Nursing in Public

Being a new mom who is trying to exclusively breastfeed for as long as possible (is 6-12 months too ambitious?), I've found it interesting to follow the recent controversy surrounding public breastfeeding. Naturally, I'm processing it all through the lens of my own thoughts and experiences.

I haven't had to do much public breastfeeding yet, but I was flying (and breastfeeding) the day of the airport nurse-ins, though I was unaware of the nurse-ins at the time. I was aware of the general issue, of course, which has made it more difficult for me to consider nursing in public. I'm not shy, and I don't have any personal problems with feeding my child whenever she wants wherever I happen to be. What I AM, however, is hyper-sensitive to others, which means I hate the thought of making others uncomfortable. As a result, when I was traveling I was trying to be discreet. This meant covering Emelia (and my breast) while she was nursing. It also drove me to nurse in a smelly bathroom rather than in the crowded waiting area at the gate our flight was leaving from. Ugh.

Emelia and I are both new to this nursing thing. Leaving aside the problem of putting a cloth over a baby's face, nursing blind meant a great deal of frustration to both of us because she repeatedly came unlatched and both of us needed me to be able to see her in order to get her back on. Being discreet and keeping covered made it take longer, which meant that Emelia screamed more than she needed to. This made both of us miserable, and probably didn't help the moods of our fellow travelers, either. So which is worse -- the possibility of seeing some breast while a baby is nursing or the screaming of a frustrated baby that can't be nursed properly?

I'm not going to go any further into the issue, since there's plenty of information out there on both sides of it, and I'm not going to add anything new. I'm STRONGLY in the pro-public-breastfeeding camp, and, after my experience, I'm much more inclined to let discretion be damned in favor of pragmatism and expedience than I was just a week ago. It's hard enough trying to get anything done with a baby in tow without adding to it just because some people can't handle the sight of a breast being used the way it's SUPPOSED to be used.

That said, I refrained from whipping it out on my walk home from the grocery store yesterday, despite the fact that Emelia was screaming. I may have adjusted my thinking a bit, but it might take me some time for my actions to catch up. After all, what would the neighbors think?

Baby Swing

I have friends and family who swear that a swing is the only way to calm a cranky baby. It even became a joke over Thanksgiving because one of my sisters in law kept mentioning over and over that I might want to consider getting a side to side swing. I got a REALLY old front and back swing as a hand-me-down, and I wanted to try it out before giving in and buying something ELSE new (or letting someone get one for a gift -- I'm all for recycling, after all). I kept assuring Rebecca that I was taken care of in the swing department, at least until I tried the hand-me-down.

Well, I've tried the hand-me-down, and I'm a baby swing convert. So far, Emelia doesn't seem to mind that it only goes back and forth. It calms her in a way that I -- much to my regret -- cannot (unless she's hungry). As a result, she's spending a fair amount of time in the swing instead of in my arms. I'm glad there's a way to calm her (and rest assured that I do try to calm her myself before resorting to the swing), but I feel a little inadequate that the sheer presence of my body and my soothing voice and movements can't compete with an ugly, battery-operated contraption. *sigh*

Dogs

Aaron and I were dog parents before becoming kid parents. In fact, we met walking our dogs on Capitol Hill. As a result, we have every confidence that we know our dogs and that we can handle being parents of all three of our babies with no problems whatsoever. We may be deluding ourselves.

Today is the first day I'm home alone with all three. My friend -- and our dog walker -- Bryce has repeatedly offered to keep the dogs for a couple of weeks while we get settled into this kid parenting thing, and she smiles wonderingly (and knowingly) every time I decline. My reasoning is that I want my family to be together as much as possible during this time. Plus, how hard can it be to take care of all three?

I'm finding out.

At this point, the dogs have interacted with Emelia enough that they seem comfortable, and I've had no reason to be concerned about them, so far. Nora has been curious and clingy, but not in a worrisome way. Junebug sniffs around, but mostly she seems indifferent. Emelia, though too young at three weeks to really process her relationship with the dogs, doesn't seem to mind their attentions. They are all behaving exactly as I'd envisioned. What I hadn't really given much thought to in my vision, though, was me.

Having given birth a mere three weeks ago, I'm not entirely at 100 percent. Add to that the lack of sleep that comes with being a new parent AND a cold, and let's just say I'm a tad less than fresh. I'm still a week away from being allowed to lift more than ten pounds (according to my hospital discharge orders), which means I can't lift our 23 pound stroller. Whenever I go for a walk, I have to put Emelia in a sling and carry her. No problem. Until you add dogs to the equation. The walking part was easy. The dogs pulled this way and that a little, but I could handle it. The part I couldn't handle, though, was scooping poop.

Living in a city comes with a variety of social responsibilities, which includes cleaning up after your dogs. You do it and you get used to it. It's really a very small price to pay for the loving companionship of a dog, and you get really good at doing it without any mess or fuss. It becomes second nature. But strap a baby to your chest and add weak stomach muscles (you try stretching your stomach muscles around a bowling ball for a few months!) and overextended leg muscles (apparently, to birth a baby, you have to put your knees behind your head during contractions in order to get any leverage at all -- after three hours in this position, leg muscles tend to get a little sore), and the process isn't as easy. Suffice it to say, I re-injured my right leg on our walk this morning.

This provokes a dilemma. If I can't pick up after the dogs, I'm pretty useless on a walk. Either I live with the injury and run the risk of doing further damage or I call Bryce and take her up on her offer to take the dogs. It seems stupid and pig-headed to do the former, but doing the latter would be to admit that I can't handle all of my parenting responsibilities (yet). This seems like a no-brainer, but I haven't yet made up my mind what to do. I'm hoping that a brilliant third option will occur to me . . . .

And so it begins . . .

In the past, when I've considered starting a blog, I rejected the thought because I felt I didn't really have enough to say to keep it up. I still may not, but now that I'm a new parent, I thought a blog would be a good way to keep friends and family informed of Emelia's progress and of my thoughts on Emelia, parenting, and life, in general.

Becoming a parent is the most profound experience of my life, so far, and I expect that most of my posts -- even the ones not specifically about Emelia -- will have something to do with being a parent. I intend for this to be a record of thoughts, photos and anecdotes that people who know me and Aaron might enjoy. I welcome comments and feedback.