The Montessori Bedroom

I have a wonderful guest post today from Michelle Bachman of Jill of Trades about her toddler son's Montessori bedroom. Enjoy!

My name is Michelle Bachman and I am a Work at Home Mom with two boys Jason (3) and Andrew (1). I am currently working from home through a business my cousin and I started Jill of Trades, a personal and small business planning services boutique. 

I met Stephanie in 2007 when I was pregnant with my first son and taking prenatal yoga in her studio. That is when I began my discovery about the world of natural and attachment parenting and so I hold a special place in my heart for her.

I have truly fallen in love with Montessori's philosophy and attitudes towards young children. I have chosen Jason’s Montessori School that he will start in the New Year and have recently adapted our nursery into a Montessori bedroom. 

One of the most intriguing ideas about the Montessori bedroom in particular, is the use of a floor bed rather than a crib. The idea is that a low mattress on the floor provides the child with a better view of his room and surroundings and more freedom to move about, which in turn makes for a calmer and happier child. 

It is of course important that the entire room be completely safe for the child to crawl around in, essentially turning it into a giant playpen for him. 

Below is a peak at my transformation of the nursery into a Montessori bedroom. I removed the crib (radical I know!) and replaced it with a mattress low to the floor.

I also removed the standard changing table/dresser combo and replaced it with a small dresser out of the way hidden in the closet.  The last big change was simply turning a shelf that was tall and out of his reach on its side so that it was also easily accessible to him. Having the art work and accent lighting low and visible to him is brilliant.  

We are a few months into the transformation and LOVE it! We have a sort of make shift co-sleeping arrangement in the evening: When he wakes in the night I lay in his bed and nurse him and if he falls asleep first I can slip away to my bed and am not sore from being contorted all night. 

Sometimes I just grab him and bring him to my bed still because I know how fast he will grow up. The most amazing note is that for the first time he isn’t falling asleep on the breast 100% of the time. I lay and nurse him and when he is done I get to watch him sleep train himself (Uhmazing!). Tossing and turning. Rolling around. Cooing at me. Tracing my face with his little fingers and his eyes closed.  He still falls asleep on the breast but maybe a dozen times now he has successfully put himself to sleep after and has tried dozens more.


There is still more I would like to do to Andrew’s room. The Montessori Foundation has some great information on designing a Montessori home. Our playroom has adopted some principles but is a work in progress. Jason’s room is next on my list.

“Never do for a child what he can successfully fail at doing himself” –Maria Montessori

Thanks for having me Stephanie!

XOXO
Michelle

Thanks Michelle!  It looks awesome!  We now have a mattress on the floor in Penelope's room and it has also worked very well for us, thanks again for sharing and inspiring!


What do you guys think?  Mattress on the floor crazy or genius?

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Nursies When the Sun Shines

Nursies When the Sun Shines, a book about night weaning, was sent to me by the author (who also has a very cute blog) to review, early in the summer.  I started thinking about night weaning back then, but only in the last month or so, did I really get the courage to get serious about it.

Penelope and I have been co-sleeping since she was a baby.  Our story is a little different than most co-sleeping, breastfeeding, parent-child relationships. I didn't get her to nurse till she was 5 months old, and then it was months before nursing at night became easier for us (it took a long time for her to get out of the habit of being rocked to sleep, to being able to nurse to sleep, while laying down), and then another couple of months before I could get to the stage of sleeping without my shirt off and she "finds" me in the middle of the night herself.  I, being the light sleeper that I am, still wake up, even she latches on herself.  She also likes to lay on top of me as she is nursing, and tweak my other nipple. Fun times. 

Part of the reason it took me so long to night wean her, is because since we lost the first 5 months of nursing, I felt like I wanted to make up for that time and she always nursed the best at night.  It was like, she was really able to let her body take over at night and she actually got milk.  Whereas during the day, her comfort nursing was so light, that she doesn't get much at all.   I have gotten clues of how much milk she was getting at night before (like when she was sick and threw up a ton of milk first thing in the morning) and now as we have started the night weaning process, she gets up about 1.5 hours earlier and the first thing she says is EAT!  She is hungry without her nightly snack of milk.  Just in the last few days, she also started requesting a glass of milk with meals, like she is trying to make up for the calorie reduction.

I really enjoyed this book and so did Penelope.  The little one in the book looks to be a 1 or 2 year old, so it is clear to Penelope that it is a baby her age.  Not a tiny baby, but not yet a big toddler.  When we read the book, we say Nuh-Nuh (her word for nurse), so it is even more resonant with her.

We started reading it together as soon as we got it.  I like that we read it for several months before even attempting to night wean.  I think it was a peaceful introduction to the concept and made for a nice transition to actual night weaning.  Nursies, is a groundbreaking children’s book, the first-ever to focus on night weaning. Its goal is to facilitate communication between parent and young child, thereby making the process of night weaning as gentle and easy as possible

I am a big fan of using books to help babies/toddlers learn something new.  When I was teaching Penelope how to nurse (I got her to comfort nurse at 5 months, but was trying to make the switch to nutritional nursing at about 10 months old) I made a book of all the the pictures of us nursing.

I started night weaning Penelope about 3 weeks ago.  I found this series of posts over on the Leaky  Boob to very helpful and encouraging.  The first night, I siked myself up and decided that the best way to attempt this would be to nurse Penelope and read her books in a rocking chair and then lay down together and tell her no Nuh-Nuh's till the sun shines.  Total disaster.  I only let her cry for about 2 minutes.  But you would have thought I was poking her with a hot stick and torturing her.  So I quickly scrapped that idea and nursed her to sleep.  I was pretty sure I traumatized her for life, so it took me a few more days to go to plan B.

Plan B, was to nurse her to sleep like normal, and then tell her no all night until the sun came through window.   The first night, she woke up about 3 times and fussed when I said no, but did not fully wake up or start an upset cry.  By the third night, she realized I was standing firm and that life was really not that bad, she still got to nurse to sleep and again around 6am when the sun came up.  So she has settled into the routine of hugging instead.  Now instead of calling out for nuh-nuhs,in her half-asleep, groggy voice, she says hugs. It's pretty damn cute.

In the last week, she will sometimes go all night with only waking up once.   But mostly she still wakes up 3 to 4 times a night.  Our next step will be to get a toddler bed and put in our room and see if that helps a bit with the night waking.

And last week, I slept upstairs in our guest bedroom, while my husband was on hug/wake up duty.  It was pure heaven.  I have been lusting and fantasizing about sleeping by myself, since Penelope was a tiny baby. I would dream of going to a hotel, by myself, for like a week, and just do nothing but sleep.  But this night upstairs was just the ticket.  The next day, I was bouncing off the walls, I had so much energy. I didn't go to sleep till like 3am that night either.   I hope to try and do that at least once a month, and later once a week.  I am very slowly starting to prepare my mind and body for my next pregnancy and catching up on sleep is at the top of my list right now.

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By Best Kids Health Blog

What Safe Co-Sleeping Looks Like

Well, at least for us.

Its been quite the process for us to finally figure out something truly safe once Penelope became mobile. When she was a tiny baby, and couldn't move, we never thought twice about leaving her in our bed alone to nap.

When she started rolling over, I made a wall of pillows on one edge of the bed. I tucked pillows along the entire side of the bed under a fitted sheet. And that worked for awhile.

Then when she first started crawling, I thought the wall of pillows would be enough of a barrier to keep her from crawling off the bed, since she always made noise when she wakes up and I come in the room before she is fully awake.

But all it takes is one time.

And one time when she was about 7 months old, she woke up and didn't make a peep and crawled right off the damn bed and fell, oh, about 3 feet to the floor. She cried hysterically for about a minute, but she was totally fine. She crawled off the side that didn't have pillows- I had only done one wall of pillows because when I am in bed with her, I am the "wall" to the other side. It hadn't occurred to me that she would ever wake up without a peep and crawl way over to the other side of our king size bed and keep going.

Parenting Fail #1.

So then I thought, well I just need to do a wall on the other side, problem solved.

Then she woke up again, without a peep and crawled OVER the wall. This time hitting her head on the side of the bed on the way down, giving her a deep blue/green bruise on her cheek.

Parenting Fail #2.

After that we took the bed apart and put the mattress on the floor. At the time our house was on the market and I needed to keep the house show ready at all times, so we left the box spring underneath to make the bed look not so much like it was a mattress on the floor. So with the box spring and the mattress, the height of the bed this way, was about a foot and half. Then I lined the floor surrounding the perimeter of the mattress with pillows, so in case she crawled off she fell onto a pillow.

Then she crawled off the bed and hit the floor and managed to miss the safety pillows entirely. She screamed hysterically, because this time she fell on her back and it knocked the wind out her and scared the crap out of her.

Parenting Fail #3.

So then we took the box spring away and truly just had the mattress on the floor. If you know me, you know I like to keep a perfect house. Things must be in their place and tidy. Having a mattress on the floor, is so not my style. But I have given up in name of Safety. We also immediately started teaching her how to get on her belly and slide off the bed if she wanted to get off. I still worry she is going to take a nose dive, even though its only 6 inches off the floor, but most of the time she gets on her belly and scoots down like a pro.

But then she started being able to stand by herself and she wanted to practice her skills in the middle of the night. At 3am, she would crawl to a spot and stand, then crawl to another spot and stand. In my exhaustion, I just didn't feel like wrestling with her to keep her in one spot, so eventually she crawled off the bed.

Again.

This time, even though, its was a very short distance to the floor, she hit her head on the night stand, that was still butted up against the mattress in my futile attempt to keep our bedroom looking like a normal bedroom, as she tumbled off the edge.

Parenting Fail #4.

Now the night stands are on the far corners of the room. And there is two feet of space in between the mattress and the night stands on each side.

If you are co-sleeping, save your self a whole lot of trouble and Parenting Fail moments and just put the mattress on the floor, with no box spring, with nothing close by, as soon as the baby starts rolling over!

P.S. There are lots of other ways to co-sleep safely, like side car-ing a crib, but this is what works for us. I am by no means an expert on safe co-sleeping, just simply sharing our experience.

For more safe co-sleeping tips check out Attachment Parenting International's website.

The Fanatical Breastfeeder: Part 2

I, surprisingly, was not mad or offended when she called me fanatical for choosing to breastfeed, because I could see straight through her. She told me she didn't breastfeed, so for her to mentally and emotionally acknowledge that a mother would rationally choose to breastfeed, because it is the superior health option, in her mind, that would some how mean that she was a bad mother. Note, I said in her mind. I do not think that mother's who bottle feed with formula are less of a mother than me. I do, however, know that breast milk is better than formula as far as nutrition goes. Its a simple fact these days, with so much research, its not even a question anymore. Breast milk is better than formula. Period. Formula is not poison, and its a perfectly acceptable substitution for breast milk. But it is not the same. It is second best. But this woman, obviously felt that breastfeeding women think they are better mothers than formula feeding women, and in response to that misunderstanding, she needed to put me down in order to make herself feel better. And under anger, is always sadness. So I felt bad for her, because somewhere deep inside her, she knows that breastfeeding is better for babies and she chose not to give her babies the better option out her own need for her life to be easier. She was not willing to sacrifice personal time or rest or whatever for the sake of her children's health.

Now, again, let me be very clear here, I have nothing against mothers who bottle feed with formula (I do have an issue with formula companies and how they go into third world countries, including the US, and make it very easy for women to give up on breastfeeding.) I know for a fact, that you can meet all an infants emotional needs through bottle feeding. I was a nanny, long before I was a mother, and I continue to bottle fed Penelope my breast milk because of our situation. I call it bottle nursing. Her cheek touches my breast, so she is getting skin to skin. I did not do this with Ava and Ella (the girls I was a nanny to for 3 years), but I always held them in a cradle position when they got their bottles, and looked into their eyes. And I wore them in a wrap or sling for large portions of the day, just like I do with Penelope and they got lots of eye contact and touch through yoga and massage. I would lay down and cuddle with Ava and Ella to get them to sleep, just like I do with Penelope (but I am nursing Penelope to sleep.) So I know mothers can be just as attached to their babies and babies can feel just as loved and comforted, even if they bottle feed.

But nursing is different. It almost like it takes bonding to the next level. Not only does it meet her needs, but it meets mine. Bottle nursing, left me out of the picture. My milk would let down, but it had no where to go, and it was not a pleasant feeling to be holding a baby, have breasts full of milk but not be able to do anything about it. I remember the second day Penelope started comfort nursing. The first day was actually stressful, because I was holding my breath and afraid to move, not wanting to mess up her groove. I was also stressed that is was just a fluke and she would go back to not wanting to latch the very next day. So the second day I had relaxed. We were laying down and she was nursing to sleep. I felt my milk let down and for the first time it had somewhere to go other than to stain my shirt. I felt her pick up her sucking and swallowing. I could actually feel my milk going into her mouth and then I pictured it going into her belly. It was like I was literally, physically, giving her all my love through my warm, perfect milk. I knew she felt perfectly loved and at peace, which I know she feels when she is bottle fed my milk, but this time so was I.

The Fanatical Breastfeeder: Part 1

 

I have to break this up into two posts, because the subject is just too big!

This week I have been on vacation in Atlantic Beach, near Jacksonville. Penelope has received lots of attention from the other guests. One woman, struck up a conversation with me by saying how beautiful Penelope was. She went on to say that the reason she was here at the hotel, was because her daughter-in-law had just given birth six days ago and they were visiting their new grand baby. Me, being me, I responded with: "Congratulations! How is Mama and baby doing? How is breastfeeding going?" To which she replies with: "Oh, breastfeeding has been a nightmare, she can't get the baby to latch and now she is pumping all day and all night, getting no rest and she is having a hard time with her supply." I say, "I am so sorry to hear that, I know exactly how she feels, I had to pump, and in fact, I still pump 3 times a day for Penelope even though she can comfort nurse now. I remember how tired I was and how I thought, I hate all those people who say sleep when the baby sleeps, because I never could, I was always pumping." She then says, "I just don't understand why she is putting herself through all that, my daughter recently had a baby as well and she is giving her baby formula and her life is so much easier." And I replied, very casually, with not a fanatical tone in my voice, "Oh, because breastfeeding so good for the babies, what it does for their health it makes it worth it." She then says, super nasty, "Yeah, that is what all you breastfeeders say, you all are so fanatical about it. Women in my generation (she was in her mid-fifties, I'd say) didn't breastfeed and our kids turned out fine." I didn't really process quick enough that she just called me fanatical for choosing to breastfeed, so I didn't give her the response I should have. I simply switched the subject and started talking about things her daughter-in-law could do to increase her supply and left it at that.

I have thought about this poor mom all day, hoping to run into her mother-in-law again so I could offer her my left over milk stash, since I don't have a freezer here and it will go to waste. I am so mad at myself for not thinking quick enough to offer it right then and there, then she would have really thought I was a fanatical breast feeder!

While I do consider myself pretty fanatical about my determination and dedication to keep pumping in order to give Penelope my breast milk. I choose to breast feed to give Penelope breast milk for its health benefits (and for bonding, but more about that in the next post). Health benefits, discovered by massive amount of scientific research. I made an educated and informed decision to breast feed, i.e. not a fanatical one. I also don't get in people's face about it. I like to vent and share my joys about my breastfeeding experience on Facebook, but I am not wildly waving my hands in the air and yelling on a street corner to get people to breastfeed. One of the reasons I was so sad that Penelope couldn't nurse at first, is because I was excited to nurse in public. It was going to be my quiet, peaceful demonstration to the world. Part of the reason I am who I am today, is because of the positive women/mama role models I have come across in the last 10 years, not fanatics in the least. Before I even became a Doula, I was dating a guy in college, who's older sister was a total AP, BF'ing, co-sleeping mama. I saw her quietly sling her baby and breastfeed on demand. I saw how peaceful she and her baby were. I made the decision then and there, not even 20 years old then, that I was going to mother like that. She was not fanatical. She was just going on about her business and being a mother. And yet she made a huge impact on me.