Baby Care - 2

Bottle Feeding
I decided to breastfeed. But it was very difficult. I can now admit to myself that I was not one of those women who produce copious amounts of milk. And if I had a do-over, I would still nurse, but supplement with formula, even if it meant that I would have become dry faster.

I respect people's decision to bottle feed (pretty much everyone else in my family did), but there is something special about nursing too, the thought that you are producing the essential food for your baby and providing all kinds of immunity for them. But aside from that, it just as wonderful to bottle feed them when they cuddle up with you.

When my kids were a few months, they both had to do some bottle feeding when I returned to work and they went to day cares. For bottles we decided to go with the bottles where you put in a liner. I knew before D1 would be a year old we would be traveling to India. While I would have to sterilize the nipples myself, at least eliminating the bottles for sterilizing was a huge break.

Regarding nipple selection, there are tons of them out there, but I chose the bottle with the liner and they only have a couple of nipples to choose from, I offered it to my kid and that was that. I don't think kids are as fussy about nipples and stuff as the manufacturers would like us to believe. When the babies are hungry, the milk is the right temperature, and it flows through when they suck = Happy Baby

It ended up having another advantage I had never thought of, as they got a little older and were able to sit up. They liked to drink from their bottle sitting up, whether I was holding them or they were sitting up by themselves. Since the liner simply works on suction, they can keep sucking the nipple and the milk with keep flowing. One of by boys also like to keep sucking even when the milk was over. Just for the fun of it. BTW, also easier to get the air out of the bottle.

The reason I say this was an unexpected surprise was because when I switched them to cups, the never noticed that they had to sit up now as opposed to lying down to drink.

Another decision I made with D1 and later with D2 was to switch them from milk bottles to bottles with straws. For one thing they have a very similar look, although it still takes them a couple of tries to figure out how to suck through the straw. Again, they didn't have to learn yet another thing, tip the cup to drink. They simply held the bottle straight like they did with their milk bottle and drank.

My reasoning for a straw bottle was again our trip to India. I didn't want to carry a bunch of sippy cups and a package of straws is so much easier to handle. Not to mention any place we go I could get my kids to drink even in the absence of a sippy cup. Those days, people in India still did the simple way, kids didn't use sippy cups. Nowadays, they are pretty common.

Sleeping
D2 was so good about sleeping I forgot how consuming an issue it can be. D1 was really difficult in that regard. Babies sleep 16 hours the first few days, I don't know when those hours were when D1 was a baby. You may get lucky and get a sleeper.

But if you don't, just remember one thing, whatever method you choose to soothe the baby you are going to be stuck with it for a long time. So choose wisely. Walking the floor and rocking and singing seems very easy when they are only 8 lbs and fall asleep in 5 minutes. Soon they are 15 lbs and getting bigger and take longer to fall asleep and before you know it, you are pacing the floor for an hour and more, and several times in the night. So do think about this one issue seriously.

We decided that D1 and D2 had to learn to soothe themselves as soon as they were 6 weeks old. This can become a major issue if you get a sleep resister, like D1 was and still is at 10 years old. Especially because it cuts into your rest, and I believe you cannot be a good parent when you are sleep deprived and exhausted (some amount of exhaustion is to be expected, but not to the point where it begins to affect judgement, which is what was happening with D1).

Putting babies down to sleep has nothing to do with the debate on holding babies. I believe when they are awake and they want to be held, hold them. They like being held up and being able to see the world from a different view. But if they are happy and staring at the wall and not fussing, let them be. Even if you cannot understand what is so fascinating about the wall, so what, let your baby have her enjoyment.

Another thing to remember is baby's sleeping patterns are not uniform. That is just because they started sleeping through the night at 6 weeks, doesn't mean that at 3 months he will not start fussing again at night. Usually, babies have sleep disruptions during growth spurts - brain growth wise. This is especially stark when they are about 9 months old. That is the first time, they begin to recognize, familiar faces and strangers. And for the first time they become uncomfortable with strangers. They usually start waking up at night again for a few weeks.

More on baby sleeping myths. They are not quiet, in fact, they are quite noisy, even when sound asleep. In that first year, when they go from sleeping 16 hour days to 4 naps a day and down to 2 naps a day. That again doesn't happen on some predetermined schedule written in a book. I believe if you find some balance between learning your kids tired cues and sticking to some kind of pattern regarding sleep times and rituals, they will do reasonably well. Will this work every sleep time? No! For one thing, they may be getting ready to give up a naptime. They can't do this overnight. So some days they will nap 3 times, some days 2 times, some days 3 times, but one really short one. It takes a while. Sometimes they won't nap, but you know they need their rest, so you can say, even if you don't want to nap, this is rest time and you can lie down quietly and/or look at a book. Many times, just quieting down puts them to sleep, if not, they have still rested enough so the rest of they is not painful for all.

Another debate is co-sleeping. People all over the world do it, it is natural. However, that doesn't mean it is always the best choice. I started co-sleeping with D1, but like I mentioned earlier, I don't know when his 16 hours of sleep began. So within a few short days, I was so sleep deprived I was walking around like a zombie. One night he fussed in bed and I thought I nursed them. I heard him fussing again and thought, didn't I just feed him. I hadn't fed him, what I had done was fling the comforter away from me and it was over him. That's when I decided sitting up at night and feeding him was better than having him with me. We both actually did better after I moved him to his own crib, although he was still in our room.

The hardest part of parenting at this time is not having any control on your own time. It is so totally tied to your baby's schedule. And if that isn't bad enough, you get a million comparisons from people about how this baby is doing this and that baby is doing that. Sometimes we get so caught up with that and start feeling guilty that you are not being a good enough parent. You should be doing more. But the simple truth is, you are doing just fine with your kid if you enjoy being with him.

Unfortunately, because we don't know what we are doing most of the time we start feeling guilty. Remember this, parenting is about feeling worried and guilty all the time. If you can overcome this emotion, you are home free, the rest is easy.