it has been two months since my baby was born (ten weeks today, actually) and the biggest lesson i have learned so far is not to get used to anything. good or bad. this is both intimidating and exhilarating, depending on the day. for example, our first few weeks of effortless sleep seem to have been a fleeting thing, which sucks. however, the baby refusing to sleep during the day and making himself crazy out of overtiredness at night was also a passing phase. so now i am trying to go with the flow and take things -- literally -- one day and one night at a time. because chances are the next one will be different. i'm not sure how long this complete lack of consistency lasts... but i'm trying not to worry about that now, either.
it was sleep, though, that led me to this grand understanding in the first place. after a battle for a couple of weeks to try to get the baby to go to sleep earlier, i have finally given up. since he was born he's been sleeping roughly from 11pm until 10am (waking up to nurse, of course). we were letting him fall asleep whenever, mostly in the living room as we were watching TV, and putting him in the bassinet whenever we went to bed. he slept very well and i wasn't worried about it in the least. then i started reading about sleep and listening to professional advice. i'm not saying you shouldn't ever listen to other people's theories about babies, but i did not realize at that point that you really need to take it all as recommendations based on SOME babies, SOME families, and SOME beliefs... none of which are necessarily applicable to your own baby.
after reading and listening too much and doubting myself, i got concerned that he was awake so late, since some experts insist that babies are wired to go to sleep around 7pm! "they" also say that babies need a bedtime routine: an hour of quiet, calm before sleeping, etc., in order to sleep soundly. some people insist that even at this baby's young age, the routines we were getting him into (which, remember, are reportedly terrible) would stick and be difficult to fix later on. so we tried -- horribly unsuccessfully -- to implement a routine and adjust his schedule for a week or so and i ended up crying and convincing myself that he was now a terrible sleeper and we were in for months of frustration. when he screamed and wouldn't sleep in the bassinet i ended up bringing him into our bed and nursing him to sleep, which -- according to experts -- was the absolute worst thing i could do to establish a sleep routine.
but when i finally took a step back, i realized that he was still falling asleep at the same time he had always been. he just screamed and cried when i tried to make him "go to bed" earlier than that. eventually, by 11pm, nearly every night he was sound asleep. and even without a routine and with going to bed so late, he was still sleeping well and i had no concerns about him being rested during the day. what we had been doing before was working, and wanting to make all these changes was just me not trusting my instincts. my pediatrician had freaked me out about forming habits that we'd have to fix later, even though my understanding and belief has always been that you can't really institute any habits or routines before babies are four months old. so i've let all of the worry go for now. he does often get fussy in the evenings before he falls asleep, and i realize that he is probably tired but doesn't want to go to sleep. however, i'm still not going to force him to go to sleep before he's ready... because i've seen that it just doesn't work. he'll sleep when he's ready. and he does! perfectly happily and soundly in his bassinet. he's also gotten much better about napping during the day, which helps his night sleep, too. this is an area that i've had to be more proactive about: i need to insure that he has the opportunity to nap and that i enforce it. but when i do, he does. pretty much without fail.
so right now the baby is quite lovely to be around most of the time. which is pretty awesome. everything would be perfect if he would just freakin' take a bottle. this is my current battle. and it IS one that i need to work on, because unlike some moms i need to go back to work. i also would like to be able to go out and leave him with a babysitter once in awhile, without it turning into the complete disaster we experienced two weeks ago when we had to go to a wedding and left him with my good friend. he refused to take a bottle and screamed for two hours, totally stressing out my friend and upsetting me so much i had a very difficult time enjoying myself at the wedding and not immediately coming home to the Boob Rescue.
he was taking a bottle a few weeks ago, but like i said... everything changes. for some reason the past few weeks he is not a fan. i've done some research and it turns out that some babies are extraordinarily picky about their bottles and, mostly, nipples. i watch him when the hubby is trying to get him to take a bottle, and i can see that he's trying to latch on like he does on the breast, and it just doesn't work with a lot of bottle nipple designs. so we are now embarking upon an experimentation process that will hopefully lead us to the magic cure-all for his hatred of bottle feeding. i will update when there's progress, but this is where we're at so far:
Philips Avent - these are the bottles i registered for after a ton of research. now i have a bunch of both the small and large sizes, and my baby seems to hate them.
Lansinoh Momma - i got one of these for free with something else i bought and tried it on a whim when he wouldn't take the Avent bottle. this was actually the bottle that he did take for a couple of weeks. now he seems to hate it, but i will keep trying just in case he changes his mind.
Tommee Tippee - i just ordered these. the word around our neighborhood is that these are the best for babies who go back and forth between breast and bottle.
Playex drop ins - i also just ordered these. they go on those old school bottles with the liners that you drop in already filled with milk. i swear they're what babies in the 70s and 80s used, but apparently they're still considered good -- especially for transitioning babies from breast to bottle.
mimijumi - i also just ordered these after reading some online reviews. as you can see, they really look like a breast, and the nipple is supposed to be very soft as well.
one baby mission at a time seems to be enough, right? so we'll work on this, and we'll worry about the other stuff later. if it's even still around to be worried about and hasn't completely changed by then...
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
seven weeks: smiles, sleep struggles, and saying goodbye to huggies (mostly)
at our two week visit to the pediatrician, she drew us a little timeline to show us the trajectory of the first 8 weeks. i remember that arrow arcing upwards towards the happy face at 8 weeks. i am thinking a lot about that arrow and that happy face lately and really hoping that she was right.
it's been a challenging week. i thought, honestly, that the first six weeks were supposed to be the toughest. for us that wasn't the case, except for a couple of bad days/nights mixed in there. but at six and a half weeks, the tide began to turn. it's been both a blessing and a curse in many ways. the baby is so delightful to be around now... when he's happy. the days of him being just a lump of baby are mostly over, except when he's milk-drunk or half asleep. he smiles at us and makes eye contact, he looks at toys and people and reacts to things he hears and sees. we actually feel like he's interacting with us, which is amazing. but on the other hand, all of this excitement complicates his life. a lot. he gets overstimulated if we don't watch out and make sure things are happening at an appropriate speed for him, and he does not like to sleep anymore. both of these things lead to a lot of screaming and crying, by both baby and mama. (daddy seems to be handling things in stride and hasn't even lost his cool yet, which also infuriates mama.)
when we finally figured out (after a couple of tough nights) that he just wasn't getting enough sleep, we thought it would be an easy fix. at his age he should still be getting 14-15 hours of sleep in each 24 hour day. so we decided to put him in bed earlier at night and also to make sure he was napping during the day. both of these solutions are smart, but have been harder than we imagined. we put him to bed earlier, but he mostly screams and still doesn't fall asleep for an hour or more. and he has now started rebelling against every daytime nap strategy i have. going for a walk with him in the carrier used to be a magic trick. now sometimes he doesn't sleep at all in the carrier, he just looks around. at best he'll sleep half the time we're out. and forget sleeping in the stroller. he's done with that. in the house, his little chairs and the sling are shots in the dark at this point. sometimes he'll sleep there. other times he just screams. he is happy if he's being held or sitting in our laps, and occasionally he'll fall asleep there... but not often.
it is really hard. but we're doing our best and just telling ourselves it's (probably) just a phase. or a growth spurt. or something.
in the meantime, as if i didn't already have my hands full, i decided to ease into cloth diapers. i'm going to write a separate post about that. but suffice to say i think i'm still committed to them, but i think i'm crazy.
on a good note, i am still managing to shower every other day at least, and even though the sleep stuff has been difficult, i am still getting a reasonable amount of sleep every night. i cannot imagine if i had had to go back to work after six weeks like so many women do. i would most definitely NOT be getting enough sleep if that were the case, and i would probably be certifiably insane or drunk most of the time. so i count my blessings that i am able both financially and because of my awesome emplyer to take the extra time off. because this baby stuff is more than a full time job, let me tell you.
it's been a challenging week. i thought, honestly, that the first six weeks were supposed to be the toughest. for us that wasn't the case, except for a couple of bad days/nights mixed in there. but at six and a half weeks, the tide began to turn. it's been both a blessing and a curse in many ways. the baby is so delightful to be around now... when he's happy. the days of him being just a lump of baby are mostly over, except when he's milk-drunk or half asleep. he smiles at us and makes eye contact, he looks at toys and people and reacts to things he hears and sees. we actually feel like he's interacting with us, which is amazing. but on the other hand, all of this excitement complicates his life. a lot. he gets overstimulated if we don't watch out and make sure things are happening at an appropriate speed for him, and he does not like to sleep anymore. both of these things lead to a lot of screaming and crying, by both baby and mama. (daddy seems to be handling things in stride and hasn't even lost his cool yet, which also infuriates mama.)
when we finally figured out (after a couple of tough nights) that he just wasn't getting enough sleep, we thought it would be an easy fix. at his age he should still be getting 14-15 hours of sleep in each 24 hour day. so we decided to put him in bed earlier at night and also to make sure he was napping during the day. both of these solutions are smart, but have been harder than we imagined. we put him to bed earlier, but he mostly screams and still doesn't fall asleep for an hour or more. and he has now started rebelling against every daytime nap strategy i have. going for a walk with him in the carrier used to be a magic trick. now sometimes he doesn't sleep at all in the carrier, he just looks around. at best he'll sleep half the time we're out. and forget sleeping in the stroller. he's done with that. in the house, his little chairs and the sling are shots in the dark at this point. sometimes he'll sleep there. other times he just screams. he is happy if he's being held or sitting in our laps, and occasionally he'll fall asleep there... but not often.
it is really hard. but we're doing our best and just telling ourselves it's (probably) just a phase. or a growth spurt. or something.
in the meantime, as if i didn't already have my hands full, i decided to ease into cloth diapers. i'm going to write a separate post about that. but suffice to say i think i'm still committed to them, but i think i'm crazy.
on a good note, i am still managing to shower every other day at least, and even though the sleep stuff has been difficult, i am still getting a reasonable amount of sleep every night. i cannot imagine if i had had to go back to work after six weeks like so many women do. i would most definitely NOT be getting enough sleep if that were the case, and i would probably be certifiably insane or drunk most of the time. so i count my blessings that i am able both financially and because of my awesome emplyer to take the extra time off. because this baby stuff is more than a full time job, let me tell you.
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