This photo, “Migrant Mother,” was taken in California in 1936. As the child of a father who migrated from Kansas to California in 1940, I’m always touched by the stories of the poor migrants, so many of whom sought to escape the Dust Bowl. Some of them were able to start a new life in California. After some time in a migrant camp and working as plum pickers, my father’s family belonged to these lucky ones. Others weren’t quite so fortunate, as John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath so poignantly portrays.

But what this particular photo stirs in me is the amazement that even in hardship, life simply must go on.

 

 

Thanks to The Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog for posting this photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Thumbing my nose at baby shower etiquette, I’m hosting my own virtual event. Come join me at my personal blog and see what all the fuss is about!

Some of my readers (people I know in real life) have started asking us what sort of gifts we’d like to receive when the baby arrives (and/or beforehand). It’s very sweet of y’all to think of us, so to simplify things, I’m going to preempt any further questions by saying this:

Please don’t buy us anything!!!

And yes, I’m being totally serious. As irresistible as baby shopping can be (believe me, I have had to restrain myself a lot recently), we have just about everything we need. We’re having another girl, and we have soooooo many cute baby girl clothes in all sizes that to buy or receive more would just be ridiculous. The same goes for stuffed animals, baby blankets, teething toys, bibs and just about every other imaginable category of baby goodies.

But please, don’t fret. There IS something you can do for us. I won’t tell you what it is yet, but rest assured, I’ll be having a little virtual baby shower on my personal blog sometime soon. And when I do, you’ll have the opportunity to give us something we really, really want as a family of four to be!

Infant growth charts can be a massive source of anxiety for new parents. Your baby is measured and weighed and compared to standardized curves that tell you how big your baby should be. Actually, that’s not what they do, but that’s how it often feels for a parent, and if your baby falls into the lower percentiles, it’s so easy to panic, even if your baby is totally normal for his/her age.

A nursing mom’s milk supply can also be a huge source of anxiety. A lot of women only breastfeed a few weeks, and there’s definitely a lack of readily available information about how your milk and your breasts change if you continue to nurse for 3, 6, 12 months, never mind if you nurse for years. The information is out there, but you have to look for it.

That’s what this post is about: infant growth charts and milk supply.

The background: last week, one of my best friends wrote me an email. Her first child is roughly 4 1/2 months old, and at her last well-baby check-up, registered in the 20th percentile for weight. My friend was concerned, wondered whether her milk supply might be dwindling, and she asked me for my thoughts. I sat down and wrote her a loooooong email (I had a lot of thoughts on the subject!), and I thought I’d share it with you, too. Of course I’ve taken out personal details regarding my friend and her baby.

Spend 2-3 days in bed with baby and just sleep, eat and nurse, nurse, nurse!

Here were my first 2 pieces of advice:

1. First of all, Don’t Panic! Your milk supply hasn’t disappeared. If it has diminished, there are plenty of ways to increase it. And most important of all: 20th percentile is still normal. It just means that 20% of normal babies are at about that weight. And baby’s being at the 20th percentile for weight at her age doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with your milk supply.

2. An extension of Don’t Panic! is that this is not a reason to supplement with formula. Don’t do it. Your milk supply really would drop if you did.

You might think it’s unbelievable that I never baked with Marie until she was over 2 years old. Or maybe that’s normal – I’m not sure. In any case, her father has made pancakes and crepes with her before, but although she likes to stand on a stepladder and watch me make her oatmeal in the mornings, all past attempts to cook or bake with her were more or less disastrous.

But three weeks ago, I had a hankering for chocolate chip cookies, and I thought it might be a good time to try letting Marie help. It was wonderful! What a difference a few months makes!

I measured the ingredients, and Marie dumped them into the appropriate bowls. We took turns mixing, with Marie doing most of it at the beginning, and me taking over at the end, when the dough became to thick for her. And then I showed her that when you’re done, you can lick the bowl. You should have seen the look on her face – it was as if she had suddenly seen the light.

Anyway, since then, we’ve baked on one day each weekend, and I must say that I look forward to it as much as Marie does.

The real action was too much fun to stop and take pictures, but here’s Marie, hangin’ out with the cooling rack, hardly able to wait for the first batch to come out of the oven:

And here she is at another crucial moment – “cleaning” the bowl:

And here she is after today’s baking fun, modeling one of my aprons: