A new custom necklace and a new facebook group!

It's been a busy Saturday here at Milk Please, Mommy, and as a result, we're thrilled to announce a new Milk Please, Mommy facebook group! We'll be using this group to announce events and contests, and to show off some of our new designs, so be sure to add us!

Speaking of new designs, we've got a new custom sibling necklace design, as ordered by Danielle Gardner of Philosophers Walk.





I just love the deep cherry and jade tones of this necklace, and the safari animals are a fun counterpoint to the delicate flower beads.





A detail of some of the animal and flower beads - I think the giraffe is my favourite.

Hope you're all having a great weekend!

You get what you need (whether you want it or not).

We're on an enforced rest-day here, as I seem to have misplaced my house keys. I've looked everywhere for them, three times, but they have yet to turn up. It's all for the best - my midwife gave me the gears last week about doing too much and not taking care of myself, so a day at home to rest and regroup is probably the best thing I can do for myself. (Well, the best thing short of a whirlwind trip to Hawaii for some beach-lounging, but if a day in my jammies at home is what the universe is offering me, I'll take it!) Edited to add: I found my keys. They were a coat pocket that I had checked quite literally at least six times over the past 24 hours. I think I really was meant to stay home today.

In other "the universe is listening" news, I received an email last night that Elizabeth Pantley has released a new book on napping called "The No-Cry Nap Solution: 
Guaranteed Gentle Ways to Solve All Your Naptime Problems". When the monkey was having so much trouble at bedtime, I bought "The No-Cry Sleep Solution", and it helped us immensely, so I'm really keen to get my hands on a copy of this latest book. At the moment, our nap-time is golden: we have a reasonably firm nap-time, and the monkey and I nap together almost every day (except when we're out too close to nap time and she punks out on me and falls asleep in the stroller or the sling). She sleeps for about an hour and half, giving me half an hour to read or write in bed, and then an hour to nap myself. I find our naps just as essential to my day as they are to hers. I'm interested, however, to see how that will change when we have another baby to consider.

I was talking yesterday, however, with some of the other moms in my neighbourhood playgroup, and the subject of naps was a popular discussion - from the 3-month old who will only sleep in his swing and the 8-month old who sometimes just doesn't want to nap to my monkey who sleeps brilliantly if I'm beside her, but will only nap for half an hour if she's alone in her crib, it seems that most of the moms I know are constantly seeking better naps for their babies.

Here's a short excerpt from "The No-Cry Nap Solution: 
Guaranteed Gentle Ways to Solve All Your Naptime Problems" that explains why naps are so important. I particularly like this bit, as it mentions the importance of us grown-ups taking naps too. Have you had a nap today?

The Volcano Effect: Why Skipping a Nap Results in Meltdown
By Elizabeth Pantley, Author of The No-Cry Nap Solution

From the moment your child wakes in the morning he is slowly using up the benefits of the previous night’s sleep. He wakes up totally refreshed, but as the hours pass, little by little, the benefits of his sleep time are used up, and an urge to return to sleep begins to build. When we catch a child at in-between stages and provide naps, we build up his reservoir of sleep-related benefits, allowing him a “fresh start” after each sleep period.

As shown on the sleep chart below, as children age, the length of time that they can stay “happily awake” increases. A newborn can only be awake one or two hours before tiredness sets in, whereas a two year old can last five to seven hours before craving some down time for a nap. When children are pushed beyond their biological awake time span without a break that’s when they become fatigued, fussy and unhappy.

Age              “Happily Awake” span of time between naps
Newborn          1 – 2 hours
6 month old         2 – 3 hours
12 month old         3 – 4 hours
18 month old         4 – 6 hours
2 year old           5 – 7 hours
3 year old           6 – 8 hours
4 year old           6 – 12 hours


As the day progresses, and the sleep pressure builds, a child becomes fussier, whinier, and less flexible. He has more crying spells, more tantrums, and less patience. He loses concentration and the ability to learn and retain new information. The scientific term for this process is “homeostatic sleep pressure” or “homeostatic sleep drive” . . . I call it The Volcano Effect. We’ve all seen the effects of this on a baby or child, as it is often as clear as watching a volcano erupt; nearly everyone has observed a fussy child and thought or said, “Someone needs a nap!”

As a child progresses through his day, his biology demands a sleep break to regroup, refresh and repair. If a child does not get this break the problem intensifies: the rumblings and tremors become an outright explosion. Without a nap break, the homeostatic pressure continues building until the end of the day, growing in intensity – like a volcano – so that a child becomes overtired, wired and unable to stop the explosion. The result is an intense bedtime battle with a cranky, overtired child, or an infant who won’t fall asleep no matter how tired you know he is.

Even more, a child who misses naps day after day builds a sleep deprivation that launches her into the volcano stage much easier and quicker. If she is missing naps and also lacking the right quality or quantity of nighttime sleep…watch out!

Newborns and young babies have a much shorter span in which their sleep pressure builds. They rapidly reach the peak of their volcano in one to three hours. This is why newborns sleep throughout the day, and why young babies require two or three or four daily naps. Over time, as a baby’s sleep cycle matures he will be able to go longer periods between sleeps. It is not until age 4 or 5 that a child is able to go happily through the entire day without a nap, and sleep research suggests that even through adulthood a mid-day nap or rest break is extremely beneficial in reducing the pressure in all human beings.

The Volcano Effect is not something reserved only for children! This biological process affects adults as well. Understanding this can help you interpret what is really going on in your home at the end of a long day, when children are fussy and parents are grumpy – resulting in a whole mountain range of volcanoes.

Sleep pressure can be exaggerated by environmental issues such as the previous poor night’s sleep, on-going sleep deprivation, or daily stress. What's more, each person’s moodiness feeds off the others, causing contagious crankiness. And then you’ll find yourself losing patience and saying to your child, “I’m sorry, honey. Mommy’s just tired right now.” (This is a very telling explanation we don’t often stop to analyze.)

This Volcano concept brings to light one more important point: Quality naps can make up for lost night sleep – but extra nighttime sleep does not make up for missed naps, due to the homeostatic sleep pressure concept. Therefore, no matter how your child sleeps at night – great sleeper or poor sleeper -- his daily naps are critically important to release the rising sleep pressure.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
This is a copyrighted excerpt from The No-Cry Nap Solution: Guaranteed Gentle Ways to Solve All Your Naptime Problems by Elizabeth Pantley. (McGraw-Hill, December 2008).

California county breastfeeding coalition launches eye-catching campaign

"When breastfeeding is accepted, it won't be noticed."

This is the slogan on the various cut-outs of breastfeeding women scattered across Marin County in California. The Marin Breastfeeding Coalition launched the campaign to remind their neighbours that breastfeeding is not only a healthy and normal part of life, but also that it's protected by law in most US states. (In Canada, breastfeeding is only specifically protected by law in Ontario and British Columbia, although it's tacitly protected in the section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that deals with every Canadian being equal under the law, and privy to the same rights and freedoms, etc.)

The timing of this campaign is interesting given the recent kerfluffle over breastfeeding photos on Facebook, but I think it's a great idea. I've nursed my monkey in all sorts of random places, and for the most part, have felt entirely comfortable. I choose not to use a nursing cover - I think they draw more attention to what's happening underneath than just plain old discretion and a nursing top do - and have only received one dirty look in 15 months of frequent public nursing. I like to think that's because breastfeeding is more accepted here, and therefore isn't noticed.

What do you think?

Breastfeeding: Good for baby, AND good for mommy

I found these articles in my inbox this morning, and thought they might be worth passing along.

Firstly, a study in Scotland shows a "significant link" between breastfeeding and a healthy BMI later in childhood. The article does go on to warn that socio-economic status might play a role in the health of these children, but the researchers themselves note that the link between breastfeeding and healthier eating habits seems to persist, exclusive of affluence or lack thereof.

And secondly, for you sciencey types: those of us who have nursed know that it's has some great benefits just for mommy, not the least of which is additional weight loss, but did you know that it seems that extended breastfeeding may prevent breast cancer? Now, I have to admit that this article lost me after the second paragraph, but the first two were exciting enough that I don't really care. I'm also not clear on where the "two years" timeline comes into it, but it makes me feel even better about my wish to nurse the Monkey until she's two.

In other news, she's over the Plague, but has picked up a head cold. I blame it on the daycare at the gym - parents bring their sick kids in all the time with little to no regard for the other kids or their families. I have a bit of a scratchy throat now too, but am socking the orange juice to both of us and keeping my fingers crossed. I intended to call Motherisk to see if ColdFX was safe to take during pregnancy, but then decided that taking nothing at all would be safer.

I had a midwife appointment yesterday, and got to hear the Bun's little heartbeat. Fwip fwip fwip fwip. My due date has been pushed back by a full week, which means that I'm not as far along as I thought, but finally, finally I'm days away from being finished the First Trimester That Wouldn't End. So that's a good thing.

And now, I'm off to bed. The midwife chided me gently about not taking enough care of myself in amongst the taking care of everyone else, so I'm going to take her advice and get some rest.

where did my sweet baby go?

At some point in the last week and a half, my sweet, happy-faced, good-natured, adorable little girl was replaced in the night by a two-foot tall screaming harpie. I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but I'd like to know how to change her back.

Partly, I think, it's because as my pregnancy progresses, my milk supply is dwindling** and she's frustrated that she's not getting as much as she wants, and I'm guessing that it's also a developmental thing. I'm hoping that it's just a phase - she has the most ear-piercing screech, and she's so bullheaded (umm, I guess I'm to blame for that) that she'll scream for half an hour if thwarted over almost anything - being picked up when she wants to be down, being put down when she wants to be up, being removed from the kitchen (she's not allowed in there at all - that's where the cat eats and the recycling lives) not being allowed to flush a roll of toilet paper, etc.

I don't think she's old enough yet to understand the concept of "time out", and she's too single-minded for ignoring her to work as a tactic - she'll just continue screaming. How do you deal with a 15 month old when she starts throwing temper tantrums?

**(A resource that Cheryl suggested, and that I'm finding really useful is the book Adventures in Tandem Nursing. It's a must-have if you're even considering nursing through pregnancy or nursing two babies.)

reporting from the plague house

Well, the Norwalk seems to be on its way out, much to my relief. Tonight will be number eight that I'll spend "sleeping" on the Monkey's floor, and I'm really looking forward to getting back into my own bed. The Monkey's gone just under 36 hours without throwing up, which I call blessed respite.

We spent almost all of the day either on route to, from or at the pediatrician's office. It's a lengthy story, but the short version is that I suspected that the Monkey might have a UTI after all of the other messy business, so wanted to get her in for a pee test. UTIs are scary when they go bad - they can do permanent liver and kidney damage. So off we went.

Our pediatrician (who is wonderful and fantastic and I can't praise enough) looked at her, and then one of the nurses fitted her with a tiny pee-bag under her diaper, and we headed out to the lobby to wait. And wait. And wait. I'd been sure it would be a quick thing - her overnight diaper had been wet, but her morning one hadn't, and when the doctor pulled off her late morning diaper at 11:30, it was bone-dry. She'd been nursing more frequently than usual though, and I managed to get some juice into her, so I didn't think I'd have long to wait. Boy, was I wrong.

At 1:30, conscious that it was naptime for both the Monkey and me, I gave up on the waiting, packed her up (along with a sample bottle for when she finally did pee) and took her home for naps. She woke up around 4 and I checked her again - still dry. At this point, it had been at least seven and a half hours since her last pee, and I was really starting to worry. I called the pediatrician's office again and they suggested that I take her to the hospital for a catheter, since a) they needed the sample to see what was wrong and b) their lab was closing in an hour. "But first", the nurse said, "there's one other thing you can try. Don't laugh at me and don't think I'm crazy - another mom who was in here suggested this, and swears that it works."

I hate hospitals. We planned for the Monkey to be born at home primarily because of my concerns about hospital-contracted secondary infections, so I was all ears.

The suggestion was this: rub peppermint lotion on the Monkey's feet. Given that I happened to have a bottle of peppermint foot lotion on hand, and didn't really want to subject my sweet baby to a catheterization, I had nothing to lose, and it WORKED! Within 10 minutes, she'd filled her little pee-bag.

Peppermint lotion. Who knew?

(Her dip-test came out clean, so we're waiting on lab results from the urinalysis to make sure she's okay.)

In other news, I posted my very first necklace of my own design today - the Breastfeeding is Love Valentine's Necklace. I'm really proud of it, although I really want to reshoot the photo - Andrew had the good camera with him at work so I had to fall back on my Powershot, and the flash on it is kind of crappy. It's a limited-edition, limited-time only necklace, although I might consider extending it if people like it.





So that's what's going on around here. I'm staying up too late, cleaning up gross stuff, and worrying about my baby. Pretty much par for the course.

Plague week continues

The monkey is still sick, and I'm starting to worry a little bit. She's been throwing up since Wednesday evening, and now seems to have added the other end to her repertoire of yucky excretions. She's had a low-grade fever since Thursday. We've been socking the pedialyte to her, and she's been able to nurse and keep it down for the last couple of days, so it's not dire, but I don't like that it's still going on. I'm going to try to get her in to see her doctor tomorrow morning.

Her daddy has been sick since yesterday too - apparently the norovirus is going around again, and it certainly seems to fit the symptoms they both have. So far, I'm okay - I'll probably start to feel sick tomorrow morning, just in time for Andrew to go back to work.

Anyway, all of this sickness has precluded our trip to IKEA to set up my home office, which is a little bit disappointing. All of my stock arrived on Friday, and I've been just itching to unpack it all and see what wonders there are in those three big boxes, but without anywhere to put the contents, opening up and sorting through boxes of beads seems like an invitation for the monkey to try and choke herself to death. Given that I've spent the last four nights sleeping on her floor to prevent just such an occurrence, I think I'll wait a little longer. The orders I have on deck can be done once she's asleep tonight (if I can get her to bed at a decent hour - last night it was 10:30 pm before she'd go down!) and then I can close the boxes back up.

The monkey is currently clutching at my ankle and having a little cry - she's really tired, but fought sleep for the entire 45 minutes that I tried to put her down this morning. It's been 15 minutes or so, and she's had a good nursing session, so I'm going to try to put her down again.

The Big Day

First, the big news:  www.nursingnecklace.com is undergoing some slight renovations at the moment, and changing from Tickled Pink Designs (which belonged to your former blogger, Cheryl) to Milk Please, Mommy, my baby.  At Milk Please, Mommy, we'll strive to maintain the level of excellence you've come to expect from Tickled Pink Designs products, and hope that you'll be just as happy with the change-over as we are.

Now, the introductions.  My name is Jaimie, and I'm mom to a wonderful 14-month-old little girl who I'll refer to as the Monkey.   We're also expecting a baby in August of this year, and we're really excited about that.

At the moment though, I'm most excited about taking over www.nursingnecklace.com.  I've been making some of the necessary changes to the website over the last few days  (although the Monkey's stomach flu has made that a slower process than I'd like), and Cheryl has been helping me set up passwords and accounts in all of the right places, but today is the day that the beads come - it's like the ceremonial passing of the torch.  I'm so excited!!

Anyway, the Monkey is clamoring to nurse, and after all of the throwing up she's done in the last few days, I'm happy to get any fluids into her that I can.  Have a great day, everyone!