{"id":12508,"date":"2014-09-16T11:51:01","date_gmt":"2014-09-16T16:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/?p=12508"},"modified":"2014-09-18T09:39:23","modified_gmt":"2014-09-18T14:39:23","slug":"no-children-lots-of-theories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2014\/20140916-12508.htm","title":{"rendered":"No children, lots of theories"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You know that old saying about no children, lots of theories, and vice versa?<\/p>\n<p>Well, with one in the hopper but none in hand, I&#8217;ve definitely got plenty of theories. <\/p>\n<p>For kicks and giggles, I thought it would be fun to make a list of some of the many things parents take &#8220;sides&#8221; over &#8211; and declare my side.<\/p>\n<p>You know, that way I can look back years from now and shake my head at how naive and idealistic I was back before I had children.<\/p>\n<p>So, without further ado:<\/p>\n<p><b>The first days:<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Delayed cord clamping?<br \/>\n<em>Wait until it&#8217;s stopped pulsing<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Skin to skin?<br \/>\n<em>One hour minimum right after birth<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Vitamin K?<br \/>\n<em>Yep<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Eye drops?<br \/>\n<em>Nope<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Circumcision?<br \/>\n<em>I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s immoral, I probably think it&#8217;s on the smart side in our culture with increasing promiscuity (even if your son doesn&#8217;t engage in sexual relations outside of marriage, there&#8217;s no guarantee his future wife will be a virgin at marriage &#8211; and circumcision does reduce transmission of STIs). That said, I&#8217;ll defer to my husband&#8217;s judgment on that one. I really don&#8217;t have any strong opinions on the subject (believe it or not!)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><b>Diapering<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Disposable or cloth?<br \/>\n<em>Prefolds with old-fashioned plastic pants (I&#8217;m cheap, but I plan to have some newer covers for when my kids are in the church nursery)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Pins or snappies?<br \/>\n<em>Both<\/em><\/p>\n<p><b>Feeding<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Breast or bottle?<br \/>\n<em>I hate that question. It should be &#8220;breastmilk or formula&#8221;, since women can still provide breastmilk in a bottle. But, I intend to breastfeed-that is, provide breastmilk &#8220;straight from the tap.&#8221; Pumping doesn&#8217;t appeal to me and if I&#8217;m going to be away from baby I plan on hand expressing and having him fed with a spoon or a cup.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Scheduled feedings or &#8220;on demand&#8221;?<br \/>\n<em>I prefer to call it &#8220;per infant hunger\/fullness cues&#8221;. I&#8217;ll breastfeed baby when she&#8217;s hungry and we&#8217;ll stop when she&#8217;s full. When she starts eating with the family around six months, we&#8217;ll work towards more of a schedule.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Vitamin D or no?<br \/>\n<em>I&#8217;m deficient, so there&#8217;s no way my breastmilk will be sufficient (BTW, even in women with poor nutritional status themselves, breastmilk is generally a complete source of nutrition for a baby &#8211; except for Vitamin D.) I&#8217;ll be giving drops.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Nursing cover, blanket, or nothing at all?<br \/>\n<em>Nothing at all<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Introducing solids?<br \/>\n<em>When baby shows signs of developmental readiness, no sooner than 6 months.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>First foods?<br \/>\n<em>Iron fortified infant cereal mixed with breastmilk. Which will be the only &#8220;baby foods&#8221; I&#8217;ll buy. Otherwise, we&#8217;ll be going straight to soft table foods mashed with a fork (but still introduced one food at a time with a new food every 3-5 days to watch for potential reactions).<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Weaning from the breast?<br \/>\n<em>No sooner than 1 year, probably no later than 2 years<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Weaning from the bottle?<br \/>\n<em>If I never use one, I&#8217;ll never need to wean from it. My kids can drink from cups<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Pacifier?<br \/>\n<em>Not for the first few weeks or until breastfeeding is well established. Beyond that, I probably prefer not but I&#8217;m not dogmatic about it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Potential allergens?<br \/>\n<em>Introduce them along with all the rest of the foods we eat as a family starting at 6 months. If we eat it frequently, we&#8217;ll probably be more likely to introduce it &#8220;early&#8221;. We will hold off on cow&#8217;s milk (for drinking) or honey (by itself or in anything) until 1 year.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><b>Sleep<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Cosleeping?<br \/>\n<em>Baby in bassinet in our room no longer than 4-6 months. Never in our bed.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Back or front?<br \/>\n<em>Back to sleep saves babies&#8217; lives. Once they&#8217;re rolling, though, it makes absolutely no difference.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Nursing to sleep?<br \/>\n<em>Can&#8217;t really stop it at the beginning &#8211; but once that first tooth emerges, nurse and brush or wipe before bed.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Rocking to sleep?<br \/>\n<em>I&#8217;m generally a fan of laying baby down to sleep when he&#8217;s awake but showing signs of sleepiness.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Swaddling?<br \/>\n<em>If baby tends to get overstimulated easily. But I don&#8217;t intend to rely on it as a regular means of getting baby to sleep.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Sleep training\/Crying it out?<br \/>\n<em>Yes, but not for newborns (or really even in the first 4 months or so.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><b>Miscellany<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Babywearing?<br \/>\n<em>Yep. But not all the time. It&#8217;s okay for baby to hang out in a crib or on the floor, with or without direct supervision.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Tummy Time?<br \/>\n<em>Any time baby&#8217;s not sleeping or being held.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Car seats?<br \/>\n<em>In the car, properly secured, and rear facing as long as possible. Baby will NOT hang out in the car seat outside of the car.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Church nursery?<br \/>\n<em>Probably not until a breastfeeding routine is established, since I&#8217;ll want to be near enough to feed on cue &#8211; but once baby&#8217;s older and a schedule is established? Probably. I&#8217;m not opposed to having babies in the service so long as I&#8217;m still able to participate in worship with the rest of the congregation.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Of course, I haven&#8217;t covered everything here &#8211; far from it. In fact, I chose to focus on the first year and the controversies of that year. I have also not chosen to flesh out my positions on any of these. I&#8217;m not really intending to open up a debate here. I recognize that having a child of your own changes all sorts of things &#8211; and that different things work for different families. We&#8217;ll see what happens when baby comes and theory has to turn to action :-)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You know that old saying about no children, lots of theories, and vice versa? Well, with one in the hopper but none in hand, I&#8217;ve definitely got plenty of theories. For kicks and giggles, I thought it would be fun to make a list of some of the many things parents take &#8220;sides&#8221; over &#8211; &#8230; <a title=\"No children, lots of theories\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2014\/20140916-12508.htm\">Read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">No children, lots of theories<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1315],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12508"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12508"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12705,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12508\/revisions\/12705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}