Granola, anyone?

I'm not into labels. But it's hard to avoid them. When parenting styles come up, it's often a question of "are you crunchy or not".

I have a really hard time putting myself completely into one group or the other. My "crunchy" friends probably don't think I'm all that crunchy, while my "non-crunchy" friends probably think I am! I think that proves that I fall somewhere in the middle.

For the sake of blabbering about any and everything (something I am known for and love to do), I thought I'd just give a rundown on my take on some of the "crunchy" (or not) aspects to my parenting style.

disclaimer: I am not saying I think that what I choose to do is the best for everyone (or anyone else for that matter). I'm simply sharing what we did. I am a firm believer in doing what works best for YOU AND YOUR BABY. If something is working for the both of you, then that's GREAT! If it stops working for one or both of you, then it's probably time to re-evaluate. Just my two cents.

BREASTFEEDING
I am an avid breastfeeding supporter! I think it's the absolute best thing you can do for your baby. Having said that, the longest I've been able to exclusively breastfeed one of my babies was 2 weeks, and the longest I was ever able to breatfeed at all (with supplementation) was 6 months. I have a whole long sob story to go along with that (which I'm sure I'll share at some point), but if I could control it, I would have most definitely breastfed my kids until they self-weaned or until probably age 2-3. I most likely would have been ok with nursing through a pregnancy, and possibly tandem nursing - but that opportunity never presented itself to me, and most likely never will.

COSLEEPING
We coslept with each of our children for varying lengths of time. Natalie coslept with us exclusively until she was about a month old, when I tried putting her in her crib at night. That worked well for almost a month, when she got sick, and wanted to nurse more often at night, so back to our bed she came. Eric and I both loved cosleeping with her and had a really hard time getting her to sleep in her own bed, because we wanted her in our bed. When I got pregnant with Erica, it became evident to us that we needed to work on getting Natalie into her bed, and into her own room. It took pretty much my whole pregnancy to get there. But we've seen no ill effects from that whatsoever!

Erica coslept with us exclusively at night for the first few months. Once she started taking more regular naps, I'd put her in her crib for naptime. And once she started sleeping for longer stretches at night, I'd start her in her crib. And then when she woke up to eat, I'd bring her to bed with us for the remainder of the night. At about 6 months, she started sleeping through the night, therefore, staying in her crib all night.

We did pretty much the same with Graham as we did with Erica. Except there came a point, when I would bring him to our bed during the night, and then he would go back to sleep after eating, but it was a fitful sleep, and I wasn't sleeping well at all. So I started getting him up to feed him, then putting him back in his crib for the rest of the night. And that seems to be what worked best for him (and me).

BABYWEARING
I didn't even know such a term existed when I had Natalie. I'd bought a Snugli type baby carrier for her, but only tried it a couple times because she HATED it.

When I got pregnant with Erica, I had a friend who had a Maya Wrap, and another friend who had a different type of ring sling. I really wanted to try it out because the idea of having my hands free to deal with my toddler, once my infant was here, was great! So I ordered a Sleeping Baby Ring Sling and we were in love! Erica LOVED it. She cried A LOT as a baby (like nonstop unless she was eating or sleeping - which she did a lot of the time in the sling). When she got a little older, I tried a mei tai and we loved it too!

When Graham came along, I had ordered another Sleeping Baby Ring Sling (because the one I had with Erica was pink stripes) in red. I soon found though, that for whatever reason, it wasn't working as well for us. Every child is different! I had several friends recommend the Moby Wrap so I ordered one of those. Ahhhhh, perfect! Most people said that once the baby reaches 15lbs, it probably wouldn't work for us anymore. But Graham is now around 18lbs, and it still works well enough for us. He can face out, or sit more on my hip when he's awake. Or he can face in and get all snuggled up when he wants to sleep.

I do however own both a single and double stroller, and still use them as well. Babywearing became necessity when Erica came along though because she HATED her carseat. She would scream bloody murder from the moment you put her in it, until the moment you took her out. I had no choice when she was actually riding in the car, but unless you wanted to hear a child screaming like a banshee, I couldn't just pop the carseat into my stroller and be on my merry way. It was just much easier to instead pop her into the sling and go. I'm not one who ALWAYS wears my baby ALL THE TIME. I do it when it makes my life easier.

CLOTH DIAPERING
I had no interest in even trying this with Natalie. I also didn't know that today's cloth diapers are NOT the cloth diapers your mama used. They have come A LONG way since then. When I was pregnant with Erica, I thought about it, but Eric wasn't interested, so I never pursued it. Then with Graham I was more interested in it, and even went so far as to buy a few from a friend who makes and sells them. I used those 3 diapers a few times, but Eric said he didn't want me to buy anymore, he didn't want to change cloth diapers and blah blah blah. So, I knew that without his support on the matter, it wasn't something I wanted to continue. I think cloth diapering is great, but apparently not the right fit for our family.

BABY FOOD
We started Natalie on baby early, she was just shy of 4 months. At the time, she was nursing several times a day, and still taking over 30oz. of formula. Her pediatrician recommended we start solids, and that's what I did.

With Erica, I wanted to wait until 6 mos before introducing solids. I also wanted to make my own baby food for her. I was babysitting another baby at the time (he and Erica were both about 4 mos old). He had already started solids, and it was too funny to watch Erica's face and as she watched me feed him. Such longing in such a young child's face LOL. So I did start her around 5 mos. I made my own sweet potatoes and squash. She did NOT handle them well at all. She threw them back up and just acted like they were complete poison. I tried some jarred baby food to see if it made a difference, and it was like night and day. She devoured the jarred stuff. So that was that for me then.

Then again when Graham came along, I thought I'd try my hand at it again. He started eating some solids around 5 months. He handled the homemade food just fine, but didn't really seem to like it. He LOVES jarred food (everything except green veggies). I'm not giving up completely yet though. I do still plan to make fruit and veggie purees (as I sneak them into our other meals periodically) and trying them out on him.

ORGANIC/OTHERWISE SUPER HEALTHY FOODS
This is probably where I am the least crunchy. I don't set out to buy only organic produce (except for what I use to make purees). I do try to make sure we are eating mostly healthy foods (for meals and snacks), with a good variety from the food pyramid. But we do have unhealthy snacks in the house (like cookies, ice cream, etc.). I just try to make "better" choices for as to what my kids eat. Like instead of pure sugar popsicles, we make our own with apple juice and a drop of food coloring. At home my kids drink milk, juice, or water. At restaurants they sometimes can have lemonade or fruit punch. They RARELY get cokes, and even then it's usually only Root Beer, because they don't need caffeine. I can probably count on one hand the number of times they've ever actually drank it. They don't get dessert after every meal, though they do get sweet snacks a few times a week. I always offer a fruit and/or veggie with each meal.

VACCINATIONS
I do refuse some vaxxes for my kids. And I also delay some. And they also get some on schedule. Natalie has the most vaxxes (because when she first came along, I didn't question anything. If the dr. said so, that was good enough for me), and Erica and Graham have about the same (well obviously Erica has more since she is older, but I think you catch my drift).

CIRCUMCISION
If it were up to me, Graham would not have been circumcised. Eric and I went back and forth on it, and I eventually just let him make the call. MckMama has a great post on her blog about her opinions on circumcision and I actually happen to believe pretty much the same as her. And she just speaks so much more eloquently that I... so feel free to read up about it on her blog (just search for circumcision at the top of her blog). "I believe that defaulting to our children's fathers on this issue is a fine way to handle this, whichever direction the decision goes." And that's what I did.



In a nutshell, I don't do things this way to appear crunchy or not. I do things the way I do them because it's what works for us.