Mothering Forum banner

LDS mama's #11

9K views 380 replies 24 participants last post by  leavesarebrown 
#1 ·
here is our new thread! hope everyone is having a great day! it is a beautiful day here, and we are getting ready to go to the park, got to get out of the house for a little while!
 
See less See more
1
#2 ·
Have any of you put together a package of books for expectant mothers? I guess a 'package' would probably cost a lot, but let's assume it's affordable. Please add to my list, make suggestions, etc.

Baby Book -- "The Baby Book" by Dr. Sears
AP Book -- Katie Allison Granju's Attachment Parenting (I haven't read this, but heard it is at least as good as Dr. Sears)
Sleep book -- "the no-cry sleep solution" by Elizabeth Pantley
Breastfeeding book -- "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding" ??? Is this good? I have never read it.
Magazine -- "Mothering", of course!
Birth/Labor Book -- there are too many! "The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth" is wonderful. Any other favorites?
Pregnancy Book -- I don't know about any. Is Dr. Sears' book good? I know a lot of AP/natural moms don't like What to Expect.
Parenting -- I know there is one Christian book by an LDS author. Also Dr. Sears' books.

Please add, expand, make suggestions, & etc!

Katie
 
#3 ·
Mine are all parenting books:

"The Discipline Book" by Dr. Sears--a must have!

"The Family Virtues Guide" by Linda Kavelin Popov

"Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting" by Jon and Myla Kabat-Zinn (this book is pretty heavy, also it might be kind of far "out there" for some conservative LDS parents, as the authors are Buddhist and that colors their writing--but I learned so much from this book, and it's very AP too)

"Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles" by Mary Sheedy Kurcincka (she wrote Raising Your Spirited Child)

"Teaching Your Children Joy", "Teaching Your Children Responsibility", and "Teaching Your Children Sensitivity" by Linda and Richard Eyre (LDS authors)

On another list I'm on, I asked people to list their favorite parenting books, and I was almost the only person who doesn't care for and constantly use "What to Expect the First Year"! I think we need to work to replace the influence of that book--Sears' "Baby Book" rules!
 
#6 ·
A great pregnancy book is "Birthing from within" by Pam England and Rob Horowitz.It touches on any kind of experience one may have-a great catch-all,and easy to read.It also has some interactive elements like birth art and so on....
You may consider including a journal of some sort,or one of the best gifts I ever got-A disposable camera and a little photo album,holds maybe 20 photo's.(we used it at the birth-absolutely priceless.)
 
#9 ·
Woops, sorry that's totally weird. I started a new thread...I thought...but I guess something happened or I deleted it by accident.

I love The Pregnancy and The Birth Book by Dr. Sears and definitely recommend those all the time. I love them b/c out of the books that I received I always feel like Dr. Sears is more even handed than some of the other authors who come off sounding a little too zealous than what I was ready for at the time. I was also given the Birthing From Within Book nad The Immaculate Disception but I would be choosy in who you give those to.

We had our ultrasound today. It's always fun to see the baby. I know ultrasounds are controversial amongst the natural birthing crowd but from my perspective I would like to know if there is spina bifida or not since there are some in utero procedures that can be done to correct it. We didn't want to know what the sex was. But I thought I saw some little boy parts. My husband thinks that he didn't and he was looking harder since he would like to know.
This one we'll definitley wait to find out. So fun! Either way is great. I was hoping for a girl at first but I think having a little brother may be a good idea too.
 
#10 ·
Drewsmom, how far along are you? I cannot wait to get my u/s. I think there are many APers who get u/s. I have been reading the Nov/Dec Mamas thread and it seems there are alot of moms that have already had an u/s. I had one at 10 weeks b/c I had bleeding one night and cramping way bad. I thought I was going to miscarry but then after about two hours it stopped. A few days later I went to have the u/s to see if baby was okay. My little bean (that's how big baby was) was doing well with a strong 180ppm heartbeat. There was a little pool of blood in my uterus outside the little sac, that the dr said was probably the cause of the bleeding. He said I didn't have to worry about it.

Anyway, my mother is a midwife and she feels strongly that u/s are intrusive to the baby and shouldn't be performed on a healthy mama. She and I differ on that one. I don't think just one u/s is bad for me or baby. I would like to be surprised when I deliver but dh says no way. He says it is a just as much a surprise at 20 weeks as it is at 40 weeks.
:
Gotta love him. And I do.

Dd#1 promises baby is a boy. She has a cousin that has all girls in her family and she said that is too many girls. Last prenatal appt. my midwife asked dd#1 how she knows baby is a boy. Midwife said, "Did you have a dream that he is a boy?" Dd#1 said no. Midwife asked," Did Heavenly Father tell you?" Dd#1 said matter of factly, "yep." I am not one to argue with that. She is a great girl.


Gosh,looks like I need to become a reader. All those great books and I haven't read any of them.

Honestly, I tried reading Birthing From Within, but it wasn't my cup of tea. I only got through the first chapter or so. It was really hard for me to read.

I have Dr. Sears Baby Book and that has been helpful in the past. I need to use it more though. Maybe when this baby comes.

My mom gave me Sign with Baby for Christmas. It is a sign language program for infants. I am so excited to learn it and use it with this new baby. Dd#1 and dd#2 have learned a little bit of ASL (American Sign Language) but we don't use it often enough.

On the subject of teaching children second languages, we have friend that has only spoken to his daughter in Spanish since she was about 20-22 months. He served his mission in South American. He visited with his former mission pres. after his first daughter was born and his pres. said that he was doing a his daughter a great disservice by not teaching her spanish while she is a toddler.

I just thought that was interesting. Gotta go get my girls up fromt their nap.
 
#12 ·
I can say if I had picked up a copy of Birthing from Within when pregnant with my first, I would have thought it was WAY out there. But I did read it while pregnant with my second. By then my natural inclination toward AP had been well-established (while pregnant with #1 I swore I would NEVER co-sleep
). I was getting scared my birth would be as bad or worse than Jacob's. I really needed a way to cope, especially that last 2 months. Birthing from Within really helped me explore my feelings and fears and help me put them into perspective. So yes, it is still a bit out there, but it helped me more this last time than any other birth book I had read.

I also love The Five Love Languages of Children, Kids Are Worth It!, Raising Your Spirited Child, The Irreducable Needs of Children, Try and Make Me, The Continuum Concept, as well as the Sears almost-companion one to that, Creative Parenting.

And of course The Womanly Art. I also love Spiritual Midwifery. Without Spanking or Spoiling is an excellent choice for husbands or others who don't want to read anything lengthy but need good discipline information.

I could go on and on...those are just some that line my bookshelf...
 
#14 ·
I have to second the vote for Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, as well as Spiritual Midwifery. I think I read both of htose in a week's time. My birthday was a few weeks ago, and I got some money from mil, and I was so excited to order and buy those books. When dh found out, he said "That's what you're getting?!" I just laughed.

I really liked "Parenting your spirited Child," and the high needs book by Dr Sears. That one literally saved my sanity when dd was tiny and we couldn't figure her out.

I had a hard time making it through the CC. I found it was a little heavy, and just couldn't focus on it. I will probably try again after I get some of my pregnancy brain back.
 
#15 ·
Wow, I'm so so glad to have all these wonderful recommendations of books. I've been wanting some recommendations for a while.

Beth, I'm 21 weeks along. It's funny b/c my measurements agreed to that as well but based on my conception date (which I know for sure when it was) I'm 20 weeks. I'm just telling everyone that my due date is mid-Oct. so they won't bother me with calls the first of oct.
. Some say that the u/s causes fetal distress. They took the heartrate in the u/s and it wasn't any more raised than it's been in the office but come to think of it those were done using a doppler (which is a form of u/s) so that may be true. I know it made me want to get it done as quickly as possible. Still nice to see the baby's face and parts....so cute!

I went to a program in DC yesterday called, "Time Out" sponsered by Deseret Book. They had speakers like Kathleen Barnes, Mary Ellen Edmunds, Elder Ballard (last minute speaker), etc. It was so great. It was an all day seminar. I learned so much. I even saw two moms there with slings and lots of nursing moms (we sat in the nm section since all the other seats were gone)! Bad place to put a pregnant/emotional lady while trying to listen to a conference. It was so great to see all these moms loving their babies (there were a lot there at the conference). It was also a good reminder that newborns/babies just take a lot of rocking, nursing, comforting that I'm not alone when I feel like my whole day is spent bouncing the baby. It was a good mental prep for me.
 
#16 ·
Happy Sabbath btw. Oh, one other thing. We recently moved into our new townhouse and everyone else is new as well. I was thinking about this problem all day yesterday at the conference hoping to get some answers. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering how to act in situations like this or what HF would have me do.

Our neighbors nextdoor bought their home through the same county program we did (which is income based and we're able to buy them for 1/2 the price that others did...we just have to resell it to someone in the program. It's a way of spreading out subsidized housing into nice neighborhoods). It's a single mom with two teenage sons. They seem to be very irresponsible people though. We don't have a fence up yet and so the boy's friends walk through the back yard and leave their trash there (McD's bags, beer cans), they park their car on the street which is against our HOA rules and just kind of makes it look trashy and then Fri night they had a raging party with very loud music, lots of very interesting looking kids coming into the neighborhood and finally at 1 am (I had to get up at 6:30am for this conference) we called the police for disturbing the peace. It turns out the mom was there and her teenage son who was having a pre-prom party (we found out later) all the kids were drinking. We think she may have been charged as Greg saw a police officer come back the next day.

We're in townhouses so everyone is in extremely close proximity. Even if she had just warned us that they were going to have a party so we could've been aware. We didn't know it was a pre-prom party also. I kind of assumed that it would be like that every weekend. We have really poor luck with neighbors and have run into similar situations before. Part of me says, be a good christian neighbor and don't say anything just suck it up and deal with it and the other part says, no, that's still not acceptable behavior go talk to them. I was going to go over and talk to them vs calling the police but dh didn't want me to go be involved and just filed a "disturbing the peace" complaint. What would you do? I would ideally like to be a friendly neighbor who is a help to her and her sons but it's really hard to relate to people who I feel are not responsible and respectful. I'm just being totally honest but I really do want some constructive advice and am open to it. Any suggestions for what you would do in this situation?
 
#17 ·
Hi,
I think my sister posted about our trouble with my son who has ITP. We are home and he is doing better. It turned out he had a violent allergic reaction to the medication and is now doing better his platelets are back up and he is still anemic but is doing better. He should make a complete recovery from this disorder. Thank you for the concern.
I had a question what is Ina Mae's new book called I would love to have it. I have spiritual midwifery and love it.
 
#18 ·
I just got spiritual midwifery yeserday and this morning i was in bed w/a head cold and read 50 pages already!I so want to buy a bus and caravan to a "Farm"! But I've always been like that and dh thinks I'm crazy--SO WHAT?
I love it!I was worrying I wouldn't find a good book to get me charged up for this birth,but I found it,yay!Now I have to try and get the house back together,dd has been naked all day,and ds and dh are in swimming trunks from a failed attempt at filling the pool earlier(like 4 hrs ago!)Happy Sunday!


Emilyrose- I am so glad to hear things are getting better.
 
#20 ·
Emilyrosechild- I'm so glad to hear that your son is OK. That must've been very scarey.

About our neighbors, don't worry about it. I'm not proud of the feelings that I have but just trying to be honest so I can get some honest input. But I've received some inspiration like serving others brings loving feelings. I still get confused re: how to deal with problems sometimes b/c I don't think it's Ok when behavior is really out of line. Things like the trash in the yard I've decided vs. being annoyed to just pick it up and not make a big deal out of it. Hopefully they'll notice someday and not throw it there. But I still need to search for ways to serve them and let them know that we're there to be helping hands. Maybe the scripture about reproving betimes with sharpness but showing forth an increase of love can apply in situations even like these.
 
#21 ·
Hey, I was going over some canning and food storage ideas today and I have kindof an odd question for you all.
Say you are pretty far into a disaster situation and your food storage is getting boring.Would(could) you use your own breast milk as a resource?(use it as family milk,in cooking,make cheese or yogurt...?)
I for sure would use it for healing-ear infection,etc...but as for family use,I probably would,depending on my own health,if it looked like this was how we were going to live for a while longer.(I don't think I'd tell anyone what it was though,esp. dh...)
 
#25 ·
Welcome, CortLong!

I'm so sorry about your miscarriage. Have you found the Pregnancy & Infant Loss Board here? Lots of love and support is available there. My baby was stillborn six months ago, and I also had a m/c at 10 weeks (1997) and an ectopic pregnancy (1998). Feel free to post here, on the loss board, or PM me if you ever need to talk about your loss.

Love,
Katherine
 
#26 ·
Wow, hard to keep up with everyone and new people too!

Welcome to the new people!

Drewsmom, I was going to comment on difficult neighbors last week but that was one of the weeks that being online made me sick so I had to get off after just a few minutes. We had neighbors a couple years ago who would fight in the middle of the night really loud (and possibly abusive) and it woke me up usually on Sunday morning at like 3 am and I couldn't get back to sleep. It wasn't a frequency that was enough to go complain about, but we tried to be friendly outside, etc. So I don't have a lot of suggestions, but support and understanding. Perhaps the situation will improve with kindness and service, as you have suggested. Hang in there.

Re: using breastmilk to make stuff--Dd #1 was sensitive to "cow" products until she was about 15 mos. old, so I tried making breastmilk yogurt so she could have something to eat the days I worked (she didn't take much solids before 11 mos). I inoculated the bacteria in the breastmilk (about 8 oz.) and left it out for a few days. It really should have turned to yogurt except for one thing--breastmilk is living tissue! I expect that those immunity properties killed off all that bacteria and my yogurt didn't work. Perhaps you would have to scald (pasteurize) the milk to "kill" off the helpful white blood cells and other stuff. I never tried again.

Congratulations emily. Um, did I forget anyone? I'll check in again in a few days!
 
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
Top