Edith has always loved nursing and she has always nursed frequently. She also loves to nurse at the most inconvenient of times for me like when we are out to eat. During the first six months of her life it didn’t matter what time of day it was or if she had just nursed before going to a restaurant she would always want to nurse as soon as my food arrived. It was like she had a sixth sense about that sort of thing. She could smell the food as it was being walked towards our table and she would wait and just as it was being set down in front of me she would start to fuss.

I spent the first six months covering Edith with napkins as I tried to carefully scoop food from my plate and scramble to get it into my mouth. Most of the time it was just too challenging so I watched as Neil enjoyed his meal using both of his hands while I sat with a baby on my boob and my food growing colder. There were times that I would purposely order cold foods just because I knew that Edith would want to eat as soon as my meal arrived.

Edith’s constant desire to eat with us at every meal has forced me to become comfortable with nursing in restaurants. I honestly have to say it is probably the one place I get the most looks but hey I am not going to sit home and never go out to eat because I am a breastfeeding mom. Luckily things started to get easier once she started solids, finally she could sit up in a highchair and finally she could participate in the meals with solid foods. She still nurses often at restaurants but now it usual before or atfter a meal which means I get to eat warm food with two hands.

Share your breastfeeding in public story below in the comments.

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*On May 9th, 2013 Edith turned 10months.*

Weight: Around 16 lbs. Unfortunately Edith had a stomach bug for about a week in late April which caused her to loose a few ounces but we are working on getting her weight back up!

Height: Not sure maybe 27-28 inches?

Likes: Reading her books; Edith will sit for long (baby long) periods of time and just flip through her board books.  She is also loving pushing around her little cart full of blocks.  Playing at the water fountain; across the street from us is a beautiful park that has a fountain to play in and Edith is loving it. Yo Gabba Gabba; yes we let Edith watch one episode 3-4 times/week because honestly sometimes mama just needs to get things done around the house or cook meals. Swings; Edith LOVES to swing she gets all excited and squeals with delight.

Dislikes: Getting her diaper changed most of the time. Napping in her crib. Getting into her car seat. Having non-baby friendly things taken away from her (ie. our phones, paper that she is trying to eat, pens).

Sleeping: Sleep like most months has been up and down. I hate to say this because I know I am doomed to jinx myself but we are at a real up right now.  Last night she even slept from 9pm-4am without any wake ups! Now we are fine with getting up with her at night but nights like when she was sick and she was up every two hours or more it was brutal. Lately our routine is nurse to sleep between 7:30-8:30pm, up once around 11:30 for a quick snack, up again between 1:30-4am and then comes to bed with us and sleeps until 6:30-8am.

Eating: Edith is still nursing every 2-3 hours during the day and I don’t see that stopping anytime soon.  When she is sick she is likely to stay at the boob all day if I let her.  As for solids we offer her three meals per day and snacks.  Her favorite foods right now are vegan mac and cheese, strawberries, bananas, sauteed mushrooms and onions and black olives. We did go through a solids strike when she was sick but she has picked right back up and you can now find her putting back two bananas in a row.

Playing: Unfortunately the last month wasn’t a great one for us when it came to meet ups because Neil has had a few evening events and needed the car and Edith being sick we missed quite a few (I am hoping to change that this month).  We have been going to the park across the street a few times per week to play and even went to a new park and library last week which Edith loved and she met a few other 10 month olds. As for playing at home her favorite game is to take everything out of bags and boxes.  She loves to help me do the laundry and by “helping” I mean pull all of the clean laundry out of the bins or unfold everything as I fold it.

Wearing: E is wearing mostly 6-12 month and 9 month clothes.  She is also wearing baby sandals and shoes now (size 2) since she loves to walk (with assistance) everywhere.

Coming up on the blog… (finally) our approach to solids part 2, what we are reading struggles with pumping and so much more.  If you have any questions for us we’d love to hear from you (info@naturallyfamily.com).

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So, I thought I had set a pretty easily attainable set of goals for April.  I did a pretty horrible job of most of my goals.  I really was fairly confident that I would hit most of the goals and don’t really have a good reason as to why I didn’t.  Hey, I couldn’t even get the goals review in in a timely manner.  So with out further adieu, my April 2013 goals in review:

• Finish Lindsay’s 100 Mile Challenge - This is one I wasn’t sure that I could do, and it’s one of the few I actually accomplished.  I biked, ran and walked to meet this goal.  At the end of the month, I clocked in at 117 miles. (Those are just the miles I tracked, I’m sure there were plenty more)
• Bike to work at least 10 times this month – Despite the unseasonably dry and beautiful weather we’ve had, I only biked to work 6 times this month.  There’s no reason I can’t bike to work twice a week aside from the fact that I dilly dally a lot through the morning, doing dishes, playing with Edith and checking the internet.
• Finish my 5 mile Earth Day race with a 10:00 min/mile pace – We ran the course the weekend before the race and determined that the course was not safe for Lindsay to do with a stroller.  There were a number of really steep hills as well as one pretty drastic drop off on the trails.
• Do yoga at least once a week – I may have done yoga once the entire time.  I can’t really count the times that I did downward dog when I stretched before a run or trying to get Edith to imitate it.
• Take at least 10 pictures I am happy with – I have had a lot of fun with the camera this month.  I’ve been playing with exposure and with different subject matter.  I’ve been having fun doing candid pictures of Edith and close ups of flowers and nature while experimenting with aperture. See the gallery below for 10 photos I’ve chosen that I’m fairly happy with.  They are certainly not perfect, but for the most part, they’re pictures that turned out well and turned out as close to how I had expected as I could hope for.
• Go for at least one hike – I did a couple trail runs through the local nature park.  I will consider this 50% complete as it’s not really a hike.

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New to this topic? I suggest you read this post first. I left off with…

Then I started to go to mom/baby meet ups and started hearing about (most) everyone practicing sleep training, usually a form of cry it out.

I started to wonder if we should try it again; we had tried it briefly back at 3.5 months or so much gave up after a few nights of Edith screaming for too long. We discussed things and decided that since Edith was a bit older that she might take to it better so we decided to try The Baby Whisperer pick up/put down method. After about 65 (yes I counted) pink up, soothe, comforting phrase, put down there was no letting up and ultimately it just seemed to make Edith more angry.  We tried this for about three days and after 247 attempts we deciding that rather than seeing any improvement that things were just getting worse.

Then we tried The Ferber Method, a method that supposedly teaches your baby to sooth themselves.  In this method you practice a calming bedtime routine and put your baby to bed awake even if they cry out in protest.  You then practice progressive waiting before you go in and check them and comfort before once again leaving for a longer period of time. We tried this and it was terrible. I had read about so many parents using this method and how by day two they saw improvement and by day three their child was going to bed on their own and most nights sleeping 9-13 hours without needing to go in to feed or soothe.

After four days things had gotten progressively worse; feeling frustrated Neil and I sat down and talked about what we had tried and how we were feeling about things.  We both came to the conclusion that these two methods didn’t feel natural to us at all. We felt anxious and stressed and overall it just wasn’t working.

So we talked about what was working.

When it was all laid out in front of us we saw that we kept returning to the same routine of nursing in bed, putting Edith down in her crib, rising to soothe/nurse 1-2 times (more when sick, traveling or teething) and most nights bringing her to bed with us around 3am or so. Over the past 6 months that is what we had returned to every.single.time.We would try a different approach, a popular method and then we would go back to ol’faithful. Although it is not always ideal and Edith doesn’t sleep through the night it is what works for us. She is only 9 months, she nurses frequently and we aren’t actively weaning. Lastly we like bed-sharing, just not all night,but we do enjoy it.

That being said our current routine is bed anywhere between 7:15pm-9pm (Edith is very clear about when she is ready to go), bedtime routine of quiet play, diaper change, sleep sack on and then we nurse in bed.  After this Edith is generally up 1-2 hours after we put her to bed, she nurses and then if she is up again before 2 hours has passed Neil takes a turn at soothing. She is usually up again between 12:30-3am to nurse and then again between 3:30-5am.  Neil and I have decided that if 30 minutes have passed and there is no getting her back down in her crib she comes to bed otherwise she usually comes to bed around 5am.  This is for our own sanity, sleep and so we can have some baby-free bed time.

What we have noticed since we stopped stressing about Edith’s sleep is that she sleeps better, sleeps longer in the morning and wakes up happier. I’m not sure if we will try another approach as she gets older but for now this is what works for us.

What is your approach to sleep? 

Future post topics: Travel Sleep Situations, The Wonder Weeks of Hellish Sleep, Teething & Sleeping (or the lack of it), Sleep & Illness (Both child and parent)

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I feel like sleep is such a hot topic when it comes to children, especially in the first year of life. I think it is in the top two things that every parent thinks about at least 10 times in the course of a day- their child’s sleep and comparing it to what others are doing/how others children are sleeping. Oh, the other thing every parent is thinking about throughout the day are bowel movements; I have never talked about poop so much or so frequently before having a child but that’s a whole other conversation. I can’t go to a play date without talking about sleep situations, eating and pooping.

Are they getting enough sleep?

Should we co-sleep? Should we bed-share? When should my baby sleep in their own room?

Should we sleep train? Which method should I try?

Do we need a bedtime routine?

These are just a few of the questions that most parents ask themselves in the course of trying to figure this whole sleeping thing out.

My answer is stop thinking so much and do what works for you.

We knew from the beginning that Edith would sleep in the bassinet in our room for at least the first three months. After that we had no idea.  I had a stack of sleep training books all ready to read but of course they never were even opened until Edith arrived and even then I only ever read one, The Baby Whisperer, and still haven’t read any of the others. What led me to open that one book and start reading was the fact that Edith suffered from colic the first three months and I was searching for any answer I could find as to what we could do to get her to calm down and go to bed at night.

We tried starting the bedtime routine earlier, like 6pm, but it ended up taking us hours of bouncing on that damn exercise ball before she would calm down and go to sleep.  This would put us at around 8pm (or later) before we could sit down and have dinner and at that point we would scarf down our food and basically go to bed. So then we decided to eat dinner and then put her to bed. I would nurse Edith to sleep and then put her down in the bassinet however moments later she would be awake and screaming which would then lead to 60-90+ minutes of Neil and I switching off bouncing with her (why bouncing? because it was the only thing that would calm her).

Finally around 3 months the colic started to go away and the time it took to put Edith to bed started to decrease. Around this time we also mastered the art of side nursing. We would start the bedtime routine around 6:30pm and I would nurse Edith to sleep, move her asleep into her bassinet and some nights we might have to do a little bouncing but only for a few minutes rather than hours. At this point Edith started bed sharing most nights with us since it meant that I would get more sleep because side nursing is amazing.

At 3.5 months sleeping in the same room as Edith started to become a little more challenging for us because it seemed every move we made woke her up. So we decided at four months that Edith would move into her own room.  We anticipated that this would be a difficult transition for her but she actually took to it really easily.  Bedtime was at 6:30-7:30pm, we would nurse in our bed until she fell asleep and then transition her to her crib.  We generally would have one wake up before midnight and usually one around 1-2pm and one around 4-5am.

Once we felt that Edith had finally made a good transition to her crib we decided to start doing nursing in her room instead of in our bed. We committed to this and after about two weeks we moved back to the bed. We lucked out and had a few 7-8 hour stretches but most nights she was up 2-3 times and if it reached 3 that’s when I grabbed her and took her to bed with us. We also started a rule that if it had been less than 2 hours since Edith’s last feeding that Neil would try soothing her before I would whip the boob out.

Then everything went crazy because we decided to move, lived at my parents during the moving process, finally moved to Oregon where we had to deal with a time change and we ended up waiting 3 weeks for our belongings to finally arrive. During this time Edith moved back into our room where she nursed in bed with me, slept in the pack ‘n play at the start of the night and then most nights ended up in bed with us. She was still waking up 2-3 times per night to nurse.

Eventually our things arrived, we got used to the time change and we attempted to get back into that routine we had started in November at four months. We went back to the routine except Edith’s bedtime went from being at on average 7pm to closer to 8pm, however everything else was the same nurse in our bed, go down asleep, Neil try to soothe and/or nurse in her room, nurse in her room, and if she was up again and I was exhausted she would nurse in our bed.

Then I started to go to mom/baby meet ups and started hearing about (most) everyone practicing sleep training, usually a form of cry it out.

Because this post is a mile long already please stay tuned for part II.

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We take hundreds of photos most weeks around here and as I was filtering through our latest batch I came across these photos of Edith.  She has so many different expressions and I can’t help but crack a smile or a laugh when looking through these ones.  My favorite are her mango faces.

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What we did this weekend…
Friday night I had the house to myself while Neil went to a concert.
Saturday Morningwe started off our morning with breakfast at AND Cafe and then we went to the Saturday Artist Market before heading home to get ready for date night.
Saturday night we dropped Edith off at a local childcare spot and we went out for a drink at Branch, had some small plates at The Station (honestly wasn’t very good), got ourselves some Kombucha Sorbet at Salt and Straw and then a coffee before heading back to pick up Edith.
Sunday we stocked up on yummy baked goods at the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale and we wondered around Mississippi, picked up some groceries and took Edith to play on the baby swings.

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Edith’s Room…

I have been a little obsessed with Montessori style bedrooms so I have been getting inspired by these rooms: 1, 2, 3, 4

Lovin’ Young House Love…

If you haven’t check out this blog yet then you should get on it already, but beware it may consume hours of your life.  Lately I have been checking out their DIY projects for Clara and now I want to make Edith this doll house, kitchen and latch board.

Deals…

I was checking out Zulily this morning and found that gDiapers AND Zutano are both of sale there right now! Of course I ended up ordering a few Zutano sunhats for Edith because they are honestly the best sunhats ever however make sure you order a size up they seem to run a little small (or Edith just has a big head).

Pinterest: I usually do most of my pinning over on my RWT boards but I have been making an effort to pin on our NF boards so check them out!

Q: What are you favorite links around the web today? Share in the comments!

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I can’t believe I haven’t done an update since 3 months!! Oh boy how things have changed since then.

Lets see we sold our Bummis prefolds and covers because the just weren’t going to work for us.  Edith is on the smaller side and the Bummis prefolds were just too bulky and the covers were terrible. We never really used them except for the newborn covers which we only used for a short period of time before switching to Thirsties. Overall Bummis was an unfortunate waste of money because even though we sold them we ended up taking a loss but oh well.

We used the Two Thirsties Duo Wraps and Six inserts up until January but despite really liking the covers the microfiber inserts were terrible. I really have nothing good to say about the inserts they got really funky and rough.  I also don’t love using covers with just prefolds or inserts.

Other diapers that didn’t work for us because of either fit and/or the horrible microfiber inserts were Glow Bug Cloth Diaper, Dinkledooz Cloth Diaper, Bum Genius Freetime and Bum Genius 4.0. We ended up selling all of these and purchasing some new diapers.

So now that we have gotten what didn’t work for us out of the way lets get down to what diapers we have really liked:

As a newborn:

• Bum Genius all-in-one newborn: LOVED LOVE LOVED these ones.  They fit perfectly for Edith’s little newborn butt.
• Omaiki Cloth Diaper: This is an AIO we liked this one as a newborn-5 months but lately it just hasn’t fit great.  We still use it as a back up but not our favorite any longer.
• Ones&Twos Cloth Diaper: These were an AIO that should have continued to work after Edith’s newborn days however once she passed about 3.5 months this one started to leak even with the extra soaker pad.
• FuzziBunz size x-small: Loved this one except for stuffing it as it was a little challenging but the fit was great.

Once Edith reached around 10lbs+

• FuzziBunz size small: Although I am not a huge fan of microfiber I find the FuzziBunz inserts to be decent enough and the fit to be good.
• Charlie Banana  size small: I would have to say out of all of the microfiber inserts this one is my favorite.  We also have a size medium but Edith has grown into it yet.
• Applecheeks Cloth Diaper: We love our Applecheeks and use the bamboo inserts which are really great.  We actually debated buying more of these but because they are two sizes and we were looking to replenish our stock immediately it just didn’t work out. Unfortunately we would have had to buy more size ones that wouldn’t last us very long (big investment) and then still have to buy size twos shortly after which would cost us more money. If we had known about Applecheeks when we first started cloth diapering we probably would have just bought these ones and no others but alas that isn’t the case.
• Applecheeks Swim Diaper: We love our Appecheeks swim diaper! It fits perfectly and it’s super cute.
• Tots Bots: We bought three of these- two snaps and one Velcro- we really like these ones (btw we bought the newest version).  The fit is really great and they come in super cute patterns.  I have to say I like the snaps better because they fit around the leg a little snugger but the velcro is a little easier to use.
• gDiapers: These are our last and final purchase of cloth diapers.  I am going to do a more indepth review of these but I have to say so far we really like them.  We use the gDiapers hemp/microfiber inserts as well as the disposables.

Coming up Using Disposables, gDiapers Review, Applecheeks Review, Tots Bots Review and Wipes (Cloth v. Disposable). So if you have any questions on any of these topics (or anything else) please email us info@naturallyfamily.com or you can tweet us or follow us on Facebook.

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Baby Led Weaning (BLW) is a really fun process and it is amazing to see how quickly Edith picked up on the concept of feeding herself and how she is progressing. The only downside to BLW is the mess and let me tell you it can be huge at times. At home we have a whole clean up kit right next to the table for post meal clean up but when we are out things can get a little trickier.

For awhile we were bringing Edith’s portable high chair (the kind you strap to a chair) but it’s not always the most convenient and now she fits in the ones most restaurants have. Now that we aren’t using her own chair that has a tray we have been trying to think of a good way to have her participate in meals out with us without making a huge mess and keeping things sanitary.

We finally got our answer in the form of a package from Modern-Twist. In the package we found a bucket bib and a placemat. Both are made of FDA approved food-grade silicone and are free of BPA, lead,latex, phthalates and other harsh chemicals. They are eco-friendly (bonus)!

They have placemats for the whole family but I have to say I am in love with their farmers market kids placemat. I might just have to add it to my growing list of birthday items for Edith along with their robot love bucket bib.

I have to say I was a little skeptical about the bib because I thought it might be a little too bulky but the soft silicon makes it fold up really easily and it really does catch most of the food Edith inevitably drops.  I also love that I can just wash it off and stuff it back in the diaper bag.  The same goes with the placemat it protects Edith’s food from the germy restaurant tables and is super easy to clean off, roll up and carry around in the diaper bag.

What are you favorite baby feeding items? I really love having these portable items, they are essentials for us.

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