Adventures in night weaning part 1

Before I had a baby, I had some fairly fixed ideas about parenting. Most of them came from my mum. After all, she did a bang-up job on us.

Then I had a baby, and I found that implementing those ideas wasn't working, so I started doing some research. This led to some new, fairly fixed ideas.

Then the baby kept growing and changing, and I found my final fixed idea... nothing is fixed in babyland! The road to sleep deprivation and insanity is paved with unrealistic expectatations, and sometimes you have to do something you said you never would in order to keep your head from exploding and the bailiffs from the door.

So... we are night weaning Bundle.

I know, I know, I said I was going to be completely baby-led and continue to give her whatever she needed until the time she didn't need it any more. But in this case, I've decided that I know better than her what she needs. And a 16-month-old toddler doesn't need to feed every 3 hours. On the other hand, I NEED SOME SLEEP!

What you really need for a newborn baby

I've had such exciting news this month - one after another, three of my friends have told me they're pregnant! Oh bugger there go the broody hormones again... But anyway, it reminded me of this exact time two years ago when I found out I was pregnant, and how I got quite worried about all the stuff I needed and where it was going to come from. Luckily, I had a lovely mate who was desperate to rid her house of baby paraphernalia so she could fill it with toddler paraphernalia, and who passed everything on to me completely free. People are nice.

And in the end, I was so glad I didn't pay for any of it. Because, you see, it turned out I didn't need half of it. Nor those things I bought on Amazon while breastfeeding in the middle of the night (damn that smartphone!). And now I have a house full of baby stuff that I really need to shift... ah cue the pregnant friends!

So what do you need to have a baby? What is the list of truly essential stuff?

Is cannabis harmful?

It's all over the news today - a longterm New Zealand study shows that regular use of cannabis by young people results in a decrease in IQ. Well, as Captain Hotknives sagely observed, Jimi Hendrix won't help you with your maths exam, and regular use of anything by adolescents, whether alcohol, dope, glue, or tobacco, is not a good idea. They should be outside playing football, goddammit!

However, I can't help noticing that the bit of the report showing that the same effect is not present in the cannabis users who started as adults is strangely absent from the British news reels...

Should we be allowed to die on our own terms?

It was sad news this week that Tony Nicklinson, the man with locked-in syndrome who recently lost his High Court battle to end his life his own way, died after refusing treatment for pneumonia. It was sad because he wanted to end his life on his own terms and was refused permission to do that by the court; on the other hand, he did, in the end, die quickly with his family around him which is perhaps all any of us can ask for.

During his High Court case Mr Nicklinson sought assurance that it would not be unlawful for a doctor to assist him to die, which is contrary to the current law which prevents assisted suicide or euthanasia. While having the deepest sympathy for his predicament, and that of others in his situation, I have to agree with the judges in this matter.

Adventures in dyeing a wrap, part 1

Dying is fun.

Oops, sorry, dyeing is fun. My dye arrived in the post today and I'm excited about it, because I'm trying to make my woven wrap into exactly the colour I want. If you don't know what a woven wrap is, it's a long piece of material you carry a baby in. Or a todder. Or an older child, should you so desire. Find out more here.

Anti-parenting tip 1

Our little bundle of need is not so little any more, although still very needy. In fact she is 15 months old and on a developmental ramp to walking, talking and throwing tantrums.

I've read a lot about positive parenting and gentle discipline and hope to put some of it into practice, but one thing I've learnt in the past year is that you can't know how you're going to parent until you're actually doing it. You can however, store up little ideas of what not to do.

Vaccine myths

There is a cut-and-paste list of vaccine "facts" that has been doing the rounds for years. It tends to appear on any internet argument about vaccine safety, comments on news stories, even pages by actual doctors (eg http://getwellstaywellathome.com/blog/2012/07/vaccine-damage-alert). Not, generally, medical doctors.

When I first encountered this list I knew very little about vaccine safety, so I spent a few hours researching. What a shocker, most of the "facts" turned out to be either untrue, badly reported or distorted.