Relaxing Doesn't Make Babies

Attempting to string a thought or two together

Jul 1, 2010 — 1:34 am

Sometimes it’s not time that keeps me from posting… it’s brain power. I can’t even say I’m sleep-deprived, since most of the time I feel pretty rested and conscious. No, it’s the interruptions. I don’t do well with multi-tasking. Necessary in life, and I cope, but now I don’t get much time to myself in the evenings and I’m never quiet sure when the interruptions will come. It takes me three tries just to get through paying bills, transferring money around, and filing the paperwork… not that I was very prompt with doing that before baby, but that’s not the point now is it.

i think I read somewhere that babies (and kids) can have meltdown/tantrum/bad days right before not just a growth spurt but also a leap forward in some kind of skill or language development. I’m wondering if that’s what happened with Katherine, because last week she was a bear – grumpy, whiny, inconsolable. Then this weekend she suddenly seemed so much more interested in the world around her, more interactive, more expressive. She’s smiling all the time now in response to us talking and smiling at her, and in response to her favorite toys. She’s started making new sounds, too, making sounds when happy, things outside of her repertoire of unhappy sounds. Today she gave a tiny little shriek as she kicked and flailed in excitement as she stared at a toy of hers. It was too funny!

Why am I up at 1:30 in the morning when my baby is asleep? Of course she’s right beside me and I’m sure any second she’ll wake up – it seems it’s always within the 60 seconds after I lay down, in fact – but it still seems kind of stupid…

Sound asleep

Jul 1, 2010 — 9:20 pm

Den, with Kate on his lap: “See how dirty my feet are? I really need a shower, you know.”
Me: “Okay. Do you want me to take her?”
Den: “…. No.”

Needless to say, Den still hasn’t had a shower. Katherine wiggled down from his chest to his belly and managed to turn sideways. We have no idea how this is possibly comfortable, but she slept like this for an hour.

As you can see, she enjoys sleeping in odd positions!

Ooooo Aahhhhh

Jul 3, 2010 — 9:12 am

There have been no poops in 3 days. However, Kate doesn’t seem too concerned about it. She is sleeping well, eating, and had some happy playtime today. Not sure what’s up with that, but we’re both very much hoping for and dreading the poop that is coming. We’re going to a party today so I can only assume that the explosion will happen while she is wearing the cute dress.

My mom is here visiting, getting to know Kate. It is nice to have an extra pair of hands… and she’s even cleaning my kitchen! I also got to nap while Den worked in the yard.

Kate continues to smile and is now making little happy noises. Some sound like “gah,” some are more just squeals. This morning when Den had playtime with her I heard him laughing and went in to find her making “cooing” sounds (sounds like “aaahhhh!!” and “ooooo”) as she gave him huge smiles. We get all giddy when she makes noises. It is so cool!

The previous two nights I was able to put Kate down sleepy – but not asleep – in her cosleeper and sit with her until she drifted off. But last night it did not work, she kept waking up and crying… she just wanted to be held. I gave it three tries then just brought her into the bed to sleep. I’m just going at her pace. She continues to eat every 2-3 hours at night… closer to 2 hours. I believe she’s “snacking” – I nurse side-lying and we just fall asleep. She’s eating half a meal and falling asleep… so she’s awake 2 hours later wanting more. During the day she is taking 3-4 hour naps. Which are lovely, but I’d really like to switch that around! Not that it’s a huge issue, at night I only half wake up enough to help her latch. It doesn’t help that we have no routine yet… in a couple of weeks when my mom leaves and Den is back at work I think we’re going to settle down into a pattern as I figure out the SAHM thing. It’s a little overwhelming, the idea of being on my own… but I’m also looking forward to figuring out our new “normal.”

Sleep Don’ts

Jul 4, 2010 — 3:56 pm

One of the hardest things with parenting is dealing with advice – especially conflicting advice, or that which contradicts your own natural instincts.

One of the major topics of advice – and debate – is of course sleep. For some reason it is a yardstick by which others measure success – or at least progress. I am always taken aback when the first thing people ask after “What is her name?” is “How is she sleeping?” I have no idea how to answer that without getting into a very long-winded explanation about co-sleeping, nursing, and expectations. So I typically simply say, “Good!” That seems to suffice in most cases, but some go on to infer that it means she’s sleeping through the night. Err. Well no, not even close. She eats every 2-3 hours. But she’s young, it’s normal and even somewhat expected, and we’re all doing just fine. Personally I think the more appropriate, or at least more accurate, question is, “How are you holding up to whatever schedule the baby has at night?” Then at least I could say, “Great!” without pause. (Though I still think it’s none of their business, Ms. Person I Don’t Know.)

She quite clearly sleeps just fine on her belly, whether it’s in her pack’n’play for a nap or on someone’s chest in a chair. Even in a tummy-to-tummy hold in a front carrier (as she is currently sacked out in my Kozy). She has been going for 4 hour stretches asleep in one of those positions, to the point that my breast starts hurting like crazy and I really need her to wake up and nurse. So clearly this child likes to sleep and will go for long stretches. She’s even easy to put to sleep, all it takes is either nursing or movement (car, rocking, wearing) while she has her soother. If she’s tired, boom she’s out. She’s easy, sleeps for 4 hours, life is beautiful. When sleeping in bed in my arms she does wake up to nurse about every 2 hours, but that’s because she’s “snacking” – and because the boob is literally right there. However I barely wake up to nurse her and we both fall right back asleep so I really don’t even know exactly how often it happens, it doesn’t impede my sleep very much at all.

But then step in and take away the tummy sleeping, because the AAP strongly recommends against it due to SIDS. You can get the baby to sleep in any way you want, but you have to put the baby down on a flat surface on her back. That happy sleeps-well baby turns into one who you spend an hour and a half repeatedly rocking to sleep and gingerly putting down only to have her wake up 5 minutes later crying. When you finally do get her down on her back asleep and staying asleep you tiptoe away and lay down to close your eyes… only to be woken up an hour and a half later. 2 hours is the most she’ll go in her cosleeper on her back…. I consider 2 hours to be a grand success in that situation. Live like that for a while and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be describing her as a good sleeper.

I’m kind of frustrated by it all – and I don’t mean with Katherine. She’s a baby and I don’t blame her one bit for her preferences (I personally can’t sleep on my back either). I know the recommendations are based off of studies and are meant to keep my baby safe, and I can’t fault that. But at the same time they prevent me from listening to my mommy instincts, to responding to her immediate needs.

I wish there was no such thing as SIDS, I wish we didn’t have to worry about the statistical likelihood of a baby dying at random at night. I mean, how scary is that? We’re nervous enough as it is with such a small little being and the history that we have. (And it’s not as if putting them on their backs prevents SIDS deaths, either. It reduces the likelihood, doesn’t prevent it. That’s not a pleasant thought.)

So she sleeps in my bed, nestled up next to me, tummy-to-tummy as we lay on our sides. It avoids all of that, she sleeps peacefully even on her back (though typically she faces me). But oh the reactions when I mention it to friends and family. Breastfeeding and baby-wearing may be given the benefit of the doubt, but bedsharing? Oh no.

I just ran across an article in a magazine that sums it up pretty well:

“Is s/he a good baby?” is a question commonly posed to new mothers and fathers in the early days of parenthood. Typically the enquirer wants to know whether the baby is “contented” and “sleeps well.” Those whose babies are “good” are congratulated. Those whose babies are “troublesome” receive sympathy and tips on how to improve their baby’s sleep habits. The management of infant sleep is one of the first areas of parenting in which new mothers and fathers are judged by others.

from Breastfeeding Today

I’m so glad we discovered bedsharing. I don’t think we’d get any sleep otherwise.

4th of July

Jul 4, 2010 — 8:48 pm

Heat wave

Jul 7, 2010 — 12:43 pm

There is nothing in the world like this. As I lay in bed nursing while little legs and arms flail against me I marvel at the fact there are little arms and legs at all. I love how her fingers caress my skin, how she flings her arm across her face, how her fists rub her eyes when she is tired. How on earth can she manage such amazing little movements? She’s so helpless, and yet has more control of her movements every day.

Before my mom came to visit I had a very rosy image of her stepping in, soothing the baby, knowing exactly what to do. I’m not quite sure why I had that image in my head, but I did. She cloth diapered me and my brother, she breastfed. Surely she would be this font of knowledge and experience. When she arrived I handed over Kate and she just looked so… awkward. When Kate cried I had to show her how Kate likes to be held and bounced, how she likes her pacifier, how she sleeps best. It’s been over 25 years since she had a baby. Suddenly it hit me: No one knows Kate better than my husband and me. That may sound terribly obvious but I guess I didn’t really believe it. We’re so new at this, just making it up as we go along. But here I am explaining things to my mom. I glance over and say things like, “She sounds hungry,” or, “She’ll sleep better if she lays like this.” I know my baby.

I love to rub Kate’s back, simply to feel the firmness, the real-ness of her. I close my eyes and just let the weight of her sink into me. I still have to remind myself frequently that she is here, that she is my baby that I carried for 9 months.

She has grown already – she’s no longer the folded-up, squishy little newborn. She has weight as she lays on me; her limbs have strength behind their movements. Her head feels much bigger, much heavier to hold as she nurses. And yet in comparison to other babies she’s a petite thing. She’s just moving into 0-3M clothes now, though they look huge and poofy on her still. Newborn things are getting hard to get over her head and stretched tight when snapped at the crotch, but she still fits them perfectly width-wise. Seems we’re going to have a long and lean one.

We’re having a heat wave right now, which is awful sweaty when you have a baby napping on you all day. I’ve been trying to put her down for naps, which has been only mildly successful. The last few days she keeps waking up after half an hour in her pack’n’play on her belly. It’s frustrating because I know the heat bothers her, she’s very restless in my arms, flipping her head from side to side and wiggling around. We have the AC unit in our living space but it is so hot it’s really struggling and not keeping the living room so cool. She’s much calmer on her belly on her own, not sweaty at all… But then she turns her head, loses her pacifier, and she’s awake and crying.

In contrast, the past two nights have been great. We finally put the AC in the bedroom and Kate responded by sleeping a 4-hour stretch overnight. She’s always been so good at night – wants to be fed, sometimes changed, then falls right back to sleep. The few times she was awake and crying were gas bubble induced. I’m still working on slowly getting her to sleep on her own, but she’s still waking within 30 minutes of me easing away from her. I know she feels comforted by my warmth, my touch – just me laying my hand on her belly calms her breathing when it gets rough. She frequently flings an arm across my boob while she’s sleeping, fingers ever so slightly kneading. I’ve discovered that another trick to getting her to stay asleep longer is to leave my boob exposed, instead of covering it when she falls asleep. It’s her lovey, her safety blanket. I frequently look down to find her almost asleep, mouthing my nipple but not latched. She’ll give a few half-sucks and let go, just resting her lips against me. She frequently sleeps like that, or with her cheek resting against my breast. If she does pull back she will lean forward and root whenever she teeters on the edge of waking. With my breast exposed she’s able to find it, nuzzle it, and sink back into sleep with me needing to do anything. I find it fascinating, and so sweet.

I feel so peaceful when she is asleep stretched out next to me or in my arms. This is the fourth trimester, indeed. As much as she needs me, I need her too. We’re still adjusting to being two separate bodies.

No title

Jul 12, 2010 — 5:17 pm

I really don’t have much to say recently other than moaning about how our AC is not holding up to this heat and I’m whiny and sweaty. Kate started getting baby acne last week and it’s way worse with the heat… breaks out all over her cheeks. :( Poor kiddo. When we sleep we keep the temperature right around 74. Now to me that feels a little cool, especially with the very slight breeze from the fan, so some nights I can’t quite sleep comfortably because I need something covering my shoulders (since I sleep with Kate I can’t/don’t pull the sheet up past our waists). But Kate, who sleeps in just a onesie, wakes up sweaty so I don’t dare turn the temperature up – well, that and my husband would also kill me, as he too gets hot. How in the heck did I get a baby who likes it colder than I do? Yes I’m a wuss.

In regards to her baby bath tub that I so carefully picked out, Kate says, Oh hells no! Fail, double fail. I don’t think there is anything that Kate hates more than she hates that tub. I put in nice warm water, I put a towel down so it’s soft, we make it sound all cute and cuddly as we baby-talk to her and she screeaaaammmmms. So I scrapped that whole idea, filled the big tub, and I climbed on in with her. She’s still not sure about this whole water thing, but she gave it a chance. And the last time I took her in she actually smiled and babbled at me as I swooshed her back and forth in the water and held her on my knees. I think she likes being close to me, and she prefers being totally submerged up to her shoulders, it keeps her warm. I got her all soaped up and rinsed and wrapped her in one of her towels, and no screaming! No crying at all! Then I put her, still wrapped in her fluffy towel, in her little bouncie seat in the bathroom so I could really quickly wash my hair and hopped out just as she was letting me know she was done.

She’s been cooing and making sounds at us for a while now. Nothing delights us more and erases the frustration of why-is-she-crying faster than a grin and a “gah.”

Blog directions

Jul 14, 2010 — 6:26 am

I am having a crisis blogger identity. 11:30 at night when the baby is asleep is very poor timing for a crisis of blogging identity, but I suppose they come when they come. So I lay here in bed staring at the ceiling and over-thinking everything – much like how I spent all my free time today fretting over whether I should get a nursing necklace from place A or place B. (No I still don’t know, and yes I have issues.)

This blog was originally intended simply to be a record of a pregnancy and raising a baby. I was going to share it with some friends, but mainly it was just for posterity. That’s not what it became. Over the past four and a half years I’ve leaned heavily on this space, both as an invaluable outlet and as a place of support, due to the IF community. So now that I’m finally there on the other side, where I intended to be years ago without much fanfare, I’m left trying to figure out how to use this space.

I have written so much of my emotional roller-coaster in the journey to get here, now it feels the roller-coaster has glided to a stop. I am happy. Simply, unquestionably happy. I keep waiting for the other stuff to come crashing in on me at any moment, but it doesn’t. Even when I think about going through IVF again in the future it no longer feels desperate, no longer feels like my only thread to sanity, to hope. Hope and joy and the future are all asleep on my lap at this very second. If I never get anything more out of life I could be content.

How many times can I say the same things? Day 53: Yep, still happy. So instead I write about my baby, my day-to-day events; I revert back to the blog’s original purpose to be a record of my child. But after all this blog has been through that feels so… divergent, trivial. Now I have readers, now I have a community I feel beholden to. Every time I start to write there I go, mentally stuttering again.

I no longer feel comfortable in my own space, and I don’t know what to do about that. I keep waiting for that weird feeling to go away, but it still hasn’t. I almost feel like I need to set up somewhere new, somewhere fresh, somewhere that is only about Kate and joy and the life we lead, somewhere that isn’t so steeped in fear and loss and sadness. But then that feels like I’d be cutting out my past, my history… my son. What I went through to get here is as important to me as where I am now. How do I balance both?

So I don’t know what to do. At the very least this space must change from how I view it in my head. I just am not sure how that needs to happen for me to reclaim it as my own again.

Of all the things to not be adjusting well to, my blogging identity seems like a rather minor thing. But here I am, spending a sleepless night trying to figure it out.

Learning

Jul 15, 2010 — 12:22 am

I had just told my BIL and SIL how much Kate hates her bouncie seat, but loves her swing. We were over there for the evening and Kate was very hot, sweaty, and was having troubles napping so they brought out their daughter’s old bouncer so we could at least put her down and let her cool off. Wouldn’t you know it, she chilled out for a while and fell asleep. Den and I stared at each other in surprise. “Their bouncer is different than the one I got her, I wish I’d chosen a different one,” I said. But the next day I brought out her bouncer from the corner it has been stashed in for the last two months, since she would wrench up her face and wail every time I dared to put her in it. And I think here’s the key: I took out the newborn headrest. I sat her in it. And she looked around, smiled for a while, and then dozed off, while I looked on in amazement. Today again I put her in it, and she is hanging out beside me while I sit at the computer. Wow. This gives me one more place I can put her down for 2 seconds while I run and do something… or just give my arms a break. And it’s progress.

The past few days she’s also slept for over an hour in her swing. She’s always liked her swing, but had gone on a bit of a strike for several weeks, being happy in it for only a few minutes at a time and never sleeping.

Little bits of progress, little signs that she is changing, growing. I am proud that she is learning that it’s okay to sit by herself for a little while. She now knows I get her as soon as she’s done.

::

Today during play time I sat her on my lap and held a toy in front of her, within her reach. She has shown little interest in the toy when dangled overhead, she’d rather stare at her black and white shapes or the radiator. But sitting in my lap she has a different perspective so I figured I’d try it. Her hand hit it by accident the first time as she flailed around like she often does. But then her movements seemed to have more purpose to them, her hand smacking the toy again. Little fingers clasped and unclasped, sometimes grabbing the soft, crinkly fabric of the toy, sometimes grabbing nothing but air. It was like watching a mini exploration on a foreign planet with a primitive hit-or-miss mechanical robot arm. Such a simple thing, such a simple toy, and yet so fascinating. I said nothing much, just held her upright and let her take in these strange new connections she was making.

::

I thought I would be more sad that she’s not so much a newborn anymore. She was so teeny-tiny, so perfect, so adorable; I wanted to keep her just how she was. Now I’m nearly 2 months down the road and I can’t get over how amazing she is. She somehow looks even cuter now, I didn’t think that was possible. She’s easier to carry around now that she can hold her head up pretty decently, and she doesn’t feel so frail and breakable. She’s developing a personality and we’re starting to see little glimmers of the person she will become.

I cuddle her all the time. We sit in the rocking chair for long hours, something somewhat boring on TV that I am ostensibly watching, but really I am just brushing my lips lightly across her warm, soft head and letting the weight of her sink into my arms. She makes little whimpers as she sucks on her pacifier, little sighs as she relaxes and sinks into sleep. I rock her gently, my cheek against her forehead, existing simply to be her safe place, her comfort. I could sit there for hours… and often do.

Torture

Jul 15, 2010 — 8:59 pm

Trip to walmart? Total fail. She screamed the whole way there, causing me to pull over twice to try to calm her down. I seriously felt like crying myself when I pulled her out of her carseat, wiped the tears from her red eyes, and she shuddered and nuzzled under my chin and fell silent. I thought that was the end of it, I put her calmly back in the seat with her pacifier, pulled out… pacifier fell out, and screaming re-commenced. So then I switched to Plan B: turn up the radio and get there as fast as I can.

I thought she’d be okay while in Walmart. She had quieted down and was falling asleep, so I put her carseat on the stroller, thinking she’d just sleep while I shopped. Big mistake. She woke up and started crying, so I picked her up. Stupid me, I forgot the carrier in the truck, so I had to carry her in my arm and push the stroller (which I used as a shopping cart). She was okay for a little while, but then? Then she started getting fussy. Then she started crying. And crying. And crying. No amount of swaying, jostling or shushing got her to stop. The cashier felt bad for me as she rushed to get me checked out while I juggled her, the stroller, the backpack, the purchases. I carried her out to the car.

Of course I had to strap her in again. So I nursed her first, thinking maybe that would help her fall asleep – but I didn’t want to sit in the parking lot for an hour. So I nursed her, put her down, strapped her in – I even got some sleepy smiles. Gave her the pacifier. She seemed happy. Content. I tried to use a burp cloth under her chin to get the pacifier propped in there. Ahahahahah. Yeah, right. 5 minutes in, crying. Crying crying crying. It got more and more pathetic the closer we got to home – she was obviously really REALLY tired, and all she wanted was her damn pacifier so she could fall asleep. I chose not to stop, but just to get home as fast as I could.

I got home, picked her up, rocked her in my arms for 30 seconds – long enough to get her to stop crying and settle – then I put her on her belly in the pack’n’play, patted her back a couple of times. Out. Like. A. Light.

She’ll wake up perky, yawn and start smiling at me. Thank goodness babies have a short memory for these things. Too bad the same isn’t true for mommies.

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