LGBT finance blog Queercents has added a parent to their roster of writers:
Dr. Jennifer Natalya Fink is a professor of English at Georgetown University, the author of two novels (V
and BURN
, both from Suspect Thoughts Press), and, most importantly, the mother of a gorgeous and hilarious baby girl. She and her family live in the DC area, and are interested in helping queer families prosper.
She’ll be covering issues of money and parenting, a topic I cover here on and off, but not as a sole focus. Her first post is titled “Lesbian and Gay Parents Cut Postpartum Expenses.” She offers some useful advice, like “Buy onesies and pants in a variety of sizes,” and “Find a good lawyer.”
I have to disagree somewhat, however, with her advice that “newborns need to be fed every 2-3 hours, and require constant skin-to-skin contact with their parents. . . . Instead of making a fancy schmancy nursery in which baby will be miserable and alone, we made a few adjustments in our bedroom so that our baby could have easy access to us.”
I agree that babies need skin-to-skin contact, but I don’t think that all of them need it to be “constant.” Helen and I put our son in his own room after a few days of keeping him in our room in a cradle (a handmade family heirloom; not an expensive purchase). He wasn’t “miserable” and we slept better, even though he was in the next room over and we could hear him when he needed us. I’ve written more on this in my own list of Baby Gear Recommendations.
Not that Jennifer’s way is wrong, per se. If it works for you and your baby, that’s great. My experience was different, but to each her own. If you’re not sure what you and your baby will prefer, I’d go with Jennifer’s advice to “consider holding off on elaborate baby furniture.” I’d then suggest getting a Pack N Play
I do agree with Jennifer about keeping a rein on the fancy-schmancy stuff. Crib sets (sheets, quilt, and crib bumper) are my own personal peeve, as most doctors will tell you quilts and bumpers are SIDS hazards. Buy just the sheets. (If you get a whole set as a gift, you can buy a couple of curtain rods and some clips and use the quilt and bumper as wall hangings—well away from the crib.)
Despite a difference of opinion here, I hope it’s all in the spirit of friendly discussion. I look forward to Jennifer’s future posts and the financial light she will shed on LGBT parenting.
Ooo…attachment parenting.
I’m afraid we would have gone crazy quickly if we’d tried the “constant” thing. But attachment seems to be the strategy du jour.
We went the attachment parenting road. It worked for us, although we did not use a sling.
The sleeping together decision was taken after I’d been breastfeeding for 5 weeks and our munchkin kept on losing weight. We did our research, discussed it with our midwife, and gave it a try. Within a week, she started gaining weight. She simply felt cold at night, we think. Add in the issue of regurgitation and my refusal to give any of those brick-heavy bottle feeds for reflux babies, and you will get the picture.
I’ll be honest though: I combined being self-employed and being back at work within two weeks of delivery (madness, in retrospect) with attachment parenting. Those were seven of the most tiring months of my life.Now all we have to do is get ourselves back in gear to do this again. That is proving to be the biggest hurdle.
Over the pond, where I live, we have a birth list. You go to the baby store of your choice, choose all the items that you might want/need, and once the birth card goes out, people have the freedom of calling or visiting the store and buying an item or putting down cash. At the end of the day it makes so much more sense: you have what you want, in the colour and model that you want, there is no obligation to buy and they give you a 10% rebate at the end in the form of another purchase voucher.
The top buy which is still a popular item in our household today is our little Lodger blanket. Initially it seemed like just another blanket, but our little one still uses it today, for herself in her bed, for couch potato moments, for her dolls, as a play blanket when her niece comes by, etc. It makes for a cute bundle in the winter too.
And finally, we have always used comforters in this (19th c. and thus not so easy to insulate) house. That said, we always took our precautions, and were fortunate to have a babe, who even when sleeping in a bed on blocks (for her reflux) tended to gravitate towards the top of the bed, rather than sliding down. The baby bumper was also a necessity, as we have a headbanger/bedroller (I know of only a few people/kids who do this so if you know any, please let me know. It is always reassuring to find out that there are others who do this).
Thanks for the feedback on my post! I’m an avid Mombian reader, and look forward to more dialogue and feedback. I think I did overstate my point; I absolutely agree that every new family should do what works best for them. And I think the needs of brand-spanking-newborns are quite different from those of even slightly older infants, and I should have differentiated that more clearly. I’ll try to be clearer and more inclusive in the future.
We didn’t do the attachment parenting with our 4 foster babies (now adopted). We did keep the pack and play in our room for easier thru the night feeds. Once a baby slept thru night consistently, they moved on to their crib in their room.
I think the kidlets did just fine in their transitions and sleep better on their own. The moms involved needed whatever sleep they could get, free from worrying about rolling on a baby (I am an especially mobile sleeper).