(Th)ink on Breastfeeding

Here is cartoonist Keith Knight on breastfeeding.

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June Carnival of Breastfeeding: The Second Time Around

We are now seeking submissions for the June Carnival of Breastfeeding! This month's topic is breastfeeding the second (or third, or fourth!) time around. How did your subsequent breastfeeding experiences compare to the first? Easier, or with just as many challenges? Did your second child have a different nursing personality? How did you manage nursing a newborn while taking care of a toddler or older child? We want to hear the good, bad and the ugly! (especially me, who is expecting another nursing in September!)

Submissions are due by Monday, June 6th and the Carnival will go live on Monday, June 13th. We're using a Google Doc to collect submissions again, so please fill out this form in order to submit your post.
As always, we're looking for posts that are:
- Well-written and grammatically correct
- Thoughtful and directly on point for the carnival subject
- Submitted by blogs that pertain to subjects of interest to our readers (breastfeeding, parenting, etc.)

If your post is selected for inclusion, you will be asked on the day of the carnival to edit your post to link back to each of the other participants in the carnival.

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Nestle's New Evil Genius: Baby Nes

Take a wild guess at what this is. No, it's not a newfangled Keurig designed to appeal to the girly girl in your life. It's actually a formula machine.

Yes, it's the same technology created by Nestle to make quick cups of coffee (Nespresso) adapted for their formula market. This machine (or "nutrition system," as Nestle calls it) uses prepackaged cups of powdered formula and will whip it up into a warm bottle in under 60 seconds. The formula comes in various concentrations, meant to "meet the needs of babies and toddlers up to age 3." The pediatrician that shills for Nestle says it's meant to "imitate nature" in the press release.

Baby Nes goes on sale today exclusively in Switzerland, but I am sure it's only a matter of time before it's available around the world.  It's six years in the making and is a truly frightening look at the future of infant formula marketing.

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New Crunchy Black Mom on the Block: Ananda Lewis

You remember Ananda Lewis from BET's Teen Summit and and MTV's Total Request Live? I hadn't thought about her in forever until I saw she updated her Twitter stream to announce the birth of her new baby boy. Ananda tweeted:

"Took me 9 3/4 months to grow a baby, 14 hours of labor and 18 minutes of pushing (at home & drug-free) to get him into the world, and every minute of the rest of my life to kiss on him NONSTOP! I love being a mommy!! Looking forward to my 1st Mother's Day with my kid!"

Drug-free home birth? Check! Cloth diapers? Check!

I'm guessing tweets about breastfeeding her new baby boy can't be far away. Congrats, Ananda! Welcome to the Crunchy Black Mom Club!




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The Big Reveal!

We found yesterday that our new baby is a girl! I made the announcement on Facebook but I know not everyone follows me there so I figured a post was in order as well. We are really thrilled about having a daughter, although we are both probably a little nervous about this new experience. I've never had to style anyone's hair but my own and baby girl genitals seem more fraught than baby boys'. I've already had friends tell me tales of fused labia, mini periods and yeast infections in their newborn girls. I know all of this is just the stuff that comes with parenting, but it's seriously a whole new world. I didn't think I'd be cracking open The Baby Book  for a while, but now I'm feeling like I need to do a refresher ASAP.

Still, there is so much to look forward to and as silly as it sounds, seeing the baby on the ultrasound made everything feel very real. We could even see her rubbing her eyes and sucking her thumb!
There really is a tiny little person in there, and in 20 weeks she will be in my arms and at my breast. She will arrive just before my birthday, the best gift anyone could ever receive. Isn't she cute?

 

(I swear 'fore God I could never be an ultrasound tech... I couldn't understand what I was looking at no matter how times it was explained to me. The placenta pic above had me convinced we were having a boy.)

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