Babies, Babies, Everywhere!

Today the girls from my childbirthing class all got together with our babies. We were supposed to go to a park and have a picnic, but we just didn't time it right with the weather. So, we all came over to my house instead. 4 girls, brought together by nothing more than signing up for the same natural childbirth class...it is such a cool thing! We had a great time talking, eating, and taking care of our babies for the better part of the afternoon. We talked about everything mommy and baby, and it was so wonderful to share our stories and talk about what we've all been experiencing over the last 2-3 months.

One thing I realized is how we each have slightly different parenting styles...slightly different ways of feeding our babies, slightly different ways of holding and carrying, slightly different ways of nurturing, and slightly different routines/sleeping patterns. We also all have slightly different babies who eat differently, sleep differently, and have different needs. I did quite a bit of reading books and articles about parenting styles and took in lots of suggestions, all have given me ideas for things to try. But what I've realized is we all figure out what works best for ourselves, mostly driven by what works best for our babies along with our lifestyles and personalities. It was great to hear new ideas from the other girls and be comforted by how we are all just trying to figure parenting thing out.

Above all, there was no shortage of love in the room with all of us there. These 4 little babies are so blessed to have wonderful parents trying to do everything they can to make sure that little one feels so much love that he or she won't even know what to do with it! No matter what the feeding style or nurturing style, it is all done with more love than one could ever imagine.

We tried our best to get a photo of all of them together...hard to do with 4 little squishies. Here's a pretty fun one: