That little voice...

Please, please, please listen to that little voice in your head.

For example, just know I got home from lunch with my husband and the three boys. It was right around nap time so Taylor (the 2 year old) was falling asleep in the car. I was able to manage to keep him awake until a minute or two before we got home. (If he sleeps much longer than that in the car, he will wake up when I try to move him into his bed.) So, I was going to take Taylor straight up to his bed. Turn on a movie for Isaac (4 years old), feed Parker (6 months) and then put him to bed, and I could take a nap. (Parker hasn't been sleeping well at night, so I'm exhausted.)

As I was getting out of the car, the little voice said, hang up your keys. I decided to put the keys on the shoe-shelf next to the door. Again, hang up your keys. But I go to get Taylor out and the car alarm starts going off. Isaac had pushed the panic button on my keys, and since he was standing right next to the front of the car, where the horn is the loudest, he starts sobbing! The car alarm and Isaac's crying wakes up Taylor, who now doesn't want to go back to sleep. I try to put him into bed, and then try to feed Parker. Every time Taylor gets out of bed and I have to go back upstairs to put him back in bed, Parker starts screaming.

Luckily it was only about 10 minutes, but an awful 10 minutes, that could have been avoided if I had just listened to that little voice in my head.

Most of the time I don't think I would notice the consequences of listening to the voice. If I had listened to the voice to hang up my keys, how would I have known that there would be screaming in the house for the next 10 minutes? But when I don't listen to the voice I definitely see the consequences!

There have been lots of times where the voice says; move that cup, or pick up that toy off the ground, etc. I don't listen and there is milk all over the floor or my husband (or one of the kids or me) steps on the toy I should have moved 3 minutes ago.

To us, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that little voice is called the Holy Ghost. I really believe that the Holy Ghost is giving me a lot of opportunities to listen to him, when the consequences aren't so bad; crying for 10 minutes, spilled milk or a stubbed toe. But I really need to start listening better and following the promptings so that when my kids get older and I hear the voice, don't let your kids go out to the game tonight, or don't let him go with that new friend, or whatever, that I do listen and follow the counsel of the voice, when the consequences could be a whole lot worse.

Courageous Parenting

Larrry R. Lawrence - Of the Seventy

of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

in October General Conference said

Years ago our 17-year-old son wanted to go on a weekend trip with his friends, who were all good boys. He asked for permission to go. I wanted to say yes, but for some reason I felt uncomfortable about the trip. I shared my feelings with my wife, who was very supportive. “We need to listen to that warning voice,” she said.

Of course, our son was disappointed and asked why we didn’t want him to go. I answered honestly that I didn’t know why. “I just don’t feel good about it,” I explained, “and I love you too much to ignore these feelings inside.” I was quite surprised when he said, “That’s OK, Dad. I understand.”

Young people understand more than we realize because they too have the gift of the Holy Ghost. They are trying to recognize the Spirit when He speaks, and they are watching our example. From us they learn to pay attention to their promptings—that if they “don’t feel good about something,” it’s best not to pursue it.

He never said anything bad happened to those kids, he never said they got into trouble, but we really don't know what could have happened if he hadn't listened to that little voice, and decided to let his son go.

I am speaking to myself mostly, but please learn to listen to that little voice. It will definitely bring you closer to the Holy Ghost and make your days a little easier. It may never be as dramatic as saving your child's life... but it could.

Larry R. Lawrence

Baby Blues

Baby Blues was the most unexpected part of the baby coming. I had only heard really a few things about it and then the topic quickly moved to Postpartum Depression, which is an extreme case of Baby Blues.

At the end of pregnancy women have very high levels of hormones in their body and after the baby comes women then have very low levels of hormones. Their reaction to the change in levels is what is called Baby Blues.

I really feel that if this would have been explained a little better, I would have been able to cope better. For the first few weeks I cried every day, and most of the time I had no idea why I was crying. My husband did worry about me for a while, because he didn't really know how to handle it. I didn't know how to handle it. I didn't even realize I had it until after my hormones had settled.

I have one younger sister who is only 2 years younger than me, so I was never really around babies. I read several books but I really didn't know what I was doing. Nothing can really prepare you for the sleepless nights, the total responsibility of a new life, etc. Being overwhelmed with all those new adjustments is hard and exhausting. So, please, please, please SLEEP when your baby is sleeping. Especially with your first baby.

A quick note on Postpartum Depression: This is serious feelings of depression, not ever feeling happy, disassociation with the new baby, serious disinterest in things that used to make you happy, and can even be thoughts of hurting yourself or the baby. THIS IS SERIOUS, and can be helped! Pay attention to yourself, pay attention to your thoughts. It might be a little embarrassing to say that you don't have that connection with your baby, but a little embarrassment is far better than hurting yourself or the baby. The connection will come! I know it will! If you need it get help. I think it would be helpful to talk to your spouse before the baby comes to think of ways your spouse can help, maybe a trigger word that can be said to let you know, in a loving way, that you are being a little sensitive and this can hopefully help you realize that you need to talk about how you are feeling or even get away for a few minutes. Go for a drive, go shopping whatever! I know it helps!

I still got Baby Blues with my second baby. I think I didn't really know how to handle a new baby while trying to handle a 2 year old. But I feel like with my third I finally have the hang of it, and Baby Blues didn't effect me quite so much.

I feel like I'm enjoying my third baby a little more, which is kind of sad because I wasn't really prepared for the new situations of the first 2 babies. I feel like I didn't enjoy them quite as much as I could have. So, I say relax and enjoy it! Everything will fall into place!

Nursing or Breast Feeding Part I

I feel and research has shown that breast feeding babies is the most healthy way to feed babies. (An aside: There are some moms that choose not to breast feed or some who are not able to, for work or insufficient milk supply, and that is just fine. Please don't let anyone make you feel bad for your choice. I feel most parents are doing the best they can and making decisions they feel are best for their children. Don't fall into the judgment trap. I love this quote from Mother Teresa, "If you judge people, you don't have time to love them.")Okay, for first time moms preparing to breast feed is difficult to understand, because you don't know what it feels like, what it should feel like, what it shouldn't feel like, if your baby is getting enough, and so on. I am going to do my best to explain what it has been like for me. Your experience may be totally different but at least you may get an idea.

I have heard many people say that it is important to nurse baby right away in order to get that "connection." I do think this is important but my second baby was taken away quickly for testing and I wasn't able nurse for the first time until 3 hours later. (I was a little upset about that but at least they made sure he was okay.) And you know what it was okay and we were still able to get that connection.

For your first baby, a nurse should help your baby latch on the first time. It will probably be awkward. For me I had one arm trying to hold the baby in the "right" but unfamiliar position, one hand trying to hold my breast up to his mouth and then the nurse's two hands trying to get a very small mouth around a small nipple. There was a point were it felt like he was latched on okay but the nurse said that wasn't right, and then she said the baby was latched on right but it didn't feel comfortable.

This is what worked for me... The only position I like and use is the cross-cradle hold.

The baby sort of lies on my forearm and my hand is behind his head and neck.

I really like this hold because I feel like I can move the head where I feel most comfortable. In the cradle hold I feel like the babies head moves around too much and I can't control it. But you really just have to find what works for you. So there are 4 main ways to hold the baby,

the Cross-Cradle hold,

Cradle Hold,

Football Hold,

and Side-lying Hold.

The Cross-Cradle hold has worked for me and that is what I use. Find what works for you.

When the baby latches on, his lips should look like fish lips or like he was saying "Ooo." The lips should but rolled out around the areola (or the dark circle part of the breast.) The baby should not latch on only to the nipple and the more area of the areola the baby latches on to the less it will hurt. In my case, my babies latch on and when the nurse is looking, it seems like the baby is only latched on to the nipple, but part of my areola is in his mouth. To the nurse it didn't look right but it felt fine. But do be careful because sometimes it feels okay but later you realize the baby wasn't latched on all the way because it is really tender or you may even get a blister. Please do whatever you can to not get a blister, because sometimes you have to nurse through the pain because your breast being so full is even more painful.

Since it is the first time nursing, the nipples will be tender. For me it was at least 2 weeks. I know that sounds a long time but it gets less and less tender. The lubricating nursing ointments are awesome, use them!!!

Even later in nursing some moms said that it hurt every time they latched on. For my first baby it was usually at the end of a feeding when I felt like he was sucking harder to get more out. But with my send and third babies I had little or no pain at all. I know the first isn't always easy but it will get better.

So, when your baby is first born and for the first 2-3 days your breasts make colostrum, a yellow, watery pre-milk—that your breasts make for the first few days after birth helps your newborn's digestive system grow and function. Then your milk will "come in." For each of my babies this was an uncomfortable and even painful adjustment period where my body was figuring out how much milk to produce for the baby. My breast get uncomfortably big and are painful to the touch. I instinctively want to "express" or pump my milk to relieve the pressure, but the relief is only temporary, until the breast find the balance. And if you pump too much it will only take longer to find the balance. When your baby has a growth spurt, gets sick, starts teething or sleeps through the night, the balance of your milk will change and it can get uncomfortable again. I have heard that chilled iceberg lettuce placed directly on the skin can help, but I haven't tried that.

My cousin said that her baby was more fussy and seemed more hungry that normal and a friend told her that the baby was probably going through a growth spurt and probably did need to be fed more. My cousin said that it was just helpful to know that the baby just needed a little more food. In general babies growth spurts happen in the first 7-10 days, 3-6 weeks, and then around 3, 6 and 9 months. If you have an idea when to look for these things it is really helpful.

Teething can also disrupt, well everything, but it definitely can change eating. And even if you don't feel teeth doesn't mean he's not teething. Teeth move up and back in and up and back in. So painful for the baby. I have said I think it's good that the babies don't remember the first year or so because of all the growing pains, learning to breath, eat, crawl, walk etc. etc!

Ok, now this is a little more difficult to explain. It's called the "let down." It's when your hormones trigger your milk ducts to release the milk. I have had it feel lots of different ways, most common for me is a kind tingle or "movement" sort of in the middle of the breast. Other times it has felt like pins and needles (almost or a little bit painful but only for a second), a sort of "pulling" feeling coming from the side of the breast sort of under the arm. Those are the best descriptions I can come up with, but listen and pay attention to your body.

I used to use breast pads all the time until a friend told me that when she felt her "let down" she would just fold her arms across her chest and put pressure on the nipples and it would stop the leaking. But be careful because if you just put pressure on the breasts, it will leak even faster. I told a sister-in-law to use breast pads for at least the first month but I am changing my mind. When at home, try to learn what your "let down" feels like and learn how to stop the leaking. (Breast pads can be expensive.) If you go out and you feel you might leak by all means where breast pads, but the quicker you learn the less pads you have to buy.

My mom told me that when my milk "lets down" it can squirt out. I didn't really believe her. But when I was in the shower and the warm water was on me, my milk "let down" and there really was a couple streams of milk coming out! And if you ever pump you will see that milk comes out in 2-7 different streams during each suction. It's crazy but definitely helpful for infants who are still learning how to suck and swallow. I really think the woman body is amazing!

Now this next part is a little strange. It is something that caught me off guard and felt weird. With my first baby sometimes when I would nurse I felt weird, almost as if I was getting "turned on" while I was nursing. It really weirded me out, so I went to the internet and found that other moms had felt the same thing. Nursing releases hormones that helps the uterus the contract and go back down to normal size, but those are also the same hormones that are felt during intimacy. It was so weird for me that I wouldn't allow any touching of my breasts while I was being intimate with my husband (sorry if this is too much information for those who know me, but I want to be open and honest.) It was weird to feel that during intimacy and then "turn it off" while I was nursing. But with my second and third babies I was able to distinguish the feelings better and it wasn't so weird.

I have a few more things to talk about but that will be in Nursing or Breast Feeding Part II

Take with a grain of salt...

Feeding your baby can be intimidating but hopefully it will be exciting and intimate. There are probably hundreds of theories and methods on feeding babies.

The first and most important thing I want to say is that if a theory says that if you don't follow their method your baby will turn out to be something less than desirable, it is a load of crap! Now I don't usually like to say negative things but I have a few issues with this theory, On Becoming Baby Wise by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam. (I don't have specific examples because I ended up throwing the book away. I am just going off what I remember so it could be inaccurate in parts.)

As soon as I started reading this book I was very excited because it talked a lot about being Christian and the mother-baby relationship. But it went into telling mothers that "mother's intuition" is in essence illogical and unreliable. In part that ca

n be true but countless little lives have been saved by "illogical" mother's intuition, and I will take illogical and unreliable "mother's intuition" over a theory any day of the week.

The book pushes hard on following a 3 hour schedule of feeding; Feed, wake time, and then sleep time. I actually do like that sequence but I did some research on the book and found that Baby Wise has been linked to failure-to-thrive (failure-to-thrive is baby not getting enough to eat and not growing at a normal or consistent rate.) So it is important to pay attention to YOUR baby. They said that if you feed your baby "on demand" (meaning fe

eding your baby every time they cry) he or she would grow up to be a needy and spoiled brat! That is a bunch of crap! However I feel that if for their entire lives the parents give their child everything they want when they want it, there is a good chance that the child might be a spoiled brat. But that is just nonsense that if a baby is feed on demand for the first year of their life, that they will turn into a spoiled brat.

Also with this theory, I wanted to be a well informed and educated mother so I tried to follow their schedule closely. With my first baby I would feed him for at least half a hour and then I would keep him awake for at least an hour (he was a chunk)

and then put him to bed for an hour to an hour and a half. Now that sounds great but have you really tried to keep a 2 week old infant awake for an hour? It is nearly impossible! Well at least for all 3 of my boys. I would do anything and everything to keep my first baby awake. I was literally working, bouncing, singing, whatever for the entire hour every three hours, so that's about 5 times a day. IT WAS EXHAUSTING!!! And more importantly

it was no fun! I was wearing myself out and I was not enjoying my baby!

In retrospect I was obviously following the theory too closely but it was just not working for me, so as I said before I ended up throwing the book out.

One other thing of note was that in this theory, part of helping your baby to sleep was letting your baby cry. Now I do think at some point (by individual basis) if a baby isn't sleeping through the night he or she needs to be allowed get out of the habit of waking up at night, and in some cases that means letting the baby cry. But in the Baby Wise book, they reference a study on letting babies cry. Now this book is mainly geared towards babies 6 months and younger, but I read from a guy who found the study they reference in the book and the study done about letting kids cry that were 4 year olds! It was totally taken out of context and honestly makes me pretty upset!

Now there are some parts of Baby Wise that I like and still use, and I will sum up the whole book in the next few lines. Babies need to get a full feeding every time they eat to keep them on schedule. Schedules for babies (and mommies) are very helpful. The schedule sequence that worked for me was feed, wake time, sleep time. Lastly, babies don't cry only when they are hungry. So, if I don't think it's time for him to eat, I try other things first; sleep, change the diaper, holding, and then if none of those work then I know he IS hungry.

That's it!!! That's pretty much everything I have taken from the book.

Because I am a number person, I always tried to stay close to the 3 hour schedule, and luckily for me, that has worked so far with my babies. I am no expert on babies but I feel that keeping my babies awake after they eat allows their tummies to settle and digest. But some moms really like to nurse their babies to sleep, I would only suggest one thing... Make sure your baby gets a full feeding before they fall asleep. I love nursing but it is hard on my body, so if my baby wasn't getting enough to eat and in turn had to eat more often, I think it would be even more hard on my body.

I think that for the most part people who share theories about babies and children, have good intentions, but NOTHING is fail safe for every child. And if someone tries to tell you their theory is a fail safe... WALK AWAY!!! There have been parents raising babies for thousands of years and I'm pretty sure that most wouldn't fit into any one "theory." And there have been okay parents raising okay babies who turn into okay people for thousands of years. I hope no one in their right mind thinks their way is the only "right way." In the case of Baby Wise, I doubted myself and my mother's instincts, so that's why I walked away.

Take everything in stride, take everything with a grain of salt, and use what works for you and your baby.