Mom Guilt Starts Before Conception

Mom guilt.  

Each of us has it to varying degrees, but we all have it.... likely oscillating between a soft whisper and a loud, CANNOT-BE-IGNORED yell from time to time.  Hopefully those loud moments are few and far between and we can ignore the whispers most.

Since FrenchFry was born two and a half years ago, my particular brand of mom guilt has centered around sending him to daycare (read: abandoning my poor child) and killing myself over pumping issues to make sure I never had to supplement breast milk.  (Not that there is anything wrong with using formula but, again, we are talking about my particular brand of mom guilt and I think breastfeeding became a non-negotiable for me because of guilt around going back to work).  There is also the guilt I feel when I don't want to play a game or read a book for the 15th time and really just want to pawn off bedtime on my husband and binge watch Netflix or bad reality TV.  I mean... I feel the guilt... but will still do it, of course.

But those more recent sources of mom guilt have overshadowed my previous incarnations and I had almost forgotten how early mom guilt really starts.  Now that I'm pregnant again I'm reminded how soon mom guilt starts to creep in.  It can happen even before you are pregnant.

Pre-Conception Guilt: It's real. 

How many of us wish we had lost more weight before getting pregnant?  And not just because of the weight we will gain, but to make sure we are as healthy as possible for the pregnancy.  This time around I started pregnancy 20 pounds heavier than when I got pregnant with FrenchFry.  I just couldn't lose most of the baby weight with him.  I nursed him until I was in my second trimester with this pregnancy and I'm still holding out hope that nursing was what kept me from losing the weight.  So... I guess we'll find out the answer to that in about 3 years if nursing Tater Tot ends up being much the same?  No matter what the reason was, I definitely felt guilty coming into this pregnancy not as healthy as I wish that I were.  The guilt:  it's there and it's real.

Pregnancy Guilt: 9 months of second guessing everything you do.

Much of pregnancy is filled with rules and restrictions on what you should eat and drink.  There are also activity restrictions, lots of conflicting advice, old wives tales, and sometimes straight-up shaming.

I remember when I was pregnant the first time and a (sort of ridiculous) friend of mine was saying that you only need an extra 300 calories per day when pregnant in a judgy of the "eating for two" theory on eating during pregnancy.  It wasn't the judginess about over-eating so much as when she said "a cup of blueberries is 100 calories."  (Cue the sound of my head getting ready to explode.)

Yes... let's judge pregnant women for eating too many blueberries.  Grr...

At the time I was in the fun queasy all the time and nothing except carbs or cheesy carbs could be eaten stage.  And I was particularly proud of myself because after I would settle my stomach with crackers or mashed potatoes just to get something down and keep myself from not feeling like I was going to puke for 45 minutes or so, I would shove a bunch of blueberries in my mouth and feel good about myself for actually eating something with some nutrients in it.

Yes, of course you should try to eat healthy, nutritious foods while pregnant (and always) but the shaming and the guilt is a bit too much sometimes.  As I write this, my Facebook news feed is filled with versions of (this) article saying "nearly half of pregnant women gain too much weight."  Cue more guilt.

Childbirth Guilt: This is the guilt that you get to feel guilty about having at all.

Personally I dealt with a lot of guilt around FrenchFry's birth.  It's enough to explore in a separate blog post, and I probably do need to revisit my feelings about his birth before I give birth to TaterTot.

Don't get me wrong, things turned out fine: FrenchFry was healthy, and I was able to have a vaginal birth.  But there were a few very scary moments when both FrenchFry and I went into distress and whether or not it was true, I blamed myself.  Going into his birth I wanted to avoid interventions and medication if possible.  Not because I'm some warrior woman, but because I worried that interventions would lead to more interventions.  And once I did get the epidural with FrenchFry, that is when those scary, tense moments happened.

But childbirth guilt is one that can cause you even more guilt for having those feelings.  I walked away from a healthy pregnancy and birth with a healthy baby.  Not everyone is as lucky as I was, so how can I even feel regret or express anything resembling a complaint about my experience?  Interventions may or may not lead to more interventions, but in this case guilt does lead to more guilt.

Now That They Are Here Guilt: The guilt that keeps on giving.

As I mentioned, daycare and breastfeeding have been my biggest two sources of mom guilt since FrenchFry was born. Of course they are not the only sources... once our kids are here the sources for guilty are endless.  And each new phase and milestone your child goes through brings new and different potential sources of mom guilt.  I usually have an amazing amount of patience for FrenchFry given my total lack of patience in every other aspect of my life... but sometimes it's just too much.  One morning this week, after having woken up in the middle of the night realizing I had forgotten to prepare for an important work presentation, I hit levels of stress and impatience with FrenchFry and our dog (sorry, Nola dog) that I feel pretty awful about.

But it happens.

We lose our patience.  We put our kids in daycare.  We work too late too often.  We look at our phones too often when we are with our kids.  We let the dishes and laundry pile up.  We forget to tell our partners thank you.

Mom guilt is real... but you aren't the only one.  We all feel it.  The hope is that it stays at that whisper as much as possible and when it's the loud, can't-be-ignored yell, then hopefully it doesn't last too long and we don't beat ourselves up too much about it.  We need to move on.

Recently I saw this quote and it's my new mantra:

"The very fact that you worry about being a good mom meant that you already are one." - Jodi Picoult

Do you remember when you first felt mom guilt?  How do you deal with the endless sources of guilt that come with the territory of being a mom?

Sleep... Glorious Sleep. Are We Ready To Give it Up So Soon?

FrenchFry (2 year old) has now slept through the night in his own toddler bed for enough nights in a row that I feel like I can publicize this without jinxing it.  Of course with that sentence I've probably just guaranteed myself at least a few rough nights, but I'm willing to take the chance.  (Dangerous words of an overly confident mom.)

Sleep... glorious sleep.

Two years ago my instincts told me to get up with my son (4 months old at the time) with each cry.  It was around 2 months old that I stopped getting up with each tiny whimper but, anything beyond that, I continued to get up to check on him and comfort him.  That usually meant nursing him for 45 minutes to an hour for the first year, though eventually that became just 30, then 15, then 5 minutes of nursing and he was back to sleep.  It's hard to remember specifics because life with an infant can be  especially blurry when trying to remember the haze of middle of the night parenting.

I know I began the process of night weaning him about 2 and a half months ago because I wrote about it here.  And I was feeling pretty confident when I wrote this a few weeks ago to let other parents know that you won't ruin them forever if you nurse, rock, etc. to sleep.  And now here we are - FrenchFry sleeps in his bed all night long and I got there without having to follow any "methods."

Instead... I just followed my instincts.

Through the last 2.25 years I have second guessed myself a lot when it came to FrenchFry's sleep.  In my heart I always felt that if I waited long enough, eventually he would be sleeping through the night and in his own bed.  And guess what?  It actually worked!  I wish I could go back to the me of 2 years ago - the first time mom of a 4 month old - and let her know that she doesn't have to doubt herself and it is going to work out like she thinks and hopes it will and take away the kernel of doubt that was always there... especially when the advice of the "experts" seemed to contradict my own instincts and approach.

Someone ALWAYS has their advice... sigh.

As my husband and I think about whether or not we are ready to try for another child, I know one of his biggest concerns is going back to that really hard place of having a newborn... to sleepless nights and a crying infant.  But I really think this time will be different.  I mean, I KNOW it will be different because every child is different but also because WE are different now.  We know how things can turn out.  We've been through to the other side and we have seen that you can (and will) get there one day.

One of the hardest things about those sleepless nights is that you don't know if you're going to get through it.  You don't know if you are ruining them for ever (spoiler alert: you're not)... especially when you hear advice from friends, coworkers, strangers, the Internet that tell you that you are doing it wrong. That the choices you are making will keep your child from ever sleeping through the night or in their own bed.  That they will never be able to fall asleep on their own (presumably there are millions of adults out there right now who can't fall asleep unless their roommates or spouses rock them to sleep because their parents did that for them as infants and toddlers).

I'm sure if we do have another child and I'm up at 3am (after having been up at 11pm and 1am as well) and at my wit's end I will remember how naive I was to think that the worst part was the not knowing... when the worst part is probably the torturous lack of sleep and the feeling of helplessness in the moment.  But I suspect that maybe next time will be different.  That I can cling to the fact that things did get better with FrenchFry so they are likely to do the same with the next child. 

Maybe I'm just trying to convince myself so I feel ready to make the plunge into having another child.  In some ways it seems like this new development of actually getting consistent sleep is the best reason not to jump into life with a newborn again!  Maybe it's just like getting a tattoo or giving birth where you forget what it was really like once you get far enough from it.

Or maybe it really will be different next time.

Are these well rested parents ready to give that up so soon?

If you're still in the trenches with infant sleep - just remember that it's okay to trust your instincts because it can and will get better!  

If you have had more than one child, did it get easier the second time around? 

You Won't Ruin Them

"I’m not offering you a quick fix solution, I’m not telling you that there is a magic trick to make babies sleep for hours on end, what I’m telling you is that what you are experiencing is normal." (From Hectic and Clueless)

That is a quote from this article on baby sleep has been making the rounds on social media this week and it really struck home with me.  The tone of this article is a little more confrontational than I think I would be myself, but there is also a lot in here I agree with. 

Mostly - I think if something is working for you and your child, then go with it. You won't "ruin" your child's chance at ever sleeping "through the night" - since that appears to be our main goal as early parents if you spend any time on the internet or talking to veteran parents.... you won't ruin them if you nurse or cuddle or rock them to sleep, and I promise you they won't be sleeping in your bed when they are 15 years old. The chances of that happening are less than 0.000000000002% from my non-scientific estimations.

You have 13 years before we kick you out, kid.

There have been rough patches when I did wish for better, more, longer sleep but mostly I have been okay with the way things have (almost) naturally occurred on their own with my FrenchFry's sleep. I nursed him to sleep every night for almost 2 years and would nurse him overnight if he woke up for those same 2 years as well. These are things that I feel almost embarrassed to tell people outside of my close friends for some reason - but it WORKED for us. 

Things usually got much worse when I tried to push him into something that deep down I knew he wasn't ready for yet. And then when I knew he was really ready -like when I night weaned him recently (read about it here: In Defense of Weaning my 2 Year Old) - when I did wait until I knew he was ready it went really well - without a lot of tears or heartache.

Mostly I want you to know that if you are in the midst of it right now - do what feels right and don't let the pressure of everything you read on the Internet - or the parents who forget what it was like to be there with a newborn or had a newborn that was very different than your newborn is and had different needs - don't let that create doubt or second guessing of yourself. And if what you are doing works for YOU, then go with it.

And know that there are people out there who nursed and held and rocked their kid to bed every night long past when they were told it was "okay" to do so.  People nursed overnight past a 2 year birthday who now get pretty great sleep most nights and is starting to missing those middle of the night cuddles a bit more than she thought she would. 

(Though really I always knew I would.)

FrenchFry sleeping in his big boy bed.  Apparently I didn't ruin him!

Check Ketchup out on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KetchupHAStobeaVeggie 

And Twitter: https://twitter.com/KetchupIsVeggie

Happy International Women's Day - Five (+1) To Recognize Today

Today is International Women's Day and a good time to reflect on our own accomplishments as women (and for many of us mothers) as well as the women who inspire us. For myself, it's hard not to get caught up in the day to day feeling of being "not enough" so frequently.  That feeling that many of us have that we aren't enough for our children, our partners, our jobs, our contributions to housework, our (lack of) contributions to women and children causes across the globe... the list goes on.

But today I will be proud of my accomplishments - as well as recognizing the accomplishments of all women - specifically a few of the amazing women who are either out there today making a difference for women across the world, have made a difference in my life or who helped get us where we are today. 

It was of course incredibly hard to choose just a few of the millions of amazing women that accomplished so much and advanced women's rights but here are my 5 (+1) Amazing Women to Recognize today:


1.  Malala Yousafzai - Yousafzai is an international voice and symbol of strength and determination. Born in Pakistan, she started advocating at a young age for education for girls and paid for it by being the target of a brutal attack in which she was shot in the face in 2012 as she walked home from school.  She survived the attack and continues to speak out for her cause and in 2014 she became the youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.





2.  Maya Angelou - The world lost this amazing woman last year at the age of 86 when she passed away on May 28th 2014.  She was a prolific writer who gave voice to women, particularly women of color.  Her first autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) was a coming of age story that brought her international acclaim.  RIP, Miss Angelou



3.  Frances Perkins - As all the women from my generation in America know from the movie Dirty Dancing - Frances was the first woman to become a member of the Presidential Cabinet in 1933.  She served as Secretary of Labor under FDR and as Secretary helped to establish the Social Security Act,  many child labor laws, the minimum wage and countless other rights that have helped workers in American for the past 80 years.  (We actually share the name Frances as it is my middle name - though technically she was born Fannie and changed it later.)

 

4.  Emma Watson - Watson is an amazing role model for young people across the globe and uses her fame as an actress to push for equality for women across the world.  Her speech for the #HeForShe campaign was inspired, and she continues to clear up the misconceptions about what it means to be a Feminist.

 

5.  My Mother - My mother has overcome obstacles and challenges that - because of her - I have never had to face.  She was fiercely protective of her children and a strong advocate for us - especially my sister and me as girls and women.  She taught us to work hard and love even harder.  It is because of her that I never gave up on getting my degrees or set limits on myself in my career.  And it is because of her that I always knew that I would be a good mom who loved my kids with all my heart.  It's also a very high bar to live up to sometimes but having that bar as a model pushes me to work harder and love even harder every day.

Me and my Mom after seeing Hillary Clinton speak in 2014.

+1  Me - Yes, I need to take a moment to recognize my own accomplishments and you should too.  Take a moment to take stock in what you've done up to this point in your life - whether it has been in your schooling, your career, your family and children, your activism or your perseverance in the face of challenges you are presented. 

I am proud of who I am and of being a woman.... now a mother as well.  I have worked hard to earn my two degrees, much of it I did over 8 years of working full time as well.  I started as a temp at my company over 12 years ago and have advanced through 7 different positions climbing through the ranks to being a Manager of Analytics where I am valued for my mind and intelligence in a male dominated field.  I worked hard to establish myself as an independent woman buying my own house as a single woman 5 years ago.  I work to be a good partner and while I am not much of a homemaker I don't think that I need to be in order to be a good wife.  I am now the mother of a 2 year old and that makes me one of the millions of working mothers that work to balance the demands of a job outside the home and raising a family.  I am also a breastfeeding mother who pumped at work until my son was 14 months old, which is no small feat!  And now I've ventured into the world of blogging about my life as an imperfect mother who is trying her best to balance all of these things.

 

We still have a long way to go as we all know that true equality is still far away.  The theme of this year's International Women's Day is "Make It Happen."  To the women who have come before us and those of you out there right now working to Make It Happen, THANK YOU.

#InternationalWomensDay
#MakeItHappen

https://www.facebook.com/KetchupHAStobeaVeggie

Live Tweeting Your Childhood

"Mommy turn that OFF!"

This is something my two year old has started to say to me about my cell phone or laptop. (And right when I decided to start a momblog - thanks kid.)

I've struggled with this since FrenchFry was born as I think most parents do. I remember reading these articles stating that mothers shouldn't be using smartphones while nursing their babies. We are supposed to lovingly stare into their eyes and connect with them or something. 

Um.... Do these people realize how BORING breastfeeding can be?

The little buggers are latched onto you for like 18 hours a day at first. And I'm supposed to just stare into their little haven't-learned-to-make-eye-contact-yet baby eyes all of that time? Okay...

Need to get Google Glass before the next kid!

Actually, when FrenchFry was a baby my preferred medium was Netflix on the iPad. I watched all 6 seasons of West Wing and countless other shows. What else are you going to do to keep yourself from falling asleep at three am?  Plus FrenchFry was always a long nurser.  Straight up until he was one he would nurse for at least 45 minutes every session.  That's the exact time it takes to watch an hour show minus the commercials. That can't be a coincidence. He knew what was up. 

Sometimes though I really worry about being the distracted mom. Or what I'm teaching FrenchFry by spending so much time on these devices in his presence.  Sometimes it's reading Facebook or more recently spending mindless time on Twitter.  Other times it's that I have my phone out to take pictures and video because I want to capture all of these awesome moments with him.  And then feel compelled to live tweet it or post it on Instagram and Facebook immediately.

Sometimes I just wish I had a device where I could take pictures that wasn't connected to the Internet. Hrm....

Oh right.... that thing.

This also goes back to the struggle to be truly present in the moment.   By taking photos and video of all of the amazing moments with him, am I pulling myself out of just being there and being present with him?  It's really hard to say because it doesn't feel that way most of the time. 

This study got some traction last year citing "photo-taking-impairment" which means that people who take photos (in this case of objects in a museum) were less likely to remember what they saw than those that did not take photos.  But even the authors of the study found that if you interacted with the object and added some focus like zooming in on specific details of the object while taking the picture you could counteract the photo-taking-impairment effect.  And I know that when I'm with FrenchFry, even if I'm taking photos or swinging by my Facebook feed when posting them briefly, I'm honed into the details of how hard he laughs when I push the swing higher or how he pronounces "My see a pretty duck."  And I enjoy all of the little details that make him so amazing to me every day.

Lately I've been trying to pay more attention to my usage of all of these devices around FrenchFry, especially since he's clearly been picking up on it and asking me to turn my phone off.  Sometimes I try to force myself to wait until we get home to post the photos I take when we are out doing fun stuff,  and sometimes I still live tweet every moment of the day.  It's a challenge, and I'll keep working at it to make sure that I'm not missing any moments of what is going on right in front of me.

But I'm not going to take less photos... I just can't.  And if I did, I wouldn't have pictures like this to hang up in my cube at work to help get me through the work day until I can come back home to my little family.

In Defense of Night Weaning My 2 Year Old

This past week I started night weaning my two year old. Yeah - I'll give you a second to pull your jaw up from the floor on that one.

I'm tempted to say "in my defense" but why do I feel the need to defend myself? I am always feeling like I have to defend my choices as a parent. I feel the need to defend nursing my son past two and then turn right around and feel like I need to defend any effort to wean him before he's ready on his own. Just depends on the audience.  

Instead of defending myself, I'll just say that really this has worked for us up until this point.  FrenchFry was a pretty typical sleeper for a newborn and then from 4 to 8 months he gave us fairly consistent full nights of sleep and then well... it's been up and down since.  Mostly though it's been manageable and while I haven't strung more than 6 or 7 nights together uninterrupted, the past year or so has usually meant him waking up once overnight, nursing back to sleep and then getting up early to nurse and doze back off until the alarm goes off. 

I never really considered a cry it out method - it just wasn't ever going to be for me and I knew that from that start.  I've read a lot about gentle sleep training or night weaning over the past two years and it always sounds good in theory but again, wasn't for me in practice.  I've also read plenty that says that by nursing him to sleep (we've only gotten away from that in the past couple of weeks), nursing him overnight, and letting him sleep in our bed we are making grave mistakes and apparently will have him sleeping in our bed unable to fall asleep without us when he's 15.

 
But even though the jury is still out on him falling asleep on his own and staying in his own bed all night consistently, it seems like we are (mostly) naturally moving in that direction.  I've waited until I have felt FrenchFry was truly ready for a step before taking it and (aside from that one week that I tried to push not nursing him to sleep against my own instincts and almost got myself a divorce in the process) the transitions have gone well.  I think in most cases FrenchFry has been ready for each of these well before I was.

Like the night weaning.  It's actually been going surprisingly well. He comes into our bed and says "momma milk" and I tell him that mommy milk is not for night time anymore and then he'll say "Nooo.... I want momma milk! Mommy milk...."  <yawn... zonked> 

For our next sleep evolution I ordered him a "toddler clock" to help him learn to sleep in his own bedroom all night.  It's a choo choo train (do I say "choo choo train" now instead of just saying train??) that has a red, yellow and green light to teach him to stay in his bed until the light turns green at an appropriate wake up time.  Once I'm comfortable that he's fully transitioned from nursing overnight we'll try out the clock and see how it goes.  I'm sure I've ruined him already by letting him come into our bed on his own (I think I read that somewhere) but who knows, maybe things will continue to progress as they have been and uninterrupted sleep is in my future.

All aboard!  To sleeping in your own dang bed.

Now that we are moving away from nursing overnight we are just down to nursing first thing in the morning, before bed and at nap-time on the weekends.  I'm feeling some internal pressure to start the full weaning process but I'm not sure exactly why.   Before I was even pregnant my worry was always that I wouldn't be able to breastfeed or that I wouldn't be able to nurse long enough to meet my goals - aloud I would say six months, to myself I would say a year, and truly I wanted to make it until he was two to meet the WHO recommendations but was afraid to admit that to myself.  Now 2 has come and gone and I wonder when and how this breastfeeding journey will end.

Hopefully once we are BOTH ready.

Check Ketchup out on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KetchupHAStobeaVeggie 

And Twitter: https://twitter.com/KetchupIsVeggie

Ketchup counts, right?

A few years ago, Michelle Obama championed the passing of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act which requires school lunch programs to incorporate more fruits and vegetables; less trans fats and sugars in school lunches.  Sounds good, right? At the time there was a big deal made in the media when certain groups wanted to count the tomato sauce in pizza and even ketchup as a vegetable.  Single, pre-mom me was all over that.  I am pretty sure I shared a few snarky Facebook posts about how ridiculous it was that anyone would even try to pretend that tomato sauce and ketchup could count as a vegetable.  RIDICULOUS!  <waves fist in the air>

Flash forward a few (very awesome) years and I'm married and have an adorable and typically picky-eating toddler, FrenchFry.  Now ketchup HAS to be a vegetable!  Not only is ketchup considered a veggie in our house, it is also the vehicle by which we can actually get FrenchFry to eat any food some days (or weeks).  And pizza?  PIZZA?  Tomato sauce is clearly enough of a vegetable to help me sleep at night.  I mean - that is if there wasn't that toddler climbing into my bed in the wee hours, but that's a whole other issue for me to worry, fret and lie to myself about. 

See?  It says TOMATO right on it!

I'm one of those moms (is there a different type these days?) that has spent countless hours on my iPhone reading up on virtually every aspect of fertility, pregnancy, childbirth, and taking care of the little buggers once they are on the outside.

Before FrenchFry was born I spent a lot of time reading articles about how making your own organic baby food is really the only smart thing to do (who would spend all that money on something you can make yourself?!).  I was going to be a cloth diapering, breastfeeding, makin' my own organic baby food, no TV, and no processed food for MY kid kind of mom.  Some of those things stuck (still nursing FrenchFry at 25 months and we did pretty good with the TV thing) but plenty of my pre-baby ideas have gone by the wayside.  (Who freaking has time to make your own baby food when they sell it in those convenient little pouches?!)

And I'm okay with that.  It took some time but the guilt - of being a new mom, a working mom, a sending my kid to daycare mom, a my kid eats non-organic fruit that I mostly remember to wash mom... an IMPERFECT MOM (who loves her kid with all of her heart) - that guilt has mostly quieted these days.  It's still there, but it's no longer in the foreground.  These days I skip clicking on the "you're a terrible parent if you rock your kid to sleep" posts and revel in the ones that say organic food is over-rated.  I'm not saying it's over-rated.  I really have no clue, but to keep the scared, guilty mom voice quiet I've decided to focus on the fact that I do the best I can and make the best decisions I know how.  And so far - the kid seems pretty alright.  

These days if my kid is crying for a snack in the car and I find a bag of stale pretzel sticks under the seat I feel like I'm Super Mom.

Mmmm.... FrenchFry loves his ketchup.

Oh and ketchup - ketchup is a life saver.

Check Ketchup out on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KetchupHAStobeaVeggie 

And Twitter: https://twitter.com/KetchupIsVeggie