.  Then in the middle of the night L woke up anytime his pacifier fell out... it was ridiculous.

Well, when H refused a pacifier since birth, he started going to sleep with warm milk in his bottle.  For the first time I was able to put a kid in bed with a bottle and they'd go to sleep!  It was a miracle.  Yes, yes, I know, you aren't supposed to put them to bed with a bottle, but it was milk, not juice, and... mind your business, lol!  BTW, his teeth are perfect. 

So it has made breaking him of his bottle quite difficult since there's not really another way to get him to sleep.  A & L were off their bottles by one, which is the recommendation.  H is now 20 months, so I felt a little like a failure in that department.  His pediatrician said that sometimes you have to pick your battles and his teeth and gums looked great.  I've tried sippy cups with warm milk- he hates sippy cups.  He only drinks water and juice out of one of those rubber straw cups.

Nuby Super Spout Easy Style Gripper

Then a bit of hope- a friend and I were talking about the bottle issue and she recently broke her one year old of her bottle by using one of the Nuby cups that has a rubbery spout, but it is not stiff, it is more flexible, but it is the second stage after sippy cup.  I immediately went out and bought three.  The first day when I put warm milk on it he cried and wouldn't take it.  Every time he said "ba," I gave him that cup.  So the first day was rough.  He would drink sips here and there, but really doesn't want it.  For bedtime he fell asleep on my lap fussing.  I felt bad, but usually cold turkey works and I was not going to give in.  The second day was a little better.  I would have to set the cup near him because he wouldn't take it, but eventually he would go pick it up and drink about half. 

Fast forward a week and he's completely off the bottle!  He chugs his Nuby cup and falls asleep.  He has been falling asleep in his infant-to-toddler bouncer with the cup, so when we lie him in bed he just rolls over and stays asleep.

I am so grateful to that friend for putting the idea out there for me.  I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before, when him being my third child, but there you have it.  Yes, he still likes his warm milk, but it's not a bottle.  And it is a stage above sippy cup, which is above bottle, so I will take it!  I think with age will come going to sleep without the warm milk, but I'm not as worried about that.

Now with Baby A, I am trying to get him interested in the pacifier so when he falls asleep it is either with the bottle, breast or pacifier, but we wills see how that goes.  I was also using Nuk pacifiers, but received some MAM pacifiers to review, and he seems to like those better. 

I'm not saying this is guaranteed to work with every child being weaned, but it worked for H!  Hooray!!

My VBAC Experience

Baby A at one day old.

If you follow my blog (which most of you don't- but should) you might recall that I had a CBAV with H because he was breech.  I was devastated because I had the first two vaginally and the recovery was quick and easy.  I did NOT want to deal with a cesarean and the healing process.  But, I had no choice.  Well, when I found out I was pregnant with baby #4, all I could think about was how much I did not want to go through a c-section again!  The hospital where I had my first 3 is not allowed to perform VBACs because you have to have an anesthesiologist in the hospital 24/7 and smaller hospitals only have them on call during off duty hours.  So, I talked to my ob/gyn about my options and he told me that his hospital and one 90 miles away had a "share care" option where you could see doctors at one or the other and then delivery at whichever.  I felt intimidated as I had never been to the bigger one and I was used to MY doctor.

I had to go at 20 weeks and then 36 weeks and up to the bigger hospital.  I was randomly assigned a doctor because I had no idea who any of them were.  Boy, did I get lucky!!  The doctor I was assigned was one out of like 10 who I could have gotten.  Apparently this one was the best and everyone who worked there let me know it.  She was so invested in my pregnancy and making sure that the VBAC went as smoothly as possible.  She's totally someone I'd have as a best friend... if it were a possibility, which it isn't... anyway, I was set to be induced at 41 weeks if Baby A didn't come sooner... which he decided not to.  Apparently they don't want to induce sooner than that for VBACs.

So I was induced- I arrived at 8AM and all the boring vitals and hooking me up with an IV and blah blah blah... the hospital I went to was a teaching hospital, so there were a few things here and there that could have been handled a little better.  For instance, the first resident that "broke my water" supposedly put a hole in the bag and it was supposed to slowly leak (which I've never had done) and my labor was barely progressing.  About 6 hours later a 4th year resident checked and "rebroke" my bag and guess what- the Hoover Dam flooded and my labor started to progress extremely quickly.  This meant my epidural was not anywhere near being prepared, so I had to wait awhile for that.  I finally got it and maybe an hour or so later MY doctor came in, checked me and said push on the next contraction... 4 minutes later, there he was!  No tearing!!!  I felt fantastic.  I won't get into the demon doctor who was on the floor that shift, because she was one of the most uber-twatastic people I have ever met.  Five minutes before MY doctor came (just to check on me after the clinic closed) this "doctor" was saying I might have to have a c-section and suffocating me with an oxygen mask.

Anyway, I would do the VBAC again in a heartbeat- by far one of the best decisions in my life!!

Karma for Kids

Of course no one ever wishes for anything tragic to befall their children- that would just be psychotic!

However, I am sure we all get tired of our kids arguing, not following directions, our showing signs that they may be the spawn of Satan.  So, come on- admit that secretly when a small amount of (non harmful) karma comes their way, you want to cheer a little inside.

Case in point:  when a child is leaning back in their chair and you ask them not to and they end up falling backwards- that's a bit of karma.  But the case I wanted to share today involves my 8 year old daughter.  As you should all understand, she knows EVERYTHING- at least that's what she thinks.  She is in a phase where she feels the need to argue or dispute anything David or I say.  I am sure it will get worse as she gets older, but in the meantime...  Her dad and his girlfriend have a 5 month old daughter, which would be A's half sister.  They have let her and L carry the baby around since she was first born.  They hold her when they want, apparently they let A get her out of her crib, etc.  Now me, I am a very overprotective parent.  If it were up to me, my parents and I would be the only ones to hold the baby (he's 6 weeks now).   I know that David wouldn't hurt him, but I feel like he's too nervous about something wrong happening and the baby senses fear or stress.  As soon as I hear fussing, I want to hold him. 

I have forced myself to let A hold him from time to time, but she will get up and walk with him or pat his back when he's sleeping or picking him up when he's comfy and being calm.  These are not things that I'm okay with, but her rebuttal is always, "he's my brother, why can't I hold him?"  Every time.  She assumes that because she can hold her sister at her dad's house anytime that it should be the same way with her brother.  I think not.

Now we get to the karma.  According to my kids, their baby sister spits up quite a bit and A says she doesn't really hold her anymore because she "doesn't want to get barfed on."  I haven't really had that problem with my baby unless he gets moved around too much shortly after eating.  Well, this morning I had him lying calmly on the couch (unable to fall) and I came in and she was holding him.  I told her she needed to ask to hold him and she of course said... "why can't I hold him, he's my brother."  So I went about my business.  About 3 minutes later I see her put him back down and go into the bathroom.  I followed her to see what happened and he had puked down her shirt and onto her pants...

KARMA!!  Now hopefully she won't want to hold him as much because she got puked on.  It's a small step for me as a mom, because I know she will never stop arguing... but I takes what I can gets!