Parenting

Tom and I often wonder what we'll be like as parents.  How much of what "sounds right" now will still be in the mix a year from now.

I think that the different communities (and, God, in some cases they're more like SUBCULTURES) on The Bump raise questions that would otherwise never have come up.  Cosleeping, babywearing, BLW, BF on demand.  Holy crap.  You have to make decisions on how to be a parent. 

- Cosleeping.  More like room-sharing, for us.  The intent for now is not to have the baby in our bed, but in a cosleeper of some sort right next to my side of the bed.  It just makes sense to me - at least in the early weeks.  I plan to breastfeed on-demand, and god help me if you think I'm interested in getting up to walk to peanut's room every 2 hours.  I like the Fisher Price Rock and Play sleeper and have heard rave reviews, so that's likely what we'll get.  And once peanut is eating less at night, Peanut goes in Peanut's crib.  It honestly never occurred to me that people did anything BUT this.

- babywearing.  I never would have thought of this.  It seemed kind of crunchy granola for my tastes.  But the more I looked into it, the more sense it made.  We have a Moby (Tom swears he'll die before wearing that) and a Lillebaby Everywear (more Tom's style) and I'm committed to wearing as much as I can.  I think this (esp the Moby) will be awesome around the house.  Peanut shouldn't just be left to lie around alone while mommy and daddy attempt to get things done. 

BF on demand - Not much to say about this one.  I believe that a baby is capable of eating when hungry.  Since our highest hopes are that peanut will be having breastmilk only (if only I could actually control that, right?), and breastmilk is digested so quickly, it makes sense to me to feed Peanut when Peanut's hungry.  (Side note.  I'm not insane.  If my baby needs formula, my baby will get formula.)

Which sort of naturally led me to Baby-Led-Weaning (BLW).  I had to sell Tom on this one.  It seemed unnatural to him (and me, at first, if we're being honest).  My first thought was, we should make Peanut's baby food.  The jarred stuff is pretty wretched, and even though it's convenient, it really doesn't do much to get Peanut ready for "real" food.  Then, I was introduced by some great Bumpies to BLW.  It all clicked into place.  Food.  The same food on my plate.  Softened, maybe.  But not mashed or pureed.  Peanut gets to experience color, flavor, shape, size, texture - and Peanut gets to decide what peanut likes.  One thing that I read that's stuck with me is that a baby should learn to know if he likes turkey, but not potatoes.  Feeding him jarred turkeyandmashedpotatoes doesn't accomplish this in the slightest.  Especially given that it tastes like neither turkey nor potatoes.  I just really like the idea of Peanut being an active part of learning about food - rather than just having slop shoveled down his/her throat.

- signing - seems like a no-brainer to me.  Baby who can express himself = happier baby.

These are a few of the many "will we/won't we" discussions that Tom and I have started

I think it's important to start thinking about how you want to raise your kid.  I definitely want to find a pedi that will support our decisions, especially the more "out there" ones like BLW.

But like I said - I'll be really interested to come back to this blog a year from now and see what we're actually doing.