So, what do you do if you start getting some negative publicity about your marriage and really want to turn everything in a new direction? Well, you give Kneepads a call. That is exactly what Kelly Preston did. She does not really have anything to promote or anything earth shattering to share, she just wanted to get in the magazine and stop all those stories about John Travolta and Kelly being split up. The article is basically Kelly saying that she doesn't ever want to stop breast feeding her son. Yeah, that is press stopping stuff. She also said that the baby sleeps in the same bed as John and Kelly. Setting aside the whole whether John is sleeping in the same bed thing, I didn't think babies were supposed to sleep in the bed with the parents. Suffocation and all that. Also isn't it hard to get them to ever go to their own room if they are always in bed with you?
We co-slept with my son - there's a lot of stuff saying it's bad since you can roll over onto the baby. What I say to that is that even asleep you are conscious that your baby is there. And he had no problem going to his own room when he was old enough.
ReplyDeleteAs for the breast feeding, say what! Doesn't Hubbard say that's bad for the kid and that he/she should only drink that barley water with corn syrup?! Kelly is about to audited!
I thought it was really difficult to nurse a baby you didn't give birth to. Maybe the surrogate is doing that too.
ReplyDeleteI thought she gave birth to this baby, but the consensus was that baby daddy was unknown.
ReplyDeleteWhat I don't understand is these fake "marriages" where people are not really a couple.
ReplyDeleteEven worse if you are somehow having children and raising them in such a setting.
I believe in cosleeping but not in the bed. You can use a crib, a cot or a twin or toddler bed, whatever but I would be too freaked out having the baby in the actual bed with me. When you're on so little sleep you don't want to add one more reason not to get a few peaceful hours b/c you're hyper aware that the kid is in the bed and you or your husband/partner could crush it. It's probably more convenient for breast feeding but oh well. Better safe than sorry.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I strongly believe that it's the parents who don't allow their kids to sleep well independently b/c they become codependent with their kids sleeping in the room. Some people are complete nut jobs but I think the technical term is helicopter parenting.
I can't believe I used to think John was straight. Gay rumors have always surrounded him, but I never believe them until a few years ago.
ReplyDeletePersonally I don't think it's safe to sleep with a newborn. Newborns are perfectly content sleeping in their cribs/bassinets, why risk it? Anyway, as Enty says, maybe the point they're trying to make is that they sleep in the same bed - create a controversy/distraction.
I thought they had twins.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering that same thing.
DeleteIn Milwaukee, we have had scads of cosleeping deaths over the last few years. I get what msgirl is saying about about being conscious the baby is there but apparently these parents (and a few grandparents and siblings) were not. It is very tragic here. I didn't trust myself with cosleeping so it did not happen. I was just so tired with a newborn which made it tempting but that was the risk, too - being so tired.
ReplyDeleteThat baby looks too much like Travolta to not be his. Her figure also looks like she had a baby. They have been through enough tragedy that I don't wish to speculate further on their lives.
we co sleep and have for two years. its very safe if you aren't under the influence. you are always conscious of baby. it actually lowers the rate of sids. I also still bf my son at 25 months.
ReplyDeleteI can't speak for Kelly and John but having little one in our bed has made us have to get a little creative. the bed isn't the only place to get it on ya know!
--That baby looks too much like Travolta to not be his. Her figure also looks like she had a baby. They have been through enough tragedy that I don't wish to speculate further on their lives.
ReplyDelete--
this.
we coslept with DD, it was pretty wonderful.
If cosleeping is done correctly, it's very safe. Most non western cultures cosleep, but they don't have featherbeds, giant fluffy quilts, etc.
--That baby looks too much like Travolta to not be his. Her figure also looks like she had a baby. They have been through enough tragedy that I don't wish to speculate further on their lives.
ReplyDelete--
this.
we coslept with DD, it was pretty wonderful.
If cosleeping is done correctly, it's very safe. Most non western cultures cosleep, but they don't have featherbeds, giant fluffy quilts, etc.
@Giulia: For career and companionship
ReplyDeleteThey might not be traditional husband and wife, but I never got the impression that they had a Tom and Katie-type marriage (i.e control).
mscool, the reason I didn't put my son in a bassinet or crib to start with is because it is so much easier to co-sleep when you are breastfeeding!
ReplyDeleteOh and I just remembered we got one of those pillow things that slant inwards so that was a bit of a barrier for rolling over altho the main reason I got it was there was a huge fuss at the time that baby should only sleep on the back, so this pillow was designed for no rolling over. I also placed him on my side, not between us - I knew I was aware even when sleeping, not so much my husband!
I think co-sleeping can be ok if you make sure you're doing it safely. I didn't do it, so I don't know specifics, but I know there are things you can do to make it safe.
ReplyDeleteThe reason I didn't do it, though, you pointed out. Tough to get kids to sleep on their own later on. My cousin co-slept with his baby, now she is almost FIVE and still won't sleep in her own bed. My kid's been sleeping in his crib in his own room since the day we brought him home from the hospital.
What @Liz said.
ReplyDeleteI would think the co-sleeping comment was mostly her way of saying "we're in bed together" without addressing it, but who knows? We co-slept with our youngest son, adopted at 9 days old. He was a very high needs baby and would freak out if someone wasn't holding or touching him 24/7. He couldn't even handle being in a stroller until he was a year, and he'd shriek and make himself ill during car rides while buckled in. So with sleep our options ended up being either to close his door and let him cry all night while none of us slept, sleep in shifts while the awake person held him, or co-sleep. I followed all the "guidelines" and side-carred a crib for extra space/no fall hazard. Spent 11 months sleeping on my left side with my right leg bent in front of me so I couldn't roll forward. At 11 months he finally started to push me away and would get bothered if I was touching him while he slept. He went to his own room then and did fine, and while he's still super cuddly once he was done with it he was done. Sometimes it's just how it works out, and it can be done safely so long as you take proper precautions.
ReplyDeletePut a body pillow between your husband and the baby, you should be fine (it seems to be the men who sleep heavier and injure the babies in the few reported cases). I personally don't know how people could do it, my hubs and I share a king sized bed and it feels too small half the time (neither of us are large people, we're both just sprawlers I guess).
ReplyDeleteI just don't know what to think about Kelly and John. I like to think they are the very best of friends, under the circumstances, but he is trapped even if he is able to indulge in his preferred companions from time to time.
@ms cool: I often wonder how many of those cosleeping deaths in Milwaukee have been because the parents were under the influence. Whether they were drug addicts to begin with or if they took something for the pain after childbirth. My OB gave me an Rx for Oxycontin after I had Isla FFS! They're still sitting in my medicine cabinet for a rainy day .... ;-)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, all four of my girls slept in our room in a bassinet. With Isla, I used the Arm's Reach Co-Sleeper -- it was a Godsend. It attaches to your bed so she's right there but in a separate space so you can't roll over on her. All the girls transitioned just fine into their own bedrooms when they were about 9-10 months.
"They have been through enough tragedy that I don't wish to speculate further on their lives."
ReplyDeleteCo-sign.
I have never heard about kids being smothered by their parents while co-sleeping.I just assumed mothers would wake up due to maternal instinct but then I have no kids. Seems like it would be very convenient for moms who are already taxed as it is. But then I have no children so what do I know.
ReplyDeletewe make and buy cribs for a reason.
ReplyDeleteevery doctor will tell you it's fine and a personal decision, but in MY opinion it's a bad idea. I read an article about how it really messes with marriages and a lot of the time it is because the Mother is unwilling to let the connection go from gestation. Months without sex and then throw a baby between you for 6 months? Gee, wonder why you drifted apart and feel like roommates now?
anyway...do what you want. not my bidness.
I'm sure this is a naive question, but what does she get out of calling the paps to prove they're still together? Is it a pride thing? Money?
ReplyDeleteI was so sleep-deprived with my newborns that I wanted to bring them in bed with me, but so paranoid I would roll over and crush them that I couldn't get any sleep!
ReplyDeleteOf course, I'm the same mom who was breastfeeding in the Barcalounger and fell asleep and my baby rolled onto the floor. (She's a straight A student going to Ga Tech next year, so it's all good.) Babies are hard!
Whatever works for them is what works.
I one hundred percent cosign with Ms. Cool!
ReplyDeleteMy ex husband and i slept with my son in bed also but not all the time. His bassinett was in our room but sometimes he would sleep with us. I would put my son on a boppy pillow so he would be slightly raised. I only did this because i was exhausted, my son bf ALL the time! Even though i did it there still r risks and i wouldnt tell others to. For all the people who children were just fine there r those families who werent so lucky.
Sometimes we all slept together and other times we didn't, it never was a big deal either way. I did fall asleep once while breastfeeding and woke-up with big purple hickey. Poor kid missed the target.
ReplyDeletewho cares about these two..they are so over.
ReplyDeleteTravolta looks so old in that picture.
ReplyDeleteMy best friend from middle school smothered her child. She passed out drunk on top of the few month old baby girl. This was baby number 3. Husband left her after that and took the kids. I believe nothing happened to her legally but christ, i can NOT imagine.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a parent, but I like the idea of attachment parenting and co-sleeping. That said, I don't know enough about it to really judge either way.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't care if John is gay, or bi, or if they're bearding, or happy, or miserable, or whatnot. Well, okay, despite the CoS, they actually seem like lovely people, so it would be nice if they ARE happy, but...whatever.
What fascinates me, REALLY fascinates me, is that she's breastfeeding. Does this definitively mean that she did, in fact, give birth? I want details. How does a 47- or 48-year old woman do this? IVF? Didn't they insist that it happened naturally? Or, okay, if a woman DOES use a surrogate, is there a way she could still breastfeed, by taking hormones or something? Can a woman really still breastfeed when she's 50?
I'm asking not to be snide or look ignorant, but because I really want to know. (I may BE a woman in her mid-forties who's trying to have a baby someday, so...I want to know.)
If you look at the change in her body, she obviously gave birth. While 48 is old, with hormones, it's not unheard of. Those two have been through enough. Obviously this baby was a way to help ease the pain of losing Jett/ It's horrible to lose any child, but to lose a disabled child makes it just a bit worse. I hope they find happiness however they can
ReplyDeletesaw a show once where woman rolled over smothered her son, had twin boys, and slept with them and smothered them. That wld cure me of ever wanting to do that! And she was devastated, did everything right, but this is what happened .
ReplyDeleteDenise, please tell me how co-sleeping lowers the risk of sids. I have never heard that before.
ReplyDeleteHttp://thebabybond/cosleeping&sidsfactsheet.htm
DeleteI haven't quite got the hang of posting links with my phone, but the baby bond website or Dr. Sears' site can help answer your questions. :)
DeleteI know we talked about all of this in the Blossom posting a week or so ago, but I'm up for talking about it again!
ReplyDeleteCo-sleeping in the same bed is dangerous, not only because parents can roll over on the baby, but also because of feather pillows, goosedown quilts, heavy bedspreads, etc. It is NOT a good idea, at all. The Arm's Reach co-sleeper, which attaches to your bed but gives you some separation, like ChopChop recommended above, is a good alternative. It's really convenient for overnight nursing but also completely safe.
It's not a good idea to keep the baby in your room past a few months after birth, though, otherwise it will be hell on earth getting them to sleep in their own room. It's also harder to get a co-sleeping baby to sleep through the night. I also know of a LOT of couples for whom co-sleeping became a source of tension and exhaustion.
Breastfeeding past 12 months serves no nutritional purpose, plus toddlers need to be expanding their diets by that point in time. I've found that every mom I've observed who did extended breastfeeding claimed that "the baby still wants to do it," when in fact it's mom who doesn't want to wean.
See the world health organization who recommends breast feeding until at least two years old. at least.
DeleteAlso, le ledge league, kellymom.com
After 6 months they actually do eat food too along with drinking breast milk.
DeleteI miss "DIRT" on fx. That show ruled in my campy-noir opinion!
ReplyDeleteco-sleeping is ok. Depends on bedding and level of awareness. I co-sleep with my chihuahua (not the same, but stilll) and I am 100% aware of where that little guy is. I am a godzilla monster compared to him and he has stayed alive for 3 years...
ReplyDelete@Kraymond...me too!! I liked the first season much better tho. I love Shannyn Sossamon and was pissed when she died on the show. The celebrity stories were pretty accurate though. Fake pregnancy, drugs etc.
ReplyDelete"Dirt" was much better than the ovrr-hyped "Cougartown." Cox's face didn't scare me at that point yet either.
ReplyDeleteJust because you are still breastfeeding past 6 months in no way indicates the kid isn't eating other foods, As for nutriition, I can't argue since I don't know, but breastfeeding reduces allergies by a long shot, plus it's nice for mother and baby. To each their own, but please don't make it seem like a rule.
ReplyDeleteI slept with both of my kids, had to get a king sized bed to fit us all. I now love to cuddle with my granddaughter until she falls asleep. It do anything to my marriage except help it because the more sleep I got the happier I was.
ReplyDeleteI do think the baby is biologically hers and Johns, I dont think she gave birth to him.
Reason: John few to Australia, a 24 hour flight, when she was something like 38 weeks. Regardless of how symptom free the pregnancy was, it was still a very high risk pregnancy. I don't even think it was anything all that important. Unless she wasn't the one who was pregnant and being with her in labor wasn't an issue.
We've co-slept with all 4 of our children and had no problems. Parents that co-sleep to facilitate breastfeeding rarely have suffocation problems because mom and baby are always aware of each other.
ReplyDeleteComing from a medical family, it goes without saying that I caught holy hell for NOTbreast feeding. BUT what I was told repeatedly by various members of the medical community was NINE months. My DIL 30 years later was told the same (except for the radical le leche legue, of course). After that point, they have pretty much gotten all the benefits they are going to get from it.
ReplyDeleteOne year is probably ok,but, yeah, after that, it's either mom or habit. Drying up is a bitch, but ya gotta do it sometime.
Oh, whoever asked, I have read about women flooding their bodies with hormones in order to feed adopted children. It's possible, bit IIRC, not very successful, or healthy, well, depending on age and all that.
Oh sweetie, if he really is disgracing you and your marriage this way, bow out of the public eye gracefully and shield your family from the inevitable media shit storm. Refusing to talk about it is the only way to make this a non-story. I dont see John rushing to your side. Not fair, if this is true, but if it is, don't fuel the fire. Total silence with divorce papers. Stay classy.
ReplyDeleteI know people who've used/are using the co-sleeper mentioned above, and are very happy with it, so that's a good compromise if you want the kid within reach, but are worried about rolling over on them. As for getting the kids to sleep in their own rooms, usually they seem to want to do that at some point anyway; nobody I know is terribly worried about it.
ReplyDeleteIf Kelly did actually give birth, I don't see any reason why she wouldn't be able to breastfeed the little guy; it would seem to me that the same hormones would be involved in both.
Whatever the truth may be about their marriage, I do hope they're at least good friends and enjoy each others' company for the sake of their children.
Texshan is the queen of UN-attachment parenting.
ReplyDeleteYes, I do think I will take the World Health Organization's advice over yours, hon.
Been lurking for years, but had to comment. I co-slept with all five of mine and they are all still alive. At around 2 or 3 they wanted to sleep in their own big kid beds. It was the only way we could all get some sleep. They all breastfed until they pushed me away (about a year old). How can a mom make her child breastfeed for longer than the child wants?
ReplyDeleteI'm writing this at 5 am between feedings. My son is almost 3 weeks old and we're still figuring out the sleeping arrangements. If we co-sleep, it's usually only for an hour it two at a time because at that point he's ready for another feeding or a diaper change. I'm a light sleeper, so I'm not too concerned about crushing him, and our bed is huge so my husband isn't within crushing range of him. I try to have him sleep in his crib as much as possible, but whenever he wakes up he just wants to be held. So the option is to either hold him til he falls asleep again or bring him to bed with me for a few hours. I guess what I'm saying is that every family has to figure out what works for them, and not wordy about what others think, because I'll tell ya, every single freaking person seems to want to offer unsolicited advice about how you "should" raise your kid and it's enough to make your head spin. Fuck all that noise. So long as your baby can eat, sleep, and poop, you're doing okay.
ReplyDeleteDenise, you should try to get information from a variety of sources instead of just groups who are promoting a specific method. The La Leche League and Dr. Sears are not exactly uninterested bystanders.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, the medical literature is quite different from the popular literature on many mother-child topics.
Lila, for heaven's sake, you act as if I have said something that contradicts the WHO. I haven't. I have only written that babies do not benefit nutritionally from breastfeeding after 12 months, which is absolutely true. Even your beloved WHO recognizes this. They also recommend introducing other food after 6 months of age and gradually scaling back on the breastfeeding until about 2 years of age.
It's also important to realize that WHO recommendations are aimed at women the world over, not just women in industrialized countries. They take into account mothers in areas without ready access to high-quality baby food, superior formula, etc. When you look at the positions of organizations like the AAP and the AMA, they are not as sold on the benefits of extended breastfeeding (both of them only recommend dedicated breastfeeding up to one year of age; going beyond that is unnecessary).
I am by no means an expert, but I have worked in medical and public health research for more than a dozen years, so I think it's safe to say that I know more than the average person about a variety of medical and health issues.