I've been thinking a lot lately about my parenting decisions and how I am choosing to raise my child. I think it has been on my mind recently, because an acquaintance questioned me the other day about vaccinations and whether or not I vaccinate my daughter. If you are curious, my daughter is fully vaccinated, with the exception of the MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) vaccination which I have chosen to delay.
There are a lot of things I do differently than what is considered "mainstream". I don't use any over-the-counter medicines with my little one. She is treated with homeopathic remedies. When her teeth hurt, I give her Hyland's Teething Tablets. When she was little and had symptoms of earache, I would give her NatraBio Earache Relief Drops. When she has symptoms of a cold or flu, then I administer Dr. Christopher's Kid-E-Well Cold and Flu drops.
I seriously considered putting her in cloth diapers when she was a baby, but I didn't want to invest the initial amount of money, and I didn't have the desire to wash the diapers. I was also very overwhelmed with the entire process of trying to choose the amount of diapers I would need and in what style. I will probably cloth diaper at least one of my children in the future, but with my first, I chose to take the easy route.
My child is 18 months old, and still breastfeeding. She nurses around 3 times a day and doesn't show any signs of stopping. I figure she has about six more months, and then I'll consider slowly weaning her. But, ideally, I would like to try child-led weaning and see how that goes. I receive flack* (can also be spelled flak according to dictionary.com (*your tip of the day)) about it from some friends and family members, but really, I don't care what other people's opinions of it are. I feel it is very natural. I don't understand why so many mom's choose to stop nursing at one year. Like it is a magic number or something. But, we are all different and we are allowed to make the choices we want to for our children.
I don't buy any foods with partially hydrogenated soybean oil (or any partially hydrogenated oils for that matter). I don't purchase foods with high fructose corn syrup, or with food dyes. I don't give my daughter any sugar snacks, and we rarely have salty snacks.
Sometimes I eat fruit for breakfast, and nothing but fruit until noon. I make all of my meals from scratch, and I only use whole wheat flour, which I grind from wheat berries and make into flour prior to using it. I drink soy milk and refrain from cow's milk. I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole and my daughter does not receive it either. I buy fresh eggs from a local farm, and get local honey from a farmer to help abate allergies.
OK, for some reason I feel better about posting this information out to you, Internet. Do you feel like you've learned a little bit more about me that you didn't already know? I hope so. Until next time...
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