I had been wondering why I stopped blogging for a little while and after reading a few entries that I made but never posted, I think I understand why!! Sleep had me incredibly frustrated. I wish I could say that we miraculously worked things out and that he now sleeps through the night in his crib, but I can't. However, I can say that bedtime and naptime are no longer fraught with such angst and frustration.
Finn sleeps in our bed now full time for both naps and at night and our routine is simple and relaxing for both of us generally. There are downsides of course, but I think I have made my peace with our situation for the present and have finally surrendered to being the mother that I am of the child that I have.
I know that last statement makes it sound like I am somehow disappointed with myself and my son and am just settling for the best I can get, but nothing could be further from the truth. I know that I am a good mom, however, if you had asked me while I was pregnant what kind of parent I wanted to be the answer would have been totally different from the parent I became once I was a mother. But for my first 4 months of being a mom, I clung to that old picture of motherhood and fought my natural instincts. But once I let go and surrendered myself to my son and to my new role as mother, things got better on their own. Sleeping with my baby became the most natural thing in the world, my fear that I would somehow smother him in my sleep became almost laughable, and my body stopped aching even though I still didn't experience much freedom of movement during the night.
And as for Finn, even though I knew that he was one of the best babies I had ever seen, I put too much stock in what my books said my baby should be like because they were written by doctors and I wore myself out trying to conform Finn to that picture. I foolishly believed these authors when they said I should put my baby down sleepy but awake and that he should fall asleep without complaint and that he should sleep through the night by the age of 4 months and that the most dangerous place for my baby to sleep is next to me in my bed. Now I wonder if any of these doctors are even actually parents. Or perhaps they can afford 24/7 childcare and don't really know what's going on in their own nurseries. Or they may possibly be in the pocket of crib manufacturers. Either way, I did myself a disservice by heeding such advice and believing that my son's desire to sleep close to his parents was a reflection of some failing of mine as a mother.
Now to recap Finn's developmental milestones over the past few months. He rolled over from tummy to back for the first time in early December while Daphne Buren was visiting. I joked that he just needed a pretty lady to show off for. By Christmas he was starting to get his elbows and knees under him and was able to sit up by propping himself up on his hands.
In mid-January, I developed Mastitis. I had thought that was something that breastfeeding newbies got, not an old pro like me, but sadly I was mistaken. It was a rough 10 days. Mastitis is every bit as painful a condition as people say it is and the fact that you feel all-over lousy, doesn't help matters. My mom came out to help me get back on my feet. We discovered then that Finn wasn't too sure about strangers all of the sudden. He would cry loudly with big, fat tears every time my mom tried to hold him and it took 2 days for him to get used to her. Hopefully he gets over this quickly, since his other grandma is coming out to visit in April, but she is only staying 3 days and it won't do to have him screaming and crying every time she tries to hold him!
At the end of January we started Finn on solid foods. I'll try to post more on this later, but suffice it to say, he is not the biggest fan of solids and his little digestive system really dislikes them too. We had to stop for a few weeks to get his gut back on track.
He had his 6 month well-baby check at the beginning of February and although he is now in the 75 percentile for height, he has dropped down into the 25 percentile for weight. This was of concern both to me and his doctor. She suggested I try to feed him more breast milk and more solid foods. I am wondering how I am supposed to do either, since I already nurse him every couple hours during the day (I don't even put a bra on until Ben calls and needs to be picked up most days) and 2-4 times a night and he rejects most attempts to feed him solids to the point where I'm lucky if I get a couple teaspoons of food in him per day! Oh well, its just another one of those problems that I will frantically seek to solve and in the end, Finn will take care of it in his own way and on his own time.
Today is Finn's 7 month birthday and he can now roll tummy to back with ease and enjoyment. He can roll from back to tummy while in bed (which means he often likes to sleep on his tummy) but he won't do it on the floor yet. He will get up on his side and, as Ben observes, a breath of wind could knock him over, but he won't go the rest of the way yet. Perhaps the trauma of early tummy time still lingers in his subconscious. He sits up without help from us or his own hands for longer and longer stretches every day. I have taken to putting a pillow behind him when he's practicing sitting because he also finds it hilarious to pitch himself backwards every now and then. He says Ma-Ma and Mommy all the time. We keep trying to get him to say Da-Da but have not had any luck so far. He has developed an affinity for his parents faces and spends a great deal of time grabbing our glasses, pinching our cheeks and trying to bite our noses. He loves playing peek-a-boo in the bathroom mirror and with the sheets in our bed. Ben and I spend most of our time with him playing silly games and making exaggerated faces and he rewards us with his adorable laugh.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Sleep
Here's another one I never published about sleep...
My son is healthy and happy. He rarely fusses or cries, and all day long he offers me big beautiful smiles and adorable coos and giggles. So why do I feel like I am a complete failure as a mother? Because he won't sleep, at least not in the way I think he should.
During the day I can only get a 20-30 minute nap out of him and that's only if I spend 40 minutes or more soothing him to sleep....However, if I put him in his swing, he will be asleep within minutes and will sleep for hours. Yet I beat myself up every day that I give up trying to get him to nap in his crib and put him in the swing. I feel like a horrible parent for letting a mechanical motor do my mothering for me. I wonder constantly what will happen to us in the not too distant future when he is too big for his swing and I no longer have a sure-fire napping resource at my disposal.
At night I can spend up to 2 hours soothing him to sleep for bed. At best these days he will sleep for 2 hours in his crib. At worst he wakes up after 30-60 minutes. It's getting to the point where I absolutely dread the end of the day. Trying to get him to go to sleep and stay asleep has become the worst most stressful part of my life. Usually by about 2 am when I have had 1 hours sleep total for the night, I give up and bring him into bed with me to nurse him because I don't feel I can stay vertical any longer. My intention is always to take him back to his crib, once he's back asleep, but I always end up falling asleep as well and I wake up 2 hours later with my baby nestled up next to me, sound asleep. This terrifies me. I'm so scared that our family bed is not a safe place for my baby to sleep. Most attempts to return him to his crib after bringing him into bed with me fail and I end up with him in bed with us for the rest of the night. I tend to not get much sleep at that point due to the discomfort of being stuck in an awkward position for hours at a time (Baby constantly scooting closer to me, me constantly scooting away from baby until he nearly pushes me out of bed) and my worry that if I don't stay awake, something will happen to him in the night.
The guilt, frustration and anger I am beginning to feel over this issue of sleep is really starting to wear on me. I want to give my son the best care I can, but in this matter of sleep, I don't know what that is. Does sleep still count as sleep if it takes place outside of the crib?
My son is healthy and happy. He rarely fusses or cries, and all day long he offers me big beautiful smiles and adorable coos and giggles. So why do I feel like I am a complete failure as a mother? Because he won't sleep, at least not in the way I think he should.
During the day I can only get a 20-30 minute nap out of him and that's only if I spend 40 minutes or more soothing him to sleep....However, if I put him in his swing, he will be asleep within minutes and will sleep for hours. Yet I beat myself up every day that I give up trying to get him to nap in his crib and put him in the swing. I feel like a horrible parent for letting a mechanical motor do my mothering for me. I wonder constantly what will happen to us in the not too distant future when he is too big for his swing and I no longer have a sure-fire napping resource at my disposal.
At night I can spend up to 2 hours soothing him to sleep for bed. At best these days he will sleep for 2 hours in his crib. At worst he wakes up after 30-60 minutes. It's getting to the point where I absolutely dread the end of the day. Trying to get him to go to sleep and stay asleep has become the worst most stressful part of my life. Usually by about 2 am when I have had 1 hours sleep total for the night, I give up and bring him into bed with me to nurse him because I don't feel I can stay vertical any longer. My intention is always to take him back to his crib, once he's back asleep, but I always end up falling asleep as well and I wake up 2 hours later with my baby nestled up next to me, sound asleep. This terrifies me. I'm so scared that our family bed is not a safe place for my baby to sleep. Most attempts to return him to his crib after bringing him into bed with me fail and I end up with him in bed with us for the rest of the night. I tend to not get much sleep at that point due to the discomfort of being stuck in an awkward position for hours at a time (Baby constantly scooting closer to me, me constantly scooting away from baby until he nearly pushes me out of bed) and my worry that if I don't stay awake, something will happen to him in the night.
The guilt, frustration and anger I am beginning to feel over this issue of sleep is really starting to wear on me. I want to give my son the best care I can, but in this matter of sleep, I don't know what that is. Does sleep still count as sleep if it takes place outside of the crib?
Finn's Newest Trick
Found this one in the archive that I never published...
Over the weekend Finn had a major breakthrough during Tummy Time. On Friday whenever we did Tummy Time he would do his usual routine of smushing his face into the floor and crying the whole time, but on Saturday morning (after a particularly good night's sleep thanks in part to the swing, but more on that later) I was playing for him and heaving a sigh because it was time to put him on his tummy -- "play" that was feeling more and more like a chore for both of us -- and when I put him down, he just picked his head up and looked around smiling at me. I was amazed and thought it must just be a fluke, but we did lots of tummy time for the rest of the day and every time he kept his head up the entire time. Now he won't put it down! One of my friends, who has a baby 2 months older than Finn, said that for her baby, it was like something just clicked one day. I didn't really believe her. I thought it had to be a gradual process that babies worked up to, but clearly I was wrong. In just 12 hours Finn went from not being able or willing to pick his head up to only holding his head up high. In just the couple days that has passed since Saturday, Finn has also started reaching for things while on his tummy and trying very hard to roll over -- the fact that he can't quite yet is the only thing that now upsets him about tummy time!
As thrilled as I am that Finn has reached this huge milestone, I'm finding myself still feeling like a failure in the Mom department because of all the sleep struggles that we're having. And maybe its not as bad as I think, but the lack of sleep I'm experiencing has warped my perspective a bit. On a good night, he'll fall asleep at the breast sometime between 7 and 8 pm and Ben and I are able to transfer him into his bassinet without waking him and he'll stay asleep for 5 hours. After that first waking though, anything can happen. Sometimes he's awake every hour or two and needs help falling back asleep. Rarely he wakes up every couple hours and soothes himself back to sleep. Even more rarely he will sleep an additional 3-4 hours without waking.
Last night for example, he was awake at 8:30, I fed him and put him back to sleep in his bassinet. Then he was awake at 10:30, I fed him in bed because I was too tired to be vertical and at 11:30 attempted to put him back in his bassinet. He immediately woke up. I let him roll around for a while, hoping he would self soothe, but it escalated to crying so I picked him up and rocked him for a few minutes and he went right back to sleep. I attempted another transfer and he woke up again. I tried feeding him again and he nursed a little bit before falling asleep. I tried to put him in his bassinet again and he stayed asleep for a few minutes before waking crying. At this point is was 12:30 and I had to wake Ben. I needed a break for a few minutes. Ben rocked Finn back to sleep while I got myself a piece of toast and a cup of tea. Ben put him down and Finn awoke crying again. We went through the checklist of things that could be bothering him and tried to address them all. I ended up nursing him again at which point he filled his diaper and promptly went to sleep. That meant that I had to change him and when I did so, he woke up. I tried to nurse and rock him back to sleep, but he wouldn't have it and I was too worn out to go on much longer, so I put him in his bassinet and wheeled it out into the living room and brought his swing into our room and placed in next to the bed. I put him in it and turned it on and he was asleep withing 10 minutes. I turned the swing off and he slept without making a peep from 1:30 am to 6:30 am.
This is the second time we have resorted to using the swing for nighttime sleeping when all else has failed and each time he has slept amazingly well. Frustrated doesn't even begin to describe what I'm feeling.
Over the weekend Finn had a major breakthrough during Tummy Time. On Friday whenever we did Tummy Time he would do his usual routine of smushing his face into the floor and crying the whole time, but on Saturday morning (after a particularly good night's sleep thanks in part to the swing, but more on that later) I was playing for him and heaving a sigh because it was time to put him on his tummy -- "play" that was feeling more and more like a chore for both of us -- and when I put him down, he just picked his head up and looked around smiling at me. I was amazed and thought it must just be a fluke, but we did lots of tummy time for the rest of the day and every time he kept his head up the entire time. Now he won't put it down! One of my friends, who has a baby 2 months older than Finn, said that for her baby, it was like something just clicked one day. I didn't really believe her. I thought it had to be a gradual process that babies worked up to, but clearly I was wrong. In just 12 hours Finn went from not being able or willing to pick his head up to only holding his head up high. In just the couple days that has passed since Saturday, Finn has also started reaching for things while on his tummy and trying very hard to roll over -- the fact that he can't quite yet is the only thing that now upsets him about tummy time!
As thrilled as I am that Finn has reached this huge milestone, I'm finding myself still feeling like a failure in the Mom department because of all the sleep struggles that we're having. And maybe its not as bad as I think, but the lack of sleep I'm experiencing has warped my perspective a bit. On a good night, he'll fall asleep at the breast sometime between 7 and 8 pm and Ben and I are able to transfer him into his bassinet without waking him and he'll stay asleep for 5 hours. After that first waking though, anything can happen. Sometimes he's awake every hour or two and needs help falling back asleep. Rarely he wakes up every couple hours and soothes himself back to sleep. Even more rarely he will sleep an additional 3-4 hours without waking.
Last night for example, he was awake at 8:30, I fed him and put him back to sleep in his bassinet. Then he was awake at 10:30, I fed him in bed because I was too tired to be vertical and at 11:30 attempted to put him back in his bassinet. He immediately woke up. I let him roll around for a while, hoping he would self soothe, but it escalated to crying so I picked him up and rocked him for a few minutes and he went right back to sleep. I attempted another transfer and he woke up again. I tried feeding him again and he nursed a little bit before falling asleep. I tried to put him in his bassinet again and he stayed asleep for a few minutes before waking crying. At this point is was 12:30 and I had to wake Ben. I needed a break for a few minutes. Ben rocked Finn back to sleep while I got myself a piece of toast and a cup of tea. Ben put him down and Finn awoke crying again. We went through the checklist of things that could be bothering him and tried to address them all. I ended up nursing him again at which point he filled his diaper and promptly went to sleep. That meant that I had to change him and when I did so, he woke up. I tried to nurse and rock him back to sleep, but he wouldn't have it and I was too worn out to go on much longer, so I put him in his bassinet and wheeled it out into the living room and brought his swing into our room and placed in next to the bed. I put him in it and turned it on and he was asleep withing 10 minutes. I turned the swing off and he slept without making a peep from 1:30 am to 6:30 am.
This is the second time we have resorted to using the swing for nighttime sleeping when all else has failed and each time he has slept amazingly well. Frustrated doesn't even begin to describe what I'm feeling.
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