little feet, big sky

At the end of the day, I feel I get better value from my magazine subscriptions than from purchased books. The content feels fresher, the material more quickly digestible and the portability is pretty good. By far, my favorite parenting magazine has been . The articles are insightful and well-written and the commercialism kept to a minimum. Perhaps the only thing missing would be a little more diversity in content, but that could be said of most magazines.

I was going to recommend Cookie, but on hindsight, I remember now just how commercial it was. (Not to mention the editorial focus on mothers being fashionable rather than competent. Think Cosmo for the newly initiated.) Rather like the FitPregnancy I’ve been subscribed to for the past year, it’s as if the articles are there to provide spacing from pages and pages of ads. Though, I must admit, that for a mainstream magazine, FitPregnancy has been pretty good on writing balanced articles (if you can call ten sentences an “article”) with favorable mentions of homebirth, breast-feeding, etc. It’s just not enough for me to recommend when every three pages is an ad for formula.

A one-year digital subscription to Mothering saves trees and is only $12. :-)

Any other parenting or pregnancy magazine recommendations?

I opened the box of Lansinoh lanolin to put in my nightstand drawer and being the kind of freak that reads all the silly packaging materials, I noticed a statement on the insert that suggested using Lansinoh while pregnant to help prepare your nipples for breastfeeding. Of course, being in the organizing mood at the time, I just went “huh, that’s interesting” and tossed out the insert.

But somehow, it creeped back into my mind as I was oiling the belly and breasts towards the end of this morning’s shower – should I skip the vitamin E oil on the boobs in the shower and start using Lansinoh instead? How exactly does lanolin “help prepare” your nipples prior to their future role as suckers-for-a-lifetime? Soften them? Toughen them? I’ve scoured the Lansinoh site for that insert message, but couldn’t find it or any reference to using Lansinoh while pregnant. Hmm, back to doing things the old-fashioned way…

Lanolin is an emollient, which translates to “softener” in my brain; Wikipedia seems to agree with me on that one. According to the encyclopedia god, emollients have three properties: 1) the oil ability to block moisture from escaping, 2) some humectant ability to help the uppermost layer of skin retain more water, and 3) lubrication for the skin against other things. (Like little vampire baby gums, I’d imagine.) So Lansinoh, being “100% pure lanolin”, works like a barrier cream to protect your nipples while breast-feeding from drying, cracking and such. In pregnancy, I’m guessing it probably helps to do something of the same so that you’re less likely to start out the gate with dry nipples.

So maybe I could still use regular food-safe body oils for a similar purpose while pregnant, but have you ever felt lanolin? The stuff is thick and gunky, and I supposed I’d better get used to it now. I like the idea of using a little expressed breastmilk to treat sore/dry nipples, but it seems that doesn’t always work for everyone.

If you have any experience using Laninsoh either while pregnant or while breastfeeding, please share! I’m a curious critter for this stuff… :-)