Showing Appreciation for Underappreciated Posts

For my first blog post of the New Year, I have decided to give back to my followers. I asked on twitter for people to send me links to their underappreciated posts from 2008. Things that they wrote that didn’t get the exposure or recognition that they deserved. I am using this post to give those posts a new life in 2009. I hope you will check them out. I know I am glad that I did.

On Co-Sleeping

Once again in 2008, government authorities went over the top trying to scare people out of co-sleeping using misinformation. I wrote about the faulty logic of the Ontario coroner and Mama Luxe from the blog Mama Saga posted a great back and forth on her correspondence with the State of New York regarding its public [dis]service announcement” against co-sleeping. In her post she says:

The state’s response is essentially that there were an alarming number of infant deaths in which co-sleeping was a factor. They do not take into account whether co-sleeping was a contributing or primary factor, nor do they compare this number with the number of infant deaths in cribs. Their reaction (scaring parents into not co-sleeping) is akin to saying that babies die in cars so, instead of promoting vehicular safety, they will launch a campaign discouraging parents from taking their baby in a car at all, ever.

All excellent points, of course, but the problem is that we are battling not just faulty number crunching, but a North American cultural bias that says that our kids should sleep alone. This is too bad, considering that “routinely sharing the parents’ bed in infancy has been associated with greater self-reliance and social independence at preschool age than a history of solitary sleeping (Keller, M. A., and Goldberg, 2004).” (as reported in this excellent academic literature summary called Back to Basics in Infant Care)

The thing is, a lot of parents end up co-sleeping by accident. We certainly did with our first child. We had the crib set up in a separate bedroom, but he just wouldn’t sleep there so he ended up in our bed. With our second child, we had seen the advantages of co-sleeping already, so we never even bothered setting up the crib. Joanna from the blog now with baby wrote a post called Cosleeping: The Benefits and Disadvantages that chronicled her family’s journey from having their infant sleep seperately to sharing a bed with all of its ups and dows. A worthwhile read for sure for anyone that wants to know what they might be getting into.

But the problem with parents co-sleeping by accident is that many of them are not aware of the dangers of unsafe co-sleeping and may not do their research on what is safe and unsafe. If only public health authorities would have PR campaigns about safe and unsafe co-sleeping instead of using scare tactics to prevent parents from doing it at all, maybe people would get more sleep and there would be fewer deaths.

On Breastfeeding

Breast it best. We all know that. But there are countless reasons that women decide not to breastfeed. Some of those are real. Many of them are not (they stem from lack of support). For many women, myself included, breastfeeding is so important to them that they will go to great lengths to succeed. Christina from Mamas Worldwide wrote a great post on her experience with BFAR (breastfeeding after reduction). I’ve heard so many women that have overcome breastfeeding difficulties say something similar to this great quote from her post:

Thus began the difficult part of our breastfeeding relationship. Going in, I had been prepared to fail, but since he was there, some super strong mommy instincts had kicked in and I knew I had to make this breastfeeding thing work. I was a mom on a mission.

Mama Luxe from Mama Saga also weighed in on this topic. She put together a great discussion on why it is that so many women choose not to breastfeed or give up seemingly so easily. She touches strongly on the issue of support in her post, which I also feel is crucial. That is why I posted about how to support a breastfeeding mother.

On Nutrition, Parenting Styles and Discipline

TwinToddlersDad has a great blog on toddler nutrition called little stomaks. One of his recent posts looked at how encouraging good nutrition fits with overall parenting style. He uses great images (like the one copied here) and pros and cons lists to talk about how two different parents with different parenting styles may influence the child and the parents’ desired outcomes.  I’m a bit of a model geek myself and reading this post reminded me of the work that I did on My Discipline Spectrum, which has some shared concepts and ideas with TwinToddlersDad’s post.

On Feminist Mothering

Another one of my pet topics this year has been feminism and feminist mothering, so I was thrilled when Tara from the feels like home blog pointed me to her post called My head is too big for a tiara. She writes:

I hate the idea that girls should be wait around for a prince to rescue them. I hate the idea that girls are supposed to be more focused on being pretty than on being smart or strong or spunky. I hate the idea that what a girl can achieve is determined by her family and her birth and not her own hard work during her life.

In her post she provides parents with links to great anti-princess resources and reading lists to help them raise a daughter, not a princess.

Please click, click, click

When I put out my request for underappreciated posts, I didn’t know what I would get, but I didn’t expect the posts to be both fabulous and a great fit with the things that I write about here at PhD in Parenting. Please visit the blogs that I listed above and drop them some well deserved comments. And if you’re wondering what my poor sad least appreciated post of the year is, I would say it is this one: Manic Mondays.

Tagged as: Breastfeeding, Co-sleeping, Discipline, feminism, giving back, lactivism, motherhood, Nutrition, parenting, parenting styles, twitter, underappreciated