Swiped from Stacie.

Natural birth. Well, if you don’t count the induction, narcotics and epidural, then sure, it was natural. A head emerged from my vagina, along with the rest of the baby and assorted baby bits. As unnatural as my birth may have been, I made good decisions and am happy with the process and outcome, and I find myself remarkably more laidback and forgiving of those who have made other decisions for whatever reasons. Walking a mile in others’ shoes and all.

Breastfeeding. In all, a success. We made it to 14.5 months, and considering that was about 14.5 months longer than I thought I would, I rate myself an A. Matthew had low blood sugar when he was born and I agreed to have him take 1/2 ounce of formula on his first night. I know what low blood sugar feels like. He didn’t need that after a long day’s work. After that, we breastfed (I pumped when I went back to work at 3 months post-partum) exclusively until Matthew was 6 months, then we started solids with him. My pumping supply really began to dip 8 months in, and by the time Matthew was 9 months, I ran out of frozen stash and we supplemented with soy formula. I continued to pump measly amounts for another month or so and nursed exclusively on the weekends, and when Matthew was about 11 months, I gave up pumping. We stopped nursing at around 14 months. It was a very easy transition. I had all intentions of letting Matthew lead with the weaning, but it didn’t happen. I didn’t offer, he didn’t care.

I always knew how hard being a mom would be, how hard balancing momhood and my career would be, but man almighty, performing on command for a pump totally, forgive the pun, sucks. I did it because I was cheap and stubborn, and for most of the time I performed decently on command. I was relieved to give up the pump, and I am equally relieved that we were in a good position to be able to afford at least organic formula for Matthew.

And if anyone even hints at the word fenugreek I may have to shout incoherently.
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Babywearing. We have worn Matthew since almost the first day and continue to do so. He grew up in the mei tai (flickr set here) and although he’s over 30 pounds now, we are still going strong. Josh wears him a lot more than I do, but when we fly, it’s the only way we get around the airport. Easy peasy.

Co-sleeping. Yes and no. We gave up on it fully when Matthew was around 6 months old and was clearly able to sleep much better on his own. We still do pull him into bed with us when he’s sick and needs extra cuddles, and in the mornings, he drinks milk while cuddled between us. Otherwise, we can’t do it all the time, because the child likes to stick his small, sharp fingers into soft holes on our faces. Case in point: in Connecticut this past weekend, he woke up cranky at around 3AM. I pulled him into bed with me, we slept and the reason I woke up was because he happily pinched the crap out of my eyes and tried to shove his fingers in my nose. Never mind tried - he succeeded. Tricksy.

CIO - crying it out. Yep, we did this. Close your email clients right now, or if you plan to leave a comment that says what a bad mother I am, don’t bother. Here are the facts - we know our kid better than anyone else on this planet. We know that sometimes he fusses himself minimally down to sleep, we know that sometimes he rolls right over and zonks out, and we know, unfortunately, that sometimes he’s angry as hell and shouts and even if we go in, he gets ANGRIER. So we let him do his business, if it warrants. We don’t do this every night - he doesn’t need it. Nowadays, if he cries in the middle of the night, 9 times out of 10 he can settle himself (hallelujah) and other times he requires intervention. So we intervene when necessary, and if our presence only serves to piss him off further, we leave. That’s that.

Healthy Foods. I think we do a pretty good job in this area. We eat mostly organic foods and prepare a wide variety of meals with as fresh ingredients as possible. Matthew is completely off of baby foods and purees and eats what we eat, with very few exceptions. We shop at a farmer’s market weekly, Matthew eats a lot of fruits and vegetables, and the processed foods he does get, we always try to buy organic (I’m staring at a box of Organic Weetabix, and he loves it madly). We’re lucky to live in an area that has a lot of great produce options; Matthew’s daycare has fresh fruit from the Berkeley Bowl. We restrict his consumption of crap food (i.e., try to avoid HFCS foods and highly sugared/processed stuff) but, hey, we’re human. Sometimes a little ice cream slips in.

I love that I have a son who loves octopus and brussels sprouts and watermelon and rice and crab and raw tuna.

No TV. We fell into this one pretty well. When Matthew was first born, I watched a lot of TV to pass through the eons I spent on the sofa nursing nonstop daily, it seemed. Once it looked like he was actually watching it (this was when he was really young - a month? 2?) we stopped watching it when he was awake, and we don’t watch it now. I think they watch a little bit of TV early in the morning and late in the evening at daycare, but for the most part, he plays outside, he pokes around and explores in our apartment, and is content with turning the tv on but the cable box is off or the tv isn’t set to the cable box. He loves pressing buttons, really. So the only tv he gets is occasional white noise, more often than not a blank blue screen, at which point he’ll turn the tv off or we will for him.

This is all well and good but when we are ready to introduce tv to him I know I’m not going to know any kid’s tv shows at all. He’ll be the only kid in kindergarten who watches Law & Order.

Toys. We’ve only really become interested and concerned lately with all the crud that’s coming out of companies from China (I feel like I need to note that very specifically; it’s not that I don’t trust the Chinese, which I’ve seen people say online, but I don’t trust some of the companies in China), I’ve been looking a little harder and trying to make better decisions about toys for him.

All that being said the kid prefers to press buttons on VCRs and DVD players, poke his own bellybutton, and sit inside a suitcase. Who needs toys?

Cloth diapers. Haven’t used cloth since we left Chicago and I miss it so, so very much! Matthew’s persistent fungal diaper rash (gross, I know) that ebbs and flows and requires us to use yeast infection junk on his crotch (agh!) has only started with the onset of paper diapers. I hate them. Maybe even half-time in cloth would be fine, but then he’d be bringing yeast issues back daily from daycare? Dixie asked us whether or not we used cloth; we should see how open to using cloth she would be. I am pretty close to either buying a portable washing machine or just sucking it up and going to the laundromat once during the week to do his diapers. I don’t know.