Day 26 - I cut my hair & sleep

It is Family Day here in Canada and we are starting it with some cuddles (Ian is at the gym).

Sleep - the most talked about parenting thing

I get why it is so talked about and asked about - it is a challenge for families to figure the best way for everyone to be well rested.

In our case we are a cosleeping family by choice - not necessarily because that is how we get the most sleep, but because of the connection aspect of it. Elba has her own bed in our room, but she mostly sleeps with Ian who also has his own bed in our room (because he likes to sleep on the floor and I like to sleep on a floor bed).

See a video of our set up here and if you want a list of what we use - see that here (our floor bed frame is awesome).

If you have one of the many thoughts around co sleeping or bedsharing that are so common in our modern world like "bedsharing isn't safe", or "it's bad for your marriage", or "children need to learn how to sleep", etc. I get it, because WOW there are so many messages about sleep out there (most of them praying on vulnerable sleep deprived parents) and the messages against parents sleeping with their children are strong. I don't care to be another person adding to sleep messages. You do you. But for interest and information I will share a bit of what we do and why.

I had (and still do have) concerns about safety and sleep. I think all parents do regardless of how you choose to sleep. When Elba was born, I listened to the Audible Safe Infant Sleep by James Mckenna in the middle of the night when I was up nursing or changing her. I wished I had read it in pregnancy (which is why it is on my list of books I recommend people read it in pregnancy). It covers the actual safety stats and facts, and separates actual information from the emotive messages. It also covers bedsharing safely (more than just the safe 7 which in my opinion isn't sufficient to ensure safe sleeping) and importantly it is written by an author who has dedicated so much of his life to mothers and babies - you feel this through his writing).

With that co sleeping intro done - to my point. Sometimes, like this morning, Elba wakes up and wants to come for cuddles or asks to fall asleep with me. I stay awake in this time to give her that, but it does mean a little less sleep for me.

I also haven't really been napping this postpartum and when I do it is very short.

I am not entirely sure what to do about it, because I don't feel exhausted, but I do know that sleep is so important for healing.

I kind of forgot about this part of parenting a baby - the choice to rest or do something 'productive' in the little bits of time you get...

P.S. rest is productive, but you know what I mean - do something like clean, or projects, or emails, or even a hobby that fills up your cup.

I don't have the answer (for myself), but I do know that I need to balance it, because although I might not feel exhausted, I do still need a lot of rest for recovery. And I don't subscribe to, or glorify, the societal thing of mothers being exhausted and relying on coffee to get through the day. I had my time of being sleep deprived living on coffee to be a workaholic completing my master's degree. I did a lot of damage to my health in that time.

Our children need us to prioritize our health & wellbeing for them. Which I get isn't always easy, but it is something I strive for and I do consider the balance between rest and doing (something I often don't get right, but continue to focus on).

I don't want to share how often M is up at night

I found myself typing and deleting sharing how often I wake at night to nurse, potty or change M. I want to share it for interest sake, but I find myself deleting it because I really dislike seeing the many stories and social media things of mothers complaining about how often their littles wake at night in the newborn phase.

Yes, I get why people complain - mostly I guess for some recognition of doing hard because no one sees you up how every many times in the middle of the night, but also maybe some community. But I dislike it - because babies are meant to wake frequently. It is protective for them to wake often. It is good for them to nurse frequently. I do not want to leave my child in a wet diaper so I change him often, but also this little dude does not like to poop in potty so he will wriggle and fuss to be put on the potty (it's amazing - discussion for another day).

I believe so much of our parenting experience comes down to our expectations vs our reality, and our attitude and approach to things.

For years I told everyone Elba was an amazing sleeper. She was 2 years old when I realized what I had been calling amazing sleep, other friends had been calling their kids terrible sleepers - and... our kids sleep was pretty much the same. That day I realized the power of our perspective and our expectations as parents.

This realization is one I will carry with me through parenting as I continue to have the approach of - how quickly can I align my expectation with my reality and not expect my child to be a certain way. A wonderful resource for this is - The Conscious Parent - transforming ourselves. empowering our children.

Moving on for now..

Being healthy on a budget

I took the photo below to talk about laundry, but let me talk about being healthy on a budget instead.

We drink organic coffee. It has creeped up in price since we moved here in 2022. It was $19 and is now up to $35. So, we've been attempting to source an alternative when Ian saw our usual coffee at Superstore on sale for $19. He bought several.

It was under $19 when we started buying it

One way we try to purchase health things, but on a budget is to bulk buy when it makes sense to do so. So, this coffee as an example.

And then also we bought 1/2 a cow that is grassfed and grass finished from a local farmer. It significantly reduces our cost of beef, and we then have a lot of beef for the year. We bought a huge freezer on sale to store it.

And thanks to that purchase - we had some grassfed steak and chips (made in organic coconut oil) for dinner.

My basket

I use this basket to move between upstairs and downstairs. When M is a bit bigger and I am more mobile then I will move most of the things on my cart downstairs, but for now I pack my basket.

It is mostly filled with cloth diapers, change of clothing for M and my book I am reading.

Oh and I cut and sewed another one of his sleepers to be footless.

I am using the ribbed organic cotton fabric I have that I make bra out of. On that note I am going to prioritize making bras - I am feeling very frustrated that nothing fits except the polyester ones I bought out of desperation. I am not okay with wearing polyester bras so I need to figure out how to make ones that fit.

I am super happy with how these footless sleepers are working out!

I cut my hair

I took this photo and decided it is time to cut my hair. I am finding it difficult to wash and brush it - it feels like doing other things is more important, so I keep pushing out washing and brushing it.

I think it is time to cut it short - like very short (long enough to tie up for practical purposes but short enough to easily wash and brush).

BUT I am not going to go to a hair place in the first 40 days and I as much as I considered it - I don't think it's a good idea to cut it short myself. Also am I supposed to consider donating my hair since it is undyed and relatively healthy?

Anyways since I won't be cutting it short short myself - let's just cut some of it off for now.

Yup - mirror needs a clean and yup I did not put on a bra to do this, because the whole point is to spend time on this that matter more (like not putting on a bra just for a photo).

Before

Here is after

And here is what it looks like dry-ish (I tie it up at night for sleeping so it wasn't properly dry).

It isn't super practical just yet, but even this bit of cutting should make it faster to wash and brush my hair (the brushing is usually what is time consuming).

My hair will start to fall out (everyone's does post partum - it grew lush in pregnancy and now that hair needs to fall out) - so before that time comes I want to cut it off so we don't have super long strands of hair all over the place.

I will most likely only do that after first 40 days when I decide to venture to a hair place (I haven't had my hair cut by some in the last 5 years). I decided 5 years ago to stop dyeing it and then I just also stopped having it cut and cut it myself based off a quick Youtube video I watched).

It was the final step in my going natural journey. The thing I continued to do for the longest on my health journey was colour my hair. But I knew I didn't want to do that through having babies and that gave me the motivation to stop. And it's amazing - amazing not spending all that money and the many hours in a hair salon to end up with unhealthy hair as a result.

I didn't become healthy, natural or intentional overnight - I've been on this journey since beginning 2018 (8 years ago) when I stopped taking the pill, quit smoking and stopped eating junk food.

Something else I wanted to talk about today, but I am going to leave it for another day is my very real struggle of our sweet toddler wanting to touch and hold little M all day long.

Yes, it is sweet, but it is also a challenge... And a source of me becoming frustrated more often than I would like in a day.

Okay - let's leave it here for today - thanks for being here with me! As always - comments are welcome. I love connecting on this journey.

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