I am SO proud of our boy! Every night for the past week he has sat on the potty before our shower, I have said "zing!" and he has peed :D he is SO clever!
When I was pregnant I read an article about a family that practised EC full time. So...no nappies at all.
I was intrigued and agreed with the main principles of Elimination Communication but was particularly disturbed by the image this writer left in my mind of pulling out a newspaper for her child to "eliminate" onto in a shopping centre carpark. Not for me, I thought.
We have always had nappy free time, right from the start, mostly to let the little boys' bits breathe, abit because we didnt always have enough cloth nappies, and also because his booty is so cute! So it made sense to look out for him to make some sort of signal that he was going to wee or poo (sorry for the TMI - look away if this disturbs you!). We couldn't really distinguish that he was making any signs so we just had a cue word "zing!" for every time he weed. As time went on he would go quiet and be still just before doing a wee so that we could occasionally predict this elimination and pop him on the potty. There have been plenty of misses!!! But its relaxed in our house, there's no pressure...and hey if I need to clean more towels well I am happy to do so! I've been noticing now that he often wees roughly 10mins after every feed and so when we get time we pop him on the potty and he does a wee! This is part-time EC at its finest. It fits in with what we were already doing and causes no inconvenience and hey if our darling is "toilet trained" early it is a bonus! Haha I will not go into stories of what happens during nappy free time when you dont pay attention, and believe me this can take ONE second :p
So that is our Ec story for now.
I also wanted to touch base on something that I have been thinking about alot lately...the competitiveness of motherhood. My next blog will delve in a little more but what got me thinking is an article I wrote this week about formula use and it's affect of the gut. Before I go on I want to say that yes I am pro-breastfeeding and I dont hold back on my feelings about this but I can also undertand why and have dear friends who formula feed. People have no idea how hard breastfeeding can be, how little support there can be, how emotional IT IS. The next blog will cover more...but I'm not going to lie, it was HARD to write about this. Because the very last thing I want to do is make anyone feel crap about their feeding choices, and yet the risks need to become common knowledge. In writing this article sensitively (as I hope I have) it got me thinking about WHY a mother would feel like crap about any of the choices she makes raising her children.
The amount of pressure on us to be perfect from not gaining too much weight in our pregnancy, to whether we stay at home or work, from what constitutes a natural birth to our choices about discipline. Every mother makes choices that suit her and her child at the time and rather than tear each other down, we should support one another.
I have mother's group tomorrow and I love our group. We all do things a little differently, but we all listen to each other without judgement. This is how it should be but often not how it is.
Finally, I have been getting alot of great feedback and so I just wanted to say thankyou. I am loving this, the journey and reaching out, the response and the joy of writing. So please, follow the blog, tell your friends & keep the warm, fuzzies coming.
Cheers & Giggles
xx
It is true that support for women who are unable to breastfeed is quite scarce. Its hard because the women who normally say to me "you should breastfeed, why is he on formula" are the women who have had no problems with their baby feeding, therefore they have no idea how hard it can be for other babies and mums. I know persistance is key, and they say to persevere and persevere, however when is it enough? when my baby is screaming because he cant get enough milk? When im in tears because he is upset? when the two of us are physically and emotionally exhausted? i like to think i am passionate about breastfeeding, i just wasnt able to continue on with it for longer than 3 weeks. The hard part for me is dealing with other people. i do feel like there is a lot of judgment towards women who put their babies on formula. Therefore when i find women asking me... ohhhh why arent u feeding him? (not that its any of their business) i find myself having to justify our situation to them, involving the whole story of how he got thrush and how i had low milk production. And its at that time when i stop and think... why do i have to tell you this, its as if i need to explain the whole situation so they dont think im suh a bad mum. I know my son loves me and i love him, it just wasnt for us, he is happy and healthy and adorable, what more could i ask for. thanks for listening sares, thought id put my 2 cents in from another point of view :)))
ReplyDeleteThanks babe for your comment! We spoke in length about this and I agree that you are passionate about breastfeeding :) and as you said mason is healthy, happy & LOVES you. This is why, despite our own circumstances we need to support each other because we dont have the right to tear each other down or to judge and we probably give ourselves a harder time than anyone else anyway! Love and empowerment to all <3
ReplyDelete