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Co-Sleeping: How To
Before we had kids, Kevin asked me, “What would you say about our future kids sleeping in bed with us?” I scoffed. “Never happening.” “Really?” he asked. “Why?” I went onto explain that I wasn’t allowed to sleep in my parents’ bed. I would sneak into their room and my Dad, who is a light sleeper, would compassionately give me advice and send me back to my room. Children just weren’t to be in their parents’ bed. Kevin, on the other hand, was often welcomed into his parents’ full-sized bed whenever he had trouble sleeping. “I always felt so safe between them,” he recounted dreamily. “Well,” I said, “That’s cute.…
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Co-Sleeping: Why We Do It
When I was pregnant the first time, I had expectations about where and how my baby would sleep. I had set up a pack-n-play across the room from us, a good 15 feet away from where I rested my head so I could easily access him in the middle of the night. Our baby would sleep in there a few weeks, then, before he got too used to being in our room, I would transfer him to his crib in the room next door, where he would sleep blissfully through the night. Oh, sweet naivety. A Brief Overview of Our Experience The night of Levi’s delivery, he slept…
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Kids Need Nature and Other Take Aways from Last Child in the Woods
When I made the quick decision to homeschool Levi for preschool, I began doing what I do best: compulsive research. I looked into different homeschooling blogs, followed different homeschooling moms on Instagram, and began to understand a few of the various styles of homeschooling out there. One book that kept coming up in my research was Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. Many homeschooling moms referred to it while explaining why they placed tremendous importance on having their child outdoors in nature. This was something I identified with. Two years ago, on a near-perfect autumn day, I took Levi to a local park. It…
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11 Surprising Things I’ve Learned about Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding is one of those things I always planned on doing. But, just as most things with parenthood, I found so many things surprising (and amazing) about it! Here are eleven things I’ve learned from research and experience. 1. Breastfeeding is Instinctual for Babies During our classes at Lifecycle Woman Care, we were taught about the importance of the first “golden hour” after birth. During this time, the baby is alert and intent on connecting to the mother they previously only knew on the inside. When newborns are placed on their mother’s bare body, they have an innate drive to connect to the breast, and the breast crawl ensues. Babies…
