Mom Blog and Baby Blog | Baby Bunching

an asset, an investment or a gift?

By Rachel Ostlie

I once read an article that talked about the radical changes in parenting and child-rearing expectations over the past century, and the author used the financial terms of asset and investment to make her point. She said that since the beginning of history children have been viewed as assets, resources of immediate value and benefit. However, in this current society, the thinking has shifted to where children are now investments, something that we sink time and money into in hopes that it might be profitable in the future. In the past the mentality was “you’re living under my roof and eating my food so you will work on my farm and then take care of me when I’m old.” Now we invest into the best schools and tutors, extracurricular activities and sports teams, piano lessons and college funds, to develop a well-rounded individual who may one day repay us by being an adjusted, successful, and happy adult.

Perhaps this is where much of the stress of Baby Bunching comes from. If your children are assets, as your grandmother or great-grandmother believed, then the more you have the richer you are.  But if your children are investments, then others (and even you yourself) begin to question how you will keep up with two under two or three under three. How can you possibly afford the time and money required to build up all these investments? How will you juggle three munchkins' soccer games in one day? How will you save up for rapidly escalating college costs?

Maybe both paradigms are slightly off, and maybe we’d all be happier Baby Bunchers if we viewed our children under a different financial term altogether: a gift. Something that we don’t deserve, something to enjoy. This idea was highlighted to me recently through two stories, one of my own, and one of a friend of a friend. The second is that of Eliot Mooney, a baby born with a genetic disorder who lived only 99 days. His story, seen on Oprah and other media outlets, gets its touching beauty from the attitudes of his parents, who viewed each day with him as a precious gift. My own story is that of my grandmother, who passed away last weekend. As I was looking through old, faded pictures of her and her children, I chuckled, thinking of how she would get the “you sure have your hands full” comment over and over if she had been a mother today. She was a Baby Buncher, then had twins, bumping it up to four under three. Three more children followed after, in fairly rapid succession. What was the key to her happy smiles, her joy with her brood? I know it was because she viewed each child not as an asset or an investment, but as a gift. There’s always room for one more, if we’re talking about gifts. And you don’t have to worry about devoting sufficient money and time into a gift, you just enjoy each day in perspective of the past and future.

Are concerns over your bunch’s future weighing heavy on you today? Do you wonder how they will ever measure up? Take the time to enjoy your little gifts, and know that the investment of making them feel significant, secure, and loved, is the best one you can make.

Rachel is a Baby Bunching mom of two little gifts, with one on the way. Pictured is her grandmother (center) with five of her seven children.

the juggle: mommy guilt is back

My kids are a year apart in school. There are some definite pros and cons to back-to-back teachers. However one of the cons is that both kids are able to easily track and remember what I attended, volunteered for or organized last year for child #1. Child #2 probably wouldn't care except child #1 always likes to remind her.

Tomorrow is the big kindergarten field trip to the zoo. I had missed the fall field trip to the pumpkin farm last year and managed to rally my work schedule to be gone the whole day in the spring for the National Zoo. To make it even, I did the same this year. No pumpkin patch in the fall, but the zoo in the spring. Only this year, work is way too busy for me to miss a whole day.

Now let me back up and remind you that I work from home with a kindergartner who attends only half day. That translates to 3 hours each day that I frantically work as much as I can so I can be available to both kids when they hop of the bus. Our spring break put me behind at work with a looming deadline and to be able to work for 5 hours without paying a babysitter just seemed to make sense.

I tossed it around in my head for days and finally came to the conclusion that it just didn't make sense to go on the field trip. Would she be disappointed? Would she even notice my absence once she was there? I have to keep reminding myself that all working parents--full time or part time--have to make choices. As I'm quickly learning, the older the kids get the more obligations we have. The more things they have to attend. The more things I have to attend. Three years ago when the only event I had be at was the Christmas program at preschool. Now the committments come at me at lightening speed for both kids. How equal do I make it? Is it a lesson for them that mom just can't do it all, all the time?

The decision has been made and I will be at home tomorrow working while child #2 is walking through the zoo with another devoted parent. I still can't help feeling guilty.

(For those that wanted to know, she was not initially disappointed, but I did manage to get a few tears this morning.)

knowing when to say when (how many babies are enough?)

Family size and spacing can be delicate topics here at Baby Bunching.  Some of us have ended up with larger families than we planned, sooner than we planned.  Others have embraced the blessing of expanding to include twiblings (and beyond), but experienced strong judgements on family planning from family and friends.  In any case, if you've been a parent, at some point you've likely grappled with the question, "How many children is enough?"  

I personally always pictured myself with four of them.  In earlier years, my husband shared that vision, but the addition of our third boy in less than 5 years brought family expansion discussions to a grinding halt.  Too much of a good thing, too soon?  Maybe, although we both agree that our current family dynamics (for all of their challenges) suit us very well and we're quite happy with our brood.  So happy, in fact, that my husband would willingly head in for the snip-snip any day to ensure that things stay this way.

I, on the other hand, have struggled.  I pretty much lost the privilege of EVER sitting down with the delivery of my third child and that took some getting used to (have you noticed that two children can be settled together for short periods of time, but three children are almost never settled at once?).  For the first two years of #3's life, my answer to the prospect of a fourth child would've been an affirmative negative.  In recent weeks, I've been having a lot of internal (and external) dialogue about how great it is that my baby is starting to grow and run fast enough to keep up with the big boys.  And in recent days, I've found myself solidly wanting...just one more baby.

Admittedly, I hit my Advanced Maternal Age birthday a few weeks ago, which has ratcheted up the volume on my ticking biological clock.  And part of the reason I chose to have my children so close together is that the thought of getting the youngest off to kindergarten and starting all over in baby mode does not appeal to me.  With the youngest approaching the 3-year mark this summer, the voice in my head is screaming, "NOW OR NEVER!"  Talk about pressure.

Add that to the fact that I can pretty much guarantee that there are exactly 2.5 people in this world that would actually wholeheartedly celebrate and embrace the news of another baby for me (and none of them are my husband), and I am in a real quandary.

I love my job and it's going great.  I'm steadily adding more hours as my kids get older, so the extra money is also nice.  As the kids get older, it's easier to carve out time to exercise more, spend a little more time with my husband, and (on occasion) farm children out to friends and relatives who are able to manage a few kids (but not a few babies) so that I can spend time with husband, spend quality one-on-one time with kids, work out, organize the house, etc.  

On the flip side, my career will always be there, but I only have a short window in which to birth and raise children.  The first 7 years of that window have flown by in a way that frightens me - so I know some part of me would be grateful for the excuse to make the window a little wider by adding another child.  When the kids are gone, hubs and I will have so much time together we will be sick of looking at each other.  Exercising can be overrated (I always eat more when I work out so it's an exercise in futility, anyway), travel will be there when I retire, and I can hire someone else to clean my house if it means that much to me.  

Of course, a 4th baby would mean I'd probably have to temporarily throw in the towel on work, which would mean less money, which would mean more stress (and no cleaning lady)....you can see the vicious cycle of this thought process.

So what are your thoughts on how to know when enough is enough?  Does anyone out there have a 10-point checklist I can use?  Because my husband totally responds better to analytical data in decision making.

are they twins?

By Rachel Ostlie

It began when my son was 5 months old and my daughter was 21 months. The very first time that a stranger casually asked, “Are they twins?” At first my reaction was one of shock. Twins? I know that they were in a double stroller so you couldn't see the height difference (as if Little Baby could even stand at this point) but twins? Seriously?

Then again, it's no surprise that we Baby Bunchers are assailed with this question... after all, the number of twin births has risen by 50 percent in the past three decades*. On the other hand, Bunching your children saw a sharp downturn with the advent of oral hormonal birth control in 1960. So two adorable babies are generally assumed to belong to the multiples category. Right?

Honestly, I don't know what I answered on that day. Probably some variation of what I have answered the other hundred thousand times I've fielded that question at a school, library, church, or any other public area: “No.” If they were lucky, I might have said something spectacular after that, like “Umm...This one is older, that one is younger.”

Which brings me to an honest plea, sent out to the whole Baby Bunching community. Perhaps it stems from the fact that my petite firstborn daughter will surely be shorter than her linebacker large brother by the time they are four and three, respectively. But more likely, it comes from my desire to look clever. To have something better to say that just, “Um... no.” I would like to have a pre-formulated answer to give to all the casual strangers wanting to know if my kids cutesy twins or not. Ideally, it should be a sentence long, roll off the tongue easily, and be somewhat witty. Please, will anybody out there help me?

Rachel is the happy mother of two adorable children who are not twins, ages 3 and 1.5. She also really wants to be clever.

*National Vital Statistics Reports - Volume 48, Number 3 - from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

cloth diapering your bunch

By Brenda Massung

When you hear the words - cloth diaper - does it make you cringe? Does it remind you of giant white towels that you watched your mother somehow fold onto your little sibling, or the horrid thought of sticking someone with a pin?  For me, when I first heard about cloth diapers, I thought it was nuts.  I began nannying a set of twin girls who were wearing them, plastic pants and all.  It wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t as bad as I thought, and then they switched over to the world of high connivence cloth diapers.  Where all you had to do was snap a diaper around the child - and they were set.  It felt all too good.

But to be honest, it WAS good.  I learned that one disposable diaper sits in a landfill for about 100 years.  I learned that using cloth really does cut down on costs, and the best part it’s great for the bum of my precious baby.  So when our first little lady “announced” her arrival on the lovely little pee stick, my husband and I decided that we would venture into the cloth diaper world.

Entering the world of cloth diapering can be like walking into a foreign country - where people use words like, prefolds, snappis, one-sized, pocket, the list goes on and on.  So my advice to you is to find a website, such as the very helpful storkwarehouse.com, and look at cloth diapering 101.  There, you will determine what the needs of your family are and how to go about the process of cloth diapering.

I know what you’re thinking - “oh, no I”m going to have to rinse the poo out in the toilet, my husband won’t even touch regular poopy diapers.”  Well with the technology of today’s washers - you don’t even have to let that diaper touch the toilet.  You just toss it into a dry bag designed to hold the diapers, and wash within 3 days. Seriously it’s that easy.  Once your child has started forming solid poos- you just toss the solid into the toilet and put the diaper into the bag waiting to wash.  It really is simple.

The best part about baby bunching and cloth diapering, is for those who used sized diapers, you are most likely to have you children in the same sized diaper within several months after baby #2’s birth. The investment cost can be upfront higher, however you can use the diapers you bought for baby #1, on all your babies to come, and even better, if your diapers are still in usable condition you can pass them on/sell them to a friend!

Our family uses sized fuzzi bunz, which come in small, medium, and large - and currently both my girls are in mediums, which is great for the diaper bag.  Now don’t get me wrong, we still use disposable diapers too, when we go on trips, and some nights.  But as you will find with cloth, you aren’t having to run out to the store to do a
diaper run, you are seeing less/NO diaper rashes, and all around know that what you are doing is better for the environment.  Trust me, it’s not as scary as you think.

Brenda is a Des Moines, Iowa - Baby Bunching, part-time “take the kiddos to work with” mom to two girls, 28 month old dolly who arrived 15 weeks before her due date, and a 11 month old dolly who arrived right on time.

to work or not to work

By Natasha Standen, Mutterings of a Mother 

My bunch are practically grown now (well - 5 and 3.5 years old!) I gave up my full-time job after the birth of my first child and I've (mostly) loved being at home. Our family see it as a positive decision. I  think I'm lucky I've had the opportunity. But a friend of mine said to me the other day that it isn't anything to do with luck - that she and her family have chosen to cut their income by more than half, going without financially, in order for her to be a 'stay at home' Mom. Which got me thinking - is it really a choice?

It's a contentious point for any mother, often because of what other mothers say about it. For Baby Bunchers, the issues may be more specific. Dealing with a baby and a toddler (or more!) can be extremely draining - I know quite a few moms who have appreciated an 'escape' to part-time work in this phase. Others don't want to contemplate having to deal with the workplace when they wake up exhausted every day. Single parents, or those in a family with no other income, don't usually get to choose. Some moms work from home, which presents its own challenges.

If I had returned to work, I'd have been back only a month or two before announcing I was pregnant with my second child. I doubt my employer would have been overjoyed. Some people I know with more than one child say there is no point in them going back to work as whatever they earn will go on childcare. Others say they need the money to support their lifestyle. Others want their children to see that they have a work ethic, or that women can have children and do paid work. Employment can provide an identity outside of the childcare role which many women don't want to do without. Many women, like myself, thrive on the role they have as an at-home mom, much to the confusion of some of their peers.

I remember my last attempt at freelance work vividly. I had been up in the night with a sick child, before leaving at 6 a.m. for a 3-hour drive to conduct on-site interviews with 9 vulnerable families over a couple of days. Cared for by Daddy and Grandma, my 3-year old was in good hands, so rather than let other families down, I continued with the paid work. On my return (after another long drive), I walked in to see everyone at the dinner table, picking up my 18-month-old for a cuddle, who promptly covered me in vomit. I was up all of the next night. I have not pursued any further paid work since that time!

My 5-year old is now in the equivalent of kindergarten, my nearly-4 year old at pre-school 12 hours a week. Much of my time without them is spent studying for a qualification which will be a stepping stone to a different career - in the future. I also help run a church group for under-5s, with the kid/s in tow. So I'm still at home, and happy. And in the summer we will welcome a new baby. It works for us. But tell me - is it really something moms can choose, especially for those with children spaced closer together? What do other Baby Bunchers think?

Natasha Standen is a 34-year old stay-at-home mom & church volunteer. She lives in Nottinghamshire, UK. Mother to 5 year old and nearly 4 year old girls, 19 months apart.

timing your bunch

We have a theory here at Baby Bunching that if you are not pregnant again by the time your baby hits his first birthday, you will likely not be pregnant again until he is at least 2.  We have lots of anecdotal (granted, none scientific) evidence in the form of our many, many friends who are Baby Bunchers and our many, many friends who have children who are around three years apart.  We note that we have almost NO friends with children in the 2 1/2 year spacing pattern.  This is because the baby stage from about 9 months to 2 years will kick. your. ass. 

How many of us Baby Bunchers got pregnant when the baby was 9 months old, only to find ourselves saying at the one-year mark, "Holy S*%t, what have I done?"  I personally experienced the feeling that if I were not already pregnant and unable to turn back the clock, there was no way in hell I would've PLANNED to be pregnant again with a 1-year old hanging off the side.

For those of you who are considering Baby Bunching but haven't taken the plunge yet, consider the following.  From about the 5-month mark (when they start sleeping through the night) to about the 10-month mark (when they start crawling really, really fast), babies have a quiet period.  Much like a dormant volcano, they delude you into thinking that this parenting gig isn't so hard after all.  At this age, they are finally starting to reward your indentured servitude by smiling, giggling, and playing with you.  They've started solid foods, so they are no longer the constant companion of your breasts.  They're likely sleeping through the night, even in their own beds, allowing you and the hubby some quality time to rediscover each other.  This would be a good time to remind you that "rediscovering each other" is how you got here in the first place, so be very, very careful.

And then along comes the first birthday and with it, toddlerhood. Toddlers are special, special little people.  Active, curious, and opinionated, they will beat you into submission, much as they did as newborns.  You will find yourself running all day long, constantly dashing to pluck them from harm's way and satisfy their (often unreasonable) demands.  It's just the age, so don't worry - while your precious little tyrant will run you ragged, this too, shall pass. 

As with many things in life, timing is everything when it comes to Baby Bunching, whether you got there by careful planning and plotting of timing, by lack of control over timing (like Linda) or reckless disregard for timing (like me),  So for those of you who are still on the fence, consider yourselves warned and mind the clock!

H1N1: to stick or not to stick?

Anyone who wants to feel better about their day should check out my post last week about the joys of getting flu shots with all three kids.  Unless, of course, you are scheduled to get flu shots with your Bunch today, then you should probably skip it.

With all the controversy about vaccinations in general and even more controversy because of the unknowns associated with H1N1, we're curious as to where y'all fall in the in the flu shot or no flu shot debate.  Linda and I frequently find ourselves in opposite camps on the vaccination issue, but this season's virus is throwing a wrench in the works that no one (including the CDC and AAP) knows what to do with.  The deal's sealed for me, but Linda's still on the fence, so tell us, dear Bunchers, what does the survey say on H1N1?

naming the next child

Baby naming can be tricky. As parents, we labor over THE perfect name for our first child and probably even more so for the next kid. For us, we had our firstborn's name picked out ahead of time (as in before I was pregnant) so it was super easy. But when the second child or third or fourth comes around we feel pressure to picking another perfect name--especially if the next one is of the same sex. 

Do you need names that sound well together? How about picking names that great good together on the family Christmas card? If you give one kid a super creative funky name what do you do about the next? Do you get them relatively the same number of letters or start with the same letter?

My kids’ names both begin with the letter ‘A.’ That was NOT planned! People always comment about how cute, and my grandmother refers to them as “the A team.” It doesn’t help since my husband’s name also begins with an ‘A.’ But I swear we didn’t mean to do this. And should we have a third child, I’m not sure what we’ll do since people might expect for another A name. Quite honestly, we’ve run out of names we like so I guess we’re done having kids.

The Social Security Administration put out their list of top baby names for last year and Emma and Jacob are the top winners for 2008. And while we can debate over and over about unique names (check out my recent article in Washington Parent to this topic), the question relating to Baby Bunching is what do you consider when naming subsequent children?

academic redshirting and your bunch

Can you tell we've got school on the brain around here?  In recent weeks, we've covered the private school application process and also aligning preschool schedules for your Bunch.  Today we're talking about a topic that we're actually personally divided on - academic red-shirting. 

Both Linda and I have mid- July babies - ironically enough, they were born less than 24 hours apart, even though their original due dates were 3 weeks and some days apart.  Both July babies are the younger members of our respective Bunches.  Linda has a girl, and I have a boy.  Both children are really bright, socially outgoing, and have been attending preschool of some sort since shortly after they turned one.  I am pretty sure that we will hold our son back and start kindergarten when he is six and Linda is almost equally as sure that she will go ahead and send her daughter right after she turns five.  One thing we both agree on is that, as with all parenting decisions, what's right for you depends on your kid and your family.

In addition to child readiness, we're also weighing the implications of red-shirting when your crew is Bunched. The thought of having kids just one grade apart is nice.  It's all the sooner you get everyone into kindergarten and you can get back to work or whatever your plans are.  The curriculum, the homework, the teacher's idiosyncrasies, etc. are all fresh in your mind as a parent, so you can help your younger child navigate the school year.  Plus your younger sib has the benefit of drawing on the wisdom of the older one that may have taken many of the same classes (and maybe even the same teachers) just the year before.  It's likely (especially in the high school years) that they end up on the same sports teams and maybe even in some of the classes.  I confess that I even envisioned knocking out all the year's sporting events, school plays, awards ceremonies, and other events in one fell swoop, with everyone being featured at one event.

For this first time this year, I am considering the flip side.  That my sons have VERY different learning styles and it might be nice if they didn't have the same teachers and the youngest didn't follow the oldest one immediately.  That it might be nice for us as parents if we could buy another year's time before having to assume the private school price tag for our second son.  That my July boy acts awfully young compared to some of the older kids in his preschool class, some of whom were born almost 11 months earlier than he was.  Especially as a boy, I wonder what he has to gain from being the youngest kid in his class, even if he is bright.  After all, I can supplement him outside the classroom academically if needed, but I can't really shore up his social immaturity.  And finally (selfishly), the sooner I get them all into kindergarten the sooner I have to figure out what to do with the rest of my life now that the part I most looked forward to (staying home and loving on babies and toddlers) is done.

We still have another year and a half until he turns five and a lot can happen in that time, so I guess I'll just wait and see.  And it won't be the last time I have to make this decision - my youngest son was born almost exactly three years after the second, also in July. 

I know Linda and I will have many more discussions on this topic until we work it out in our heads and figure out what's best for the kiddos.  Anyone care to join in on the conversation?