Baby Slow Down!

A friend and I were talking today about how demanding and competitive parenting has gotten since we were babies. 25 years ago parents just raised their kids, sure they read books and had to listen to advice given by the generation before (and thus be judged accordingly), but there wasn’t the same “air” of you have to do it this way or your kid is going to be messed up/slow/a low functioning human. What ever happened to happy? There was a time when parents said I just want my kid to be happy and they meant it! It seems that today parents focus on getting their kids to do things faster and grander than ever before. When you ask about how a baby is doing most moms will give you a developmental milestone update (myself included), why don’t we ever just say, you know what my baby is really happy and we are having fun. Why is there all this pressure for our children to be “the best.” Shouldn’t we first try to achieve our personal best and then expect that of our children, I know that I am not at my personal best! Do we forget about ourselves and put all of our eggs into their tiny, innocent little baskets? Everywhere you go you hear moms comparing babies. Some moms do this innocently or from genuine interest (you know who they are) and other moms try to act like it is innocent and genuine but it is coming from somewhere competitive (you totally know who these moms are).

This issue really picks my bum. When I was at a get together of a group of children another mom gave Everly and I a lovely compliment, saying that Everly was  speeding along nicely in her development. Yes she is and we are proud of her I replied, I also said that try as I might I can’t slow her down, lol, this is her pace! Another mom said that since I do what I do for a living Everly should be ahead in her development because I can make her do things. Really? Have you read my blog? This is not the blog of someone who has successfully figured out how to make her daughter do things! stubbornness aside, you can’t make a baby do anything before they are ready (both cognitively and physically); if you could my work with families would not last long and we would never need additional therapy services. If you could just “make” a baby crawl or talk, there wouldn’t be a baby around who was “behind” and they would all be walking and talking at 2 months old (okay that’s an exaggeration, but do you get what I am getting at here?). I don’t want to be accused of forcing my child to do something she isn’t ready to do and I want to enjoy my baby being a baby. As excited as I get for her to meet milestones, I also get a little bit sad every time because it means that she is that much farther away from being an infant, which means that she is growing up and that I can not stop time. Everyone says to me that she will be walking in no time, and they say it so excitedly. I always reply let’s hope not and roll my eyes and then I get these blank stares, lol.

The same idea goes for her sleeping. I realized that trying to “train” her to do something she just wasn’t ready to do was not working for us, so rather than let it consume me again our family took a break in December. I was focusing too much on trying to get her to sleep 12 hours solid at night because of course everything says that she should sleep such and such hours and blah, blah, blah. Of course you want to believe the blah, blah, blahs when you are tired, so you go with it. Well a few months later and nearly 5 books read I have found that not one “sleep solution theorist” has the answer for our family, and you know what- rightly so, as they have never met Everly. For the past few weeks I have married many different “sleep techniques” and have given Everly a bit more of the lead when it comes to sleep and shocker or shockers, she is sleeping better than ever. I have given her what I need to give her and have allowed her to find her way and do the rest. This isn’t to say that every sleep time in our house is blissful, it isn’t and it will never be, because every sleeptime isn’t blissful for me, I am realistic about this now! But we are not fighting each other and keeping logs and making it the focus of our day (and night). Some kids are easy to put to sleep and like to have long naps (Q buddy, that’s you!) some babies aren’t this is Everly.

On a tv show the other day I saw that the mom was using a program to teach her toddler to READ. I was like, are you kidding me? This toddler has the rest of her life to read, and will learn to when it is truly developmentally appropriate, why are you rushing this? I can just image how much google lit up that night from parents searching “baby reading programs” so that they could get it for their own unsuspecting infants before their friends do! But seriously people, reading toddlers? I understand that some geniuses start reading very young, but newsflash eager beavers, these children usually pick up the books and start reading on their own with only having been read to themselves as intervention. Reading with and to your baby is still the best option to promote early literacy, you don’t need some special kit and program.

I am not trying to say that we should stop telling people when our children do wonderful things, of course that should be celebrated. I am saying that the pressure should be taken off of our children and that sometimes just being a happy baby should be wonderful news enough.  When will we start to let our babies be who they are? When will we just relax and enjoy the ride. I say this for myself as well. I always have the developmentalist part of my brain telling me “when” Everly should be achieving certain skills. I was acutely aware that she had a minor delay in gross motor skills in September, lol. But look how that turned out, it goes to show that every baby has their pace for development and learning! I have slowly learned to let go. Things will happen when they are going to happen, and there is no point in getting caught up in it, comparing her to other babies or obsessing. I am challenging myself to enjoy her for the person that she is, because she is wonderful and if push came to shove, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Do The Babies Have Large Talons?

One thing I forgot to ask in the prenatal class was if the babies come out with large talons… I am not sure if they would have told me the truth and said yes, they would have probably lied and said no. It’s fitting that this crucial bit of information was left out like so many other “gems” that may affect one’s decision to procreate. So I am here to tell you that yes, the baby comes with large talons, maybe not right away, but they grow in and they are sharp. Once the nails start growing you realize that you are going to have to cut them. I am not sure there was anything about infant care that I was so terrified about. You are holding this tiny baby hand with it’s 5 paper thin, nearly microscopic nails and you are meant to clip them with razor sharp cutters (okay maybe the cutters are not razor sharp but they might as well be for how scary it is). I made Brandon do it the first few times. The first time he cut her nails she bled, and since fingertips bleed like gutted pigs, the blood kept pouring… reminding us that we had failed on this one. Fortunately she was so tiny and tired that she barely noticed (thank God!). The next few rounds of cutting were uneventful, I think it was once he got confident that he accidentally cut her again, this time she was awake, alert and livid. She cried and bled for what seemed like hours but was probably only 5 minutes. I volunteered to take over after that. So now nail cutting is my job and I do it while she is eating at night (her most naturally sedate time). It’s a good thing that by this point in time I have gone pro nail cutter, because my daughter’s nails grow so fast, I could cut them twice a week if I really wanted to be picky about it, come to think of it the time may have come to get picky. 

Baby and Daddy!

 

Lately each breastfeeding session results in my boobs clawed up, (like I said, those little f***ers are SHARP! Everly has a need for a lot of tactile stimulation right now, and by tactile stimulation I mean clawing, scratching, pinching, twisting and pulling; all of the above are currently offenses committed by her on my sensitive boob skin and nipples. Right now both my right and left breasts look like google maps- little scratches like little streets and scabs that might represent a school or shopping mall. Yes we have started the discipline thing and I take her off the boob and hold her hand and say NO! I have even taken it one step further and I hold her hand and run my finger along the top of it and say ‘gentle’ so that she knows what a gentle touch feels like. But all it takes is one second and she is really good at getting that one second in! I was very near to weaning her from the breast I was so fed up with it, instead she now wears mittens or gets swaddled, which you can guess she really appreciates. How funny does that look, my little baby tucking in for a meal with pink woolen mittens on her hands. The good that has come out of this is that the swaddle really helps her to relax before sleep, thank you breasts for your sacrifice… should have known that the brain in it’s quest for sleep would be willing to sacrifice other body parts.  

Yes, the topic of sleep, always an interesting one in our household. How I wish I could go back to the days where she slept with us in our bed without a peep for solid 8 and 9 hour stretches, only we would all have enough room. In this fantasy my ass wouldn’t be hanging off the side of the bed while B’s leg hangs off the other side, while Everly ‘queen of the bed’ spreads out like a snow angel in the middle, life would be good. But no, life didn’t continue on like it does in dreams and we had to put her in her crib. If you have been reading this blog you know the ordeal that has been for our ‘spirited’ baby. Well it seems that the Baby Whisperer (who told us our child is spirited) has helped this family. I say seems because so far things are going pretty good. She is only waking to feed once in a 12 hour stretch (I am totally willing to live with this) and she is sleeping in her own bed. When she goes down for sleep times it can sometimes be a bit of an ordeal and may take up to 30 minutes, but I feel okay with that because the Baby Whisperer said her worst case had her standing next to the crib for nearly 2 hours. I feel better knowing someone had it worse than us, isn’t that mean, yes it’s mean, but it doesn’t change the fact that I still feel better about it, lol! 

Pickle likes her crib!

Just 4 Hours…

Separation anxiety has hit hard in our house, so much so that it is affecting night time wakings. Everly used to wake only once in a 12 hour stretch and now she is waking every 1 to 2 hours- argh! All I am asking for right now is one stretch of 4 hours that I can sleep uninterrupted, one full sleep cycle, ah it would be lovely. Sometimes when I hear people talking about how much they have slept in a certain period of time I start fantasizing what that would feel like, I like to call this sleep porn. Some of my well meaning friends will look at my face and say oh, maybe I should stop talking about this with you (they don’t want me to be jealous obviously), but I say no, no continue on… tell me what you did when your head hit the pillow, ah yes, that’s right, that’s what I want to hear… dirty, dirty sleep porn.

According to developmental theory that I learned in school (turns out the degree came in handy) she is waking and realizing that we are two different people and that I am not there and so she gets scared. Separation anxiety commonly occurs when babies become mobile on their own- which she now is, the crawling little monkey! We are so proud of her!!! (see the vide0). And if sleepless nights aren’t enough separation anxiety has also brought the only mom will do phase. Gone are the days when she can be soothed by her dad or someone else. At the worst of it I couldn’t even leave the room without her wailing, fortunately these frenzied outbursts seem to be on the decline. I am doing what I am supposed to and saying bye-bye I’ll be right back and then coming back to teach her that I continue to exist even though she can’t see me, silly baby. Some days she thinks this is funny and laughs when I reappear, other days she screams until she can see me again, I guess it’s a learning process!

One of my biggest fears about becoming a mom was how I was going to deal with this only mom will do phase. I am a person who enjoys some time to herself sometimes and I like a small amount of personal space. I wouldn’t say that I have a bubble, but sometimes I like to have no one touching me, that’s not too much to ask is it? If you ask my daughter this question she will say yes, that is too much to ask. I totally understand the motivation behind her behaviour and it’s very touching that she loves me so much and wants to be around me ALL THE TIME, but sometimes I need a break. I know that some mommys thrive on this stage and love the feeling of being needed, I would have to admit that I am not one of those mommys! I want my daughter to be easily settled by both her father and I because quite frankly I get a bit overwhelmed by it all. It is very exhausting to have someone need you so much. I wasn’t expecting this, no where in the “what to expect” book did I find this highlighted as something to expect!

Also, Elizabeth Pantley and I are on the outs. I am not sure if it’s poor timing with the separation anxiety or not, but since we have started the no cry sleep solution Everly’s sleep has gone from so-so to not so great at all. Through reading so much on sleep I have really started to see what a strong association Everly has developed between sucking and sleep. And I am having this feeling that reoccurs in my gut; it tells me the Pantley method will work for us. Giving her what she wants, every time she wants it whilst slowly weaning her from what she wants is turning out to be an exhausting endeavor. We are one week in, she recommeds doing the method for at least 10 days and then doing a follow up log to compare to your original log from day one. 3 more days, we will see where that takes us.

Around the same time I started reading the Pantley book I also started The Baby Whisperer. The Baby Whisperer was recommended to me to help get us on a routine, I don’t do too well with a lack of structure and have often wondered if Everly might do better herself if we nailed down a regular routine. I don’t mean to stick to a strict schedule, I don’t think that helps anyone as you just stress about sticking to the schedule, but I like the sound of a loose routine. Now that Everly is no longer feeding on demand, I don’t see why we can’t move towards more structure than the orders of her little belly 🙂 The one thing I am not sure about the Baby Whisperer routine is that E for Eat occurs at the beginning of the EASY routine and S for Sleep is not right after. I have always fed Everly right before she sleeps, so switching will throw her for a bit of a loop, but will it help to break the suck to sleep association… hmmmmm?

Oh and to end on a positive note here (seemed to be a lot of complaining in this post- he he), I want to repeat myself and say that Everly is doing a 4 point cross crawl now!!! I am so proud of her I had to say it again. To see her little booty scooting behind me is so adorable. Often when she has completed a longer length she will turn her face up to look at me and she looks so proud. I applaud her and tell her how wonderful she is and she smiles and then we continue on to repeat the process, right now this is the highlight of my day. I didn’t read this in the ‘what to expect’ book either, this one was a good surprise that I didn’t even know was coming 🙂

Elizabeth Pantley Will You Marry Me?

Okay, I know she is married already, but maybe she would leave her husband and come live with Everly and I? As you may have guessed I just started reading The No Cry Sleep Solution  by Elizabeth Pantley and  I love it. I think what makes me love it, is that she is realistic. There is one section called realistic goals and do you know what it says? Well I will tell you what it says… it says that sleeping for a 5 hours stretch is considered sleeping through the night for a baby, hmmm, if you go by that, Everly has been sleeping through the night since she was a few weeks old. There was not any nonsense talk like… my program will make your baby sleep 12 hours uninterruped and if your baby doesn’t you are doing something wrong and probably a huge failure. The language in this book is so supportive and loving towards the baby. While I was reading it I was thinking, yes, this is where I need to be. So today we did steps 1, 2 and 3. The first two are basic info and safety stuff and the third is a sleep log. Tomorrow we will set out our plan, yes that’s right our plan. And you know what? No you don’t know what, but again I am going to tell you… Everly doesn’t have to cry. How do you like them apples. Instead of letting her cry, we will be helping her to learn to fall back asleep on her own, doesn’t that seem more fair?!

I also have to take the time to admit that the beginning of the book made me feel like a terrible mother. It wasn’t anything that the author said per say, it was my reaction to it. She gave researched based reasons why babies should not be left to cry it out and although I have read many of these reasons before there were some new ones. There was one especially that made me cry, it was written from the baby’s perspective, how they may feel when they wake up in the middle of the night. Now I understand that a lot of that is subjective and that no one really knows what the baby is thinking, but I know that left in the same situation I would not be feeling that great either. Once more I was left feeling that I should have done more than a quick overview of the different schools of thought out there on sleep training. But like I said before, I just went with what seemed to work for everyone around me. We all do that so I am trying not to beat myself up about it. I  know that I wasn’t being a bad mother and that I was just trying to help my baby to learn something the best way that I knew how. I don’t want to be misunderstood here and sound like I think that parents who let their babies cry it out are bad parents, that’s not it at all! The crying it out method just did not work for us, it has worked great for a lot of people though; I believe that you have to go with what suits your family best.

Everly has had a bit of a cold since Christmas Eve, this is her first cold and it was not a welcome first! She is pretty stuffy and has a little cough. We have been giving her saline squirts up the nose and even gave her some Advil Cold for infants because she was running a little bit of a temperature. We took her to the doctor yesterday who said that she looks fine and it’s just a cold that is hanging on, he said that if it is not gone in 3 days to bring her back in. Lucky for us, the cold hasn’t made her more grumpy during the day, unlucky for us, it has made her more grumpy during the night- argh! Combine this with teeth that are trying to cut through and you have a lovely little gem of a baby in the middle of the night, lol! She has been waking a little more than usual and last night I just gave up and brought her to bed with us, she didn’t sleep much better there unfortunately. Ahh baby, I hope the cold goes away and the teeth pop out, I hate seeing her like this.

What has struck me as interesting lately is how much Everly is like me. I know in theory how personality is thought to develop and am aware of the whole nature/nurture argument and have to say that I am leaning a lot towards nature, ha ha. In all honesty I think it’s somewhere in the middle. For example I see character traits of my own that I like about myself and I nurture those in her and the same goes for her dad. The traits that I don’t like too much about my personality she is picking up too though, and I am not reinforcing them, lol- how does that work?!? It’s just so weird to look at her behaving in a certain way or moving her face into an expression in reaction to something and knowing that I behave and react the same way. I was once told that our children take what we have and bring it up another level- if that’s true we had better hope that Everly only amps up the positive qualities or we are on for some TROUBLE! lol!

The Holidays Are Over.

We had an absolute blast with Everly for her first Christmas. I honestly can not remember a Christmas that has been more fun or meaningful for me. Every single thing was new and magical again. Seeing the reflection of the lights in her eyes and watching her tear open gifts and laugh as she played with the B*ll*s*it button (oops, lol), was awesome, I am grinning from ear to ear now just thinking about it. Everly was very lucky and received so many generous gifts. I think that we probably have double the amount of toys in our house right now, which is okay because half of them are ready to be packed away anyway because she is too old for them- so these Christmas toys could not have come at a better time 🙂 Our family is very blessed and for that we are so thankful. 

Our tree!

 

The holidays were also eventful. Everly started to say mama with meaning, clap her hands, wave bye-bye, sign for more and she began to get on the move by crawling and pulling to stand. When she was born, my dad said that Everly would be crawling by Christmas and he was right. She doesn’t have the most graceful crawl and sometimes she still face plants but boy does she move! The pulling to stand skill is more recent. Once she realized that she could go from her hands and knees to sitting and from sitting to hands and knees, she spent an entire day perfecting the art. In this perfecting, she found that while on her bum, she could get on one knee somehow and if there was something close to grab, she could pull herself up- now she tries to pull herself up on everything that she can reach. My dad also said the she would be walking by my birthday (March) and as much as I don’t want to stunt Everly’s development I kind of hope he is wrong because I want her to be a little baby for just a little bit longer! 

Baby on the move!

 

During the holidays we all took a break from life as usual. We let our routine go and just rolled with the punches… and now we are getting punched for it! Now that isn’t to say that I wouldn’t have done what we did, I totally would have and would do it again, it was worth it; I wasn’t about to let schedules and routines get in the way of the holidays and having fun! Everly had a great time too! She got to stay up past her bedtime for many nights in a row and she was nursed to sleep because by the time she was going to sleep she was so overtired and cranky it was the only thing that would work! Oh the holidays were fun. 

Now that the holidays are over, we tried to resume life as normal and as you could have probably guessed it didn’t really work. Last night was our first attempt at bedtime as we used to know it, well she would have no part in it, she wrestled with us the whole time. I ended up rocking her to sleep in the rocking chair, which only took a swift 45 minutes. B voted that we put her in the crib and let her cry it out again, that lasted 5 minutes and I decided that I couldn’t take it anymore. If we can avoid all that crying again I really would like to. I can’t honestly say that it worked all that great because once there was a change in routine we had to start all over again, so it feels like she really didn’t learn anything at all and just got used to it. This realization made me feel kind of crappy, kind of like wow, she just gave up on us coming to get her so she went to sleep. I don’t know that I want her to feel that way, but I also want her to know how to self soothe and put herself back to sleep. Is there a way to do both? I have no clue but I have decided to try to learn. 

When I started the sleep training research I read quick outlines of the different theories out there. Most of them said that they involve some crying, but the way in which you let the baby cry differs. So, after much deliberation we went with the Sleepsense Program and well if you have been reading this blog you know how that worked out! After nearly 60 days in the Sleepsense Program we realized that it wasn’t working, if it had worked we would have used it again now! Honestly I just can’t see putting Everly and I through that again. As a result, we have decided to revisit some of the other theories and possibly give them a chance too. Or maybe, combine many different sources and come up with something original that works perfectly for us. I know that you are supposed to choose one method and stick with it, so we don’t intend to flip flop, we stuck with Sleepsense for 60 days afterall! So after the reading, it will be time to make choices. The choices I refer to will be based in reality, none of this nonsense about her sleeping 12 hours uninterrupted every night without fail. If she does end up doing that, well that’d be great, but really, I don’t mind getting up once a night to feed her. I realize that in the grand scheme of things she isn’t really that challenging though the night, more than anything I just want to be able to lay her down in her bed, say goodnight and have her asleep contentedly. I want to watch her peacefully drift off to sleep, feeling secure and happy.  In the end, I don’t want this to be about anything other than Everly and her parents getting a good night’s sleep and going to bed happy! So here begins that journey.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

This has been a busy and eventful week for us- hence the limited blog postings!

I had my first day back at work on Wednesday. Yes Everly is just 7 months old, and yes I am still on maternity leave technically, but I have decided to go back one day each week until I have to be back for good. I say have to be back like it is a bad thing but it is not. Today I realized how much I really love my job and how much I missed wearing this hat in my life. When I was driving to the office this morning I was giddy, yes actually giddy, isn’t that weird. I guess for some people that is probably the weirdest thing that they could imagine- being giddy about going to work. But when you are off for a bit of time and really haven’t been engaging your brain in the same way for 8 months it is really exciting. Oh and I guess you have to actually like your job too.

Having Everly I think has enabled me to be so much better at my job too. I am not saying that you have to have kids to be good at what I do, but it sure puts everything into perspective. When I visited a foster home today with 4 children under the age of 4 I had an increased understanding of what their days look like and how tired that foster mom must get sometimes. I pictured bedtime routines and the possibility of night wakings from all 4 children at all different times. I thought of what it must be like to be handed a newborn baby, care for it and then 7 months later have the child be adopted. I don’t know if I could do that. Obviously with Everly being my daughter I know she is mine to keep, but does knowing a baby is not yours to keep, stop you from loving them any less.

This week Everly also started waving bye-bye again, clapping her hands and she even signed for more a few times. She was waving bye- bye a little while ago and then she stopped it was the weirdest thing. She started back up again about 10 days ago and is still pretty inconsistent and she waves backwards (towards herself), but it is the cutest thing ever. When she signed for more I thought I would be hesitant to believe she really signed, but the way in which she did it left me no doubt- she looked up at the bowl of Cheerios with her mouth wide open and brought her fingers together. She has only done it a handful of times again, but it’s there in her brain, I saw it! She started clapping on Tuesday when we went swimming. I was clapping my hands together to make splashes and she started doing the same and there you have it- she would not stop, lol! The first time my dad saw it he was just beside himself as he has been trying to get her to patty-cake for a few weeks now. She looked at all of us smiling and clapping at her and cheering and she had the proudest expression on her little angel face (makes me get a bit misty eyed thinking about it, lol!)

Baby had her first Christmas party this weekend! Usually B and I throw an evening event for adults, but this year, with the new addition we had to tweak it a bit. We decided to go with a daytime kid/baby friendly event and it went really well. We had tons of kids (and their parents) here, we had great food and yummy hot chocolates with peppermint schnapps! I knew it was a hit with the kids because none of them wanted to leave- bless their little hearts but we are not yet ready to become the Duggar family, lol! I do not have one ounce of Michelle Duggar’s patience!!!

After our kids party we headed to an evening birthday/holiday party at a friend’s house with Everly in tow. I wasn’t sure how she would do as she was going to be out waaaay past her bedtime, but you know there is only one way to find out and we could have come home if things went South! I was so amazed by her. She had a little nap on the way over there and then was happy as a darned clam the entire time. What am I saying, I was amazed, who am I kidding- there were people there fawning over her, of course she was happy the entire time, lol! If I have learned anything about my kid it is that she is a giant ham! People say to her, oh you are so cute and she looks back at them with either her award winning toothless grin or the eye flutter where her eyelashes sweep the floor. I always said I wanted a kid who knew how to work a crowd, lol!

At the party Everly may have done something pretty eventful… she has been saying the sounds mama and dada for a while now but up until recently really did not have an understanding of what the sounds meant. In the past week we have been able to say to here, where’s dada or where’s mama and she will look for the appropriate person and then smile when she sees them, with this burst in receptive language I knew that the connection to her expressive language would be soon. At the party I happened upon her sitting with her daddy whilst charming one of the guests. I walked into the room out of her sight and when she looked up and saw me she said it, crystal clear, plain as day MAMA and smiled at me. B and I both had a blank expression on our faces as this was the first time she had uttered the sounds in the correct context. The guest said, wow, she says mama already? B and I said that may have been the very first time, that’s why we are both stunned like deer in headlights, lol. I was like the Grinch in that moment, my heart grew. It’s not like I even had an heart deficiency problem and that it needed to grow, but it did anyway and it broke the heart measuring thing too, I know it did because I heard that, bwong-ker-snap sound. End of paragraph point- I was proud. We will see if it continues and then I guess we will know for sure if she really meant it and I guess real or not, it sure meant the world to me.

Today is Sunday and we are off to see my mom. My mom has not seen Everly since July so this should be fun. Did I mention that she has no idea we are coming to see her either…

Quote of the day, “I feel like a prize asshole, no one even mentions my casserole,” heard on Flight of the Conchords (The Tough Brets), Hurt Feelings rap.

JINX!

Yes, I did in fact jinx myself. When will I learn, lol? Okay, I realize that what I write might not have an effect on the real world in such a way, can I really be that superstitious? In a word- yes. Do you ever notice that when things are going really great or really tough we find reasons why things are great or why things are tough and then we become superstitious about it. Kind of like before when I talked about sports teams not shaving or changing their socks, maybe I should start doing that. But in all seriousness now, I just have completely lost the ability to determine what events lead up to us having a good night as opposed to a more challenging night. I have written everything down for 42 nights; every nap time/duration and every bedtime and sleep amount for the night. I wrote down what time we started our routine at and tried to correlate it with length of sleep or night wakings and there is no pattern. Seems to me she just makes up her mind to have a rough night and then does it like a champ- nothing is half-assed in our house, if you are going to do something, do it up right!

I was “collecting” all of this “data” over these last 42 days just for the pure and simple fact that I may be able to see a pattern emerge and then start to follow it. This doesn’t mean that I think this whole sleep thing is an experiment, but rather that I am trying to get it over and done with as fast as possible and if I can see a pattern and replicate it to ease the challenges for everyone why wouldn’t I? Sounds great in theory, but you know what it hasn’t really played out that way. While we are on the topic of theories, I had the notion that it would take 42 DAYS  for sleep training to fully commence. I choose this number because it takes an adult brain, which is (arguably) fully mature, at least 21 days to make a behaviour change. So I figured that a developing baby brain would take double that for sure. Well here we are at 42 days and baby maintains that she will not be sleep trained. Maybe it’s at least 42 days… who am I kidding, this is going to be an ongoing thing isn’t it!

We had a couple of really good weeks, so when she woke up tonight at 2:30am, I knew immediately what we were going to face and I was dreading it. I got up and looked at the couch- hello old friend, barely dry from 2 weeks ago’s frustrated tears, it’s me, I have come to sit on you again while my baby does her thing. And baby did her thing, well honestly, she is still doing her thing but it has been downgraded from a code red to green with the occasional yellow.

The colour codes come from our baby monitor. Since our place is pretty tiny there is really no need for a baby monitor with noise, we just keep her door open a crack and our door wide open and I can pretty much hear her roll over from my bed. I keep the monitor on but the sound off so all we see is lights. The lights lit our room up like Vegas tonight- flashy yellows, oranges and reds! You can probably guess that red does not mean that baby is happy. Wouldn’t that be funny to see on a monitor- a smiley face or a sad face. Now an even better thought, wouldn’t it be great if baby came with a manual that had a trouble shooting section that told you how to maintain that smiley face. Maybe that’s what I was trying to do by writing everything down, maybe I was trying to create an Everly manual?

So I am at a bit of a crossroads, like Britney- not a girl and not yet a woman, only different. Do I continue to write all of this down and keep track or just throw caution to the wind and let what happens happen… what ever happens is going to happen whether I write it down or not, but maybe writing it down gave me that little bit of control that I was craving in this whole situation. With our first family vacation days away (yeay!), I knew that things were going to fall apart a little bit and that our routine would be a little messed up but I am okay with that because we are going to be somewhere new and different. I guess I just think that because we are home things should have some continuity if they are going to be same old, same old.

I just want to point out that I don’t blame Everly for these sleep challenged nights and I don’t think that she is a “bad” baby or a “bad sleeper.” I think that she is a wonderful baby and a great sleeper, she just doesn’t do well with conformity, lol, no just kidding. I think she is like every other baby out there in that they will do what they are going to do according to their internal clock. When Everly wants to sleep through the night without waking she will and on nights that she won’t she just won’t, there is nothing that I can do about it and it doesn’t mean that she is bad or to blame. As adults we all have a crappy nights sleep every now and again and we are not trying to process the entire world as a brand new thing while developing a mountain of skills. Baby work is hard work. What we are trying to do with the sleep training is to help her learn how to get the best night’s sleep that she can. And as anyone who has tried to learn something knows- it isn’t always easy to pick up a new skill, especially when you are learning 100 others at the same time!

Oh blessed silence… I think it’s time for me to go to bed. 4:29 am, exactly 2 hours from when she woke up. The good thing about tonight though was that the protesting did not start until she was up for an hour and 15 minutes, the time before this she protested for nearly the entire 2 hours- make way for progress! Ah, how I love this baby of mine 🙂

Is This A Routine?

So it’s been how many days since I last blogged… did I take a hiatus without even knowing it? I think so. Kind of like Gray’s Anatomy and their rip off episode a few weeks ago, oh well at least I have all the Christmas shows coming up to take it’s place. Yes I am a little bit addicted to some tv. I can admit it, I don’t care. I know that some people are all like, I don’t watch tv… well congrats to you, you don’t watch tv, I do and I like it. Right now the PVR is my best friend. I don’t know what I would do without it. I think the reason I actually like tv still is because of the PVR, if I didn’t have one, I would miss everything and then maybe I would be one of those non-tv watchers. I just like the fact that I can press play and zone out for 30 minutes and not be responsible for anything other than sitting on my ass. Not a lot of people will admit that, but I have no problem. I am pretty much “Shaw On Demand” for my baby; always entertaining and trying to be new and fun and exciting with great graphics (of course I have great graphics!). So I think it is only fair that I should be allowed some time in my day where I don’t have to use my brain. I always thought that staying home with a baby would leave me using less of my brain. I have found that in a way it might, as I am not thinking as hard, but I thinking more so it feels way more exhausting. This is way more tiring brain work for me than University. That might have something to do with the kind of Unviersity student I was though; minimal attender, crunch studier and last minute paper writer. At Uni I only had some days that were like that amongst many that were smooth sailing. Everly is a crash course everyday!!

A crash course in CUTE!

In the last 4 days that I haven’t written Everly has kept on truckin’ at this little schedule of hers that she may be developing. I say MAY because I don’t want to jinx anything. Sometimes when I write about how well things are going, things get tough again, so I start to wonder, am I jinxing myself or does my head get inflated with confidence and I think I can do anything? Who knows, but at any rate, things are going really well. She is to bed around 7:30, up at 5:30am to eat and back to sleep again until 8:30 or so. Today I was a bad, bad mom and I brought her into bed with me to sleep in, we slept in until 9:30 because we were really tired. Well Everly may not have been but I was. Now that she is sleeping good I have to work on sleep training myself. Parents- why did you not sleep train me? I hope that things continue on this positive path. Well, at least until our trip to Seattle this weekend, will be interesting to see how that one goes? UGH!

Baby is leaving the country.

So I have been getting sideways glances and “feedback” about the way we have chosen to introduce solid foods to Everly. Being as fortunate as I am to have the job that I do, I have been able to take many different training courses and attend various conferences on infant/child development. One thing that I had the opportunity to learn about was the history of puree baby food and the concept of baby led weaning. Like pretty much everyone else out there I had no idea that baby food puree was invented when formula was invented to provide nutrients that the formula was missing out on. Now because such young babies were eating the baby food it had to be pureed and strained so that they would swallow it. Very young infants have the reflex to push out anything other that liquid from their mouths with their tongues… as formula started to be more complete (and mothers fortunately started nursing again- another can of beans that rots my socks), the age at which to introduce solids became older and then older again until finally experts settled on the 6 month/milestone related reference that we use today. The funny thing about all of this is that how we introduce solids to babies has not changed. We still introduce them as though they are tiny infants! By 6 months a baby is ready for some lumps and bumps and they need these things to help them develop speech sounds and to learn how to NOT choke on food. So with this in mind, we decided to go the baby led weaning  route with Everly. We don’t puree her food and we let her feed herself as much as possible. I still spoon feed her cereal because she can’t feed herself with a spoon yet and she needs the cereal because we don’t have enough iron rich foods worked in her diet at the moment. A lot of  people don’t like this way of going about introducing solids, especially older people. They shake their heads and make that tut-tut sound that basically means you are a terrible mother and your baby WILL SUFFER. Well tut-tutters, what did people do before there was jarred baby food to buy? Oh that’s right, they fed them tiny pieces of food from their hands or a tray, hmmmm, we are all still here and we learned how to eat, funny thing that is.

Yes I feed myself and it gets messy!

How is it that nearly everyone I know has almost finished or has completely finished Christmas shopping, decorating and wrapping. I tried to start wrapping stocking stuff last week but it just didn’t happen and I won’t be putting my tree up until it is December. I know that my “mom” friends have to jump at the opportunity when it presents itself so they got everything done while they could. I am a “mom” friend, why have I not jumped at the opportunities when I have had them? I always thought I was the festive one. Maybe not. Christmas is really stressing me out this year, probably because I have less than half of the amount of money that I used to be able to put towards it. Now I know the Christmas is not about the gifts and blah, blah, blah, but it kind of is. Do we really thing that so many people would enjoy and celebrate Christmas if there were no gifts? I am here to play the devil’s advocate and say that no, no there would not. To me, the real fun of Christmas is getting things for everyone that you know they are going to like. I love hunting for gifts and watching the reciepient’s face when they open the present and see that it’s just what they wanted/needed and there is this moment where they look and you and are all like, you were listening to me when I spoke. I listen and I like to deliver. This year I have had to be a bit more creative. What we are giving might not have been on everyone’s lists, but I can guarantee there will be no returns and no unhappy reciepients, they just didn’t know it existed and that they could ask for it… sneaky, sneaky, sneaky!

Christmas Baby!

Not As Planned

On Friday night, my friend Lauren and I decided that we were going to go out and have some fun. I have literally had one drink in about 18 months, so I was a little hesitant, but thought that going out amongst adults might be really good for me. I think if I had left it at the going out part it might have; the couple of drinks part did not help at all! I had a great time with Lauren at dinner though, probably could have ended the night there because I felt really good and relaxed and happy. But then we decided to go out to a pub.

The last time I have been to such an establishment was on my stagette over a year and a half ago. We ran as fast as we could when we finally decided where to go (decision was largely based on geographical closeness to where we had dinner). When I say ran, I don’t mean that we ran as fast as we could because we were so excited to get there; we ran as fast as we could because it was pissing rain sideways and not pretty at all outside. We arrived to the pub looking a little like drowned rats- just a little.

When we got in there I felt really weird and like everyone was staring at me because they knew I didn’t belong. Come to think of it now, they were probably staring at me because I had a deer in the headlights look on my face. Lauren encouraged me to be more positive as I kept pointing out the negatives of the establishment; lots of old people, smelly, I was wet, there was nowhere to sit, drinks were SOO expensive- can you tell I don’t get out much. The joy of joys was when I had to use the washroom- ugh! Have washrooms in pubs and clubs always been this gross, I don’t remember from 5 or so years ago, but they were nasty. I think it’s fair to say that I was having trouble getting into the spirit of the place.

After a few laps (Lauren said this is what single people do so that they can scope out the prospects), we decided to ‘lean’ on a railing that bordered the dance floor- ah the dance floor, always entertainment to be had there. Sure enough it wasn’t long before we were pissing our pants laughing as a young gentleman was being visually seduced by a woman twice his age. The moves on this lady were epic, kind of like Elaine from Seinfeld, you just couldn’t believe it was happening. He saw that we were laughing at him and was mouthing ‘help me’ over and over. Lauren and I shook our heads and pointed and laughed, there was no way we were contributing to the end of our entertainment. I think the lady eventually got the hint when she grabbed his legs and he slapped her mutton hands away like they held the plague. He ended up thanking us for not helping him, and we found through further conversation that he was a really nice guy… oh and he was a member of the Sticky Wicket hockey team, Lauren and I have a knack for meeting teams, it’s just what we do.

11:30 rolled around and I was beat. The hockey players made good conversation and were very entertaining, but they couldn’t keep me from blinking double time to keep my eyes open. I also felt really nauseated, I guess 5 drinks in 2 and a half hours will do that to you when you have been out of the game for a while, lol. I politely excused myself and left Lauren there with her pals. Some of you might say oh my God, how could you leave Lauren, alone, with an entire hockey team- that’s breaking girl code!… if you are saying this it is because you don’t know Lauren. The girl would be called a broad if it were 50 years ago. It is a mistake to be fooled by her beautiful and feminine exterior as inside she is tough and can hold her own against anyone; I was more worried about the guys, lol!

So I hopped in a cab and was on my way home. I got a very friendly cab driver fortunately, as I was in an alcohol induced extra talkative mood and we discussed married life and babies (he was also married with a young child). We both came to the conclusion that we would rather stay home and play Rockband than to go out on the town. We also agreed that to realize this conclusion, you have to go out once and a while and remind yourself how lucky you are to have what you have and boy did I ever. I was showing hockey players pictures of Everly on my phone for crying out loud! I was feeling really happy and lucky about my life when I left that cab.

When I came inside, I pumped all the toxic milk out (was hard to dump 8 ounces down the drain!) and passed out by 12:30. Brandon had offered to do the night feeding and the first morning feed so that I could sleep. I don’t know if I was more excited to go out or come home and sleep all night when he first said this- ha ha ha. I put my head to the nice cold pillow and I honestly can’t even remember anything after that…

Fast forward to 1:47 am, and Everly is freaking out. I mentioned to B that he might want to feed her right away as they sounded like hunger cries. So he got up and fed her a bottle, put her to bed and came back to bed himself. Of course I was wide awake the whole time, waiting for her to be happy again- that did not happen. She fussed and yelled and was generally not impressed for another 40 minutes (30 had gone by previously). I said to him that she might still be hungry (we have noticed that in the past two weeks she has gone from 4 ounce bottles to 7 ounce bottles, just like that?!). He had a bit of a meltdown of frustration so I took over. I got up, fed her the bottle and put her to bed and thank goodness she fell asleep right away, all in all- she was up for 2 hours, it was now almost 4:00 am. I crashed into bed. She woke for the day at 7:00 am and I was unable to go back to sleep. That night I had a grand total of 4 hours of sleep, that is the least amount of sleep that I have ever had in my entire life. I felt like a zombie.

So what did I learn from this?

1) going out for dinner with girlfriends and having a couple drinks is good! 2) my baby knows when I want to go out for a longer night of fun filled with more than just a couple of drinks and will punish me accordingly- so next time act accordingly whilst out. 3) clubs are not really for me anymore. 4) I need at least 4 hours of sleep to function during the day whlist caring for an infant. 5) I am so very lucky to have the life that I do. I am lucky to have found a partner who loves me and who enjoys my company, and who’s company I enjoy and love. I am lucky to have a happy, healthy, beautiful little girl who is more fun to watch dance than even the mutton dressed as lamb. That Friday night out was like Thanksgiving.

You Just Never Know!

 So I have taken a few days off from blogging… mostly because life has been a bit crazy busy- what? I had a 3 photo commissions and a calendar to design over the weekend and you know what, it isn’t as easy to get through that much work anymore! I remember the days when that would be just the perfect amount of work in a weekend to keep me busy, how times change, lol. So the blogging slipped, it was the lowest on the pile, these things happen.

The past three nights have been glorious, glorious, glorious. When I type glorious it does not do justice to how it sounds in my head… in my head it is like angels are singing and you can hear trumpets (not too loud though so that they don’t wake the baby!). She has gone down with under 30 minutes of protesting and has stayed asleep until 4:30 am, after which she eats and goes back to sleep until 8:00 am. I can’t ask for much more right now to be honest. Sure that 4:30 am feeding is a small jab in the bum, but as long as I get to bed at a decent time it’s really not that bad at all to be honest. Like my friend Kim said, I only have so many nights left that she is going to want to hang out with me 😉 She is napping great as well, I am just so freaking proud of her right now. We are on day 27.

On Sunday night when Everly was having her last feeding of the day, I went to burp her and noticed a large, oddly shaped lump on her back… no don’t worry, it’s not bad… it was her cow bathtub toy. Now how in the hell did that end up there you might ask?? well I asked the same thing to her dad, as he’s the one who dressed her! She has been obsessed with this little cow lately, it is her favourite toy. She takes it into the bath and of course holds on to it when you get her out. Somehow the cow made it into her sleepers and he didn’t know (LOL!). I showed him what I pulled out and we both started to laugh, he looked at her and said you little sneak! He figured she was hiding the cow in there so that she could play with it later in her crib on the sly… tricky baby. It still makes me giggle thinking about it; tops the time he handed her to me without a diaper on (he he he).

The cow in question!

I have been trying to recall for a few days if anyone has ever told me how tricky it is to feed a baby. Maybe it’s just my baby though, or is it babies in general? She is SO handsy, lol. I know she is curious and wants to participate, but when her spoon gets slippery with food it’s a very slip and slidey tug of war that happens between the two of us. I try to pull the spoon out of her hands, but she has baby hulk strength. She also loves to put her fingers into her mouth and get food on them and rub it all over her face and hair and ears- today she almost had it in her eyes. When it’s her last feeding of the day I don’t really mind as she is going right into the tub and it’s a sensory experience, but in the middle of the day, when we are out, feeding can be tricky business. I have found it helps to have a buddy system- one person feeding and one person entertaining. I remind her that her hands stay down and that we don’t scratch our eyes out when our fingers have food on them, but she doesn’t listen to me, so I guess she will just have to learn for herself- it’s so messy, but so fun to watch 🙂

She is a rolling and pivoting machine right now. If you put her onto her back she immediately flips over onto her front so that she can get moving! For a brief moment in time today she was up on all fours, didn’t last long, but it happened. She has managed to move herself forward a few cm’s a few time, but only a few cm’s- moving your body is hard when you weigh 17 1/2 pounds and don’t have much muscle, lol. It’s so interesting to watch her plan her movements; she will look and think and look and think for a bit and then make her move. If she is successful the look and think gets shorter and shorter each time she tries the movement again- you can see the motor planning happening right before your very eyes. If she has challenges she tries and tries and then gets VERY angry if she is not able to do what she thinks she should be able to do, that’s usually when I pick her up and give her a snuggle 🙂

Come and get the cow!

Her dad let’s her wriggle a little bit longer than me and it is probably because of this that she ever makes any gains in her gross motor development at all. He says that I am too quick to rescue her, and he is probably right and it’s probably why he has seen most of her gross motor firsts before me- he pushes her a little bit harder. I think it’s good to have a balance between the two. I get so proud of her when she does something new, it feels awesome, but I think it feels even better to see the look on his face, it’s the way my dad looked at me when I got my BA and when I got married and when I introduced him to Everly. Daddies think that the sun rises and sets on their little girls and we little girls wouldn’t have it any other way 🙂 

I (heart) Everly.