Suddenly everything makes a little bit more sense. In my opinion I have been dealing well with having a child who has to be held or sleep with me. For the first few months she’d sleep on our chests and in the evening I would hand her over to daddy while he watched TV from the recliner, that was how I got my “me” time and it worked just fine. But then when she hit the stage of wanting to go to bed I was stuck with a major dilemma: she would only sleep if I laid down with her, too. She was just getting used to the whole idea of sleeping horizontal to start with, and there was no way she was going to be okay with being put down. Nope, nada. So I ended up going to bed long before I was tired and was basically stuck in bed for 12 hours. I love my sleep, but apparently there is such a thing as too much – who knew?? Naps, too, were the same thing – the only way I could get a good nap out of her was to stay down with her. But I worked at transitioning her and now every day she takes almost all of her naps by herself! I do nurse her to sleep, but that usually takes less than 5 minutes and then I get up and have free time! However in the evenings she would not accept that. When it was dark out and she wanted to go to bed for the night she would insist that I stay down with her – insist by crying every single time I left the room. Uber frustrating, especially since she did not do that for naps!

The last few days, since the cold is gone and her sleep schedule has settled back down again, I have been able to get up in the evening after putting her to bed! This either gives me time with my husband – which is, wow, INSANE – or, since he likes to go to bed at the same time as she does, some quiet time. Not just nap time when I know she’s going to be up any minute now, when the dogs are barking and hammers are hammering, but true silence. Oh my gosh, I forgot how much I love these hours in the dark of night, time to just sit and think and work on my creative stuff. It. Is. Glorious. Kate is still semi-waking every hour or two, crying for me, and I go in and comfort her back to sleep. I would like her to not need me to do that, but one step at a time!

After the cold left she had a few days of 30-minute naps. We had no clue what was up with that, but she was not whiny or upset in any way, just a happy-go-lucky girl who barely napped. Very unusual for her. I shrugged and just went with it. Well today she had a meltdown after a couple of short naps so when I got home from errands and appointments I put her to sleep and she slept for 2 hours. Wow, that is unusual! Then again for her evening nap, another 2 hour nap. We weren’t sure she was going to wake up at all or if she was down for the night! (She did wake up, but was ready for bed an hour later.)

Reading those darn books had me thinking, my gosh, we need to put her to bed earlier! We are bad parents keeping her up so late! She goes to bed at 10pm now. But then I realized she wakes up at 9am – and she’s really very consistent with that. That’s an 11 hour overnight stretch, which is perfectly normal for a baby her age. (Broken up by a couple of nursings, but barely rouses for those.) I’m actually quite happy with that. I’m a night owl, as you can tell. So it’s a little unconventional, but it works.

Speaking of bed…. I need to get there or I’m going to be cranky when she wakes me up in the morning. Her newest obsession is touching our faces, specifically putting her hands in our mouths. Guess how she wakes me up now? Ha.

This is Jo, the cat that want crazy after getting outside. (He’s all better now.)

This is Merlin, the fat one. As you can tell. (He weighs more than the child.)

(Note that I did not pose them like that. They both climbed up on the ladder of their own accord, one after the other. Weirdos.)

And this is the child, I think you recognize her. Her eyes are… gray. I am confused. Is she going to keep the gray eyes? They are certainly not the grey/blue of a newborn. So weird.

Dear baby furniture/gear/toy manufacturers:

When I spend half my paycheck on your products that I “need” for my baby my very base expectation is that it won’t seriously injure or possibly kill my baby. I realize that there is always an element of user caution that must be used with everything and anything regarding my child and I take that into account. But crib mattresses that collapse? Strollers that pose a strangulation hazard? High chairs that lacerate curious little fingers? Come on now, this is not acceptable. It’s getting to a point where I am pretty much guaranteed that I will own something that will be recalled – which means I will have been using something that is dangerous to my child. We parents do the best that we can to make our homes safe, to only use proper equipment and use them as intended. So what are we supposed to do when that “safe” equipment has absolutely no guarantee of actually being safe? It disturbs me that you don’t seem to know or care that your products are unsafe until several children – your customers – get hurt.

Enough with the recalls.

Sincerely,
Irritated and Concerned Mother

Let me tell you about the other reasons that I’ve been stressed out and short-tempered. I mentioned a while back (I think) that we were having some renovations done. They’re still in progress. It’s taking far longer than we ever thought and now I’m worried it won’t be done before winter hits. It was not supposed to be a huge job, but of course nothing is ever simple when it comes to a house. Our brand new front door has been installed, but there is no stairs built yet so we’re still using the old door (which is in a different location – we’re moving everything). The room with the new door was a breezeway and will now be an entryway open to the kitchen. It will be good when it’s done. It will. It will. I keep repeating this to myself.

Last week there was an incident where we thought one of our cats had gotten outside somehow. We couldn’t find him anywhere. Turns out he had gotten into our attic from the room-being-renovated, which at that point had just had bare ceiling joists, no insulation or drywall or anything.

A few days later when Den opened our front door to let a visitor in one of our cats when running inside. Seeing how our cats are indoor cats and are never ever outside my dearest husband was all, “What the fuck?!” He discovered our new front door wide open. I know both cats were inside that morning so at some point that day the door must have blown open or something. No one was working that day, no one was using that door at all. But it was wide open, poor Merlin was now in the middle of our living room twitching because he had seen The Big Outside and was freaked out and our other cat was missing.

Said other cat was not found by us searching up and down the streets – which we dutifully did – but rather he showed up on our front porch hours later, meowing to be let back in and be fed. A huge relief! Unfortunately once Jo gets outside once he thinks he is a Jungle Cat and he proceeded to spend the next week running around the house yowling and clawing at windows like a friggin psychopath. He also started beating up the other cat. (He has calmed down again, thankfully.)

Because we have people working on the house, sometimes all day long, our German Shepherd thinks it is his duty to bark ferociously at them until they leave. Zeeke is crated in the basement during all of this, the furthest we can put him from the bedroom where Kate naps, but our floor isn’t exactly soundproof. And no, it doesn’t matter how many times we tell him to knock it off, he is a Shepherd and that’s what Shepherds do when there are strangers afoot.

Did I mention the people working on the house? Banging, sawing, thumping? Lullabies and white noise is the only way Kate sleeps. Thank goodness it is not every day, just a couple days a week. (But that is also why it is taking so long!)

There is stuff piled all over my kitchen counters and in the center of my kitchen and soon my fridge will be in front of my dishwasher. (We’re tearing down a wall. It is/was supposed to happen quickly but ahahahah nothing is quick around here.)

And, to add insult to injury, with all the rain lately the current front door is swollen so much I can barely get it open or closed. I literally have to kick it open while juggling a baby, a diaper bag, and any other bags I may have with me. Kate has probably picked up a couple of choice words from me while struggling with the door lately – thank goodness she’s too young to speak.

Some day I will have a beautiful house. That day is not now.

Kate had a good night’s sleep last night!! I think the cold is finally almost gone, there was no snorting or coughing. A couple of times she did wake up crying, though – a bad dream or gum pain? She was asleep, too – just needed to nurse for 5 seconds to comfort herself and she continued sleeping.

Today was my first day back at work! I’m only working one day a week at a non-profit so it’s not such a big deal. The people who stepped in while I was gone were handling everything just fine so I just kept putting off my return – I originally was going to go back after 12 weeks. Kate is now 21 weeks old! Finally I hit a point where the thought of being away from her for a day wasn’t terrifying to me, and I was starting to look for something more to do in my day. (A typical “accomplished” day involves buying groceries and doing the laundry!) I have been going out for a couple hours at a time here and there, ever since my boobs have decided they aren’t going to explode when I do so – I think Kate is eating less often now. So really it was an easy transition and I happily escaped out the door after putting Kate down for a nap.

The most fantastic thing was walking in the door to find Kate asleep on Den’s chest. She of course woke up as soon as I did so, but Den immediately told me how great his day was. What a huge relief! She napped on him twice and was happy and bubbly all day. I’m so so happy that he got to experience happy Kate! Watching her during the day is certainly a very different creature from watching her in the evening, when she’s tired, clingy, and prone to meltdowns. Apparently today they played on the floor for a long time, she sat on his lap and they had long conversations, she laughed hysterically at his arm and shirtsleeve (he said she was absolutely fascinated and kept laughing and grabbing at him!) and just generally amused each other. So happy!!

Her naps the last couple of days have been 30 minutes long, no matter if it’s in arms, nursed down, or rocked and put down – but she’s going longer between naps than usual, staying happy and content. It’s kind of weird, but I just have to shrug and figure it’s just a phase.

I mentioned how I nurse her to sleep, but I didn’t add that I don’t think this is something I’m going to change! I certainly don’t regret doing it for the last 5 months. It makes everything so easy. I do have to catch her when she’s sleepy and ready for a nap, but there is no wind-down needed, no routine. I don’t have to worry if the dogs startle her or the husband winds her up with toys right before a nap. Whenever she shows me that she’s ready to sleep I whisk her off to the bedroom, cuddle her, nurse her, and bam she’s out and I can go do whatever. Obviously Den is developing his own method of getting her to sleep, one that involves rocking and swaying and shushing – and the paci, of course. If she doesn’t have mama she needs the paci. It was hard on Den for a few weeks while she was in transition, she definitely gave him some hellish evenings. But judging by the fact that he’s now having a much easier time of it and hasn’t really changed what he was doing, well, I’m thinking it was just that 4 month regression.

We are both pretty certain she is teething, though her gums aren’t inflamed and I don’t see or feel any white spots down there. There were those weird nights of crying while sleeping and now she’s started chomping on everything. Before she was putting things in her mouth simply because she could. Now she’s grabbing at things insistently to shove into her mouth. She grabbed my hand today and she was really crunching on my knuckle! I pulled out the one teething toy we have and realized I need to go buy more! For right now she really loves chewing on her burp cloths. Must feel good.

Yesterday I picked up the No-Cry Sleep Solution (previously I had read the No-Cry Nap Solution. It was good, so I got the night-sleep version). I figured I would start by logging her night waking and go from there.

Worst. Night. Ever. Normally at night she does 3-hour stretches – has since she was born. She’s sick, so it’s been worse. I didn’t realize how much worse until this morning when I looked over the night’s notes and saw she woke up 8 times between 10:30pm and 9am. She did a 3-hour stretch and then woke up practically every hour. And I don’t mean waking to play, just waking rooting and squirming and flailing her little arms around, eyes closed. She’d nurse for all of 10 seconds before falling back asleep, but never contentedly. She’s still snorting laying down, meaning she is still a little stuffed up.

I’ve been thinking about a lot of things lately. Reading the books has helped me gain a new perspective of things, which is good – new tools to try are always welcome. However – and it’s a big however – it has made me over-think it all. I feel like now I’m working on different processes, and every nap time and sleep is an assessment or an experiment. It’s also made me think too much about the things she’s not doing right, like how she takes 5 1-hour naps a day instead of 3 2-hour naps like she “should”, and how she goes to bed late with us but wakes up at 9am every morning instead of going to bed at 7pm like babies “should”. I’m not saying the books are causing me to do it, I still think the books are awesome; it’s just that my personality tends to get hung up on things. Den called me, “Obsessive-Compulsive without the Compulsive.” I obsess in a bad, bad way, and I need to cut it out. What we do works just fine for us most of the time… it’s just not textbook. And of course it could use some improvement, but what couldn’t.

Tonight as I tried to disentangle myself from my daughter’s death-grip in order to sneak out while she sleeps I realized that her problem is more than a strong sleep association with nursing. Yes, I nurse her to sleep pretty much exclusively – but she takes the paci and will konk out on our chests if she has it and is rocked and jiggled. She’ll wake herself up after only 20 or 30 minutes napping – not nearly long enough – but when I go in I notice she still has the paci in her mouth! There’s something else waking her up: she sleeps with something in her hands. She started that as a newborn, sleeping on our chests with our shirts tightly clenched. Tonight she roused slightly as I un-gripped her from my shirt and I tried to get her back to sleep without her holding my shirt. She flailed, she grunted, she whined, she cried, she woke up. As soon as I let her hold my shirt she was out again. Well shit. This is somewhat of a problem. I can’t leave my shirt with her (I tried it once while I sat and watched… she pulled it right up over her face). I know older babies have lovies as a transitional object, but technically it’s not safe to put anything else near her while she’s sleeping at this age. So what the hell do I do?

Until I solve that one I may be stuck with the 1-hour naps – and her sleeping right next to me at night.

::

On the “really cute but partially annoying” list I can now add that Kate’s arms are long enough to reach my face when nursing. Sometimes this is sweet and I love her little hands. However when she is clawing my cheek and pulling my lip every few seconds while we’re both falling asleep…. not so cute.

She’s developed a real obsession for touching our faces. Den lets her do it more than I do (I have a thing about slobbery fingers…. yuck), but she’s always jamming her fingers in our mouths and grabbing at our cheeks and noses. She thinks us “nomming” on her fingers is hilarious, so she does that one just for kicks. But the rest is more exploratory. It’s so cool to watch her frown in concentration as she feels everything.

In fact, she’s become kind of obsessed with touching everything. The other evening Den was wearing her in the Beco and I noticed him leaning awkwardly against the wall. I looked over to see what he was doing and saw that he had stopped beside the thermostat and leaned over so that Kate could touch it, little arm stretched out as far as it could go. Saturday morning when ate out for breakfast she was grabbing at everything on the table. We let her reach the napkins and cutlery and her toys that we brought with us, all of which end up on the floor in roughly 2 seconds. She’s not yet intentionally tossing them on the floor, she just hasn’t quite figured out her hand coordination enough to not drop things (or fling them over her shoulder!). She was fascinated by our menus and absolutely insistent on stretching out to touch Den’s water glass. He finally held it close enough that she could touch it and she promptly grabbed it with both hands and dumped half the water on the table, much to his surprise (it was a glass full of water, he didn’t thinks he could lift it! Ha!). And of course she had to try to fit it in her mouth.

I just love watching her play with things now, watching her fists open and close as she practices and really feels things.

That bumbo is a loaner from a friend and it’s only half a hit. It would have been great before she learned to roll over. Now she lasts for maybe 5 minutes and then starts doing this:

So, yeah. Not a huge fan of the bumbo.

I was going to write something last night, but then my lovely child woke back up again and I gave up on trying to get her to sleep without me. She has a very a-typical sleep schedule because of this refusal… we tend to go to bed at 10 or 11 and wake up at 9. She’s pretty consistent with the 9am thing, which I appreciate! I can tell that around 8 or 9 she’s ready to go to sleep for the night, but she will only sleep for an hour by herself before waking up cranky and either I need to lay down with her and not get back up, or she’s up just kind of hanging out until I go to bed. I have no idea why this is, because during the day she will take 2-3 hour naps sometimes. We’re working on that.

But not actively, since right now my main focus on her sleep is trying to get her to sleep peacefully again. I don’t know what is up – maybe the cold is still bugging her, maybe she’s starting to teethe, I don’t know. All I know is that she’ll nurse for a little bit, get sleepy, start drifting off, then suddenly she’s flailing around crying. She spits out both the paci and the boob – which is pretty much unheard of. I figured out how to get her to sleep, but it’s kind of ridiculous: I put her head in the crook of my arm, wrap my arms around her hugging her to me, rock back and forth, and sing a lullaby (or two or five). Then she’ll usually give in and fall asleep – but not always. She’s also waking up in the middle of the night crying – while she’s in my arms. And the boob doesn’t fix it. I’m all, “WTF?!” Very frustrating at 5am. I hate 5am. I cosleep so I never have to be conscious at 5am.

One thing I have definitely learned about babies: If they nap well, you have a good day. If they nap poorly (or not at all) you have a bad day. It really is as simple as that.

::

I don’t want to post just about the frustrations, though. Everything else is going well. She remains a very happy, smiley, engaging child. She loves her toys. She loves to roll over (but doesn’t love being on her belly too much yet). She loves playing games with us. When she wakes up happy from a nap I go in and play with her on the bed, tickling her and nomming her cheeks. I also let her grab my fingers and then pull her up to sitting or standing. She now reaches for my fingers as soon as I hold them out. She stands up, thinks it is totally awesome, and then I slowly lower her back down while saying, “Craasshhhhh! You fell doowwnnnn!” and she laughs. We’re starting to play peek-a-boo, but she kinda laughs, kinda watches with narrowed eyes trying to figure out WTF you’re doing.

Den has started playing a video game again a few hours here and there. I’d love to play too, but when? It hit me this week that it is going to be many, many years before I can just flop in front of a TV and play a game for hours on end like I used to. Or sit at my computer and scrapbook, or work on my website. There’s a lot of things that change in your life when you have a child, and most of them I either don’t care or adapted to without an issue – or they’re temporary things (like how I couldn’t eat food with two hands for several months!). But I’ve always been the kind of person to throw myself at a project, to make my husband go away and sit in silence for hours on end while I did whatever I was working on. No more. It was a little bit of a shock to realize. Not unexpected, obviously, but I think it just never quite sunk in. My life will forevermore be full of interruptions.

In the comments Beth asked about my opinions on the different options for babywearing, so I thought I’d type up a post. Keep in mind this is just my opinion, everyone seems to prefer different things!

Hotsling (Pouch Sling)

First thing I got were pouch slings. I actually have 3 of them in different patterns (all Hotslings). I can’t stand them. I’ve tried them like three different times at different ages so far and I just don’t like them at all. When she was teenie I didn’t like how she layed all curled up with her chin on her chest. Now that she’s starting to be carried around on my hip I tried it again and still don’t like it. If I want a pouch I reach for my ringsling, which is adjustable so I can tighten it just right.

Ringsling

The ringsling. A friend made this one for me, and I love it. This is what I used when she was teenie tiny, in a horizontal tummy-to-tummy hold, keeping her nice and close and high on my chest. Now that she’s bigger and doesn’t want to be all frogged up in there I tend to not use it as much, but it is great for an easy hip carry, again the adjustability means I can tighten it so it’s snug. I love that it’s adjustable so I can tighten it up against her back after she’s in, making it just as snug as she or I want it. It’s also quick and easy to pop on and off, which is great when your baby wakes up screaming in hunger and you need to get her out of it in 2 seconds flat. The downside of the sling is that it’s on one shoulder, so while it’s great for an 8lb newborn it won’t be as easy on the back as the baby grows. I also noticed when she was little that she’d lean her head up against the ring, and that bothered me a little.

2 weeks old

4 months old

Stretchy Wrap

I have a Moby wrap that I used. First, it is complicated to put on. I’m sure you would get better at it with practice, but it definitely has a learning curve and is intimidating. It takes some time to tie on before putting the baby on (with a normal front hold, at least), which totally didn’t work for me because I had to put her down first, and she screamed the whole time. Plus it was really hot this summer and I did NOT want to wear several extra layers plus the baby – that was the main reason I didn’t use it. However, that being said, once you have it tied on and the baby in it, it is WICKED comfortable. I took Kate to her cousins’ baby shower in this when she was less than a month old and she slept for 3 hours solid. It was great. Unlike the sling this is over both shoulders so and it’s all fabric so there is absolutely nothing to dig in or bother. I think if I had a spring/fall/winter baby I would have used this a LOT more around the house. Now that she’s getting bigger I just don’t reach for it at all, but you can do a front carry in it once they have head control and she loved that! (But front carries are hard on your back, so I didn’t do that for too long!)

Sadly I cannot find a picture of her as a little one in this, though I thought I had one.

2 months old

Mei Tai

The mei tai that I have is the Kozy carrier. I bought it used and selected it for its shape and how comfy it looked. I was right! This is my go-to carrier. It distributes her weight evenly across padded shoulders, it’s comfy for her and me. The back is high and curved to create a nice little headrest for her even now at 4 months old. When she was little I kept her legs inside the carrier frogged, but now I pull them out to hug my body. It does take some maneuvering to get it tied on when you’re alone, but I quickly learned to do it. Unfortunately the one I have has XL straps, and I really really wish I had normal length straps as they drag on the ground when I’m trying to tie it, yuck. I used this carrier when we went to the airshow, I use it for grocery shopping, and I use it around the house when I’m desperate to get her to sleep.

2 months old

4 months old

Soft-Structured Carrier

These are the carriers that have buckles. I ended up purchasing the Beco, but the other popular choice is the Ergo, which I have heard absolutely glowing reviews about. We really like the Beco. I bought it because of the shape – it has a higher back, which was great for when she didn’t have head control. It does have an infant insert but Kate and I both hated it – she did better just with her legs frogged inside. It’s a comfortable carrier to wear, and the buckles make it easy to get on and off – which is really the main benefit, IMO. This was what I was using for a while every time I went out, because it was easy on and off in public, no straps laying on the ground. It can be a bit tricky to get her in it when she’s flailing around, because there is a layer between the baby and you, I think the Ergo would be a bit easier in that way. (The Ergo also has an infant insert that I saw someone using the other day, and it actually looked really good – like a big cushion to seat them higher and provide head support.) This is “daddy’s carrier” – he refuses to use a sling or tai, he wanted buckles. Buckles are manly. And we ordered it in black. The one downside I’m finding is that it is a bit of a pain to re-adjust it for him and me, so basically now that he’s using it I stopped. I do still use it from time to time, but honestly I find that my mei tai is more comfortable if I’m going to be wearing her for a long time or if she needs to nap.

This is a good article about the “elective” induction, going over the results of some studies that were done: Rigging the Election: When it comes to elective induction, are women asking for it?

I admit, I utterly bristle when I read articles about how women are asking for inductions all the time. Every time someone tells me a story about being induced it’s the doctor who suggests it – and for reasons that are not medical indications for induction. I hear from women about how they get to their due date and the doctor induces the next day (average gestation for a first-time pregnancy is around 41 weeks, not to mention that due dates are hardly set in stone unless you have done fertility treatments!). Sigh. A big baby is not a reason to induce – inductions before your body is ready has a high chance of ending in c-section, which is usually the very thing the patient is wanting to avoid by inducing early before the baby gets “too big”!

Induction is a very good tool in some situations. But, like any tool, it has its risks and side-effects and should be used only when it’s actually needed. Baby and mother both benefit by going into labor on their own.

Kate has a little cold. The only thing this affects is her ability to nap. Which means it affects EVERYTHING. My boobs are drained by her constant need to nurse to sleep, since she keeps waking back up over and over again. Sometimes she wakes up and wants to play (after a 15 minute nap!) but mostly she’s just waking up crying because she’s tired but can’t sleep. It gets worse as the day progresses. Nurse nurse nurse. She spits the paci out at me when I offer it. Sometimes she cries at one side but not the other (I assume the emptier one that she just nursed off of last). Sometimes she cries at both sides, and the paci, and then just loses it totally. I had to put her in the mei tai and walk her up and down the street that time. She is tired. I am tired. We are all frustrated.

Crap I think I just heard her again. Third time waking since going down for the night. AGGGHHHH.

::

This is her before getting sick. Notice the shrieking! Her new favorite thing (she’s moved past blowing raspberries all the time). It’s just so funny to me to see her in the exersaucer and realize how much bigger she is now! We had to take out the pillow we used to prop her up with, she was getting mad about it. I also re-introduced all the toys on it – I had taken them all off because she was overstimulated. Now she just plays with whatever she wants! She also has figured out that she can grab the toys and bend them down into her mouth – didn’t catch that on video, though.