Hair. Here, There, Everywhere.

Yessiree, folks. It is that time of the Post-Partum Year. You are innocently taking a shower, minding your own damned business while rinsing conditioner out of your hair when you notice that big, huge, clumps of your lovely locks are also being rinsed. And even though this is my 2nd go around with this, it is still a little horrifying. Oh My God. There is hair EVERYWHERE. Fortunately, this is perfectly normal at around 3-4 months post-partum and it is NOT caused by breastfeeding, either. According to Kellymom,

Postpartum hair loss is a normal - and temporary - postpartum change that is unrelated to breastfeeding. Most women will return to their usual hair growth cycle between 6 and 12 months after birth.

In other news, there is a wonderful article about co-sleeping titled Shhh...My Child Is Sleeping (in My Bed, Um, With Me)" in the New York Times. As it states, co-sleeping:

".....is far more common than many people think. Nearly 13 percent of parents in the United States slept with their infants in 2000, up from 5.5 percent in 1993, according to a report last month in the journal Infant and Child Development. Countless children start the night in their own beds, only to wake up a few hours later and pad into their parents’ bedrooms, crawling into the bed or curling up nearby on the floor.

Ask parents if they sleep with their kids, and most will say no. But there is evidence that the prevalence of bed sharing is far greater than reported. Many parents are “closet co-sleepers,” fearful of disapproval if anyone finds out, notes James J. McKenna, professor of anthropology and director of the Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame."

This was a pretty standard, catch-all co-sleeping article, but I thought it was still interesting to read. In particular, I LOVE the title and the fact that it addressed the perceived shame/embarrassment parents feel when having to "admit" they co-sleep. I still suffer a bit from this embarrassment, even 2 years later.

Also, I would like to clarify something - yes, I am a huge co-sleeping advocate. However, I cannot claim that co-sleeping is always easy. It is not. There are some nights when I wish my kids would just sleep by themselves already. Furthermore, we are having a tremendous amount of trouble getting my son to sleep these days. Let me stress the "getting to sleep" part, once he is asleep, he is doing fine. It is the "getting there" that is pushing us to some dark, dark places. It could be a lot of things - he is hitting a developmental explosion of language. He is cutting some molars. He has a new sister. He just started a Mother's Day Out program a month ago. And he is two. Did I mention that? I am not sure what the solution is, but I will say that co-sleeping has totally saved our sanity. It is hard enough to deal with all of this, I cannot imagine doing it sleep deprived.