Define Spanking

spank·ing/ˈspaNGkiNG/
An act of slapping, esp. on the buttocks as a punishment for children.
slapping
Hit (someone or something) with the palm of one's hand or a flat object: "my sister slapped my face".

If you can't see that spanking=hitting, you are not only arguing with the dictionary, you are also arguing with Google, Wikipedia (they actually consider it equal to striking, which they define as an ATTACK!), and, get this...the ENTIRE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Denial much?

The Truth About Bedsharing

As promised; here is the second in the series of blog installations I had planned on the topic of co-sleeping and bedsharing. This is not a comprehensive guide, nor can this post come even close to listing all the numerous benefits you and your family will enjoy when you share a room, or better yet, a bed.

The Difference Bedsharing Can Make To Your Life:

A sounder-sleeping child.
A mother and/or father's presence at bedtime eases a child into sleep with an ambiance that resonates of safety and calmness(1). Think about this from the perspective of a child: biologically speaking (think back to the neolithic era) if a child was separated from his/her mother it meant that there was something severely wrong. The mother had died. There was no longer protection from predators; especially in the dead of night when the homosapien, a (typically) diurnal creature, is weakened by dulled vision.

Despite how many times you can explain to your child that there are no lions in their nursery, this is the way our bodies were hard-wired. It is instinct. It makes complete sense then, to imagine why babies and children have since the dawn of time had anxieties associated with the dark and nighttime, and why our presence is so important especially during these hours. When a child wakes during the night, your presence tells your child that it is OK to go back to sleep(1)-a vital signal that when forced to do without, a child will inevitably suffer bouts of wakefulness and anxiety throughout every given night(2).

A Feeling Of Calm For The Whole Family
Co-sleeping has been shown in innumerable studies reduces the stress hormone cortisol(1)(3) for all partaking parties. It stands to reason that when you are less stressed, you will be more focused-which means that, in sharing sleep, you gain the opportunity to become a better parent, as well as a better spouse.

Safety
As has been demonstrated by my last post, the risk of "Sudden Unexplained Death in Infancy (SUDI)" also known as SIDS, Cot Death or Crib Death, is decreased dramatically as are many other health hazards, when co-sleeping. Other safety hazards that can be avoided when co-sleeping include that your child could become trapped in a house fire, or kidnapped(4). If you are sleeping with your child, your childs safety is in your hands-when they are away from you, the amount of time it could take you to get to them may indeed only be seconds-but it could be moments too long if something were to happen. This is not a risk I would ever want to take, and we sleep soundly knowing our child is safe in bed with us until he is independent and capable of taking proper safety precautions.

Reduced Risk Of Health Complications
Stress can cause a number of health problems, including, but not limited to(5):
-Mental illness
-Obesity
-High blood pressure
-Heart disease
-Skin problems
-Menstrual disruptions.

With a reduction of the stress hormone cortisol, all bedsharing parties are less likely to suffer from ALL of the aforementioned complications.

Bedsharing makes for ease of feeding and other forms of tending to your child.
Your baby is right....there! Next to you. Which means if your child is hungry or needs a change of nappy, you are right there to respond as soon as they begin to stir. Breastfeeding is easier, even bottlefeeding is easier. Bedsharing infants have been proven by many scientific studies to take more frequent and longer feeds from the breast at night than those who do not(7). This proves to benefit a child and mother's health in ways I will mention in posts to come...;)

A greater sense of well-being in your children.
Long-term studies following people who had slept with their parents as children and those who had slept alone showed that the children who co-slept were "happier, reported less anxiety, had higher self esteem, were less likely to be afraid of sleep, had fewer behavioural problems, tended to be more comfortable with intimacy, and were generally more independent as adults(7)."

Bedsharing facilitates a close and loving bond between parents and their children(8).
Need I say more?

 References:
1. http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/sleep-problems/co-sleeping-yes-no-sometimes
2. http://www.kellymom.com/parenting/sleep/familybed.html#advantages
3. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1083020.ece
4. http://thebabybond.com/Cosleeping&SIDSFactSheet.html
5. http://www.womenshealth.gov/publications/our-publications/fact-sheet/stress-your-health.cfm#e
6. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9240802
7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-sleeping#Advantages
8. http://www.unicef.org.uk/BabyFriendly/Resources/Guidance-for-Health-Professionals/Writing-policies-and-guidelines/Sample-bedsharing-policy/

The Night The Doctor Went Crazy

To the tune of "The Night Santa Went Crazy" By Weird Al Yankovich

Down in the hospital all the moms were givin' birth
To perfect little girls and perfect little boys
When the doctor busted in, nearly scared 'em half to death
Had a clamp in his hands and blood on his breath
From his coat to his trousers, he was covered with tools
Like a big, ignorant and evil power-hungry fool (that he was)
And he grinned as he said with a twinkle in his eye,
"Welcome to the world little boy, now your innocence is mine!"

The night the doctor went crazy
The night that pr*ck went insane
He wanted everyone to be having a raw deal
Something really must have died in his brain

Well, the foreskin is gone now, he decided to amputate it
Everywhere you'll find spatterings of blood and lost faith, yeah
He lied to their parents and he held the boys hostage
And he ground up their frenulums as if making sausage
He got Johnny and Franky with an old Mogen clamp
And he slashed up poor Nathan who's still feeling the cramp
And he picked up a plastibell and he circumcised Norman
When he sliced off too much he said, "he'll be popular with women!"

The night the doctor went crazy
The night that *sshole went nuts
Now you can't hardly step foot in his office
Without him suggesting "you too, should get cut"

There's the worlds' Medical Associations and the intactivists
There's vans sent by the media, too
The parents circling 'round you, clenching their fists
The complications keep happening', the body count's risin'
And everyone's dyin' to know, oh, Doctor, why?
My my my my my my
You used to be a compassionate guy

Yes now in some countries he'd be doing time
In a federal prison for his sickening crime
Little friend, I can see why you'd cry all those tears
There are many doctors like him, there may be for many years
And now grown men have painful sex lives, many of them still nervous
With no clue what happened to them, they didn't deserve it
And those parents lay in bed, awake all of every night
Wondering why they and that doctor took away their son's rights!

They're talkin' bout - the night the doctor went crazy
The night mr ridiculous flipped
Sought revenge for all his own repressed traumas
Decided to hurt Babies, Daddies and Mamas

Wo, the night the doctor went crazy
The night that pr*ck went insane
He wanted everyone to be having a raw deal
Something really must have died in his brain
Wo, something really must have died in his brain
Tell ya, something really must have died... in his brain

Raise Your Children In The Following Manner...

(This is a slightly older one that I wrote on 20 August)
  I walked downtown wearing O.O. in the sling yesterday to get a couple bits from the store and some firm beliefs of mine once again demonstrated themselves to be true, so sadly and soberingly true. Peace begins with parents. Importantly I should elaborate, the state of this world is most largely caused by the way people raise their children. From the instant a child is conceived; the things that a Mother eats, the way people around her treat her (yes, that means you Dads), how she manages her stress-impact the child...Then there is the birth; which in its best, complication free, quick and most easy form, is still trauma for a child-but this is NOT the case for 99% or more of births in the world we live in. No. See; women most often go to hospitals because we are trained to trust the medical industry (and why this is I do not fucking know anymore, because I really DON'T. Not after everything that's happened.) and are given combinations of pain drugs ranging from epidurals to dangerous intravenous drugs that enter a baby's bloodstream, if they are not subjected to unnecessary medical intervention such as "routine" episiotomies, cesareans, forceps-deliveries that cause injuries to a baby's head and so much more I don't even....anyway, then a child is most often ripped away from it's mother to be cleaned and weighed and bla dee bla, and then the breastfeeding process, what is supposed to be one of the earliest moments of bonding between a child and mother is often interfered with if not completely disrupted. So much else goes on, bad things, that harm a child...and often a Father is sent home because he is NOT ALLOWED to stay wth Mum & his new baby. Then Mum & baby in many cases are seperated for any number of reasons, as was the case with myself and many of my friends, for several hours or even overnight...a violation of human rights for all parties involved if you ask me! So then its on to the parents and MOST parents treat their kids like SHIT in todays world! The importance is in "training" them. Why is the emphasis on training our children? Why is having well behaved children such a high priority? MY priority is having a HAPPY, HEALTHY child. Which brings me to the things I experienced...

Firstly, bumping into my health visitor. A woman who told us NEVER to allow our newborn baby to fall asleep on us because he might become attached to us (oh, how horrible!!!!) who told us to train him to sleep and feed on a schedule instead of when he was tired/hungry, who pushed me into feeding him formula (don't worry, I ignore all of this advice) because he "wasn't getting enough" (what the fuck?? How are you even supposed to know that??) when he was younger despite meeting his height/weight "requirements" and despite being healthy and happy. Lots of other crappy advice, too, like how we should take Osrid for walks every single day rain or shine, and wanted this SO BADLY that when there was a hailstorm in December (O.O. not yet 2 months old) and we called to cancel our appointment to come in and have Osrid weighed she threw a temper tantrum over the phone about how we were keeping him from them and how we needed to buck up and walk yes walk (we don't have a car or any alternate mode of transportation) Osrid over to the Childrens center, which is over a mile away, in the pouring rain and hail. I kid you not. She has been pestering the shit out of us lately to come in and bring Osrid to be weighed and prodded and we have been declining her "offers" so I thought I'd chat with her about why to get her to lay off without calling s/s on us (yeah, they do that if you don't follow their protocol...a lot. The UK is seriously bleak about childcare practices. UNICEF needs to step in a bit more...), basically he is healthy and happy and we have no concerns whatsoever about his wellbeing. I actually even lied to her and told her that he is eating solids which he isn't because he's not ready (we're BLS'ers) when she asked and she said oh how much, I told her a couple bites in a day which I thought was how much a "standard" 9 month old child eats, but that wasn't OK. She wanted us to have him nearly weaned by now. He's not even a year old, lady! I quoted World Health Organisation reccomendations on child feeding and she had never heard of them. Some healthcare pro. She also gave me various other detachment parenting advice but eventually ended up with her fut in her mouth because as I politely pointed out Ozzie is healthy, happy, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with him despite that we follow essentially none of her protocol. She did however essentially threaten me into making a doc's appt for O.O. to "check up on him" because if he can't be seen then they assume something is wrong and she needs to "make sure everything genuinely IS okay with him." Rggghhh. Fortunately she gave me some great news, she is retiring soon and moving away. Thank heavens. What bothers me SO bad about my health visitor is not just so much that she thinks the way she does, because sure enough, people make mistakes. What really peeves me is that she is in the profession that she is and has been in this business for well over 25 years now-she was my husband's health visitor when he was a newborn baby! She has been giving this horrid advice for this long and is a mother herself to make matters worse. I can't even imagine how many families she has broken up because they have believed her and gone against their sweet instincts to pick up their children when they are crying and oh heaven forbid COMFORT THEM, how many children have grown up to become silent, passive-aggressive adults bottling up who knows how many emotions, ticking time bombs because she has told their parents to ignore their screams in hunger, fear and exhaustion and to instead *train them* in the name of being well behaved and matching charts and standards. From the parents I know this is not at all uncommon either, this is the STANDARD for Health Visitors in this country. How SAD is this?

As if this didn't put me in a foul enough mood seeing her; when I finally got through it and got to the grocer there was another mother that was just so AWFUL I could barely believe what I was seeing. In an adjacent checkout lane to mine, she was holding a baby in one hand and had a toddler of about 3 y/o in a stroller who was crying and absolutely *terrified*. So what does mum do? She leans down to her toddler, face to face and glares her eyes, points her finger and says "Now you listen to me, you just STOP IT. YOU STOP IT RIGHT NOW." in the most nasty, wicked-witch voice. Lots of people were staring at her, I was no exception, and I made a point to glare at her the same way she glared at her poor little girl. When we exited the store I shot her a truly disgusted look and she said in her loud drama voice "WHAT?!", which thankfully caught everyone's attention, as I was not so secretly dying to publicly shame this horrible twit. So I said "you ought to be ashamed talking to your children like that, that's WHAT!" She turned about as red as a beet and had nothing to say for herself.

Then what happens? I get into a cab; and meet the most LOVELY man. He is so kind to both Osrid and I, and tells me what a gorgeous boy I have. We are talking about kids and it is apparent to me how much he loves them. He tells me how much he wants one and how him and his wife lost their only pregnancy, that they have been trying so hard for...and it just made my heart bleed, after seeing such lousy parenting. It really hits home to me that the vast majority of people really do not want their children, it burdens and inconveniences them to be parents. Then there are people like this kind man who would do anything to give LOVE to a child and cannot have one...oh, how sad it makes me. Paul and I don't plan on having any more kids, but we are SO happy to be parents, it is the best thing we have ever done in our lives. It seems to be that way though to me, MOST OFTEN (not always so please don't take offense) the people who love children don't have many of them and the people who hate being parents just breed for the sake of it and don't take care of the people they bring into the world. They put them through so much trauma, and we wonder why there is war and hate between man...If you have a child, are thinking about having a child, or are even important in the eyes of a child please think about this. The fate of the world is in your hands.

Please; raise your children in such a way that the sounds of laughter are heard far more than the sounds of tears. Show them that love and familial affection should never be withheld. Bring them up in a manner that needs are met when they arise and rather than when it is convenient. Raise your children so that they know that when all else in the world is bleak and barren they have a place of warmth and abundance in your arms whenever it is desired. Raise your children so that they come above all else in the world. NOTHING is more important than your kids.