Eating My Own Words

I remember pre-pregnancy proudly proclaiming all the things I'd never do as a parent. I was adamant I was going to be a really down to earth, chillaxed Mama... I was going to grow my children as naturally as possible and protect their lives from any physical or emotional toxicity. I was not going to give in to all the "cop-outs" I thought would make me a "lesser parent"... Instead, here are all the things I recall saying, pre-children, what I would never do as a parent:

1) Use a Dummy - "I can't stand kids standing there with a dummy hanging out of their face and you can't hear what they're saying because they've got their mouth full of plastic"... This rule was broken when Tyler was just 3 days old and still in the hospital. After comfort-sucking for 36 hours straight, the nurses themselves actually suggested I use a dummy with him. And so we did. However he was quite picky about the type of dummy he'd use. After his Granny had spent about forty-odd bucks on a selection of whizz-bang fancy dummies, Tyler finally resigned to taking a natural rubber latex dummy the size of his head, making him look even more ridiculous than all the dummy-using kids I'd sworn my kid would not turn out to be!

2) Bottle-feed - "I'll breast feed my kids til they're at least 1, even 2 years old. It's better for them!" Turns out sometimes, you don't have much of a choice. In Tyler's case, bottle-feeding was actually better for him than breast-feeding. When breastfeeding, he was actually starving! Unbeknownst to myself and my medical carers, I was suffering from a nasty uterine infection after giving birth. The problem didn't present itself 'til I had a massive delayed post-partum haemmorhage 6 and a half weeks after I'd had him. In turn, my body was tricked into thinking it was still pregnant, from all the material still inside my uterus. And when you're body thinks it's still pregnant, you don't produce nearly enough milk. At 6 weeks Tyler was diagnosed with "failure to thrive", we were sent to Torrens House for feeding issues (all of which were then written off once we discovered the failure was actually in my body's lacking the ability to make quality milk, in sufficient quantity).

Poor Tyler took 7 weeks to surpass his birthweight. He was a skinny little runt of a child and his saving grace was using a Supply Line for 5 weeks. But by the end of 5 weeks, he was receiving only 25% breast-milk and 75% formula, so we called it a day. Nastily enough, the same issue occurred post-partum with Maya (2 and a half weeks after delivery) and my supply was compromised similarly to how it was with Tyler (The photo is first of Tyler after 6 weeks of breastfeeding, compared to Tyler after just 2 weeks of formula-feeding).

3) Let my kids watch much TV (or even worse, get "into" certain shows / TV characters) - I always hated shows like The Teletubbies, In the Night Garden, Pingu, and other shows which "doesn't use real words and the characters all walk around doing nothing but

make stupid noises". I won't say at all that I've changed my stance on that. I do still hate these types of shows, however of course I've given in and let my son watch them... ITNG has become a part of his nightly routine - he knows when they go to bed, he goes to bed. His all time favourite show is "The WotWots" - and he has the talking toys, the push-a-longs, the Tufly Flufties Headband, the mix and make drawing board, the playdough set, and the Funveritable! He's most likely going to have a WotWot birthday cake this year... He stops dead in his tracks when he hears the theme-song, he dresses them in disposable nappies, and he takes his blue SpottyWot everywhere...

4) Feed my babies baby-food from a jar - "It's full of preservatives and crap! I will only feed them stuff I've made myself..." Now for the most part, I was pretty diligent with this conviction. Tyler's first food was pureed zucchini I'd made myself, and for many months I did only feed him stuff I'd made myself.

But once he got to the age where he was walking about and putting anything and everything in his mouth, I threw caution to the wind and he ate tinned/jarred baby-foods. At the end of the day, they really are sometimes more convenient, and they appear to have done no harm. I am still pretty harsh on what I do and don't let him have though (he's not allowed lollies, chips, juice, chocolate - except on the very, very rare occasion where he bugs me for some of mine, strange how an almost 2 year old delights in Lindt dark chocolate with chilli!) and he generally does still eat home-prepared meals. He's had McDonalds twice (and to be fair, wasn't too keen on it anyway!) Maya will start weaning soon and being the second child, who knows how lax I'll be in my approach this time!

5) Use a "baby leash" - I always pitied the poor children in harnesses. I hated seeing how their mother would be on one side of a shopping aisle, and when she suddenly darted off with the trolley, her toddler would be yanked around a 90 degree corner and pulled along behind her. I always thought they were pretty demeaning and swore I would never use one. I'll admit, however, that once a month when I go to do my "big shop", Tyler gets put in one. Namely because it allows him to walk along side me, whilst I carry Maya in the sling, then put them both in a trolley when we get to the supermarket 10 minutes walk down the road. But still, I swore I never would. I even joked about it with friends.

And to this list, you can also add smacking (less than 10 times in total over a nappied-bum, but still, swore I never would), sleep in my bed (Maya co-slept for the first 8 weeks of her life constantly), use antibiotics (10 constant months of ear-infections with Tyler quenched that idea), letting them have too many toys, getting hung up about kids clothing brands, go on about my kids all the time on the phone / Facebook / over coffee with friends, licking a tissue to clean their faces, buy them food at the supermarket just to shut them up, and curse infront of the children (am getting much better at that one since Tyler's quite an adept parrot these days!)

Then again, I always said I'd never have a messy house or wear unironed clothing, either...! Kids. Gotta love the impact they have on us...