Friends are fab

Had a most wonderful day today, and evening last night.  My parents came last night, we all went to dinner.  There was a Gallery Walk downtown so the area was rather hoppin’.  Went to a new restaurant for dinner, Adelino’s I think it was called.  Sorry to say not my favorite…the atmosphere was nice, the food average.  Kept Nyima up to late so she refused to go to bed, didn’t actually fall asleep until almost 11.  That was fun.  Not.

Today went to breakfast with some friends, then Nyima refused to take her morning nap and so we went to another friends’ house sans nap.  Oddly enough, they have a little girl who is about 5 months or so older than Nyima, and their daughter refused to take her morning nap today too!  So we got there and they played, and then they both got sleepy so we put them down for their naps and they fell asleep at the same time.  Then they both woke up at the same time.  Then they played together some more, and a couple hours later they pooped at exactly the same time!  It was very funny, cute, and stinky.

Got my digital scrapbooking software today, have spent the last several hours messing around with it.  Got my pictures fairly organized, and made my first page that is now wallpaper for my computer!  So very exciting.  This could get addicting.  But my computer is so freakin slow it gets frustrating, I may need to upgrade computers if I ever find some extra ciznash.

So – Nyima is doing prettygood in her crib.  She is starting to fight going to sleep, though.  We give her her bottle, and where she would normally fall asleep right away after finishing she now finishes then starts messing around, playing with her pacifier, babbling.  Not sure if it’s the crib or if we keep missing her nap windows.  Either way it’s getting frustrating, and I’m finding myself letting her sit by herself in the crib and mess around or cry, where as before I was staying with her until she fell asleep.  She actually seems to do better with out me there all the time.  Go figure.

Time to go veg out for awhile before bed…

Sans co-sleeping, day 1…and also scrapbooking inadequacies

Well, we got through our first night.  She actually did quite well.  Put her to bed at her usual time, after she finished her bottle she was still awake but I just stayed with her and rubbed her belly and petted her head and she eventually fell asleep in the crib.  My hands were asleep from leaning over the crib, but I got the job done.

She woke up a few times in the night, some of the time she just did a little whimper and then rolled over and went back to sleep.  Other times she cried a bit harder, I got up and put her pacifier back in and she went right back to sleep.  At 5am she woke up and was pretty upset and kept saying ‘mama’, so I picked her up and held her and rocked a bit.  When I tried to put her back in the crib she got upset again, so I brought her into bed.  Can’t expect the kid to be perfect on the first night.  Also, I missed her.  A lot.   She is warm and cuddly and wonderful, and I was not at all sad that she needed me and wanted to cuddle.  So there.  If  I’m an enabler, so let me enable.

Today she took like a 2-hour nap in the crib.  Slept initially for 1/2 an hour then woke up crying, but I popped the paci back in, rubbed her belly again, and she fell back asleep and slept for another hour and 1/2 straight.  Woohoo!  We’ll see how tonight goes.  So far I’m optomistic.

So in October Jason starts another job.  Not another as in he quit his other job, but another as in he’s taking yet another job, which puts him up to 3.  I am happy for financial reasons, because we really do need the money.  We have routinely been taking money out of savings to make up for shortfalls in our regular expenses, and both of us don’t like that.  But I am sad because that means he will be home less.  Last night he said he was going to give up his Monday night meditation group that he leads in order to be home more.  Again, part of me says Yay!  because I do like it when he’s around.  But I’m also worried he may resent us for this decision in the future.  We’ll see what happens.  Either way I’m a pretty lucky woman to have such a considerate husband.

I went to a ‘Creative Memories’ party this weekend.  Talk about feeling inadequate…the whole thing was about taking the time to document our ’stories’, how if we don’t get these things down how will our kids know where they came from, what their family was like?  I haven’t even finished writing in her baby book detailing my pregancy and her birth.  I have yet to put together one photo album of her.  Women at the party were talking about their pregnancy photo albums.  I have a total of about 5 pictures of me being pregnant.  I hardly have time to work, take care of Nyima, keep my house from being so dirty CPS gets called, and try to glance at my husband once and awhile.  Forget about doing anything for myself – working out?  Shopping?  Reading?  Getting my hair done?  What are those thing?  How am I supposed to find time to put together a ’story’?  Sigh.  What makes me most sad/frustrated is that I WANT to do this stuff.  I would love to be able to find the time to print out all her pictures and put together an album to let her know how absolutely special and precious she is to us, to try and communicate how much she was wanted and how much we love her.  Her first birthday is coming up, and for her party I don’t want to be sans albums.  So I spent a ridiculous amount of money on some software that is supposed to help me do ‘digital’ scrapbooks.  That seems less time consuming to me.  We’ll see what happens.  But for her first birthday she will have her baby book done, her Blessing album done, and an album of her first year.  Dammit.  I will also somehow find time to put together photo calendars and individual scrapbooks for family for Christmas gifts.  I don’t expect too much out of myself, do I.

The end of co-sleeping…

The last time I posted a blog Nyima was just turning 6 months old.  Now she’s almost 10 months old.  My, time goes by swiftly.

Today is the beginning of the end of the co-sleeping arrangement.  Nyima weaned herself at about 8 1/2 months or so.  She was digging on a sippy cup one day, and I thought hey, maybe I’ll try a bottle again, and surprise!  She liked it.  She liked it so much, in fact, that she stopped liking the hoots.  So she went from nursing every 4 hours or so and a couple of times at night to not nursing at all in a matter of about 3 weeks.  And I never denied her a thing!  She just stopped wanting it.

Anyhoo.  So now she’s 10 months, crawling, pulling up, walking when we hold her hands, the whole shebang.  Unfortunately, what that means for co-sleeping is that as soon as she wakes at all we have to run into the bedroom so she doesn’t crawl herself off the edge of the bed.  She’s figured us out, too.  We have a video monitor, and I’ll watch her sit up, turn look at the bedroom door and wait for us.  If we don’t show, she makes a little cry, then turns and waits for us.  Then she gets on all fours and starts to crawl, and stops and waits for us.  Lately she’s just gone straight to crawling since she knows that gets us there right away.

I was going to wait awhile before I stopped the co-sleeping.  I like it.  I like it very much.  We got a king size bed so we’re all in the same bed now, it’s much better.  She sleeps between us, sometimes horizontally, with her feet on me and her hands on her dad.  Lately since she’s been teething she’s taken to sleeping ON me for half the night, the upper part of her draped over my stomach or chest and her legs curled up on my side.  It’s quite wonderful and snuggly, and I’m going to miss it horribly.

But.  I do think it’s time.  She’s getting more and more so if she wakes up she can’t go back to sleep unless one of us is there so she can rub our arm.  Which is also very cute and wonderful, but I feel like I might be holding her back from at least learning how to get herself to sleep.  Since we’re so afraid she might crawl off the bed we can’t just let her get herself back to sleep in our bed.  And so, it’s time for the crib.

I guess technically we’re still co-sleeping since the crib will still be in our room.   I don’t see that changing anytime soon.  Its’ one thing to have her a foot away, it’s another to have her in a different room.  That seems a bit much still, I can’t imagine her being all by herself in a big room so early.  So I figure this is the best of both worlds – she’s still close enough that she feels she’s with us, but she is a little more independent and will learn how to soothe herself too.  Not that we wont’ be there to help.  And not that she wont’ find herself in our bed from time to time…

So this is how we started.  I took off one side of the crib and strapped it to our bed and did a side-car thing for a few days.  It’s good, but we still run into the same problem of not being able to leave her alone, because she can still crawl onto our bed.  So today I put the side of the crib back on, and put her down for her afternoon nap in her crib.  She was wide awake, I gave her her bottle and kept my hand on her tummy to keep her from flipping over and crawling about.  She did her usual little bit of crying because she’s mad that I won’t let her turn over, but she laid in the crib very calmly, closed her eyes, and went to sleep.  She’s been asleep for about an hour now.  I figure we’ll put her to bed in her crib tonight, if she gets up and moves about that’s fine, but we won’t go in unless she starts crying.  I don’t want her to feel totally abandoned, and don’t like the ‘cry it out’ idea.  So I won’t let her get too upset, but I also want to give her a chance to do this herself.  So we’ll see how it goes, and we’ll see who cracks first and puts her in bed – me or Jason.

Holy crap – 6 months already???

Time has flown, flown, flown.  Obviously I started back at work, and as such have lost some time to do things such as, say, blogging.  But dang, it’s time I got back to it.  So here we go…

Oh, where to start.  Nyima is fabulous.  She’ll be officially 6 months on Wednesday.  I can’t believe she’s that old already!  We had our first family vacation this weekend, took a little trip down to Brown County in IN and did some shopping, went on a hike, pretty much just enjoyed being away from home.  She’s still sleeping with us (well, with me, anyway.  Jason tried sleeping with us for awhile, and both of us realized we slept much better with him in the guest room…so for now, it’s just me and Nyima.  Should have gotten a king size bed…), still nursing, still NOT sleeping through the night.  

It’s amazing how you can get used to such little sleep.  She was doing great for awhile, would sleep for 5-6 hours at a time and then just get up every 2-3 hours to nurse.  Would go to bed around 9, wake up at 9 – it was all good!  Now, she goes to bed at 8:30 or 9, gets up about 1 (right about the time I’m getting into a nice, deep sleep), gets up around 3, then 4, then 5, then 6…you get the picture.  Then wakes up for good around 7:30 or 8.  So I’m trying to nurse her less during the night – she can’t be hungry EVERY time she wakes up – but that leads to angry crying and less sleep for everyone.  So I don’t know what to do right now.  I don’t nurse her to sleep anymore, I nurse her at 8:30, she hangs with me and Jason for awhile, then I lay down with her and she falls asleep.  I tried giving her a pacifier, that worked for a short time and then her Borg defenses kicked in (that’s a Star Treg TNG reference, there were aliens that could adapt to whatever weapons you tried to use, so after you used them once or twice they didn’t work anymore…we’ve always said that’s how Nyima was, because our tricks only worked a couple times and then – NO MORE!).  So now I’ve started getting up and trying to walk/bounce her to sleep instead of nurse her, especially when she gets into that every hour to hour and a half waking cycle.  Again, worked at first, now just makes her furious.  I’ll have to dig in my heels at some point and try to get her to associate with something besides the hoots when she wakes up at night…but man, that sounds tiring.

Aside from that slight issue, she is the best.  She’s a big baby (97th % across the board) – at her last visit for shots at 5 months she weighed just over 18lbs.  She was 27 inches at her 4 month visit.  So who knows what she is now – we go next week for her 6-month visit, I guess we’ll find out then.  Oh, and she’s a genius.

Work is going well, I’m appreciating being able to work from home.  Had to do some travel to Chicago in April, so Jason and Nyima came with.  We have to do a marathon trip to Austin and Minneapolis in June – that will be an adventure.  Not enough to just do a round trip for the first plane ride, we have to do a multi-city tour!  Work has been busy, but it’s amazing what NOT being pregnant can do for stress reduction.  At this time last year I was having daily nervous breakdowns, and I swore it was because my job was so horrible, not because I was knocked up.  Yeah.  It was because I was knocked up.

Jason is the best Dad ever.  He cut back to working 20 hours a week and then does his private practice in the mornings so he can be with Nyima in the mornings and all day on Friday.  It’s cut down on our sitter costs quite a bit.  And Nyima gets to spend some great time with him, which both of them seem to enjoy.  She really lights up when she sees him.

Well, I’m going to try to be more faithful with keeping this blog up again.  I think I can carve out a few minutes of my day to pound some keys and start brain dumping again.  It’s good therapy for me.

A week away…

I needed to write this yesterday, but my wee one did not cooperate.

I spoke to my boss yesterday about my return to work on the 16th.  I had hoped that I wouldn’t be assigned to a project yet, that I would have a couple months to help on random projects and just get used to being back at work.  Alas, ’tis not to be.  She said I’m on a bid for a project we’re supposed to hear about this week.  Which means I’ll be starting up at the start of a study, which is always insane.  Which means I’ll have to travel to the sponsor’s office for a meeting probably within the next couple of weeks.  Which means my time lines for, well, everything, have been drastically shortened.  I told her my morning sitter for next week is on vacation so I’ll be juggling things a bit, and she suggested I have a back-up plan in case we get the project and things get going right away.  Back up plan…so I’m supposed to be able to create a magical sitter that I feel comfortable with in three days?  My wonderful mother said she would help if she could.  So I do have a back-up plan.  But she’s busy too, and I’m already feeling guilty that my needs will be making others’ lives more difficult.  I’m supposed to be responsible for everything, and handle it perfectly, and never get upset, remember?!?!

Positives:
- The study I’ve been assigned to is with the same sponsor and the same indication that I was on before I went on leave, so there won’t be nearly the learning curve there was last time
- I’ve learned how to delegate since my last project
- I’m no longer a newbie at this – all of the stress and “I have to get this done NOW” is reduced, and I understand how to keep myself sane much better.

Negatives:
- All of that above is a load of crap I’ve been telling myself to keep from flipping out.  Work sucks!

Actually, I do believe the positives.  But it doesn’t make starting again any easier.  I would feel more comfortable about the whole thing if my child would take a freakin’ bottle.  She has decided recently that a bottle is NOT what she wants, she will not have it, and she will scream and hold her breath and wail and wail until said bottle is thrown to the wolves.   I’ve tried different bottles, nipples, positions, times of day, persons giving the bottle, all to no avail.  She’ll be fine with it one day, then the next day refuses it all together.  I had decided earlier if I have to travel I’ll just take my mom or Jason with me and also bring Nyima – she could take a bottle during the day while I’m working, and I’ll still be there with her at night for feeding, sleeping, etc.  Which would be great, except for the bottle part.  So my next few days will be spent having a battle of wills with my child and trying to get her to take a bottle, so that one stress will be aleved.  Because not only does that cause me stress about work, I also would like to be able to leave the house without her sometimes. 

I’m afraid of my desire to feel like I have to do it ALL – be the perfect employee, the perfect mother, the perfect housekeeper, the perfect wife.  It won’t be possible…in theory I know this, but experientially I may fall short of this awareness.  I don’t like letting people down.  I’ve told myself that Nyima will always come first, and I think that will stay true, but learning how to shuffle everything so she does stay first is going to be very hard.

Luckily my boss is very understanding – she has 2 kids of her own and works from home.  She said she would let me know if it looked like my performance was being affected before it became an issue.  So that’s good.  And she knows the struggle of trying to do it all, we talked at length about it yesterday.  But it’s still scary.

I wish I had written this yesterday, I feel like all of the things I was feeling are distilled now, things aren’t ringing as true.

On a different note, my afternoon sitter took Nyima for a walk in the stroller for the first time yesterday.  I thought it was a great idea until they left the house.  Then I suddenly realized the baby was not in the house, and me or Jason were not with her.  It was a very strange and scary feeling!  I called Jason to share my fears and we ended up just working each other up, so in the end I called my mom so she could talk me down.  It’s not that I don’t trust my sitter.  It’s just that she’s not me!!!

Time for lunch and then a walk – it’s going to be almost 60 today.  Spring would be good right about now.

On why having 14 kids is so very irksome…

So I was reading some more stuff about this chick from CA who had the octuplets.  When I first heard about the 8 kids at once I thought ‘dang, good luck with that!  I can hardly handle one…’.  Then I hear she already has 6 kids, and I’m like ‘whaaaat???’.  Then I hear not only does she already have 6 kids, she doesn’t have a job, there isn’t a father around because all of the kids were from a sperm donor, and she’s living with her mom off of disability.  But she won’t do welfare!  That’s beneath her!  But I doubt she’ll have to worry about welfare, since she’s already got book and TV deals in the works.

All I can say is bull-freakin-shiznat.   Here is some nutjob that has a complex because she was an only child so she decides to have a boatload of kids, kids that are likely to have all sorts of developmental issues.  Not only because they were so premature, but because there are 14 freakin’ kids!   And it’s not like she said ‘whoops, guess I’m just really fertile’, she WORKED to have that many kids.  She’s only 33.  Can you imagine her Match.com ad?  “33 year-old single mother of 14 looking for…well…anyone!”.  She said when she finishes school she knows she’ll able to support her family.  So, in all her spare time raising 14 kids she’ll also be finishing her degree in…wait for it…counseling psychology!  Now, I have a husband and many friends who are therapists, and none of them make enough money to raise 14 kids.  Unless you’re Dr. Phil.  And perhaps I’m picky, but some wacko who is so jacked she thinks having 14 kids is somehow going to resolve her childhood issues is not going to be my first choice to help me in my road to self-discovery.

I’m soap-boxing.  But as someone who tried so hard to have just 1 child, and who struggles daily hoping that I’m providing everything she needs, it is infuriating to see someone do this on purpose.  And it sickens me that our society will reward her for this – book deals, TV deals.  I know, let’s reward those people who act irresponsibly and unconsciously.  The rest of us are just boring!  Who wants to hear about the struggles of everyday people???  Sheesh.

But perhaps I’m a hypocrite.  I have watched “John and Kate Plus 8″.  I’ve also watched the show about the family who has 18 kids (and counting…ugh).  I guess the difference for me with the ‘John and Kate’ show is they didn’t PLAN on having 8 kids.  It just sort of happened.    And the family with the 18 kids…yeah, it’s nuts, but they have a seemingly stable family and somehow they’ve made it work.  The problem with those shows is they have now upped the ante for what is ‘worthy’ of television.  Jason and I have 2 embryos left – when we implant those, theoretically we could have 4 kids if they both turned into twins.  But that would only be quadruplets and only leave us with 5 kids – hardly newsworthy.  Forget the fact that it would send us into a tailspin of trying to figure out how to pay for diapers, childcare, college, how to give enough attention, etc.  That my body would get pretty wrecked birthing 4 kids.  That the hospital bills would be huge.  We wouldn’t get those lifetime supplies of diapers, formula, bottles, donations, TV shows, book offers, etc. 

Well, now my one child has woke from her nap and I must tend to her.  How boring!!!

A difficult day in the land of mom-dom…

If I have another child I will do everything in my power to not birth them during the winter season.  I am going to stir-crazy I can hardly stand it…  Before I had her I had these fantasies of playing with her all day, cleaning the house, cooking dinners, going for walks, being in this peaceful, blissful place.  Not only because I finally was going to get to be a mom, but because I wasn’t going to have to be working for three whole months!  Little did I know it would be too cold/snowy/icy to go for many walks, she only recently began being interested in playing and can only handle it for about half an hour or so, and there isn’t time for cleaning/laundry/cooking because when I’m not playing with her I’m walking/bouncing/holding her to keep her from crying.  I’ve learned to do all of those things one-handed (because she has now decided she hates all slings I try to put her in) and it’s quite possible that my left bicep will be permanently stronger than my right one from holding her all day.  I’m starting to feel a little buggy.

So today I went to the mall, which I’ve avoided up until now.  Not sure why…I think because for most of the time it was insane with holiday shoppers.  Not fun.  Also, unless I’m actually going on a shopping spree with money I actually have and time I can actually enjoy, I don’t much like the mall that much.  But today I had to get out of the house.  I couldn’t do one more trip to Target.  I couldn’t play one more game of Mr. Octopus, or make one more lap around our living room/kitchen/dining room (which has become so small and claustrophobic I can hardly stand it).  I packed up Nyima, the stroller, and headed out

Had I known how difficult that trip was going to be for me I don’t think I would have gone.  It wasn’t Nyima – she slept pretty much the whole time.  It was the mall itself, the reminders of the life that isn’t mine anymore.

Every store I walked by reinforced that my life is drastically different now.  I used to travel for work, and purposefully made a career step up so that wouldn’t happen anymore because I wanted to be home for having kids.  When I traveled I dressed up, I saw how people looked good and I wanted to look good.  I bought nice clothes, nice shoes, nice bags, had my hair cut and colored, my nails done.  I became fashionable for probably the first time in my life.  I was also working out, so I also felt like I looked good for probably the first time in my life.  Then I stopped traveling, so I had no reason to get dressed up.  I would still look nice on occasion, even though it was  just me, just to help myself feel good.  Then I got pregnant, and had some complications, so I was too scared to work out.  Now I’m a mom.  ‘Nuff said.

So I’m walking by these stores that I used to shop at, looking at the clothes that I love but can’t justify buying.  A – who would I wear them for?  B – They would just get barfed on. c – Now that I’ll be spending an extra $800 a month for childcare I have a hard time justifying spending extra money on trivialities.  The list goes on, as does my depression.  Then I walk by the sports stores, and am reminded of how in-shape I used to be, and how now my workout involves squatting to pick up clothes/clutter/spit-up off of the floor.  I walk by the cheap, trendy clothing stores that I used to look for outfits to go out in for our various martini nights, wine bar nights, dancing nights.  No more, no more, no more.  I think I know why I’ve been avoiding the mall now.

And then I feel horribly guilty, because I look down and Nyima is sleeping in the stroller and she is perfect, beautiful, and I couldn’t love her more.  I tell myself I have everything I said I wanted, there is no reason to be depressed!  Then I walk by the perfume counter, which I can’t wear anymore because I don’t want it to cover my ‘mom smell’ for Nyima.  I got a gift certificate for Bath and Bodyworks and went there after Christmas and loaded up on lotion because they had a great sale.  That was out of habit, and they are now all still in the bag under my bathroom sink.  Again.  The smell.

I have gone from my world being big, expanding, my surroundings ever-changing and continually meeting new people, even if it’s briefly on an airplane or a hotel lounge, to a world that seems very very small.  The same 4 walls every day.  The same routine every day.  I go for days without seeing or talking to anyone but Nyima and my husband, and by the time he gets home from work I’m tired enough that I don’t feel much like talking to even him.   The haircut, which at the time seemed like a perfect way to embrace motherhood, now only reminds me that I am becoming the mom I said I wouldn’t be – plain, boring, sheltered, nothing to talk about but my child. 

The guilt I feel for thinking/feeling/writing these things is immense!  I finally have everything I have ever wanted, and I am blessed to have this wonderful child in my life, and today it seems all I can do is mourn the loss of me.  A me that, frankly, was a more superficial and ego-istic version of the me that I am now.  But it is a death nonetheless, and although it was a me that was perhaps more vain and less heartfelt, I miss it.  I miss feeling expanded, like I’m conquering the world.

Jason came home and I told him some of the things I was feeling and he just called and said he scheduled a massage for me this evening.  Again.  I’m upset because why?

I know that this is just one day, that tomorrow I could wake up and be content with my life, my world.  And even though today was hard, I look and Nyima and I know that I at least am doing the right thing for HER.  (And she managed to get yet MORE clothing from our outing today…seems the only thing I can buy without feeling guilt are items for said baby.)  When I became pregnant I knew that I was no longer going to be the most important thing in my life.  But it was an abstraction then, an image, a fantasy, an idyllic projection of the motherhood I had been craving for almost 10 years.  The reality…well, it’s reality. 

I am MOM.  Hear me weep.

Milestones, schmilestones…

I’m annoyed.  I spent last night laying in bed worrying about whether or not I was doing everything I could to help Nyima meet her developmental ‘milestones’, when I should have been getting some sleep.  She slept great!  Me, not so much.

I’m finding that my my need for perfection has migrated into the care of my child.  It’s not even perfection I’m after, but the lack of regret.  Is that perfection?  I’m not sure.  And it’s not that I expect HER to be perfect – in my eyes she’s already perfect.  But I expect ME to be perfect in raising her.  Which is completely ridiculous and impossible.  I’m gonna screw her up somehow, there is no way around it.  But when I read the books and the websites about milestones she should be meeting, how much tummy time I should be giving her a day, what games she’ll like, it’s ALL I can think about!  Oh no, I only gave her a few minutes of tummy time today – she’ll be sliding on her stomach forever!  Oh no, she hasn’t laughed yet – is something wrong?  Am I not stimulating her enough?  Call CPS!

It’s so dumb.  And I know it’s dumb.  She is perfect, and this morning I was watching her play and realized how completely dumb it is.  She is doing everything she needs to be doing – she’s happy, she’s healthy.  I have to get over this parenting pressure I’m putting on myself, because it will sap all the joy out of it!  My parents didn’t have set rules for tummy time, games, milestones, and other nonsense.  And I turned out fine!  So did my sister!  I need to learn to look at those for general guidance on what I can help her with or look for, but not things that HAVE to happen. 

My fear is eventually these pressures I put on myself would be transferred to her.  I don’t suddenly want to discern my parental abilities from her success or lack thereof.  That would be so not cool.  She’ll develop as she develops, and I’ll love her every step of the way.

A note about tummy time – I hate it, and she hates it.  She cries everytime I do it, so I know I don’t do it as much as I ’should’.  She cried so much the first six weeks of her life, I’ve really enjoyed the last few weeks of significantly diminished screaming.  So to put her in a position that I KNOW will make her cry is something I really don’t enjoy.  I do it.  But I don’t like it!

On co-sleeping…

There are things that people do as parents that go against all of the ‘advice’ that you may get from other parents, books, etc.  I never realized this until I would sheepishly say something I did, thinking I was the worst parent in the world, and they would say “Yeah, we did that too”.  If more people shared their “Yeah, I did that to” ’s this whole game would be a lot less stressful.  One of the things I’ve learned to appreciate is co-sleeping, or sharing our bed with Nyima.

Before she was born I had a friend whose baby slept with them.  I thought “No way, man.  She could sufficate!  I’ll never get any sleep!  She’ll want to sleep with us forever!  They’ll never get her on a schedule!”.  We bought the crib, the monitor, the crib blankets, sheets, etc.  We bought a bassinet to keep next to the bed for her to be in for the first couple of months.

On the day we brought her home, the house was filled with people.  I spent most of the day in her nursery, trying to keep her and me from getting overwhelmed with all of the craziness going on in the rest of the house.  At about 11pm everyone went to bed, and she was sleeping enough that I thought I could put her in bed.  So I carried her into our room, and looked at the bassinet.  Then I looked down at her, sleeping in my arms.  There was no way I could put this tiny little baby in that bed!  So I went back to the rocking chair, put the boppy on my lap and covered it with a blanket (blankets, a no-no), laid her in her little ‘bed’ on my lap and we both slept that way for the night.  For the first 3 weeks, to be exact.  She spent most of her time sleeping on my chest (on her tummy, another no-no), we only woke for her to eat and me to change her diaper if necessary.  After a few weeks the rocking chair was getting tiresome, and my back was no longer pleased with the situation.  Again I was faced with whether I wanted to put her in her crib or the bassinet, and yet again I couldn’t let her be that far from me.  So into the bed we went!  By that time I had read some books about co-sleeping – the Dr. Sears books in particular are a big fan of co-sleeping, and it was refreshing to read that all of the instincts I had about where I wanted Nyima to be sleeping were okay and I wasn’t committing any mortal parenting sin.  We pushed the bed up against the wall, and I filled in the gap with the crib bumper (which, ironically, I had removed from the crib months ago after reading about safety concerns…).  I took off our fluffy comforter and used a couple thinner blankets instead.  I took off our fluffy mattress pad to make the mattress less pillow-y.  She spent the next couple of weeks still sleeping on my chest – she liked it there, I liked having her there, and it freaked me out less than putting her next to me on the bed.  But she grew and grew, and it was getting uncomfortable for both of us for her to be on my chest all night, and neither one of us were sleeping well.  So at that point I made the move of putting her in bed beside me, me laying on my side and curled in a ‘C’ shape, her facing me and laying on her side and wrapped inside the curve of my body.  She solidified my idea that she still needed to be near me when she slept, because even though she was no longer on my chest she still needed to be touching me.  So no matter how far I put her from me (which wasn’t very far), she would wiggle her little body closer to me until her feet were on my bent legs.  Then she would reach out one hand and rest it on me.  If I moved, she moved.  If she stirred, I stirred.  It has been the most wonderful thing ever.  This morning I woke up and she was laying there, looking at me and smiling.  My heart could not possibly hold any more love for her.

What amazes me from this co-sleeping thing is that my fears of her being safe sleeping in our bed are pretty much gone.  She sleeps against the wall, so my husband can’t roll over on her.  And I wake several times in the night, whether because she is stirring or because something in me just wants to check on her.  I thought that would interrupt my overall sleep, but it really doesn’t.  I never have to get out of bed, unless she has a very messy diaper.  We sleep, we wake for her to eat, and we go back to sleep.  At most we’re up about 10 minutes each time, the rest of the time we’re both sleeping pretty soundly.  I slept less when I was pregnant!

The funny thing is, I could have been told all of this before she was born and I don’t think I would have believed it, not until I felt that pull of  ‘I don’t want her sleeping away from me yet!’.  I don’t know how long we’ll have her in our bed.  I think until Jason and I both feel like not only she’s ready, but we’re ready.   Right now we’re feeling warm and fuzzy about our family bed, and enjoying that we feel like we’re seeing to what Nyima needs from us right now.  She’s sleeping 5-6 hours at a time, goes to bed at 10pm and wakes up for the day at 9am.  My fears of not getting sleep are over now.  She has set her own schedule, and it’s probably easier on me than the one I would have set for her.  Yeah, I’m still going to bed with her, and that makes it a little tough.  I’m hoping to get her to the point where she can sleep without me.  But I’m in no rush, she’s only 9 weeks old.  She’ll grow up soon enough…

The solo weekend starts…

My husband just left for the weekend.  He is training in Hakomi therapy in Chicago and has a class this weekend.  I knew this was coming, we discussed it even before she was born, that once a month he would be gone for a few nights.  But now that it’s here I’m struggling with it.

It’s not that I can’t do it on my own for a few days.  He works quite a bit anyway, so it’s just me and her for the majority of the day.  But knowing that he’ll be home at whatever time and that I’ll have a little bit of a break helps get me through the day, especially when I get tired.  I also look forward to the adult conversation, even though we mostly talk about what she did during the day.  What I’m going to have to be careful of is to not get resentful, use this as a reason to get bitchy during the week if he isn’t in the mood to hold her or something.     But I do feel overwhelmed with her sometimes.  I’m breastfeeding, so she wants me all the time.  And she’s at the age now where she KNOWS it’s me, not just some random person with milk, or who holds her the way she likes, or smells the way she likes.  Which on one hand is awesome, and makes me happier than I could ever imagine.  I want her to want me!  But mommy can also use a break sometimes.  To his credit, he realizes this and takes her quite a bit in the evenings.  And he set it up so every other Saturday night me and my friend go out for some ‘girl time’, and he watches the baby.  And she’s not easy in the evenings, so it’s awesome that he does that for me.  Plus, I think leaving this weekend was harder on him that on me…he was feeling pretty bad about it.   HOWEVER – all of the wonderfulness aside, this weekend is going to be a challenge and I need to admit that it’s okay that I think it’s going to be a challenge.  And I need to keep the communication open when he gets back if I need him to take Nyima for awhile so I don’t go insane.   I’ve set it up so we go to my mom and dad’s next weekend – a little grandparent time will defintely help!

On a different note, there were no obvious effects from the vaccines Nyima got yesterday.  Yippee!  She might have slept a little more, but that’s about it.  She seems more clingy to me, but I don’t know if that’s from the vaccines and her not feeling totally great, or if it’s just a clingy day.  One thing the doctor and I talked about was the possibility of her having gastric reflux.  She hates being on her back, and when she is on her back she swallows alot, like she’s trying to keep stuff down.  She also does this weird arch-y thing when she’s eating – I thought she was just a restless eater sometimes, but the pediatrician said that babies with reflux will arch like that to try to compress things just the right way to keep stuff from coming up.  Who knew!  So she prescribed some Zantac (sp), we’ll see if that does anything.  The one thing I’m thinking it might help (hoping it might help) is sometimes she gets into this frantic nursing mode – she’ll have just finished eating but then will still cry and suck on her hand like she wants to nurse.  If I don’t nurse her she screams.  My thought was if she had reflux it was hurting her during those times, and she wanted to nurse to help make it feel better.  Who knows!  Maybe she just wants to nurse for comfort, or maybe she’s extra hungry!  Like I said, if nothing changes, we’ll know it’s just the way she is.

It’s time for me to eat.  Sometimes I forget that moms get to eat too…