2013-05-25T12:04:14-04:00 Andrea Traynor http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=andrea-traynor Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Andrea Traynor Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3104961 2013-04-18T12:18:41-04:00 2013-04-18T12:14:29-04:00

Andrea Traynor http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-traynor/
You decided to wait until your 30s to have children. Good for you! Your 20s were well-travelled and you sowed your oats. But be forewarned -- those kids you nannied when you were 24 are going to get more energy than your own children ever will.

You're also going to be just a little more tired than those in your Mommy Group who are five or 10 years younger. Don't worry, you'll live. You just need to go to bed earlier than you ever have in your life.

Save your pennies. Babies are expensive. They're also crazy, but that's another story.

Never say never. You don't understand it yet, but one day you will be "that mom." The one who lets her kids watch TV for hours so she can get the house ready for a party. The one who gives up on wiping a snotty nose while out in public. The one who lets her kid have a tantrum on the grocery store floor. The one who sometimes gets excited to go to work because it feels like a vacation. The one who will accidentally wipe her baby's bottom with Lysol wipes. The one who will forget to buckle-up the car seat until your child screams as you start backing the car out of the driveway. You will do all of these "nevers" and more.

I suggest you stop scoffing at parents here, there and everywhere because you have no idea what it's like. Yet.

You'll think baby No. 1 is a lot of work. Hold on to your horses, lady -- when No. 2 comes along you're going to throw every math equation you ever learned out the window. Two babies is more than double the work. (And you wanted to have them 18 months apart; thank goodness that won't happen.)

You will be amazed at how much you'll be able to carry to your car in one trip -- by yourself.

Puke is still going to make you gag. Just because it's your own kid, it's not going to make the experience any more tolerable. Sorry. Those moms who told you that are either lying or have iron-laced stomachs.

You may never need an alarm clock again.

You're going to become a worry wart, worrying about the mundane, morbid and irrational. You'll worry if your four-year-old will ever stop wetting the bed (of course he will); you'll worry if your kid will one day be paralyzed from a sporting accident. You'll worry that you're worrying too much.

You really won't mind leaving city life behind. I know this is hard to imagine, but amazing boutiques, great restaurants and trendy nightclubs won't be all that important a year from now. Places where you can buy diapers or fill a prescription after midnight are the ticket, baby.

You think you know what love is; just wait. The love that will bubble up in your heart for your children will be overwhelming. You'll cry when they get their first haircuts, when they go off to preschool and when they learn to do up zippers. And when they first say "I love you"? Forgetaboutit. Sometimes you'll watch them reading books or colouring and get misty-eyed because you didn't know how you created such perfect beings and that this kind of love existed.

I know you enjoy doing laundry now. I laugh at you. You have no clue what's coming.

Your new life is about to begin, and it will be filled with more laughter, tears and sleep deprivation than you thought possible in one lifetime. It's a worthy journey.

Remember to take photos, but not so many that you miss out on the moments themselves.

And don't blink! Time moves far too quickly.

]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2854359 2013-03-11T17:57:18-04:00 2013-05-11T05:12:01-04:00

Andrea Traynor http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-traynor/ Attached Parents at Work recently added a "Reasons to co-sleep" post to its Facebook page, very much in favour of the practice rooted in attachment parenting, there arose such a clatter that you could actually hear claws emerging from mama bears. Mothers on one side of the fence shouted about the perceived dangers of co-sleeping while the mothers on the other side were left to defend their choices.

Look, I know we're not all ever going to agree. On breastfeeding vs. formula, cloth vs. disposables, when and how to start solids, sleep training, spanking, TV limits, babywearing, juice, french fries (even if they're salt-free) -- and certainly not on co-sleeping.

But unless it's a truly life-threatening or neglectful choice, why can't we just agree to disagree, understanding -- from one parent to the next -- that this shit is hard and we're all doing the best we can?

I've adopted a lot of the attachment parenting principles, but co-sleeping isn't one of them. Unless they're sick or scared -- which of course happens from time to time and they're welcome in our bed -- I just can't do it. And I'm OK with that. So, attack me all you want but here are the top five reasons I don't co-sleep:

1. Comfort. When a two year old knees you in the back after you just fell asleep following a random smack to your face, sleep is choppy and unpleasant. My kids are all over the map when they sleep, and often end up sideways. I need long stretches of sleep to feel well-rested; my family needs me well-rested if they don't want psycho-mommy on their hands.
2. The tube. I like to watch TV before bed some nights. I've created a master bedroom that I really enjoy and I'll be damned if I'm going to be relegated to the basement to watch the Real Housewives.
3. Sex. It's fun to do, my mattress is comfortable and I want to have it in my bed whenever I want.
4. Pee. I haven't peed the bed in a long time, so a king-sized waterproof mattress protector is pretty low on the priority list.
5. Booze. Every once in a while I like to have a good bottle of wine -- all to myself. I would never live down the guilt of rolling on to one of my kids and hurting them. Besides, even a mild hangover is much more tolerable if you're not woken up with a swift kick to the jugular (see point No. 1).

If you're co-sleeping and it's working for you, hooray! If you're co-sleeping and it's not working for you, what's stopping you from making a change? And if you're not co-sleeping and you don't feel guilty or selfish, now you know you're not alone.

]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2386297 2012-12-31T12:30:27-05:00 2013-03-02T05:12:02-05:00

Andrea Traynor http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-traynor/ blog less and date my husband more. I should floss.

But our family life is only getting busier. Between one kid in JK and one starting preschool next month, swimming lessons, gymnastics, potty training, Angry Birds and dress-up, I need some parenting resolutions to kick-start 2013.

I commit to:

1. Being present. Time is fleeting. No more "quick" Facebook status updates or tweets when I'm supposed to be hanging out with my kids. Or my husband. Part of being present is actually listening, so I resolve not to just passively nod in my four-year-old's direction when he tells me for the ninth time before we've had breakfast that he's Mighty Eagle or Purple Laser Bird.

2. Planning dinners better to avoid ordering in or going out more than once every two weeks. Aside from being far less healthy, it's bloody expensive and that money needs to go into RESPs.

3. Sleeping more so I yell less. My patience quotient goes way up when I'm well-rested, and I need all the patience I can get. I don't know about you, but in our house, yelling doesn't seem to be effective discipline and I always feel terrible the instant my decibels go banshee-level.

4. Opting for washcloths to use fewer paper towels for wiping hands and faces after meals. I get greener every year, and it's time to tackle my paper towel dependency.

5. A more organized home. I don't want my kids to turn out as messy as I am. Plus, when you miss your daughter's second year well-baby check-up because you misplaced the appointment card, something's gotta change.

While it may seem that most of these resolutions are for everyone but me, when I look back a year from now and see that I've made positive changes, I'll be happy. As will those around me. And that's everything.

Are you making any parenting resolutions for the year ahead?

]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2156485 2012-11-26T12:03:27-05:00 2013-01-26T05:12:01-05:00

Andrea Traynor http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-traynor/
It's not that I didn't consider cloth diapers with my first baby. But as I wandered up and down the aisles of a baby show back in 2008, pregnant and inching closer to bankruptcy because of all of the things I "needed," there were two mental roadblocks I just couldn't skirt:

1. Cloth diapers seemed like a lot of work. I knew I wasn't a diaper service kind of gal -- the idea of sharing diapers with strangers was just ew -- and when the diaper reps told me I'd probably need to do a wash every three days to stay on top of them, I thought "My gosh, I don't want to do that much laundry!" Remember, this is pre-mom days, before laundry took over my life.



2. The upfront cost gave me total sticker shock. Between the three or four companies with whom I chatted at that show, they gave me an estimated start-up cost of anywhere from $300 to $600. Until I started buying package upon package of disposables, and learned that the average baby goes through at least 4,000 diapers in his lifetime, that investment sounded outrageous.

I also didn't know anyone using cloth diapers, and I had a lot of questions I wanted answered by a real mom -- not a sales rep. I was primarily concerned about how convenient cloth diapers would be while I was a mom-about-town, and with few mainstream websites offering reviews and advice about cloth diapering with which I felt I could connect, I passed and went for disposables.

They served me well. And because we lived in Toronto at the time and could put every dirty diaper in our green bin, I felt like it was an acceptable choice.

And then we moved to rural suburbia and it all changed. We had to throw our disposable diapers in the trash, which is only collected biweekly. With two small children in diapers, they created little white mountains of shame in our garbage bins. I also started reading about dioxin (a.k.a. 1,4-dioxane), a cancer-causing chemical that's in many major disposable diaper brands -- or so urban legend would have it. More on that shortly.

I started rethinking my diaper choice.

Serendipitously, a company called Charlie Banana offered to let me test out its cloth diapering system for Mommy Gearest. After one week, I was hooked, and I eagerly ordered more. (And tested more, too, resulting in a comparison of my favourite cloth diapers alongside a few tips and tricks.)

I admit it: I was proud to announce to anyone who listened that I'd joined the cloth diapering community. My feet firmly entrenched in granola.

I love the cost-savings, and I don't find it onerous to launder cloth diapers. I already do a load a night anyway, so an extra load or two in a week is barely noticeable. Using a wet bag, cloth diapers are just as convenient as disposables. I've said on several occasions that I wish I'd given cloth a try years ago. It works for us, and like anything in Parentville, you need to do what works for you and keeps you sane and happy. But mostly sane.

When I was recently invited to be a P&G Mom -- as in product giant Procter & Gamble -- my first thought was: do they know who they're inviting? I've written openly about my love affair with organic, non-chemical products; I've tweeted my fair share of pro-cloth diaper propaganda. But I love Crest, I should have stocks in Bounty, and I had some tough questions about Pampers. So I went.

At my first opportunity, I visited the Pampers team and asked about dioxin, expecting a carefully crafted key message. What I got instead? "We haven't used dioxin in Pampers for 10 years."

Huh?

The dioxin myth persists, even 10 years after one of the world's most recognizable diaper brands has ceased to use it. I was floored.

The team was upfront about the fact that Pampers aren't very biodegradable, but -- let's face it -- neither are cloth diapers as far as I can tell. Obviously, one typically uses far fewer cloth diapers because you only have about 20 to 30 in rotation and they can be used with more than one child.

And while producing the cotton used in many disposable diapers raises some real environmental concerns, there are also not-so-enviro-friendly aspects of most cloth diapers: I haven't personally met a cloth diaper yet that doesn't have polyester on its care tag, either as the wicking fleece layer to prevent your baby from feeling perpetually wet or as the outer waterproof shell. Polyester is made from petrochemicals and petroleum is a non-renewable material.

Unless the rest of your cloth diaper is 100 per cent organic, it was also probably made with oodles of water-sucking, pesticide-heavy cotton.

Cleaning cloth diapers is also an exercise in heavy energy use in my house. With their exception, I launder everything in cold on the fastest cycle my machine offers. But if you've ever faced a poo-smeared cloth diaper, you know you're not attacking that bad boy with anything less than piping hot water. You also have to do a pre-wash (so you don't wash the diapers in their own filth) and at least one extra rinse. All said and done, the hot cloth diaper wash cycle is three times as long as my normal quick-wash cold cycle. Most cloth diaper companies also recommend that you wash your diapers and liners at least five times first to properly "prep" them for maximum absorbency.

So, ultimately, you have to decide why one diapering method works better for your family, your child and your wallet. There are pros and cons to each, and whatever your reason for using cloth (saving money over the course of your baby's diaper career, fewer diapers in landfills) or disposables (far less interaction with poo, never worrying about having enough diapers washed and ready to go) -- you shouldn't feel guilty about a choice that works for you.

]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1947156 2012-10-09T12:08:56-04:00 2012-12-09T05:12:02-05:00

Andrea Traynor http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-traynor/
And so it was with baby-led weaning. I was nursing my then eight-month-old who -- until that point -- was an ardent breastfeeder and had been gobbling up baby mush for two months with gusto. Then he started biting me; when he drew blood one morning, I called La Leche League for advice. That is, after I put about a pound of Lasinoh on my mangled nipple.

"Are you letting him feed himself?" the breastfeeding guru asked.

"Uh, no -- he's only eight months old. I'm feeding him with a spoon," I retorted, eyes rolling.

She went on to explain that babies should breastfeed first, then feed themselves. That he was probably filling up with too many solids and was biting me to tell me that he simply couldn't fit anything more in his belly. Do away with the baby cereals and purees, she insisted. Give him "real" food -- right from my plate, she said. If he can pick it up and eat it, he can have it. Otherwise, let him be. Let him fill up on mama's milk, she assured me.

I remember phoning a friend shortly after, and laughing. The ridiculousness of a tiny baby feeding himself was pure comedy. Aside from that, what child wouldn't want the lovingly homemade organic butternut squash and Fuji apple puree set before him, fed spoonful by spoonful by his doting mommy?

But when the biting continued and I found myself dreading the nursing hour, I surrendered. I surrendered to the idea that maybe -- just maybe -- I was giving him too much food, even though force-feeding was certainly not on the agenda. I didn't stop the mush, but I did cut back dramatically. Just like that, the biting stopped. And breastfeeding became enjoyable again. He self-weaned, happily and easily, at 14 months old.

His sister, on the other hand, would have nothing to do with solids. I tried rice, barley, oatmeal. I tried sweet potato, carrots and other sweet veggies that were my son's first favourites. I could barely get a spoon into her mouth. After two weeks of this, I felt like a failure, my daughter was frustrated and my son was all but ignored at every meal. So I did what any other Type A mom would do: I turned to Google.

Search: "My six-month-old will not eat solids." Try it. You'll get about 13.5 million results. Like all things motherhood, I was not alone.

I don't recall how many pages upon pages I looked at before stumbling across baby-led weaning (more frequently called BLW by insiders). I think I read the bulk of the site in one sitting. I was fascinated, and yet it didn't dawn on me until months later that this was precisely what that La Leche League leader had suggested so many years before. It just lacked a fancy name.

BLW in a nutshell: Baby starts eating once she can sit up unsupported and pick up her own food and put it into her mouth unassisted -- generally sometime between six and eight months old. Let's say you make steak, carrots and broccoli for dinner. Instead of using your Baby Bullet to churn it into an indiscernible paste, you'd cut the (unsalted) steak and (steamed or roasted) carrots into into finger-sized strips, take a few single stalks of steamed broccoli and place it all on your baby's tray.

Now, you eat your dinner. You enjoy conversation with your partner. You ask your older child about his school day. Your baby may or may not eat. She may inspect her dinner; she may whip it clear across the room (just for fun, not because your cooking stinks). She may surprise you and demolish four stalks of broccoli in 30 seconds flat.

You're now part of the BLW movement. Easy as that.

But what about the choking? This is definitely the No. 1 question people ask me when we talk BLW. I'm not kidding when I say I read Gill Rapley's chapter on choking vs. gagging at least seven times. It freaked me out, too, and I could hardly believe that a baby's gag reflex is actually nowhere near his airway in the first year of life. So when you see your baby cough up a piece of food, there was probably no real choking danger. That said, I never left my daughter's side in those first few months of BLW.

And, let me tell you, she did a lot of gagging. Yet every time, out came the food and she would smile and continue eating. It was hard to watch at first, but I learned to trust her biology. And she was never frustrated with food again. She seemed to love the independence, and I know I loved the independence BLW gave me. I could enjoy every meal alongside everyone else at the table, no longer the last to eat because I'd spent the bulk of mealtime spoon-feeding. It was common sense -- and it was liberating.

With Health Canada's latest recommendation that iron-rich goodies like beef and eggs can be among baby's first foods, I think this is a great opportunity for parents to consider BLW.

The most important part of practicing BLW is that everyone caring for your child is on board with the idea. So, talk about it. Read about it. Scroll through the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of YouTube videos showing babies of all ages enjoying real food with their own hands. Because the biggest hurdle is your own confidence, and if you see -- again -- that you're not alone, and you feel empowered to give BLW a try, it might just change your life. Or, at least your lunch.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1851106 2012-09-07T17:01:22-04:00 2012-11-07T05:12:01-05:00

Andrea Traynor http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-traynor/
Too bad smoking around babies and children is legal. It shouldn't be.

When I was pregnant with my first child, we were told by a prenatal course instructor that the effects of second- and third-hand smoke are so dangerous for babies that anyone who smokes and wants to handle our child should first shower, brush their teeth and change clothes. The threat of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) was enough for me to explain to my own father -- a smoker for many, many years -- that these would be the rules before he came to visit his grandchild.

I never asked him to quit; I never so much as insinuated he quit. It was a very matter-of-fact conversation. He gave his grandchild the best welcome-to-the-world gift I could imagine: Grandpa quit smoking. Four years later, he still respects his grandchildren's health enough to remain a non-smoker.

In my little community, I don't see parents smoking at all, and if they do, they do it much less around kids. So when we went to the CNE recently, I was shocked. From the moment we stepped off of the GO Train, I was hit with scene after scene of moms, dads and other caregivers lighting up. In some cases, cigarettes dangling in the faces of some of these poor kids while mom had a chat with dad.

One man held the door for us as we were exiting the Direct Energy Centre (nice thing to do); seemingly unaware, he blew smoke into my face, and into my daughter's who I was wearing in a baby carrier (not a nice thing to do). I was livid. I coughed dramatically and waved my hands wildly in the air.

I wondered if these people just don't know any better. Really? There's so much information available. Take the Canadian Lung Association, which clearly notes that "second-hand smoke can cause ear infections, breathing problems, SIDS, and serious diseases in kids."

It goes on to state why -- including the fact that kids breathe in more air relative to their body weight, absorbing more smoke than adults -- and put a statistician's touch on the number of deaths due to second-hand smoke in Canada. Like any preventable death, even one is too many if you ask me.

Let me end with this: I believe that, as parents, most of us want to do anything to keep our kids safe. I believe that most of us are doing the best we can. I believe that there are a lot of things I do as a parent for which I'm judged, so I try hard not to do the same to other parents. But on the subject of smoking around your offspring -- the little beings you're supposed to do anything to protect -- and mine, I do judge you. And I won't apologize for it.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1819479 2012-08-22T07:18:34-04:00 2012-10-22T05:12:07-04:00

Andrea Traynor http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-traynor/
We are so not ready.

I promised myself in June that we would start preparing him for the realities of full-day kindergarten in July. But life goes on -- ob-la-di, ob-la-da -- and we're starting now. The biggest issue for us is the butt-wiping. While it's exceedingly common for boys to take longer to master this skill than girls, I have three weeks to teach him how to independently wipe after a good ol' No. 2. (Yes, yes, I know. In your day children wiped their own bums the first time they ever sat on a potty. Got it -- no need to comment.) Yet I know I'm not alone here. Surely, I won't be the only parent sending her child to school with a pack of flushable wet wipes in her kid's new Spider-man backpack. Right?

I guess I sort of took it for granted that a zipper's a zipper. Not so. A lunch bag with a zipper that goes in a straight line from A to B is much easier for little hands to manage. Built NY makes some of the best reusable lunch bags out there and has a super-cute kids' line. That said, we're not giving up on the zippers that require two right turns, mostly because:

(1) it's a good fine-motor skill to practise and
(2) I've got two adorable lunch bags waiting in the wings.

Now, on to food and drink containers. If your kid's been going to day care or a full-day preschool, maybe you don't need to practise as much as we do. Every day, from now until junior kindergarten starts, we're loading and unloading my son's lunch bag -- fitting sandwich containers and drink bottles together like Tetris pieces. Like wiping, I'm not sure how much help he's going to get in the lunch room. After experimenting with many different options, I've discovered that having a sandwich container with a lid that doesn't fully detach is important -- it'll probably be lost on day one otherwise. Better still? A zip-closure sandwich bag like the one from Itzy Ritzy. So far, my son finds this the easiest to open and it takes up very little space in his lunch bag.
Speaking of sandwiches, I've also started making my son's beloved PB&J with a nut-free alternative. It mimics peanut butter in every way -- you can even get a crunchy version! -- but is made with soy. So far, so good.

We're not a juice box kind of house, so I'll be packing water or milk in school lunches. My kid has made it pretty clear that he's not yet ready for a twist-off bottle cap (oh, he can twist it off alright, but he ends up looking like he's part of a wet T-shirt contest). A cup with a spout or straw is easiest for the junior kindergarten set. We've narrowed the field to a few favourites, with the KidBasix SafeSporter in the lead. Now it all comes down to getting it in and out of that lunch bag with ease.

Although I would love nothing more than to send my kiddo off to school in his usual fashion-forward duds, the thought of him emerging from the washroom with his pants around his ankles because he can't do up the button, snap, or belt was enough to send me shopping for elastic-waist trousers. We have enough to work on without adding hook-and-eye closures to the mix.

Have you ordered labels yet? My plan is to label EVERYTHING. We'll buy some of those no-iron clothing labels and put the dishwasher-safe container labels on every single item that goes to school. I'm not going to the lost and found without a good fight.

After a summer of slipping on Crocs, my little guy needs to start putting on real shoes again. This goes without saying: Velcro is your friend. The trick is to find a pair that's school-worthy and easy to get on and off; I'm loving Kai's fall line right now, with the Charles boots on my Covet List. If you're like me, though, you also stupidly bought shoes with laces because you got a great deal down in Buffalo two years ago, and thought by four years old kids can tie shoelaces. Ha!
Thankfully, I was wandering through a kids' store a couple of months ago and noticed these neat shoelace helpers called QuickSnap (which were featured on Dragon's Den). Since some of the coolest kids' shoes have laces, I've enlisted its help. We're not quite there yet. But we're going to practise, practise, practise.

We're also spending a lot of time talking about the bus ride. I've explained to my son that I'm going to drive him to and from junior kindergarten on his first day, but after that, he's going to ride the big yellow school bus with the other kids. I'm not sure who's more nervous about this.

Ultimately, I really feel like I'm preparing myself as much for junior kindergarten as I'm preparing my kid. It's new for both of us. It's exciting for both of us. It's scary for both of us. But we'll be fine. We just need a little practise.

For more of my junior kindergarten must-haves, please check out this recent post of mine at Mommy Gearest. Surely I'm forgetting something. What's on your junior kindergarten must-do or must-have list?]]>