Thoughts

I was talking with a good friend the other day who is 20 weeks pregnant with her second little girl. She was saying that this baby is her chance to do a lot of things differently. Her comment made me start thinking about Jude. Would I do anything different in regards to raising him? Is there anything I’ve learned these past 21 months that stopped and made me think “Hmm, mental note, if we have a second child don’t do this.” I’ve been trying to come up with anything I feel that I would differently with another baby… and I really can’t think of anything. We’ve just gone with our instincts and what feels natural when it comes to Jude, while still providing boundaries and discipline. He’s happy, well-adjusted, social, and respectful. Of course he has his occasional toddler moments of “NO! MINE!” or back-arching spaz attack when he doesn’t get his way, but not so often that I would call them anything other than being an ordinary toddler. With daylight savings time, there was a night this week that was a little rough and brought me back to the first year when every little creak or crack would wake him up, pretty much hourly. As I was rocking my almost two year old back to sleep, I was transported back to one of the many similar moments over a year ago and couldn’t help but smile. I kissed his sweet blond head and snuggled him a little tighter. I thought of all the “advice” I got during that time period about letting him cry it out because he was “manipulating” me. If ‘manipulating’ meant he needed his mommy to hold him in the dark because he was tired, scared, hungry and couldn’t get back to sleep on his own, so be it. Those moments felt like an eternity when I was in them, but now they feel like a million years ago. And I miss them. I suppose only time will tell if there are certain things I would change. But when I look at Jude right now – with his wild shock of white hair, infectious laugh, million watt smile, and his sheer enthusiasm for EVERYTHING- no, I wouldn’t have done anything differently.

What kind of mom are you?

I was thinking the other day about all the planning that goes on once you find out you are having a baby. If you had asked me to describe the sort of mother I planned on being before Jude got here, the following description would probably sum it up best: Stroller walking, disposable diaper using, crib sleeping, breastfeeding for up to 6 months at the most, caffeine drinking, still maintaining somewhat of a social calendar, working mama. It wasn't a conscious thing, I didn't research anything, yet, I think I'm the complete opposite of all of that and it all just happened naturally.



Stroller: I will say we use it now more than we ever have previously. For at least the first 6 months, Jude was one of those babies that didn’t want to be put down. At all. End of the world to be out of my (or anyone’s arms). I’ve heard all my life that carrying a baby around too much will “spoil” him and I guess I believed that. But, once he was here and in my arms, I knew that this couldn’t be true. How can you spoil a child by holding him close to your heart rather than constantly at a distance? Why did holding him feel so much more natural to me than putting him in a stroller or playpen while I went about my business? In my gut, I felt that this wasn’t true in regards to Jude. So I held him. All the time. I invested in wraps and slings to help lessen the load, but for the first 6-8 months, he was attached to me (literally) constantly. And it WORKED! Jude loved being strapped to me or Phil all the time. He was always happy and smiling and content. Whether I was loading the dishwasher, shopping for groceries, or taking a walk around the block, it was good to be Jude. Once Jude learned to crawl a couple of months ago, it felt as though our babywearing chapter started to close just a little bit. I still pop him in a sling when he is having a clingy moment or I just need to carry him somewhere since he can’t walk yet. But with the crawling milestone, it is as if he is happy with a little independence and loves to explore his surroundings while not attached to me (though he prefers to have me within eyesight). So in our experience, babywearing Jude constantly in the beginning helped him to trust that the world was not a scary place as long as he was in mom or dad’s arms. I feel he took that experience and is now anxious to touch and see and hear the happenings going on around him. Maybe the opposite is true for other babies, I guess we’ll find out if/when we have another!


Disposable Diapers: I’ll admit I’m still on the fence about this one. We use gDiapers when not at daycare and Pampers for daycare. Before Jude, I thought cloth diapering meant squares of cloth with big ole diaper pins. Um, no. Cloth diapers now are pretty much the coolest things ever. And what’s cuter than a big fluffy cloth diapered baby butt? Um, nothing! Anyways, since this whole Pampers-causes-chemical-burns-and-rashes-on-babies-investigation, I’m really wondering why the hell I’m not asking more questions as to what is IN disposables? I don’t know, the whole thing makes me nervous. I’ve ordered the cloth diaper trial from Jillian’s Drawers and I’m sure I’ll be posting about our cloth diapering adventures soon! I’m kind of excited!


Cribs: Babies sleep in cribs, right? That’s what they do. There aren’t any other options. At least that’s what I thought before I got pregnant. When we started to get the nursery all set up, I was adamant about getting the perfect crib. And we found it, all right. It was beautiful and everything I imagined. Majestic and dark wood and perfection. So we bought it, took it home, and got it (after much cursing on my husband’s part) set up. That’s when I got uneasy. The nursery is the sitting room off of our master bedroom, and therefore, it was ideal. Jude would be sleeping literally ten feet away from me. I wouldn’t even need a monitor at night since I would hear him cry. As his due date approached, I started to feel more and more uncomfortable with him sleeping in another room, but pushed those thoughts aside. Then, the little mister was here, we brought him home, and it was bedtime. What if he stopped breathing? What if someone broke in his window and we were sleeping so heavily we didn’t even hear and they STOLE him? What if the cat somehow opens his door and decides to sleep right on his face? (Hey, when you’re post-partum and experiencing a severe hormonal fluctuation, ANY scenario you come up with in your head is totally plausible!) So, we set the pack and play up right next to the bed on my side, inches from me. The Mama Bear instincts in me woke up at even the slightest sound or movement he made. Jude was also the baby that was up pretty much every hour for the first four months, then every 2-3 hours for the two months after that. So bedding close to each other made things a lot easier. When Jude wanted to eat, I would just pull him in bed with me and doze while he nursed. We are now to the point where we realized that Jude sleeps better for the first half of the night in his crib. So, after about 8 months of non-use, we are now using the crib! Jude goes to bed for the first half of the night and wakes up around 1 am. I go in to his nursery, where I see him standing up in his crib with his arms outstretched for me. I grab him and take him in to our bed for the other half of the night. We have plans to stop the semi-cosleeping before 18 months. I just really love it. As a working mom, I cherish every second I can spend with him- even if it is sleeping. There really is nothing like a chubby finger stroking my face or a warm little arm encircling my neck in the middle of the night.


Breastfeeding: “Breast is best” is the classic mantra one hears constantly while preparing for baby. With that knowledge, I knew I wanted to breastfeed. I figured I would give it my best shot and if it worked out, great! I planned on weaning around six months and then going to formula, thinking it would be much more convenient at that time. I’ll be honest, the first four weeks of breastfeeding were pure hell. We had latch issues you wouldn’t believe. He would get frustrated, I would cry. I would get frustrated, he would cry. My nipples were cracking, splitting, bleeding. Everytime he latched, I felt razor blades. How could something so natural be anything but?? But with the difficulty came a sense of intense determination. We were going to get this and we weren’t going to let each other give up. So I talked to a lactation consultant and went to La Leche League meetings. Then, it clicked. I’ll never forget the nursing session that changed it all. He latched on and started audibly gulping. Wait, I didn’t feel like my nipple was being sawed off! Oh my gosh, did I just feel my milk letting down? Am I experiencing that euphoria that comes with the rush of oxytocin with the letdown? Is that my baby all blissed out and drowsy? Is that actually milk pooling out of his mouth? EUREEKA!!! From then on, I was hooked on nursing. We were a great team and there was NO WAY I was quitting at six months after all this hard work. So we kept plugging away and here we are, almost eleven months later and still going strong. My supply has really plummeted lately, but he’s also nursing less as he takes in more solids. In about six weeks, we’ll start whole milk. I’m sure I’ll be obsessing over this next chapter very soon, so stay tuned.  (Oh yeah, the caffeine part ties in here too. Before I was pregnant, I would seriously knock back like 5 diet sodas a day-gross. Once I was pregnant, I would have a Coke or so a day. I pretty much quit caffeine shortly after having Jude since I thought it might have something to do with his sleep issues. Unfortunately, it didn’t help. But I still stopped it. I’m slowly adding a coffee to my diet in the mornings now that Jude isn’t nursing as much. God, that stuff rocks.)


Social calendar: None to speak of. I’ll touch briefly on this, but I feel the need to address it in a post of its own someday soon. I am horrible at balancing “me” time with motherhood. I think if I were a stay at home mom I would be much better about this. Since I work 40+ hours a week, I CRAVE time with my baby. If I have to spend extra time away from him, I am overwhelmed with guilt. Big time. How can I be away from my baby 8 hours a day and then tack on another few hours? This pretty much rules out any dates with my husband. We’ve gone on a couple, but nothing extravagant like spending a whole night away from him. Recently, I’ve gone out with girlfriends for dinner and drinks, but only after Jude goes to bed and I’m home before his first night waking. This is something I need to work on, although I’m not quite sure how I can get over the guilt I carry around with me that daycare spends more time with my son during the week than I do.


So there it is. I’m pretty much a complete oxymoron of the mom I thought I was going to be. The “stroller walking, disposable diaper using, crib sleeping, breastfeeding for up to 6 months at the most, caffeine drinking, still maintaining somewhat of a social calendar, working mama” in my head became the “babywearing, maybe cloth diapering, semi-cosleeping, extended breastfeeding, non-caffeine drinking, no social calendar to speak of working mama” instead.


I suppose there are a few morals to this post I’m probably failing at getting across. The first is that you really can’t plan what kind of mom you’ll be ahead of time. The second time is that it’s never okay to judge someone else’s parenting choices since there are reasons behind those choices that you just can’t know. We all do what is best for our babies since each baby is such a beautiful individual. And that, my friends, is what makes parenthood so truly incredible.

Knock On Wood

I really hate to even "say" this out loud, but here goes.  Jude has slept through the night TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW.  Now, if you follow my blog or facebook, you will know that this is something we've been battling for quite some time.  A quick background:  Jude has never slept for longer than four hours at a time consistently.  Sure, here or there he will go for maybe five hours, but these events are very few and far between.  As I've previously stated, when we brought Jude home from the hospital, Phil and I both agreed that we weren't going to let him cry it out.  I am not judging anyone who does, but we felt it just wasn't something we were willing to do, for multiple reasons.  I naively thought that Jude would definitely wake for the first 3 or 4 months, but he would eventually outgrow it and he would sleep peacefully through the night.  Wrong.

Once 8 months rolled around and I realized that Jude wasn't figuring out sleeping through the night on his own, I went to Borders (and didn't have a repeat breastfeeding/poopsplosion incident thankyouverymuch) and grabbed Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution (NCSS).  After Googling and reading what Dr. Sears (whose childrearing philosophies I have really gotten on board with) had to say, I decided this option would be the best for us.  It basically teaches to attend to the babies needs at night so they do not cry, but slowly wean them off whatever association the baby has with sleep so they can eventually fall asleep without it.  Jude had quite the perfect storm of elements needed in order to fall asleep.  I realized that I had set Jude up to have sleep issues when all I thought was that these things were in his best interest. 

First, Jude wanted to nurse before going to sleep.  He would latch on and his eyes would roll into the back of his head in pure bliss.  As soon as the sucking stopped, I would lay him down.  His eyes would shoot open and he would wail.  To replace my boob, I would put a pacifier in his mouth, which would suffice, and his eyes would roll back again.  Then, I would place his lovey in his hands and he would roll to his side and fall asleep.  Then, I would turn on his mobile that played classical music for twenty minutes and he would be out.  This was all well and good except for the fact that once the music shut off or the pacifier would pop out of his mouth or he realized that my boob was nowhere to be found, it was all over.  Sometimes this was two hours later, sometimes two minutes.  Oy ve.

Long story short, the NCSS did not work for us.  We tried diligently for a month.  The only thing that improved was that Jude started to sleep a longer stretch in the beginning of the night.  He went from waking up within the first hour to sleep for 3-4 hours and then waking up every 1-2 after that.

People with good intentions had all sorts of suggestions for us.  "You just need to shut off the baby monitor for a couple of nights so he can cry it out all night", "You need to stop spoiling him so much by carrying him around all day so that at night, he thinks he needs to be held then too", "Stop breastfeeding him and give him formula, you shouldn't breastfeed once they have teeth", "Put some cereal in a bottle and send him to bed with it".  Again, not judging what other parents have done because we all make parenting choices that are best for our own family, however, none of the suggestions people had to offer felt 'right' in regards to what would work for Jude. Therefore, I resigned myself to multiple night wakings until toddlerdom.

So this post doesn't turn into a full blown novella, I'm going to try to speed things up.  I decided to read Ferber's book, "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems".  The most I knew about Ferber was that his methods were associated mostly with 'crying it out', but someone told me that if for no other reason, pick up his book to read about all the information he has on infant sleep cycles and sleep associations.  So I did. 

Upon first picking up the book, I was surprised to see that he runs the Harvard Institue of Pediatric Sleep Disorders.  Okay, totally giving this guy a chance, he probably knows a bit about what he is talking about.  Holy moly.  I was floored reading about all of the cycles babies go through and that night waking is a necessity, ESPECIALLY in the early months since that is a main prevention of SIDS.  If a baby is sleeping TOO soundly and in a sleep cycle that is difficult to get out of, they can stop breathing.  It was nice to read an affirmation that an early infant sleeping through the night just didn't sound right to me.  Maybe Jude was more normal than abnormal.  Also, I didn't know that Ferber doesn't call for straight crying it out, but rather letting a child cry in intervals and then going in to check on him so he doesn't believe he was abandoned.  Ferber first states that you need to create the child's sleep environment into a sleep association- free environment.  The reasoning behind this makes sense:  because of the way a baby's sleep cycle is set up, they go through the multiple stages of sleep in shorter intervals than adults and have brief periods of waking.  Upon these periods of waking, adults are able to fall right back to sleep if everything is the same as when they fell asleep.  But say that you go through the brief wake period and sense that a light is on in the hallway that wasn't on when you fell asleep, you are instantly fully awake and investigate.  Same as a baby.  If Jude fell asleep with a pacifier in his mouth, with his music on holding his lovey and when he hits his wake cycle with the paci out of his mouth, music off and his lovey nowhere to be found, he is instantly awake because he feels he "needs" all three of these in order to go back to sleep.

Okay.  Get rid of sleep assocations.  We stopped with the music.  I nursed him before story time instead of right before bed.  I did lay him down with his lovey, but if he wakes up, he can easily find that so I didn't think that was an issue.  I also made sure to leave the room while he was still awake, without rubbing his back or anything since that would also be another sleep assocation.  It worked!  Well, for a few hours.  Basically, Jude would sleep from 7:30ish until about 11, wake up and want to nurse, nurse, nurse until it was time to get up at 5:30.

Cutting to a different topic that I think is the missing piece to the whole sleep mystery.  I think I'm starting to develop milk supply issues.  While Jude is at daycare every day, I pump 3-4 times a day at work to send breastmilk with him the next day.  I've been pretty proud of myself that Jude is almost 9.5 months and I'm still able to give him breastmilk 24/7.  (And it saves so much money!)  These past few weeks, I've gone from being able to pump about 16-20 oz in a day, and it has tanked to being able to pump 10-12.  I've done everything in an attempt to get it back up, I'm an expert.  No dice.  More to come another time.  By the time evening rolls around, I don't produce much since prolactin levels are the lowest in a body at that time.  I now believe that at least half of the issue is that Jude is seriously hungry in the middle of the night and since he isn't getting much milk before bed, he wakes up very often to "top himself off".

The last week or so, I've been giving him a 6 oz bottle of milk before bed and then I pump after he goes to bed.  This, combined with getting rid of his sleep associations has provided the breakthrough we so desperately needed.

Two days ago, I put little boy to bed at 7:15.  He briefly woke at 8, I settled him back down and he didn't wake up until 5:30 am.  WHAT?!?!  Of course, that didn't mean I got any sleep.  I was checking on him hourly convinced that something was horribly wrong.

Last night, he went to bed at 7:30.  Woke up briefly at 11:15 and settled himself back down and woke up at 4:30 am and I was able to settle him down again.  Not as great as the night before, but a SERIOUS, SERIOUS improvement.

I hope the trend lasts and that I didn't completely ruin things by talking about them.  I attribute this success to my education of sleep cycles for babies, getting rid of *most* of Jude's sleep associations, realizing my milk supply is starting to tank and finding alternatives for evening feedings, and the fact that Jude has cut 6 teeth in the two previous months and he is no longer waking up because of teething pain.

If you've made it this far, you're awesome.  I mostly just wanted to record our sleep story (so far, as the issue is clearly tumultuous) so I can show Jude someday just how much he put us through when I tell him he can't stay out all night - my sleepless nights thanks to him are in the beginning only.

My son doesn't sleep.

Jude has sleep issues.  Big time.

I've avoided doing any sort of sleep training this entire time for a few reasons.  For starters, I never believed that they were necessary.  To me, sleep training has always implied that this is purely for tired parents' sake and not in the child's best interest.  I'm now retracting my former thoughts on this.  Sure, I'd love a full nights sleep.  But to be honest, I'm so used to 6-7 night wakings (you read that right- and this is on a good night) that they don't bother me much anymore.  I guess my mommy adrenaline isn't 100% depleted.  I'm honestly worried about Jude.  It seems like he always has bags under his eyes and is so cranky at the end of the day, that he just isn't himself. 

First, a background.

In the very beginning, we started off with Jude in a bassinet next to our bed.  When he would wake, I would nurse him or change his diaper or attend to whatever need he had.  During the first four months or so, I never gave his multiple, often hourly, night wakings a second thought since that is what newborns do.  Once Jude outgrew the bassinet next to the bed, we decided we wanted to cosleep and have a family bed until he was a year.  I'm a fan of Dr. Sear's Attachment Parenting principles and thought this was ideal for us.  Being as I'm a fulltime working mom, I love that I can spend all my time with Jude when I'm not working by sleeping next to him.  The night wakings continued.  From four months on, all Jude really wanted when he woke up was to nurse himself back to sleep.  That's fine.  Bedsharing makes this very easy to do.  Once six months rolled around and he was still waking up about ten times a night, I decided that we would try Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution.  I was not willing to let my son Cry It Out, but this seemed like an answer I could definitely go with.  It was all about weaning a baby off the suck to sleep association, which Jude clearly has.  After a few weeks of doing this, the only improvement I've seen is that he doesn't fight initially going to sleep like he used to and will actually sleep for a three hour stretch in the beginning.  It was also around this time that we put Jude to sleep in his crib initially and then upon the first night waking after we go to bed, we bring him into bed with us.

Now we are at the present.  Jude is 8.5 months and he has now decided that naps aren't for him.  Daycare is lucky to get two twenty minute naps out of him.  He comes home cranky, tired, rubbing his eyes, and ready for bed at 6 pm.  I know this is all because Jude cannot self soothe when he wakes up for whatever reason.  The littlest noise in the world will startle him awake and he cannot get himself back to sleep without a breast or a pacifier.  I'm at my wits end.  I've heard things about Ferber and really mostly associated his methods with crying it out.  Someone who practices Attachment Parenting told me to pick up his book because it has really great information on baby sleep cycles and sleep in general and I can put other bits of his philosophy into action without resorting to cry it out.  So, this is where we are at.  Updates to follow.  If anyone has any advice, I would LOVE LOVE LOVE comments.

This parenting stuff sure is hard.