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.
No comments:
Post a Comment