More Than Baby Blues, Mommy Blues and a Giveaway

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Dear Leakies,

Can you come in close? I want to tell you something very important:

Your life matters.

It’s not just because you care so well for you children, (even when you don’t feel like you’re doing a great job).

It’s not because your family depends on you to be unfailingly strong, (even when you feel so weak you cannot fathom getting out of bed in the mornings).

It’s not because of anything you do or don’t do today. 

This nurturing, giving, feeding, parenting journey is hard. Sometimes unbearably so. 

18 months ago, my son was diagnosed with a rare syndrome that made him allergic to food. Not just a few things, but about 99% of all foods. He had a traumatic, life-threatening injury at birth and we came so close to losing him. We were just starting to get our footing back when he was diagnosed with FPIES

My rope, the one I had been hanging onto for 7 months, the one that was frayed and just starting to strengthen again? That one. It broke. And I broke with it. I felt shattered. I was in emotional/psychological free-fall, the pieces of me scattering across the ground that felt impossibly far away and also like it was rising up to swallow me. (See Feeding Echo, here.)

I struggled periodically with some anxiety and depression in the 34 years before I gave birth, as well as PTSD, although I would never have labeled them at the time. I was under the very harmful and mistaken impression that any sort of mood, personality, or mental disorder or imbalance meant that my life would stop and I would forever wear a scarlet letter for the Crazy I carried around in my brain. And if I was Crazy, it meant that nothing I said or did mattered anymore…continue reading here.

____________________

Carrie Saum, headshot

The One With the Unexpected

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Dear Leakies,

As parents we expect certain things to happen along the way. Certainly, we have expectations of our job description. And much of it happens the way we expect. Except none of it actually what we expected. We make plans, we have provisions, and then our kids show us that we’re really just flying by the seat of our pants and learning as we go. Course correction will be necessary because we may expect:

  • To sleep.
  • To have children that are developmentally above average.
  • To get to shower daily.
  • To have a home always picture perfect for unexpected company.
  • To not have a picky eater.
  • To be able to flush the toilet without having your child meltdown.

These seem like reasonable expectations and maybe they are but it is likely they may become challenged and challenging. The question sometimes becomes serve the expectation or care for your child.

The truth is, our children are going to break us. And that can be a good thing. 

And then sometimes life just throws us punches that change the whole path. At first that path may seem ugly, overwhelmingly challenging, and potentially very lonely. It may be exactly those things. But it may also open you up to experience beauty you never imagined and when you tell your story, companionship you never expected… read more here

____________________

Jessica Martin-Weber
Founder, TheLeakyBoob.com

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#TLBsafeKids: Home Safety Tips

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This newsletter brought to you by our friends at

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Dear parents,

One of our primary concerns as parents is the safety of our children. They depend on us for nutrition first, but also for everything from diaper changes, the clothes they wear, the place where they sleep, cuddles and kisses, a clean house, bandaids, car seats, child-proofing, to owning kid-friendly products, teaching them safe practices while out and about, and more, all of which are connected to keeping our little bundles of joy safe.

And nothing brings out the mama and papa bear in us than hearing, or just fearing, that our children may not be safe. 

For this edition of #TLBsafeKids newsletter, we are zooming in on safety in our homes. There is a balance that all parents need to strike between creating a bubble-wrap world for their kids and letting them have an all-access pass to everything in the house. One extreme leads to kids – and then adults – with limited problem-solving skills and a stunted understanding of their own limits. The other is more or less a test of survival with the real possibility of severe and lasting consequences. 

Some of the safety precautions that we have chosen for our home have come straight out of our own near-tragic experiences.

For example, we have never had much aesthetic appreciation for blinds, but every home that we have lived in has had some for us to enjoy. When EarthBaby, our first child, started toddling around, we found ways to make sure the pull-strings were safely out of reach of her little hands. We tied them up in knots, we hung them up over the blinds, we were creative. Fast-forward a number of years and a few children, and Jessica and I went on a trip, entrusting our children to some dear, trusted friends with children of their own. While we were away, one of our children ended up getting tangled up in the strings of their blinds, with one section of string pulled up tight around her neck. Fortunately, our friends got her untangled right away, with no more serious injury than a slight rope burn on our child’s neck. They relayed the story to us, horrified, and explained that it has been a while since they had small children in the house and didn’t think of all the ways they needed to child-proof their house. In our current house, we simply took the blinds down, preferring to risk someone taking a peek into our open lives than to keep the ugly things up. If we were ever to choose to put them back up, we would most likely invest in a cord winder like the ones Rhoost makes for home safety.  

I won’t go into as much detail with other examples… read more here.

#TLBsafeKids, Home Safety Tips, newsletter

____________________

Jeremy Martin-Weber, headshot, The Piano Man

SAFE SLEEP: What it IS. What it ISN’T.

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Bonus giveaway code for the Baby Guy Box hidden in this week’s email, don’t miss out! 
Sleep. It’s on the brain. What is enough? How do we get more of it? Can you actually MAKE little people sleep? (HA! Trick question.) What is safe? What works for me? We’re talking about Safe Sleep for all ages this week with our TLB family. Want to get more advice on parenting or connecting with your family? Jump down to Our Stable Table and Beyond Moi or get connected on our NEW Facebook Group for more tips on #TLBsafeKids

                This Newsletter and #TLBsafeKids brought to you by the generous support of                     
                               
Hey Leakies,How ya sleepin’? One of the most common questions new parents get is if their baby is a “good” sleeper or if they’re sleeping through the night “yet” (asked as soon as day 2). As if sleep is some determiner of quality parenting, these questions are poised with utmost concern, as if the number of hours an infant sleeping being the ultimate in parenting success.But nobody is asking if our babies are sleeping safely.

Well, we are. This month we’re focusing on safety with #TLBsafeKids with our sponsors with clek car seatsCalifornia Baby skin careNewton crib mattressesCatBirth Baby CarriersCrane USA humidifiers, and Rhoost and we’re talking about it all, including safe sleep. It is a controversial topic, not everyone agrees on what constitutes safe sleep arrangements for infants. Not even public health officials. Campaigns focused on completely different ends of the spectrum abound. We’re not here to tell you one right way, we’re here to engage in a conversation and share information together. We respect you to make the best, informed decision that is right for your family according to the resources, circumstances, and information that are a part of your reality.

So, is your baby sleeping safely?

Safe sleep can look several different ways. Here are some of my favorite resources for safe sleep information. Pick what works for you.

  • Co-sleeping: room-sharing. Setting up the space to work for your family is key. If the baby’s sleep space is attached to the parental bed or not depends on your needs. Room sharing could be a bassinet by your bed, a co-sleeper (such as Arm’s Reach) attached to your bed to facilitate breastfeeding, a converted crib set up to side-car with the parental bed, a free-standing crib (safe crib set-up here), or a safe mattress on the floor. There are options and it is likely you’ll need to adapt as your child grows. There’s a good amount of evidence that room-sharing can be a great thing!
  • Co-sleeping: bed sharing. Anthropologist and leading infant sleep expert, Dr. James McKenna from the University of Notre Dame has many resources for co-sleeping families here. Detailed safe co-sleeping arrangements describedhere. This WikiHow has a thorough step-by-step guide for setting up your bed sharing space safely and Rebecca Michi shares how to safely figure out what works for your family with bed-sharing here.  Why the normal infant wants to be at your chest– one of my favorite articles on normal, healthy, term infants sleep and feeding behavior.
  • Separated sleep: own room. Be it in a crib or a Montessori bed (what’s that and why?), setting your baby up in their own room also requires intentional safe set-up. I love this in-depth check-list for safe crib set-up. And here are some tips for when it is time to transition your child from a crib to a bed.
  • Separated sleep: shared room with other child. As a mom of 6, whenever our babies have transitioned out of our room, they’ve pretty much transitioned into sharing a room with a big sister. There are some special considerations to make when setting up space for siblings sharing a room together at a young age. You’ll need to check for additional safety concerns for room sharing with siblings such as checking that choking hazards haven’t been introduced to your younger child’s bed (*cough* Legos *cough*) or that the sleep space has otherwise been compromised. The same safe sleep standards for cribs apply if you’re using one and it isn’t recommended for infants to co-sleep alone with siblings. Here’s what a Montessori bed set up for twins looks like and the mom shares what she has learned along the way.

As a family we have also made some other arrangements for our sleep space safety. For our basement bedrooms, we use air purifiers (we’re in an old musty house) and during the winter when we’re running the heat, we have humidifiers running in all of our sleep spaces. Babies in particular benefit from having a humidifier running when they are sleeping (tiny nasal passages mean tiny pathways for their air!) see here for info and ideas, (but make sure you’re avoiding potential problems by caring for your humidifier correctly!) so we make sure to have a humidifier set up where our babies are sleeping.

However you and your littles ones are sleeping at night may it be safe and eventually, enough.

To read more in our newsletter and find the bonus code for The Baby Guys Box inside, VISIT HERE 

Peace,

Jessica Martin-Weber
Founder, TheLeakyBoob.com

Are We Getting It Wrong? TLB’s Latest Newsletter

Dear Leakies,

962543b9-ef8a-4e3a-bd8b-cbc3a5a5bfcbI’ve pondered what to write here for World Breastfeeding Week but the truth is for TLB every single day is World Breastfeeding Day so I find myself coming up with all the same things to say. Not to mention that after MiLK last week (a huge success!) I’m exhausted and focusing on my family. But every year as World Breastfeeding Week rolls around I find myself wondering if we’re getting it all wrong? Are we asking the wrong questions? Speaking (YELLING?) at the wrong people? Considering the wrong issues?

This year it seems like maybe not, we’re talking about breastfeeding and the work place, important matters to discuss. But who is doing the talking?

But my family needs me and so does yours.

So I don’t have much to say. It really just boils down to these bullet points:

Feed your baby.

Shut out the haters.

Push for positive change including work place policies.

Cheer on companies that support breastfeeding and go against the grain.

Spread love, grace, and understanding.

People before feeding methodology.

Feed your baby.

Read these posts for inspiration: breastfeeding friendly work place; breastfeeding passion and TLB mission; and the breastfeeding family. Scroll down through the newsletter for more on how we maybe need to change the conversation.

To read MORE on our latest newsletter, and to watch an exclusive video I wanted to share with you on this subject, WATCH HERE.

Happy Breastfeeding! Happy Bottle-feeding too.

Peace,

Jessica Martin-Weber

I WAS WRONG: Supporting FEEDING CHOICES-Why It Matters To Us

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Dear Leakies,

First, don’t miss out on the big giveaway featuring TWO Tula Baby carriers (a wrap and a soft structure carrier), a set of 4 Eco Vessel water bottles from Eyla’s, 4 tubes of Thinkbaby sunblock, and a Belabumbum sporty mesh nursing bra and nursing racerback cami. Find more info further down in this issue including the secret entry code.

Secondly, I was wrong, so wrong. For a long time I thought there had to be one right way to do anything. That there was a script for life that if you just followed it, everything would turn out how it should.

Only when I tried it I discovered 2 things: 1) I couldn’t always follow the script either because lack of skill, opportunity, or burn out and 2) even when I did stick to the script others didn’t or it didn’t matter anyway.

So it is that I’ve learned there are many ways to mother, many ways to define success, many ways to be healthy, many ways to be active, many ways to be educated, many ways to love, many ways to dream, many ways to have a baby, many ways to feed that baby, many ways to care for that baby, and many ways to bring up that baby. And on and on and on.

In most areas in life, there is no one right way, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

Let’s get moving, let’s feed our babies, let’s live and enjoy life, and let’s have grace for the ourselves in the journey.

Let’s do it together.

Find community on our Facebook page, our Facebook community group, our #TLBmoves community group, and relational resources on The Leaky boob website, Beyond Moi website talking about relationships and life, and OurStableTable.com bringing the whole family around the table with recipes and conversation. TO ENTER GIVEAWAYS and find out more, READ HERE.

-Jessica

Discounts, Giveaway, Milk, and Moving!

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Dear Leakies,

I’m going to keep this short and sweet:

LET’S GET MOVING!

It’s time for #TLBmoves and we’re working up a sweat and to an awesome giveaway with our friends from Tula, ThinkBaby ThinkSport, Belabumbum Active Wear, and Eyla’s Imports. Find out more information here.

Whatever it looks like for you, we’re supporting each other on getting moving towards health and wholeness. For many of us, learning about and then actually feeding our babies was the gateway to more conscientious living, a sort of snowball effect. Establishing health habits as a way of life is, of course, a good thing. And the family that moves together is healthy together. (For some inspiration, here’s 100 years of fitness fads in 100 seconds video fun.) Share your journey with us using the hashtag #TLBmoves on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and if you’d like to go deeper, submit your story like Kelsey by emailing content@theleakyboob.com.

I’m enjoying moving with my family and I’m moving closer and closer to Milk! Bringing together many of the people who inspire me, I’ve created Milk: An Infant Feeding Conference with Xza Higgins, founder of MommyCon. Taking place in L.A. July 31st and August 1st, this conference is for health care providers (offering continuing education credits and contact hours) and families. Founded on the belief that infant feeding support makes a difference and can directly influence confidence levels in parents, MiLK focuses on information sharing and mindful support that builds parents up without tearing down, respecting the unique journey of each of us. MiLK aims to actively educate and support infant feeding by connecting health care providers and the families they care for discussing breastfeeding, formula feeding, breastmilk pumping, at the breast supplementing, bottle feeding, cup feeding, spoon feeding… FEEDING. This is not, to be clear, a breastfeeding conference. It is an infant feeding conference with a goal of bringing together health care providers and parents where we can learn from each other. Most importantly, I hope we learn how to really listen and what support can really looks like.

To help you move that direction with me, we have a huge giveaway that includes enough tickets for your local breastfeeding group! For that extra newsletter entry option, GET YOUR INFORMATION HERE!

Exploring Solids With Baby and Giveaway Codes!

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Dear Leakies,

I love this issue! Secret newsletter exclusive giveaway codes, tips on feeding, recipes, and a special word from our friends at Paxbaby. Go all the way down to the end to see it all!

Feeding our babies is a big deal from the very beginning and oddly enough, causes a lot of controversy (did you see that FB rejected our money for an ad claiming “nudity” and “adult content?” We just see babies being fed.
Every milestone is an exciting experience with and for our little ones and introducing solids is one of the biggest. What to introduce and when to introduce it are important considerations many of parents agonize over. In many ways the introduction of solids is an emotional time, bittersweet and significant as it signifies our babies growing up and the first step away from the feeding of their infancy. It can be easy to rush it or even hold back delaying the inevitable, but whenever and however it happens, it can be such a fun stage and it’s time to join us at Our Stable Table where we talk about nourishing our families beyond the breast or bottle and including everything from recipes to conversations that happen around the table.

Making the decisions for starting your baby on solids can be overwhelming. Between conflicting information, personal opinions, and outdated recommendations, navigating those decisions becomes particularly difficult when you factor in concerns about allergies, readiness, and your mother-in-law’s insisting that starting rice cereal at 4 weeks was the best thing ever.

Whatever you choose to do, The Leaky Boob wants to offer you information and support, respecting your responsibility in making informed decisions for your family. While some will feel it is important to wait until 6 months or more to introduce any solids, some will feel that their child is showing signs of readiness between 4-6 months and with the support of their child’s doctor will start giving their baby first foods.
And if you do have a child with allergies, it is an entirely different ballgame and getting friends and family to respect those boundaries is no small challenge. We talk about that here.
Some resources to help you get started or just for curiosity’s sake: American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations on introducing solids, recent research on introducing solids and allergies, exploring baby-led solids, information on puree solids, and making your own baby food.

Whatever you do with introducing solids, and I’ve done just about all the options with my children, I hope you enjoy the process.

Ready to read more?! GO HERE to hunt for the codes and get the best information on transitioning your little one to solids! 

Epic MiLK! The Leaky Times Newsletter Vol.8

by Kileah McIlvain

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Dear Leakies,

This may come as a shock, but I’m not passionate about breastfeeding.

Which is why I hope you all can join me at Milk: An Infant Feeding Conference on August 1st in Los Angelas, CA. This conference is all about bringing together everyone involved in infant feeding conversations to learn how to listen, share information, and offer true support. Support that isn’t possible when we’re judging and shaming individuals.

Nearly every day we hear from moms they concern about how they are feeding their baby. Guilt weaves through their words. With heartbreak they share their story, aching at what they perceive to be failure and hoping we can offer some magic fix. We tell them all the same thing.

Feed the baby. That’s the first rule of infant feeding care, FEED THE BABY. Because no matter what methodology, the baby must be fed. Not feeding the baby IS failure.

If there were a first rule of infant feeding support, it should be “DON’T BE A JERK.” Followed closely by “SUPPORT THE PERSON OVER THE METHODOLOGY.” Being a jerk and supporting a methodology over people IS failure.

Feeding the baby isn’t failure.

Sometimes, the people that should be the most supportive, end up offering unsupportive support.

READ MORE HERE!

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“The One Where We Nurture The Nurturer <3” The Leaky Times Newsletter, Vol. 4

Welcome to The Leaky Boob’s latest newsletter: “Weaning and Beyond!”

Some of the formatting didn’t adjust to our website just right; to see it in a new window the way it was meant to look, click here!

Tell us what you think in a comment below! How do you like it? What feature would you include in future newsletters? What is your favorite feature?

If you would like what you see and would like to subscribe to future TLB Newsletters, you can do so here:

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The following is a little preview of what’s included in this week’s newsletter:

Hey there, Leaky! This week we’re talking about Nurturing the Nurturer. YOU. Taking care of yourself so that you can thrive in this season of your life! We have some fantastic interactive links and articles designed to encourage you in self-care and celebrate in anticipation of Mother’s Day on May 10th! Keep scrolling for some YUMMY recipes, new Leaky Comic, our upcoming MILK conference, and our LAST giveaway for TLB’s Birthday celebration. You don’t want to miss out! 

In The One Where We Nurture The Nurturer you will find:

Newsletter exclusive: letter to the Leakies from TLB founder, Jessica Martin-Weber.

Our BEST articles and advice on taking care of YOU.

Information on MiLK: An Infant Feeding Conference.

Ask The CPST Feature.

Boobs and Bottles Around the Web.

Leaky to Leaky Tips for Self-nurturing.

Leaky Chronicles.

A special recipe from Our Stable Table.

Highlights from our sister sites.

TLB Comics.

To access all this and more, read the newsletter here and be sure to sign up to have it delivered directly to your inbox.