…exploring the art and science of parenting

Welcome to PhD in Parenting! I was thrilled to be nominated for Most Provocative Blog and have been overwhelmed by the great support from my readers. Have fun looking around and be sure to check out my little ramble on why this blog is provocative:

What’s so provocative about this blog anyways?

Looking forward to the party in Chicago!

Photo credit: Dan4th on flickr

There has been a lot of media attention lately on mothers who were arrested while apparently breastfeeding drunk. There is emphasis put on the world breastfeeding. Like it is a horrible and awful sin to be drinking while breastfeeding. A few examples:

• A drunken mother was breast-feeding her five-month-old baby at the wheel when she almost crashed into a police car, horrified officers discovered. The teenager was so sloshed she could not provide a roadside breath test and was arrested at the scene in the Australian town of Alice Springs. (From Mail Online)

• A North Dakota woman accused of breastfeeding her six-week-old baby while drunk has pleaded guilty to child neglect. PRISON POSSIBLE. Twenty-six-year-old Stacey Anvarinia could face up to five years in prison when she’s sentenced on the felony charge in August. (From Associated Press in Edmonton Sun)

I don’t think it is a good idea to be drunk while breastfeeding. But here is the thing, if someone is drunk while caring for a baby, the damage that could be done by breastfeeding is the least of the problems. If you are drunk and caring for a baby, you could:

• Drop the baby
• Hurt yourself and be unable to care for the baby
• Be too drunk to take your injured self or injured baby to the hospital
• Fall asleep with and suffocate the baby
• Pass out and be unable to respond to the baby’s needs
• Do stupid things like driving a car while drunk and not even putting the baby in a car seat

Breastfeeding while drunk is not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. As the first commenter on this post Teenager Caught Drunk Driving WHILE BREASTFEEDING says:

Luckily for the baby, the amount of alcohol in your breast milk mirrors your blood alcohol level. So, even if mom had an nearly lethal level of 0.2% that’s not even the equivalent of a tenth of a weak beer. The baby was more likely to incur bodily harm by being handled by a drunken loser than to experience alcohol poisoning.

I said as much when I commented on a review of the Milk Screen product that allows you to measure whether you have too much alcohol in your breast milk or not. I said:

Thank you for the review. It is interesting to see how the thing works.

However, I wonder what they use to determine “safe” levels.

I don’t know that I would rely on the research listed on Milkscreen’s Web site. I’m sure they picked and chose the studies that would make their product seem necessary.

If you look at LLL’s FAQ on alcohol, there are a few things of interest:

1) “Maternal blood alcohol levels must attain 300 mg/dl before significant side effects are reported in the infant. ” That number didn’t really mean anything to me, so I looked it up and it turns out that those types of alcohol levels would only be found in chronic alcoholics or someone that has been drinking straight for several days (Source).

That doesn’t mean that you hadn’t had too much to drink that one night and perhaps the test is right and you shouldn’t have been nursing. But would you have stepped behind the wheel of a car? Do you have a breathalyzer at home to blow in before you drive if you’ve been drinking the night before?

2) The thing that breastfeeding moms should be more worried about perhaps is the effect that drinking too much has on their milk supply, letdown and intake levels by the baby. If a woman drinks regularly, even moderate amounts, and her baby is having trouble gaining weight, then she might want to consider stopping for a while.

For me personally, I do breastfeed and I do drink. But in the more than 4 years now that I have been nursing, there is only one night that I ever had more than 2 drinks and that was a total of maybe 3 drinks or a maximum of 4. I had those drinks early in the evening (between 5pm and 7pm), knowing that I wouldn’t be home until around 2am. I think even if I did nurse when I got home and even if the alcohol levels were a little higher than perhaps ideal, I don’t think it would have long lasting detrimental effects on my child. If I did it every night, perhaps. But once in 4 years…not the end of the world.

It is completely safe for a mom to have one or two drinks while breastfeeding. That doesn’t mean that she has to. Some prefer not to. But I hate when I hear about moms that decide they need to wean before their wedding anniversary or before the 4th of July or before Christmas because they want to have a drink or two.

There are some studies that have said that alcohol in your breastmilk can impact your milk supply and can impact the baby’s sleep. So if you are having trouble maintaining your supply or if your baby is not sleeping well (and we all know that is relative…most babies are not good sleepers, alcohol or no alcohol), then you may want to give up your drinks for a bit and see if it improves. But otherwise: Cheers! Enjoy a drink or two.  You do not need to be a martyr in order to be a breastfeeding mom.

But let’s be clear. Parents who are drunk while caring for their children are irresponsible. Perhaps they are alcoholics and deserve to get help. Perhaps they are just making a stupid mistake. But this shouldn’t be about breastfeeding unless the mom had hired a designated babysitter to take care of the child while she went on regular drinking binges and was having the baby brought to her to be breastfed while she was so drunk that she was almost passing out.

For more thoughts on the most recent case of the North Dakota woman who was arrested while caring for her baby while drunk see:

• Mother Charged For Drunk Breastfeeding: Details Emerge, and the Case Makes Less Sense by Cate Nelson @ Eco Child’s Play
• Yeah, I drink while breastfeeding. So arrest me. by Katie Allison Granju @ Babble

It is a beautiful Sunday evening. We are sitting on the balcony, overlooking the lake, having dinner with friends, an engaged couple that we do not know that well and that my two year old daughter has been very shy around in the past. The kids were playing peacefully (for the most part) while we chatted with our friends. Then, out of nowhere, my daughter walks over and stands between me and our friend Richard and announces:

“I love getting naked. I want to get naked. Take my clothes off.”

I am not putting you on. Those were the exact words that came out of her mouth. So after a few giggles, what did I do? I took her clothes off and she proceeded to play on the balcony naked. That is until she insisted on going inside the house, at which point I insisted on a diaper to avoid having the furniture smell any more like pee than it already does.

This is one of many opportunities that we have had, as parents, to teach our children that their bodies are normal. To allow them to develop a positive body image. And to let them feel the wind, the water and and sand on their soft skin.

I’m not alone in this. Some other great bloggers have written posts about being pro-naked baby.

In her article, My run-in with the naked baby police, Katie Allison Granju (@kgranju) writes about a woman that objected to her daughter and her cousin, both under 2 years old, playing naked in the baby pool in the front yard of her house.  Katie who explains that she has had several run-ins with what she calls the naked baby police, questions where some of our ridiculous notions come from:

I truly don’t get this cultural hang-up about letting little children be naked sometimes. When I worked as an au pair for a prosperous French family one summer, they happily let their four-year-old daughter play naked on the beach, as did all their friends. She did own a swimsuit, but it consisted of only a bikini bottom. No top. The idea that there was anything potentially sexual about this never occurred to these parents.

Ironically, the picture I chose for thist post is of my son and was taken in France.

Catherine Connors, who writes Her Bad Mother, put up a post about her nudist daughter a few months ago. In Good Girls (Don’t) Wear Underpants she explained:

I love that my daughter so exults in her physical being, that she is so unreservedly comfortable with her physical self. And yet I catch myself, sometimes, pestering her about sweaters and socks and underpants…When I pester her about putting something on – sweater, socks, underpants – I worry that I am nudging the boundaries of shaming. That she feels compelled to defend her choice to be naked, that she constructs ever more elaborate explanations for shunning underwear (my pachina gets scared in the dark!) – is that evidence that she struggles under the gaze of an over-anxious, prudish mother?

This is where I should pause to explain that my daughter’s most recent nudist streak started a mere few days ago on a Thursday afternoon at St. Luke’s park in Ottawa. We had heard that Her Bad Mother and Mother Bumper were rolling into town as part of the Canada Moms Road Trip and we decided to host a little get together for some of the Ottawa bloggers and the road trippers at the park (see pics on Muddy Boots Blog). The guests of honour got caught in traffic going through Montreal and were a bit late arriving. All of us locals were there and our children were having a great time, fully clothed I might add, and then Her Bad Mother and Mother Bumper showed up.

Their kids had barely made it across the lawn before they were stripping down to their underwear and hopping into the wading pool. Of course at that point, there was no stopping our kids! My daughter insisted on going into the pool and since we hadn’t planned ahead for this activity, she didn’t have a bathing suit or a swim diaper so I stripped her down to nothing and hoped that none of the lifeguards or other parents would complain. Thankfully none did. I have heard of incidents at other Ottawa area wading pools and unlike breastfeeding in public I am not fully aprised of the legalities of letting your two year old go naked on city property. So began her naked streak and it has been tough keeping clothes on her ever since then.

This is the gang (courtesy of Amy from Muddy Boots Blog):

But then there was my son. He is four years old, but the size of a seven year old. He saw his naked sister in the water and starting stripping his clothes off. The pants came off. The shirt came off. Then the Spiderman undies got dropped to the ground. This is where I drew the line. I told him he had to keep his underwear on. He said he loves his penis. I said, I know, it’s great, but it is private and other people don’t need to see it, so you need to keep your underwear on. There was some protest, but I sealed the deal by telling him he could go to dinner and home commando. Off he went to splash and play.

This wasn’t the first penis incident with my son though. The first came at school and I only heard about it a few weeks later. I was on the phone with the mother of one of his classmates and she mentioned the incident that had happened at school. I wasn’t aware of the incident, so she explained to me that my son, her son, and another boy had been caught showing each other their penises. She was very disturbed by this occurrence, she said. On the other end of the phone, I have to admit, I had trouble not bursting out laughing. I just didn’t think it was a big deal. I mean obviously children need to learn about modesty and privacy and we will have those talks, but it is normal for kids to do “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” games. And for me having my kid feel comfortable in his skin is the first priority.

After finishing the awkward conversation with this woman, I went home and wondered, was I wrong? Should I be more worried? I mean as kids we did this type of thing too (don’t look so shocked mom!). So I turned to the index of my Natural Family Living book to see what it had to say:

Between the ages of four and seven, children become more aware of their sexuality and begin to explore each other’s bodies. Such sexual play is almost universal. If you do not remember engaging in it yourself, it may be that you were too young to remember, or you blocked it out because of your parents’ frightening response.

The most harmful reaction to children’s sexual exploration is judging or punishing the behavior. If you express anger, shock, or alarm, you can squelch a child’s curiosity about her body and make her feel that what she did was abnormal. Reacting negatively may send your child the message that something is wrong with sexual curiosity.

This is followed by a series of tips on how to respond to this type of situation with sensitivity and teach children about privacy and setting limits. Using the tips from that book, along with a good dose of what I call common sense, the approach we are taking is to very much encourage our children to be comfortable in their own skin and happy with their own bodies. Then, at age appropriate moments, we will start to gradually introduce concepts of privacy and modesty.

When I hear stories about women who are ashamed to breastfeed in public, people who are ashamed to don a bathing suit, people who will only have sex in the dark, I wonder what happened to make them feel that way? Who told them to be ashamed of their bodies? Then I remember…oh right…high school and the media. Gotcha. But if they are to have a fighting chance of surviving those horrific influences on body image, I think our kids need our encouragement and support, in embracing and exploring their bodies as children.

So, let’s get naked!

Image credit: sweetbeetandgreenbean in flickr

Blood

We all need it.

Most of us make enough of it and don’t lose too much of it.

But some people will need donated blood due to medical conditions, accidents or surgery.

Breast Milk

Babies need it.

Most women make enough of it to satisfy their baby’s needs.

But some people will need to feed their babies artificial baby milk (also known as infant formula) due to medical conditions, adoption, or unresolved difficulties with breastfeeding.

Why?

Why is it that governments and health care providers make donor blood a priority, but don’t make donor milk a priority? Why is it that despite the existence of artificial blood products, we have intricate and complex systems set up to collect and screen donor blood from other human beings to provide to those in need. Why is it that despite the opportunity to set up similar systems to collect and screen donor milk we settle for giving our babies artificial milk products?

I don’t know.

Some have said that fake blood could be more convenient, more practical than human blood:

Artificial blood may be the most anxiously awaited liquid of all time. Why? You don’t have to refrigerate manufactured blood (like human blood) to keep it fresh. Fake blood can be stored at room temperature and dispensed in ambulances, rescue helicopters, even on battlefields.

Sure, there are risks to fake blood and it will never be the same as real blood. But there are also risks to fake baby milk and that doesn’t stop us from using it.

So why? Why do we line up to donate blood? Why does the government and the health care system put such great emphasis on the need to collect donor blood? Why do they call people at home and remind them of how much their blood is needed? Why do they take out full page ads in the newspaper reminding people of how much their blood is needed? I mean fake blood could be almost as good. Why not focus on that? Put some more research into it? It could be good for the economy. The companies that produce fake blood products would create jobs.

But breast milk? In Canada, there is one lone milk bank in Vancouver. Women across the rest of the country have a horrible time finding a way to donate if they want to. In the United States there are more milk banks than in Canada, but most of them are small and are very limited in terms of who they can provide milk to and how much they can provide.

Liquid gold

When I asked people on twitter if they had ever donated their milk, a lot of people said yes. Some of them had donated to milk banks. Some of them in private donations. Some said they hadn’t, but wished they could. But when I asked them if they had ever or would ever sell  their breast milk, most of them said no. They said they would just be happy to be able to help another family give their baby the best. That is altruistic and wonderful and in a private mom-to-mom donation (that doesn’t have the benefits of screening) you can get that warm and fuzzy feeling from having done a good deed.

But if you are donating to a milk bank, you might…um…be being milked for profits, literally. Prolacta, for example, and the related International Breastmilk Project, take donations of breastmilk from women, a small portion of which is sent to orphans in Africa and the majority of which is sold at the hefty price of $35 per ounce (Read Hoyden About Town’s post on the IBMP-Prolacta partnership and check out the various links too). I’ve heard breast milk called liquid gold before and this just confirms it.

Sure, there is a cost to collect and process the milk. But let’s be clear here. The women that donate the milk get no compensation for doing so. Prolacta on the other hand makes a profit selling the breast milk at $35 per ounce.

But why shouldn’t we profit from our bodily fluids?

When I was in university I spent some time on an exchange program in Germany. While I had money to cover my basic living costs, it didn’t always stretch far enough to pay for my weekly rations of German beer and chocolate. So I did what any other smart and frugal student would do. As often as allowed, I brought some of my reading material with me and plunked my rear end down in the waiting room at the University Health Centre to donate blood or plasma. The wait was often long, but so were the articles I had to read, and I walked out of there with a somewhere between $50 and $80 dollars. Not bad.

Back in Canada, Canadian Blood Services expects me to take time out of my busy day to give a pint of blood in return for a few stale cookies and a glass of juice. I do it. I do it because I know that they need the blood. Canadian Blood Services is a not-for-profit organization that provides blood to Canada’s public health system, so I feel okay about giving the blood for free. But would I make a bigger effort to get back for my next donation as quickly as possible if I was being paid for it? Perhaps. But more importantly, for people that have a true financial need, the opportunity to be paid $50 for a pint of their blood could really take some pressure off of the pocket book. Perhaps Canadian Blood Services could also save some money in advertising and recruiting people if they paid people for their blood, because they would come willingly.

What about breast milk? There are a lot of families with babies that are strapped for cash. In Canada, it isn’t that bad for most people due to our maternity leave system.  But in the United States a lot of women have to go back to work a mere six weeks after giving birth because they need the income. A lot of these women are in minimum wage jobs where it is difficult or impossible to pump at work, so they end up giving formula. This takes mothers often unwillingly away from their babies and forces them to pay for and feed their babies a product that is not as good as what their bodies would produce for free.

What if we paid these mothers for their breast milk? Imagine this. A mother that is earning minimum wage in the United States probably brings home about $250 per week (really rough estimate and average based on different rates for minimum wage and taxes). She is probably spending at least $40 per week on formula and then some money on commuting, work clothes, and so on. Perhaps she is lucky enough to have family members take care of the baby, otherwise the rest of her salary probably goes towards child care expenses. So she is making somewhere between $0 per week up to maybe a maximum of $175 per week to go to work and leave her six week old baby.

Now let’s try a different scenario. Let’s say she stays home and exclusively breastfeeds. Let’s say she manages to pump an additional 5 ounces per day on top of what she is feeding to her baby. Let’s say she provides that milk to a company, which pays her $4 per ounce (compared to the $35 per ounce it charges when it sells the milk). That would amount to a revenue for the mother of about $140 per week to stay at home with her baby. Some mothers might be able to make more and some would make less, but it is better than the absolute nothing they are getting now.

Not bad.

All of a sudden it would be financially feasible for more women, especially low income women, to stay home with their babies. All of a sudden, the availability of breast milk would increase for those that need or want it. All of a sudden, we have a system where mothers are being valued instead of being milked for profits. All of a sudden we have a system where nature’s best is being valued and fewer women have to settle for artificial milk for their babies.

This is a financial model based on sustainability and opportunity rather than corporate profits. Let’s make human milk banks a priority and let’s not forget to compensate the supplier in the process.

What do you think? If you could sell your breast milk would you? Are you willing to donate breast milk for nothing and have it sold for $35 per ounce? What seems fair to you?

Note: I am aware that it is currently illegal to sell breastmilk and other bodily fluids in some jurisdictions. I am not advocating that people break the law. I am advocating systematic changes to the legal and health system that would make this possible.

UPDATE: Location is confirmed as St. Luke’s Park. Details below!

The Canada Moms Road Trip is coming to Ottawa! All Ottawa area bloggers and social media types and their kids are invited to a play date on Thursday, July 2nd. Come on out to meet Her Bad Mother and Mother Bumper and their kids and welcome them to Ottawa.

Here are the details:

Location: St. Luke’s Park

Address: 166 Frank, just off of Elgin (see map)

Time: 5:00pm on July 2, 2009

What to Bring: Yourself, your kids, snacks if you wish (some of us will bring shareable snacks too), sand toys or whatever else your kids might enjoy using at the playground.

Where does it go from there? I’ll be there with my kids and they’ll probably be ready for some dinner after playing. We might head out somewhere nearby to eat and others are welcome to join in if they want. We can play it by ear.

In case of rain: There is a chance that it will be raining. We will still meet at the park, but if it is really pouring and we all decide to head for cover at the Second Cup or somewhere else, I’ll update on twitter (phdinparenting) and try to drop a comment below (note:  I won’t be able to update the actual post from my phone, but I can add a comment in the comments section).

Hope you can all join us!! Please RSVP in the comments below (with your twitter id and/or blog so that can make the connection) so that we know who will be joining in.

Thanks to Shannon (@zchamu) and Lauren (@lalawawa) for helping get this underway.

I need to cool off.

Many of my readers (supportive and otherwise) need to cool off.

So I give you, cooling off.

Let’s all jump in the water and splash around a bit.

A lot of people objected to my last post for a lot of different reasons.I addressed a lot of them in the comments, but I wanted to rehash one of them, using some new, less offensive and perhaps more easily understood analogies this time.

A number of people said that if you have tried gentle methods and your child still isn’t sleeping the way you would like them to, then you may have to use some form of cry it out.  If you don’t, your baby will be sleep deprived and since healthy sleep is important, you need to use cry it out.

Where have I heard something like this before?

Oh right…

Women that formula feed.

Women that have c-sections.

They say that it was unavoidable. That they were the unlucky one that couldn’t breastfeed or couldn’t have a vaginal birth. That is true for some. But we all know that for the vast majority of women that end up with a c-section or end up feeding formula, it could have been avoided.

• It could have been avoided if they knew more about how breastfeeding works or how to avoid unnecessary birth interventions.
• It could have been avoided if they didn’t have ridiculous pressure put on them by society.
• It could have been avoided if they didn’t get bad advice from medical professionals that are supposed to be there to help them.
• It could have been avoided if they had received the support they deserved from their loved ones.
• It could have been avoided if there wasn’t such bad advice and so many myths floating around.

We all know that breastfeeding rates are much lower than they should be. We all know that c-section rates are much higher than they should be. There are people for whom formula and c-sections are life savers. But most people that use them do so due to factors that can be and that should be addressed.

I think it is the same situation with cry it out.

• It could be avoided if more people were knowledgeable about normal infant sleep and how to promote good sleep habits.
• It could have been avoided if they didn’t have ridiculous pressure put on them by society to have their baby sleep through the night.
• It could have been avoided if their doctor didn’t suggest that something was wrong if their baby wasn’t sleeping through the night and if the doctor didn’t recommend some “tough love”.
• It could have been avoided if they had received the support they deserved from a spouse, friends, parents, or other loved ones that could have provided a much needed break or nap.
• It could have been avoided if there wasn’t such bad advice and so many myths floating around.

Human beings have limits. I understand that. That is why some people do turn to formula not because it was impossible to breastfeed, but because they were facing challenges that were so significant that they just couldn’t continue with breastfeeding. That is why some people that could theoretically have a vaginal birth end up asking for an epidural to dull the pain which then slows the birth process and lands them in surgery. That is why some people in despair turn to the cry it out method when they think they have tried everything else. We are all human. We all have limits. I don’t judge individual people for the choices they feel they have to make (although I will get very uncomfortable and probably leave if you let your baby cry it out while I am at your house).

But just because some people feel the need to use cry it out it doesn’t make it better, or equal to using gentle methods to get a baby to sleep. Just as formula and c-sections are not better or equal to breastfeeding or vaginal birth. Perhaps in some circumstances they end up being what is best for someone, but on the whole they are not the best choice.

With sleep as with breastfeeding and birth issues, on this blog, I will promote the best choice and discuss the risks or disadvantages of other choices.  Not to make moms that felt they had no choice feel bad. But to help those that are trying to decide, that are mulling over the bad advice they got from their doctor or their girlfriend, that are trying to convince their spouse. Sometimes research helps with those things. Sometimes analogies help. Sometimes stories help. There is a mix of all three on this blog.

Before I finish and to just put the icing on this analogy, there is something I need to say. With respect. There are people that have strong, unapologetic opinions about women who don’t put forth the full effort to avoid formula or avoid a c-section. That is their prerogative. I have a strong, unapologetic opinion about the use of the cry it out method. That is my prerogative. To be frank, I would sooner choose formula and get an elective c-section than let my baby cry to sleep alone in a dark room. You might not come to the same conclusion and that is your prerogative.

*If you feel the need to quote or paraphrase me in the comments of this post or elsewhere on the Internet, please do so accurately. I am happy to debate and discuss my opinions, but I hate being misquoted and can’t guarantee a civil response to a mean-spirited comment that misquotes me.

Photo credit: “At the end of a very long day” by KitLKat on flickr

There was some banter the other day on twitter comparing sleep with sex. I’m not sure if it originated with or ended with Ann Douglas, but the conversation at some point came around to the intro to her book  Sleep Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler and Preschooler: The Ultimate No-Worry Approach for Each Age and Stage (Mother of All Solutions), which says:

Sleep is a lot like sex. If you’re not getting it as much as you’d like, it can become a bit of an obsession. Suddenly, all you can think about is when you last had it, how great it felt when you had it, and what you can do to get some again.

Sounds logical. Maybe sleep is like sex in the way that Ann described. In terms of our obsession with it. And maybe that is where the discussion ends. But as someone that uses analogies a lot and that once wrote an hour long presentation comparing web content with food, I tend to follow the analogy down a path and see if it continues to work.

Let me explain.

Sex makes us happy. Sleep makes us happy. Lack of sex makes us cranky. Lack of sleep makes us cranky.

If you have a newborn baby in your house, you may be starved for sleep. If you are the spouse of a woman who recently pushed a baby out of her vagina you may be starved for sex. If you are starved for sleep or starved for sex, then you might, as Ann explained, be obsessed with it, be thinking about when you last had it, how great it felt when you had it, and what you can do to get some again.

So what can you do to get some again?

First of all, it is  important to recognize that it is normal for newborns to not sleep through the night and it is normal for women to not be interested in sex right after having a baby. It is also a reality that some babies are ready to sleep through the night earlier than others are, just as some women are interested in sex earlier than others are. And we like to compare. Why does her baby sleep through the night and mine doesn’t? Why is his wife dragging him into bed every night and mine has no interest in sex?

If you are on the losing end of that equation, you are probably trying to figure out what you can do to get some more. There are appropriate and inappropriate ways to deal with that. If someone is obsessed with sex, it is appropriate for them to use gentle, loving, techniques to try to convince a partner to have sex.  It is not appropriate to use force to get someone to have sex with you. It is also not particularly respectful to complain and push, complain and push, complain and push with intermittent reminders that you love the person until that person finally gives in. Same with sleep. If someone is obsessed with sleep, it is appropriate to use gentle, loving techniques to try to get your baby to sleep so that you can get more sleep too. It is not appropriate to force  a baby to sleep using methods like the extinction method of cry it out. It also isn’t particularly respectful to say you have to sleep now and I’m going to let you cry for a bit, remind you that I love you, let you cry for a bit more, remind you that I love you, and then let you cry some more again until you finally go to sleep (otherwise known as graduated extinction).

But it is different too. Sleep is a necessity. We need sleep to live. Sure, many of us can get by with less than desirable amounts of sleep, with constant interruptions to our sleep, but we do need it. We don’t need sex in the same way. We desire it, it is healthy, sometimes we want more of it and sometimes we want less of it. We may be obsessed with it, but we can survive without it. Does that make it okay to use force or disrespectful techniques to get sleep? I’ll let you decide for yourself. But for me the answer is a very clear and unequivocal no.

There are countries where it is appropriate, accepted, and normal for a husband to force his wife to have sex. They would call it normal, a wife’s duty. We don’t think that is acceptable. There are also countries where it is appropriate, accepted, and normal for parents to use cry it out to force their children to sleep.  They call it normal, a parenting choice. I don’t buy it. Just as we need to challenge cultures, religions, regimes that allow women to be disrespected in that way,  I believe that we need to challenge cultures, religions and regimes that allow babies to be disrespected in that way. (note: this paragraph was rephrased to address concerns).

Whether we are talking about sleep or sex, I conclude that a gentle, loving approach the best way to get it. It is the humane way to get it. It is the respectful way to get it.

Jack Spratt could eat no fat.

his wife could eat no lean.

So between the two of them,

they licked the platter clean.

Sounds close to the tale of my two little monkeys with diametrically opposed taste buds. Ironically, the only thing that appeared on both plates last night is also the only thing neither of them touched on their plate (the feta cheese).My husband and I had chicken souvlaki, greek salad, and pita bread with hummus. Here is what the kids had.

Son – 4 years: Chicken souvlaki, pita bread, feta cheese, and jar of mixed vegetable baby food (baby food is the only veggies he will touch…still).

Daughter – 2 years: Tomatoes, strawberries, feta cheese, foccacia croutons.