New baby, new decisions

They may look like twins, but their personalities are totally different!

With Hunter, parenting was new (duh!).  There were so many decisions to make!  Bottle feed/breast feed, vaccinate/not (wasn't a hard decision given all the peer reviewed, scientific studies), make baby food/buy commercial baby food, etc.  We started with breast feeding, and went to formula.  We vaccinate.  We bought commercial baby food.  We did rice cereal first.  We used disposable diapers.

With Gavin, parenting is still new (what?!).  Different baby, different personality, different decisions.  I breast fed for a less amount of time with him, we vaccinate, I'm making baby food, we cloth diaper, and I'm skipping rice cereal.

My choice to use formula was more of a selfish, guilty mom to my first born, choice.  Please don't read into that as I think formula feeding is a bad thing or that other mother's can't balance nursing with other kids.  I know other moms can.  I struggled.  Gavin wanted to eat, on each side, for 20 minutes each side, every 3 hours, plus colic.  Most of the time, only mommy could get Gavin to calm down.  Meanwhile, Hunter is in front of me asking me to play, asking me to put him to bed, asking me to read to him.  Most of the time I was telling him, "I'm sorry baby.  Right now I can't.  I'm feeding Gavin/trying to get him to calm down."  Fast forward like 2 or 3 weeks, I'm standing in front of the formula at the grocery store, in tears.  Guilt that I, who am producing huge amounts of milk, am not going to give my new baby "liquid gold", but also feeling a little relief because I will be able to spend more time with Hunter and daddy can help with Gavin.

I won't go into the vaccine debate.  If you're against it, you're against it and published, peer reviewed studies aren't going to convince you.  We choose to vaccinate.

We decided to cloth diaper Gavin.  With Hunter, I knew very little about cloth diapers.  Actually, I'm not sure the thought to cloth ever crossed my mind.  It wasn't until Ashley had sweet Charlie that I had even seen someone cloth diaper their child.  She made it look soooo easy!  And Charlie had the cutest little fluff butt!  When we got pregnant with Gavin, I looked into it.  You can buy used (sanitize them) or new and spend less than you ever would on disposable diapers.  Unless you become addicted and buy way more than you need, or pay way more than retail for a used diaper because it's a "hard to find" print.  I just can't justify spending a lot on something that a) my child is going to poop in, or b) I'm buying used and your child pooped in it, but that's me.  You can also resell them and get some of that money back.  We did it for the savings.  Added bonus is no chemicals on his sensitive little butt (we also use cloth wipes... really just newborn washcloths that I spray water on... for that same reason) and less of a carbon footprint from our house.

We are skipping rice cereal. It has no taste- they will never consume anything like that ever again.  Grains can be difficult for their digestion.  Given Gavin's milk protein allergy and possible soy protein allergy, I'm not upsetting his little system any more than it already is.  Hunter had a really difficult time digesting rice cereal.  He was a very miserable child while eating cereal.  I do not want to put Gavin through that.

I have started making Gavin's food, thanks to our kind friend, Jessica, who let us borrow her Magic Bullet.  I've made avocado, sweet potato, and banana.  Up next is green beans.  They are sitting in frozen squares in a baggie.  With Hunter, I just picked up a bunch of the commercial baby food that was available at the stores.  It was quick and easy and we paid lots of money.  As I read this, I feel like I sound like a snob.  Please don't think I'm turning up my nose at people who buy baby food.  I am definitely not!  We fed our older child commercial baby food.  I want Gavin to experience that real taste of the foods we give him in puree form and slowly introduce them as actual solids.

Hunter enjoying store bought baby food

Every parent has choices to make for their child(ren).  Only they can know what is best for their family and their child(ren)'s needs.  What we chose for Hunter was the best thing for us at that time and what we choose for Gavin is what is best for us now.