We attended our first prenatal class at the hospital last night and it went really well. We got to watch the video on birth that the teacher said was out of date, but still worth watching.
We also talked about nutrition during pregnancy and avoiding alcohol. It seemed like all was well until someone had to mention that one study where they found that mothers who drank mildly to moderately during pregnancy had children with higher test scores later in life. Actually the guy said, "they had better children," and I actually laughed. I'm extremely skeptical of test scores to begin with because life is not set up like a test, real world skills and emotional health and communication are what will really count in the long run; not IQ tests.
The child-birth educator did say she had heard of the study but was skeptical of a self-reported study. For those of us who have taken tons of research-based classes, like me, who learn about research methods and statistics in every class, we realize that this study can't prove causation, only correlation. Meaning women in this particular study (it matters how they recruit participants too!), who self-reported (they could be lying!) consuming a small amount of alcohol during pregnancy, happened to have a child that scored higher on an IQ test (which doesn't mean later success in life!) than those who self-reported (again, they could be lying too!) not having any alcohol. Maybe there is more than one study showing this, but this shouldn't change the guideline that women shouldn't drink alcohol during pregnancy if only for the fact that we can never prove causation for alcohol producing smarter kids, but we sure as hell know what causes Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
Anyway this guy went on to say how eating junk food is just as bad, but we don't get mad at the women who eat nothing but junk food. Someone pointed out that although junk food is bad, it probably won't cause deformities unless you get really malnourished. To which he said, "well, we don't know what causes these deformities most of the time." Which although, true sometimes, didn't stop Brent and I from laughing over the great Cheeto deformities some children get, on the drive home.
He even went on to say that he would much rather his wife have a glass of wine every once and a while than eat junk food. Jeeze, I just wanted to say, "drink alcohol if you must, but stop trying to justify it by using bad scientific inquiry and putting down my beloved junk food!"
I like how our educator put it, "it's like playing Russian roulette," meaning, some women can have just a couple drinks and see the fetal alcohol effect, while others can drink every night and not see any effect, they don't know the exact mechanism that causes it, but they do know that if you don't drink any alcohol you won't have a child with FAS. There are some studies that show being younger helps, and that first pregnancies are more protected, but it doesn't guarantee that if you are 19 and having your first baby you definitely won't get a child with FAS if you drink. And I'm very skeptical of any study that might show a benefit, especially if they show that benefit through IQ tests, which like I said before, don't count for much. FAS is more likely to affect your emotional regulation than your IQ, or I should say, it affects emotional regulation way more than IQ score. I know from experience working with adults with FAS.
My unsolicited advice to pregnant women: just don't drink at all. It's too risky. Also eat a balanced diet, but I'm guessing some junk food will not hurt you or the baby. I believe that I have gotten enough good nutrients while also imbibing in an occasional junk food item, this week I just can't get enough Nutty Bars and those have peanut butter in them, kind of, so they aren't so bad ;). And I eat them after finishing my tomatoes, hummus, and whole wheat pita bread! So there! I refuse to believe that it's OK for me to then finish my meal with a half a glass of wine instead.
Maybe someday down the road they will discover that Nutty Bars are really harmful and cause all kind of deformities and my son will be their first case study and my pregnancy diet will be scrutinized and I'll be told how awful I was for eating that processed junk. And the headline will read "Junk Food Worse than Alcohol for Fetus." But until then, I must take the side that says alcohol is easily avoided and very harmful, so we might as well not drink it while we are pregnant.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
I married a white guy.
The fact that I am currently married to and procreating with a white man might not sound like such a weird thing to you. But to me, it's still weird. Don't get me wrong, I am super in love with this man, and wouldn't trade him in for anyone, expect maybe Hugh Grant or Justin Timberlake, and they would have to put up front a good deal of money before I made the switch, and I would probably later regret it.
But do you know what this means? Our kids are going to be white. Like super white, like the kind of kids you get when two white people mate. White. And we're from the Northern and Western European variety, we can't even claim to be Mediterranean. We're mostly from the British Isles and Scandinavia, with possibly some German and Polish mixed in there. Brent has brown hair and hazel eyes, that's about as weird as we get.
This is a strange phenomenon to me because for many years I always pictured having mixed race kids because I wasn't ever dating a white guy. I mean, I dated white guys, but only for a few weeks here and there. All my longer term relationships were with Asians and Latinos. I pictured how cute the mixing of our races would look like if we ever had kids. I got annoyed when people poo pooed adopting from foreign countries because their kids wouldn't look like them. I thought, "my kids will be Mexican, they probably won't look like me!" I felt the race of the man I was dating didn't matter, and time showed me that it didn't.
Then along came Brent, a white guy, whose race didn't matter to me, and I ended up marrying him and am now knocked up with his white baby. A boring white baby. I'm sure this thought doesn't cross many mother's minds, but it sure crosses mine. Thank God I never had a baby with any of my exes, that would have been a bigger disaster, even though I'd have a cute, mixed-race, child right now. But a part of me feels a bit of a loss over this only because it was such a big part of my future world view for so long. I was going to be an awesome mother to my mixed-race babies and make sure no one treated them differently just because they had darker skin.
But now I'm not only having a white kid, I'm having a white, male baby. I'm going to be raising the most privileged member of our society if you only look at race and sex. Obviously class plays an enormous part too, and we certainly aren't rich.
I feel like I'm getting off easy after years of thinking about how the world would view my mixed-race marriage and children. Who knew I would end up with a white man raising white babies?
But do you know what this means? Our kids are going to be white. Like super white, like the kind of kids you get when two white people mate. White. And we're from the Northern and Western European variety, we can't even claim to be Mediterranean. We're mostly from the British Isles and Scandinavia, with possibly some German and Polish mixed in there. Brent has brown hair and hazel eyes, that's about as weird as we get.
This is a strange phenomenon to me because for many years I always pictured having mixed race kids because I wasn't ever dating a white guy. I mean, I dated white guys, but only for a few weeks here and there. All my longer term relationships were with Asians and Latinos. I pictured how cute the mixing of our races would look like if we ever had kids. I got annoyed when people poo pooed adopting from foreign countries because their kids wouldn't look like them. I thought, "my kids will be Mexican, they probably won't look like me!" I felt the race of the man I was dating didn't matter, and time showed me that it didn't.
Then along came Brent, a white guy, whose race didn't matter to me, and I ended up marrying him and am now knocked up with his white baby. A boring white baby. I'm sure this thought doesn't cross many mother's minds, but it sure crosses mine. Thank God I never had a baby with any of my exes, that would have been a bigger disaster, even though I'd have a cute, mixed-race, child right now. But a part of me feels a bit of a loss over this only because it was such a big part of my future world view for so long. I was going to be an awesome mother to my mixed-race babies and make sure no one treated them differently just because they had darker skin.
But now I'm not only having a white kid, I'm having a white, male baby. I'm going to be raising the most privileged member of our society if you only look at race and sex. Obviously class plays an enormous part too, and we certainly aren't rich.
I feel like I'm getting off easy after years of thinking about how the world would view my mixed-race marriage and children. Who knew I would end up with a white man raising white babies?
Monday, March 7, 2011
Why Sleep-Training Totally Freaks Me Out
I guess I've been lucky that most things I've read about babies have said that baby's cries should be responded to promptly in the first year. But I still run across articles or conversations about sleep training. I felt really anxious about this one night and talked to Brent about it who said, simply, "I thought, like, pretty much all the experts out there now say it's bad." This made me feel much better.
Even the therapist I saw last year said the trick to a smart, well-adjusted baby is responding to it, making eye-contact, holding and touching it a lot, and talking to it in a high-pitched motherese. No need for high tech devices or toys or programs. Be with your baby and hold it and pay attention to it, and he will be OK. So, for a long while now, the idea of letting a baby cry itself to sleep seems crazy. But I have some more personal reasons for not ever wanting to try sleep training.
The first one is that for years I slept like crap. I had insomnia in elementary school, middle school, a ton of it in high school. Then I took tranquilizers for about 6 years nearly every night to fall asleep. I feel like I only just learned how to fall asleep in the last 5 years. I think most of the sleeplessness came from anxiety and trauma that kept my mind working in overtime. I couldn't get calm and relaxed and secure enough to let myself fall asleep. I still will occasionally have problems sleeping, but these usually only last a week or so, sometimes just a day. Usually, now, if I didn't sleep well the night before, it's because my schedule got off and I simply wasn't tired enough when I got into bed. This is common on Sunday night. But I get back on track the next day. So if I didn't master sleeping for the first 22 years of my life, why would I expect my tiny infant to master it before he can even speak to me about it?
It also took me a long time to associate sleep as a good time. I have that now. For the most part, I like bedtime and getting to sleep. I don't like to stay up super late and be tired in the morning. Some of this comes from the fact that I have a husband sleeping next to me 99.5% of the time. There's someone to cuddle with before bed and wake up next to. I feel safe and secure and loved before falling asleep and I think this makes it easier to sleep. And if I'm super anxious or sad and need to talk to someone about it, he's right there and will let me vent before I fall asleep. If he wasn't there I know I would sleep worse.
So why is it that some people expect a baby to sleep by themselves? I can tell my husband that I feel like crap and need a hug before bed, or that I have a headache and need Tylenol before bed, or that I'm thirsty, hell, I can get my own glass of water. A baby can't! It can't tell you it feels lonely or sick or it's uncomfortable, all it can do it make noises, and squirm, and eventually cry. It can't say it's too hot or too cold or that it's hungry. Crying is the last resort of communication for a baby, it means, "you really aren't getting my signals, I'm fucking serious, do something!"
Most adults don't fall asleep alone. We have spouses or partners or significant others that share a bed with us. We also don't simply get in to bed, turn the lights out and do nothing else before falling asleep. We might take a bath, or cuddle, or read in bed, or listen to music. I turn on a fan to drown out any external noise. Babies can't do this for themselves, they need us to do it for them. They need us to cuddle them before bed and make sure they are comfortable and well fed. I have a hard time completely self-soothing myself to sleep, how can I expect a baby to soothe itself to sleep?
I truly believe that if children feel safe and secure and relaxed and comfortable and loved, they will be able to sleep. This might mean that until they find their own means of winding down and relaxing, they will need their parents to help. This could be years of having them sometimes sleeping in my bed or on the floor, but I don't think this means they are manipulative or spoiled, I think this is just them asking for a real human need of being with someone else rather than being alone. I ended up in my parent's bed sometimes or on the floor in my mom's room when I was a bit older, it wasn't because I was manipulating them into giving me something I didn't need, it was because I needed the closeness those nights.
I think I saw an episode of Dr. Phil who was very anti-co-sleeping. But he did say that he was OK with it if the child was sick. This just made my head itch more. What does this teach our children? If you are sick, you get the attention you need. Bring a child into your bed only when they are sick and I can guarantee they will be "sick" a lot. Children catch on to these things. When my parent's were getting divorced, I was "sick" a lot too. When I didn't want to be in school, I was "sick." Sometimes I was emotionally sick and just didn't know it, but sometimes I'd play up a minor problem. Or I was simply sleep deprived and needed to go home and sleep.
It seems to me that these baby-training schemes want to make babies act like adults when most adults aren't even that good at acting like adults. So many adults have sleep problems. Although I don't have any hard evidence, I'd say it might come from feeling insecure during sleep time as a child. Or maybe it's just that humans don't sleep well and we shouldn't think that we can solve it by training our smallest to fall asleep on their own. Maybe it's our social nature that makes us need the closeness of another person to sleep well, or at least a friend to talk to before we go to bed.
So, in conclusion, I feel sick to my stomach when people talk about leaving an infant to cry. How many of us would leave our spouse to cry, or our best friend, or even a coworker? And how many of us stop crying when someone ignores our crying? How many of us really just deal with our problems on our own before bed? Maybe some of us do and maybe some babies are more relaxed and have an easy temperament and fall asleep more easily than others, but we can't expect that every baby will be trained into sleeping on their own.
And I really think we need to not be so freaked out about older children sleeping near their parents. I want to be an ally for my children, I want them to be able to come to me with any problem and tell me what they need. If it's that they need to sleep near me to be happy, why wouldn't I want to give that to them? I want my children to value human relationships and the needs of people above everything else. I think responding to their emotional and physical needs is what will foster this. That means not ignoring them at night. I hope to keep a flexible sleep area and change it as needed. This might mean one bed, two beds in one room, two different rooms, or any combo. I don't ever want to think, "why won't my child sleep in his own room?" I want to think, "how can I make sleep better for my child?" I think if he is constantly getting out of bed, then something must need to change, I don't think it's because he is misbehaving.
When I look back at the times my parents were really mad at me, I don't think it was because I was purposefully being bad, I think it was because something was going wrong and wasn't feeling right for me. I needed something I wasn't getting, but probably couldn't articulate it. Hell, I'm not so good at articulating my feelings or needs or even realizing them as an adult. I challenge you to find an adult who always knows what they need and how they feel and how to communicate those needs and feelings to others. Maybe if we could, we'd have a better world.
Even the therapist I saw last year said the trick to a smart, well-adjusted baby is responding to it, making eye-contact, holding and touching it a lot, and talking to it in a high-pitched motherese. No need for high tech devices or toys or programs. Be with your baby and hold it and pay attention to it, and he will be OK. So, for a long while now, the idea of letting a baby cry itself to sleep seems crazy. But I have some more personal reasons for not ever wanting to try sleep training.
The first one is that for years I slept like crap. I had insomnia in elementary school, middle school, a ton of it in high school. Then I took tranquilizers for about 6 years nearly every night to fall asleep. I feel like I only just learned how to fall asleep in the last 5 years. I think most of the sleeplessness came from anxiety and trauma that kept my mind working in overtime. I couldn't get calm and relaxed and secure enough to let myself fall asleep. I still will occasionally have problems sleeping, but these usually only last a week or so, sometimes just a day. Usually, now, if I didn't sleep well the night before, it's because my schedule got off and I simply wasn't tired enough when I got into bed. This is common on Sunday night. But I get back on track the next day. So if I didn't master sleeping for the first 22 years of my life, why would I expect my tiny infant to master it before he can even speak to me about it?
It also took me a long time to associate sleep as a good time. I have that now. For the most part, I like bedtime and getting to sleep. I don't like to stay up super late and be tired in the morning. Some of this comes from the fact that I have a husband sleeping next to me 99.5% of the time. There's someone to cuddle with before bed and wake up next to. I feel safe and secure and loved before falling asleep and I think this makes it easier to sleep. And if I'm super anxious or sad and need to talk to someone about it, he's right there and will let me vent before I fall asleep. If he wasn't there I know I would sleep worse.
So why is it that some people expect a baby to sleep by themselves? I can tell my husband that I feel like crap and need a hug before bed, or that I have a headache and need Tylenol before bed, or that I'm thirsty, hell, I can get my own glass of water. A baby can't! It can't tell you it feels lonely or sick or it's uncomfortable, all it can do it make noises, and squirm, and eventually cry. It can't say it's too hot or too cold or that it's hungry. Crying is the last resort of communication for a baby, it means, "you really aren't getting my signals, I'm fucking serious, do something!"
Most adults don't fall asleep alone. We have spouses or partners or significant others that share a bed with us. We also don't simply get in to bed, turn the lights out and do nothing else before falling asleep. We might take a bath, or cuddle, or read in bed, or listen to music. I turn on a fan to drown out any external noise. Babies can't do this for themselves, they need us to do it for them. They need us to cuddle them before bed and make sure they are comfortable and well fed. I have a hard time completely self-soothing myself to sleep, how can I expect a baby to soothe itself to sleep?
I truly believe that if children feel safe and secure and relaxed and comfortable and loved, they will be able to sleep. This might mean that until they find their own means of winding down and relaxing, they will need their parents to help. This could be years of having them sometimes sleeping in my bed or on the floor, but I don't think this means they are manipulative or spoiled, I think this is just them asking for a real human need of being with someone else rather than being alone. I ended up in my parent's bed sometimes or on the floor in my mom's room when I was a bit older, it wasn't because I was manipulating them into giving me something I didn't need, it was because I needed the closeness those nights.
I think I saw an episode of Dr. Phil who was very anti-co-sleeping. But he did say that he was OK with it if the child was sick. This just made my head itch more. What does this teach our children? If you are sick, you get the attention you need. Bring a child into your bed only when they are sick and I can guarantee they will be "sick" a lot. Children catch on to these things. When my parent's were getting divorced, I was "sick" a lot too. When I didn't want to be in school, I was "sick." Sometimes I was emotionally sick and just didn't know it, but sometimes I'd play up a minor problem. Or I was simply sleep deprived and needed to go home and sleep.
It seems to me that these baby-training schemes want to make babies act like adults when most adults aren't even that good at acting like adults. So many adults have sleep problems. Although I don't have any hard evidence, I'd say it might come from feeling insecure during sleep time as a child. Or maybe it's just that humans don't sleep well and we shouldn't think that we can solve it by training our smallest to fall asleep on their own. Maybe it's our social nature that makes us need the closeness of another person to sleep well, or at least a friend to talk to before we go to bed.
So, in conclusion, I feel sick to my stomach when people talk about leaving an infant to cry. How many of us would leave our spouse to cry, or our best friend, or even a coworker? And how many of us stop crying when someone ignores our crying? How many of us really just deal with our problems on our own before bed? Maybe some of us do and maybe some babies are more relaxed and have an easy temperament and fall asleep more easily than others, but we can't expect that every baby will be trained into sleeping on their own.
And I really think we need to not be so freaked out about older children sleeping near their parents. I want to be an ally for my children, I want them to be able to come to me with any problem and tell me what they need. If it's that they need to sleep near me to be happy, why wouldn't I want to give that to them? I want my children to value human relationships and the needs of people above everything else. I think responding to their emotional and physical needs is what will foster this. That means not ignoring them at night. I hope to keep a flexible sleep area and change it as needed. This might mean one bed, two beds in one room, two different rooms, or any combo. I don't ever want to think, "why won't my child sleep in his own room?" I want to think, "how can I make sleep better for my child?" I think if he is constantly getting out of bed, then something must need to change, I don't think it's because he is misbehaving.
When I look back at the times my parents were really mad at me, I don't think it was because I was purposefully being bad, I think it was because something was going wrong and wasn't feeling right for me. I needed something I wasn't getting, but probably couldn't articulate it. Hell, I'm not so good at articulating my feelings or needs or even realizing them as an adult. I challenge you to find an adult who always knows what they need and how they feel and how to communicate those needs and feelings to others. Maybe if we could, we'd have a better world.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Amazingly, I'm Pro-Leash, Hear Me Out!
Yes, leashes on children, I'm for them. Or I should say, I don't think they are horrible. I'm not advocating that we keep children leashed up out back until they are 18 years old. But they seem super practical to me and a great thing for safety.
I had a leash, and I loved it, it meant I could walk without having my parents run after me every three seconds before I got to the street. And I walked young, at 10 months. You can't explain to a 10-month-old that the street is dangerous and they should stay out of it. Well, you can try, but chances are a 10-month-old that has just learned to walk is way more interested in practicing this new skill than paying attention to where traffic is.
Also, I have trouble keeping track of my ADULT friends and family members in a crowded place. I can't imagine how hard it would be to keep track of a rambunctious toddler who doesn't want to be held in a crowded place. To me, a leash is much saner than strapping a screaming kid into a stroller because he won't stay near you.
I see it as either constantly having to be running after my kid, telling him no, getting stressed out, possibly losing him, or having a leash sometimes. I've never seen a kid angry that he was on a leash, but I've seen plenty angry at being in strollers, or strapped into car seats that aren't in the car. And I've seen tons of parents anxiously running after their children. You aren't a bad parent because you lost sight of your kids for a minute, kids run and parents have other things on their minds. I'm a super distractable person; that's not going to change when I have a kid.
Obviously kids on leashes shouldn't be ignored, but I don't think I've ever witnessed this. And leashes might make sense for some kids and not for others. I guess I assume I'm going to have an energetic, boundary-testing, on-the-go kid. I could end up with a calm one that has no problem holding my hand or spending hours in a stroller. But I walked at TEN MONTHS and I'm a boundary-pushing kind of person.
I just don't quite get what is so horrible about a leash on a toddler. We confine kids all the time, in cribs, play pens, strollers, car seats, swings, high chairs, baby gates... if anything a leash is less confining than these things, allowing the kids to move around in proximity to the adult. I'm way more freaked out about play pens and swings and even pacifiers than I am about leashes. A leash to me equals a nicely controlled freedom for a young child, swings and pacifiers feel like plastic parent-replacements. I hate it when a baby is crying and the parent shoves a pacifier in its mouth. I feel like baby's real need is being ignored. But, I guess if pacifiers work for you, and swings work for you, then go ahead a use them, just please don't judge me when I have my kid on a leash in a crowded mall because he's much happier walking on his own than being strapped to something plastic.
I had a leash, and I loved it, it meant I could walk without having my parents run after me every three seconds before I got to the street. And I walked young, at 10 months. You can't explain to a 10-month-old that the street is dangerous and they should stay out of it. Well, you can try, but chances are a 10-month-old that has just learned to walk is way more interested in practicing this new skill than paying attention to where traffic is.
Also, I have trouble keeping track of my ADULT friends and family members in a crowded place. I can't imagine how hard it would be to keep track of a rambunctious toddler who doesn't want to be held in a crowded place. To me, a leash is much saner than strapping a screaming kid into a stroller because he won't stay near you.
I see it as either constantly having to be running after my kid, telling him no, getting stressed out, possibly losing him, or having a leash sometimes. I've never seen a kid angry that he was on a leash, but I've seen plenty angry at being in strollers, or strapped into car seats that aren't in the car. And I've seen tons of parents anxiously running after their children. You aren't a bad parent because you lost sight of your kids for a minute, kids run and parents have other things on their minds. I'm a super distractable person; that's not going to change when I have a kid.
Obviously kids on leashes shouldn't be ignored, but I don't think I've ever witnessed this. And leashes might make sense for some kids and not for others. I guess I assume I'm going to have an energetic, boundary-testing, on-the-go kid. I could end up with a calm one that has no problem holding my hand or spending hours in a stroller. But I walked at TEN MONTHS and I'm a boundary-pushing kind of person.
I just don't quite get what is so horrible about a leash on a toddler. We confine kids all the time, in cribs, play pens, strollers, car seats, swings, high chairs, baby gates... if anything a leash is less confining than these things, allowing the kids to move around in proximity to the adult. I'm way more freaked out about play pens and swings and even pacifiers than I am about leashes. A leash to me equals a nicely controlled freedom for a young child, swings and pacifiers feel like plastic parent-replacements. I hate it when a baby is crying and the parent shoves a pacifier in its mouth. I feel like baby's real need is being ignored. But, I guess if pacifiers work for you, and swings work for you, then go ahead a use them, just please don't judge me when I have my kid on a leash in a crowded mall because he's much happier walking on his own than being strapped to something plastic.
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