Survival Strategies for Sick Parents

Posted on January 20, 2012 by amoment2think

photo by Enokson via Flickr Creative Commons

One of the hardest things about being a parent is that when you are sick you don’t get to just lay in bed and recover. You just don’t. When you don’t have kids you can live on cans of soup and ginger ale and just let the dished pile up. When you are a parent, you have to, you know, take care of an other human being and they, quite frankly, don’t care two hoots that your not feeling well.

I am finally, (FINALLY, knock on wood) recovering from a three week cold. Three weeks. I am sure that part of the reason it took three weeks to recover, rather then five days, has something to do with the fact that I couldn’t really just rest. There is still a child to feed, dress, put to bed, drive to the dayhome, keep entertained on the weekend and the evenings. And even with a loving supportive husband who does a lot and did a lot more when I was feeling particularly crappy, there is still a lot to do.

I know the title of this post suggested that I had some kind of tips or strategies. I really don’t. In part, its just an other thing that they don’t tell you about before you have kids that you just have to grin and bear it. But I do have a few ideas. I am hoping you will add to them in the comments. There must be some great strategies floating out there in the collective wisdom that is the parenting community! Bring them on!

Survival Strategies:

#1 Quiet activities: Books, colouring, playdough, puzzles- all of these are your friends. Next time I get sick, the first thing I am going to do is go and buy Audrey a new puzzle. (She is OBSESSED with puzzles right now.) Because those quiet toddler activities are a life saver- they allow you to lie half asleep on the couch while your kid (hopefully) can entertain themselves for 3 minutes.

#2 Cut your to do list: Yes there are still things we have to still do even when we are sick. Like, you know, feed the child. But cut out any of the extras. Do not try to be super women/man. Just don’t. Give yourself a break and permission to leave the dishes or let the laundry go unfolded. (My husband knows this was my strategy all too well. At one point I think we had 3 full baskets of clean laundry for a good 5 days before I finally felt well enough to deal with it. Husband would deal with it, except no one would be able to find their clothing if he put it away. Love you honey!)

#3 Ask for help. Full disclosure- I suck at this one. But I think, as parents, we all need to do it more. The truth is that if you get two toddlers together- they will entertain each other. Sometimes two is easier then one. So it would be great if we felt more comfortable as parents asking each other for help. I’ll watch your kids if you aren’t feeling well, you watch mine. Not all the time, but a two hour nap when you feel horrible is a huge help. I think part of the reason I hesitated to do this this time is in part because I really didn’t want to be around friends and get anyone else sick. But in retrospect, it probably would have been fine with some good hand washing and cover your mouth when you cough techniques. Point being, our lives would all be easier if we pooled our collective time (and sanity) more often.

#4 Okay, I’m out of ideas. Do you have any? What helps you get through being sick? How do you cope when you feel horrible and your kid(s) are full of energy?

Enough Already- Leave New Mom’s Alone!

Posted on November 16, 2011 by amoment2think

Seriously, we need to put our collective feet down! The advice, the pressure, the stress to do the ‘right’ thing, the ‘should’s', the shame and the ‘your not doing good enough’/'your not trying hard enough.’ Seriously.

I read this post today on @phdinparenting ‘s website about the City of Milwaukee’s Health Departments new campaign to discourage co-sleeping. And I’m livid.

Regardless of if you agree or disagree with co-sleeping- this is NOT an appropriate method for communicating something to new mothers. And we wonder why the instances of high stress, sleep problems and postpartum depression are so high in new moms!! It’s because New Mom’s are bombarded for all sides with so many ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’, often contradictory and all with dire consequences listed. And they get that in the context of a society where many women do not have adequate family, community or health care provider support as a new parent. So we scare the crap out of Mom’s and then we leave them to wallow in their stress, fear and anxiety.

It’s not okay.

It’s just NOT OKAY.

We need to stand up. We need to stop this. We just do.

We need to stop it in our online communities. We need to stop it in our public health care providers. If we spent the time/money/effort that is currently being spent campaigning for parents to make certain choices on just supporting those parents instead– we would have a much healthier/happier population of new moms and new baby’s.

If we used compassion, empathy and individualized care (recognizing that not all parents and babies are ‘built’ the same or experience the same circumstances) we would have a much greater impact.

You know what is dangerous for the health and well being of Babies and Mothers? Stressed out, Tired, Anxious and Confidence obliterated mothers caused by all this societal pressure crap!

When I first saw a tweet about @phdinparenting ‘s post, the first thing that came to mind is if anyone has really looked at the circumstances surrounding baby’s that have come to harm while co-sleeping? (That number, by the way, as @phdinparenting points out is lower then that of driving in a car.) I wondered, right away. if the trouble comes from an incredibly over tired Mom who has been told not to use co-sleeping, but is so incredibly exhausted when nothing works that she finally decides to ignore the advice and falls into a deep sleep from utter exhaustion. Maybe if she was co-sleeping with safety precautions and good advice on how to make it safe from the beginning, she would never get so tired in the first place and avoid the risk associated with co-sleeping. I have no idea if this hypothesis bares any accuracy or not- but the point is that when it comes to ‘risk’ there is often NOT black and white. It’s just not. Life is complicated.

Black and white prescriptive advice doesn’t fit our shades of gray complicated world. It just doesn’t.

I don’t know about you, but I want to live in a society where new mothers (and women in general) are encouraged to trust themselves and their bodies. Where they feel supported- like society ‘has their back’- particularly through the challenges of being a new mom. Where individual circumstances and ‘do what works’ approaches are celebrated and where choices made with information and the best interests of the baby and mom in mind are accepted. Where those first few months of motherhood are a fulfilling experience; maybe not an easy one, but one that builds a women’s belief in herself instead of tearing it down.

Sound good to you?

Then we need to stand up and say enough is enough.

Okay, rant over.

ControverMonday! Chicken Pox Parties!

Posted on November 14, 2011 by amoment2think

Yeah, I forgot my own unilaterally declared ControverSunday. Seriously. So I will totally understand if I am posting alone on this topic. I didn’t see any other ControverSunday posts go up in my reader yesterday, but if you did post on this topic, please comment for the link up.

The Well Read Mom

Chicken pox is the only vaccine we turned down for Audrey. (Well that’s not true really- she’s not getting the flu shot this year.) I’ve talked about my feelings on vaccines in general here before. Here. I get that they are important. I do. And I will give my kid one when necessary. But I also feel that the increase in vaccinations from when I was a kid to now is a bit unnecessary- caused by our general culture of fear and desire for control over any bad thing that could happen to our kids. I see value in building natural immunity. I also don’t particularly like the chemicals and crap in those vaccines. I would be very very very happy if there was a move to ‘green’ the vaccines and pair down and spread out the schedule.

That all being said, I don’t discount the value of vaccines and I think the hype around the danger of vaccinations and the subsequent trend to not vaccinate can also go too far at times. Certainly parents have the right to make decisions about what does and doesn’t get shot into their child. However, we live in a society and we also have a responsibility to keep each other healthy. So we need to at least consider the impact on others of choosing not to vaccinate.

That aside, the point of this post is to talk specifically about Chicken Pox. Short and simple- we choose not to give Audrey the chicken pox vaccine because I don’t view it as a serious childhood illness. It’s no Polio. I had chicken pox, my husband had chicken pox. Everyone I know had chicken pox. The whole getting chicken pox seemed to be working for everyone. Getting chicken pox didn’t seem to cause wide-spread panic or be a regular topic of concern that everyone talked about getting rid of. Getting Chicken pox was just a fact of life. So, I suspect, that some company made a chicken pox vaccine and our health care system said, sure! why not? To me, that is not a good enough reason to shoot chemicals into my kids body.

Now, I know that chicken pox can be more serious in adults and can be dangerous to pregnant women. But then doesn’t it make more sense to give a small population of 18-20 year old women who didn’t contract Chicken pox the vaccine, rather then all toddlers?

At the same time, I find the idea of Chicken Pox parties, well, going a bit too far. Regardless of my feelings that the vaccine for Chicken pox isn’t neccessary for a relatively mild childhood illness, I’m not going to actively try and get my kid to get it. That just seems, well, wrong. I don’t like it when she gets the common cold, let alone Chicken pox! And, if she was sicker then the norm for Chicken pox because of some ‘party’ I took her too– well I would feel horrible.

You know, I like to try and walk in the middle ground. Take a balanced approach.

I don’t think it is any better to ‘fear’ Chicken pox and mandate all toddlers to get a vaccine (its not currently mandated, it is parental choice, and I see nothing wrong with making the choice to get them vaccinated if you so choose) then it is ‘fear’ the hype about vaccines so much that you would actively work to get your kid infected with a communicative disease. Besides, natures has been doing a pretty good job on its own having that particular disease make the rounds to pretty much every kid- do we really need to help it along? Though, I guess, if most kids are getting vaccinated for it the answer to that may be yes. If its going around less….and you would prefer your kid to have natural immunity rather then vaccinated immunity. Okay, I guess I get it, even if I don’t agree.

Okay, fine. Do what you will. But I plan to just let nature do its thing.

I guess part of my point is that I feel like we are obsessed with control of risk as parents. I get that. I am a control freak. Really. But in truth, you can’t control everything. You can’t give your kid a vaccine for everything. There are a ton of infections diseases and once you get rid of one an other one will pop up. So maybe we all need to just breath.

Or not, whatever.

It’s different when it’s your kid #NaBloPoMo

Posted on November 4, 2011 by amoment2think

We just got back from the Emergency room. Don’t worry, everyone is okay.

Some of you may have heard me on twitter talking about Audrey’s spots today. First I worried it was chickenpox, but Dr. Twitter diagnosed hives. Which makes sense, she is my kid after all, therefor prone to random allergies. So, panic subsided, I was happy to wait out the hives and just pay closer attention to what she ate, least they happen again. They usually just go away on their own.

And then we realized her feet were swollen. Like really swollen.

That changed the game. A call to BC Nurses line and their usual over cautious recommendations lead to a trip to the hospital Emergency room. After much waiting the diagnosis was, you guessed it, hives and swollen feet and hands. Allergic reaction to something or an other.

The thing is that if I had those symptoms I would have just taken the antihistamine pills I always have around the house and call it a day.

But when it’s your kid, it is just different!

What if she starts having trouble breathing? What if its something more serious then hives? Oh my, her feet are swelling! Ahhhh!

Okay, I wasn’t that panicked. Actually, I was reasonably calm. But we still spend 3 hours in the hospital for something that was solved with over the counter Benadryl.

But that’s what we do as parents, right?! We worry more about our kids then we do ourselves. When something happens the fact that they are our little child makes us react somewhat differently. More protective.

I’m sure its instinctual and with good reason. But sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I could put that mama bear on hold for a minute and think the situation through rationally.

Not that I really regret racing her to the emergency room. I mean, it was one evening, not even all that much time, and we can go to sleep tonight not worried about her. I mean, a little worried and hoping her symptoms fade, but with the peace of mind that an actual health care professional has seen her and thinks she will be just fine.

Ah parenting, so much fun, eh?