Tuesday, July 29, 2008

A League of Their Own

When you become a first time mother, there is a vast array of organizations that are ready and willing to lend you their services. Most are for profit and have some very specific marketing goals in mind. Think Isis Maternity for those of you who are local folk. Not so of the La Leche League (LLL).

I first heard of LLL through a friend who breastfeeds her baby. It seemed like a good thing to think about, but I didn't contact anyone or do anything until I was at home with a 3 week old baby and seriously sore nipples that I didn't know what to do about. I called up a friendly LLL leader (who I had never met or spoken to) who talked me through some things that could be wrong and what I could try for remedy. I can't quite remember what, if anything, of what she said I actually tried and what, if anything, helped. But I very clearly remember that I found great solice from the fact that there was a person on the other end of the line who wanted nothing from me and who was sitting there, ready to listen to my woes and offer advice.

So, why am I telling you such personal and odd facts? Because I want to dispell this notion that LLL is some crazy cult that will make you breastfeed your kid until they are well into college. That is simply not the case. While there are certainly some mothers who are still breastfeeding children well into their 4th year (and I raise an eyebrow on that), the vast majority of the moms who come breasfeed until a year or even less. To anyone who thinks a year is too long to breastfeed, please note that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that mothers breastfeed until 1 year. Although maybe some of you with kids think that they are some crazy cooky cult.

And so, if any of you know a pregnant woman or a new mother who wants to breastfeed but may need a little help, send her to http://www.llli.org/ and she's sure to find the help she needs. I've been to 3 meetings and enjoyed all of them.

By the way, I have to mention one story because it's been burning in my memory. I was at a baby shower not that long ago and the LLL came up as a good support group for breastfeeding moms. Then one expecting mother recalled the horror story of her friend who was going to LLL. Yada, yada, yada, the friend gets mastitis and guess what? The evil leaders at LLL were telling her to keep breastfeeding while all she wanted to do was stop because she was in horrible pain. You should see this woman's face. To an unsuspecting deaf onlooker, she was talking about war crimes.

I know mastitis very well - I've had it 3 times. Mastitis may be cured by antibiotics, but you won't get rid of the pain until you empty your plug. If you stop breastfeeding your kid because you have mastitis, you get horrible engorgement because your body still thinks that you should be feeding your baby (and it's right). If that woman thought she was in pain from the infection, she had no idea what was coming!

Monday, July 21, 2008

Here comes the G - our first try of the gDiapers

Hello fellow greenies,

I am here to save the planet, one diaper at a time. Well, maybe I won't quite be able to save the planet, that's Al Gore's job, but I hope to make a small impact with my choices as a consumer and a mother.

This whole green thing started my realization that diapers generate a fantastic amount of waste. So, naturally, when I was pregnant, I did research about cloth diapers (I even attended a very long and very boring seminar). We finally bought about $200 worth of cloth diapering supplies, which included fantastic wool diaper covers. These worked for about 3 months, at which point Golda developed a heat rash from all the extra layers of cloth and wool and I had to admit defeat. Not to mention the diapers impeding her ability to move.

Fast forward 2 months later - about 300 disposable diapers are being moved to local landfills.

What to do? What to do?

Thankfully, a friend had tried the gDiaper and since it didn't work for her son, it was available and ready for me to try, which I did today with my daughter. These work pretty well, with some minor issues like the fact that the clips press into her skin and leave scary looking red marks. I think that we can solve most of these by upgrading to Mediums, since she is getting too big for Small and I love the fact that I don't have to empty the trash every day in her room and that we're doing a small thing for the planet.

If I were hired to help the folks at gDiapers improve their product, I would suggest the following:
1. Get rid of the clips (these hold the waterproof layer onto the cover). Replace them with Velcro or some other brilliantly sticky idea. Perhaps even a piece of elastic.
2. Make the bands around the legs tighter. My kid's super chunky thighs were still not quite filling the bands on the Smalls. Imagine what poor little skinny babies have to go through.
3. Include more covers and plastic shields in the starter kit or sell them separately in stores (which they don't do) or online (for cheap - right now, the covers are $17 online, which is about the cost of a super microfiber diaper like BumGenius and thus, is too much). I am also a big believe that you ought to make the money on the inserts - NOT on the covers. Think of printer companies who make money on the cartidges and only scant profit on the printer itself.
4. People love to get fun stuff - like their kid's name on the diapers and different colors for different sizes. I happen to be lucky, that my baby's name starts with a G, but others might like their kids' initials on the diapers as well. You can be the Williams Sonoma of the diaper world.
5. These things have a learning curve. You really need to have some people do demos. Like the Tupperware parties, we'll have diapering parties. Get some experienced moms who have done this, give them some demo equipment (like a bucket to simulate the toilet for a proper flushing demo) and set them loose. An hourly rate plus some commission based on the amount of starter kits they sell. If anyone from gDiapers is reading this - just send a note, I can help.

P.S. If you lose your swishstick (used for turning the insides of the diapers into toilet soup), disposable chopsticks work just as well.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

"To Zip or Not to Zip" or "The Ode to My Car"

When my daughter was about 5 weeks old, I discovered that my car had a flat tire. Naturally, I did not discover this until I was already on the street, rolling along. Had I been without a baby in a two door car, I would have probably been much more composed. But alas, I was still high on my post-partum hormones, so this was not a calm moment for me. My first instinct was to cry. Which I did not. My second was to call my husband for help, which I did not. My third instinct was to call AAA and use our gold membership for a quick tire change (thankfully, I had a spare in the trunk). Which I did.

As the guy was leaving, I said to him, "Is the spare tire supposed to be so flat?" He said: "Yeah, it's a donut, lady!". Thankfully, my subsequent trip to Natick was without mishaps.

When I got into the car the next day, I yet again discovered that I had a flat tire, this time the spare itself was flat. Aha. Now AAA can't really help. First, I again wanted to cry. Thankfully for my self esteem, I did not. Then I decided to call my husband for help. Thankfully, I nixed that also. Then, I decided to call the only people who could help me - Sullivan Tire down the street from us. They helped! They added air to my spare AND told me 4 hours later that my holy tire was unrepairable.

Fast forward two months later, on a hot summer day, I am cruising to Natick (maybe I shouldn't go to Natick any more) on 4 new tires. I turn on the AC only to realize that there is no AC and the air that's projected at me is just as hot as the air outside (maybe a little hotter). So, I do the only reasonable thing and go to the Sullivan Tire guys again and get some freon. $200 dollars. One week later, I have no AC again! Do you see where this is going? Well, we donated my car with brand new tires to WGBH on June 2nd. It's blue book value was $500 in fair condition and $900 in excellent condition. Guess how much they sold it for? $1400. No joke.

So, why is this post titled, "To zip or not to zip?" As you can imagine, a modern woman in a city hardly needs a full time car. So, I've done the only reasonable thing and signed up for a part time car, a Zipcar to be exact. So, now, I am a Zipster, baby in tow and all. And every time I think that I may need to go somewhere, I say to myself, "To zip or not to zip?" And that is the question.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

At the MFA (Museum of Fine Arts), Boston

My husband and I decided to be brave and took our 4 month old daughter to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

There are a lot of things you can learn form a place based on their ability to support a visit with a baby. First of all, I breastfeed my daughter, so I need a place to sit down and feed. As you can imagine, at the museum, the vast majority of benches are in the middle of the galleries, which make them hardly convenient for discreet breastfeeding, even with a wrap.

After about two hours of browsing the galleries and trying to note a discreet bench, we decided that we’d had enough dirty looks about our crying kid and that it was time to feed. I asked one of the very helpful MFA employees (no sarcasm here, they really are helpful) if there was a place I could feed my baby. What did I expect as an answer? I was guessing that she would make some suggestions about some discreet corners that afforded some amount of privacy and a plushy bench. I could not believe my astonishment when she said that there was a changing station and nursing room directly behind us, enclosed by, don’t laugh, glass doors. Upon further inspection we realized that the doors were not see-through.

Once inside this triangular room, we checked the walls several times to make sure that there wasn’t another door through which we were supposed to pass to get to the nursing/changing room. My husband even checked the map to see if this led somewhere else. It did not. I must mention here that although the rest of the museum was a comfortable cool temperature, this closet, I mean, nursing room, had no AC and was decidedly muggy and hot. I’ll leave it to you to imagine how much sweat poured off me while I was holding my very warm baby for 40 minutes.

Here is a list of items in the changing station/nursing room, from right to left as you enter: one(1) narrow wood bench, one (1) piano with its own small bench, two (2) poles with extendable ropes (used for orchestrating masses into lines or blocking off areas), four or five (4 or 5) bookcases stacked into the corner, one (1) bronze replica of the Lincoln memorial, four (4) boards the size of a door stacked in the other corner, and one (1) set of lockers, presumably used for employee belongings since some of them were locked. Notice that nowhere in this list is a comfortable chair or couch for nursing, a sink for rinsing bottles, a bottle warmer or a changing table. I’m not sure where we would have changed our baby if we didn’t have a stroller with us, but probably the banged up, slightly dirty marble floor would be the only option.

While trying to pass the time, my husband and I tried to think of good uses for the various objects in the room. For starters, the piano is obvious. While you feed your child, your husband can play some Mozart to stimulate their brain development. The replica of the Lincoln memorial must be there so that you can rub his right knee and get some luck, ‘cause you’ll need all the luck you can get. The bookshelves are part of an obstacle course along with the ropes for your other children. The boards are probably meant to divide the room should another mother come in to feed her baby, which she would have to do on the floor because I was occupying the only bench suitable for this process.

I understand the issue at hand here. The MFA is going through a series of major renovations and everyone’s time and energy is consumed with making this happen. And as a parent who wants her child to grow up with culture and to have a good museum nearby that she can visit on class trips or weekend jaunts with her parents I am going to cut the museum a little slack here. But I can’t imagine that there isn’t a small chair that can be spared and a table that can be added to this room. It doesn’t take much to make a big difference. I would be happy to lend my consulting services to help the museum plan their parents-with-baby experience.

On our way out, we did locate a changing table… It was mounted to the wall in one of the stairways. Not quite the ideal place.

So, what have we learned about the MFA in this trip? They’ve definitely thought about the patron experience, even about their smallest visitors, which is great! A few more finishing touches and the visit will be much better.