So I'm a Crunchy Mom

I hadn't really been sure what the word "crunchy" meant in terms of parenting, but have heard it quite a bit.  I did some research today and discovered that the world apparently fits me pretty perfectly.

The Urban Dictionary definition for Crunchy Mama:

Mother who supports homebirth, breastfeeding, baby wearing, cloth diapering, co-sleeping, gentle discipline, etc.  One who questions established medical authority; tends to be vegetarian and/or prepare all-organic foods.  See crunchy and hippie.

That crunchy mama is breastfeeding in public again!


Hmm... Pretty right on!  Maybe that's what I should have named the blog... I had a hard time committing to something.  I think how they used it in a sentence is kinda funny though and I wonder if people have thought that about me since I don't hesitate to nurse Silver wherever, whenever.  Oh well.  More on the "tends to be vegetarian" bit tomorrow.

Jealous that I didn't come up with this awesomeness,
but will probably be reading her blog now :)

First Trip to the Zoo

We had such a great time at the zoo with my Mom's Support Group!  Silver, my non-sleeping munchkin, managed to sleep for quite a chunk of time though.  She is continuously surprising me...

First time standing up by herself...!

Einstein Never Slept

Some days when I try to get Silver down for a nap I am convinced that DHS is going to show up at my door at any given moment.  Why?  Because Silver is not, nor has she ever really been, a good sleeper.  Our 'routine' of late involves me letting her scream her head off for a bit in attempts to put herself to sleep.

Other days, I am convinced that someone else on our block has the same video monitor we do and has picked up our signal.  The mom is watching us, shaking her head at our situation and 'tsk, tsk-ing', while judging me.  She's probably even calling her stay at home mom friend up to talk about me.  "Can you believe this mom is just letting her baby cry like that?!  Listen (Holds monitor up to phone)."  I'm not even kidding. I really feel she's out there.

I am not a fan of letting Silver cry it out.  And I don't believe in the cry it out method.  To be honest, I think the Baby Wise method is entirely crazy because when babies cry it's because they need something.  But when I KNOW Silver's exhausted because she's 'sung her sleepy song' as I call it, she's not hungry, she's had a diaper change, and she is merely pissed off at the world (or probably just me), because she can't fall asleep, what else am I left to do?  She has to figure it out.  Because when I rock her, she just wails (while trying to latch on to me through my shirt).  When I nurse her, she falls asleep and the second I go to lay her down, we're back to wailing.  So she has to figure it out.

I'm a researcher at heart.  I've read most of The No-Cry Sleep Solution.  I've started reading The Happiest Baby on the Block, and even have the DVD set to ship to me on our next video queue... I've read about sleeping solutions on quite a few blogs and parenting websites.  All of which were extremely helpful and filled with the most fantastic ideas... yet don't seem to be working for us just yet.  But we're working on it.  We've been working on it.

The second Silver wipes her eyes, gives a yawn, or buries her head in my chest it's go time.  I'm not even kidding.  I practically sprint to her crib.  No, not really, but time is definitely of the essence.  And some days Silver actually goes to sleep without putting up a fight.  Those days are little miracle days where I do an oh my goodness, freak out with excitement dance, while looking into the video monitor, smiling with awe and joy at the miraculousness.

What did I do to make that go so well?  Is it because we played on her bouncer instead of on her play mat before heading to her crib?  Is it because she is swaddled extra perfectly?  Maybe the little musical soother played the most perfect combination of classical music and rainforest sounds.  Perhaps it was that the sun was a little overcast so it's darker in her room...  All of the factors can drive a mama crazy.  I've become ritualistic and don't even know for sure what my rituals are.

She usually eventually does figure it out.  Sometimes it's after just a couple minutes of yelling at me.  Sometimes, on the bad days, like today, it's been an entire hour of her trying to work it out with me intermittently checking on her so she knows she hasn't been abandoned.  I'm probably going to have to go in there and let her think she's won.  We'll try to play for a little bit, but she will be so darn grumpy, we'll go straight back to her crib, where she will probably quickly cave.  And when she does cave, it is so bizarre, she will go from screaming, with her eyes squeezed tight, to silence with the sweetest sleeping face you've ever seen.  You wouldn't think it was the same baby who had been screaming in protest just moments before.

My mom gets Silver to fall asleep without much fighting almost every time she watches her.  Although my mom does have to work her magic.  She tells me she thinks that Silver must just be a genius, like Einstein, who never slept... And I love her for that.  Finding the beauty in our exhausting situation.  All I know, is that eventually Silver will learn to fall asleep without hating me and every second of our 'routine'.  Because she has to.  And, I now more than EVER cherish those beautiful moments, from the time she was maybe about 2 months, until she was about 3 months old.  When she would sing herself to sleep at any given moment and actually take naps.  Lots of naps.  Beautiful, glorious, angelic naps.  And she even slept. through. the. night...

Germs on Parade

T.J. and I both wanted to go the gym this morning.  We had a full day, and it would make sense that we would go to the gym all together.  As a family.

But... no.  I had huge hesitations.  That would mean putting Silver in the nursery.  On a Saturday?  Um... I just don't know about that.  There are babies with kids all the way up to age 10 in the nursery.  All in the same room... We're in the midst of flu season.  It's like Germapalooza in there.

We have been so blessed with Silver only having a cold so far, while T.J. and I have both been sick (thank goodness for breastfeeding so she can get my antibodies).  Despite her healthiness, I feel certain that if I take her to the gym, on Monday she will definitely be coming down with something.

T.J. thinks I'm insane.  And maybe I am.  Okay, he says, we'll just never leave the house.  Then he brings up a great point - but babe, he says, we check her in the nursery at church every Sunday.

And we do.  And I feel completely okay with that and confident in our decision.  Is it because I know most of the babies who might have the cooties and that makes it okay?  Is it because she's only with other little people of about the same age?  I don't know.  But what I do know is that I realized Silver couldn't go to the gym anyway, because it was time for her nap.  :)

Back in Cloth

Silver is back in cloth diapers today for the first time in a couple weeks...  She had gotten diaper rash from a combination of a laundry mishap from me (drying her diaper inserts with a dryer sheet, hence making them un-absorbant) and teething.

We have always felt extremely loyal to our cloth and started with all the natural remedies we could try first.  We tried coconut oil (it's antibacterial and antifungal).

Then I bought some raw silk liners (raw silk retains some of the silk's natural sericin (a creamy wax given off by the silkworms) which is supposed to be both soothing and antibacterial! It's also great at pulling moisture away from the skin).


At one point, I even leaned over the changing table so I could squirt some milk onto her heiny.  Breast milk has got some amazing healing capabilities!  But it didn't seem to work for us and our situation...


Her diaper rash was never terrible (minus when it first popped up, when I hadn't realized I had messed up the diapers), but it just wouldn't seem to go away.


So then I bought some disposables.  I so didn't want to do it.  Not to mention the fact that the situation was particularly irritating because of course I have received some flack about using cloth.  So I now feel like I need to defend it!!!  But back to the diaper rash, some family members had suggested that maybe the cloth was the problem because 'they can't ever really get sanitary, disposables are so much more absorbent, and maybe disposables would even help her sleep better at night' (that's a whole other issue...!) blah, blah, blah...


Alas, I went with some more 'natural' disposables, from 7th Generation, and then also plowed through some Huggies Pure and Natural (I have no idea how you disposable diaper using people do it!  They are expensive!)  I tried Desatin (I have no idea how people use that stuff daily either!  It's a mess).  Tried Triple Paste.  Tried A&E.  The diaper rash would always fade away yet still be there, and at times it was occasionally more noticeable than other times.


Did some more research.  Bought some cornstarch, though never used it.  Re-read up on coconut oil.  Um... Hmm... I had bought the kind at the health food store that was specifically for the skin, when come to find out, it was deodorized.  There goes man, messing around with nature again.  Are you kidding me?  So then I went back to the health food store, bought some cold pressed coconut oil used for cooking, slathered it on Silver's bum, and BAM!, couple of diapers later and the rash is almost gone.  For real this time.  And she smells like a pina colada.  :)  So... Life is good.  We love our cloth.


And, as a P.S., let's just say holy cow to the blowouts that Silver had while in the sposies.  She has only maybe had a couple while in cloth.  Those disposables just didn't work out for us so well.  Love cloth.  So much.  The end.