Sometimes a break is just what I need. I was just so frustrated this weekend, heightened by the fact that Den was home and yet unable to really help – I’m the only one who can put her to sleep on her bed. Today was my work day, I put her down for her morning nap and left. Turns out she slept 1 1/2 hours for that nap, and then in the afternoon layed down on/with Den in her room and slept for 2 hours. He couldn’t put her down, but she slept. Just the two naps today, and she went down for bed at 9pm, peacefully and easily, and didn’t wake up for an hour and a half. Considering the hell the last week has been in the evening this was such a huge lovely thing! (Guess she is ready to drop a nap – but her sleeping 2 hours is a rare thing.)

I came home from work to find a happy, well-rested baby. I gave her some dinner while I ate mine, then we took a bath together. I haven’t done that in a while; I like to have my shower in the morning, which is when I used to bathe her too, but since starting solids she needs an evening bath. She sits well enough on her own that I’ve just been doing the “traditional” thing and sitting outside the tub washing her. Today I really needed a shower so she sat in the tub playing with her tubby toys while I showered – she even crawled between my legs, which seemed funny to me because she was getting drenched but didn’t seem to mind! When I was done I soaped her up and rinsed her off, then I filled the tub up so we could sit and play. I forgot how much fun it was! She doesn’t keep trying to climb out when I’m in there with her. Plus I can fill it up higher, since I’m there for balance and support (when it’s deeper she tips over much more easily!). She played with her little tubby toys for a while. Then for the first time I let her float in the water with her ears submerged, supporting her head so that her mouth, nose and eyes were out of the water. She just layed there very peacefully, gently flexing her feet and moving her hands as she made sounds. She hummed and “aahhhhh”d, letting out a couple of screeches just to pause and listen. I remember doing that as a little kid, listening to how funny I sounded in my head with the water all around. When she was done playing she pulled up on me and rested her head on my shoulder, both of us all warm and wet from the bath.

Later, when she was tired, I layed down to nurse her and then cuddled her as she fell asleep. She dropped off easily and slept for an hour and a half. I went in without any expectations of her sleeping or not, and after humming with me for a little while she fell back asleep. I just layed there for a long while, smelling her hair and soft little baby breath, arms wrapped around her. It was then that I realized that my work day did wonders in re-setting my brain.

It’s funny in a way how we all get so caught up in what we’re doing that their needs can feel like an imposition. It’s hard not to feel frustration when she’s interrupted something for the third time when she’s supposed to be sleeping, especially when I’m tired and just need a break. But at the same time, do I really need to clean out the sink or finish that show? Life is easier when I let go – when I focus on what’s really important. She needs me. There will come a day when she doesn’t (or at least doesn’t think she does), when I wish I could hold her as she falls asleep.

It’s impossible to put motherhood into words. A lot of people I talk to speak of motherhood as exhaustion, demands, responsibility. I say it’s joy… the kind of joy I couldn’t even imagine. Holding Kate in the dark, her little hand flexing against my arm, I know that I would trade everything for this moment. All the heartache and pain of the past 5 years, I would do it again to get to this very moment with my daughter.

Holy shit man. She’s trying to climb me in her sleep. All day today she’d be almost fully asleep and suddenly she’d twitch and either throw herself onto her back (and cry because she hates sleeping on her back) or grab a fistful of my shirt and haul herself up onto me, flop her head down (because SHE WAS ASLEEP), then pull up further. I’d lay her down, she’d cry, I’d get her back to sleep. Repeat. The only way I am able to get her to sleep right now is by holding her tightly to prevent her from moving until she finally she drops fully asleep. Then I have to extricate myself and escape somehow without making a sound, because if she so much as twitches she does it all over again. I feel like I’m wasting half my day in there just trying to get her to stay asleep. And I’m the only one who can do it – Den can sometimes get her to fall asleep, but he can’t get her to sleep in her bed.

On top of that today she was awake again in only half an hour. The third nap I finally went in and held her tight so she’d fall back asleep get a good nap in (which she NEEDED, she was whiny whiny), which meant I fell asleep too – which does NOT help me at all, I end up with insomnia at night. I’m tired. I’m cranky. I know this stage will pass once this whole pulling up and moving thing isn’t quite so interesting, but man. This is exhausting.

And we definitely can’t cut out the evening nap yet. She gets so freakin’ cranky. And then today again at 9pm she was wicked tired… but only stayed asleep for half an hour, then maybe another half an hour. Then she was just fidgety and I knew even if I did get her back to sleep that it would be up again in less than an hour. I hate the fidgety.

This is just a stage. This is just a stage. This is just a stage. Maybe if I say that enough my head will stop hurting.

Evenings are still atrocious around here and I’ve stopped trying to fight it. I don’t know what Kate is doing – maybe she’s teething, maybe she’s in the process of dropping an evening nap, I don’t know. I do know that when I put her down for bed at 9pm she needs me to put her back down half an hour later, and then maybe an hour after that she’s awake again and really fighting it. Drives me crazy. The last two nights I said “Oh screw this” and just got her up for a little bit. She’s very chill (and she’s not normally a chill baby, by any stretch), kind of zombie-ish, and she sits and watches us play our video games for an hour until we all go to bed.

However, the trade-off? At midnight she goes down EASY and then SLEEPS… only waking twice to nurse briefly. I’ve brought her back into our bed because I missed her and because she was sleeping like crap. So we all go to bed at around midnight. I nurse her, I move away and get comfortable, she rolls around a little bit and hums. Then she rolls onto her stomach, wiggles close enough to touch me, and falls asleep. Two nights ago she woke up 5 hours later (!!!) and last night I had to wake her up after more than 4 hours because I was stuck up against my husband and I was absolutely roasting (having a dream you’re stuck in a fire is not a good sign). This makes me SO HAPPY. Firstly because she hasn’t slept a 5 hour stretch in a LONG time (months). Secondly because I am not nursing her to sleep, or rocking her, or holding her even. Yes she has to be touching me, but she’s putting herself to sleep!

Granted that trick only works after midnight when she’s actually really tired, for naps I’m still snuggling her until she falls soundly asleep so I can creep out of her room. And if she’s overtired for a nap or cranky for some reason then she still sometimes fights me and I have to rock her to sleep in my arms. BUT I feel that things are improving… it’s getting easier.

We’re consistently waking up in the morning at 10am. Sometimes a little earlier, but I set my alarm for 10 so I don’t let us sleep until noon (god forbid her night times get any later!!). If needed I can start pushing the waking and bedtime earlier, but honestly right now I’m just happy that it’s predictable. It’s funny how having everything tossed to the wind can really make you appreciate predictability, lol! And I am REALLY loving actually getting some sleep at night!

Dear Nature’s Purest:

What the fuck were you thinking with this highchair? (And what the fuck was I thinking, purchasing it?)

I love a lot of things about it. It was easy to assemble, it’s easy to adjust. The tray comes on and off no problems and is easy to wipe down. The straps work just fine. (But it doesn’t fold up, which could be a problem for some families…. though not an issue to us.)

But the seat cover. Holy shit dude, seriously? Cotton? Yeah, it’s a wipeable surface for the bottom part. But did you really think that babies couldn’t possibly reach above their shoulders? That’s the first place my daughter’s hand flings the spoon, straight over her shoulder. The cover now has applesauce, squash and sweet potato smeared across the top half, and I’m going to have to put it through the wash – and I’m not even sure that will get it out at this point. And besides, I can’t do that every time! I have enough to clean up without worrying about taking the flipping highchair apart to wash it, too. I curse at it every time I pull her out of it.

I rant to all of my friends to never, ever buy this highchair. You suck.

Without love,
Natalie

Lunch time. I have some yogurt to feed her, and she has cheerios she’s feeding herself.

“Want some yogurt?” I ask her.

“Mmmmm!” she says in reply, excited.

I hold up the spoon and she reaches for it, but she has a cheerio in her mouth. “You have to eat that first.”

So she does. She opens her mouth wide and leans towards the spoon, which I am about to hand her…

And then her hand sneaks up and pops in another cheerio.

A good look at what color her eyes really are, it shows up well in the sun. Some days it’s more grey, some days it’s more brown, it seems to depend on her mood. They’ve been like this since she was a newborn, too… well, they’ve gotten more brown in the center, but they’ve been this half/half for months now. Maybe they’ll stay like this!

The sleep thing is sort of…. okay, for now. Naps are still great. Bedtime is better, for sure… but she’s not sleeping very well at night. She’s taking and and a half hour long naps during the day, but at night is waking every half an hour. WTF? She used to sleep a 2-3 hour stretch – by herself – before I came to bed. I don’t know. Last night I brought her to our bed just so I could actually get some sleep instead of having to run in there every 30 minutes. At least when I’m next to her she can wake up and fidget and look around and then puts her head down and goes back to sleep. Which is new, btw. She used to always cry when she woke up – she didn’t know how to go back to sleep without me holding her on her side next to me and/or nursing her. Now if she’s really tired and I don’t try to leave her she’ll just wiggle over closer to me, put her head up against my face, and fall asleep. That part is pretty cool! When I put her down for naps she’s started rolling onto her belly before she’s fully asleep – it took me a while to figure out what she was doing, flailing around and whimpering. Then soon as I moved back she flopped onto her belly and was content. She still needs me right next to her, but she’s figuring it out. :) I’m really quite proud of her for the progress she is making! It is slow, but it’s all at her pace.

She must be having a growth spurt right now, all this sleep is crazy! She is only up and awake for about 2 hours between naps right now. And sleeping approximately 12 hours a night. Crazy! Plus we had a couple of rough evenings because my boobs were emptied out before bedtime and she was mad because she wasn’t getting the flow that she wanted – I expect my supply will jump way up shortly. (This could possibly explain the fitful sleep at night – she is all hungry hungry hippo and I have less supply in the evenings.)

She’s growing up so much right now, it’s crazy. It feels like she just learned to sit up, though it was 2 months ago already. Now she’s crawling and pulling up on everything (we have to make sure there are no objects around that will easily tip over!) and already trying to stand without holding on. She’s had a lot of crashes lately, but she busts out in the biggest grin when she is able to keep her balance for a few seconds. She loves standing up. Love love loves. I’ve set up her toys – exersaucer and music table and little piano thing – in a row so she can stand up using them and move back and forth to play with them all. It’s fantastic because she can occupy herself again! There are no pillows behind her anymore, since when she falls it’s usually just to land on her butt (usually – sometimes she she tumbles sideways or hits her chin, sigh). Plus with the crawling and pulling up she can make her way around the room, going to her toys if she wants to, and crawling over to her standing toys to play – all without help. The whole idea just thrills her. Everyone said once she was crawling we’d be in trouble, but honestly it’s way more help than trouble. She seems to show zero interest in crawling off somewhere, she still stays on the area rug where her toys are, for the most part. The only exception is when she beelines straight for me, whining pathetically the whole time.

My silly girl, showing off her new skills: sitting-from-hands-and-knees, crawling, pulling up, and standing without holding on. It’s nuts around here, people. Nuts!

Well Kate finally coordinated her hands and knees and started crawling! She doesn’t seem to get into much yet, though, since she’s really only crawling in one direction: towards us. She’s pleased to finally have a tool to use to slingshot back to Den or I when we put her down. The funniest part is that she will crawl over to Den’s feet, use his pantleg to stand up, reach up to grab his hands, and lead him back over to her toys, where she sits down. He returns to his chair, she plays for roughly 10 seconds and then returns to his feet. LOL! It’s like we play fetch with her, and she’s the ball.

Despite figuring out how to crawl she’s all about the standing up. She can be full out crying, hold her hands and stand her up and she busts out in a huge grin and squeals. She walks us all over the house. She’s also pulling up on everything. Unfortunately she’s not too good at standing yet – plus she likes to let go. We have to keep an eye out for her or else you turn around and find her all, “Look mama, no hands!” and then down she goes. We’re hoping her balance quickly improves.

We bought her a walker, thinking she’d enjoy it, unfortunately we got it home and realized that the lowest setting was 2″ too tall for her. (Don’t get a Safety 1st walker if you have a remotely short kid.) Den modified it (cut extra notches in it… I mean, really, how hard would it have been for the manufacturer to do??) and now she’s wobbling all over. It only took her a day to figure it out. But, again, she uses it to walk over to us, bumps up against a wall or chair or our legs and then whines. Today Den said while I was at work she was figuring out how to turn it, so this bodes well.

::

We tell people Kate’s sleeping in her own room now and we get, “Oh that’s GREAT!” And then we mention that she’s not in a crib and we get a very puzzled look and a subdued, “… oh. What…?” In some ways it amuses me. But mostly I think it just irritates me. I hate that the topic of baby sleep has such high expectations from everyone, like I am being judged by our arrangement and how “well” she does. If someone else has a goal of moving their baby in to their own room, then sure I’ll celebrate with them. But that was not my goal. My goal, as simply as it is, is for everyone to get sleep. We co-slept because it worked. She slept well, and I got far more sleep than if I had tried to constantly move her to another bed and deal with her waking all the time. We were peaceful, we were happy. We stopped full-time cosleeping simply because I felt that we would both get more sleep with a new arrangement. She’s doing okay with it, I’m getting sleep, it’s all good, I’m happy. If it stops working then we’ll figure something else out.

So right now what I’m doing is putting her to sleep on the mattress in her room for naps and evening bedtime. At night she will go anywhere between 1 hour and 3 hours, but typically 2-2.5 hours. When she wakes I go in and nurse her back to sleep. If I’m wide awake at that point I’ll leave and go back to what I was doing, or go try to sleep in my own bed. At some point during the night, after she’s woken me up from a sound sleep, when I nurse her back to sleep I end up falling asleep in her bed, so there I stay until morning (I keep blankets at the foot of the bed for me). This is giving me the best of both worlds, I think: I get to fidget as much as I want as I fall asleep (at least, until Den boots me), and sleep all stretched out in my favorite position. But then once I’m really tired and all I want is more sleep when she wakes up, well then I don’t give a fig what bed I’m in, as long as she stays asleep. I’m a horrible night owl…. it’s hard for me to fall asleep, but in the morning I would trade my own brother for another hour of sleep. I have to set my alarm now or we won’t get up until noon (which wastes the day and ruins her nap timing).

The thing I didn’t really expect – but should have – is that I kind of do feel sad now that she’s in her own room. I really liked having her close by. I like having a family bed, all cozy and sleepy together. We may all be sleeping better, but it’s so strange to have a baby monitor next to me instead of me being able to touch her. And yes, I have had some moments in the middle of the night when I’m very tense, wondering if she’s okay, if she’s still breathing. I thought I’d be past that at this point, but it’s hard to let go and trust that they’re okay, especially when it’s been longer than she typically sleeps in a stretch.

::

I’ve mentioned the night time temper tantrums she was throwing, oh was it fun. For a good week and a half after we got home from vacation she was throwing fits at bedtime. Either she’d refuse to go to sleep at all until after 11pm, or she’d fall asleep okay at 9 but wake an hour or two later wanting to play and screaming at being put back to bed. One night she was up from 2-3am, another she was awake from 10-12 after going to bed at 9. Any attempt to get her to sleep – holding, rocking, nursing – was met with kicks, flailing, arching back, screeching and yelling. As soon as we let go she’d roll over and play with her toys and pull up on us and babble happily. If I left the room she’d cry. We ended up sitting in her room with the lights off, not looking at her, not talking to or interacting with her, just sitting there next to her ignoring her in the dark while she crawled around and played. For two hours. It was funny in a “haha if I don’t laugh I’m going to cry” kind of way. Peoples, I was so damn frustrated. I wanted to put a pillow over my head and scream. It wasn’t just that I wasn’t getting my down time in the evening, and that she was screwing with the schedule I was going to get back on track. I had this overwhelming feeling that I was supposed to fix this somehow, but I had no effing clue how.

I thought, well if she’s not tired maybe she shouldn’t be napping so late, or going to bed so early. But that resulted in an overtired baby. Overtired babies do not like to sleep. So those nights she just ended up crying and crying in a very tired voice, and fighting me tooth and nail. Fail.

After that I thought, okay, well maybe I should get her to bed sooner. Maybe she’s too tired and it’s making my life difficult. She goes down great for naps without a fuss. So I tried what I do for naps: I’d watch her in the evening for a sign that she’s tired, then whisk her off to bed and nurse her down. And she yelled and she screamed and she refused to sleep. Fail.

Everyone mentions a before-bed routine of quiet time to unwind. No exciting activity for half an hour before bed, “they” say. No practicing new skills to get them wound up. Just calm, quiet activities, dim lights, a bedtime story. That didn’t work any better. My kid was way too energetic, she didn’t want to do any of those things.

It was two days ago that a thought dawned on me. We already have a pre-bed routine. And you know what, we haven’t really been doing it lately because of our packing, then on vacation, then home and struggling with her and frustration. But it’s not what “they” say to do. It’s not a bath, it’s not a bedtime story or lullabies. What we’ve always done since she was born is we all go to bed together and lay there, playing. And I mean full on wrestling, crawling, rolling, peekaboo under the blankets, flying baby laughing hysterically… all that stuff. So two nights ago about half an hour before her bedtime I took her into her room, got her changed and ready for bed, then laid on her bed with her with the lights on… and we played. She crawled around, she played with toys, she climbed all over me, she laughed and talked and blew raspberries. I tickled her and kissed her and tackled her. We had a lot of fun. She played with her book. She rubbed her eyes. I shut off the light, nursed her for a minute, and she was out for the night. Tonight? Same thing. No crying. No kicking. No waking up wide awake an hour later. Well I’ll be damned.

In a way I feel very foolish because I clearly wasn’t listening to my child and what she needed. My child apparently needs to work off the energy before bed. It’s also our time to really connect, to give her my full attention without the cats, the TV, the laundry, the computer. Of course she needs that. I’m sure part of it was just a phase as she learns all this new stuff, too. I’m just glad I’ve figured out something that works and that the sleep thing is improving. It is hard when they fight it so much!

Kate has been getting little tastes of solid food since December 1, but it was more interesting for her to play with the spoon and smush things up. She put things in her mouth, gummed them, then spit them back out. It was funny and amusing and I felt no real need to do it with any frequency, just when I felt like it.

In this past week since returning home from vacation it’s like a little lightbulb went off in her head and she’s thinking this eating thing is pretty fantastic. Plus I found some fruit flavors that she got really excited about, that probably helped too! She still only eats at most half a jar in a sitting ( which is fine by me because I get worried about feeding her too much and then her not drinking as much milk – silly, I know, but I think it), but for her that is a lot! Yesterday she kept putting out her hands and saying, “Ummmmmm!!!” which in Kate language means More! More! No stop!

She used to want to play with the spoon the entire time, and once in a while I would get it back and put more food on it. Part of her lightbulb is that she now realizes that to get more food in her mouth she needs to give me the spoon. And so now after sucking the food off of it she pulls it out of her mouth and shoves it at me. Pretty clear message there! Then I put more food on it and hold it out and ask, “Want more?” She leans forward, grabs the spoon with her hand, and puts it in her mouth. We did her whole meal like that. Den tries to put the spoon in her mouth to cut down on messes but I just let her do it. Yes she bonks her nose sometimes, but she’s learning.

I give her a mix of baby food and finger foods – I think it’s important to let her experience different textures and learn to gnaw on and chew things, but the baby food has more flavors than I can realistically offer her in finger foods. I feel a little guilty about that, like I ought to be doing all homemade food, but whatever.

On vacation she was introduced to Cheerios since she had started using the pincer grasp, and she likes them okay. I had bought some organic “green vegetable” puffs earlier and she did not like those at all. I just bought some gerber peach-flavored puffs and she totally loves them. Pear has been her favorite flavor from the start, but she just discovered that banana and banana mixes are pretty awesome as well, even though she didn’t care for the actual banana slices I gave her. Avacado slices she had a lot of fun with and ate quite a bit – she was making little faces but kept putting them in her mouth. She makes a lot of faces, actually. Every time I give her something new, or even when I pull out a flavor she had before but was not what she was expecting, she wrinkles her nose as she looks at me. Broccoli and peas got the biggest reactions, though, gagging, tongue out, squinty eyes as she screwed up her face in a look of disgust. Hilarious. The girl does not care for vegetables. She’ll eat squash okay and carrots too, but definitely not her favorites. I don’t blame her one bit, I still don’t like vegetables – I am definitely not the person to be convincing her to eat them.

One definite side bonus to having meals with her is that I actually get to eat! Whereas before I had to find some way to occupy her while I made food and ate, now we share a meal together. Plus I’m keeping fresh fruit in the house, she gets a few pieces and I get the rest. :)

Last night went pretty well, all considering! I did not get my wish of a longer-than-2-hour-stretch, but she actually did 2 hour chunks. I played my game for the first one, then went to bed – my OWN bed – in the middle of the second one. At first I had one eye cracked open, just waiting for her to wake up. But then suddenly I squirmed and sprawled in joy, gave a big sigh, and fell delightedly asleep. That was the first time I was able to sleep however I wanted, without worrying about waking Kate up or bumping her or holding her just right, since she was a newborn and Denis would hold her while she slept so I could get 3 hours of sleep by myself. It. Was. Delightful. So when she woke up at 2am and she nursed back to sleep I giddily snuck out again to go back to bed. I had intended to just stay with her, but I realized yet again that I like my own bed. Plus she actually did fall back asleep well enough. 4am she was awake again and I curled up with her and slept until 7, when she woke again, upon which time I again snuck out to my own bed.

So no, she didn’t completely shock anyone by doing a 9-hour stretch or something, like some of my friends’ babies did once moved to their own room. But 2 hours is a good start, in my book, especially when she’s only did 3 when I stayed with her! Plus we don’t even have shades on her windows at this point, which is why she was up for the day at 8:30. And I’m not even complaining about that…. 8:30 is almost her old schedule! Plus this is the first night she has NOT had a fit in the middle of the night. YAY!!

Then my husband totally won brownie points by getting up with her and letting me sleep several more hours (he has a snow day). SLEEP HOW I HAVE MISSED YOU! Then when she needed a nap he brought her in to me and we slept more. Aahhhh, I needed that. I totally feel less stabbity now.

Even though her mattress is on the floor I knew she’d probably try crawling off it in the morning so I put her changing pad up against the bed just in case, so she doesn’t do a total faceplant on the floor. Good thing, too, since at 2am by the time I woke up and went in there I nearly tripped over her in the middle of the room, crying and inching towards the door. I can see why people like cribs so much. Ahhh well, the room is totally baby-proofed with just toys on the lower shelf. I just have to be careful not to bonk her with the door. At nap time today she demonstrated to me that she now knows the mattress has an edge and she knows where and how to get off. Crazy kid.

I have no problems sleeping in her room or bringing her back to ours, but I do know that she’s going to be starting the night in her own room from now on. It means Den and I can go to bed whenever we want, without him waking her up when I want to stay up and get something done, and I get to actually fall asleep on my own. It feels good! I’m glad we waited until now to move her, though, because I’m at the point now where my concern is whens he is going to wake up and if she’ll sleep well enough, instead of wondering if she’s still breathing. After months of her napping on her own I’m finally okay with it.