The part where she talks about only “mom” will do at night really hit hard for me. My baby looooves his daddy. During the day, he sometimes prefers his daddy because my husband can throw him up and down and be more physically active than any of his other caregivers. When he’s tired though, only mommy will do, and it’s difficult.
I’m in the slow process of weaning, and its the post-wakeup feedings that I’m most nervous about weaning. Generally, he’s not happy after waking up until he’s fed. He doesn’t like drinking milk from a cup, though he’ll tolerate it if he’s coming back from the park or something else active.
Stopping breastfeeding my 2nd baby was one of the better choices I made. It was just not good for my mental health to be doing it. (Although, I was also putting off antidepressants due to breastfeeding…stopping meant I got to start taking the right meds for me.)
I guess I have an n = 1, if one kid turns out smarter than the other on whether extending breastfeeding to 18 months was better than 6 months…
Emily Oster references sibling studies in Cribsheet where one child is breastfed and the other is not, and indicates that there doesn’t appear to be any differences between them. She says that other studies that do show significant advantages of breastfeeding don’t adequately control for other advantages that women who are more likely to breastfeed have (I.e typically higher income, have maternity leave, jobs that allow for pumping, etc).
Btw I obnoxiously cite Emily Oster all the time but I’m just a huge fan of her approach to reviewing literature. The main thing I got out of grad school is understanding how little evidence you really need to publish a peer reviewed paper.
Not a question, but I thought some folks might be interested in what a friend sent:
Perhaps of interest, Lovevery is giving away free copies of their book about Covid. I haven’t read it but hey, it’s free. ($3.95 with domestic US shipping.)
Books on feelings for kids, recommendations please! We have just one and it’s terrible. I want something that tells Duckling how different emotions feel inside his body. Current book fails to do that AND has toxic positivity of trying to get rid of “bad” (uncomfortable) emotions and is unhelpful to the point of me chucking it in the recycling tomorrow…
I like The Feeling Book by Todd Parr. It just acknowledges the wide range of feelings one might have and that they’re all okay. We also recently got It’s Okay To Make Mistakes by the same author which I think is also available as a board book if you’re not up to real books yet.
I haven’t read the book that comes with this but I think it’s such a cute idea and I wish I knew a toddler who I could gift it to (my kid is way too young for this still). You can find this on Amazon or other sites too so hopefully it’s available it Australia?
We just got “The Rabbit Listened” and it is AMAZING. SO SO Good.
We also have Bigfoot Believes from Slumberkins which is about confidence, but it’s great and I’m planning to check out some of their other ones which include a book called “The Feels” and also things like Yeti Mindfulness and Sloth Sleepytime. ETA: They have a YOUTUBE CHANNEL! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoJcKQ9FXMMa-oQIJj8n1aA
We got The Rabbit Listened off a list that also recommended these books and which I will likely be trying to add to:
“When sophie gets angry- really really angry”
“Finding Om”
“Grumpy Monkey”
“Jabari Jumps”
“The Dot”
“We all sing with the same voice”
“Where do they go”
No recommendations but solidarity with just throwing terrible books away. Normally I would never throw a book away but bad kids books are bad for anyone’s kid and should be gone. Little Miss Busy got tossed. Misogynistic BS.
What can I do to heal some moderate but persistent diaper rash? It’s been more than a couple weeks and we’ve tried: daily shower/bath with 30-60m of air dry time, diaper cream, more frequent changes (but still skipping some overnight - maybe I shouldn’t?).
Hm, diaper brands… initially used Pampers from the hospital and Cloud Island/Target with no probs for a couple months. When that ran out we used Coterie and Dyper. Coterie are fancy-ass diapers that are chemical fee and have never leaked or blown out on us, though maybe they do too good a job holding things in? Dyper are compostable (yay planet) but more prone to leaks plus were too big so we paused for a while. I think the rash developed when we started adding in the Dypers again to use them up, but canct remember exactly cuz I was complacent with his happy butt and didn’t write anything down.
He also got changed exactly every 3 hours for his first month (hospital) and first few weeks at home. Then we were told we could skip some night changes to keep him sleeping, which didn’t seem to cause problems initially but maybe added up?
Left a message for the advice nurse at the pediatrician’s office, too. My second favorite thing about this ped is an advice nurse line that will call you back within the hour. It’s a close second to the fancy cheese shop in the same building.
Def play with diaper brand. Honest Co give my daughter WICKED diaper rash. Since they’re all sorts of clean, I think there’s a mechanical irritation factor there.