good reasons to have a baby

1. You're wondering how dirty your floors really are. I mean, they're pretty clean, right? (No)

2. Your social life is too taxing and you can't think of a good excuse to not attend anything ever again.

3. You want to see if these antidepressants are really working.

4. You want someone to appreciate your singing voice.

5. Your stomach is too flat.

6. You think burps and farts are really funny.

7. You always order too much food and need someone to help you eat it, or at least throw it on the floor.

8. You're researching the impact of sleep deprivation on basic motor skills.

9. You fucking love doing laundry.

10. You may need to harvest healthy, compatible organs in the future.

socks and shoes

Shoes by Asos, socks by Richer Poorer, tiny hand coming to grab the tassels by Peanut.

a poem about my day

Pushing the pram against the wind,

the wind pushes back

and presses an insect against my chest

like a tiny brooch.

spring

The mulberry tree in our front garden is fruiting and the birds and I are racing to get the ripe fruit first. If you've never tasted mulberries, they have a subtle sweet flavour that makes me think of greenness and  growing. The taste is evocative for me; my great-aunt and -uncle had a mulberry tree in their huge (in my memory, at least) back yard. I have a clear memory of standing in the bathroom in front of the mirror, crushing mulberries in my mouth so that the juice ran down my chin, so I could see what I'd look like as a vampire. Clearly Peanut would be a very messy vampire.

this baby is finally paying off

I love vintage Fisher Price toys. The Chatter Telephone, the little people: classic, adorable design. Sometimes I get lost in an eBay hole looking them up, but they can get really expensive. When Grug emailed me to let me know that Fisher Price have rereleased some of their classic toys from the 1960s and 70s, my first thought was, "I'm so glad I have a baby right now so I can pretend I'm buying these for him!"

The record player and the TV are adorable, but I restricted myself to the two that I think will get the most play, not the ones that would look best on my shelves. I cannot live without this milk wagon, and I think the sorting and removing and replacing will be fun for Peanut:

AND IT HAS CHOCOLATE MILK. AND ORANGE JUICE. And I cannot resist the idea of Peanut banging away on this piano like Schroeder:

We're going to give them for him for Christmas, which seems fitting as neither the toys nor the holiday are really for him at this age, they're all about us pretending they're for him.

My mum also found him an old Chatter Telephone which he likes, although he would have absolutely no idea what it is. I love the idea of babies playing with toy versions of completely obsolete technology. Someone less lazy should write an essay about it.

levelling up

I just realised that for the past six months I have been playing an RPG.

When you have a baby, you start with a very uneven character. Evolution has put all his points into charisma, and you have to start from scratch with everything else. Instead of wandering the deserts and forests looking for minor baddies to fight, you have tummy time and reading and singing. Like working on your RPG character, it's often boring but oddly compelling. And when he levels up - the first time he reaches for a toy, or turns the page of a book, or smiles - you feel an immense sense of accomplishment and excitement. And then it's back to the deserts and forests to work some more. But as his strength and dexterity and intelligence meters go up, the game gets more and more fun and interesting.

i love sleep. why don't you?

Disclaimer: I am writing about my baby's sleep, and there is no reason to suggest that what worked for us will work for you. All of this is my own opinion. I am not a doctor and I cannot give advice on safe sleeping. Also I am about to go on and on about something that is probably very boring for most people, so feel free to skip this. 

Peanut started out as a good sleeper. Apart from growth spurts, Wonder Weeks and the occasional baffling 3am-is-party-time incident, we were really lucky. He didn't sleep 12 hours in a row and get up and make us pancakes, but he knew the difference between night and day and usually only woke two or three times a night for feeds.

When he was a newborn I nursed him to sleep. In fact, it's impossible not to nurse a newborn to sleep; the milk just knocks them out. It's brilliant. But I kept reading that putting a baby down already asleep was going to lead to problems, when they started waking and needed the same conditions (nursing, rocking etc) to get back to sleep. Luckily, we had The Swing. Have I mentioned The Swing? Oh my god the swing. If there was one appliance we needed during the first five months of his life, it was the electric swing. I would have given away the microwave, electric kettle and possibly also the fridge if it meant keeping the swing. I learned about baby swings from one of my favourite sleep sites, Troublesome Tots. Like most new babies, Peanut loved movement and quickly took to the swing. We could put him down in his Amby hammock if he was already asleep, but if he was awake he wasn't having it. But the swing was like a drug. It was hilarious to watch him try to fight it, like he'd been slipped a Mickey Finn, his eyes fluttering and his little fists slowly lowering. So once he was no longer a sleepy little newborn, we had a bedtime routine: shower with Dad, lotion, jammies, feed in the glider, then a little rock to wake him up, and down awake but drowsy in the swing and turn it on. Whoever was on duty would sing for a while and he would look at us and then turn his head and close his eyes. Amazing! Magic! The books were right!

Then came the day when I forgot to touch wood or throw salt over my shoulder or make a blood sacrifice to Cthulu or something and he just. stopped. sleeping.

His naps had never been brilliant but he'd always taken at least one big one (around 90 minutes) in the morning. Now the only way I could make him nap at all was to lie down in bed with him. He stopped falling asleep in the swing at night and needed to be fed to sleep and put down asleep. This was all happening at the same time as a big developmental leap (Wonder Week) which also meant that he was much more alert than he'd ever been... including alert to sneaky parents trying to put him down. Pretty soon I was feeding him to sleep in our bed so he'd be totally knocked out, then transferring him to the swing or hammock. Then I was doing this multiple times in a row until he was so exhausted he couldn't rouse himself. If he was really tired, I could sneak a dummy in and he would decide he couldn't be bothered holding out for the real thing and let me put him down.

Looking back, I can't say I regret it because I don't know how else I would have made him sleep. Before I had a baby I thought that they would get to a certain level of tiredness and just fall asleep. HA. What happens is that they get to a certain level of tiredness and will fall asleep under the right circumstances (ie you are putting them to bed right then, or they are in a moving car, etc.). If they go over that level you are FUCKED. 'Overtired' is not the same as 'very tired.' It means that the baby has passed the stage of going to sleep and has entered a hyper-awake state where he is exhausted and feels horrible but is too upset about it to calm down and go to sleep. We discovered the limits of Peanut's overtired energy when we missed his window and tried to put him to sleep from 6 to midnight. That's right, SIX HOURS. (Knowing better now, we would stop trying to put him to sleep, let him zone out with us in front of the TV, then try again. We were so young and foolish then [two months ago].)

And then the Wonder Week was over and he had learned to roll over (shit, better start babyproofing this death trap) and we breathed a sigh of relief. But... his sleep didn't improve. THE BOOKS WERE RIGHT AGAIN. He was waking every 15-25 minutes, noticing that instead of being held and rocked with a boob in his mouth, he was in a swing alone, and he was not impressed.


I read a lot of different advice during this period. (I had a lot of time in bed with my iPad, while Peanut slept fitfully beside me.) Nothing seemed particularly helpful. A lot of attachment parenting websites told me that I was the problem, not Peanut. I should continue to feed him to sleep, bring him into my bed to cosleep at night, and accept that this was his natural way to seek comfort and love. I found this unhelpful for many reasons. First of all, looking after a baby is rewarding and lovely but also bloody hard work and, frankly, often boring. He is not the kind of baby who lies happily playing with a rattle for an hour while mummy does the dishes and has lunch; he needs to be constantly interacted with and entertained. Even in the carrier strapped to my chest, I have to dance around or take him on a tour of the house like a little prince being shown around his domain. His naps and night sleep are important to me; they're the times when I can be alone, read an article, write an email or just have a coffee without singing nursery rhymes between swallows. I would also like to have some kind of relationship with my husband, which wasn't really going to be possible if I had to go to bed at 6pm. Bedsharing works well for many families, but it wasn't going to work for ours.

A lot of books and websites suggest or even state that these are not good enough reasons, and that mothers who feel this way are selfish, lazy and poor parents. Well, fuck that. I will always put my baby's health and safety first, and I do an enormous amount to make him happy, but I am a human being and I deserve to be sane and happy.

Anyway, Peanut wasn't happy and healthy. He was waking up even when I slept with him, because he would fall asleep and the breast would fall out and he would startle and cry. So he was sleeping in 20 minute bursts, and he was tired and unhappy. Babies need a lot of sleep. A huge amount of their development and growth depends on it. I knew that Peanut needed to learn to sleep on his own if he was going to be happy.

What a cliffhanger! Stay tuned for the next thrilling installment!

If he’s still crying, for goodness sake pick the poor little bugger up before he is overcome with stress hormones that will fry his tiny brain and screw him up for life! - See more at: http://www.pinkymckay.com/blog/pinky-mckays-most-frequently-asked-stupid-questions/#sthash.yi17jujp.dpuf

If he’s still crying, for goodness sake pick the poor little bugger up before he is overcome with stress hormones that will fry his tiny brain and screw him up for life! - See more at: http://www.pinkymckay.com/blog/pinky-mckays-most-frequently-asked-stupid-questions/#sthash.yi17jujp.dpuf

If he’s still crying, for goodness sake pick the poor little bugger up before he is overcome with stress hormones that will fry his tiny brain and screw him up for life! - See more at: http://www.pinkymckay.com/blog/pinky-mckays-most-frequently-asked-stupid-questions/#sthash.yi17jujp.dpuf

If he’s still crying, for goodness sake pick the poor little bugger up before he is overcome with stress hormones that will fry his tiny brain and screw him up for life! - See more at: http://www.pinkymckay.com/blog/pinky-mckays-most-frequently-asked-stupid-questions/#sthash.yi17jujp.dpuf

If he’s still crying, for goodness sake pick the poor little bugger up before he is overcome with stress hormones that will fry his tiny brain and screw him up for life! - See more at: http://www.pinkymckay.com/blog/pinky-mckays-most-frequently-asked-stupid-questions/#sthash.yi17jujp.dpuf

If he’s still crying, for goodness sake pick the poor little bugger up before he is overcome with stress hormones that will fry his tiny brain and screw him up for life! - See more at: http://www.pinkymckay.com/blog/pinky-mckays-most-frequently-asked-stupid-questions/#sthash.yi17jujp.dpuf

in the mood for love

 

 

In the Mood for Love, dir. Wong Kar-wai, 2000.

I can't believe it took me so long to see this film. The storytelling is so spare and minimal, the visuals so lush and rich. Not to mention the gorgeous clothes! Stunning.

sleep

When you have a baby, everyone will ask you, "How is he sleeping?" They are all secretly hoping you will say "Terribly" and make them feel better about their own baby, or smug about the fact that they don't have a baby.

I was so nervous about sleep. I have never been one of those people who could stay up late. Or get up early. Eight hours? I'll take nine, please. Do you have ten? But what no one tells you is that having a baby isn't the start of poor sleep; pregnany is the start. I haven't slept through the night since I first got pregnant and hormones made me get up and pee twice a night even though there was plenty of room for my bladder. By the end of pregnancy your sleep has gone to shit and every time someone says "Sleep now, you won't be able to later!" you want to stab them in the head with a fork. Still, having a newborn who needs to feed every three hours (and takes about an hour to feed) is a shock to the system.

We've actually been pretty lucky with Peanut's sleep. (If you have a baby, please don't stab me in the head with a fork.) He had night and day sorted out pretty early on, and slept a lot as a newborn. But about two months ago he started going through a Wonder Week which lasted 5 weeks (false advertising!) and his sleep was terrible. He stopped being able to go to sleep on his own and his naps, never long at the best of times, shrank to 20-30 minutes three or four times a day. This meant he was exhausted by the end of the day and cranky for most of it.

We're slowly sorting it out now. I'm hesitant to write about sleep because it's such a contentious issue.  Anyone who has read about sleep, particularly on the Internet, knows that whatever you do will irreparably damage your child according to SOMEONE. Co-sleeping? Enjoy your neurotic, clingy child who can't become independent, that is if you don't roll over and SMOTHER him which you almost certainly will. Oh, you're sleep training? That's good if you're into BABY TORTURE. I prefer not to give my baby PERMANENT BRAIN DAMAGE from TRAUMA, but that's just me.

But I do want to share what I've been going through and what I've learned, so I'm going to go ahead.

happier

It's amazing how quickly you move on and forget what things were like before. Reading my last post brought back the despair and worry and made me realise how much happier we are. When I posted a link to my blog on Facebook, a friend suggested that Peanut might have silent reflux. When we read the symptoms, they really stood out as some of his weird behaviour: the fact that he never really threw up, his little cough, the way his breathing sometimes sounded rattley, and most of all the way he cried and arched away when I tried to nurse him. After being told it was "just colic" and perfectly normal by several health professionals, we presented the doctor with our suspicions and got a prescription. About a week later, we had a much happier baby. He started rapidly putting on weight (he had slowed down because of his dislike of nursing) and his poop stopped being green (from his nursing behaviour - he was only getting the foremilk and not enough of the hind milk). Best of all, we stopped having the days where he would just scream inconsolably for hours.

Having a baby, and in particular being the primary carer, is incredibly hard. I love Peanut so, so much and I can't imagine life without him, but I know that as time passes I'll remember this period fondly and forget the terrible stuff. Being alone in the house with a baby who can't stop screaming or let you know what's wrong is a dark experience.

But he's four and a half months old and he smiles at me when he wakes up and sees my face and he rolls over and looks confused about how it happened and he reaches out to touch the things that interest him and it's all so mundane and it's the most amazing and exciting thing.

colic

Colic is weird. When you have a baby you hear a lot about colic. "Does he have colic?" other parents will ask you in the same hushed tones you would ask, "Is it malignant?"

I have photos of him crying, but I find them kind of upsetting so here's a grumpy one. His dad is keeping the dummy in his mouth because when he gets upset he spits it out and then cries because it's not in his mouth any more.

In adults (footnote: I often accidentally say 'humans' when I mean adults, I think that is very telling [second footnote: I hate having footnotes at the end of an article because then you have to keep scrolling up and down, I saw a website the other day that had footnotes on the side and I thought it was rad]) colic is a Real Thing; it means 'severe abdominal pain caused by spasm, obstruction, or distention of any of the hollow viscera, such as the intestines.'

In babies, it means 'your baby sure does cry a lot and it seems to be related to his farts but we can't really find anything wrong and also maybe he stops crying when you drive around in the car which is weird if it's because of pain but have this medical-sounding term anyway.'

Babies are said to have colic if they cry for more than three hours, three days a week, for three weeks. This seems awfully pat to me, but that's OK because it's a made-up disease.

Colic is the worst. There is pretty much nothing you can do about it (although you can find endless suggestions on forums) and the only advice you will get is "He'll grow out of it."

I don't know if Peanut's screaming fits into the definition of colic because I haven't timed his screams and I don't really care, but he seems to be getting more screamy rather than less over time. Babies are supposed to peak in their crying around 6 weeks and then gradually improve until they are perfect angels at 12 weeks. I think Peanut is just screaming more because he's awake more; he's gaining weight and is perfectly healthy. But I do think his guts give him trouble; sometimes he screams like he's being tortured while he lets out a string of farts.

(Another sidenote: when you read about 'crying' babies, you get an image of weeping, mewling infants. This is very misleading.)

Anyway, there has been a very interesting study done in Italy (double blind, control group etc) on the use of probiotics given to colicky babies. I have asked my doctor and child health nurse about probiotics but was told that as I am breastfeeding, this was unnecessary. However, the study at the University of Turin looked at breastfeeding mothers and showed a marked improvement in crying in the babies given probiotics. (The mothers also gave up cow's milk, but since the control group also did this, it's not necessarily significant.) It was a very small group of subjects - 27 plus 21 in the control group - but it's interesting. The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne did a larger study last year but the results have not been published yet.

Lactobacillus acidophilus. You have these bugs in you oh noooooo

Anyway, I bought some baby probiotics for Peanut and I'm taking them grown-up probiotics as well (which I suspect are exactly the same as the baby ones except packaged in capsules and cheaper). I won't be able to report on their efficacy with any reliability, because crying is a thing that babies are supposed to just grow out of. But like every parent with a crying baby, I am willing to try pretty much anything. I'll let you know how it goes.

having a baby is hard

Before I had this baby--

OK, first of all, a digression. (Digression from the digression: I had to think for a while before I could remember that word. "Agression? Progression? I should go have a nap.") I don't want to use the baby's name on the internet. I grew up with the privilege of creating my own digital profile and I think he should be able to do the same, without potential employers or girlfriends/boyfriends reading about his farts and drooling and the hilarious face he makes when he's pooping. So I need a name for him. How does Peanut strike you? Too cutesy? We call him Peanut a lot at home, so it feels natural. Let me know.

 

Anyway, before I had Peanut, I thought I would be blogging about him all the time. Maybe too much! People would get sick of it and I would have to try to think of other things to blog about! And here I am, I have blogged twice since he was born (and only posted one photo!) and now he is 11 weeks old. Oh dear.

I don't think it's lack of time (although I don't have a lot of that) so much as lack of energy. When he naps I am doing things like showering, eating, and sitting on the couch watching Seinfeld pretending I'll get up and do some Pilates as soon as this episode finishes.

It's not like I haven't written blog posts. I have, I've just written them in my head while I'm lying in bed trying to get the baby to go to sleep. Once he's asleep, it all just seems too much effort and not a priority.

But I am going to make an effort to write more, because it's kind of like having a conversation with adults, and I need more than that. (I guess it's a conversation where I do all the talking, but that's no drawback.)

I'm going to try to write more short posts, instead of planning long ones that never get written. And I'm going to try not to worry about whether what I'm writing is clever or funny or even interesting. I'll just write to keep writing.

feedback loop

I have detected a serious flaw in the design of the human infant:

When he feeds, he falls asleep.

When he feeds, he also poops.

When he is put on the changing table, he wakes up.

When he wakes up, he wants to feed.

Did Kafka write any stories about newborns?

peanut

 

This tiny peanut was born on the 13th of February (his due date!) weighing 4.1 kg and measuring 53 cm. I will tell a bit of the birth story soon. The important part is that he is inexpressibly beautiful and I love him more than I can say. Sometimes I look at him and I feel like my heart is physically swelling in my chest.

blog-drunk thoughts

Egg in Tree by drteeth on Flickr

You know that feeling when you've read a blog's entire archive, become so caught up in the story that you've been not only thinking but dreaming about it, and then suddenly you've caught up and you feel bereft and unsatisfied? "What do you mean, I have to wait for more? Quick, live your life so I can read about it!"

Rebecca has been blogging at Fosterhood for three years and I just finished reading all 185 pages. She's a very unusual foster parent: young, single, highly educated, working full-time. (This is not based on my prejudices, I have no preconceived ideas about foster parents; I am comparing her to the statistics on FPs in New York.) I think what makes this blog so amazing is that it isn't full of posts about how blessed she feels and how she's responding to a Calling. She writes very honestly about her experiences, the good and the bad. She writes about feeling overwhelmed, she examines her motivations for foster parenting, and she is perceptive about the changes she undergoes.

Being 36 weeks pregnant, it's been making me think a lot about my situation and my baby. I don't know how coherent (or how interesting) these thoughts are but I wanted to get them down anyway...

First of all, it's increased my understanding of my own privilege (something I'd like to think I'm savvy about but I could always use reminding about). Many factors including my skin colour, education level and family structure mean that I have a level of support that many women could only dream of. Even when institutional/governmental support is available to people, the ability to a) find out about it, b) access it and c) advocate for one's self is not universal. I have literacy, unlimited internet access, an understanding of formal and institutional language. I have confidence in using government agencies because I don't have a history of being in trouble with them. My privilege allows me to see myself as a taxpayer and citizen who has a right to assistance.

It's also made me think about my baby's level of privilege. In fact, ever since I found out I was having a boy it's been in the back of my mind. This white, male child of a heterosexual, cisgendered married couple, both of whom have stable jobs and supportive families, will have chances and choices other children will never know. 

Finally, it's made me realise how easy it is as a new/prospective parent to get sucked into the rabbit hole of doing everything perfectly. You can spend days researching the best BPA-free, shatter-proof bottles (for your pumped breast milk, of course) and still feel inadequate. When I start to get crazy over this stuff, I need to remind myself, "My baby is warm, fed and loved. I am doing great." I also need to remember (again) that I am in a position of immense privilege that allows me to obsess over stupid shit instead of how I'm going to pay my bills, where my child and I will be sleeping tonight, how to avoid abusive family members, etc.

Like many people, I've said in the past words to the effect of "I could never foster a child! It would be way to hard emotionally." Rebecca's blog has made me re-examine this statement and realise that the truth is, I choose not to foster a child, even though I am capable of it, because it would be hard. It's hard for everyone. I don't think I'm a terrible person for that choice, but no matter how difficult raising a child is going to be (and I know it will be very, very hard at times), I hope I can keep some of this perspective and remember how fortunate we are.

get out of my face about breastfeeding

First of all, the inevitable disclaimer: I intend to breastfeed my child. It's cheap, it's handy and convenient, it's good for babies. It also seems like a nice thing to do, and I hope I can do it without too many problems.

However, as any currently/recently pregnant woman can tell you, there is currently a huge pressure on women to breastfeed, and it's really starting to piss me off.

Yes, it's great that hospitals and doctors and more supportive of breastfeeding these days. It's great that they acknowledge that breastfeeding isn't always easy, and that women should have access to support them. However, the rhetoric of breastfeeding often makes me feel uncomfortable.

"It's natural!" Meaning, of course, it's good. (And, by extension, formula feeding is "unnatural" and therefore bad.) I have to say, as soon as I hear the word "natural", my hackles rise and my skepticism goes on alert. Here are some other things that are unnatural:

• wearing spectacles to correct your sight
• eating with a knife and fork
• taking drugs to prevent epileptic seizures
• reading

Also, the word "natural" has been used a lot to justify ideologies which most of us would agree are highly problematic: sexism, racism, homophobia. So let's stop using that one as an argument, OK?

"It's best for baby!" Yes, if all other elements are equal, breast milk is better for a baby than formula. (Except that it doesn't have enough iron.) However, all elements are never equal.

If a mother is in agony trying to breastfeed, that might not be best for baby.

If a mother has to take drugs to breastfeed, that might not be best for baby.

If a mother is traumatised and made to feel inadequate by her difficulty breastfeeding, that might not be best for baby.

And how about this for a radical argument: the baby is not the only person involved here, and women have a right to choose what is best for them.

I am frankly amazed at some of the comments I have seen on the Internet regarding formula feeding. Women who opt for this method are called selfish. They are told that if they didn't want to fully devote their body and their life to their child, they shouldn't have one. They are told that they are damaging their children. It's very reminiscent of the arguments against mothers working outside the home.

It's not just on the Internet, either. One woman I know of was looking at formula on the shelves of a supermarket, trying to decide between brands in case she had to supplement in the future. A complete stranger walked past and chirped brightly, "Breast is best!" Thanks, judgmental stranger! I spent pregnancy and birth alone in a cave and this is my first outing; I appreciate your advice! Also, let me punch you in your stupid FACE.

Women have the right to decide what to do with their own bodies. If you do not agree with this, or you want to add caveats, then brother, we have a more fundamental disagreement than I can address here.

"Your baby will have a higher IQ!" This is a very common and very powerful argument, except it's based on shitty science.

A large study recently co-conducted by the University of Edinburgh and Scotland’s Medical Research Council found that breastfed babies do indeed tend to be smarter than formula-fed babies. But it also found that mothers who breastfeed also tend to have higher IQs and more education, and tend to provide more stimulating home environments than formula-feeding mothers. Once the numbers were corrected to account for the mom’s IQ, the relationship between breastfeeding and intelligence disappeared. (And there was no statistical difference between siblings when one was breastfed and one wasn’t.) The study, analyzing data on nearly 5,500 American children, was published in the British Medical Journal in October 2006. Previous studies, for the most part, hadn’t factored in the mom’s IQ when declaring that breastfeeding made babies smarter.

(The same article also debunks the rather more superficial but probably equally powerful argument that breastfeeding helps you lose weight. It doesn't.)

"You'll have a stronger bond with your baby!" Well, that's a nice big fuck-you to adoptive parents, people medically unable to breastfeed, and mothers whose babies fail to thrive on their milk. This is sentimental and anecdotal; there is no evidence to support it.

"Formula is no substitute for breast milk." Actually, it's a damn good substitute. It doesn't have the antibodies provided in breast milk, but it's carefully designed to meet a child's nutritional needs. No-one should feel that they are depriving their child, or harming its health, by formula feeding. And the studies on breast milk are severely limited by the lack of attention paid to other factors such as wealth and socioecomonic class:

It is true that breastfed babies are healthier in many ways than formula-fed ones. But does that in and of itself prove a causal relationship between health and breast milk? Women who breastfeed tend to be wealthier and better educated than women who don’t, so it’s hard to tease apart how much of the benefit to their children comes from breastfeeding and how much comes from other factors correlated with money and education. (For instance, women who breastfeed are less likely to smoke.)

Finally, let's address a fact that very few breastfeeding advocates seem to acknowledge. While women get the blame for not breastfeeding, our society makes it difficult to breastfeed. Most women in Australia and other Western countries do not get much maternity leave; certainly not the minimum of a year which is recommended by breastfeeding advocates. When they return to work, they may choose to pump; however, many women do not work in jobs where they can take breaks to do this, where an appropriate space is provided, or where their workmates and supervisors are sympathetic to their needs. This is both a women's issue and a class issue, and there's no point throwing money at public education campaigns if it is not addressed.

2013

 

 Born on New Year's Day. From the Flickr Commons.

I love making New Year's resolutions. I've even managed to keep some. This year, though, I'm not going to try to achieve anything but this:

Stay sane and healthy.

No clean house, no weight loss, no artistic achievements. Just try not to lose my fucking mind with the insane life change coming my way in February.

The pregnancy is going well, by the way. I am 35 weeks in and the baby has turned head-down (turns out that when I thought I was gently cradling his head, I had his bum cupped instead). He has started grinding his head into my pelvis as though blindly searching for the way out. Please don't be impatient, baby. If you don't give me some more time, you're going to end up sleeping on a pile of laundry because that's what's taking up the space where your cot will be.