Nourished Mother

Real Food for Mother and Baby

From Amber

Tomorrow Nina Planck's new book comes out! I have blogged about her here before, and think that her previous book Real Food; What To Eat and Why should be the first book anyone interested in nutrition should read. 

And since I also think that every mother should be interested in nutrition, I was thrilled when I first found out she was writing this book:

After reading her first book I sent Nina a fan mail sort of email, telling her the story of how my mostly vegan diet had caused my postpartum breastfeeding body to become depleted and exhausted, and how we had found traditional whole foods to be the perfect antidote to my huge new-mama nose dive into ill health.

I also mentioned how it just made sense to us that if we were going to give birth naturally, breastfeed, and hold and sleep with our daughter the way humans have done for millennia, that we would also eat the real, nourishing foods our ancestors had eaten for millennia.

Well, she wrote back and asked if she could tell our story in the new book she was working on! I haven't seen the book yet (though Nina did graciously offer to send us a copy), but I am so excited to read our story in print in a book by one of my favorite authors, and to read the rest of the excellent information the book contains.

What a perfect baby shower gift!

Here it is on Amazon. And here's what the publisher has to say:

Nina Planck, one of the great food activists, changed the way we view old-fashioned foods like butter with her groundbreaking Real Food. T hen she got pregnant. Never one to accept conventional wisdom blindly, Nina found the usual advice about pregnancy and baby food riddled with myths and misunderstandings. In Real Food for Mother and Baby, Nina explains why many modern ideas about pregnancy and infant nutrition are wrongheaded and why traditional foods are best. While Nina can be controversial—her op-ed in the New York Times on vegan diets for infants was one of the paper’s most e-mailed articles— she’s no contrarian. Readers applaud her candor; they also trust her research and welcome her advice.

Nina’s basic premise hasn’t changed—whole foods are best—but some of the details are surprising. Pregnant women need meat and salt, not iron supplements. Nursing will be easier if you act like the mammal you are. Delaying the introduction of certain solid foods doesn’t prevent allergies. Cereals are not the best foods for tiny eaters; meat and egg yolks are better. From conception to two years, the body’s overwhelming needs are for quality fat and protein, not for carrots and low-fat dairy. Even as she casts a skeptical eye on the conventional wisdom, Nina is reassuring. She shows you how to keep your baby healthy on good, simple food. Real Food for Mother and Baby will be the new classic on eating for two.

Empire of Scrounge

from Anna

I love other people's trash. I get huge gratification from knowing that most of our clothes and furniture, and many of our household items are second-hand finds. While I've never actually been Dumpster diving, I definitely comb the thrift stores, rescue things from the curb, and take stuff off the hands of people who don't want it, whether through Freecycle or just friends. I like knowing that "junk" is being reused, and that we as a family are helping to reduce the tons and tons of trash that go into the landfills. I am not a pack-rat, mind you... the pack-rat would be my nemesis... I don't take things we can't use and it seems I'm still constantly giving things away in an effort to simplify and declutter. We are also avid recyclers and composters, and my husband does store up a bit of scrap in the basement that he cashes in on from time to time. Trash is a passion for us... it's practical and political, and it really is a spiritual pursuit, a religious one  in the true sense of the word. Now enter this book... 

Empire of Scrounge is a totally engrossing, philosophically powerful account of folks living on the margins of our hyperconsumeristic culture, scrounging out both a practical living and an existential meaning from scavenging, scrapping, Dumpster diving, and all various forms of reuse & recycling wherein people looking to survive become sometimes accidental environmentalists and subversives. The author chronicles an 8 month stretch after quitting his university position when he decided to do the field research required for this book-- but having no job, no immediate prospects, etc. he "becomes the phenomenon" and equipped with a bicycle & tools (themselves scrounged items) takes on the experiment to see how much he can depend on the urban ecology of disposability & reclamation for his own survival. The people he writes about run the gamut of socioeconomic class and race, and range from found artists, bottle-collecting homeless guys, persecuted old scrap metal collectors, Food Not Bombs & Bikes Not Bombs activists, drunken Texas ladies enthused by a score of discarded fancy cosmetics, subversive homebuilders-- the list goes on... This guy is someone you would totally want to befriend, he writes brilliantly, and the book is pure genius.

Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves

from Anna

You can go ahead and place Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves at the tippity-top of the list of my favorite parenting books. I've had a difficult time even sitting down and writing a review for this one, because I feel I can't adequately describe how powerful and amazing it truly is.

A friend of mine, a single father, recently wrote to me regarding a difficult day he had with his son... the boy accidentally locked them both out of the house, and my friend lost his cool. He described the scene-- he was less than kind, his son sat on the steps and cried. He later apologized to the boy. I assured him that the apology was so important, something many of us never got from our own parents who lived by the credo whereby The Grown-Up is Always Right. We discussed this a little, how vital it is to have to work through our own less-than-perfect upbringings, our own childhood traumas that resurface when we are at the hardest moments with our kids. What really made the biggest impression on me in this conversation though, was a simple image that has been haunting me as the most perfect metaphor for parenting-- my friend mentioned that he had been out in the yard pulling up the roots of oleander bushes. Isn't that the most grueling and most spiritual work of raising children, tearing up the roots of the poisionous plants that flourish in our own minds?

This is the core of Naomi Aldort's outstanding book. It is absolutely vital, in order to love our children as real human beings, respect them as individuals, and interact authentically with them, to do the hard work of pulling up those toxic roots that are so entrenched in our own hearts. Aldort's book is beautifully written and her insights are amazing. I usually sneer at any parenting book that offers an acronymic formula-- but her "S.A.L.V.E." technique for what to remember and consider before reacting to our children when we are angry or frustrated is the exception. Stopping to consider our own past hurts and cultural inculcations about what motherhood/fatherhood is, and realizing that our motivations often don't match up with what we truly want to express to our kids can make a huge difference in the messages they receive from us about who they are, who we are, and what our relationships are and can be (both between parent & child and more generally between any human beings).

For mothers and fathers who truly wish to grow as people, be more compassionate parents, and raise children who are confident, autonomous, and base their decisions not on fear but on love, this book is it. While virtually every parenting guide out there is promising to school you on ways to produce a happy (and of course obedient) child through various permutations of force, threat, or manipulation, and giving you handy tricks for asserting your will over your child's, this book gives you the honest truth: you can't change another person into what you want him to be, but all things change when we change ourselves.   

The Mamas and The Papas

from Anna

Mothering and Fathering is an interesting exploration of how gender differences affect parenting style... and also how that plays out in terms of the dominant philosophies in our culture, where most "experts" in child development and care are male doctors and authors. Bypassing the popular unisex theories of the 1980's that proposed there was little to the traditional ideas of gender differences, Thevenin believes that there are varying strengths and weaknesses inherent to male and female approaches to life, and therefore to child rearing, and hypothesizes that there is much understanding to be gleaned by accepting these differences as just that-- differences, not right tendencies versus wrong ones. Thevenin explains the clashes that commonly occur in households and in our larger society when the maternal instinct for relationship building and close nurturing is often at odds with the paternal emphasis on independence as a highly prized value. She acknowledges that she is working with generalities and that many women and men have proclivities that would categorize them as being more oriented toward the opposite gender, but I think her take on gender disparities is a pretty fair one. Thevenin, author of the classic The Family Bed, is obviously an advocate of intensive mothering in the high-touch style, but she takes care not to dismiss what she portrays as the father's instinctive orientation towards independence, competition, and establishing hierarchy through acheivement as negative per se... instead she explores how mothers and fathers balance each other and contribute to the well-being of a child through evolutionarily proven differences in inclination. She proposes that the intense bond of the mother/baby relationship is totally ideal for the youngest years of a child's life and that as a toddler moves toward greater independence and exploration the bond with the father becomes key for development, as the paternal orientation is to be an "encourager" more than a "nurturer". This was an enjoyable read... it gave me a lot to talk about with my husband, and definitely gave me cause to appreciate his willingness to accept my mothering style and recognize both my maternal needs and the genuine needs of our child... and helped me to understand the focus that our daughter's development will take as she moves further into those "weaning years" in which she will grow in attachment to her papa and need more of the "male" incitement toward individuation.

Less No, More Yes

from Anna

I haven't finished reading Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves yet, but it's already one of my favorite books. A review will be coming soon... but today I just wanted to share a little bit of wisdom from its pages, because this particular bit of advice for saying "no" to our kids less often really struck me as brilliant guidance:

"Respect a child's safe decisions and choices. When you counter his choices, disregard his decision, or impose your own choices, self-doubt and insecurity result. Instead, start by saying "Yes," so you are "forced" to find a supportive response. "Yes, you want to tear books. Here are some magazines you can tear," or "Yes, you love to play with the plastic bag on your head. Here is a paper bag. It is safe and, if you want, I can make holes for your eyes to see." Even when there is no way to support a child's action, say "yes" to his intent, "Yes, I can see that you love to annoy your sister. Would you like to tell me about it?" 

Raising Your Spirited Child

from Anna

Raising Your Spirited Child is a consistently positive and useful book. Kurcinka focuses unflaggingly on looking at the child's personality traits and behaviors in a positive light-- redefining the "problem child" as "spirited". She's thorough in covering many ways that we can as parents accept our children's temperamental characteristics as assets instead of hassles, and she encourages us to see situations from the child's point of view. The book is full of concrete examples, anecdotes, and practical advice. I felt like sometimes it was a bit repetitive, but it's helpful information that I guess can bear some repeating.

Kurcinka covers several temperamental categories that are common to the spirited child, and even if your kid isn't off the charts in every category there's wisdom to be gleaned about being prepared for and dealing with specific traits. My daughter, for instance, doesn't quite score a "spirited" rating-- she falls squarely in the "spunky" stretch of the continuum-- while she is extremely energetic and exceptionally determined, for example, she doesn't have particular difficulties with new situations or high sensitivity to tactile and other sensory input. I was able to learn about ways to accept and adapt myself to her need for constant activity and exploration, and her unrelenting tenacity. Although she doesn't generally have trouble with transitions, I learned useful tips for making transitions more smoothly for when there is some static. With all of the categories of characteristics, Kurcinka focuses on the fact that the child is expressing genuine needs and feelings and that as a parent one must take that seriously and acknowledge them. She stresses again and again that your child is not trying to manipulate you or crush your rush-- it's not really so much about you at all.

Oh, but some of it is definitely about you, or at least how your own characteristics affect how you mesh with your daughter or son! I think maybe the biggest aha! moment for me was reading about the conflict that arises betwen parent and child when there is a clash of temperaments. Taking a look at where you yourself rate on these scales can really help you see possible conflicts in a different light. Say for instance you and your wee one are at opposite ends of the energy spectrum... or, what if you are both extremely perceptive and therefore easily distracted from goals by other little interesting things that spontaneously spring up? Kurcinka details many possible combinations and has insightful suggestions for adaptation. I realized for the first time while reading this that my daughter and I are completely opposite when it comes to how we refresh ourselves and draw our energy. Stella is most definitely an extrovert, "recharging her batteries" by interacting with other kids and being involved in a group setting... while I am certainly an introvert, needing quiet and alone-time to refuel. This discovery has made me more comitted to finding opportunities for her to play with other little people on a daily basis, and more motivated to schedule time for myself to be alone and enjoy some much needed stillness.

This is definitely a great book, and probably one that would be useful to keep around and refer to often. I think it'd be helpful for any parent, not just those who are certain their kid fits the bill as "more" of everything... I think, in fact, that most kids probably do have quite a bit of "spunk" and "spirit" that gets mislabeled or disregarded. This book could help all parents regard their kids in a more positive light and bring out all those wonderful traits that sometimes make us so crazy.

Wherez the books?

From Anna

From The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood:

For many of us, Scholastic's book clubs played an important role in our childhood by providing the opportunity to purchase low-cost, high-quality literature in schools.  We remember the excitement of thumbing through the monthly flyers to make our selections and the thrill when our orders arrived.

But something has changed. Scholastic's book clubs have become a Trojan horse for marketing toys, trinkets, and electronic media-many of which promote popular brands. A review by CCFC of Scholastic's elementary and middle school book clubs found that one-third of the items for sale are either not books or are books packaged with other items such as jewelry and toys. 

Tell Scholastic: Put the book back in book clubs.

CCFC reviewed every item in Scholastic's 2008 monthly Lucky (for grades 2-3) and Arrow (grades 4-6) book club flyers. Of the items advertised, 14% were not books, including the M&M's Kart Racing Wii videogame; a remote control car; the American Idol event planner; ("Track this season of American Idol"); the Princess Room Alarm ("A princess needs her privacy!"); a wireless controller for the PS2 gaming system; a make-your-own flip flops kit ("hang out at the pool in style"); and the Monopoly® SpongeBob SquarePants™ Edition computer game. An additional 19% of the items were books that were marketed with additional toys, gadgets, or jewelry. For example, the book Get Rich Quick is sold with a dollar-shaped money clip ("to hold all your new cash!"); the Friends 4 Ever Style Pack consists of a book and two lip gloss rings; and Hannah Montana: Seeing Green comes with a guitar pick bracelet.

The opportunity to sell directly to children in schools is not a right. It's a privilege - and an extremely profitable one at that.  Last year, Scholastic's book clubs generated $336.7 million in revenue.

It's bad enough that so many of the books sold by Scholastic are de-facto promotions for media properties like High School Musical and SpongeBob. But there's no justification for marketing an M&M videogame or lip gloss in elementary schools. Teachers should not be enlisted as sales agents for products that have little or no educational value and compete with books for children's attention and families' limited resources. If Scholastic wants to maintain their unique commercial access to young students, they need to do better.

We know that Scholastic listens to your concerns. When 5,000 of you wrote them to demand that they stop promoting the highly sexualized Bratz brand in schools, they discontinued their Bratz line. So please visit http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/621/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26599 to let Scholastic know it's time to return to selling books - and only books - through their in-school book clubs.

www.commercialfreechildhood.org

The Secret Lives of Toddlers

from Anna

 

Eh. What a stinker. The Secret Lives of Toddlers was not at all what I was expecting. The best part was that it was a very quick read. This book is formatted so that every chapter is another question-- why do toddlers engage in a certain common behavior?-- but any parent, or really any human being, with half their wits about them can easily answer these questions... it feels good, they're trying out new stuff, building confidence with new skills, they get scared, they're trying to communicate their needs... there were few surprises. The bulk of the book was actually tired advice about how to control these behaviors, and much of it was the same old instructions for manipulation and authoritarian parenting that puts adult desires first in priority. There are plenty of exhortations to bribe, ignore, and punish (in all those "kinder gentler" ways now in vogue) in order to establish children's conformity to schedules, routines, and parents' convenience. There really wasn't much content in the way of seeing things from the toddler's view or really understanding their motivations and meeting their needs. The author believes that toddlers are manipulators. I was looking for more real insight into the inner life of the wee ones... for other parents looking for something more along those lines, I'd recommend reading The Emotional Life of Toddlers, which was far superior. 

Into the Minds of Babes

from Anna

 

Into the Minds of Babes: How Screen Time Affects Children from Birth to Age Five by Lisa Guernsey is not polemical on either side of the controversy surrounding tots' exposure to television and other media influence. I generally have found myself squarely in the "TV rots your brain" camp over the years, and we as a family own one very small set that we keep far out of the main living space. We keep viewing to a minimum, but I've become interested (okay, sometimes a little obsessed) as my daughter grew into toddlerhood, with checking out the kids' movies at the library, and trying to get a handle on what is really age appropriate, what is quality, and what we might want to add to a DVD home library for her. I started watching some of the programs on PBS Kids, too... resulting in my daughter's serious jones for Curious George. You see, we did decide that with the much ballyhooed conversion to digital television, we would not be updating our little antenna contraption... so choosing good DVD's to have on hand for kids seemed like a reasonable crusade now that we won't have a working TV in the house at all. I still was feeling a little guilty about exposing my daughter to any screen time at all, given the AAP ban on TV for under-twos, and I wasn't really sure if she would really be learning anything from her viewing. Or even if it could be a little harmless entertainment... even if Curious George isn't touted as "educational" programming, couldn't it be worth the incredible delight she finds in watching that little chimp frolic on screen?

Enter this book...I liked it a lot. Very balanced and objective-- the author investigates the claims made by the growing baby video industry as well as takes on the AAP crusade for zero screen time, and comes up with a lot of fascinating research on what kinds of media hurt or help... and how the effects of different types of media vary based on many factors. There's plenty of really interesting information on how young children learn and how their cognition develops, and it really puts all the research about media in context.

I came away from this book with a lot more confidence about what kinds of DVDs to choose for my daughter, how to choose age-appropriate materials, how often she should be watching, and what really does need to be avoided-- namely using TV as "background noise", exposure to violence (studies resoundingly show that it IS mimicked in play) and commercials that promote junk and fast foods (turns out that this is a much bigger influence on childhood obesity than the idea that time spent in front of the tube takes time away from active play and promotes a sedentary lifestyle) among other dangers. The author also specifically tells which children's TV shows and videos have proof to back up their claims of "educational" value, and which ones have none.

It turns out in the final analysis that screen time for your child is much like any other parenting dilemma... you should be making decisions based on your individual child and his temperament, while weighing all the facts about what has been shown to have some benefit and what has been linked with adverse effects... it's about finding a happy medium and doing what works for your family. A blanket ban on all media isn't really based on real evidence of harm, but for most of the "baby videos" out there, "educational" claims are pretty bogus. Well-designed, age-appropriate materials can be useful, and Curious George probably won't destroy my daughter. Give this one a read... I definitely recommend it for other parents with concerns and confusions about media influence.

Tears and Tantrums

Tears and Tantrums: What to Do When Babies and Children Cry by Aletha Solter is a remarkable book. Solter's theories are truly revolutionary. While most experts and others fall into two camps-- either schooling parents on how best to quell crying and eradicate tantrums with calming techniques, or advocating that parents isolate babies to let them 'cry-it-out' and train children to abandon tantrums with other punitive measures-- Solter presents a third way. She relates the science involved in crying-- the chemical and hormonal changes that the body experiences, and the healing release of pent-up emotions... and advocates that children be allowed to cry in order to cleanse themselves of trauma. She explores all the ways that saved-up trauma resurfaces in problem behaviors and subsequent illnesses, and encourages parents to let babies and children cry as long as they need to while the parent creates a safe and loving environment for their outpouring of sadness or anger. Solter emphasizes repeatedly that children should NEVER be left to cry alone-- that the process necessitates the caretaker's involvement, closeness, and attention. She explores the reasons why we as adults are so upset by children's crying episodes, because of our own childhood traumas and mistreatments, and suggests ways for parents to deal with their own unresolved issues so that they can better help their own babies heal as needed through crying and raging. This book is amazing. As another reviewer commented, it is also "deeply challenging". There is nothing easy about Solter's advisements... this isn't a book for parents looking for quick fixes. It is, however, very profound and boldly innovative. I'm looking forward to reading Solter's other books and exploring her work and theories at awareparenting.com. I discovered Solter and Aware Parenting just recently when I was looking for more information about non-punitive discipline, and I've been very impressed with the Aware Parenting philosophy, which combines Attachment Parenting, discipline without punishment, and Solter's theories on healing from stress and trauma through crying, raging, laughter, and imaginative play. Her work has really been eye-opening... and not all of it easy to swallow.

The most challenging part of what I read in this book may also be shocking and upsetting to other nursing mothers with a similar mindset to mine regarding breastfeeding... I want to just briefly touch on that. Solter considers non-nutritive sucking to be another control pattern-- a compulsive behavior used to avoid expressions of feelings and bottle-up stress instead of releasing it-- akin to thumbsucking, pacifier use and other self-soothing habits. For mothers like myself who have happily conformed to the La Leche League style philosophy of pacifying at the breast and nursing completely on demand for comfort as well as food needs, this may be a disturbing bit of news. I think it's a very compelling part of her theories, but I'm honestly pretty distressed by the idea. Solter cautions against allowing unlimited access to the breast for mere comfort, even for the smallest of babies, advocating instead that mothers allow the child to cry (while still being held and attended to intensively) to release stress... she promises that this will result in a calmer, more alert baby with a greatly decreased need for non-nutritive sucking. It does worry me, as a future lactation professional, that this advice might cause problems in establishing and maintaining a good milk supply, as women often have trouble with supply issues when trying to nurse on an arbitrary schedule... I fear that Solter's suggestion about how often infants really should be nursing could be construed as a limiting regimen and be a stumbling block. I have, however, sometimes questioned the wisdom of nursing to stop crying-- it does work like magic, of course, and I've often marvelled at how effective a practice nursing is for comfort and wondered how "moms without boobs" manage to fix the "ows" and "uh-ohs" and generally keep the peace-- but I have taken pause on a few occasions to wonder if feeding an upset is contributing to the formation of similar habits for later life. I still certainly think that pacifying at the breast has got to be a healthier alternative than becoming attached to objects or truly self-soothing, but I think what she is saying makes sense and I'm willing to try a bit of weaning from so much non-nutritive "nurners" in favor of allowing some stress relief through crying. I think it will be a difficult process, but I'm really intrigued by this.

Ideally, of course, much of Solter's parenting philosophy revolves around reducing stress and trauma for the baby and child before the need for raging and crying... as I mentioned, a big part of Aware Parenting is your standard Attachment practices-- she advocates the family bed, babywearing, breastfeeding, and the like. She is a firm believer in the idea that children cannot be "spoiled" by attention and affection. This in itself, I'm sure, reduces the amount of stress and trauma in an infant or toddler's life... the truly new idea is that crying and tantrums are not a "bad" behavior, or even something that should be "treated". While reading this book, I couldn't help but keep comparing this idea to the way we regard fever. It's conventional to "treat" fevers... to bring down a child's temperature through artificial means, to give anti-pyretic drugs, in an attempt to "cure" fever. The majority of mainstream health practitioners will give parents loads of advice about combatting fever as if it were an illness. Of course, it isn't. Fever is your body's reaction to illness; fever is the body's natural treatment for illness. When fever is suppressed, the body cannot properly overcome sickness, the immune system is compromised and weakened, and illness will resurface subsequently in other ways. So it is, Solter's philosophy says, with crying and raging. Crying and raging should not be "treated" or suppressed, but should be allowed to happen when the need arises, for this is how the body (and mind) heals itself, purges stress and trauma, and grows stronger in health. Repressing emotions and not allowing the body to discharge chemical and hormonal loads by suppressing this process will result in resurfacing of emotional blockages and physiological illnesses later. It's elegant, really.