So What The F#@k is Safe?

The latest thing deemed unsafe for babies?  Bumper Pads.  This doesn't bother me too much, because we don't have a crib, so we lack any bars to pad.  What bothers me is that every year they say something else about cribs isn't safe.  When I was pregnant it was that drop side cribs weren't safe, to which I thought, "well now we can't ever get baby into the crib, so forget about it."

Did you also know that blankets aren't safe, neither are sleep positioners.  They are even saying that maybe swaddling a baby with a special swaddle blanket isn't safe.  It's also common for babies to deliberately bang their heads on the crib bars, probably the reason bumper pads came to be.  Then you've got to have a FIRM mattress.  And put that baby on their back!! Something I decided wasn't my thing after having my son choke on his spit up many times (Cedric mostly sleeps on his side and has since birth). 

And don't ever put any toys near them, or let any pets near them, and their clothing should be all cotton and no buttons that could pop off, and no strings, and zippers should zip down rather than up. Not TOO much clothing, but not too LITTLE either, they will be cold.  AHHH!

Honestly, for those of you who do keep your baby in a crib.  What the hell do you have them wear?  How are they not cold without a blanket?  Do you really use those wearable blankets, because those look like the most inconvenient thing on the plant, especially considering a baby initially sleep like 22 hours a day, do they just wear it all day long?  I gotta say that I don't get it. 

So crib bars are hard, but bumper pads are unsafe, blankets are unsafe, drop sides are unsafe, most clothes seem to be unsafe, and maybe swaddling for sleep isn't safe... Does anyone begin to wonder if maybe, just maybe, CRIBS aren't safe? 

Maybe babies aren't supposed to be left unattended while sleeping? 

Seriously.

Maybe they are supposed to fall asleep next to their nursing mother, since so many mothers report that they nurse their babies down to sleep? 

Why do I only hear about crib safety, when it seems like nothing is safe.  Where exactly is the safe stuff??

And it's extra annoying to those of us who don't use cribs at all, because what we are doing is considered unsafe, we are told to just not do it.  There is no guidance, so we do what we feel is most safe.  We watch our babies, we tune into our gut and we sleep pretty darn well next to our babies. 

There are so many things that are considered not safe now that it seems like it's almost impossible to safely leave your baby in a crib.  Think about it, how do you get a sleeping baby down into a crib without dropping the side of the crib?  Suppose you get that baby in there somehow without waking it; how do you keep them warm without a blanket?  Maybe they are wearing a wearable blanket already, but chances are they weren't.  Do you risk waking him up to slip it on?  Fuck no, you put a blanket over him!  I'm pretty sure even those who are using a crib with a firm mattress just like all the guidelines say, do not follow every safety rule. 

There are some guidelines for co-sleeping, but some of them don't make sense, like keeping pillows and comforters away from baby.  Pillows, maybe, I get, but if the baby is in bed, he's going to be under the comforter.  Personalty I just try to keep it off his head.  This summer, when he was really little and at a greater risk of suffocating, it was hot, so we sometimes had no covers at all. 

Can we please get some realistic and good guideline for this stuff.  The only good things I've heard are: breastfeed, don't smoke, don't take drugs or meds that make you drowsy, and make sure baby isn't getting over-heated.  I feel like if we follow these few guideline, we'll be pretty good.  Common sense stuff like making sure he doesn't fall off the bed, is good too, but claiming all these things are unsafe without giving any kind of realistic alternative is going to fall on deaf ears.  Sleep is already hard, and putting in all these "rules" without realizing the realities of life with a baby and unnecessarily demonizing bed sharing, doesn't help.  I want to hear goddamn stories of people who follow all the sleep safety rules, I don't think these people exist. 

More on the Elimination Communication Craziness

We are doing more.  Elimination Communication (EC) is picking up a bit.  Our baby is sturdier now and can be more easily held over or even placed on a potty. 

Yes, it's a weird thing for the USA.  You probably think I'm nuts, but it's not nuts, I swear. 

Did you know that before disposable diapers became popular most babies were potty trained around 12-18 months? 
Did you know that EC is not only practiced in third world countries, but is practiced in modern places like Prague?
Did you know infants naturally don't want to pee on themselves or their caregiver?

Our baby is now 5 months old, so we're crossing into that late start category.  He doesn't give much of a signal that we can pick up.  But I have used timing to catch several pees and even one poop.  On average I catch about two pees a day.  A small start, but a success none the less.  Some days are better than others. 

For now we only do it at home, but do try to change him as soon as he is wet at other times.  We have his bottom bare sometimes and at other times we put a cloth diaper on without a cover, and other times I put pants on him without anything under them.  Babies don't usually pee in their sleep, so he's taken lots of naked naps and then I put him on the potty when he wakes up.  I think night time might be the easiest time to do it.  Because during the day, when he's not napping, I just don't see the cues.  I give a cueing noise when I do notice him peeing. 

But why am I doing it?  Well, I didn't become a parent thinking, "people seem to be raising children pretty well right now."  I went into it thinking, "dear God, me and my friends are pretty messed up for whatever it is our parents did.  We all seem to have low self esteem, some kind of food issue, low energy, and either a mood disorder or an anxiety disorder.  What the hell happened?  We need to seriously look at changing how we raise children." 

So you can see that doing things differently has appealed to me greatly.  Because I know what it's like to be me as an adult and I have to be honest with you, it kind of sucks.  I can look pretty decent on the outside, but I am filled with inner turmoil.  I don't want my children to feel like I do.  It's my motivation for almost everything.  It was the reason I drank zero alcohol and took no prescription meds during pregnancy, it's the reason I so badly wanted a drug free labor, something, anything to maybe lower his exposure to things that might mess with his brain or our attachment after delivery. 

And I don't care if I'm the only one doing it, but maybe, just maybe my child won't have all the bladder control issues I had if I get him used to recognizing them now.  If babies don't even wet themselves in their sleep, why did I do it at 9 and 10 years of age?  Something got messed up with either the bladder or the sleep.  And if I can do something to maybe lessen the chance of that, then I'm going to do it. 

I don't think delayed potty training is normal.   A good portion of 4-year-olds aren't potty trained now days.  Some children will never show those so called "readiness signs." And potty training is not done in a day.  Some children do fine with it, but some struggle for years and might be like me and not really have control until nearly middle school.  That's not normal, especially when young babies have control over their sphincter muscles at birth. 

With my next child I'm really going to try to start younger, I just couldn't start at birth this time, hopefully I'll have an easier post partum time the next time around.  But we are having some success with our older baby, and that's pretty cool.