Surfing and Hopping

The Winter Cold Season has visited my family this week so I’m going to combine two posts into one!  First is a long overdue Sunday Surf and second is the ADM Blog hop!

Sunday Surf

You can always see what I’m reading at my Google Reader Public Page.  Check out Authentic Parenting, Maman A Droit, Navelgazing, Momma Jorje, pocket.buddha, Breastfeeding Moms Unite!, Enjoy Birth, A Domesticated Woman’s Adventures, This Adventure Life, The Parent Vortex, and A Little Bit of All of It for more Sunday Surfing! (Look at all the bloggers who’ve joined while I’ve been on hiatus!!  If you also participate in a regular link list, whether on Sunday or not, let me know and I’ll add your link.)

• Parenting While Male: 74 Fathers Talk about Playground Discrimination
  from Daddy Dialectic – Stay at home dads are becoming more common but still face discrimination.  Daddy Dialectic talks about this pressing issue.  “It certainly made me feel excluded, possibly looked-down-upon. The strange thing was that each time such criticism or behavior was couched in such a way that it excused itself. ‘Of course, it’s better for the children for a mother to do these things’ was one comment I remember, delivered with a short, self-conscious, judgmental laugh. As though it were self-evident that I wasn’t the best choice to take care of my daughters.”
• Her body, her choice
  from Dulce de leche – talks about an important issue in raising daughters: “trying to navigate just how important it is to conform to cultural standards of haircare versus my daughter’s right to say no and control her own body.”
• A really bad day
  from Raising My Boychick – If Arwyn wrote the ingredient list on a box of oatmeal I’d read it.  Everything she writes is eloquent, raw, and thought provoking.  In this post she honestly talks about when “gentle” discipline is difficult.
• Kelley Williams-Bolar Sentence Ends Early; Appeal…
  from Racialicious – the intersection of race and pop – This isn’t a blog post per se but a local news item where I live so you may not have heard about it.  A mother spend time in jail for lying about her son’s address so he could get into a better school.  I might write more on this later but I’d love to hear your thoughts on what she did.

• Big-sibling books to prepare for a new baby
  from Hobo Mama – God bless you Lauren!  I’ve had this on my to-do list for months.  You rock!

Blog Hop

This week’s topic:

What is the best advice you received but never thought you’d use?

Great question!  I’ve mentioned before that the best advice I’ve ever gotten was to trust my mama-instinct but I *knew* I’d use that so I had to think of something I thought was throw away advice that ended up being a gold mine!

So, here it is:  Pacifiers.  In the lactivist community you’d think a pacifier was equal to giving your kid a chocolate bar to suck on at a day old.  I was duly terrified of nipple confusion that I refused to have any pacifiers in the house in case I “caved in a moment of weakness.”  Fortunately my friend Jennifer, wiser than I, bought me one anyways for my baby shower.  I kept it in the package because I thought I’d re-gift it at some point.

WRONG!  I’m sure that nipple confusion is a real thing in some cases but I do think it is overrated and a source of great fear.  My daughter had a good latch (and if she hadn’t I would have been more worried about introducing an artificial nipple) but she was a “high needs” sucker.  So, it was me.  All. Night. Long.  The second night home from the hospital my milk still hadn’t come in and I was fretting that she was hungry and I was a breastfeeding failure.  (Note, this is why I DO think it is a good idea if you are committed to breastfeeding to NOT have formula samples on hand “just in case.”  It is very alluring in the early morning hours.)

Something reminded me of those pacifiers in the bottom of a big bag of baby stuff that was for when she was older.  I rummaged through it like a starving man in a restaurant dumpster.  I popped it in her mouth and she slept “like a baby” (who coined that term?  They should be shot.) for 4 straight hours.

And guess what?  The world did not come to an end.  She did not refuse the breast the next morning when I woke up with 2 Pamela Anderson sized bricks on my chest.  She was a great nurser and she was definitely soothed by her binkie.  She still has it for bedtime and naps (I don’t like toddlers walking around the grocery store sucking on a binkie) and I see no reason to wean her of it.  At press time I’ve never heard of a 20 year old who needs a paci.  I think we’re safe.

Thanks Jennifer!

Please visit the other Blog Hoppers (and the Sunday Surfers!).

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