A Breast-Feeding Dilema

First I would like to point out that I really am a laid back Mom.  Based on this post and the sleeping game, I may sound like a crazy woman who won't let her baby play with another baby, because I would be afraid she would contract some mysterious disease.  I am certainly far from that.  Monday - Friday my children are on the same schedule as the rest of the kids in my child care, but on weekends, it is up in the air.  Bedtimes, nap-times, playtime are always at different times.  I don't want my children to be the kid who is whining because they are up past their bedtime.  Mine is the one sitting listening to a band play in a bar around 9:30pm.  I am extremely flexible with my children in most areas, but there is one area that I am not really good at giving up control: Breast Feeding.

Here is my confession:  my daughter is 9 months old and has not eaten from a bottle.  That is not all, my son never used a bottle.  There are some people that would slap me on the back and say "great job", while others look on disgusted and say "what a control freak".  While, there may be an under lying control issue, the main reason we don't use a bottle: it is way easier not too.  When my daughter is hungry or sleepy, I can stop crying immediately (makes me kind of feel like a super hero).  It is wonderful!  When my son was cranky, I could feed him a little and then pass him off to a family member and then he would melt their hearts with his smiles.  When my baby wakes up in the middle of the night, I can stay snuggled in bed and nurse her - no kitchen run.  For my family, this is the easiest, most natural option.

There are some drawbacks to it.  My husband feels left out at times.  Both of my children have become "Momma's babies".  They know where the food is, they aren't stupid.  I try to leave (and we did this with my son too) my daughter with her father at night, while I catch up on cleaning or a shower... a little Daddy Time.  But I am sure he wants to feel like a super hero to and have her stop crying the moment he picks her up - He and I know we will get there soon, but not as fun to be ranked #2.

The major drawback: exclusive breast feeding makes it really hard to leave those babies.  This weekend made this so clear.  I had a play I was attending where I was going to be gone for 4 hours.  The baby was going to miss a nursing session.  (I have left her before for meetings, grocery shopping, yoga, but I had never had something that interfered with a nursing session).  I did what I had to and left her caretaker (my sister) with plenty of supplies: cups, bottles, baby food, teething biscuits and of course pumped milk.  Well, as expected when I got back, my sister informed me "she hates bottles, she just was getting frustrated so I stopped." Apparently my little bundle of joy cried half the time I was gone and no one could calm her down.  The worst part is that I saw this coming from a mile away.  The play snuck up on me, but once I remembered, I knew my little girl wasn't ready yet, I had done nothing to prepare her.  She sucks at eating food - doesn't enjoy it as much as nursing and doesn't quite have the hang of a cup.  She lived, but who knows if my sister will ever volunteer to watch her again.

So here is where I am hoping to get some feedback from other breast feeding Momma's out there or Daddy's with breast feeding ladies in their lives.  If you are a stay at home Mom and exclusively breast fed your baby, how did you introduce a bottle and/or cup?  What kind of bottles did your baby use, how old were they?  Help Momma's out there like myself by giving us the inside scoop and letting us know we can leave once and a while without coming home to a super sad baby.

Gifts for Child Care Families

So the holidays are sneaking up on us, as they seem to every year.  One of the things I dislike about this season is having to come up with gift ideas.  You thought it was hard coming up with a gift to give your Grandma, well that is nothing compared to coming up with a gift for a child care family.  Do you give the whole family a gift, the child a gift or just stay out of it entirely - I mean you do enough by taking care of them day in and day out right.  This was not always a hard decision.  At the beginning I only watched one little boy, so I got him a gift and sent his parents along their merry way with a plate full of cookies.  Then all the other kids came along.  Here is the thing, I don't have that much time on my hands - so making cookies for that many people is out of the realm of possibilities.  So a whole new idea was needed.  Plus in this economy, I don't know about you, but I don't have money to spend on 6 - 8 kids individually.

I decided the best way to deal with this situation was to assess the situation properly.  I take a crap load of pictures of the kids.  I figure parents want to know what their little buggers are up to when they are not with them daily.  Here is the thing, I never did anything with these pictures.  They just sat on my computer taking up precious memory.  So I decided to use this as my focal point.  I could frame a picture, but what about the 300+ other pictures?  I could make a scrapbook, but I don't have time to make cookies, so that seriously isn't going to work, right?  Well, then I got thinking about a photo book.  I could make it online during nap times, a ton of the pictures could be used and the gift would benefit the kids and their parents.  The prices of the photobooks range from $10 -$50.  The best part is around the holidays photo websites have amazing deals.  I always deal with Snapfish, (www.snapfish.com) they have 40%, buy 2 get 1free, all kinds of deals.  I am sure that Shutterfly and other companies have amazing holiday deals as well.  It takes a little time to get a photo book together, but it is fun to go back through the pictures of the kids, not to mention amazing to see how much they have grown! (If you do go this route, make sure that you have gotten a letter signed stating that you were allowed to take the pictures).

When I first started my gift giving tradition, I was not a mother.  When you are without children of your own you have a lot of great ideas, then you have kids and you realized they sucked (the ideas, not the kids - to be clear).  I think that my gift giving tradition was the only exception to that rule.  As a mother I can't imagine a gift that I could receive that would top that.  As an added bonus, I have yet to meet a child that does not love looking at pictures of themselves.  Seriously, kids love looking at themselves.  Together parents and kids can look at pictures and kids can tell about what was happening that day or tell about the friends they have made.

The only other suggestion I would give is try to plan ahead.  For black friday Snapfish had 55% off the entire website.  I could have saved a ton had I been ready on time - which of course I wasn't.  (You can be sure I will be trying to follow my own advice next year.)  The deals after black friday get a little weak, but then get better the closer you get to Christmas.

So have fun and create some memories.  I have yet to hear a complaint!  It is a gift that will be enjoyed for years to come.  I always make sure there is one picture of me in their albums - then hopefully I will never be forgotten.