Minimalist Baby? Greener Healthier Baby Care? Is it Possible?

One of the most overwhelming things about sharing with others that you're pregnant is all.the.stuff. Babies are a marketing dream and industry has done a phenomenal job of developing all sorts of items to make us think that we need them. Don't get me wrong, there are MANY helpful items these days, but I like the idea of a more minimalist approach to child rearing. (Trying getting grandparents on board with that one however!).

Since I'm also a huge environmental and personal health advocate, I like to really think about and research the products that I use or bring into the house. While so much of having a child has been about compromise, I've had to let some of my desires go....but generally speaking there is still a lot that I've been able to adhere to. Case in point on compromise: I'm not a fan of plastic. If I had my way, Max would have had limited exposure to plastic from the get go. There are so many great wood, metal and cloth toys available....but alas I've had to concede and he currently plays with way more plastic than I ever would have desired or imagined. Since plastic is so prevalent, much of his current foods-to-go also come in plastic/aluminum wrappers and most the personal care product containers are also plastic.

Some of the things I've made sure to maintain however are his PERSONAL CARE ITEMS: I researched all of the items we might need through Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep database (Babies & Moms tab) and ordered the ones that scored the best in the categories of diaper rash cream, lotion, and body wash. While I still prefer the original body wash from Baby Mantra, I ended up switching to Burt's Bees Baby Lotion & Diaper Cream due to the fact that they scored fairly well and coated much better than the other items I'd tried. The lotion also does a fairly decent job with his eczema flares from food sensitivities. I use the Baby Mantra wash as both body wash and shampoo, and we tend to wash Max's hair every other night rather than nightly. We also nightly apply Burt's Bees powder in Max's armpits, as he developed a rash from sweating initially.

FEEDING: Breastfeeding started out well and that hand pump pictured (great loaner from a coworker) was a lifesaver for traveling for work (airport travel especially). It took longer of course, but was easy to clean and throw in a travel bag. I did use two Medela pumps: one at work and one at home and eventually figured out I could just pump into his glass baby bottles or into mason jars so I was able to reduce the plastic pumping pieces. Due to Max's food sensitivities and issues with having enough freedom to pump regularly at work, I also supplemented with formula once I was back at work. After a long spell with soy and another failed 6-8 attempts with other specialized sensitive formulas, we ended up with Kabrita goat's milk formula. Truthfully he did better on that goat's milk formula than he did on any other option, including my breast milk (even with all the foods I removed from my diet). Even though it's beyond the guidelines, at just over a year old, he's still drinking goats milk formula out of bottles....which leads me to....

BOTTLES: The Life Factory glass baby bottles have been truly wonderful. I read up on several different types of bottles and plastic alternative options. I went with the Life Factory ones for a couple reasons. First, I have one of the ones for adults and while it's not my go-to, I have been really impressed with it. I wanted glass over the stainless steel options as I wanted to see the contents in the bottle (although Max now has his own baby Klean Kanteen). The other thing that I LOVE is that with the trade of lids, the bottles transition to sippy cups or regular drinking bottles. They can also be used as snack containers and we now use his little ones for snacks in the car. Overall the Life Factory ones seemed to make the most sense to transition us from infant to baby to toddler without needing to purchase anything separate---minimalism at it's finest! The one thing I will say is that the reviews are accurate in that the bottle is too heavy for Max to hold it himself, which means that we always cuddle up for bottle time which I don't mind at all. Also, two little bottles and three big bottles would be about right for one child. I ended up with SIX big bottles which is way too many. Two size 1 nipples and 2-4 size 2, and two sippy lids.

FOODS: I'll review later in another post I imagine. I had such hopes here and was so saddened by the amount of food sensitivites he seemed to demonstrate. He's always loved to eat and because he showed the signs of being ready, I allowed him to eat some basic homemade purees made from organic food items starting at about 4 months. (Note: my parents advocated for me to add rice cereal as was standard in their general, but the research is showing that the baby's stomach isn't quite able to break down the rice at young ages.)  Due to his sensitivites, he regularly ate purees but we pretty much had to keep him to the same "safe" food items for several months. He ate mainly homemade baby food and table shares until about 8 months. When we hike, he loves the organic baby food pouches and snack bars, but at home generally refuses pureed food at this point and prefers simple table items (banana, pear slices, peas, blueberries, sausage, sweet potato, shredded chicken, etc that he feeds himself). For a baby/toddler, this kid eats a lot.....

DIAPERS: What goes in, must come out and one of the biggest environmental concerns regarding kids is the amount of long-term waste that occurs due to disposal diapers (not to mention the chemicals frequently in those diapers that are soaked in liquid and held against sensitive baby skin). For those reasons, I knew that I wanted to cloth diaper Max if he did okay with it. Due to the fact that I was returning to work and didn't want the stress/additional work of washing diapers, I decided to use a diaper service and had every intention of using it through at least the first year. We went with Tidee Didee Diaper Service, who is eco-friendly in their approach, didn't require any pre-rinse (literally just throw them in the bag, poo and all), and had a registry option available. If we had continued on a regular schedule and location then I definitely would have continued utilizing their service and with the registry, I had the first six months of service covered. Because we were splitting our time between family and my home, it eventually was easier to just purchase our own used inserts and do the washing ourselves. (After trying many options, I prefer the old school cotton tri-folds. They also give Max room to grow and can be folded down in front which is especially great for little boys.) While home washing is not always the most glamorous, it makes my environmental heart feel a little bit better. The whole process of figuring out and deciding on diaper covers took a lot of research and trial and error actually. In the end, I loved and preferred Thirsties Hook & Loop (ie velcro....I'm not a fan of any snaps). We tend to have 4-5 covers for the size he's in. The disposables that you see pictured are Naty Diapers and we use their wipes also. Naty Diapers were developed in Europe (which has better health and environmental standards) and are supposedly compostable ie they break down much faster than the plastic counterparts. Price wise they're fairly comparable, are easily ordered in bulk online, and they contain less chemicals than mainstream versions. We use Naty diapers when traveling or doing outdoor activities. (When traveling I order online the diapers, wipes, and formula and have it delivered directly to our destination....MUCH less to pack and that much easier.)

MEDICATIONS: True to form, I'd prefer a more holistic approach to Max's health, although I compromise on that as needed as well. We did use a prescription to reduce the reflux as he was so miserable from it for a period, but true to form it only took a month for tolerance to develop and it no longer worked that well. That colic was no joke and I read up and tried many a potential treatment. We tried gripe water, I tried regular homeopathics I had to mix and dilute, I tried herbal teas, I tried infant massage, we always had a relaxing bedtime ritual, I cut out all.the.foods, I tried acupressure, we tried a lot. The only thing we found to work for Max was Hyland's Homeopathic Gas Drops. It didn't get rid of the screaming periods by any means, but it did shorten the duration down to 1.5-2 hours. (While they worked for us and our situation, they didn't work for a fellow mama with a colicky baby...) Even after the colic subsided the Gas Drops were lifesavers as they ease his stomach discomforts. I cannot tell you how many boxes of Gas Drops we have gone through, but they've been worth every penny. We have also used Hyland's Cold & Mucus for the few colds he's had. I also regularly use Honest's Breathe Easy Chest Rub when he's congested and a humidifier in the room. Almost nightly, I also rub an infant friendly modified version of Doterra's essential oils FLOOM combination to peak his immune system. (My sister is a distributor and mixes it as FLOM; for my own health I daily pop an OnGuard and it does wonders!!!) For teething, he wears a Baltic Essentials amber necklace (we had to replace the first one because it stretched and he could get it in his mouth) and I rub a local homeopathic teething rub on his gums. We also use dyefree Advil....a LOT--much more than I want to admit but it seems to be one of the only things that regularly works to get him physically relaxed enough to fall asleep. The dyefree is a must for me due to many of the students that show the potential harmful effects of food dyes on kids.

While I lost the battle on plastic free toys, I'm at least glad that many of the other areas of importance to me were adhered to. (And at the very least, I kept plastic out of his tub for at least six months, including no plastic baby tub nor did we use a PVC "rubber" ducky.) Additionally many of his clothes, toys, and books are hand-me-down or thrifted items, further decreasing the amount of new consumption and in the case of used clothes & linens also decreasing his chemical exposures. They're only little for so short a period of time that it just makes the most sense to me to use less overall and to try to keep their overall chemical exposures to a minimum during this important time of development and growth. We were very fortunate to buy thrifted baby furniture or restore some of my own childhood pieces. I also received several great hand-me-down items from friends (shared about in a much older post), including a baby swing, still good car seats, a simple style hiking pack, wraps, a changing table, bouncers, etc. All of these items were either returned or passed on to others once Max either outgrew it or it was apparent that he wouldn't use them. To further try to increase minimalism, I also monthly go through his clothes, toys, and books and rehome what we no longer need.

What are your thoughts? In what ways have you tried to implement "greener" approaches to raising a baby? Are there other suggestions you have?

A Year Later

The best of intentions. That statement alone could summarize my life as a hit or miss blogger, but that's also part of being authentic.

Motherhood has been a bit of a rough transition for me, for us. Yes there have been LOTS of incredible moments along the way of this first year (many of which I plan to post about here), but there were also so many moments of frustration, exhaustion, and worry. We, my son and I, are so incredibly fortunate to be blessed with my parents, who took the majority of this first year of my son's life to fully support (and in some cases even live) with us.

Now don't get me wrong...I didn't expect that becoming a single parent would be a cake walk. By no means did I have that expectation. But what I didn't expect at all, fully struggled with, became depleted by, and still sometimes get frustrated by is the amount of challenges that my little guy had to deal with during this first year of life. We had colic for five months. (Translate to: 1.5-3 hours of inconsolable crying every night; frequently between 11pm and 3am...none of which you can "fix"). He had severe reflux for 10 months. (Translate to: major spit-ups somewhere between oh 15-30+ each day; sometimes wiping out three outfits in one day AND generally enough to go through 5-8 spit up rags each day). He had food sensitivities from birth. (Translate to: extremely restricted mama diet while trying to breastfeed, restricted dietary items even though he so desperately wanted to eat real foods from 4 months on). And to be totally honest, if ADHD existed in babies, he might be a poster child for it. He's been highly alert since birth, generally fought naps, only tolerated periods of inactivity (ie the swing, a bouncer, a carseat) for about 20 minutes on average or 40 minutes max, and could "keep going strong" until 10-11pm most nights (although he then starts his day way later than the average baby).

This mama also had major work/life transitions happening. My full-time professor position suddenly lost funding 2 weeks before I was to come back from short-term disability. I was asked to apply for a newly created administrative level position, was granted that position, still was asked to teach my regular load, and faced unexpected opposition in my new position. At this same time, I realized that my body was not going to physically bounce back as I'd hoped and I continued to feel chronic fascia tension and muscular pain. I regained all the baby weight I'd lost and felt almost continuous low level pain.

Add all of little man's challenges with mama's challenges and you've basically got a recipe for disaster...... OR you can allow all of this to be the opportunity to make some major changes toward restoring balance. Being who I am I chose the later. If there's one thing I learned early in my 20s, it's that NO amount of pay or recognition or ease is worth your health or your sanity or your family.

At 6 months postpartum, I had started noticing the signs for postpartum depression, recognized how much of a toll it was on my mother to provide so much childcare, and decided it was time to make a major change for all of us. At 8 months postpartum, I officially resigned from the new position with the intention of returning to a more flexible adjunct status at both of my original institutions. I'd also begun acupuncture and had seen a few improvements from structural integration massage sessions. My son and I were starting to hit a regular rhythm, his colic was over and his reflux was improving, and we were finally back to doing long weekends and stretches on our own. As a highly independent person, I was throwing my hands up in the air in celebration.....

.....and then came the flu---ha! And if you had the flu this year then you know what a butt kicker it was. Luckily, my son was able to go to my parents so he avoided it, but I was home with a fever for 5 days. It was the first time in my teaching life that I had to request a sub for two class sessions in a row. And it took THREE weeks to even somewhat recover my energy. During that final "recovery" week, Max came down with a "slight" cold....and we took a trip to visit my friend in Arizona, which led to both of us coming back fully sick and requiring at least two more weeks to somewhat recover energy levels. So you could say that most of January and February became a "wash." HA!

The best of intentions..... (noticing a theme here?!)....

About this time, I finally sucked up my pride and realized for the 100th time that well, I couldn't truly do this single mother thing on my own and it was time to make the care of my son easier for everyone. Thus I made the decision to officially move to Salem, which is the area where my parents and most of my siblings live and makes the most sense as my parents are still providing childcare for my son and his second cousin. The process of moving out of the home I'd been in for seven years was a bit of an emotional release, although there's still many physical items to still wade through. :)

There's still much in the air for this coming year that's ahead and much to decide for the next 3-4 years to come after that, but all things considered the move is feeling like the right decision. I'm still teaching the subjects I love and happily enjoy a 1.5 hour 1-2x a week commute through country roads. For  now, I'm still mentoring the students I love to mentor (mainly online). And we're fully enjoying the opportunity to explore new surroundings and spend more time with our family.

Two weeks ago, we celebrated Max's 1st birthday. And while this first year has been eventful and testing, it's held so many beautiful moments as well. I've had the opportunity to watch my baby grow and his development never fails to impress and astound me. I've seen his personality show and laughed at how many ways he is so much a personality twin of his mother (oh my!). The final week of the move, Max started sleeping through the night semi-regularly (and we also started cosleeping). So far, my little one seems to love the outdoors as much as I do. He's just starting to walk and took his first "hike" toddling 15 feet over creeks feeding into waterfalls. A moment that's sure to exist in my memory logs for years to come.

The challenges of the first year were many, the challenges that are ahead are also many. But some lessons, like always, re-emerged. After spending 3 years fully restoring myself to 100% independence, I've learned that sometimes I need to be okay with some codependency and just be grateful for the willingness of others to help us. I learned that I truly can't do it all on my own. I was reminded that good intentions don't always pan out. I was reminded that seasons of life that seem insurmountable always pass. I was grateful for family. I was grateful for baby smiles. I was grateful for the best therapy I know: the outdoors. I was grateful for the opportunity to alter my employment options to increase my flexibility, allow me to return toward more of what I enjoy teaching, AND creating more time with my son, more time for occasional self-care, and more time for rest.

In the midst of challenge....I was and still am.....ultimately grateful. And now that the majority of this stage of challenge has passed...I'm continuing to look forward to knowing and enjoying this little boy who I get to call my son. What a beautiful, wild, and incredible son he is.

Simply Authentic & Well: The Beginning

So what is this blog about you might be wondering?

Well, it’s a place for me, you, any of us to reflect upon the idea of living life fully and within our authentic selves while appreciating where we are in the midst of the chaos. This is sometimes much easier said than done.

I’ve blogged off and on for years exploring the themes of simple living, “green choices” and nature care/cure, outdoor adventures, travels, health, and more. I still plan on reflecting upon many of those same themes, as those are representative of my authentic self, they form the lens through which I operate and view the world, and they fit my idea of what wellness means to me. However my real intention for this blog is to continue to ask myself and you some of these questions:

 “What life do you want to be living?”

“How do you want to be remembered?”

“What does it mean to you to live and be well?”

And the even larger question “What are you doing in pursuit of that life?”

OR “What do you need to transition toward that life?”

These questions are some I’m consistently reflecting upon in my pursuit of being a new mom and thus in a new stage of life. Any of you in my inner circle or small social media circle know that I am an unexpected single mom, who truly is surviving through the amazing childcare assistance of my mother and through the support of my “village.” While a lot of my thoughts and inner questions are posed toward transitioning into this next stage of being a parent, I want this blog and the potential support offered here to be applicable to any reader who decides to join us. I also have to give baseline credit to my own mother for asking me a similar question (Who do I want my son to know me as?), which further pushed me toward embracing this path and ensuring that I hold on to the values and authentic self I had discovered in the years prior.

I also want to be transparent here and share that I am partly toying with idea of figuring out how and whether to make a career change. This blog is part of my exploration of that idea. I’ve been teaching college classes for years on personal health, stress & wellness, and a variety of graduate level nutrition and global health topics. I’ve mentored students toward professional and personal goals while promoting self-care. I’ve picked myself up from a heart breaking time in my life, taught myself a variety of fabulous outdoor hobbies and engaged in many other great forms of self-care while becoming the version of myself that I am today. But now I’m wondering whether there’s a desire for any of that to transition toward helping to support others on an individual level to become happier, healthier, more authentic versions of themselves….

…and regardless of whether this turns into anything more, it’s nice just to share with others on this fabulous and challenging journey of life! That being said, you might occasionally see me promote a product because I truly love it and it aligns with my values. You might also see me eventually try to create a wellness coaching-like business or "something" (picture bug eyes here just from actually writing that out--who knows?).

Until then…. Let’s be in pursuit of being happy, healthy, authentic, and well….together!

As always, wishing you the best,

Elizabeth

The Final Tri....And He Arrived!

We're now four months post-partum and I just felt the strongest pull to get back into blogging, however finding any time to do so is an absolute challenge of its own of course.

However let's recap....back to the days when I felt exhausted...just in a different way :)

The second trimester was fairly pleasant all things considered and I even felt fairly decent a large portion of the final trimester too. The most challenging aspect of the final trimester was that my body didn't hold up quite the way I'd hoped. By month 7, my pelvic muscles would start to "lock down" if I walked over a mile and my SI joint ached after almost any yoga, so months 8-9 contained almost no physical activity. In the final 1.5 months heartburn also caught up with me to the point of interrupting sleep some nights. While these were two aspects that definitely were not fun to deal with, I will forever be grateful that my sleep was never super negatively impacted during pregnancy. In fact, during the final weeks, I spent a LOT of time sleeping. I also never had much issue with swelling nor any issues with muscle cramps, which I still attribute to the epsom salt baths.

I think it was around 28 weeks that I finally realized that the medical group I'd been going to most definitely did not align with my desires and values, thus I actually marched out of a required group visit over a dispute on C-section rates and at that point started looking for a new provider. At 30 weeks, I'd discovered a naturopathic delivery center but after reading shaky financial reviews and having a negative response time from their billing department, I decided to keep looking. I finally discovered another midwifery option with good reviews and had my consultation with the woman who became my midwife at 32 weeks.

At 36 weeks, I was praying that lil man would stay put as I still needed to get my students through their final projects. At 38 weeks and after passing the mucus plug, I let the midwife initially check me before driving  the hour down to my parents house for a potentially final good-bye visit with my granny who was being put on hospice. At that visit I was told that my body had enough signs that he could start to arrive at anytime. Since I still needed to grade 20 group papers and get winter term grades in, I was praying all that week and the next while being super stressed out about an earlier arrival than what would work best with my schedule. Thankfully he stayed put....and then he stayed put....and stayed put. Ha! At 40 weeks, my body still showed signs that anytime could be go time and I had researched average gestational periods for biracial babies. At 41 weeks, I was required to have a follow-up ultrasound to make sure all was still okay in there for him to be able to keep going, but post-ultrasound I elected to a) have my membranes stripped and b) to schedule an induction. I wanted to give him time to come on his own post-stripping of the membranes, so I elected to schedule for when the midwife would be on-call about four days away. While I had some contractions that night, no labor started.

The next day my mom (who was staying with me that week just in case) and I drove the hour or so to the Woodburn Tulip Festival to try to distract away my frustration. While the trip didn't get him to arrive, it was an absolutely beautiful day!

We ended the day with yummy fajitas at a nearby Mexican restaurant. That night I had one of the most uncomfortable ones of the entire pregnancy (which I've reflected upon this many times in the months since for reasons I'll share later). I couldn't sleep at all and it felt like he was just wanting to crawl out of his own skin in there. He couldn't get comfortable, I couldn't get comfortable, no sleep was happening, my anxiety was up, and I was wishing I would have scheduled the induction earlier.

I don't remember much about Saturday, but it was during a deep sleep that night that I was awakened about 330am by the dogs wanting to go out. When I went to the bathroom I felt extremely nauseous and couldn't stop shaking. About 45 minutes after that I woke my mom up to keep me company because I felt so weird...and after laying in my king sized bed with me for 15 -20 minutes she decided that I was in labor and that we should go to the hospital. A little after 5am we were on the way to the hospital and my contractions were six minutes apart. I was checked in around 6am and then labored for several hours in the shower before eventually transitioning to the hospital bed.

Ironically we had gone into labor the morning of the induction :) Little guy arrived on his own time and I truly can't complain about my L&D experience. They followed my desired birth plan to a T and my L&D nurse was truly remarkable. I labored naturally the majority of the time until I finally decided about 2.5 hours prior to delivery that I "didn't need to be anyone's hero" so I asked for some initial level pain relief.

The biggest things I remember from L&D: I wanted complete silence during contractions (and ironically both my mom and sister are super chatty but soon respected my wishes), I worked through contractions in the same way that I work through running by either zoning out or repeating mantras in my head, I counted down the final 10 minutes until they could administer the next pain meds for the 5 rounds that I received them, I vomited on three occasions until I decided they could give me the anti-nausea meds after all since I went with the pain meds, I wanted to push before I was officially ready and in the end they gave me the green light ahead of time to move the baby down anyway (he never "fully engaged"), pushing felt way different than I could have ever expected, labor felt way different than I could have ever expected, my biggest pain was the muscle cramps that happened in my quads & glutes which are always my problem areas, and I'll never forget not even realizing he was out and following the instructions to look down....and discovering my little man laying on my chest :)

I truly lucked out....my sister was an incredible labor support, we were immensely blessed by my L&D nurse, my labor was 8ish hours and I pushed for 10-20 minutes, baby boy was healthy at 8lbs, 2oz and 22 inches long. All very good things indeed!

What I don't remember? Apparently yelling that I never needed to have sex again. Haha!

What advice would I give for the hospital delivery?

Bring Chapstick. I'd read online to take chapstick...and it's a must have!

Best things to labor in? A tankini for the shower and a short tank dress/beach cover-up for the bed.
A nursing tank and a pair of shorts were all I needed until I went home.

Truly there wasn't much we needed in the hospital. An outfit to labor in, the items to lounge in, a weather appropriate going home outfit for me and him. Toiletries to shower and that's it. Granted we only stayed one night and I tend to be super minimalist about that type of stuff, but we way overpacked for both him and I.

When they offer you the granny hospital panties, ice pads, tucks, and water spritzing bottle...use and take all of it! :)

Write out your birth plan. That's sort of a given, but it was great to have it read by my mother, my sister, and photocopied into my medical chart.

Always remember you are your own best health advocate. Granted you need a team to help you but advocate for what you want. I wanted to go home early and I stated that as soon as it was apparent that we both were a-ok. From the moment we were wheeled downstairs, the entire team knew we were working toward an early release. (Interestingly in checking the numbers later, only staying one night also probably saved me another $1000 or more....)

Write a thank-you and take flowers to any awesome providers. We made our L&D nurse cry in return, but we couldn't have had a more incredible support than through her being a part of our team.

When they offer you as much food as you want for free? Order and eat all of it. There are so many calories to replenish! Also order as you for whoever spends that first night with you! I ate a TON and drank a total of about ten juices to help replenish lost electrolytes.

I'm hopeful to recap some other helpful pieces in future posts as I start getting back into blogging (hopefully), but the reality is each birth story is a unique one! As much as I love my baby, I'm truly hopeful that was the only birth story I'll ever share-ha.

These first few months have been rough and beautiful in their own right...but those stories are still to come too...... :)