A friend of mine sent me a link to an interesting parenting blog called the Lactivist, “Supporting Breastfeeding in Public, Extended Breastfeeding and Breast Milk Bank Donations”, written by Jennifer Laycock. I love the name lactivist, as this blog focues on parenting and breastfeeding. I found her post on “My Conflict with Cosleeping” interesting and honest; however, I do not share her opinions. I love cosleeping with my children and dread the day my little one will be in his own bed. He is such a snuggle bug, and nighttime is a great time to reconnect after a busy day. A king sized bed would be nice for cosleeping, and many parents worry about smothering their child or their child falling out of bed. Our solution was to take one side off of the crib, outfit the crib with an
organic cotton mattress, then place the crib right beside the bed. One side of the bed is protected with the remaining sides of the crib, and my son can sleep on that side of me to avoid falling out the bed or his father’s tossing and turning. Another post by the Lactivist I found interesting is ” Wooly Boobs?” Jennifer writes, “So…again…I ran across a fascinating story today out of the UK that involves a 73 year old woman, a lactation counselor and some wooly boobs. What? Did you read that right? Yep…WOOLY BOOBS. Apparently one of the hospitals over in the UK ran out of funds to purchase the expensive plastic breasts that are often used by LCs to show mothers how to latch baby on, how to manually express milk and so on. The solution? Find a pattern for knitted breasts and ask a grandmother to go to work. They did, and she did and the result are some of the softest (and most colorful!) breasts that you can imagine.” Wooly boobs is a great natural alternative to plastic! The Lactivist also recommmends a book I can’t wait to order in her post “Book Review: Mother’s Milk“. The Lactivist writes, “The book features one line of rhyme per page to tell the story of all the ways that moms love their breastfeeding babies. It shows babies nursing while mom sleeps, babies nursing in the park, a foal nursing in a field, a coyote nursing her young, even a shot of both a dolphin and a whale nursing their offspring while swimming in the ocean.” This sounds like a very sweet book. The Lactivist Store offers the best breastfeeding t-shirts I have ever seen (including pro breastfeeding shirts for men), and donations are made to the Mother’s Milk Bank of Ohio. The Lactivist posts from central Ohio, which is also where I grew up.