10 Tips for Getting Over First Trimester Morning Sickness and Fatigue

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Embracing Motherhood 9 Tips for Getting Over First Trimester Morning Sickness and Tiredness

First trimester morning sickness (which doesn’t just hit in the morning, ahem) and the overwhelming tiredness that the first trimester brings can bring a rough start to the beginning of a pregnancy.

As I embark on this pregnancy with our fifth child, I’ve been overwhelmed with the tiredness and nausea, which maaaaay be a sign of twins, but since I won’t be able to rule that out for quite a few more weeks, I’ll settle for reflecting on my past experiences and a dabble of research to see what I should do to combat this nasty business. (*Update: It wasn’t twins!)

Why Women Get Tired During the First Trimester

During the first trimester, our bodies do something so amazing that it rivals the fact that we’re actually growing a living human being. Our bodies are making an organ…the placenta to be exact. This organ will nourish our baby (or babies) with both oxygen and food throughout the entire pregnancy, and so yes, we’re going to be a little extra tired during this process.

On top of this, our metabolism kicks into high gear, our hormones are increasing like crazy, and our blood sugar and blood pressure both tend to be lower. All of these things working together create the perfect storm for fatigue, but don’t worry, I have some ways to beat this! (Source)

Why Nausea Hits So Hard During the First Trimester

Now, this is a little more elusive than the fatigue question, and “no one really knows” why women get “morning sickness”. (Yes, morning sickness is a stupid name because it doesn’t just happen in the morning and the “no one really knows” things just always bother me…)

Almost 75% of all pregnant women will experience some sort of nausea or vomiting which can begin as early as 4 weeks, peak at about 8-10 weeks, and then taper off by about 14 weeks when the second trimester begins. Although, for some women it will last longer, and for a very small percentage, it could be hyperemesis gravidarum which is extreme vomiting that never lets you keep anything down.

One theory is that it is triggered by the human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) hormone that rises rapidly during pregnancy, which is why women pregnant with twins typically experience more nausea since they have higher levels of hCG. Estrogen also rises rapidly (along with progesterone) and could be another trigger. The heightened sense of smell, a sensitive stomach, and stress could also contribute to this “morning sickness”. (Source)

Tips and Tricks for Getting Over Morning Sickness and Fatigue

Even though nausea and fatigue are technically two different things, I have found their cures to be inextricably linked. For me, it’s like they work in tandem. By adhering to the following tips and tricks, I have been able to stave away extreme fatigue and nausea in my first four pregnancies, but now with our fifth baby, I’m wondering why I am feeling so particularly tired and nauseous. Could it be multiples or do I just need to take better care of myself? By adhering to the following tips and tricks for the last few days, I am already feeling a million times better.

1. Stay Away from Sugar

When you’re pregnant, your body is more sensitive to sugar. (Read more about why this causes women to experience more yeast infections and get gestational diabetes here.) This sensitivity peaks at about week 23, but it begins the moment you conceive.

Basically, you’ve learned that you’re pregnant, and so now that you’re “eating for two” you want to pig out on ice cream, doughnuts, and cake. But what happens when you do this is that your blood sugar spikes and then totally crashes leaving you feeling extremely tired afterwards. If you were already a “sugar burner” before pregnancy, it’s only going to get worse now.

I have always danced around hypoglycemia (pre-pre-gestational diabetes) with each pregnancy, and my sensitivity to sugar has continuously increased. Now, in my 5th pregnancy, I am going to do my best to avoid it on a regular basis. (But hey, there’s always special occasions, right?)

2. Stay Away from Processed Food

This kind of goes along with the sugar thing, but the reality is that you’re going to be hungry…A LOT…during this pregnancy, and it’s best to start some healthy habits so that whenever you do feel those hunger pains, you’re not stopping at McDonalds or grabbing a bag of Doritos.

Because most fast food and cheap processed food is void of nutrients, you’re just getting empty calories when you eat processed food. This is not going to energize you and make you feel alive and vibrant! It’s going to make you feel tired and sick. Now, for some people, a treat now and then is okay, and for other people, this is just a gateway for more and they must adhere to complete abstinence.

3. Eat Nutrient Dense Food

Finally, something you can do! If you only have 9 months to grow a human life including it’s brain, organs, tissues, and skin, you want it to be constructed out of the very best parts, and this is where nutrient dense foods come in. Grass-fed beef, pastured chickens and eggs, raw milk, butter, cheese, organic fruits and vegetables, organic and properly prepared grains and nuts are all foods FULL of nutrients. Basically, you want to eat food in as close to its original state as possible. (For more information about nutrient dense food, I highly recommend reading Nourishing Traditions or checking out the Weston Price website.)

Now, maybe you can’t always afford organic produce or pastured meats, and that’s okay. Just do the best you can with what you have.

4. Eat Small Meals

I feel like during pregnancy, I go through this viscous cycle where I’m STARVING, which makes me feel nauseous, and so I’ll eat a HUGE meal, which makes me feel extremely tired, and so I completely crash, and then the cycle threatens to continuously repeat itself.

Throughout my first four pregnancies and now this fifth pregnancy, I feel like most of my symptoms associated with nausea are usually because I’m hungry. But if instead of eating a large meal (especially one full of sugar and processed foods), I eat just a small one full of nutrient dense food, it usually gets rid of the nausea and leaves me feeling energized. Basically, I try to eat when I’m hungry and stop BEFORE I’m feeling totally full. And by having the house stocked with healthy, nutrient dense food, it makes it that much easier to grab something that’s good for me.

If I’m starving, I find it’s best to have something high in fat and protein. These are my go to snacks:

  • A handful of almonds or pecans
  • A glass of raw milk
  • Some crackers and cheese
  • A baked potato with butter, cheese, sour cream, and chives
  • Greek yogurt
  • A boiled egg with salt
  • An apple with peanut butter

If I’m looking more for a meal, I’ll have:

If I’m looking for a lighter meal or snack, I’ll have:

  • Carrots, peas, cucumbers, etc. and ranch (or plain)
  • Popcorn with coconut oil
  • A big salad
  • Tomato salad with mozzarella balls, herbs, and italian dressing
  • Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, etc.

If I have a sweet tooth:

5. Get More Sleep

I know this kind of sounds like a no-brainer…if you’re tired, get more sleep, duh! But easier said than done! We are such creatures of our routines, and it can be hard to change. When I’m not pregnant, I can survive easily on 5-6 hours of sleep a night. But when I’m pregnant, especially in the first trimester, I need MUCH more! Lately, I’ve been getting 9-10 hours of sleep a night, and I feel pretty darn good about it!

Basically, you’ll need to experiment with sleep to find your sweet spot where you feel well rested, but know that 9 hours of sleep are recommended per night for pregnant women in their first trimester.

6. Take Naps

I’m not one of those people who take long 2-3 hour naps and feel rested. Usually sleeping for that long actually makes me feel even more tired, but taking quick little 5-20 minute cat naps leave me feeling quite refreshed. When I’m feeling super duper tired (even when I still have a million things to do), I just plop down on my bed (light pouring through the windows and everything), close my eyes, and get up as soon as I feel my eyes flutter back awake.

Here’s some of the science behind why taking cat naps are so good for you, and how they will boost your energy, cognition, and health way more than a cup of coffee could. (I am not totally against coffee by the way, but on a side note, teeccino is a good coffee substitute.)

7. Cuddle More

I have four kids between the ages of 18 months and 6 years, and they ALL love to cuddle. I always have so much to cook, clean, and prepare, that it can be hard to find time to just plop down and cuddle, but when I do, it is something we all enjoy. Sometimes I’ll grab a book and read to any/all of them, other times I’ll just lay on the floor and watch them play, and occasionally I’ll wrap one or two up in my arms as they watch one of their favorite shows.

8. Get Moving

I know that when you’re tired and/or nauseous, the last thing you want to do is think about moving your body, but if you’ve had a good night’s sleep, a little cat nap, some cuddles, and some nutrient dense food and you’re still feeling tired and/or nauseous, get your butt off the couch and go for a walk or a bike ride! Put the kids in the stroller or in the bike cart and just move it! When I force myself to do this, even when I feel like I should just plaster myself to the couch, I always feel better afterwards. Getting some fresh air, sunshine, and the blood flowing fills me with endorphins, and I feel totally energized.

9. Yoga

This is the one thing I try to start my mornings with, and it not only makes a tremendous difference with how I feel during pregnancy, it also strengthens me for labor. When I was pregnant for Ruby and on summer vacation, I had time for really long yoga sessions, but now as a busy mom of four, I’m lucky to get ten minutes a day for this! Here are the yoga videos I have enjoyed.

You could also just go to your local library and see what prenatal yoga videos they have or type in “prenatal yoga” into a YouTube search bar and find one that suits you.

10. Supplements

Eating well, reducing stress, and getting enough sleep can do wonders, but during pregnancy especially, I think it’s good to have some good supplements. Here are the things that I like to use.

The Basics:

For Nausea:

  • Ginger: Ginger is known for helping with a variety of digestion issues including nausea. You can get a good ginger tea like this, or you can make your own by grating up some ginger root and boiling it with lemon and raw honey.
  • Peppermint: Peppermint calms the muscles of the stomach and improves the flow of bile, which the body uses to digest fats. You can get a good peppermint tea like this that works great, or sometimes just the scent of peppermint oil on a cotton ball in an inhaler stick works too. I would not recommend ingesting any peppermint oil, however. Read more about safety with essentials oils here.

In Conclusion

I really needed to write this blog as reminder for myself that as I embark on yet another journey of pregnancy, that I have to take care of myself! When we really listen to our bodies and respond to their signals, we can overcome so much. As I have started to take my own advice (especially the parts about allowing myself to sleep, taking naps, and eating healthy snacks), I already feel tons better! So, if you’re in your first trimester and you’re feeling nauseous and/or tired, slow down, listen to your body, and take care of yourself. You will be so glad that you did!

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Pregnant with Baby #5!

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With four children between the ages of 18 months and 6 years…girl, boy, girl, boy…we were starting to feel like our family was complete, but nature had its own idea of what our family size should be!

Here’s the story of how we discovered we were pregnant…with baby #5. You’ll notice I’ve included the range of emotions which is truly the heart of this story.

June 8th, 2016

Every time I feel a bit fat, I take a pregnancy test thinking, “Of course that’s the reason why I can’t lose these few pounds!” So three days ago when my pants were feeling a little bit tight, I peed on a stick.

A little while later, Scott came home for lunch. After we had cuddled and talked a bit, I pulled out the pregnancy stick not yet having looked at it myself. “I’m sure it’s negative,” I explained, “I know we’ve been careful every single time.” It was the fancy kind of stick (with a cap for the pee end and everything), and neither of us were surprised to see that there was a big negative sign sticking out at us.

For some reason, I left the stick lying on our bathroom counter, and when I looked at it the next day with the sunlight pouring through the window, I noticed a faint hint of a line that would complete the plus sign. I was certain that it was just saturated or something since I had left it sitting out overnight, but nonetheless, I texted Scott saying,

“I have some crazy news!”

He called me right away, but thought that the fact that all of the kids were still sleeping at 8 a.m. to be more shocking than a faint line that probably didn’t mean anything anyways.  We talked instead about how he would help me load up the little ones in the van during his long lunch break as we went to pick up Ruby from her last day of 1st grade and celebrate with ice cream.

Before he got home, I peed on another stick…just because of mother’s intuition. This time, it was just one of the cheap pregnancy sticks that I buy in bulk and use every time I miss my period or if my pants are a little too tight. Within minutes, the second line (that indicates pregnancy) started to show up. This wasn’t a faint line that could be explained by faulty mechanisms. This was a real deal, in your face, pay attention to me, I am telling you something kind of line. I was shocked, I was giddy, and I stifled a giggle as my glee threatened to take over.

Just as Scott was trying to scarf down a few bites of lunch before we headed out the door, I told him about the second pregnancy test. His fork froze mid bite, the color drained out of his face, and he said,

“Well, I guess the next time we need to use protection, I’ll have to cut my balls off.”

So yes, definitely a strong first reaction, but wait for it…

When we got in the car, I was all ready to start talking about our birthing plan down to every last little detail, but he was still in shock, and I knew he needed some time to process this information before diving into the details. We talked nervously of other things but held hands and smiled sweetly at each other the entire drive.

We had a fine time greeting Ruby after her last day and enjoyed some cupcakes and ice cream to go since by the time we left Ruby’s school Ophelia started screaming, “I want to go to bed!” (Her modus operandi these days.) The rest of the afternoon was a blur as I stayed busy absent-mindedly putzing around.

When Scott came home from work, I could tell that the reality of the positive pregnancy test was hitting him because as soon as he saw me, he looked me in the eyes with excitement and glee and said,

“We’re going to have a baby!”

We hugged and giggled and talked about the absurdity of it all. I mean, we actually were thinking of trying in August so that the baby would be born at the end of the next school year, but as that date approached, we found ourselves talking more and more about how complete we felt with four and how full our lives were and so on.

It was like, even though we love our kids and love having kids, consciously choosing to have more felt like wielding too much power. The fact that it just happened without our planning truly makes this feel like a miracle baby because I don’t know if it would have happened otherwise.

Telling the Children

We waited until the next day to tell the children because there was just too much going on before that. We weren’t sure really how to do it, but I knew that I wanted to find just the right moment. So after dinner, we gathered Ruby (6) and Elliot (5) on a sheet outside while Ophelia (3) and Julian (1) played in the little swimming pool nearby. I told them that they would each get three guesses and that if anyone guessed right they would get ice cream.

“My guess is that we’re going to have another baby!” Ruby guessed first. (Wow! how perceptive!)

“Elliot, what do you think?” I asked.

“I think we’re going to have another baby,” he copied. (He knows when to listen to his sister!)

“Okay,” I said, trying not to give any indication that that was in fact the right answer, “Do you have any other guesses?”

Elliot proceed to guess that we would get a new towel or that he was going to grow another head. Ruby’s other two guesses were that something special was going to happen to either me or daddy.

“Well,” I said, “You guys were both right on your first guess; we’re going to have another baby!” Ruby squealed with delight, and Elliot followed suit. Everyone hugged and then Ruby started running around the yard chanting, “We’re going to have a baby! We’re going to have a baby!” Scott asked them each if they hoped it would be a boy or girl. Elliot expressed that he only wanted a boy, and Ruby said that she knew that it would be a girl because that was the pattern in our family.

When I tucked Ruby into bed tonight, we had the cutest conversation in the whole world which inspired me to write down this story in the first place. Usually, we read together while cuddled up in her bed, but tonight I said, “Let’s just talk.” As we chatted about the new baby, I was just blown away by her insight and by her desire to help. I told her how with four kids, I felt a little overwhelmed already, and that I would probably need a lot of help. She bolted up in bed, put her hands out in front of her for emphasis, and said,

“Don’t even worry about a thing mom, we’ve got you covered!”

She went on to explain how I needed to take advantage of her and Daddy over the summer to get everything prepared for the new baby and added (in all seriousness), “And I won’t even charge you any money!”

She absolutely beamed, and I saw a joy and pride sweep over her face like never before when I told her about all of her amazing qualities. “You are going to be such a big help to me,” I told her honestly, “You already help me out so much with the little ones. Why, just today, you made sure Julian didn’t go into the road while I got the mail, and you’ve taught Ophelia so much about reading. The little ones look up to everything that you and Elliot do. That’s why Julian is eating so good with a fork, I never taught him, he just watches you!”

We continued to chat, and Ruby, ever the planner (just like her mother), wanted to talk about all of the things we would need to do to get ready for the baby. We talked about baby clothes, bassinets, and how Ophelia would need to potty train so we wouldn’t have three in diapers and sleep in her Dora bed so we could use her crib. I felt like we could have chatted long in to the night, but my eyes were already starting to close, and I still wanted to write this…

“Do you want to leave your light on so you can read my dear?” I asked her. She thought about it for a moment and said,

“I’m going to turn it off because I think better in the dark, and right now, I have a lot to think about. There are so many things that we need to prepare. I am just so excited for this baby!”

When she said that, my heart melted into a gigantic puddle of goo. As I blew her a kiss, shut the door, and felt the butterflies dance in my stomach over the thought of this new little person growing in my belly, I knew that this was meant to be. It was all always meant to be Just. Like. This.

In Conclusion

Lately, with Julian weaning, and everyone needing me less and less, I’ve started to think about the future…what will I do with more free time, how can I start contributing more financially, and so on, but with the news of a new baby, it’s like I can breathe a great big sigh of relief and focus entirely on the one thing that I was meant to do, the one thing that I’m better at than anything else I’ve ever done, and the one thing that unites our marriage, causes us to fall even more in love with each other every day, and gives us a sense of peace and purpose more than any raise, promotion, or other accolade ever could…a baby…a tiny little baby to hold, to love, to nurture, and to complete us all.

I wanted to share this story first of all because it’s beautiful, but also to show our thought process and our range of emotions. At first, we thought we had our lives all planned and figured out. We didn’t know what we didn’t know. So many times I hear of families stopping at one or two, or not even trying at all, and while that is totally fine, and I completely understand that some people are very happy that way, I just want to say, don’t let fear be the reason to stop you from letting nature take its course.

Money has a way of being stretched, time has a way of making you let go of the little things to extend it, career goals shift and change when you put them on hold, siblings love having more siblings, you actually find MORE time to be intimate with your spouse, and there are no limits to how far your love can stretch.

Now, I’m not saying to go poke holes in your diaphragm or anything (and NO, I did NOT do that!), but sometimes men can be hard to convince when it comes to wanting any or more children. They don’t have the same hormones and yearnings that women do. Their love for children grows gradually and exponentially…more so with each child in fact. This is actually because of their hormones and how they change with each child. If you want more, don’t be afraid to speak up about it. Find a time when he’s happy, and if he says yes, even for a day…GO FOR IT!

Because in the end, having children hasn’t been something that we do, it becomes who we are. And when we’re two old farts sitting on a porch swing, reminiscing about the “good ole days”, we won’t be alone. We will be surrounded by an entire future generation that will bring us joy until our dying breaths, and that is something I don’t think we will ever regret in the slightest.

4 kids

Elliot (5), Julian (1), Ophelia (3), Ruby (6)

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Establishing a Bedtime Routine with a Baby Who is Used to Nursing to Sleep

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Embracing Motherhood How to Establish a Bedtime Routine with a Baby (or What to Do When Your Baby Won't Nurse to Sleep Anymore)

I usually just like to nurse my babies to sleep, but at some point this starts to not work, and instead of panicking and thinking that the world as you know it is over (like I may or may not have done), just know that this probably means your child is ready for a bedtime routine.

Julian, My 4th Child

Julian (my fourth and the recent inspiration for this article) didn’t all of a sudden stop nursing to sleep one night. It was a gradual progression that began when he was about 15 months old.

At this time, our nightly nursing sessions were getting longer and longer, and I remember one night after flipping him from side to side and nursing him for like an hour, and he just looked up at me and said, “Hi!”

I was dumbfounded, I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t have a plan.

All I knew was that I couldn’t let him keep nursing, and I didn’t want to just let him stay up later. He was tired. I needed to do something. (Also, I was starting to experience what I later learned was nursing aversion…more about that here.)

1. The First Time I Put Him to Bed Awake

Feeling like I was out of options, I decided to just lay him down and see what happened. When I placed him in his crib, he SCREAMED bloody murder. I knew that he wasn’t sick, teething, hungry, or needing to poop, and I also knew that he was tired, so I expertly tucked him in, whispered, “Nigh-night, I love you!” and closed the closet door (where he sleeps). As I sat back on the rocking chair to see what would happen, my mind felt blank. Usually I go into these situations with a plan, but I just felt helpless as I listened to him wail.

Then, a miracle happened. After about 90 seconds of crying…it stopped.

I sat there waiting for awhile until I was sure he was settled in, and then I went out to the living room to enjoy some much needed alone time with my husband. 🙂 He didn’t make a peep until he woke up for his usual 12 am and 3 am nighttime wakings. When I nursed him at these times, he went right back to bed.

With every child, I have always been determined to never let them “cry it out”, but inevitably, a few tears are usually shed during this transitional phase.

2. New Bedtime Routine: Reading Stories

The whole “nursing and nursing and nursing, hoping he would fall asleep, and then putting him down awake if he popped off the breast” became our new bedtime routine for about three months.

Finally, when the nursing aversion made it practically impossible for me to nurse one second longer, I knew that I would need to get him going with a bedtime story routine as soon as possible. The first night I tried it, it was super successful!

When I remembered how well bedtime stories had worked for all of our other children, I kicked myself for not starting this routine sooner!

Even if he was nursing to sleep some nights, on the nights that he didn’t fall asleep nursing, we could have read some stories and made this transition even easier. But alas, it is so hard to change!

3. Setting the Scene for a Successful Bedtime Routine

By getting everything prepared ahead of time so that the environment can be the same every night, it will make the nightly routine that much easier. This is what has worked for me. You will have to find what works for you, but this might be a place to start.

  • Rocking Chair: I have a nice comfy rocking chair in the corner of our room that I always nurse him in before putting him to bed in his crib.
  • Books: Next to the rocking chair, I put a stack of his favorite books.
  • Salt Lamp: I love the reddish glow of this dimmer lamp, plus it purifies the air by releasing negative ions!
  • Sippy Cup of Milk: I love using sippy cups with handles like this so that my babies can hold on to them and feed themselves. I fill it up with raw milk, but you could also use water or a glass sippy cup like this.
  • Silky: Every night, Julian sleeps with this special silky that I hand made for him. I’ve always wrapped him up in it while we’re nursing, and I tuck it over his legs while we read bedtime stories.
  • Fan: I like the white noise of a fan. It’s helpful to have a sound buffer since he sleeps only a few feet from our bed.

4. Julian’s Bedtime Routine

Children love and crave routines, especially with something that predictably happens every day…like bedtime. Each activity precipitates the next, and it makes the entire process predictable, fun, and easy.

  1. Big Kids’ Bedtime Routine: I’ve been wanting to write a blog about this for quite some time, but basically, we get our pajamas on, wrestle, cuddle, have family time, eat a snack, brush our teeth, and then begin a series of reading everyone stories and tucking them in. Julian has always tagged along with one of us during this process until I’ve been ready to nurse him to sleep.
  2. The Rocking Chair: When we were just starting to wean, if he would try to wiggle into a nursing position, I would nurse him briefly (or distract him with one of his favorite books), and then sit him on my lap. After that, I cover him up with his silky, give him his sippy cup of milk, and get ready to read.
  3. Reading Books: Sometimes I’ll read a whole stack of books, but if he’s really tired, I like to stick with just three. Before I read the last book, I say, “After this book we’re going nigh-night.”
  4. Sing a Song: Once he realizes he’s going to bed, he sometimes starts to cry so I try to distract him with a song and maybe even a little dance/spin move. (For some reason, I started singing him, “Boom, boom goes the little green frog one day, boom, boom goes the little green froggie, pee-i-pickle-i-pee-i-pickle-i, boom, boom goes the little green froggie.” With each child, a different song has emerged.)
  5. Drop and Run: If I can lay him down, cover him up with his silkies, get out of the room, and shut the door in less than 1.5 seconds, then there is a much better chance he won’t cry!
  6. Milk Cup: Julian and Elliot never did get into pacifiers like Ruby and Ophelia did, but Julian has really liked taking his milk cup to bed with him. It’s got a child safety top, so it usually doesn’t spill unless he sucks on it, but if it does, I’ll just wash the sheets.
  7. Wake Up Time: When Julian wakes up in the morning or from naps, sometimes I like to let him linger in bed, especially if he’s still laying down and stretching. I will sit by his bedside, rub his head, sing him songs, make funny faces, or whatever. I also like to let him play in his bed sometimes during the day. This helps him to become familiar with his little space during a time where he isn’t focused on going to sleep.

5. What if He Cries?

  • If He Cries Right Away: Sometimes he screams and cries really loudly when I first lay him down. My first instinct is to just pick him up and comfort him, but I want to give him a chance to fall asleep on his own. He usually never cries for longer than 15-30 seconds. The first few times we went through this routine, I think he cried for more like a minute or two.
  • If He Cries After Being Quiet: When babies try learning how to fall asleep on their own at first, they may be quiet at first, but then get frustrated if they don’t fall asleep right away. What I do here really depends on the nature of the cry, past behaviors, personality, how our day has been going, etc. Typically, I like to give him a minute or two to see if he’ll settle down on his own. If he starts happily babbling, I know he’ll be okay, but if his cry escalates, I will get him and quickly go through our bedtime routine again.
  • If He Wakes In the Night: When we were first weaning, I would still nurse him in the night with gradually shorter sessions. That worked pretty well at first, but then he got frustrated by the short nursing sessions, and so one night I just stopped altogether. Now, when he wakes in the night, I quickly go through our bedtime routine and lay him back down. If he cries for a long time, I’ll get him up and go through the routine again.
  • Naptime: Since I’ve been doing this routine, he’s been up pretty early every day and has needed nice long naps. (*Before I started this routine, sometimes he would fall fall back asleep after our morning nurse and then be able to go through the rest of the day without a nap.) I go through the same routine at naps as I do at night. I wait to put him down until he shows signs of being tired (gets really clingy, cuddly, and says nigh-night after I do), and then we go through our routine. Many times I can hear him talking or singing quietly for quite a bit of time, but if he’s not crying, I leave him in there. Many of our children have been in a transition out of naptimes, and if they were awake for awhile and then started to get fussy, I would get them up. So far, Julian has always fallen asleep.
  • Laying Little Babies Down Awake: In my experience, it’s always easy to lay a little baby down when they are awake yet sleepy and let them fall asleep on their own. “Experts” say that this will help to train them to fall asleep when they are older, but this has never been the case for me! Things like teething and illness usually mess up even the best of sleepers 🙂

In Conclusion

Every baby is different, but after having four, I’ve started to notice some patterns. Even though babies are ready for a bedtime routine at different ages, they all eventually crave one. By establishing a good bedtime routine from a young age, it will make bedtime that much easier as they get older. Our two older kids sleep soooooo good and do sooooo well at bedtime. Sometimes these baby/toddler years of sleep seem like they will be endless, but babies who learn good sleep habits eventually turn into young children who have good sleep habits as well.

Sweet dreams!

*You might also like my article about nursing aversion and weaning tips and my 15 month old who still wasn’t sleeping through the night.

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How Nursing Aversion Led to the Weaning of my 15 Month Old

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Why Can't I Stand Nursing Anymore? A Tale of Nursing Aversion

I was bombarded by a range of emotions when one of my favorite things in the world, breastfeeding, started to make me recoil. I thought something was wrong with me, I thought I was failing motherhood in some way, and I started slipping into a pit of depression because of it. After much research, including reading about other mother’s stories, I realized that I wasn’t alone, that I wasn’t failing as a mother, that my feelings of revulsion were the result of my changing hormones, and that there was something that I could do.

Tips for Weaning

If it wasn’t for the nursing aversion, I was hoping to nurse Julian until he was at least two years of age and/or let him self wean, but alas, that did not happen. Reading through my story may resonate with you as you are on your own journey, but you also might just be looking for some quick weaning tips, so I’ll give you those right away. 🙂

  • Gradual weaning. Sure, you can go cold turkey, but with risks of mastitis and lots of tears, I advise a more gradual approach.
  • Get through the night. Save night weaning for last. If your little one gets over tired, all he/she will want to do is nurse anyways, so just get through the nights at first.
  • Don’t offer, don’t refuse. If your child wants to nurse, let him, but don’t offer it.
  • Distract, distract, distract. Keep your child busy, busy, busy with his/her favorite activities.
  • Replace nursing with milk. If you haven’t already, start sippy cups of milk. We like using raw whole cow’s milk, but use what works for you.
  • Give plenty of food. Make sure your child is getting a nourishing diet so that he/she doesn’t need to breastfeed for the calories. Milk is high in fat and protein, so keep that in mind too.
  • Find other ways to bond. If your child loves nursing for the closeness and cuddles, make sure you’re providing plenty of other opportunities for physical closeness. My favorite is reading. We can cuddle up and be close and the book provides a nice distraction! (Check out my blog about reading with babies here and my favorite books for babies here.)
  • Nurse as long as you can. When my nursing aversion was in full effect, I could only nurse for about a minute. I would literally count to 60, and then say, “Ok, that’s enough.”
  • Tea tree oil. When Julian started catching on that I didn’t want him to nurse, it was like it made him want it even more! So, I put a bit of tea tree oil on my nipples, and one taste of that and he was like, “NO WAY!” Yes, it felt kind of mean, but I was getting pretty desperate at this point.
  • New bed time routine. If you’ve always nursed your little one to sleep, you’ll need to start a new routine. Having a sippy cup of milk, a silky, reading three books, and singing a song became our new routine. Did he cry a bit at first? Yes, but never longer than a minute or two. (Read more about setting up a bedtime routine for babies here.) *Some people have success with Daddy taking over the bedtime routine and nighttime wakings, but with me being a stay at home mom and Daddy working, we never got to this point.
  • Nighttime weaning. Getting them to bed is the hardest, after that, maybe you’ll get lucky and there won’t be any night time waking! (Ha, yeah right!) But if there is, you have to use your best judgement to get through the nights. Can you nurse long enough to get through it or are you so completely over it that you’re about to lose your mind? If the latter is the case, then maybe a few tears will need to be shed until the transition is over. I hate, hate, hate the idea of “cry it out”, but inevitably, all of my children have cried a little bit during this transition period…not hours and hours of “cry until you puke” crying, but protest cries only after all of their needs were met.
  • Know that “This too shall pass”. When you’re in the thick of a situation, it may seem like it will never ever ever end, but rest assured that there will be an end to this.

My Story

If you’re experiencing nursing aversion due to fluctuating hormones (due to pregnancy or the return of your period), I hope that by reading through my story, you will know that you are not alone! I was feeling so miserable and so guilty, and once I started learning that nursing aversion was actually a thing, I almost wept with relief. So here is my story: the good, the bad, and the ugly of it.

The Moment It Happened

The gradual annoyances with nursing that I started to feel when Julian was 15 months old were nothing compared to the moment that nursing aversion hit me with full force. Julian was 18 months and it was the middle of the night. He woke up to feed (like he would about two times every night), and I laid him down in bed beside me, ready to close my eyes and fall asleep as he nursed. But as soon as he latched on, my eyes popped open, and I bolted upright into a sitting position completely overcome with a feeling of utter revulsion. I looked at him intensely trying to figure out what was going on thinking that maybe he got a bad latch or something.

But alas, his eyes were closed and he was sucking away with a perfectly normal latch. Regardless, it just felt different. It was as if he was lightly flicking the tip of my nipple with his tongue instead of getting the deep latch that he usually did. It felt weird.

I tried to fight this intense urge to just push him off of me.

Instead, I flung my legs over the side of the bed and tried to get him to detach on his own (like he usually does when he’s done nursing and ready for sleep again). I got lucky and was able to gently pull him away and lay his sleeping body into his crib.

He didn’t wake up the rest of the night (thankfully), but I was worried about what it would feel like the next time we nursed. Usually, I nurse him every morning when he first wakes up. It’s always a fun way to cuddle, bond, and start our day. So the next morning, I got in my nursing chair (hoping the night before was just a fluke), wrapped him up in his silky, got my phone ready in case he fell asleep again so I could browse, and settled in to nurse.

The second he latched on, that revolting feeling took over, and it took every ounce of my willpower to not immediately rip him off from my body. Once again, I was sure his latch had to be off. He had tongue tie surgery at 6 weeks old, but we never fully got rid of it, and nursing did always kind of hurt a little bit. Or maybe with all of his new teeth that came in, his mouth was just different…

I kept nursing him as I tried to figure out this weird feeling. It wasn’t pleasure, and it wasn’t pain, it was just weird. If you could translate nails on a chalkboard into a physical sensation, that is the best way I can describe it. The feeling of wanting to make it stop was some kind of primal urge like when you get an itch and find yourself scratching it without even thinking.

This Has Happened Before…

Then, I remembered feeling the EXACT SAME WAY with Elliot when he was 18 months old. He went through the same thing where nursing didn’t put him to sleep anymore, and he just wanted to nurse more and more and longer and longer, getting more aggressive and grabby with each nursing session.

I remember the weird feeling from nursing Elliot got so bad that pain became a welcome distraction. I would dig my nails into my arm or bite myself as I nursed just so that I could continue. When my husband noticed I was drawing blood, he was like, ‘Something has to change’.

I wondered what was wrong with me. Why would I feel this way? What was I doing wrong? What was going on???

What is Nursing Aversion?

First of all, nursing aversion is not feeling “over-touched”. You know that feeling when everyone needs you at once and you feel like you’re standing on a little chair trying keep snakes away with a little stick? Well, it’s not that.

It’s not a choice. It’s not a failure. It’s a primal and physical reaction based primarily on fluctuating hormones due to pregnancy, tandem feeding, or menstruation.

Abby Theuring (The Badass Breastfeeder) explains how it made her feel.

“I was overcome with a physical [sensation] in my nipple of stinging, prickling and buzzing and a creepy crawly feeling all over my body; an emotional feeling of disgust mixed with fear mixed with irritation mixed with the heebeegeebees.”

On the La Leche site, Barbara from Minnesota gives her definition of nursing aversion.

“The best I can do is to say it felt like bugs were crawling all over my body, and I couldn’t brush them off. It started out difficult and annoying, and soon became intolerable. People used to ask me, ‘Does it hurt?’ And I’d think, ‘I wish!’ Pain, I could deal with. This was so beyond pain. It was just icky. Really icky.”

I like Kate’s definition of nursing aversion.

“The toe-curling, blood-boiling, rip-your-hair-out, bite-the-back-of-your-hand and want-to-go-running-down-the-street-screaming feeling that you may get when your toddler asks for the boobies (again).”

My Definition of Nursing Aversion

After much curiosity and research (there’s not much information out there about this), this is my perspective on nursing aversion.

During birth, we are completely flooded with oxytocin which helps us to bond with and breastfeed our babies. Whenever I nursed, I could feel the flood of this love hormone surging through me. I loved nursing (once we got all of the kinks worked out), and I always looked forward to this special time with my babies.

Many people talk about nursing aversion occurring during pregnancy. (La Leche League also calls it breastfeeding agitation and explains how it effects nearly one-third of women during pregnancy.) And although Ruby and Ophelia self weaned during my pregnancies with Elliot and Julian, I never experienced nursing aversion. Yes, nursing became a bit more painful during pregnancy, my milk changed, and they really seemed to lose interest, but it was NOTHING like what I’m experiencing now.

At any rate, as Julian and Elliot became older and my period returned, I believe that oxytocin was released in gradually diminishing levels during our breastfeeding sessions until it just wasn’t there anymore. Without oxytocin, prolactin isn’t released either and this is what stimulates let down. Without oxytocin or prolactin, the body starts to halt the production of milk, and this is what I imagine usually leads to weaning. As my body began to produce less and less milk, this is probably what caused Elliot and Julian to get progressively more grabby with longer nursing sessions as they desperately tried to hold on to one of their primary mode of comfort.

The Guilt

With Elliot, and now with Julian, I felt like breastfeeding was the best thing I could give to them. It was so nourishing, it was bonding, and they LOVED it.

How could this thing that was so nourishing, bonding, and wonderful make me recoil so intensely?

With Elliot, I weaned him quickly because the gradual weaning seemed to just make him want to nurse more and more and more. I didn’t like he results of that at all. To this day (he’s 5 now), I think he has suffered from it. He always has these fears of me abandoning him and always needs lots of extra cuddles.

Now, with Julian, I didn’t know what to do, so of course I did everything wrong at first. 🙂

Weaning By Quitting Cold Turkey

The revolting feelings I had nursing Julian were so intense that I just didn’t think I could handle one more nursing session. He was drinking plenty of milk and eating lots of solid food, and I felt like it would be best to just quit cold turkey.

That night, I put my salt light lamp by my rocking chair, set up a stack of books, and got a sippy cup of milk ready for our new bedtime routine. As I sat in the rocking chair, he arched to nurse, but I pulled him into a sitting position, read three books while he sipped on his milk, and laid him down. He cried for about 15 seconds (like he usually would after I would lay him down if nursing didn’t put him to sleep), and he was quiet. “Well that was easy!” I gloated to myself.

When I thought about our two upcoming nighttime feedings though, my heart sank. I had no idea what to do. My husband and I talked about it, and I said I was going to try a sippy cup and books (I even had a bottle on hand). During his first waking, I tried giving him the sippy cup, and he HATED it. He pushed it away and tried desperately to nurse. Knowing how it would feel, I just couldn’t bring myself do it, and I laid him in bed.

He screamed for about 5 minutes. I couldn’t stand it! My heart was breaking for him.

Just when I was about to get him, he stopped crying. As I finally drifted off to sleep 3o minutes later however, he woke up again…crying for me. I tried the sippy cup again, and put him back to bed crying. This happened a few more times, and it was awful, but somehow we made it through the night.

Weaning with More of a Gradual Release

The next day, I was determined to be vigilant about not nursing (because of what we had gone through the night before). While I was talking to my sister Lisa about everything, I started getting my breast pump ready. I have this one super boob that produces the bulk of the milk, and it was super duper full at the time.

When Julian saw what I was doing he bee-lined for me. I felt like if I were to nurse him, everything we went through the night before would have been for nothing, but I just couldn’t refuse him, and so he nursed. My engorged breast was so full that nursing was actually a relief, and I barely noticed the weird feeling that I could tell was just lingering under the surface.

I knew he didn’t drain me all the way and that we would probably need to nurse again later. “Maybe a gradual release would be a better way to go about this after all?” I wondered. (Ummm…yes!) I decided that I wouldn’t nurse him to sleep, I would try not to nurse him during the day (don’t offer, don’t refuse), and that I would nurse him (for as long as I could, even if it was just a minute or two) when he woke up in the middle of the night.

A New Problem Emerges…Mastitis

My right breast still felt pretty full at bedtime that night, so I nursed him quickly and then transitioned into our new bedtime routine of reading books. He went to bed that night without making a peep. Even after I nursed him, my right breast was feeling pretty sore, but I didn’t think anything of it.

Then, in the middle of the night, I woke up in intense pain. My right breast was throbbing, and I felt awful. I could feel myself burning up with fever, but I was shivering and shaking. I felt like I might be sick, but I just took some ibuprofen, put an electric hot pad on my breast, and somehow went back to sleep again.

When Julian woke in the night to nurse, I massaged my sore breast and realized that there were some major obstacles buried deep in there. Plugged ducts…masititis…oh no!

The details of my recovery from mastisis would best be saved for another post, but just know that it was awful. I had to nurse him like crazy to get rid of the lumps…and every time I did it was so painful that the nails on a chalkboard took a backseat! But at least in all of this, we established a new bedtime routine that didn’t involve me nursing him to sleep.

Where We Are Now

Overall, gradually weaning has been an easier and more gentle method for Julian (although I personally would have preferred cold turkey). I had to nurse him a lot at first to help me get over the mastitis, but once that was done, I was able to go back to “don’t offer, don’t refuse”.

I tried really hard to keep us busy and to keep him distracted so that he wouldn’t think about nursing. When he did want to nurse, I wouldn’t get the silky or even get very comfortable, I would just pop him on the breast and let him nurse for about as long as I could tolerate it (maybe a minute or so). On one of the first days, I put some tea tree oil on my nipples when he wouldn’t leave me alone, and it was VERY effective at keeping him away! At night, if he leaned down to nurse, I would nurse him quickly before going into our new bedtime routine.

Now, when he wakes up to nurse in the night (usually twice), I let him nurse for about 1-2 minutes, and then I put him back to bed. Sometimes he cries for about 15-30 seconds, sometimes he babbles the ABCs, and sometimes he’s just quiet. If he cries for a longer period of time (or if he’s quiet for a bit and then cries again), I repeat the process. Occasionally, if I’m worried that he might be genuinely hungry for some food, I’ve taken him into the kitchen to cook up his favorite food – dippy eggs and toast.

*3 Months Later: Now that three months have gone by, I wanted to give an update. At 21 months, Julian goes to sleep after his bedtime routine every night without a peep, and most nights, he sleeps right through the night (unless he’s feeling sick). If he does wake up, I give him a sippy cup of milk and either go through the bedtime routine again or just rock and cuddle him until he falls back asleep. As we finished our gradual weaning, I would always make sure to stuff him full of food before he went to bed and he just started sleeping through the night. Yay! After about 3-4 weeks of not nursing, he stopped lifting up my shirt (although now he is obsessed with my belly button…and his own for that matter) and seemed to gradually just forget about it.

Reading with Julian

Reading with Julian

In Conclusion

I wrote this blog to help me understand what I was feeling when breastfeeding gradually became less enjoyable and then suddenly repulsed me. I learned a lot from reading about other mother’s stories, and I hope that by sharing my story, I can help other mothers realize the same thing.

All in all, I think that nursing aversion is nature’s way of saying, “It’s time to move on.” This mama dog trying to wean her puppies is a really good visualization of this. 🙂

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My 15 Month Old “Baby” is Still Not Sleeping Through the Night

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Embracing Motherhood My 15 Month Old "Baby" is Still Not Sleeping Through the Night

It’s 2 o’clock in the morning, and it feels like my head just hit the pillow, but now he’s crying again. I wait for a minute to see if it’s just a quiet whimper and he’ll fall back asleep, or if it’s more of a full on cry and he needs me.

His cry gets louder and takes on a shrill brassy tone. I jump quickly to my feet keeping my eyes still half closed because I don’t want to fully wake up.

He’s sitting up in his crib, and I pull up my shirt over my right breast so that I’m ready to nurse before I even scoop him up. We plop down onto my tower of pillows (that have been there since he was born), and as we nestle under the covers, my head tips back, my eyes close, and I drift back to sleep.

I awaken to little fingers tickling at my neck, and before he can fully wake up, I cradle him in my arms and tuck him back into his crib.

As I walk through the closet door, take one step, and plop immediately back into bed, I wonder once again why I didn’t just leave him in our king sized bed in between us, like I did when he was smaller. There’s definitely plenty of room, but for some reason, I just sleep better when he’s in his own crib. And even though I know I’ll have to go and get him again in a few hours, the time in between I will be sprawled out on my belly hugging my body pillow (that is now just a part of my side of the bed after four pregnancies) and sleeping HARD knowing that there’s no one next to me that I might squish or who might kick me in the face.

I nurse him again at 4:30 a.m. and wonder if I should just get up for the day. I’ve already gotten about 5 hours of sleep, which is pretty much par for the course these days, and there’s so much to do…

But against my better judgement, I decide to close my eyes again just for a moment. Before I know it, I am startled awake by a small little cry. I know that I must have been sleeping because the remnants of an intense dream still dance across the backs of my eyelids, but it doesn’t feel like more than two minutes have gone by. When I look at the clock, I realize it’s been about two hours since I’ve last nursed him.

As I meet him in front of his crib, he starts babbling, “4, 5, 6, 7..” and I know that he’ll want to be awake for the day. Still, I cuddle him up in bed and nurse him one last time. When he’s done, he pulls away and smiles happily at me, “A, B, C, D…” he says in his sweet little voice, and then proceeds to chant through the entire alphabet as I rock him in my arms, turning up the red glow of the salt lamp beside my bed as I look at him, smiling, and nodding the entire time.

He eventually he squirms out of my arms, slides off from our mattress on the floor, and heads over to the door happy and ready to start his day.

Not every night is this peaceful. Some nights he’s up every hour, and I feel like the walking dead as I shuffle through our nursing routine or try to bounce and rock him to sleep when he’s teething, sick, or really gassy. Other nights, Scott awakens to hear me cursing or crying as I gather my phone, Ophelia’s monitor, and Julian’s silky knowing that we’ll be out in the living room for the next few hours when all I want to do is just close my eyes and drift away.

But still, even when things are at their toughest, I’m glad that I can be there to rock him in my arms as those sharp little daggers of teeth torture his gums, help him breathe by sucking out all of his boogers with a Nose Frida, rub his tummy and pump his legs to help him with his gassy tummy, and give him nourishment and sustenance with my body’s milk.

Lack of sleep is like a badge of honor that I wear as a mother, and I’m proud of it!

On days when I’m really tired, I close my eyes for a few minutes after story time, or I might get a quick nap when Scott gets home (Napping when the baby naps doesn’t happen when you have four kids!), and I always get to sleep in on the weekends! (Thank you love!)

This idea that babies should sleep through the night at some certain age is completely arbitrary, and seems kind of fishy the way that this abnormal fallacy is spread throughout the major “parenting websites” out there as “normal”. Sleep train your baby before they can stand you say? Don’t let them fall asleep breastfeeding because it’s a bad habit you say? Make them cry it out because a baby needs a well rested mommy you say?

Hogwash! It is an HONOR to nurse my baby to sleep every night! I love being in tune with his needs! I love how his nighttime nursing keeps my milk supply up!

I don’t want to turn my mommy heart off while I listen to him scream himself to sleep every night, I don’t want him to stop needing me, and I don’t want him to stop telling me that he needs me.

Already, he is starting to show signs of not needing me anymore, and it’s scary! After 15 months of nursing to sleep every night, he is starting to pull away before he’s done, preferring instead to burrow his face in the silkies tucked in the crook of my arm and fall asleep that way. And sometimes after we do our bedtime routine and nurse, he squirms away from me until I lay him down in his crib, ready to fall asleep on his own.

The mistake I made with Ruby and Elliot was thinking that there would be some magical day that they wouldn’t need me in the night anymore.

Now, with Ophelia and Julian, I realize that the progression with sleep is just as gradual as the progression with any other milestone.

2 and a half year old Ophelia didn’t just start reading one day. It was a gradual sequence of events that began with daily flashcards at 8 months old and progressed a little more every day from there. Ophelia still needs me in the night a few times a week. Sometimes she wants some milk, sometimes a pacifier, and sometimes I think she just wants to be covered up again. Heck, even Ruby and Elliot still need to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water in the night sometimes! It’s never over. It’s never done. Having kids means that you’ll probably always be sleeping with one ear open, and IT’S WORTH IT! It’s so worth it!

I have finally learned (after 4 children) to stop Googling so much and to start listening, really listening, to what my mommy heart has to say. My mother’s intuition has more answers than any book on the shelves, and I know that when I trust in it, the answers are always more individualized and nuanced that anything some Dr. Sleep with a doctorate could have ever written.

It’s time that we all listened to our mommy hearts. It’s time that we stop trying to perpetuate the idea that there is ONE right way of doing things and that there is some unrealistic standard that we are all somehow failing. I get that it feels good to be supported by the attachment parenting group or the cry it out group once you’ve made those decisions, but neither group knows what’s best for you in every possible scenario. Maybe your mommy heart IS telling you that if you don’t have your child cry it out you are going to straight up lose it! If that is what you need to do then do it! You DO know best! Read the blogs, look at the forums, skim through the books if you must, but know that they are only there to kickstart what’s inside.

When we listen to our mommy hearts, when we respect our intuition and demand that others respect it to, it will give us the confidence to own this thing called motherhood.

Because sleep issues are just the beginning of this journey of motherhood. Before we know it, our little ones will be teenagers, and then adults, and someday (maybe) mothers and fathers themselves. And when this happens, I want to share with them how I loved these nights, how I cherished this time, how I gave everything I could, and how I loved it.

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I Need to Take a Break

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Embracing Motherhood I Need to Take a Break

If you’ve seen my pictures on FaceBook, you’ll know that our family just had an incredible vacation at Wolf Creek Lodge. While it’s true that we had a great time and really bonded as a family, the bottom line is that it left me feeling physically and emotionally drained.

Ruby and Elliot are so sweet and independent…ready to take on the world with us as their guides. But Ophelia and Julian are still a bit timid and afraid, needing us to hold their hands a bit more. Going out into the world on this vacation was really fun for the older kids, but it was completely overwhelming for the little ones…and for me.

Cuddling with Julian (15 Months)

Cuddling with Julian (15 Months)

Being so close in age, Ophelia and Julian seem to constantly need me and compete for my attention. Being on vacation just exacerbated their needs, and now they are even more fragile and seem to need me even more than before we left!

Cuddling with Ophelia

Cuddling with Ophelia

The bottom line is that I am feeling completely overwhelmed. I need a break. And so I’m taking one!

As much as I enjoy Embracing Motherhood and as much as it fulfills me and gives me joy to create and share the things I am learning and creating, being there for my family gives me EVEN MORE joy! And so I am going to take a break from blogging. I am going to take a break from FaceBook, Instagram, Google Plus, and Twitter. I am going to unplug from these things so that I can focus on the most important aspect of my life. My family.

I will still be working on my flashcards and videos because they are a part of my daily homeschool routines, but I will not be blogging about them until my hiatus is complete.

Thank you in advance for understanding!

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It’s Time to Stop the Mommy Wars!

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Embracing Motherhood It's Time to Stop the Mommy Wars

After watching this viral video about the Mother ‘Hood, it really made me think about the way that we judge each other without sharing our stories face to face.

In the same way that we can experience extreme road rage simply because we are not looking at the people who have enraged us, it can be easy to judge each other based on stereotypes until we have actually met each other and shared our stories. It is these biased judgments that fuel the mommy wars, and they need to stop.

I would love to be part of a world where these mommy wars don’t exist, and so I am trying to do everything in my power make myself a part of the solution instead of contributing to the problem.

If we could all focus on lifting each other up instead of putting each other down and loving and accepting each other even though we may be different, we could really break down some of the barriers that are preventing us from living in a more harmonious way.

Here are nine things that I think will really help to end all mommy wars. (And honestly, many of these tips are great for breaking down barriers between all people, not just mothers.)

1. Don’t Be a Bully

I don’t think that bullies always realize that they are bullies. When I was an elementary school teacher, I would talk to my students about bullies, and I would tell them that I felt sorry for them because they are usually people who feel insecure, alone, and scared. I would explain that even though bullies are hurting however, it didn’t make it okay for them to hurt others.

Bullies don’t just happen in the world of children, they happen in the world of adults too. Have you ever seen or experienced bully behavior in your mommy world? Or even worse, have you exhibited bully behavior yourself? Have you ever judged someone for doing something different than you and made a sarcastic remark about it? That’s what bullies do. Have you ever ignored a new mom at playgroup because you were too scared about fitting in yourself? You were being a bully. Have you ever rolled your eyes at the mother whose child was having a tantrum at the grocery store instead of offering her a reassuring glance? That’s bully behavior.

We need to stop bully behavior, and we need to stop supporting others when they exhibit it. Bullies can do a lot more damage when they have followers. Weak people often follow bullies because they don’t want to be bullied themselves. Moms who are scared and alone may saddle up to the strongest voice, looking for protection, looking for acceptance, looking for direction, but it is never worth it if it hurts someone else. Bullies are the ones leading these mommy wars, and their bully behavior needs to stop.

2. Motherhood Unites Us

Regardless of whether we are married or single, had a natural birth at home or a c-section at a hospital, breast feed or bottle feed, co-sleep or crib sleep, cry it out or nurse to sleep, feed our children organic food or processed food, or any other number of differences, we are all first and foremost mommies, and that is what’s most important.

We all created and carried a tiny human, and we all felt it kick and move inside of us for months and months as we struggled with questions, insecurities, and self doubt. “Will I be a good mom? Will I know what to do? Will I make the right decisions?” We all melted into a puddle of goo when we first smelled our newborn’s scent, and we bonded. We each bonded in our own ways, but we bonded with our tiny little humans nonetheless. We were changed forever. We became mothers.

We need to remember what unites us when we meet each other at the park, see each other at the grocery store, let our kids play together at play group, and join in discussions on online groups. We need to remember that even though we may make different decisions based on our upbringings, personalities, situations, influences, and resources, we are all still connected and we can all still support each other. When we are united, there is no room for mommy wars.

3. Be a Good Mom Friend

We have the potential to have many mommy acquaintances through playgroups, online groups, social functions, and the like, and if we’re lucky, we’ll also have a few good mommy friends. I have been fortunate enough to have a collection of wonderful mommy friends that extend far beyond my small town city limits. With so many small ones underfoot, I don’t get out much, but thanks to the advancements in technology, I am connected to them nonetheless.

The mommies that lift me up, that make me feel better about myself, that make me feel like I can do anything – these are the ones that I keep close to my tender mommy heart. The mommies who question me, put me down, make sarcastic comments, scoff at my choices, try to tell me how their way is better, and only talk about themselves – these are the ones that I don’t let in.

Your good mommy friends will help you to be a better mommy. They will lift you up, support you, help you to see things that you might not have seen otherwise, offer a new perspective, are excited for you, want to learn and grow with you, and most importantly, they know what it’s like to be a mommy and they share their mommy heart with you. When we can be a good mommy friend, we are building bridges that connect our souls and we are breaking down the barriers that lead to mommy wars.

4. What’s Right for You Isn’t Right for Everyone

Even if you’ve done all of the research and you KNOW without a shadow of a doubt the best food to feed your children, the best way to teach them, the best way to give birth, and the best car seat, you cannot assume that this is the BEST way, this is just the way that works best for you.

I get so excited every time I learn something new, and the main reason why I wanted to write this blog was to record and share what I’m learning, but I have to be really really careful that my voice doesn’t come across as “I know what’s best for everyone”. I know that every mom is on her own journey and will choose what works best for her based on her  experiences, personalitiy, resources, and so on. This blog is about what’s best for ME based on MY research, MY personality, MY needs, and what makes ME happy. Maybe, just maybe, some of the things will resonate with you, or make you think about what works for you, or motivate you to do your own research, or just comfort you to know that there is someone out there looking for answers…just like you.

What’s important is that we all have the right to choose. Sadly, some of these rights are being threatened because while individuals are smart, society is perceived as stupid, and therefore, the government tries to tell us what to eat, how to sleep, how to give birth, how to medicate, and so on in sweeping “one size fits all” generalizations. I encourage you to seek out your own answers, to do what works for you, and to try not to impose what you have learned onto others. If we can treat others how we want to be treated, we can put a stop to the judgments that have led to these mommy wars.

5. Don’t Compare Yourself to Other Moms

Whenever I scroll through Pinterest and see a mom doing a bunch of crafts with her toddler that I just don’t have the time for, or I see a blog post from someone I’m following who is cooking something I just haven’t mastered yet, or I see images of moms one step ahead of me on Facebook, my first reaction is to compare myself to those moms. I don’t mean to, but it’s like my brain is saying, “You should be doing that! Why aren’t you doing that?” And then the feelings of guilt start to bubble up.

I start to justify why I’m not like the other moms (who all have it together way better than me, obviously), why I’m not doing what they are doing, how what I’m doing is more important, and then it’s like a switch where I’ve gone from guilty to angry. “Why are they doing that? I would never prioritize that! What I’m doing is better! ” And just like that, my feeling of guilt have transformed into feelings of loathing for the other mom.

Isn’t that horrible? Have you ever felt yourself headed down that path? I am trying to make it my new mission to not get swept away comparing myself to other moms. If I see them doing something that I would also like to try, I tuck that idea in the back of my mind to save for later, and if they’re doing something that I’m just not ready for, then I am training myself to say, “Good for them! I am glad that they are doing what makes them happy!” If we can all support each other even when we are in different stages of motherhood, I think it will most definitely help to end these mommy wars.

6. Stop Trying to Portray Perfection

We all want to share the good in our life, to post our proudest moments to Facebook and Instagram, and to show the world that we do, in fact, know what we are doing. But sometimes, we can work so hard on trying to prove that we’re doing good, that we even fool ourselves into believing this caricature of perfection. Our lives as mothers aren’t always full of perfect Pinterest posts. Yes, we all have our shining moments, but most of the time we’re elbows deep in poop, puke, and pee simply trying to remember what day it is.

I think it’s good to share the good and the bad, and to know that the bad isn’t really bad, it’s just real. I’m not saying that we need to sit around and complain about how tough motherhood is or post pictures of all of our failures, but we need to be able to get real with each other. We need to be able to share with those who we are close to what it’s really like, what we’re struggling with, what’s perplexing us, and what we’re trying to do about it.

If we all do this, if we can all share what it’s really like, then it won’t seem like we’re the only ones who are actually struggling. If we can all get real, it will create a culture that welcomes honesty, introspection, and meaningful relationships. This is the kind of culture where mommy wars don’t exist.

7. Avoid Being a Copycat Mom

I have always been fascinated when I see two or more girls in a group that are all wearing similar outfits. It’s like, did they all call each other before heading out and say, “Today we’re going to wear leggings, baggy v-necked t-shirts, and open toed shoes”? I see this so often that I’ve joked with my husband about wanting to create a coffee table book where I document all of the “twins” that I see.

We all have a desire to fit in, to be accepted, and to belong, and when we’re in a group where there is common ground, an agreed upon set of “rules”, it creates a sense of security. There’s nothing wrong with belonging to various groups, but if we start looking to the group to answer our questions instead of first looking within, it could be a problem. I mean, maybe you love wearing leggings, but maybe you don’t. What if everyone in your group was wearing leggings and you showed up with jeans? You would feel like an outsider, you would feel like everyone was looking at you, and you would question yourself.

As mothers, we may associate with a home birth crowd, a baby wearing group, or a working moms clique who all share similar characteristics. When we’re in these groups, there seem to be these unwritten rules about what all of the moms do and believe in. If you’re a natural mom, you should have a home birth, use cloth diapers, eat only organic food, co-sleep, wear your baby, breastfeed, and homeschool. If you’re a modern mom, you should have an epidural, vaccinate your children, teach your baby to self soothe, pump stores of breast milk, get back to work, and send your child to the best preschool.

But what happens when we pick and choose what works for us rather than adhering to the guidelines of a certain group? What happens when we abandon the checklist and just follow our instincts? Is it possible to be a part of the attachment parenting online forum if you don’t sleep with your baby? Can you still subscribe to the organic moms newsletter if you let your children have McDonald’s from time to time? Will you be shunned by the working moms group if you don’t vaccinate your children?

I have really struggled with this concept because my desire to fit in is strong, but my desire to march to the beat of my own drum is stronger. I choose to do what’s best for me and my family, and as a result, I kind of feel like I don’t really fit in anywhere. Slowly but surely, however, I feel like I’m becoming a part of a really cool new community. In this community, we are bonded by the fact that we are mothers, we love being mothers, we love doing what’s best for our children, and we support each other. It is truly liberating, and it is a mindset that will not allow for the behavior that leads to mommy wars.

8. Don’t Take Everything Personally

Did someone just post a Facebook comment that you KNOW what was meant for you, share a personal story that you’re POSITIVE was meant to teach you a lesson, or explain what they’ve tried when they were in your situation as a way to show YOU that YOU don’t know how to be a mom?

I think that sometimes we can get so lost in our own little worlds, and so absorbed with ourselves, that it seems like everyone else must be too. But the reality, is that everyone is living their own lives, struggling with their own daily battles, focused on their own goals and tribulations, and they really, honestly, don’t care about you as much as you think they do. (This concept is discussed in more depth in Don Miguel Ruiz’s book The Four Agreements, and I highly recommend you read it!)

I know that we can’t control our interactions with strangers, but with the people that are in our lives (who are hopefully in our lives for a good reason), we should give them the benefit of the doubt. When they say something that taps into one of our insecurities and it hurts, we can’t assume that they were trying to hurt us on purpose. If we can assume that everyone loves us and has our best interests in mind, it will reduce our stress levels and put us in a much more positive place.

Then, if time and time again, it becomes clear that a person in our life is trying to make us feel bad, is trying to put us down, and is definitely trying to hurt us, then we have two options. We can confront them about it and/or we can cut them out of our lives for a little while. There is no reason to associate with a bully. There is no reason to keep people in our lives who make us feel bad about ourselves. But there are also miscommunications that occur, and through open and honest conversations about our feelings, we can usually get to the bottom of them. In this way, we can stop the mommy wars one friendship at a time.

9. Find Your Own Happiness

My 6 year old daughter is already such an old soul and loves discussing her life plans. She’s always talking about what kind of mother she’ll be and what career choices she’ll make. Right now, she wants to be teacher, but she also sees herself as an artist, a mathematician, a writer, a nature girl, and a scientist. I always tell her that before she gets married, she has to find her own happiness. I tell her that before she can fall in love with someone else, she has to love herself first. I tell her that in order to love herself, she has to know who she is and that she can do this by figuring out what she loves to do. I encourage her to follow her passions, I help her to see what her passions are, and I guide her towards options that will help her to learn or grow in the areas she is passionate about.

Maybe you were lucky enough to have parents or a mentor who did that for you when you were a child (I was, thanks mom and dad!), but maybe you are just starting out on this journey to find your own happiness.

What makes me happy is always changing as I change and grow. Before I got married, I moved to Colorado, snowboarded like crazy, traveled, had adventures, and followed my heart. Now that I’m married and a mother of four, I feel like the true adventure is just beginning! I find happiness researching and learning about nutrition and how it affects our bodies, trying out recipes that are delicious and meet the nutrition needs of my family, learning about the brain and how children learn, creating learning activities for my children that are in their zone of proximal development, arranging our home into stations that encourage independent learning and creative play, and of course I love writing about what I am learning!

I don’t do all of these things so that I can show off or look good, I do what makes me HAPPY and as a result, my family is too! Maybe you’re a mom who is happiest to get outside and explore, maybe you love doing crafts and posting them on Pinterest, maybe you love learning about history and being a part of historical reenactments, or maybe you love computers and learning programming. If you do what makes you happy, if you follow your passions, if you follow your heart, your family will benefit.

Don’t follow some checklist of what you think you should be doing. Follow your instincts, do what makes you happy, and don’t let anyone else intimidate you to be something you are not. Get rid of the guilt if you’re not into making your own Christmas ornaments. Let go of what society tries to make you feel you should be doing. Just listen to your heart, do what makes you happy, and never look back! When we find our own happiness, there isn’t as much room for the self doubt that leads to us judging others and fueling these mommy wars.

In Conclusion

If we can all take steps to stop bully behavior, realize we are all united through motherhood, be a good mom friend, stop comparing ourselves to other moms, know that what works for us doesn’t necessarily work for everyone, stop trying to portray perfection, avoid being a copycat mom, refrain from taking everything personally, and most importantly, find our own happiness, then I believe that we can stop these mommy wars once and for all.

If we can all embrace ourselves and our role as mothers, and if we can embrace each other, regardless of our differences and regardless of our preferences, then we can end these mommy wars, and get back to what really matters, being moms.

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The Story of How I Became a Stay at Home Mom

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Embracing Motherhood The Story of How I Became a Stay at Home Mom

I worked full time until my children were 6 and 18 months old, and choosing to be a stay at home mom was the best decision I ever made. I often wonder and regret why I didn’t do it sooner, but I did it nonetheless. Here’s my story.

I’ll always remember what it felt like the first day I went back to work after spending a glorious three months uninterrupted with my sweet first baby girl, Ruby. As I walked down the long hallway to my classroom, I was greeted with hugs and sympathetic sentiments.

One teacher even said,

“It’s okay to cry. I cried at first too.”

And I thought, yes I probably should cry. But oddly enough, I didn’t feel any tears. I wondered what was wrong with me that I wouldn’t be crying at the mere thought of leaving my sweet, precious, exclusively breastfed little infant in the arms of someone else.

I mean, it was my mom watching her, but still…

So, as I stood there in my classroom, all set up and ready for the students that had been waiting patiently with a substitute during the first three months of school for me to return, and I tried to see if I could cry.

But before I could get at my true feelings, I had to peel back a few layers that were covering them up.

First, I peeled back the excuse that I had to do this because we couldn’t afford to make ends meet any other way, then I scraped away the sentiments that she was in good hands with my mother, and finally I sloughed off the guilty feelings about how bored I sometimes felt being home without any adult interaction, and how hard it actually was to be a mother.

What I found buried underneath was a very fresh wound that was very sensitive to these probing thoughts.

Just poking at that wound brought back a sudden flood of memories. And as I stood there remembering what it felt like to hold her the moment after she was born, the way she was always happiest to lay inbetween us cooing early in the mornings, the sweet smell of breast milk that was always on her skin, the softness of her little fingers as they would grasp at my face, and the way her eyes would widen and how she would reach for me desperately even when she merely glanced at me from across the room…

I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breath and the tears started to flow noiselessly in a stream down my cheek.

I was just about to start heaving and sobbing when I heard the shuffle of footsteps in the hallway. As I looked at the clock, I noticed that I only had a few more minutes to pull things together before I needed to greet my students for the day.

So, I took all of those memories and all of those feelings, and I buried them deep down into the pit of my soul.

Then I packed all of my excuses back on top until the feelings of pain became but a vague memory. And I felt something grow within me that would only grow stronger as time went on. It wasn’t really a feeling of anything, but the absence of feeling. It was a numbness that allowed me to focus on the tasks in front of me while burying an instinct that I just couldn’t let out.

A teacher who saw me crying ran in for a quick hug.

“Don’t worry,” she said expertly. “It will get easier.” And she was right. It did get easier.

With each passing day, I got better at burying my true emotions, and the painful wound of our separation began to heal into a weird disfigured scar. Every time I would hear my sweet precious daughter cry as I slipped out the door to go to work in the morning or back to work after nursing her at lunch, I would pack more excuses like a salve onto my wound.

Everyone that watched her at our home during the rest of the school year would always tell me,

“She always stops crying a few minutes after you’re gone,” as if that was supposed to console me. But it did.

I knew she was in good hands and that she was being loved and cared for. My mom would even bring her into the classroom for me to nurse her during every break that I had and would even hang out for hours in the back of the room playing quietly for the first month that I was back to work. But they weren’t MY hands taking care of her, and that was a fact that gnawed at me constantly.

When the family was done caring for Ruby and she had to be put into daycare, it really was the best possible scenario. A coworker’s mother in law did day care one mile from where I was teaching, and I was able to go and breastfeed her to sleep during my lunch break every single day. But even though Ruby was happy there and well cared for, I felt like I was missing out.

I would try to linger after dropping her off just to be able to spend a little more time with her, but the pressures of work were calling me, and I had to go. She still cried every day as I left, and it never stop hurting to leave her.

At the end of the day, the eight hours we were apart were summarized in a few sentences.

As I got a report of what she ate, whether or not she pooped, and any other milestones she accomplished, my mind was really only half listening because all I really wanted to do was just whisk her away so that I could be with her as much as I could for the remainder of the day. But there were always errands to run, dinner to prepare, and things to do around the house, and it just felt like there was never enough TIME.

After a tough and emotional return to work, I decided that a position utilizing my Master’s degree in Language Acquisition at another school would allow me more flexibility and freedom to be a better working mother. In my new job as ESL Instructional Coach the following year, I found that it was definitely a better blend of my two worlds.

But little did I know that even as I was interviewing for this new job, I was pregnant with our second child, and he was about to change everything.

Elliot was born peacefully in front of the fireplace of our little one bedroom condo in December, and after only four weeks of maternity leave (we couldn’t afford to have my pay docked like we had with Ruby), I went back to work. (Did you know that every other industrialized nation except for America mandates full paid maternity leave? Go figure.)

Elliot was quite different from his independent, happy-with-anyone big sister. He was born ten days overdue, but he probably would have preferred to stay in there indefinitely. Even after he had been earthside for over a day, he still didn’t want to open his eyes and preferred instead to bury himself in my bosom and nurse constantly.

If a little bit of me died having to leave Ruby behind, leaving Elliot behind almost destroyed me. He needed me so much and my only consolation was that he slept most of the day and was up with me to nurse constantly throughout the night.

I almost didn’t even want to sleep inbetween feedings because I just wanted to hold on to each moment where the two of us could be snuggled up together soaking in the feel of his skin against mine and feeling his little body rise and fall with each breath.

Just as with Ruby, we had an onslaught of family visitors who moved in with us and helped take care of Elliot during my first six weeks back at work. After that, I only had to put him in day care for three months until the end of the school year. Throughout it all, he was always really close to my work and even though he would never take a bottle, I was able to go to him and nurse him every four hours.

Right up until before he was born, I had assumed that he would be taken care of by the sweet grandmotherly lady who lovingly took care of Ruby. But due to some unforeseen hip problems, she told me that she wouldn’t be able to take care of a new baby after all. That left me scrambling at the last minute to find someone else. I thought I found the perfect place right next to the school with a busy day care mom who had room for both Ruby and Elliot. I was sad to take Ruby out of her current placement, but happy to have both of my kids together.

When I came to nurse Elliot (10 weeks old) on my first break during their first day at this new place, I noticed that Ruby (17 months) was in her high chair eating food. I thought nothing of it until I came back at lunch only to see her nodding off, still in her high chair. When I came back at the end of the day, she was STILL in her high chair.

I was very upset, and the day care mom tried desperately to console me saying that she fell asleep there and had only just woken up. I was just like, “Why didn’t you put her in bed after she fell asleep in the high chair?” but she had no response.

The next day, I knew that I couldn’t take Ruby back there again, so I called Ruby’s sweet grandmotherly caretaker in tears and asked if she could take Ruby for the remainder of the year. She graciously agreed, but reminded me again that she wouldn’t be able to take care of Elliot too. Elliot seemed to do fine with the busy day care mom because he pretty much slept all day, and I had no other options, so that was that.

I’ll always remember the African lullaby songs that I would listen to every morning as I first dropped off Ruby, then Elliot to a parking lot near his drop off home where I would nurse him. When I hear that cd to this day, it still brings tears to my eyes.

I was desperately trying to juggle having a career, being a mom, being a wife, and taking care of myself, but I never had enough to give to everyone and so it felt like I was failing in all areas of my life.

When summer break finally came, I was in total and absolute heaven! I could finally be with my sweet babies all day and all night without any interruptions. We got into a nice little routine, and I really started to feel like not only was I surviving; I was thriving!

Instead of just worrying about our basic needs, I could actually spend time each day thinking of new ways to arrange our little house for the best play and learning opportunities, I had time to cook healthy meals for everyone, I could sleep when the kids slept without worrying about a clock, and most importantly, I could nurse my 6 month old Elliot on demand. He was VERY happy about that!

When we traveled back to our Michigan stomping ground that summer, we fell in love with being a family and being surrounded by family. When we came back to our Colorado home and our third floor condo with no air conditioning in 100° F weather, it just didn’t feel right. It felt empty and lonely, and I just couldn’t imagine what it would be like trying to get through another year while working. When we looked at our finances and saw that with two kids in daycare, it was hardly worth it for my husband to work, we made a big decision to have him be a stay at home dad and take care of the kids while I continued to work.

After those wheels were set in motion, and with the start date of my next school year quickly approaching, I just woke up one day and knew I couldn’t go back. Elliot was just getting used to me being around all the time, and I couldn’t bear to be apart from him again.

It felt like my heart would most certainly break into a thousand pieces if I couldn’t continue breastfeeding him on demand.

And then there was my sweet little Ruby who was already growing up so fast! At 18 months, she knew all of her letters and numbers and she was already starting to read. I wanted to be with her during every milestone, every cuddle, every naptime, and every tear. I wanted to be there for both of them, and I wanted to ENJOY my time with them, not just get through it.

After I made the phone call resigning from my position, I felt giddy with excitement! I was so happy to have finally made the decision to be with my little ones and set up a new life as a stay at home mom, but this in itself is another journey with its own story. 🙂

While we waited on the short sale of our condo, we packed up all of our things, said goodbye to the beautiful state of Colorado, our family there, our friends, and what had been our home for the last 6 years and moved into my parent’s house in Michigan.

After a few months, Scott got a job as a computer tech in a little rural town we had never heard of. He commuted over an hour every day until we finally accepted that even though it was a little farther from family than we would have liked, it was still a heck of a lot closer than Colorado, and it was really a great job in a nice location. So, we moved there. Now, we own an amazing house on a nice piece of land that’s much much cheaper than our condo in Colorado, and with two more kids, we couldn’t be happier!

I’ll always be a little bit sad about the times that I lost with Ruby and Elliot, but it was all a part of my journey and a part of our story, and I am so proud of how far we have come and what we have become.

At first, we tried to make our kids fit into our lives, just like trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. But now that we have centered every aspect of our lives around our children and me being a stay at home mom, I couldn’t imagine a simpler, happier, or more fulfilling way to spend these years.

Our babies are only babies for a short little while. Why is there so much pressure and such a hurried rush for women to “get back to work”?

Now, I totally understand that the life of a stay at home mom isn’t for everyone, and I am completely and totally fine sharing the same arena with mothers who choose to work or have no choice but to work, but

I feel like the voices that are out there cheering on the working mothers are MUCH LOUDER than the voices cheering on the stay at home mothers.

When I was struggling as a working mom, I got A LOT of encouragement from co-workers, family, friends, strangers, and the internet that what I was doing was ok, that it was hard but it would get easier, that my kids would be fine, and that I would be fine.

Only one brave soul, one of those grandmothers who become a mother again due to unfortunate circumstances, told me the truth.

“You never get those years back,”

she said to me one day. I felt offended and angry that she would suggest something that I felt at the time was impossible, but her words haunted me and were possibly the catalyst for me leaving my job to begin this wonderful career as a stay at home mom.

Comments like, “I could never do what you do.” or “Don’t you feel like you’re wasting your Master’s level education?” are sentiments that my husband and I have heard on more than one occasion. But worse than the negative comments are the absence of comments.

At times, my voice is soft, too soft perhaps, because I don’t want to offend anybody. We live in an age where everyone is fighting for women to have equal rights and equal pay, but who is fighting for the moms who want to stay home and raise their families?

We are looked at as ancient relics from our grandmother’s era, something that our progressive society has tried to do away with.

But I don’t want to be silent anymore. I want to shout from the top of a mountain (or at least blog through the channels of the Internet) that it’s okay to be a stay at home mom.

I’m not saying it’s better than being a working mom or that all moms should be stay at home moms, I’m just saying that being a stay at home mom isn’t a step down, or something we all do because we couldn’t do anything else. I see it as a privilege, an honor, and the best career move I could have ever made, and something I will never ever ever regret.

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What It’s Really Like to Be Up in the Night with a Baby and a Toddler

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Like a late stage Alzheimer’s patient, I feel my mental clarity slowly slipping away more and more every day. So while I’m still lucid, I wanted to at least get down some of my thoughts.

It all started many weeks ago when I noticed the same thing happening to my husband. Like how little things that used to come easily to him were slipping his mind, whenever he would sit down he would “rest his eyes” for just a minute, and the bags under his eyes just kept getting darker. Scott had been taking care of our toddler, Ophelia, in the night ever since Julian was born eight months ago, and when Julian started sleeping a bit better, we decided that we would give it a go with me taking care of both of them in the night. He was very reluctant to let go of his special time with Ophelia, but he was willing to give it a try.

I was overly optimistic at first, especially when Ophelia (27 months) slept beautifully through the first night. But she has been cutting her two year molars for what seems like months upon months upon months and having a real bear of a time with it, so it was no surprise when she woke up several times the next night and the night after that and the night after that.

I handled it pretty well at first. When Ophelia gets up in the night, it’s usually only a matter of minutes until she’s back in bed again, and I usually fall asleep while nursing Julian. But getting up a few times in the early part of the night to take care of Ophelia, a few more times in the latter part of the night to take care of Julian, and throw in couple of bed wettings or nightmares from the big kids, and the sleeplessness began to add up fast.

Meanwhile, my husband started to feel better than ever! Not only did he look amazing and chipper, but he had energy to burn and can often be found doing various projects until it’s time to settle down for the night. This really works out in my favor though, because by the time he gets home from work, I really and truly need his help and rely on him to get through the evening chores.

Our days are full and complete and when it’s finally our turn to go to sleep at the end of the day, snuggling into our bed feels like the most relaxing spa treatment I could ever ask for. But it seems like my head only just touches the pillow when I’ll hear her Ophelia’s little whimpering voice through the monitor (which I hardly even need since she sleeps in our walk in closet right next to my side of the bed), and my heart will immediately begin to beat faster as a heightened sense of awareness takes over my mind and I tenuously wait to see if the whimpering will continue.

If it does, I go into her room and pick her up out of her crib (she’s usually standing up at this point) and set her on my lap in the rocking chair right outside of the closest. The red glow from my bedside lamp illuminates the milk cup filled with room temperature raw milk as my tired hand clumsily fumbles to grab it. Neither of us speak a word as she drinks hungrily and snuggles into the crook of my arm. I smooth her head, cover her with kisses, and feel her body relax and soften as I give her a pacifier and wrap her silky blanket around her legs. As I tuck her back into her crib, I quickly arrange the blankets hanging over the side of the crib just so and tuck the other silkies under her arms as she rolls over and hugs them. When my head hits the pillow again, I almost immediately fall back asleep, and my heart is full of a warmth that I’m sure I will remember long after this night.

Thankfully, Ophelia and Julian seem to have some unspoken agreement about taking shifts. Ophelia usually only wakes up in the first part of the night and Julian gets the latter. (If they both wake up at the same time, then I’ll nudge Scott who quickly jumps up and takes care of Ophelia while still half asleep.) Most nights, Julian falls asleep in his newborn bassinet in the living room while Daddy plays him guitar during the final part of our beautifully orchestrated bedtime routine, and then we’ll carefully carry him through the labyrinth of our house and place him next to my side of the bed. Other nights, he’ll fall asleep in my arms as I nurse him in my rocking chair. If this happens, I’ll gently place him in his crib which is just a stone’s throw from our giant king sized bed that can’t fit his 26 pounds of chub and flailing arms amidst my tower of pillows that I need for breastfeeding him in bed during the night.

At the first sign of a whimper, I’ll bolt out of the deepest of sleeps and stand tentatively over his crib waiting to see if he’s really waking up. As I approach his crib, I’ll notice the position of his head, and I’m reminded of which side I need to nurse him on next. Before I pick him up, I’ll lift up my shirt, scoop him and his silky up in the crook of my arm, and he’ll hungrily latch on before I can even fall back onto my tower of pillows. Since he’s been teething, he will nurse far longer than I am able to stay awake. With my head resting sideways on my softest pillow, I’ll startle awake when he finally pulls himself off my breast.

This change makes him a bit unsettled, and so I’ll have to get out of bed (each time reminded of how weak my abs still are I try to throw the weight of my legs down in a pendulum and try to lift the top half of my body and Julian at the same time) to walk, rock, and bounce him until he is completely settled. I try to keep my eyes shut and hang onto the dream that was just starting to dance in my head until I am sure that he is in the deepest of sleeps. I am often too hasty and he lets me know with a whimper if I set him back in his crib too soon. Sometimes, I have to take him back to bed and nurse him on the other side and sometimes a few more minutes of me walking, bouncing, and patting his back will settle him down.

By the time it’s morning, I almost feel a sense of relief. Sometimes both of the little ones will sleep in long enough for me to get breakfast ready, do my 8 minute ab exercises to heal my diastis recti, take a shower, or sit down at the computer to blog a little (like what is happening right now, yay!).

I used to try to count how many times they woke up so that I could tell Scott what kind of night I had, but now it seems like more and more often, the night just all blurs together the more awake I become, and if I don’t actively try to hold onto the details, they slip away as the day moves on.

I always start my mornings so dreadfully tired, and I love to fantasize about how I’ll try to take a nap when Scott comes home for lunch. But after I drink some water, wash down a big spoonful of coconut oil (which is helping tremendously with my candida issues), and start to putz around, I start to wake up more than I thought possible. It usually takes me all morning, but at some point, I’ll find time to shower and get dressed, and at that point I feel pretty darn good!

I mean, my brain is progressively degenerating to the point where I often can’t think of simple words to describe things and often end up just pantomiming or giving vague descriptions of things that used to come to me so quickly, but other than that and my slightly more disheveled and unkempt appearance, you would hardly know how sleep deprived I really am.

But somehow, I’m able to not just get through it, but be thankful for it. Maybe it’s because I used to be up in the night with my first two babies while working full time and I really and truly appreciate being able to sleep in and wear pajamas as long as I need to, or maybe it’s because I’ve visualized myself as an old lady looking back at these moments and know that my future self will cherish these moments as some of the most precious ones of her life, or maybe it’s just because I really am a superior human who can survive with less sleep. 🙂

But the bottom line is that I don’t mentally approach these sleepless nights as something to just get through. I am truly and deeply honored to be able to go through them for my children, and I wear them like a badge of the highest honor. I am thankful that I don’t need to resort to making them cry it out or slowly wean them from me as so many forums, books, and blogs seem to suggest to tired mommas. I know that these days are fleeting, that these times are precious, and how I treat these moments now will lay the foundation for not just the rest of their lives, but mine as well.

Because in the end, when we add up all of the moments of our lives, these are the ones that I am sure we will cherish in our hearts forever, these are the moments we won’t want to forget, and these are the days that we will want to relive over and over again as our bodies let go of this earth and our minds start to fade into that sweet state of dreaming where I will finally be able to get enough sleep. 🙂

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How I’ve Found Happiness as a Stay at Home Mom

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How I've Found Happiness as a Stay at Home Mom

Being a stay at home mom has been the hardest and most rewarding job I’ve ever had in my life. When I was a working mom for two years, going to work actually felt like a break. I had a scheduled lunch time, I was given challenging tasks and completed them, and I got to interact with other adults. As a stay at home mom, I am working (or on call) 24 hours a day, I am constantly multitasking and busy doing a thousand things at once, and I am in a sea of children. All. The. Time.

BUT, I am truly and deeply happier than I ever thought possible. Being with my children during these formative years is not only rewarding for me, it is deeply beneficial for my children too. I get to be there to see every smile and to soothe every frown, I get to nurse on demand and see first steps, I get to see what goes in and what comes out of them all day long, and I get to just BE with them. They are my favorite little people in the whole world, and words cannot express the joy that I feel upon seeing them every day in my role as a stay at home mom.

But it hasn’t always been peaches and cream. We had to really think about our lives differently in order to make everything “fit” around me being a stay at home mom. When we just had one child, we could easily cart her around and make her a part of our former lives. But when we had two, and then three, and then four, we had to let go of our old lives and start living a new normal. These 13 tips are what have helped me to battle some of the low points and find a happiness greater than anything I thought I was capable of experiencing.

Also, let me be very clear in that I am NOT saying, “Follow these 13 tips and you will find happiness!” I am saying, “These are the 13 things that have helped ME to find happiness.” I believe that we are each on our own journey and we each have to decide what things actually DO make us happy versus things that we feel like we are “supposed” to do for x number of reasons. You, dear reader, might actually be happier working, or unschooling, or living in another country…who knows! The important thing is for each of us to support each other in this wonderful journey of motherhood.

1. I Found a Way to Make It Happen

When we had our first daughter Ruby, I wanted more than anything to just keep staying with her after my 3 month maternity leave, but I just didn’t think it was possible. We were upside down in our condo, both working full time, and barely making ends meet. When I expressed my desire to stay at home with my daughter, a very well meaning grandmother (who actually adopted her daughter’s son who was in my class) said to me, “You never get that time back.” I just threw up my hands in exasperation and said, “I make twice my husband’s income, I don’t have any choice but to work.”

But I did have a choice, I just didn’t see it at the time. It took having another child, trying to juggle two different child care providers for my two children (that’s a whole other story), and spending a summer vacation at home with my two little angels (Elliot was 6 months old and Ruby was 21 months old at the time) to make it happen. I don’t know how I ever managed going back to work when Elliot was only 4 weeks old or how we managed to be apart until he was 5 months old, but after spending the summer with him attached to my boob, I couldn’t imagine him ever making it without me nearby. Not to mention that I was crazy in love with my daughter Ruby and enjoying spending every minute with her as well.

So we decided to go for broke. We made some radical decisions that led to us both quitting our jobs, doing a short sale on our condo, and moving 1,200 miles away to live with my parents for 8 months while we sorted things out. Now, flash forward four years later, and we own our own home on an acre of land with a fenced in yard minutes away from my husband’s amazing job that provides very nicely for our family of six (even though he makes about what I did when I was working).

If you really want to be a stay at home mom, you can find a way to make it work. You may have to really think about your choices from an “outside of the box” perspective, but sometimes those crazy hair-brained ideas that you think will never in a million years work, well they just might be the best ideas you ever had.

2. Finding My Identity

When I chose to stay home, I was riding high on cloud nine at first, but then after the routine set in, I felt lost. I felt like I had lost a part of myself when I quit working, like I had lost my identity. Taking care of my children was an amazing honor, and I cherished every moment that I was there to cuddle them and love them, yet for so long I had worked towards my career, and it kind of felt like I had just thrown it all away. More than once, I fell into some pretty serious bouts of depression as I struggled to find my new normal.

I knew that I needed something just for me that was separate from the kids, but I couldn’t seem to find what that could be short of finding a part time (or even full time) job. But, it wasn’t about needing money, it was about finding something for me…something that I could work on, something that I was passionate about, something that would stimulate my mind, something that I could accomplish, and something that would make me feel whole.

It took many years of trial and error until I established what this blog is now (even though I still feel like I am at the beginning). I knew that I was passionate about learning new things, discovering the best health options for our family, cooking healthy food, learning about the science behind health topics, educating our children, being a mom, and writing. It just took me awhile to put all of those things together and find my voice at Embracing Motherhood.

I don’t write this blog with any intention of making money, I just do it because it completes me. I love finding time to write when all of the kids are happily playing independently or sleeping. I love having a voice and a platform to learn new things and record them. I love sharing what I’m learning with others. I love having something to talk to other adults about besides just surface level topics. This blog has helped me to find my identity and give me purpose. It is also a great bonus that everything I’m learning and writing about also benefits our family.

If you are reading this and wondering what your passions are and what your identity could be beyond being a mother (which might just be enough for you, and that’s ok too), then I encourage you to think about what it is that you enjoy doing that makes you really really happy. What do you enjoy learning about? What do you enjoy doing in your free time? What completes you? If you can find a little bit of time every day to work towards figuring out what you are truly passionate about, it can actually be the most liberating thing ever. So many times, we fill our time with what can make us money, and to be a mother and not only be able to spend time with your precious angels but to also look into the deepest regions of your soul and figure out who you are without the burden of earning an income, well, it is truly a blessing.

3. Owning It In the Kitchen!

When I read Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, it changed my life. I realized that everything that I thought I knew about health and nutrition was wrong, and I made it my new mission to learn everything I could about Weston Price and what a healthy diet meant for our family. I’m still learning more and tweaking our diet as our health continuously improves, but this journey and this knowledge have really given me confidence in the kitchen. It really helps that Scott has been learning right beside me and is totally on board with everything I’m doing.

After I learned what our family needed to eat, I had to learn how to cook it! I’ve had fun sharing my recipes that give my family healthy nourishing meals that they enjoy eating. It seems like each child has a certain list of foods that they will or will not eat and that list is constantly changing. By planning ahead and having the fridge stocked with things like my sourdough waffles, whole wheat pancakes, steel cut oats, homemade cereal or healthy oatmeal cookies it makes the day much more manageable.

Even though we eat mostly organic foods and pastured animal products, we are still able to stick to a pretty good budget because I am always planning ahead and buying in bulk. Country Life Natural Foods is one of my favorite places to order dry goods in bulk and we live near many Amish farms where we get our raw milk and pastured eggs and grass fed beef all at reasonable prices. I also save us money by making my own laundry detergent, toothpaste, deodorant, and more!

We are also not crazy obsessed about eating the “perfect diet”. We try to eat mostly good most of the time, and we don’t worry about eating a little birthday cake or fast food every now and then. We just try to make the things that are routine pretty consistently healthy.

4. Creating a Morning Routine

The rest of the day is always different depending on what we need to do or how everyone is feeling, but our mornings are always pretty much the same. During the summer, when I have all four kids at home, we get dressed, eat breakfast, brush our teeth, and then do three activities before they are allowed any screen time. Having this routine in the morning takes the guess work out of the beginning of our day, and it allows us all to sort of run on autopilot as we wake up.

Now, that being said, there are many days (like today) where I’ve been up with 7 month Julian multiple times in the night, and all I want to do is sleep in. When the kids (Ruby – 5 and Elliot – 4) wake up, they know where their iPads are and how to turn on the TV and find their favorite shows, so I have no problem at all when they do this and let me sleep in a bit. We have have food like apples and my healthy oatmeal cookies within easy reach, and the kids will often get themselves snacks when they need them.

5. Filling Their Tanks First 

Throughout the day, I take turns giving each child as much attention as I can. Sometimes they want to do something, like coloring with us sitting side by side and other times they want to tickle, wrestle, fight, and get as much physical contact as possible. Whatever it is that they need, I give it to them until their tanks are full. Once their bellies are full of food and their tanks are full of love, they are able to go off and play on their own, and THEN I get some time for me. 🙂

6. Finding Time for Me

There are little pockets of time throughout the day when I’m caught up on food preparation, cleaning, and all of the children are either playing independently or sleeping. Sometimes this happens multiple times a day for extended periods, and sometimes it happens less often and for short durations, but when that time comes, I seize it!

When I do get this time, this is what I like to do:

  • Take a shower
  • Work out (When I had one child, I would do these deep medatative yoga videos for an hour and a half, but now I do a 10 minute yoga video and an 8 minute core workout when I can.)
  • Work in the garden
  • Read
  • Take a nap
  • Eat
  • Blog (This is what I usually end of doing!)

7. Making It Fun…For Me!

Do you like schedules? Do like organized activities? Do you like spontaneity? Do you like playing outdoors? Do you like go to museums and learning new things? Are you a homebody? Do you enjoy gardening? Whatever it is you like to do…if you can get in touch with your deepest passions and find things to do with your children that make your heart sing, then everyone will be happy.

There’s no such thing as the perfect routine or the perfect way to raise your children. It’s so completely important to be happy and enjoy what you do. That is what matters, and that is what your children will remember when they’re grown and on their own. They will remember the happiness, and it will comfort them and give them confidence at the same time.

8. Learning Goals for the Kids

I like to set learning goals for each of my children so that I can be aware of what their needs are. I like to keep it simple and stay in their zone of proximal development. For example, Julian, who is 7 months old, is ready to start building a relationship with reading, so we watch Your Baby Can Read videos (which sadly went out of business, so we created our own video here) and read the same books over and over. Ophelia, who is 2, is reading single words and simple sentences, so we’re doing lots of flashcards and repetitive reading of her favorite books. Elliot, who is 4, is developing his reading skills and working on math concepts, so we play a lot of online math games and spend lots of time cuddling and reading his favorite books. Ruby, who is 5, is already a voracious reader, so now we are working on her writing skills by writing lots of stories, letters, and books together. (Here are some videos of our kids reading over the years.)

When you have really little ones, it can seem like you are spending all of your time wiping butts, making food, and cuddling, but by setting aside a little time every day for learning activities, you will be so pleased with the results in the long run. You don’t need to spend six hours a day or really any set amount of time, just wait for teachable moments and do it for as long as you both are interested.

To learn more about setting learning goals and creating activities, check out my blog: How to Set Up a Summer Routine That Keeps Kids Productive.

9. Creating a Stimulating Environment

When I’ve got a crying baby in one hand, a screaming toddler in the other, and two young-ins who are looking for something to do, I’ve got to have some things ready to go at a moment’s notice. I spend a lot of time creating play and learning stations that will keep my children engaged in independent and self directed play for extended periods of time. Read more about how I do this in my blog: How to Create an Environment That Encourages Creative Play and Learning.

10. Educational Screen Time

When people see our 2 year old reading and hear that I used to be a teacher, I think that they assume that I spend hours doing elaborate lesson plans, but the reality is that while I do spend a lot of time with children on my lap reading books and such, I rely on a lot of educational screen time supplements to help me teach the basics. (To learn why we DO allow our children under 2 to have screen time, check out my blog: Why We Shouldn’t Ban Screen Time for Children Under 2.)

The important thing is to have a balance. I find that the older kids do really well with these limits that we have in place. (Of course, the limits wouldn’t work if we didn’t have a good management system in place.) I love putting on these educational YouTube Playlists with my little ones (and the older ones love them too!) to teach them letters, numbers, vocabulary, nursery rhymes, and more! I also have loved using these educational apps to teach my young  children the fundamentals.

Instead of having cable TV, we’ve connected our TV to a computer so that we are very purposeful about what we watch. Using Netflix, YouTube, Network websites, and DVDs, we watch programs like Dora, Super Why, Little Einsteins, Preschool Prep videos, Your Baby Can Read videos, and Leapfrog videos that are all great learning tools.

By having these educational screen time options set up, I am able to use them as a babysitter if I need to put the baby down, make some food, cuddle a crying toddler, or whatever other “emergency” that might pop up. This definitely saves my sanity.

11. Living Close to Scott’s Work

The best thing we ever did was move really really close to where Scott works. And I’m not talking close like 15 minutes away, I’m talking like two minutes away. 15 minutes away means a 30 minute trip home and back and so lunchtime visits will be out of the question. 2 minutes away means that he can pop home whenever he can without wasting any time in the car.

We have lived together for many many years where Scott had over an hour commute each way, and that in comparison to this was horrendous. Now, the time he is away from us, he is earning money, not just sitting in a car. We also have more time together in the mornings and evenings, and he can get me something from the grocery store if I need it without too much hassle.

An added bonus is that he’s able to come home for lunch every day. How can spending time with co-workers compare with that? Not only am I able to make him a nutritious lunch every day, but he’s able to pitch in and give me a hand while he’s here. We also enjoy napping together from time to time. 😉 What could be better than that?

12. Dealing with the Boredom

It’s a weird juxtaposition because when I was working full time and had two little ones, I never had enough time, and now, here I am, still very busy, but also, well…bored (sometimes). It’s a crazy feeling to be bored when you’re not used to it. When I was working, I was so used to scheduling and filling all of my time, and then when I became a stay at home mom, I felt like there was this pressure to go to play groups, get involved in activities, sign up my kids up for things, and cart them around to avoid the boredom.

I tried this for a little while, and it didn’t work for me. The kids just do better (the little ones especially) when we can stay home. When we’re here, I don’t need to worry about what food they are going to eat, and they can nap in their beds whenever they need to (rather than falling asleep in their car seats). So yes, rather than feeling stressed, I sometimes feel bored, and honestly…I LOVE it! I mean, are you kidding me? I can just lay on a bed for an hour playing mouth bubble games with Julian, spend time cuddled on the couch reading books with Ophelia, really focus on building towers with Elliot, and get really creative doing art projects with Ruby…um, yes please!

I know that these days are passing by quick and that I don’t need to have everything in my life balanced all the time (i.e. 25% of my time for me, 25% of my time for work, 25% of my time for my husband, and 25% of my time for the kids). I know that while they are little, children demand an insane amount of attention, and so I balance out time for everything else after that. I know that someday I’m going to be an old lady remembering these as the “good old days” and I will have more than enough time “just for me”. (Which is also why I love taking tons of pictures and movies and keeping memory books!)

13. Find Ways to Relax

There is certainly nothing wrong with cracking a beer or having a glass of wine from time to time (if that suits you), but if this is the only way that you can “unwind” or “relax” after a long day, you’re asking for trouble. See, kids don’t take time off for you to drink, and as soon as you crack a beer because you finally got them to sleep, you just know that they will wake up in half an hour to nurse or need to use the potty. Plus, when we put the kids to bed, that is the time when my husband likes to work on his programming or music side projects, and I like to work on blogging. We’re not just looking to veg out and deaden our minds…ok, sometimes we are (Game of Thrones anyone?).

Here are some of the things that I do that help me to relax:

  • Kombucha: Not only is kombucha good for helping to build a healthy gut flora, but it can help to relax you too. There’s about as much alcohol in a kombucha as a non-alcoholic beer, but unlike drinking beer, the euphoric “high” I get from drinking a kombucha is nothing like the buzz I get from drinking a beer. It feels uplifting, invigorating, and relaxing all at the same time. In Nourishing Traditions, Sally Fallon states that it’s even more hydrating than water. Check out my kombucha recipe to learn how to make your own.
  • Bath: We inherited this crazy sit down Jacuzzi tub from the previous owners of our house, and we all just love it! I really love getting the water as hot as possible, putting in some bath salts, putting my Enya mix on, dimming the lights, closing my eyes, and enjoying a good soak.
  • Massage: Sometimes a quick shoulder rub or a foot massage can just make the problems of the world melt away. My husband is always so generous to give me the attention of his hands when I need it, and I like to do the same for him.
  • Alone Time: After a long day cooped inside with the kids, sometimes I just need a half an hour to myself. I might go out and weed the garden or hop in the car to go drop some books off at the library. Just having a few moments to catch my breath without anyone needing me is all I need to reset my clock.
  • Being Intimate: Sometimes we get so busy taking care of everyone else’s needs that we forget to make time for us. Enjoying a good cuddle on the couch wrapped up in each other’s arms is a very good way to relax.

In Conclusion

My husband encounters a lot of older women at his job who tell him how amazing it is that I’m able to stay at home with the kids and how they wish they could have done that with their little ones too. But he’s never once met anyone who has said that they stayed home to raise their little ones and have then regretted it ever since. (Can you imagine?)

Personally, I don’t think that staying at home with the kids is something that I will ever regret. In fact, I think that it is one of the greatest things that I have ever done. I can’t imagine being a grandmother forty years from now saying, “The one regret I have is putting my career on hold while I raised my children”. All I can say is that after much soul searching, self reflection, and following these steps, I love my life, I am completely happy, and I feel like every day is a gift.

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Hi, I’m Stacey Maaser,

author of Embracing Motherhood! I am a stay at home mother of 5 with 7 years of teaching experience and a Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction. I am passionate about teaching my children, feeding them healthy food, learning the truth about things (not just what is popular opinion or counter culture), and sharing what I’ve learned and experienced with others. Thanks for stopping by!

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