Motrin no Mo', Wear Your Baby Proudly for International Babywearing Week!

Thanks to a babywearing group I belong to near where my folks' live, I was alerted to a craptacular intelligence insulting advertizement by Motrin and directed to Moms who wear their babies. Ugh, *sarcastic note here* I am sooooo gah-laaaaaad that Motrin was there to swoop in to relieve the pain in the neck, shoulders, and back from my "schwing". I am sooooo glad that you called me on being "trendy". blech!

If you search on youtube I am sure that you will find the motrin ad and the HUGE backlash of pissed off PARENTS that wear their babies and children. Twitter is in an uproar, nay the Internet is in an uproar!

This "trendy" way of taking care of babies and young children has been around since parents' wore leathers and cleverly figured out a way to put their baby back on their body with the realization that baby was very portable when baby was in utero, baby can be portable outside of the womb. They did this out of practicality, not some desire to fit in to the "trendy crowd". As it was then, is now today, babies are tied on mothers, fathers, grandparents, guardians and other carers around the WORLD. The "western" world has just started getting its' collective head out of its' bum-hole and realized just because non-western countries do things differently isn't wrong, just different and that western society can and IS learning that babywearing is beneficial other than transportation.

Babywearing promotes a bonding between baby and parents, helps extend and increase successful breastfeeding, helps baby's physical, mental and emotional growth, and surprisingly to the naysayers, promotes the much western idealized characteristic of independence! There are many other benifits that are too numerous to put here in my mini-rant, but those are a few to give you an idea of good this "trendy" thing is :)

here are 2 places to go to learn more about babywearing.
http://www.mamatoto.org/
http://www.thebabywearer.com/

As for me and my house, we will continue to babywear!

Separation Anxiety

Yesterday Alex went to daycare for an hour and a half. I had been dreading it for several days, as the longest I have been away from him is 45 minutes whilst I went to the Doctor's office for a blood draw. At that time, he stayed with his Daddy, and I think that they ended up napping. But yesterday, he was at a proper daycare with--Strangers. I fretted and worried about how he'd do without me there, if he'd cry inconsolably, reach for me with big tears in his eyes with that "don't go, Mommy!" look in his eyes. As a stay at home mom I was hoping that it would be a very very long time before I had him in daycare, and it was nearly 9 months that we made it, and as previous experience (Z was only 6 WEEKS old when I returned to work and he went into daycare) two days shy of nine months old is purty-derned gud.

I was in the same building, in fact no further than a floor and phone call away. I was sitting in a class with other mothers, and they too, had young babies and children downstairs. The phone would ring and each of us would wait with baited breath to see if our child needed us. One by one 4 mothers were called down to tend to their child's needs. Not I. Nope, Alex didn't need me.

After the class was over, I wents downstairs to pick Alex up, and he had been the "star" baby. He explored, and played, and ate some banana, drank some apple juice, and generally had a great time laughing and playing and doing his own thing. All that fret fret worry fret fret was for naught.

It has been said time and time again that Attachment Parenting philosophies and practices help children become sure-footed and quite independant, and I have to say that anecdotally, with my children, it definately has gone that way. With Z, although I wouldn't spank him, other parenting techniques I did were quite harsh, and I was never really "there" with him. I love him, dearly dearly do I love him, but my ways with him weren't always so loving, and my patience with him was short, and that mixed in with him having ODD and ADHD, well it wasn't a good time for any of us. He was clingy, he had bad bad separation anxiety when I dropped him off at daycares, grandparents' or with his father, and he was quite introverted, and he developed a slight speech impediment. With L, I was "there" with her, more focused on her needs, gentler, more patient. She became very sure of herself, and rarely would we have separation anxiety. She is a happy little girl who makes friends easily and can entertain herself (even when she's not supposed to, or to the detriment of other's eardrums, but hey! she's joyful!) Alex is following happily, noisily, inquisitively in L's footsteps! Anxiety Schmangxiety--bah! I was the only anxious one in this mother and baby team!

Oh and my class? I am going to be a breastfeeding peer supporter! Yay! Lactivism in a truely asked for and positive way!