Relaxing Doesn't Make Babies

Funny things

March 21, 2011 — 3:02 pm

I am currently working on a few posts – though I shouldn’t say it like that, it makes it sound like I’m actually sitting here writing things which is so not the case. Rather, at night when I’m supposed to be sleeping I have posts running through my head, until the morning when I wake up and forget until the next night when I lay down. Tricky things. But anyways, I feel like it would be helpful for me to write down some tips and tricks I’ve picked up along the way, in case it might help someone. And for when I have the next baby, by then I’ll have forgotten what it’s like to have a baby and will need a refresher, lol. I just need some time to write, and I may have that in the next few evenings after Kate goes to sleep. Mostly I just want to get all this out of my head so I can start sleeping again!

I don’t want to jinx myself, but the last two nights she’s slept well, no flailing and screaming, so maybe we’re getting into the lull between teething episodes. At this point I’m fairly convinced that I will never sleep well again and that anyone or book that says things like “minor sleep disturbance” is a liar liar pants-on-fire. I find myself fondly reminiscing to when she was a tiny newborn and slept all night long, sound asleep against me. Maybe that’s some twisted form of karma – the friends who currently have babies mostly sleeping through the night are the ones whose babies had colic for months as newborns.

Though that’s not to say we’re not making some progress. Now that Kate’s feeling better she’s returned to sleeping beside me, as in, I get to sleep on my belly. Which, now that I have started doing again, I can’t NOT do. She and I are both belly sleepers so I get her comfortable and then get myself comfortable. Just as I’m falling asleep she flops around like a fish until some body part of hers connects with some body part of mine (usually my face) and then she sighs happily and falls immediately back asleep as she presses herself against me. And then I try to wiggle around and move so that I can actually, oh you know, breathe. But it’s good. Once we’re both asleep the night is just fine and we wake up side by side and well-rested. Or she wakes up well-rested 2 hours earlier than usual and I try my best to convince her to go back to sleep, fail, and put her in her crib so I can sleep more. Whichever.

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It’s funny now watching Kate interact with people. She has developed a strong affection for kids, babies especially. She giggles happily when she sees babies in her books. But her favorite are other kids! We’ve had some playdates recently and she makes a beeline for the other baby, babbling and shrieking excitedly. Then she reaches out her finger and tries to touch the baby on the head, nose, mouth, and sticks her fingers in their mouth. She is obsessed with mouths. She laughs with delight as she does it. I generally have to spend a lot of time hovering and saying, “Kate, gentle!” and making sure she doesn’t pull someone’s hair or smack them in the face. The other babies, while they will smile at her and like to look at her, quickly lose interest and play with their toys. Yesterday the little boy started crying when she touched his face, which was sad and cute. She’s far more into them than they are to her.

Since learning to walk she’s really been developing her independence. For a baby who wouldn’t let me put her on the floor even, and who a few months ago was crying if I left the room and clinging to my lap, she’s now quite the independent girl. Yesterday she kept walking down the hall of my friend’s house and into their kitchen to try playing with the cat food, and once I found she had gone around to the stairs and was trying to climb (which, by the way, she proved she is fully capable of). She was a little overwhelmed one day when we had a bunch of people in our house, but when we go out to meetings and gatherings she just toddles off to grab some toys and shriek at other babies. I’m now having to do the “okay, where’d she go?” check frequently now.

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I’ve been writing this while Kate was napping, which thankfully she was doing really well today. I heard something that I thought for a moment might be her, but there was no cry so I didn’t think anything more of it. She always just sits up in bed and cries until I go in to get her, but the mattress is on the floor so I don’t worry about her falling off or anything. Then just a few minutes ago I heard a quiet noise…. scratch scratch scratch. On the door. I carefully go open her bedroom door and look at her bed – empty. Look down – baby’s standing there grinning at me. LOL! I totally busted up laughing. She’s now walking around the living room saying “AAHHHHH!” at the kitty.

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