A miracle

Last night a miracle happened.  Not only did Willow sleep through the night – that itself would be a miracle, after a good 3-4 wakeups per night in the last few weeks – but she slept a whole 11 hours in a row, and might have slept more if I hadn’t awaken her.

I didn’t benefit as much from this as I could.  I first awoke at 2, then several times afterwards. Each time I sat up in partial panic and partial wonder.  “She hasn’t woken up yet?  What’s going on?  Did the babysitter do something?  Did she drug her?  Is she OK?” 

Three times I went into her room to check on her and didn’t leave until I saw movement.  By 6 a.m. my breasts were boulders and were starting to hurt.  I was torn between waking her up to relieve the pressure and enjoying the blissful serenity of a sleeping child.

Today also was an experiment in trying to attend a conference with a baby and trying to keep said baby fully breastfed.  It went better than expected.  Willow had only 3 feedings in 9.5 hours of daycare (If she’d been with me for 9.5 hours, she probably would have had at least 6).  I drove to the daycare for two of those feedings (20 minutes roundtrip each time) and the provider gave her 2 ounces of milk from a bottle.

So she only drank two ounces of expressed milk and I pumped more than two ounces today.  So not only did I keep up, I have a bit of a surplus.  Perhaps tomorrow I’ll try making only one extra feeding trip during the day.

The situation is working in that I’m able to attend most of the conference activities, my baby is being well cared for, and I’m able to keep up my milk supply.  I’m also getting practice in how to manage work and breastfeeding without the actual pressures of work.  I found that as I raced to make the 5:30 daycare pickup (I was the last one there) that I was excited to see my baby at the end of the day.  And when I took her to a wine and cheese event, she was the center of attention.

But it has its downsides too.  Just about every moment is spent caring for her, transporting her, feeding her, pumping or attending to conference-related things.  I have no time for a leisurely lunch or a casual conversation after an event.  It’s hard to network when I have to leave each session promptly to pump or to feed. When some people gathered for dinner this evening, I couldn’t join them because I hadn’t scheduled a babysitter.

Nevertheless, I think it’s as good of a balance as I can get.  I’m with my baby, am able to enjoy her, and am able to maintain my milk supply.  I can attend the conference, learn things, be inspired, and make connections.  I can’t do either thing to the extent I’d like, but that’s the price of motherhood. 

One thing I especially love about conferences is that I get to meet fascinating mothers with older children.  I am reminded that these struggles are temporary, that soon enough I’ll be sleeping through the night again, and confronting different challenges.  These women help me to remember that their careers and interests carry on when the children no longer assume center stage, and that it’s a good idea to have something to devote oneself to then.  That makes me feel better about the balance that often feels off-kilter.  As long as I keep a toe in the waters that interest me, later on I can put in a foot, then a leg, then jump fully in.

The welcoming presence of normalcy

I’m still in shock that Willow adjusted so easily to the bassinet. The night adaptation went OK, but surely naps will be a struggle I thought. Nope.

For the first time I can gaze down upon her sleeping. She sleeps with both arms raised over her head, the same way I have for the past few years. While the trip may well mess things up, as well as teething or other things I can’t yet foresee, I’m hopeful that we’ve made it through the rough period. That both kids are now on a schedule, and our lives will now operate on a calmer flow.

Breastfeeding is now easy, natural and enjoyable. I can cradle her in my arms, feeling the heft of her growing, but still tiny body, as she flicks her tongue against my nipple, and think of nothing but appreciation for her presence in my life. It’s hard to believe how very difficult it was and how long the problems endured. Like labor, it’s almost hard to remember what the pain felt like. I just know it was bad, that I wouldn’t wish anyone to have to go through that, and that I’m pretty amazed we made it through.

Speaking of normalcy, I met a friend’s mother at a birthday party this weekend who seemed to have definite opinions on what is normal and what is not. It seemed she didn’t consider me part of that category.

First she commented how her grandfather has the same name as River. Her grandfather is the same ethnicity as the country the name comes from.

“Are you?” she asked. No.

Upon hearing me speak Spanish, she asked if I was Spanish. No. At that point her eyes crossed.

She asked if I’d been in the Peace Corps. Yes. “You seem like the type who would do that,” she said.

Then she asked about my husband.

“Where is he from?”

I told her.

“That’s boring.” Then she asked what he did.

“An engineer? That’s so normal. How did you end up with him?” She paused. “Well, I guess a family can only handle one like that.” Like me, she meant. How does one answer that?

Who is really standing in the way of progress?

Last night Mark wasn’t feeling well, just at the time I’d woken Willow for her feeding and we were going to try to put her to sleep in the bassinet. So we postponed the transition to tonight. Perhaps it will be better, I thought, as we’ll have the first trial run at her 7 p.m. bedtime. It would be easier for Mark to deal with a couple of difficult hours in the early evening than the late evening.
We stayed out late visiting friends, so I wasn’t able to get her ready for bed until 8. I had my share of stressing about it again today, giving her extra kisses, treasuring her smiles, dreading what I expected would be extended crying.
When I brought her up to the bassinet, I realized it was out of batteries. So I couldn’t even give her an initial 20 minute vibration as an adjustment. I held her, considering asking Mark to change the batteries, but decided it wasn’t worth delaying her bedtime even more. I kissed her, lay her down in the bassinet, and put the hippo head of the soft hippo blanket we’ve been using regularly in the swing within her reach. As she batted at the hippo’s head, I turned on the white noise lamb, that we began using only last night (I was hoping for one more sleep aid). I put on the sound of ocean waves, cranked up the volume, and put the timer on the maximum of 45 minutes. I stroked her cheek, left the room, and noted the time on the Sleepy Planet sleep chart, positioned in the office (our command center) across the hall.

As I headed downstairs and switched with Mark (I’d put River to bed while he comforted Willow), I was surprised to not yet hear any crying. As I walked back upstairs with River to read him his story, I still thought an outburst must be coming. Twenty minutes later, stories complete, it was still quiet. “Did we win the lottery?” I asked Mark, shocked that this step I dreaded so much was so completely painless.

Perhaps it helped that she went to bed an hour later than usual and might have been tired enough to not protest. Maybe the sleep aids were familiar enough. It’s possible that the still bassinet is more comfortable for her than a constantly rocking swing in which her head always falls forward. In any case, she went to sleep without a peep. And I realized all my worry was a lack of confidence in her ability to adapt. It was me/us/the parents that were the barrier to her making progress to an easier/safer sleeping solution. Which makes me wonder how often this is the case, how often we hold our kids back because really, it’s us who are afraid.
I doubt this will be easy forever. At some point – perhaps when I wake her for her feeding in 20 minutes, or perhaps during a daytime nap, when the room is brighter and she’s not as exhausted – she’ll likely resist the still, boring sleeping surface. And then, we’ll have to go back to our original plan of comforting her, but letting her work her way through it and adapt. In the meantime though, I’m amazed at how easy it was to introduce a transition I feared and am humbled by the realization that I held her back.

Nervousness

In the quiet still of 9:23 p.m., I hear River still chatting in his bed and the rhythmic echoing boom of the swing, as it rotates from side to side, beating like a giant squeaky heart. Will this be the last time I hear it?
There is just over an hour left until I have to wake Willow up, then we put her down in a new environment. I feel sickly nervous, hating the thought of placing her so suddenly into a new reality and forcing her to adjust. It feels like a metaphor for life, that as much as I want to keep her in one place, she moves out of one stage and into the next, hurtling toward the situations that will both invigorate her and hurt her. I look at the fuzzy pink Easter bunny she received from her great grandma and I want things to remain soft and beautiful for her. I want her to remain, at least for a few more moments, a tiny baby whose needs I can meet, fully and perfectly.
But the swing doesn’t meet her needs, I remind myself. It can’t be comfortable to have her head thrown forward and to the side every time she sleeps, nor can it be good for breathing, or for development. If only there was a gradual way to move from one way of doing things to another.
Boom, boom; squeak. Boom, boom; squeak. River’s babbling in his crib seems to take on the three quarters beat from the swing. The time is approaching.

Night weaning successful

We are a week and a half into the night weaning and it has been a resounding success. I now feed her at 10:30 p.m., before I go to bed, and set my alarm to feed her at 5:30. By 5:30, when my boobs have had over five hours to refill, they are like boulders, so she gets a buffet for her wait.

Besides those two feeds, she sleeps from 7 p.m. to 8 a.m. and takes two good naps per day of about two hours each. She’s sleeping a good hour or two more each day since we started this, which makes her happier and more well-rested.

I look back at things I wrote just two weeks ago and marvel at how quickly it all can change. I’m SO glad we did this, as it’s been beneficial for the health and well-being of the whole family.

**


In less good news, I remain at my consistently overweight state. After wearing the same two pair of maternity pants non-stop for months, I finally had to accept reality and go buy some fat clothes. I needed a dress for mother’s day weekend and while I was at it, decided that a pair of jeans and a coat that fit would be useful too.

Mark had covered for me while I attended another conference. So to try to give him a break in return, I dropped River off at a friend’s house and took Willow shopping with me. She woke up from her nap just as I’d started trying things on and began to scream. I knew she needed to be fed, so decided to try to quickly finish trying on the clothes, then go feed her in one of the armchairs near the entrance to the changing rooms.

A lady tried to open the door of my dressing room, without knocking, and with me half naked.

“Excuse me!” I said.

“I really think you should pick up your baby,” she said.

“Thank you,” I replied, lacking a comeback in the stress of the moment. If she’d come back again I would have told her that if she had a lactating breast she wanted to offer, she was welcome to do so. But otherwise, she’d have to trust me to handle it.

I try to remember that such intrusions come from good intentions, from a pain many women feel at hearing a child crying. However, I am the mom, I know what she needs, and I know when and how I can best give it to her. Some people are helpful, such as an employee who offered to push the stroller while I was paying or people who offer to hold her when I’m not able to. But those who just tell me what they think I should do are not helpful at all. At such times, I wish there was a way to remind them to butt out.


**

Over the past week or so, I’ve been doing a little bit of work. Not a lot, just an hour or two per day. But still, that hour or two is about the only time I have to concentrate. Which doesn’t leave time for anything else.

I finished the item I promised to deliver and don’t plan on doing much more until my return to the office in July. Now that both my statistics class and this work project are over, the small chunk of daily free time is now available for me. I can read, I can write, I can walk, I can try to cross some items off my to-do list.

Today I was able to walk to the library, sit in an armchair and read a book for fun. This was such a strange experience that after about an hour, I started feeling anxious at my lack of productivity. I’m not used to having an hour or more to read. I’d love for this to happen more often, because the list of books on my to-read list is daunting. And I miss being able to immerse myself in a book for hours, the way I did as a kid. Crossing my fingers this may happen more often.

Three nights of night weaning

After three days of night weaning, life is SO much better. The graphs TrixieTracker prepares of Willow’s sleep and nursing show me that she now has a consistent pattern. For the past few days, she’s been sleeping 13-15 hours a day, which is at or above the average of Trixie Tracker users with baby’s this age. The probability chart (yes, this site definitely offers the possibility for overanalysis), which shows the likelihood she will be awake at any time, is now becoming more consistently black on the ends, 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., grey in the middle and white during her awake periods of 8-10 a.m. and 5-7 p.m. I look at that with the same excitement that some women look at a new pair of shoes.


Best of all, I feel better. And it hasn’t been very hard on Mark, who has only had to get up once per night when she cries briefly.

We probably have a bigger challenge on our hands in getting her out of the swing and into the bassinet. But this first experiment shows me that quick change is possible. Yay!

First night of night weaning

The first night was a success! Much better than I expected. The plan was to feed her at 10:30 before I went to bed. I’d wake up to feed her again at 2 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. Mark would handle any other wakeups prior to 7 a.m.

She woke up only once for Mark and he only had to do a five-minute check. She was already back asleep before the ten minute check. With my earplugs, I managed to sleep through this.

I woke up motivated and enthusiastic with the hope that by getting up and feeding her as scheduled, I was reducing the amount of middle-of-the-night wake-ups I’d have in the future.

In sum, Mark only had to get up once. I got up twice between 11:15 p.m. and 8 a.m. and feel like a new person. Willow awoke smiling and happy.

They say the first night is the hardest, but it wasn’t bad at all. Hopefully it will only get better from here. I look at my Trixie Tracker chart and last night was the first sane-looking one ever. While others had lines of feedings all through the night, this one had longer feedings with longer spaces in between. Aaahhh!

Once we’ve eliminated one of these remaining feedings, we’ll start working on transition from the swing, which will probably be a bit tougher in the initial nights.

So far though, so good. I see more sleep on my horizon and it’s a wonderful thing.

The night weaning plan

I have spent the past few days assiduously tracking Willow’s sleep and nursing. I’ve sought advice everywhere I can find it. I’ve gathered everything I can to try to make the decisions that will make this process easiest on everyone.

I’ve learned she eats an average of five times a night. These occur roughly at:

11 p.m.

1 a.m.

3:30 a.m.

between 5 and 6 a.m.

and between 6 and 7 a.m.

See why I’m sleep deprived?


The plan on night 1 is to cut this down to three. I’m thinking I’ll focus on the 11 p.m., 3:30 a.m. and 6 a.m. feeding, waking her up an hour in advance of those times to give her milk. Any other wake-ups will not result in feedings, but comforting by Mark.

This is an emotionally difficult process. There have been a few occasions on which I’ve let her cry, but never at night. It’s been when I’m just worn out and can’t take anymore. So she cries 5, 10, 20 minutes and I don’t feel too bad because I’m at a point where there is nothing else I feel I can do. To plan in advance to let her cry feels different.

There is part of me that wants to follow her lead and let her figure out the rhythms at her own pace. That worked fine with River. But I know too many people whose kids are still getting up multiple times per night at 9 months, 14 months, 17 months, two years. I can’t be the parent or the partner or the employee I want to be if I’m sleep deprived that long.

I don’t like the thought of her crying. But I think the potential harm that comes from crying a bit over a few days is less than what she’ll lose by having a sleep-deprived parent over the long-term.

The plan is to start weaning the third feeding (perhaps the shortest of the three) right away, reducing the nursing time by two minutes each night.

Once we are down to two feedings per night, we can work on the transition from the swing to a bassinet. And once that is OK, I’ll begin to wean the second feeding.

Of course, this is optimistic, and it’s likely to all get messed up by our upcoming trip. But it’s helpful to have a plan, something in writing we can refer to and hopefully stick to in the middle of the night, when exhaustion and emotion can lead us to throw in the towel.

I can only hope it works well, and works quickly, for her sake and mine.

Tracking

I am a sucker for data, dangerously so. I get a strange pleasure from collecting information (and I waste too much time doing it) and seeing it presented in concise, graphic summaries.


I also waste too much time collecting information that might some day be useful. So I’m suspicious of when people tell me to track things for my infant. It drove me crazy when the nurses at the hospital would ask me when I last fed Willow and for how many minutes on each side. I don’t know! I’m barely conscious – you expect me to keep count? I feed her when she’s hungry! The diaper count charts they gave us to fill in went in the garbage. Beyond the very early indications of whether or not the baby’s system is functioning, why in the world should we care how many pees and poops she has?


There is also the danger of too much information. Our pediatrician tried to get us to use formula due to insufficient poopy diapers. I know several people who have stopped breastfeeding because they couldn’t be in control of how many ounces their baby was getting per day.


So when someone gushed about Trixie Tracker on an online forum I belong to, I thought that was something I didn’t want to get sucked into.


Then Mark and I watched the Sleepeasy Solution and decided we want to wean, or at least reduce the number of nighttime feedings. But in order to do that, we should have a good idea of when the feedings are taking place, so I can choose the best times for her advance feedings. I want to make sure she’s not truly waking up hungry and I’ll feel more confident about that if I base our plan on data.


Also, it is nice to see whether or not this intervention results in more sleep. Whether or not she continues to nurse a similar amount. And if she transfers her nursing to the day instead of the night. All of this is easier to see with data.

So perhaps this could be useful for a few weeks while we attempt to make these changes.


But then I think about my return to work just over two months from now. It would be nice to see a pattern of when the nursing happens, so that I can try to organize my schedule to be home for the most important feeds. Again, a chart does wonders.


It’s also cool to be able to compare your charts with other user’s children of similar ages. Is my child an outlier or not? Am I more sleep deprived than the average parent of a four-month old? Of course, I can’t count on the fact that every other user is entering data correctly. Nor is a Trixie Tracker user a representative sample (probably overinvolved, obsessive parents are overrepresented). But it’s still nice to have something to compare our situation with, as it can feel kind of isolating getting up every hour or so in the middle of the night and wondering if anyone else is going through this.


You also find out random, but interesting facts, such as I spend 200-236 minutes per 24 hours nursing Willow (that’s where all my time went), or that she spends 10.5 hours per day awake. I can see graphically that she is a short, but frequent eater, with feedings ranging from 8-20 minutes, but occurring 10-12 times per day. Could I live without this information? Yes. But it gives me a little more clarity on where we are and how I spend my time in what seems like a daze of feedings, changes, and naps.

So I’m now on day 2 of using Trixie Tracker and will probably be hooked for a couple of months.  Only the first two weeks are free, unless you want to track only diapers (why, I have no idea).  There is all kinds of stuff you could track. You could go crazy and spend your life tracking every single diaper, bottle, nap, solid food, nursing, and medication your child ever experiences.  You can waste a lot of time getting averages, scatterplots, and probabilities.   Or you could have a need to track certain things (a child with difficulty accepting solids, sleep problems, a burdensome medication schedule) and tracking these particular items might make things more clear, or might reveal patterns that can illuminate what is and isn’t working. 

Yes, a pen and paper works. But for me, having the data tranformed into charts and graphs makes things more clear. And being the data geek I am, this clarity gives me an unwarranted sense of having more control. 


Do you collect data on your child’s schedule? If so, how and why?

The lack of sleep blues

With the exception of a rare night here and there, I have not gotten any more than three hours sleep at a time for the last 120 days. This is having a cumulative effect and I’m reaching the point where it needs to get better. Not sleeping enough bums me out. I overeat. I feel overwhelmed, anxious and incapable. I start to see my children more as a constant responsibility than as the treasures they are.


Last night, on Willow’s four-month birthday, Mark and I watched the Sleepeasy Solution, a DVD that had come highly recommended by several friends. The methods seemed simple enough, but it’s still an emotional process to not respond to your child immediately. I was crying watching some of the parents watch their kids cry, even as I knew why they were doing it and even as I saw them later say it was worth it. Mark laughed at the thought of me crying. So guess who will be on duty when Willow is crying?

We want to try this method, but even that seems overwhelming right now because we have so much to work on. This includes:

1. Getting her out of swaddles

2. Reducing the 4-6 nightly feeds

3. Getting her from the swing to sleeping on a firm surface. I wouldn’t mind delaying this one, except that we’ll soon spend a month traveling and won’t have a swing on hand then.

Last night I ditched the swaddle and tracked her sleep and her feeds. She woke up four times between 11 p.m. and 5 p.m. By 5:30, I just took her into bed with me and lost track.

For the next two nights, I’ll continue tracking and putting her down without a swaddle. Then on Friday night, we want to start implementing the plan, so that Mark can be in charge of any non-feed wakeup.

The DVD suggests setting an alarm and waking the child up to feed one hour before the usual time. This ensures the child is full, so any subsequent wakeups shouldn’t be due to hunger. They also suggest reducing the length of the feed by two minutes per night, until that feed has been weaned. They say that by five months, babies don’t need any night feeds.

An example is provided for a baby with two nightly wakeups. That seems clear enough. But what about when you have 4-6 nightly wakeups? Do you try to wean down to two? Do you stop the extra two to four cold turkey? I don’t really know and am spending my free time researching these questions and stressing out about them.

Willow is 16 pounds, twice her birth weight, with plenty of rolls of fat. She doesn’t NEED this many feedings at night. She doesn’t need them more than I need the sleep. She should be capable of transferring these feedings to the day. But still, I’m full of doubts, insecurities, worries.

I know this is a contentious issue, with people holding strong views on either side. It’s an issue we pretty much escaped with River. Since he always slept well at night, we never had to decide whether or not to let him cry. All we did was gradually move him further away from me, so that he didn’t smell the milk. He gradually needed less. It was natural and easy.

This time it’s different. I have met her needs on demand for four months. I want to continue to meet her feeding needs. But I want to shift those from the night to the day. I don’t think it’s going to be easy.

The calm phase

I think I can finally say that breastfeeding has reached a normal stage. Hooray! It only took about 3.5 months and a heck of a lot of pain and struggle, but we did it! I’ve been off the nifedipine for over a week now and while I still have some blanching of the nipples due to Raynaud’s, it’s not painful enough to do anything about it. I’ve stopped attending the weekly breastfeeding support group, and kind of miss it. I’ll probably drop in closer to the time I return to work to get some advice on pumping.
I am so very grateful to that hospital-sponsored group. It was a lifesaver to know that once per week, I could get some non-judgmental feedback, specific advice and support to continue on.

Now I can hold my baby as she suckles and focus on the increasing heft of her body, the brightness of her young eyes, the changing patterns of acne, eczema and scratches on her forehead, the softness of her cheeks and the precious movements of her little ivory hands. These are moments that I try to mentally photograph, videotape, put safely in storage.

Sleep seems to be going a little better. Though she still wakes up many times per night, I’ve gotten at least two three-hour chunks of sleep for the past two nights. Though it doesn’t seem like much, it makes a big difference.

We’ve got her sleeping in the swing, with the toy bar over her legs to secure her. She goes to sleep there and I return her there after the first few feedings. Somewhere around 5 a.m. she gets restless and I take her into bed with me to feed her while I lie on my side. Often we’ll both fall asleep for at least a little while.

This morning Mark came in to tell me he was leaving for work and that River was at the table eating breakfast. Willow lay against my chest. I looked down at her closed eyes and her softly rising chest, and realized we were sleeping in the exact same position. Both of us had both of our arms raised above our heads.

I know I have to get her out of our bed in order for us both to get better rest. But I must admit I do enjoy those first moments of gazing upon her in the mornings and enjoying her first smiles upon waking up and seeing me.

The calm phase

I think I can finally say that breastfeeding has reached a normal stage. Hooray! It only took about 3.5 months and a heck of a lot of pain and struggle, but we did it! I’ve been off the nifedipine for over a week now and while I still have some blanching of the nipples due to Raynaud’s, it’s not painful enough to do anything about it. I’ve stopped attending the weekly breastfeeding support group, and kind of miss it. I’ll probably drop in closer to the time I return to work to get some advice on pumping. I am so very grateful to that hospital-sponsored group. It was a lifesaver to know that once per week, I could get some non-judgmental feedback, specific advice and support to continue on. Now I can hold my baby as she suckles and focus on the increasing heft of her body, the brightness of her young eyes, the changing patterns of acne, eczema and scratches on her forehead, the softness of her cheeks and the precious movements of her little ivory hands. These are moments that I try to mentally photograph, videotape, put safely in storage. Sleep seems to be going a little better. Though she still wakes up many times per night, I’ve gotten at least two three-hour chunks of sleep for the past two nights. Though it doesn’t seem like much, it makes a big difference. We’ve got her sleeping in the swing, with the toy bar over her legs to secure her. She goes to sleep there and I return her there after the first few feedings. Somewhere around 5 a.m. she gets restless and I take her into bed with me to feed her while I lie on my side. Often we’ll both fall asleep for at least a little while. This morning Mark came in to tell me he was leaving for work and that River was at the table eating breakfast. Willow lay against my chest. I looked down at her closed eyes and her softly rising chest, and realized we were sleeping in the exact same position with Both of us had both of our arms raised above our heads. I know I have to get her out of our bed in order for us both to get better rest. But I must admit I do enjoy those first moments of gazing upon her in the mornings and enjoying her first smiles upon waking up and seeing me.

I want sleep

Bad. Really bad. Enough that I’m starting to seriously consider letting Mark use the frozen milk one night – whatever it takes to let me sleep through the night.

But then I remember that if I go from 2 -6 feedings a night down to zero, my boobs are probably going to explode. I’d have to get up and pump anyway. Then I worry about screwing up my supply. One thing that’s been nice about giving Willow every single feeding of her life directly from the boob is that my supply seems to be right where she needs it.

But then again, sleep would be so nice. I feel like I did during my irresponsible college days, when I stayed up late too often and went through the day in a fog. I’m there, but I’m not. I would undoubtedly be a better parent, a better partner, a more contented person, if I had enough sleep to be fully mentally present. In that respect, it’s in my children’s interest, as well as my own, to make sure I get some sleep soon.

I know I’m building up unrealistically high expectations for this video that we’ll be watching in 13 days (whose counting?:)). But I’m hoping it will help us to ramp down the nighttime feedings. Getting it down to a maximum of one or two a night would be wonderful at this point.

In other sleep-related issues, we can’t figure out where to put Willow to sleep. In an attempt to remove her from the parental bed (1. to reduce nighttime wakings and feedings and 2. so mom and dad can sleep together again one of these days), we’ve been putting her in the swing in our room. That works, in terms of getting her to sleep, and I can handle the annoying rhythmic clicks. But she has started to propel herself, even when swaddled, so that she starts out vertical and ends up horizontal. We’re worried she’ll propel herself off the swing entirely. This may limit the lifespan of the swing, something we never had to worry about with River, as he laid there like a log until he reached the maximum weight limit. Lately, she starts out in the swing, then ends up in my bed.

The next thought was the bassinet. But Mark worries that the fabric-covered border around the bassinet reduces air flow in the same way a crib bumper does and is a likely cause of SIDS. So he doesn’t want her there.

We don’t want to set up the full-size crib in River’s room until we return from our big trip, and until she is sleeping better.

So what’s left is the carseat and our bed.

Should we try the carseat, since that is where she’ll most likely be sleeping when we travel? Any other ideas?

sleep experiments

I tried two new things last night.

1. I kept Willow out of my bed, putting her back to sleep after each wakeup in her swing (which we moved into our room).

2. Each time she woke up, I unswaddled her, to encourage her to eat more before falling back asleep, then re-swaddled her before putting her down.

Did this help? No. She woke up at 11, 2:15, 4:15, 6:15 and 7:15. Since I went to bed at 10 and fed her for at least 20 minutes each wake-up, the only time I got a two-hour chunk of sleep was between 11:30 and 2.

In the same way I counted down to cutting her frenulum or getting her thrush medication, I am now counting down the days (17) until we can watch the sleep video, implement whatever they suggest, get positive results, and get more sleep. Right? I can only hope.

I am so ready for some more sleep

It’s been well over three months since I have been able to go to bed without waking up two, three, four or more times during the night. Most of the time, I’m astounded that I’m able to function. I’m grateful that she’s always woken up just to eat, then goes back to sleep. But it’s been a long time now and I’m getting ready to see an end in sight (though I don’t see it yet).

For us, a very good night is two wakeups. Last night was not a good night. It was one of the nights in which I lose track of exactly how many times I fed her. I’d feed her, put her down, lay down myself, and pray she’d go to sleep so that I could keep my exhausted body supine. She’d fuss, I’d pick her up, feed her again, bent over in the dark and repeat.

Somewhere around 5:30 a.m., with both breasts emptied, she was sucking lightly as though on a pacifier. I was way too tired to be her pacifier. So although we have not used a pacifier yet, I decided to see if using one would allow me to sleep. So I went downstairs to try to find one. No luck. So instead, I ate cookies (yes, dumb move for someone carrying around 30-plus extra pounds) and checked email.

She still hadn’t settled, so I fed her again. Now I was starting to get angry. Angry as in – your needs win every time don’t they? Don’t you recognize that moms need some sleep too?

I was only angry, really angry, at River once as a baby. It was when I took him to Panama at six months old. Every time I put him back in his crib, he cried. I gave him a bottle of formula to try to fill him up and knock him out into sleep, but he sucked very slowly on the bottle, keeping me up another hour. I was living with a local family and there wasn’t anyone that could help me out in the night. So it felt overwhelming.

Babies don’t deserve anger and when I feel it, I know it’s a sign that I’ve reached my limit. I gave her one more shot at the breast and when she didn’t go down, I brought her to Mark.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know and I don’t care. I need some sleep.”

As I passed her over to him, she smiled, awake and cheery as mom was exhausted and frazzled.

I returned to bed with earplugs and enjoyed almost three hours of uninterrupted sleep.

My friend who went to Morocco for two weeks lost her milk supply, which reminds me that every choice has its consequences. But her five-month old also sleeps 10 hours straight.

I wonder how much of Willow’s frequent wakings are due to breastfeeding (I imagine there would be less if she was formula fed), to cosleeping (her being away from me would probably cause her to wake up less), to not being huge (bigger babies are able to go longer without a feeding), to not using a pacifier.

Last year around this time, a friend was struggling with similar issues. She got the Sleepy Planet DVD and said it was amazingly helpful. She mailed it to us, but said the methods can’t be used until the baby is at least 4 months old and weighs 14 pounds.

I don’t think we’ll have an issue with the weight. So I’m waiting until Willow’s four-month birthday (3 more weeks!), then will watch the video with Mark on that evening. I’m hoping it will be magical for us too. If so, I may only have a few more weeks of sleeplessness to go.

gender differences in sleep disturbances

An interesting new piece of research showing yet another area where moms are putting in more than their share – in getting up in the middle of the night to care for children.

I wonder how much of this discrepancy is due to breastfeeding. While breastfeeding, the burden is pretty much on the mom to deal with middle-of-the-night feedings, either by getting up, or by pumping enough milk so that dad can give a bottle in the night. Dad can get up to change the diaper before the feeding (for me, that was a big help) but still, dad’s sleep disturbance will be 10-15 minutes and mom’s will probably be 15-60. At what point does a well-rested mother, who can be a better parent during the day and/or better breadwinner for her family outweigh the benefits of breastfeeding?

Assuming both parents are equally capable of meeting the child’s need, an author advises, “For parents of young children, the best approach might be discussions and negotiations about whose turn it is to get up with the baby tonight."

I have to thank Mark for introducing the idea of earplugs. It seemed a bit cruel to me at first, to tune out the sounds of your baby’s crying. However, it forced us to decide each evening, who gets to wear earplugs? The person with the earplugs in is allowed to sleep. The person without the earplugs is the one who gets up. So the decision as to who is responsible is made every night before we go to bed. We were lucky to not have to deal with much in the way of sleep disturbances after the first few months – but taking turns and having a schedule definitely helped us get through the initial period.

How do you decide who gets up in your house?

Pregnancy week 32

I struggle on a daily basis to stay conscious at work. This is no fun. I don’t want to be the pregnant lady passed out in the hallway.

Continued trouble sleeping means I’m taking a Tylenol pm on an almost nightly basis. I feel bad about this. My doctor reassures me that the benefits outweigh the risks. “You will only get heavier and your body will work harder and be more tired as the pregnancy progresses,” he said. “You need to get sleep while you can.” I know he’s right. Having been through it before, I feel my body needs every ounce of sleep and relaxation it can store. Yet I still wish it didn’t require medication.

My aversion to being on my back is so severe I couldn’t even stand lying on my back for 2-3 minutes while the doctor measured my uterus. I read somewhere this affects 8% of women.

I’m starting to wonder how long I want to keep working. A desire to stay busy and active, as well as bring in some income while I can, makes me want to keep going. A desire to rest more regularly and to spend more time cooking, cleaning and reading makes me want to stop. I was reassured to hear my doctor say that most of his patients stop at 36 or 37 weeks. My employer wants people to work to 38 weeks, but I’m no longer sure I’ll make it that long.

My mind is satisfied with rather menial things. I have to break complicated or analytical tasks down into small pieces and accomplish them over several days. I’m strangely content with a list of errands or organizational tasks.

I miss my husband. Due to my sleeping and back-lying issues, he is permanently relegated to the couch. I expected we’d be apart for several months after the birth, allowing at least one of us to get some sleep. I didn’t expect it to start several months beforehand.

I continue to count down, but feel some accomplishment at the 40 days that have passed since I started counting down. The upcoming holidays will hopefully provide distractions.

River is so calm and chipper and cheery about the prospect of the baby. It doesn’t seem to phase him at all. He is the complete zen-master of people entering and exiting his life. It is how I would like to be. He enjoys them while they are there, but doesn’t miss them when they are gone. No one’s absence or presence affects his ability to be happy with his own existence. I hope that quality stays with him.

Realizing goals as I go along

This afternoon Mark was in charge of River and I was supposed to be off. I heard him wake River up from his nap after only an hour of sleep. I could tell from River’s cry (normally he gets up cheery and talkative) that he was still exhausted. I felt a pang in my heart that he should have to get up when he’s still tired. Perhaps I could relate, since I was in bed taking my own nap, and also resented being woken up. I thought River would be crabby all evening as a result.

When I went into his room and urged Mark to go do his errand without River, River’s head fell onto my shoulder and I knew he was still tired. I sang him a song and told him I’d put him back in his crib with some cars and books, for quiet time. I wasn’t sure he’d fall back asleep after such an awakening, but at least he could have a little time to transition alone to wakefulness. I don’t think he touched the cars or books and we woke him up an hour and a half later.

The pain I felt at him possibly being forced to get up when he wasn’t ready made me realize that it’s quite important to me to have a well-rested child. That wasn’t a goal I set out with when I became a parent. But it’s one that over time has assumed importance.

River having adequate rest has benefits for us. It means we have more down time and that when he’s awake, our job is easier because he’s generally in a good mood. I also know that research points to adequate rest as having all kind of implications for learning and intellectual development. But mostly, I think I just appreciate how nice it is to wake up fully rested and to greet the day prepared. It’s no fun to slug through a day. River will have plenty of time to experience that in his life. As long as I can, I’d like to protect him from demands that cut into his sleep and let him enjoy the world on his schedule.

If it could always be this easy

Last night I woke River up. I realized Mark had put him to bed without a sheet on the mattress. Given that we had found a live louse on his head a couple of hours earlier (and then subjected him to another chemical shampoo treatment) I want a fresh sheet every time he puts his head down.

Waking him up is a risk. If we don’t disturb him, we can usually count on 11-12 hours of uninterrupted sleep. If we do disturb him, the risk of a second wakeup increases. Perhaps something about needing to get into that REM zone?

So, as the result of getting him up to put on a sheet, he did wake up a second time last night. In the middle of the night, I heard him talking and calling for us. When I went in, he was upright in his crib.

“What are you doing, River?” I asked. “It’s very late. Can’t you see how dark it is?”

He looked around at the dark, then lay back down and curled into his usual sleeping position. I put the blanket on top of him and wished him sweet dreams. He told me he’d dream about his best friend, then silence for the rest of the night.

Hey, look kid, it’s dark, it’s late, you should be asleep. It worked? If only it was always that easy.

Sleep schedules

We’ve been pretty lucky in not having many issues with sleep, besides difficulty with daytime naps until River started to walk. But every so often, River's schedule changes a bit and we wonder, Is this normal?

For a long time now, he’s been going to bed at 8/8:30 and getting up between 7:30 and 8. But recently, he’s been happily chatting to himself in bed for up to two hours after we put him down. And sometimes he’s getting up as early as 6:30.

Several friends who have experienced sleep problems with their children recommended the SleepyPlanet website for guidance and assistance. In the process of passing on those suggestions to a sleep-deprived friend and parent of a 4-month old, I found this sleep schedule on their site. It's pretty much in line with what we’ve experienced, especially at night, and I think the sleep has been a big factor in his generally cheerful, easy-going disposition.

It’s interesting to see that going forward, we should prepare ourselves for earlier wakeups (in the 6:30-7 range). And that perhaps we should make more of an effort to have him in bed by 8 (it’s often 8:30, especially when he has napped 3 hours until 6 p.m.).

I was also glad to see the recommendation that children not be moved from a crib to a bed before age 3, unless they are climbing out of the crib. My instinct was to keep him in the crib as long as possible. For me, the main reason to move him will be when he is capable of pulling down his pants and going potty on his own. At that point, I wouldn’t want to prevent him being able to go. But until then, I think the crib provides safety, security and comfort, and minimizes distractions and entertainment that could detract from sleep.