Week 2 has definitely been harder than the first week was. Katherine is sleeping less – it is nice to see her eyes now and again, but her pattern is changing over from the “I’m so tired, I just need sleep!” of the just newly born to more of a typical newborn schedule. Which is to say, she has preferences and fussy times and she’s even actually awake sometimes, just staring around.<\/p>\n
She’s started cluster-feeding in the evenings. After over 2 hours of nursing her (we changed her, burped her, switched sides… then she’d cry and want more boob) I finally handed her over to Den for a little bit, my nipples were so sore. And after she finally fell asleep (yes, after yet more nursing) I handed her over again and took a nap. I know it is perfectly normal to have a fussy period in the evening and to cluster-feed through it, it just gets draining when you are the only thing that can calm her down and your nipples are burning.<\/p>\n
Last night she slept in her bouncer for a good portion of the night, which seemed to work a lot better than the co-sleeper, she didn’t keep waking back up. When she woke to feed the first time she ended up sleeping for a while in my arms, feeding again, then I put her back in the bouncer. I’m going to be picking up a baby papasan infant seat, since she loves her baby papasan swing so very much. I really like how she sits in it, she looks very comfy and safe. Hopefully that will be part of the solution for the next few months. I did find some really need sleep things that would totally work, but they were over $100! Granted if nothing else works I’d do it, but I really don’t want to fork over that much more money on top of what we’ve already spent on the cosleeper and everything else.<\/p>\n
Beyond all the normal newborn stuff I find myself struggling a little bit with this new identity – becoming a parent, becoming a stay-at-home-mom. It’s a dream I have carried around for 4 1\/2 years now, so I’ve had a lot of time to build a mental image of what it will be and I find myself frequently stopping to wonder if this is what I imagined it to be. I have to admit, it’s very intimidating to look down at this little being and realizing that we’re responsible for her forever. Other people will be around to help here and there, but she’s ours, it’s up to Denis and I to raise her, teach her, take care of her. There is no walking away when you’re exhausted, sore, frustrated… this is it. And, yeah, it’s scary.<\/p>\n
Becoming a SAHM is a little intimidating, too. I know it’s the right choice for me, for us, and I’m so so glad I have the opportunity to do it. But at the same time there is a little fear in the back of my head wondering if I’m ready to do this by myself. Den is home with us for another several more weeks, and we’re doing really well as a family. But then he heads back to work and I no longer have that extra pair of hands. It’s going to be different, going to be an adjustment. Right now this feels like a big family vacation, but when he goes back to work that’s it, that’s going to be my new daily life. Part of me wants to get into that routine, but I’m really glad that Den is home right now, especially with my known anxiety issues.<\/p>\n
I still have some generalized, non-specific anxiety floating around, and it seems to get worse when I’m tired. Yesterday we were out most of the day and by the end it was a struggle to keep calm. I am happy to let others hold my baby, but there came a point where I could feel the anxiety creeping up on me and I knew I needed her back to help me stay centered. This anxiety is frustrating because I immediately recognize it as “other” – it’s not normal, it’s not caused by something external, it’s just the hormones playing up on me combined with this huge life change. I am really looking forward to everything settling down and my brain getting back to normal. I’m just not sure how long that will take. If it doesn’t go away in the next week or two I’ll be looking at increasing my meds dosage. (I’m already on meds for anxiety\/depression, but they’ve been at a consistent dosage for the last 8+ years and have done me very well. This is the first time I’ve ever felt the need to mess with them.)<\/p>\n
I know I’m going to have to get out of the house several times a week, and I’m going to have to start some hobbies again. (I had hobbies. I lost them when I started working full time plus doing IVF or being pregnant – I didn’t have time!) I just really hope that Kate and I find a groove. I guess that’s really what it comes down to. It’s a little rough right now because we’re still trying to figure her out, she’s still trying to figure the “outside the womb” thing out, and it’s all just very new and overwhelming for everyone. I need to just have faith that we’ll settle in and figure it out, and we’ll be happy with our new routines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Week 2 has definitely been harder than the first week was. Katherine is sleeping less – it is nice to see her eyes now and again, but her pattern is changing over from the “I’m so tired, I just need sleep!” of the just newly born to more of a typical newborn schedule. Which is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2987"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2988,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2987\/revisions\/2988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}