Baby Won't Sleep - Toddler Will Not Nap

Our 18 Month Old Toddler Baby Won't Sleep

I am blown away with frustration and fatigued these days. I just do not know what to do! Our toddler baby won't sleep alone anymore and he certainly does not like to nap at all. Well, let me rephrase that last statement. He does go to bed alone at 9:30 pm - 10:00 pm at night (after a little rocking by dad and a little crying once placed in bed), but he gets back up in the middle of the night and refuses to go back to sleep unless in the bed with us. If we put him in our bed until he goes back to sleep and then put him in his crib, our baby will get back up again and again and again until we finally give up and put him in bed with us. None of us get sleep if we do not put him in bed with us. Although I love having our little "bundle of joy" close to my heart, I do not like how he tears me up in my sleep (he moves all over the place in his sleep; he pulls my hair and "plays" with my face in the mornings) and uses his feet to push his father on the edge of the bed in the mornings. He needs to start sleeping in his own bed.

I blame this all on my husband ... Just kidding :)

It has taken my husband MONTHS to understand and admit that I was right. I tried to explain to him that it was OK to lay the baby in his crib before he fell asleep, but he insisted on rocking him to sleep each time. I also let him know that it was OK to let our baby cry (with some comforting in between), so that he would get used to going to bed alone, my hubby did not listen. I shared all of the advice and experts articles on getting baby to sleep ... I pleaded with my husband for months (since our baby was almost a year old) and he gave me such a hard time about just laying our baby down to bed; stating that our son was "just a little baby" and "he will grow out of this". I told my husband that he won't be saying that when he has a spoiled child to deal with and he just ignored me.

I am not sure what to do at this point ...

In our baby's first year of life, nursing was my bonding time with our son, therefore rocking became my husband's time with the baby. This was "all good" for the first 6 to 8 months; the whole family rocked and comforted our baby. I began asking my husband to stop rocking him all of the time as we approached our baby's 1st birthday. Our baby had weaned himself from breastfeeding, so it was a great time to teach him to sleep through the night because he no longer nursed. My husband refused to adjust. He was not ready to stop rocking the baby to sleep, and I understood completely because it was an odd adjustment to go from breastfeeding to not nursing at all, so I did not complain about his rocking the baby to sleep all of the time. Now, our baby wants my husband to rock him to sleep and then wants to snuggle with me when he sleeps. I do not know what to do at this point; we have comforted and loved our baby to our own detriment. Yet, he is a very happy boy :)

He became our toddler baby with lots of changes ... Napping is the 1st.

By 14 months, he had stopped taking 2 naps a day. It was an adjustment for us, though kind of exciting because we presumed that he would start sleeping though the night. Our toddler baby used to get up by 8:00 a.m. - napped by 1:00 p.m. - went to bed by 10:00 p.m. - and slept though the night sometimes.  Once we thought that one nap schedule was established, it started taking longer and more rocking to get our baby to sleep for his nap and bedtime. He also started waking up at night and refusing to go to sleep unless in the bed with us. My husband starting to become frustrated because he had to rock our son for over an hour each time; sometimes our baby would not sleep at all and then become unbearably cranky and fall asleep at 3:30 or 4:00pm. Everything just became a mess. My husband started getting impatient and telling me to rock him; which I would not because he carried it on so long instead of just reading the articles I sent him and following the instructions. I finally started laying the baby down, letting him cry for a few minutes and then settling him. My husband got tired of the crying, so he changed the process to rocking our toddler baby and then laying him down. Now that our baby is 18 months old, he still gets up before or around 8:00 a.m. and goes to bed at the same time, but his nap is either later than 1:00 p.m. or he will not nap at all. It is rough either way because our baby starts getting cranky around around 12-12:30 p.m. as if he was ready to nap. The difference is that he does not settle to nap and remains cranky for quite some time.

Well, that backfired ...

Now our baby flips out if my husband rocks him and then lays him down. It is to the point that our baby won't sleep in the afternoon (he will not nap until almost evening even though he is getting up at the same time as usual).  We have to go in and settle him for longer periods of time ... if we do not, he will not stop crying. He gets so upset that he cannot nap. Tonight, I finally took over and put our baby to bed directly after bath (we played for quite a while after the tub in hopes that it would tire him out). He fussed for like a minute, talked to himself for about 10 minutes and then fell asleep. Regardless, of how he fell asleep tonight, I know that he won't sleep though the night. The plus is that we no longer have to rock him to sleep at bedtime. I guess that's a step in the right direction ...

I am interested to know if you have suggestions as to how we can get him to take a nap at his old time (1:00 p.m.) and sleep though the night. Our toddler baby will not stop crying (really, he just gets angrier no matter how tired) long enough to go to sleep.


In Motherly Love,
Mother Baby Child

Which Are The Best Breast Pumps?

In a perfect world, we would never need to use a breast pump, but life circumstances may require that you need to pump breast milk bottles for your baby. Whether you need to go back to work, give your breasts a rest or want to pump a bottle for a family member to feed the baby, you will want to have the best breast pump for you.

I have personally tried 3 types of breast pumps:

Manual Breast Pump
I used a manual breast pump with my first son because this is what they gave me at the hospital. As with most 1st time moms, I took all of the classes that my hospital offered about having a baby and did pay attention during the breastfeeding video, but I didn't consider nursing until the nurses encouraged breastfeeding after childbirth. It was a little awkward for my 1st son and me. Regardless, the lactation consultant gave me a manual breast pump similar to or maybe it was the Medela Harmony Manual Breast Pump, so that I could pump milk until my baby and I were more comfortable with the nursing. It worked great (even help build up my breast milk), but it was time consuming and the manual hand pumping became annoying to me. Manual breast pumps are more affordable than electric breast pumps.

Hospital Grade Breast Pump
I used a Medela Lactina Select Hospital Grade Breast Pump with my 2nd son. I was on WIC at the time and I guess that I lucked out because they loaned it to me even though I was not working full-time (I was a PT nanny for a boy my older son's age). It was fantastic!!! There was the option to pump one or both breasts at the same time. There were different power settings, too. I didn't use it as much in the beginning because he liked to nurse, but I did use it to increase milk and when I had to take him to work with me. By his 4th month, I started using the hospital grade breast pump at least once a day to pump and freeze breast milk. My second son started weaning himself around 6 months (when he started standing and walking around via furniture). He was very active and liked having his bottles. By his 7th month, my son drank more than he ate while teething / growth spurts, and did not like formula. I really appreciated the powerful suction, dual cups and speed of the Medela Lactina Select Hospital Grade Breast Pump. The disadvantage is that it is much larger than the other types of breast pumps, therefore I only used it at home.

Battery / Electric Breast Pump
I used a Medela Swing Breast Pump with my 3rd son. It was a gift from a friend and I sure did appreciate it. Although it was not as powerful as the Medela Lactina Select, it served it's purpose of providing bottles for baby Max's father and brother to feed him when they felt the need or I had an appointment. The Medela Swing Breast Pump was comfortable and had several different suction settings. The disadvantage was that it was ot powerful enough to extract breast milk between let downs, so I would have to stop and pump more later, or let it pump until I let down again. Keep in mind that I overproduced milk, so it was not an issue of not having enough breast milk. It is just not as strong as the hospital grade breast pump; none of them were the same as when a baby nurses.

I have only used the Madela products and I don't plan on having any more children. If you have tried other products, I am sure that my blog readers would benefit by knowing which is the best breast pump for you.


In Motherly Love,
Mother Baby Child

Beyonce Breastfeeding In Public - So What! Nurse Baby Blue Public Bathroom? No Way!

Blue Ivy Carter (Source: helloblueivycarter.tumblr.com)

Beyonce Nurses Baby Blue At Restaurant ... SO WHAT!!! Baby Blue Ivy Was Hungry While She Was Out To Lunch. #Breastfeeding Advocates Proud of Beyonce - Celebrity Mom Plz Be An Example of #Change

I am a somewhat antisocial and private mother in my offline world. I don't like people watching me play outside with my 14 month old. I avoid any outings that might run past 1-2 hours because our baby does not like them. It has been this ways since our baby was 8 to 9 months old. When I nursed during our baby's 1st year, I was cautious about feeding our baby prior to going to the doctors or store. I probably pumped more than the average SAHM because 1) my husband liked to feed the baby as much as I did and 2) I never wanted to leave our baby without milk pumped in case he got hungry when I showered or I had to go somewhere alone (like the doctors). For the most part, our baby nursed every 1 1/2 to 2 hours on the clock, though would sometimes go longer or shorter depending on how active we were that day.

Our toddler still likes to have a bottle or cup on that same hourly schedule. Yes, I let my 14 month old have his bottle ... "so what" ... I take care of his teeth well. I don't believe what the "experts" say ... I don't want our son to stuck in a Freudian Oral Stage). We make choices as parents; we share information and sometimes become positive examples to other moms. I think what happened was a coincidental case of positive influence on Beyonce's part and she could really do something wonderful with it.

I am proud of Beyonce for breastfeeding AND being the mother that she chooses to be! Beyonce, can you "step up to plate" and be even more?

The following video shares the controversial comments about Beyonce breastfeeding in public the other day. My initial reaction was "that's cool" ... then I got REALLY upset at the world!!! I even developed expectation of Beyonce now that I see her as a mother that I can relate to, but I'll explain that later in this blog post ... The point here is why would there be such a big deal about Beyonce nursing her baby? She went out to eat and her baby got hungry, so she fed Blue Ivy, too. What is the big deal? Why are we asking the public to comment on this natural occurrence in her life and why on earth did that man suggest that she should use a public bathroom to nurse her baby ... NO WAY??? That is like pooping in a public bathroom to me ... how gross!!!


A woman has the right to breastfeed her baby in any location where she is welcomed, therefore Beyonce has the right to breastfeed her baby girl in public if she pleases and without it being such a huge controversial deal. This unnecessary publicity is why so many celebrities move out of the United States or go into recluse. It irritates me that other countries recognize that breastfeeding is natural, though the USA is still backwards about it. In fact, it is just in recent years that health departments and doctors have been campaigning towards breastfeeding ... way past due!!! On the other hand, celebrity moms need not run from the public eye and to another county; they are in position to become as much of a parental role model, in the United States, as they are in their talents.

I do have an empathy for celebrity moms ...

There have been times when our baby has demanded that I nurse in public; he did not want the bottle because he was tired and wanted to breastfeed. My cousin in law did the same (her baby and Max are just a few weeks apart). Her baby became temperamental about taking pumped milk bottles and refused to take them. Anyways, I wouldn't dare nurse in the middle of a grocery store isle because it would be uncomfortable for the baby and me; not because of other people. We nursed in the car if need be, but I did nurse at the beach and in a restaurant. No one seemed to notice and "so what" if they did. As private as I am, I got over any "stage fright" or apprehension when it came to feeding my baby in public.

Breastfeeding is natural and healthier for our babies - POINT BLANK!!!

As you can imagine, Breastfeeding Advocates are taking this as one for the "home team" ... This is GREAT because if more celebrity moms would advocate nursing, then more mother's would breastfeed throughout future generations. This means less money out of the government's pockets and giving babies a better start because - unless you buy all organic - a baby is going to have plenty of chemicals to eat in their years to come!!!

Although I got a little "ticked" by the media and fans making such a big deal out of Beyonce nursing in public, I am REALLY proud of the decisions Beyonce has made in her life & after the birth of Blue Ivy caused such a hospital ordeal.

• Beyonce planned to start a family after she established her career, and that she did!


• She spent the first month with baby Blue and having family time.


• Beyonce did not sell Blue Ivy's 1st baby pictures. They released them free on Tumblr.


• Beyonce did not gain too much during pregnancy and her baby weight started coming right off of her within a month.


• Beyonce has chosen to breastfeed her baby girl and is comfortable doing this in public!

2012 is another "day and time" of change in the United States.

We have been through years of negative effects of the war and economical changes ... the 2012 presidential campaign is strong with blasts of #change ... sustainable food groups are educating more aggressively to accomplish even small changes in the foods we chose to the point that grocery stores are increasing their organic food supplies ... the job market is shifting predominant industries and new tax credits given companies to inshore outsource ... the health departments are hiring breastfeeding advocates after generations of shaping bottle feeding norms (bottle feeding baby doll manufacturers are guilty for this too) ...

I think it time that we acknowledge celebrities for GOOD parenting choices and encourage them to help with change as well :) I think that Beyonce is making good parenting choices and our "catching" her breastfeeding in public was a natural fluke that could very well have more than a booty popping impact on young girls in this time of change. Now is the time for breastfeeding organizations to attempt to catch the support of this DREAMGIRL and for Beyonce to "step up to plate" for other non-tangible support of change over the years. This will have a far better impact than becoming a Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers beauty ... It is obviously better than packing up the family and relocating to another country ...

We need more celebrity moms to become advocates of change in the USA!!!

Beyonce, in all due respect, could we get some intentional parenting inspiration from you? So many of us are proud of your accomplishments AND to learn that you are not only breastfeeding, but also comfortable with with your mommy role. On the other hand, the childless Beyonce had been the booty popping inspiration for young girls for almost 2 decades. It would be cool if Beyonce "the mother" could become the diva of motherhood for your fans, too??? I would personally love to witness, Beyonce "the mother", as the celebrity face of breastfeeding and perhaps she could use that talented and fit mommy body to assist Michelle Obama "Lets Move" for kids.

No worries about the scanty costumes and booty shaking subject matter ... if Tory Spelling can become the face of good looks and parenting, and Snoop Dogg can make such substantial non-music industry changes in kids lives, society might just welcome Beyonce "the mother" as a role model for their little girls and obese children!

These are my thoughts on Beyonce nursing in public ... I look forward to comments with what you think! Will you be in shock if Beyonce is caught breastfeeding in public again? Was this appropriate or inappropriate? Would you like to see Beyonce in the role of healthy kid or breastfeeding advocate?


In Motherly Love,
Mother Baby Child