Conscious Mom

At first we thought it was mosquito bites. Maia scratched and squirmed and cried, and was more miserable than I've ever seen her. It was like she knew in her young brain the significance mosquito bites have had on her homeland and was lamenting all that loss and suffering. But they itched too much, for too long, and we decided it must be flea bites. We have no cats or dogs, but maybe a visitor dragged them in the house, we hypothesized. Then they got big, red, raised, and even more itchy, which an hour earlier I didn't think was possible. Poison ivy? Poison oak? Some other contact dermatitis? On the soles of her feet? Unlikely. An allergic reaction to ...

A new book has been published linking sleep deprivation in women to everything from obesity to a poor sex life, diabetes to lack of work productivity, stupidity to cancer. I haven't read the book, alluringly titled, Sleep to Be Sexy, Smart, and Slim, but the article I read about it went on and on about how women just should stop doing whatever it is they are doing and get some sleep. If sleep doesn't come, cognitive behavioral therapy works much better at curing insomnia that sleeping pills. In light of these earth shattering revelations, we have decided to send Maia to cognitive behavioral therapy so she can learn how to sleep later than 5 AM. At the very least, I'll ...

I once heard a quote, 'sex is like oxygen, you don't think about it unless you aren't getting any.' This post is about neither sex nor oxygen, but two other resources I used to take for granted and am now obsessing over. 1. Sleep: I am still not getting much. Maia is actually a good sleeper for her age. She sleeps for at least 11 hours a night, usually in a row. But she's an early riser and will wake up by 5 AM no matter what time she goes to bed. So when she goes through a teething phase and gets less sleep, I never get to catch up on my own. I am now suffering from a sleep debt ...

After several nights of little sleep, I'm staggering through the day on caffeine and protein powder. I'd love to know how intelligent design theory explains the teething process. When I am this tired, so tired I can't drive safely, get irritable over the smallest thing, can barely see straight, want to lie in bed and cry, I am tempted to write the day off as a waste. A shocking thing to notice myself thinking! Today is not a waste; here's why: - It is 75o and sunny, and I can sit in the sun and enjoy the warmth. - I can get all the housekeeping tasks done so that tomorrow (when I am better rested because it'll be Bodhi's turn to get up ...

Once upon a time I had regular practices of both meditation and yoga. Although it seems like forever ago, it was really less than a year. The major difficulty I'm having with resuming them is sleep deprivation. Sometimes Little M has a sleepless night, or a sleepless day. Or worse, she sleeps soundly and I'm struck with insomnia. Being wide awake at 2 AM next to a soundly sleeping baby is such a wasted opportunity! Anyway, when I'm so tired I can't see straight it's hard to inspire myself to go to the meditation cushion or yoga mat and I end up lying on the couch doing sudoku. Stating intentions publicly often helps me carry them out. So here goes: ...

Several years ago as we approached the Millennium there were lists of the top inventions of the past 100 years and of the past 1000 years. OK, it's hard to beat the printing press and smallpox vaccine, but doesn't the baby swing deserve just a mention, a footnote perhaps?

Maia woke up at 4:30 this morning. When she wakes this early I wait to see if she will go back to sleep, and often she does. But this morning she lay in her crib whispering, 'Mama, mama, mama' more clearly than she's ever done before. I couldn't resist, and we've been playing all morning. Nine months old and she knows how to get what she wants!

I try, really I do. We use cloth diapers, eat vegan, use super energy-efficient appliances. I research candidates carefully, voting for the one strongest on environmental conservation. At various times I've carpooled to work or taken the train, and soon I'll work close enough to home that I can ride my bike. But there's one area I fall short. Now that Maia is in our lives I'm more liberal with driving, particularly at nap time. She's not a good napper, but she'll sleep in the car if I time it right. When she's overtired, driving can be the only thing that puts her to sleep. So instead of one big shopping trip during ...

Forget stay-at-home versus work-outside-the-home. Reasonable, intelligent people know there are ways to make both options suitable for children. And most realize that in today's economy not many parents have the luxury of choice when it comes to working. The real hostilities are over sleep methods: co-sleeping, parenting to sleep, sleep training, controlled crying, and cry-it-out all have their ardent supporters and vehement opponents. At times, the more polarized members of different philosophies practically accuse the others of child abuse. Read Whizbang's post on sleep training and the host of comments for a taste of this. To help make sense of this minefield, someone at Antioch University in Seattle is conducting a ...

Bodhipaksa and I often talk about what an easy baby Maia is. But maybe she's easy because our parenting style suits her needs. As I sit typing this at 7AM, having been up for two hours already, I realize many parents might not consider a baby who wakes up ready to play at 5 AM 'easy'. But I'm a morning person and would much rather go to sleep early and get up at dawn than coax a baby to sleep at midnight. She doesn't always wake at five AM, either. If she needs to be fed in the middle of the night, she'll sleep until six or later the following morning. ...