Welcome to The Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival!

This post was written as part of The Breastfeeding Cafe’s Carnival. For more info on the Breastfeeding Cafe, go to www.breastfeedingcafe.wordpress.com. For more info on the Carnival or if you want to participate, contact Claire at clindstrom2 {at} gmail {dot} com. Today’s post is about baby friendly communities. Please read the other blogs in today’s carnival listed below and check back for more posts July 18th through the 31st!

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I am an American living in Europe. And like so many outsiders before me who look at foreign habits and expectations with fresh eyes, I can appreciate the differences that I see because I know that what’s customary in Europe is not customary in North America. The question is, is this a baby friendly community?

On net, the answer is a big ‘Yes’

I think far and away the most influential point in my decision to say, ‘Yes,’ I do live in a baby friendly community is the fact that standard throughout all of Europe, women upon giving birth are legally allowed maternity leave of one year per child, and up to three years if you have multiple children under a certain age. In doing some research, I see that this policy is fairly standard throughout the EU countries.

As a mother, myself, it’s my opinion that this is the only humane way to organize life around an infant. It’s optimal for the child, for the mother and for the family. The feedings happen too frequently; the sleeping schedules are too erratic for mom to be easily apart from baby for the length of a typical workday. Moreover, working moms run the risk of missing many of baby’s ‘firsts’ – turning over, starting to crawl, etc…

My observations of local mothers also suggests that eliminating the pressure to work amidst caring for an infant has a strongly positive effect on them personally. The nerves are just less frayed from trying but perpetually failing to bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan. I marvel at North American mothers who find the strength (and organization) to head back to work right away – but if we were still there, I’d be right along side you.

Me, with feet in both camps

As a foreigner, I am not allowed to take advantage of the 1-year maternity  law. However, as a work-at-home-mom, I have the opportunity to spend every moment with my baby daughter. I don’t miss a thing. While preparing to launch an international project – coordinating efforts in the UK and in the United States, my 7-month old plays in a crib next to my work table and laptop. I talk on Skype while she sits on my lap. I hatch international deals with her in a sling – and no one’s the wiser. While there’s an element of the surreal to this arrangement and some days are harder then others, I wouldn’t change anything. I think of myself in both camps because I don’t have the European expectation of a complete break from work during the first year (which would feel like a complete luxury to the average American mom, for example). But, I don’t drive myself into the ground like I would if I were still in America, having to work full-time at work and then work full-time at home as mom. (When do you sleep?) If Blanka has a bad day, I don’t have to call in sick and re-arrange appointments. I simply attend to the needs of my daughter and move on.

One (little) ‘no’

The only fly in the ointment that prevents me from fully embracing the ‘yes’ of the original question is that fact that I almost never see babies out and about. Where do they hide? Do these new mothers just sequester themselves inside until they are confident in the child’s ability to walk?  Thus, the lack of visibility of babies would suggest that this is not a baby-friendly community. However, I’ve been taking Blanka out in her stroller since she was 3-weeks old. And sure, I have trouble with the stroller on curbs that lack cut-outs, or people parking their cars on sidewalks and approaches to buildings which have only steps. But, these ‘minuses’ afford me little more than an eyelash-in-the-eye’s worth of irritation. In general, people have been happy to see my daughter out and about. I nurse her when she needs to be nursed and have never had a problem (as I talked about in my submission for the Carnival on Nursing in Public a couple weeks ago). Perhaps the lack of babies in plain site has more to do with the availability of broader family networks to babysit (whereas I have only my little nuclear family). In the end, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that even if rarely seen in public, babies are welcomed and tended to by (better) rested mothers.

Since most of the readers here are in North America, let’s talk about how you’re  coping with going back to work?  What advice can you give for mothers who are about to head back to work?

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Here are more post by the Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival participants! Check back because more will be added throughout the day.

• Emily @ Baby Dickey—Living in a baby friendly community
• Sara @ The Covered Wagon—A Baby-Friendly Worship Community
• Shary @ Mama Fish—A Community Fit For All Babies
• Sylko @ Chaotic Mama—Breastfeeding Carnival: Baby Friendly Community
• Claire @ The Adventures of Lactating Girl—Community is What You Make of It
• Kimberly @ Fertility Flower—Baby Friendly Maternity Leave
• Melodie @ Breastfeeding Moms Unite!—The People Who Make My Baby Friendly Community
• Timbra @ Bosoms and Babes—
  Baby Friendly Community: Carnival Day 1
• Claire @ Geeky Gaming Mama—Baby Friendly Community: What It Means To Me
• Renee @ Just the 5 of us!—Baby friendly, one baby at a time
• Kathy @ Musings From an Arid Neverland—The baby-friendly community vs. the deserted island
  
• And of course the guest poster on the Breastfeeding Cafe’s Blog today is Jodie Palmer—Baby Friendly Means Milk Banks