See you at Birth Fest!

For all you mamas, mamas-to-be, family & friends of babies...

I'll be at Birthfest, selling my handmade ANEW wares: baby blankets, onesies, nursing necklaces, paci/toy clips, etc. Birthfest is a great place to browse for baby stuff, learn about community resources for new parents, ask experts about cloth diapering, talk to local midwives, meet prenatal fitness instructors & more! It's at Britannia Community Centre, 11am-4pm this Saturday. Admission is free!

Baby's gotta eat

Monday Sprout ticked off a new box in our list of places he's breastfed: the public viewing gallery of the BC Legislature, as the Lieutenant Governor entered (we all had to stand up) for the throne speech. I've decided to compile a list of everywhere interesting that he's nursed. Sadly, we rarely take pictures when he's eating, so I have little photographic evidence. ;) Here's my list so far:

• BC Ferries to Victoria & Bowen
• a number of public transit buses around Vancouver
• probably every cafe I've been to in the past six months
• in the front row of a Vancouver Giants hockey game
• various friends' house parties & barbeques
• outdoors at the Vancouver German Christmas Market (brr...)
• in several shopping mall seating areas, food courts & once a "parents' room" (blech, wouldn't use that again)
• the hallway of some random UBC building we went into while walking through the campus
• the offices of my chiropractor, doctor, midwives
• during mom & baby fitness classes
• in one or two public libraries
• while eating at far too many fast food restaurants

As you can tell, Sprout gets around & he eats wherever we happen to be. Besides the fact that I feed him on demand & can't really plan for when exactly his feedings are going to be, I believe every woman should feel comfortable breastfeeding in public. I hope if other women see me doing it, they will feed their babies everywhere too. I hope if girls see me doing it, they'll learn what their breasts are supposed to be for. I hope if everyone else out there sees me doing it they'll start to think of it as normal & positive if they don't already.

What interesting places have you breastfed or seen someone breastfeeding?

Pros & cons of various baby-transport options

Advantages of a carrier

• You can go anywhere you can walk--no worries about stairs, awkward doors, narrow store aisles, etc.
• Baby stays warmer
• It's easier to protect a little one from animals, rain
• Interaction with baby is easier
• Babies are often calmer when held against the body in a carrier, compared to sitting on their own in a stroller
• Our carrier can be chucked in the washing machine to clean it
• Carriers take up much less space in your home when not in use or when travelling
• Carriers can be inexpensive (from $10 to make a simple fabric wrap to $130 for a more structured carrier like our Beco) compared to strollers

Advantages of a stroller

• You can carry heavier items in cargo basket
• No back strain issues
• You can see your feet & are less likely to stumble
• It's much easier to use the washroom alone
• Our baby seems to sleep longer in the stroller
• It's easier to protect baby from the wind with the stroller weather cover
• You can attach toys for baby to play with

We make extensive use of both stroller & carrier, as our main modes of transportation are walking & transit. We've started using the carrier more for bus trips recently because if the bus is busy, it's too difficult to get on & off with the stroller. However, for grocery shopping (the few things we don't get delivered from SPUD) it's very handy to use the stroller as a shopping cart. Recently we bought an 8kg bucket of laundry detergent & just stuffed it into the basket, no problem. I would never have even bothered to buy in that quantity if I'd had to carry it in my hands on the ten-minute walk home.

I realize most of this list is only applicable to parents of one baby. If we had another child, or twins, it would be a different story. Can you add anything to my lists above? Do you use a stroller or a carrier more? Why?

The Human Guinea Pig

I'm all for the advancement of science & I know research is the only way to translate theory into evidence to base policy changes on. So I devote some of my time to participating in various studies. I guess it's volunteer work of a sort, really. I've received the occasional bus fare or $5 Starbucks card for doing them, but it's largely altruism that drives me.

Today I went to UBC to do the fitness assessment before starting a study on postpartum physical fitness and body image. I was weighed, measured in height & waist circumference, grip strength & flexibility, filled out a PAR-Q, a survey on body image & some demographic information, then I had to speed-walk for six minutes & do as many push-ups as I could. I was randomly chosen to be in group A, so starting Monday, I'll be doing twice-weekly mom & baby fitness classes for ten weeks.

We & 5000 other families are also part of a national longitudinal study on infant/child health, called the CHILD Study. I was approached with information about the study at my 20-week ultrasound at BC Women's. I took home the pamphlets, then soon consented to participate, gave them some blood samples & filled out a million questionnaires on diet, home environment, stress, medications, activity level & I can't even remember what else. At Sprout's birth, we collected a few samples of Sprout's various bodily fluids for them. Oliver is also part of the study & after Sprout was born he went to their labs to do an allergy patch test & various types of breathing tests.

When Sprout was three months old, two researchers came to our house to collect another set of questionnaires & assess the house, taking samples of dust & looking at household chemicals, etc. I also provided more diaper samples from Sprout & a few mLs of breast milk. There will be three more visits when Sprout is a year, three years & five years old. We'll get the results of our asthma/allergy testing, plus they'd notify us if they found anything crazy in our blood--like high lead levels or something--but we won't get any other personal test information. 

On top of these two studies, I'm also participating in three hours' worth of research (required for 6% of my grade) for my Psychology class at SFU. That means participating in three to six separate research sessions conducted by grad students at the Burnaby campus. I've got one hour's worth out of the way already & will schedule in the rest soon.

Then there are the online surveys I do, as well as a focus group once or twice a year. The focus groups tend to pay well--$75-100 for a couple hours of my time, generally on a week night. While not exactly lucrative, over the years I've found a few online survey organizations that pay a little cash or points that can be transferred to cash or gift certificates. For less than 20 minutes of my time while I'm watching the news on TV or something, I get a buck or three.

Leaps & bounds

A week ago, at the Ravensong baby group, I sat Sprout on the mat in front of my leg & he fell over. He was unable to sit up for more than five seconds without needing me to stabilize him. Today he sat up for three minutes on his own! I know this not because I was timing him, but because I filmed it. I'll spare you the "director's cut" & just post the end where he plays with his toy & then does a face plant into some tummy time. (Don't worry: he's on a thick blanket on a foam mat. No head injuries!)

What's really exciting to me is what the next developmental step is: solid food! Now that he can sit up fairly well, is reaching for things & bringing them to his mouth, he's ready to eat. I'm planning to try Baby Led Weaning, which is a fancy new term for a very old concept. He will pick up the food & eat it himself, no "brrrrr... here's the airplane, coming into the hangar" spoon-feeding. No purees, so he'll experience different textures & flavours, learning to manipulate the food in his mouth with his tongue. Theoretically this will encourage him to be more adventurous with food at a young age & when he's older too. Of course we're not going to be giving him granola or carrot sticks just yet, we'll stick to one food at a time & it'll be cooked & 'gummable'.
It'll take a few months before he's really eating significant quantities of food--the first while he'll just be playing & learning how to get it in his mouth, then how to get it to the back of his mouth & swallow it. I have high hopes that he'll basically be eating the same things we do within about six months.