Today I was watching my oldest daughter put her play purse on and flounce about in our living room wearing a tutu and pair of fairy wings that her Grandpa Brad got her. She paused when she saw me watching her and said "Pretty?" as if she was seeking my approval. I nodded, smiled and said "yes baby, you are very pretty". Seemingly satisfied with the answer, she continued to chase the cat down the hall with her matching wand. Again, thank you Grandpa Brad.
It occurred to me after this little exchange what a huge responsibility was sitting on my husbands and my shoulders. We are in the unique position to help shape our little girls body image to one that is as positive as possible. It strikes a little bit of fear in me to be in this position when I myself have struggled with my own body image as far back as I can remember.
I have never considered myself to be exceptionally good looking. Certainly not ugly, but definitely not anywhere near what I would have considered gorgeous. I know that my husband is disagreeing with me at this moment, but I am just being honest about my feelings at this point. I always felt that I was one of those girls who had a pretty face and a body that lacked something to be desired. There was always something that I wanted to change or that I thought could be better. My mother, one of the most amazing women in the world and also one of the most beautiful, had feelings about her body similar to my own. She would never have dreamed of telling me that I needed to lose weight or that there was anything that I needed to change. She always told me that I was perfect the way that I was and beautiful. However, she also made no secret about how she felt about her own body. At this age, I can look back and see it in one of two ways:
1. That her honesty about how she felt about her body let me know that I was not alone in how I was feeling about mine,
2. Or that hearing her insecurities helped contribute to my criticism of myself.
Now, before I go any further, I am not saying that I was damaged by my mother in any way. She was and is incredible and would never have done something that she thought would have been hurtful in the least bit. I think that there is truth to both views that I mentioned above.
It is my opinion that when a child hears their parent refer to themselves in a negative way it can contribute to negative feelings that the child is having about their own body. At the same time if a child is having those feelings it is nice to know that they are not alone. Those things being said, here is what I and my husband plan to do to help build a healthy body image in our little girls.
We will keep our opinion about ourselves, to ourselves. Nothing will be said about each others bodies that could possibly be construed as negative. We will stress that maintaining healthy habits and being positive is what is most important, not how our bodies are shaped. Any sort of negative descriptor for anyone, of all shapes and sizes, are to become four letter words in our house. However, if and when our children mention any insecurities that they may be having, we will encourage them by letting them know that we have had the same insecurities before, but always stressing that being positive and maintaining healthy habits is the most important thing when it comes to our bodies.
Society does enough damage by inundating us and our children with what they consider to be perfection. It is blasted across television screens, in movies, and in music. Please make your homes a safe haven from this sort of pressure. Learn from your past and do something different, do not repeat the same cycle. It would break my heart if I thought my girls were looking into the mirror and being disappointed in what they saw looking back. I want them to look in that same mirror, see something incredible, fearfully and wonderfully made, and own it!!
Monday, October 8, 2012
Friday, October 5, 2012
How important is sleep? Really, how important?
Peighton, my beautiful five month old, has the lovely habit of waking up just enough to start fussing and not stop until she is put on the boob. She has gotten so used to having a boob to fall asleep that she requires it to be easy access all night long. This means that she spends a lot of the night in bed with me. Now before I get any comments on it, yes, I am co-sleeping with my baby part of each night, and no, it is not unsafe. My husband and I have taken the necessary steps to make sure that our bed is safe for our baby to be in it with us. Seeing as how my baby is boob dependent, I have become an all night drive through. This is problematic when it comes to getting any normal amount of sleep of any real meaning. Matter of fact I hear my husband coming down the hall with her now, grumbling that I need to come to bed so she can have a boob to go back to sleep...pardon me my public awaits...There, all is well with the world, where was I? Oh yes, sleep.
I have come to the conclusion that Peighton's inability to sleep through the night yet is of my own doing. I have allowed for some bad habits to form that have taken over my night life.
1. This being my second baby in a very short timespan, my sleep is precious to me and I have taken to getting it anyway that I can. This means when she wakes up the first time, I get up put her in bed next to me, hook her up and pass back out.
2. The next time she stirs, we shift to the other side, hook back up and pass out again.
Thus goes most of every night, aside from the occasional bought of baby gas in which case I spend most of the night walking back and forth in the dark praying for her to have one good fart and go back to sleep.
To put this all in perspective, my husband and I followed the No Cry Sleep Solution with our first baby, Maggie Leigh, who is now 20 months old. It is not an overnight solution and takes time for everything to fall into place and effort on the part of the parent. However it is entirely possible to have your baby asleep in their own bed for 11-12 hours a night (in a row), WITHOUT letting them "cry it out". Following the guidelines in that book beginning at 4 months old, which is the earliest you should start sleep training by the way, Maggie Leigh was in bed at 7:30pm every night and asleep till 7:30am the next morning without so much as a peep by 6 months old. In fact my daughter absolutely loves her bed, she loves to be in it and gets excited when it is bedtime. I know, weird right? The coolest part is that there was no drama, no tears, and no painful evenings of listening to your baby cry and just aching to pick them up. I love that book.
However, Peighton is 5 months old and is nowhere near the progress that we had with her big sister at that point. And yes, it is all my fault. I have been a little too lazy to follow all of the guidelines that we did the first time and have been blaming it on being too exhausted to do it. While that is partly to blame, there is another factor in all of this. I am not sure that I want to yet. That is right I said it, I am not sure that I want to transition my baby from my bed to her own and have her away from me at night yet. Due to a whole litany of reasons, my husband Jim and I decided that Peighton would be our last baby. Knowing that, it makes it hard to give up the moments that I am sharing with my baby right now, because it is all too soon that these moments will be gone forever. So it may be a few more weeks before I buckle down and try to break my baby of her boob habit, and transition her into her own bed with her sister. Getting more sleep at this point is not as important to me as treasuring every one of these moments that I have before I can not get them back. Sleep can wait, I have my whole life to sleep.
I have come to the conclusion that Peighton's inability to sleep through the night yet is of my own doing. I have allowed for some bad habits to form that have taken over my night life.
1. This being my second baby in a very short timespan, my sleep is precious to me and I have taken to getting it anyway that I can. This means when she wakes up the first time, I get up put her in bed next to me, hook her up and pass back out.
2. The next time she stirs, we shift to the other side, hook back up and pass out again.
Thus goes most of every night, aside from the occasional bought of baby gas in which case I spend most of the night walking back and forth in the dark praying for her to have one good fart and go back to sleep.
To put this all in perspective, my husband and I followed the No Cry Sleep Solution with our first baby, Maggie Leigh, who is now 20 months old. It is not an overnight solution and takes time for everything to fall into place and effort on the part of the parent. However it is entirely possible to have your baby asleep in their own bed for 11-12 hours a night (in a row), WITHOUT letting them "cry it out". Following the guidelines in that book beginning at 4 months old, which is the earliest you should start sleep training by the way, Maggie Leigh was in bed at 7:30pm every night and asleep till 7:30am the next morning without so much as a peep by 6 months old. In fact my daughter absolutely loves her bed, she loves to be in it and gets excited when it is bedtime. I know, weird right? The coolest part is that there was no drama, no tears, and no painful evenings of listening to your baby cry and just aching to pick them up. I love that book.
However, Peighton is 5 months old and is nowhere near the progress that we had with her big sister at that point. And yes, it is all my fault. I have been a little too lazy to follow all of the guidelines that we did the first time and have been blaming it on being too exhausted to do it. While that is partly to blame, there is another factor in all of this. I am not sure that I want to yet. That is right I said it, I am not sure that I want to transition my baby from my bed to her own and have her away from me at night yet. Due to a whole litany of reasons, my husband Jim and I decided that Peighton would be our last baby. Knowing that, it makes it hard to give up the moments that I am sharing with my baby right now, because it is all too soon that these moments will be gone forever. So it may be a few more weeks before I buckle down and try to break my baby of her boob habit, and transition her into her own bed with her sister. Getting more sleep at this point is not as important to me as treasuring every one of these moments that I have before I can not get them back. Sleep can wait, I have my whole life to sleep.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
And so it begins...
I have never written a blog before, mostly because I figured I did not have a whole lot to say that others would be interested in hearing. However, it crossed my mind as I was driving my kids to daycare the other morning, that it would be nice to have a place to put whatever crosses my mind and that I find interesting. Heck, it may be therapeutic. Why not just write in a journal you say? Well the thought did occur to me, but it also occurred to me that my family and friends and possibly other moms might find what I have to say just as interesting as I do. So I am starting a blog. I can not guarantee that I will be on here on a daily basis (come on people, I do have a life!!), but I will make a valiant effort to post something new and fantastic as often as possible. My husband and my kids contribute to my life to make it one big comedy, sometimes a comedy of errors, but a comedy none the less. I hope that you readers, whomever you may be, find what ever I have to say fascinating!! :)
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