Parenting

That’s it.  It’s been almost 9 months of the Squeaker’s horrible sleeping and I can’t do it anymore.  I’ve been fighting sleep training this whole time thinking that her sleep will get better.  It’s not and I am so sick of it.  I’m so frustrated with it and starting to get really resentful.  I’ve been fighting the “cry-it-out” thing because I can’t get those silly books out of my head that say if you do this to your baby they give up and feel isolated.  What changed my mind, other than teetering on the brink of insanity, is when I read in one of those stupid books that “a resentful mom is not a good mom.  So if you’re getting resentful you have to change something.”  I agree.  They also said that crying is a natural thing when you’re trying to change your baby’s sleep habits because they are so used to one thing.  The difference is the baby crying alone or crying in your presence.  At least they know you are there.

I’ll take it.  I’ve found a way in between the super-slow gradual way I’ve been doing and the let the kid cry alone way.  It’s called the “Sleep Lady Shuffle”.  For some reason I really don’t like this lady that invented it which I’m sure I’ll expand upon in another post but I like her ideas. 

So I bought her book today and plan on implementing it on Sunday with no turning back.

I would start today if my parents weren’t coming into town tomorrow night.

Just to give you an idea, I started trying to put O to sleep at 6:30 and it is 9:15.  She has slept the following spurts 27mins, 7mins, and 34mins.  She should have been sleeping for the last 2hrs and 45mins and she has slept only 1hr and 8mins and the rest has been me working hard to get her to sleep.  Can’t do it.  I don’t like being angry at my baby for something that isn’t her fault.  It’s my fault.  I haven’t taught her to sleep and I’ve failed as a parent in that regard.  But not anymore.  Sunday is the day.  Sunday…

Yesterday was my first Mother’s Day (with a baby not on the inside of me) and it was great.  Olivia was so thoughtful and got me exactly what I wanted (kitchen gadgets) and Kraft has promised a 6-pack of my favorite beer next time we’re near Specs.  And we’re going to Alamo Drafthouse’s baby day and watching Babies tomorrow.  I am sooo excited about it.

So I was thinking and reflecting on what it means to be a mother and I started thinking about what it takes to be a mother. 

“It’s important to not make the decision based on fear.”
If you’ve known me for any reasonable amount of time you know that the issue of “planning” kids is one that I am constantly thinking about, reading about, discussing, reflecting on, etc.  I don’t always understand the decisions that people make but I know they are doing what they think is best for the family.  When it comes to me and Kraft making decisions about kids, I have yet to come up with a better answer than – leave God in control of it. 

If me and Kraft were in charge of our fertility I’m not sure we’d ever have a kid.  Having a kid is inconvenient, uncomfortable, expensive (and completely wonderful, but that’s besides the point).  If we were planning it I don’t know if we’d ever think we had enough money or were in a place good enough in our relationship to have a kid.  So from the beginning we decided we have to leave it up to God.  It was very tempting to say after the Squeaker was born that we want to space kids out, that we want to figure out how to be parents, that we need to save up some money, but when it came down to it we were just plain scared of getting pregnant right away. 

I was discussing this with a friend and honestly just trying to see if I could come up with a reason that would convince me that the situation was grave enough to use NFP to not conceive a child.  In our conversation we came to the conclusion that when it comes to making major decisions like this we cannot let fear dictate our decision.  Just because we were scared of getting pregnant again quickly does not mean that we should take it into our own hands.  So we decided to leave it in God’s hands (obviously always the right choice but of course the hardest) and here we are 8 months later and not pregnant yet.  God knows what we need.  And if I had gotten pregnant in these last 8 months, God would know what He was doing sending us that baby.

“Always button baby clothes from the bottom up.”
At one of my baby showers everyone wrote advice for us new parents and this was one of the few suggestions that I think about constantly.  Whenever I’m putting O in her pajamas, I always start from the top with the buttons and I always miss a button by the time I get to the end and I think about this advice card.  I should know to start from the bottom by now but I never do.  Such a simple piece of advice but so right on.

“If you don’t buy me the candy I’m going to tell grandma that I saw you kissing daddy’s peepee.”
A horrible embarrassing story that I read about in some parenting magazine.  The little kid yelled this at her mom when they were trying to check out at the grocery store.  Being a mom requires such humility in so many different ways.  Carrying added baby weight when I’ve always been so self-conscious about weight.  Walking around UT with O by myself and getting looks of shock from students/parents walking around. (We always joke that I should put on a UT tshirt and hang out with O and the stroller in front of some sorority house just for laughs.)  Having O scream at the top of her lungs in a restaurant or totally meltdown in public and getting ugly looks.  Breastfeeding in public when there is no other recourse.  Looking frumpy in public because O just wouldn’t let me do anything to make myself presentable that morning.  Moms have got to have such thick skin.

“You just never know what’s going to happen in life so really enjoy it and be thankful.”
On our first flight with O we sat next to this absolutely wonderful lady.  She was telling us how much she wanted a big family but her husband divorced her after they had their first kid and she never remarried or had any other kids.  I know, sad huh?  But she’s so right.  We may want a huge family but that doesn’t mean that God has other plans.  Maybe God will only send us O for the rest of our lives.  So we have to be so thankful and enjoy every moment with O because maybe we won’t walk this newborn part again.

“No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I’m clinging.  Since Love is Lord of heaven and how can I keep from singing.”
This is a hymn from church that I constantly have to sing to keep sane.  It’s kinda like my mantra.  When I feel like I’m about to lose it because I’m so frustrated with O I sing this in my heard and picture me holding onto the rock of sanity and it helps me calm down.  God always sends me the grace to calm down when I ask for it.

“9:20 sleep, 9:55 awake, 10:35 sleep, 10:37 awake, 10:45 sleep, 10:55 awake, 11:05 sleep, 11:45 awake, 11:48 asleep, 11:55 awake, 12:08 asleep, 1:22 awake,  1:40 sleep, 4:00 awake, 5:00 sleep, 6:20 awake, 7:45 sleep, 10:30 awake”
This is O’s sleep log from a night in January.  We have had some really rough nights.  She’s not much better at sleeping.  She still sleeps at least one good 3 hour block but other than that wakes up about every hour but it’s much easier to put her back to sleep than it used to be.  Patience is the name of the game.  And sometimes I lose at the game but everyday is a new day.

So here’s to all the moms that have to be not afraid, practical, humble, thankful, sane, patient, and a million other things to keep the family running. 

Happy (belated) Mother’s Day.

Since making the decision to stay home with the Squeaker I have had this really nagging worry.  I worry that I am not actually teaching her anything and that she would be better off at daycare or with a nanny because at least there she could be with other kids and learning from them.  Obviously I know that moms staying home with their kids is a good thing but I feel like maybe I’m not teaching her the right way or teaching her at all.  I don’t know, maybe she’s supposed to be walking and counting up to ten by now and I have failed to get her there.

In the last week she has been making amazing strides in development.  She started crawling (army crawling) at the beginning of last week.  I was getting to think this was never going to happen because she always wants to be standing and hates to be on her tummy.

For the last couple weeks I’ve been trying to teach her some baby signs.  Specifically I’ve been teaching her “more” and “all done” and “water”.  Yesterday she started doing “more”.  I don’t think she knows what it means yet but she is copying my hand motions when I do it, so it’s a start.

She has also been sleeping in her crib like a champ.  And like a champ I mean an hour at a time but this is basically as much as she was sleeping in our bed at a time so that fact that she is doing it in her crib is amazing.

While I’m sure O would have learned these things in daycare if we had her there, it just affirms that at least my mom aptitude is not stunting her learning and she is reaching the milestones that she needs to be reaching.  Thank God.

It’s just nice to feel like maybe I’m not so bad at this mom thing as I feel sometimes.

This is another golden tip from some book that I read about baby sleep.  Seems pretty common sense but you come to find that to a sleep deprived parent, few things are common sense.  The Squeaker has been such a bad sleeper that when I figured out I could nurse her to sleep lying in bed, I thought I had hit the jackpot.  Problem is now I can only put her to sleep like this.  So when we’re all in bed and she starts to squirm and I know she is going to wake up, yes I feed her, and yes, sometimes she is asleep.  So I do in fact feed a sleeping baby sometimes but I don’t do it as often as before.  Now I wait and see if she can put her self to sleep.  Anywho…

There are a few things that I am getting tired of:
1) People talking to me as if I’m stupid for co-sleeping with O.
2) Co-sleeping with O.

So, #1, I guess I run in some pretty hippy mom circles where co-sleeping is valued and seen as good parenting.  But recently I have had a lot of encounters with people who don’t have kids and who talked to me as if I didn’t know the first thing about being a good mom.  There is really no topic quite as controversial as how you get your baby to sleep.  Every single mom feels guilty about the way they get to their kid to sleep.  Including me.  Every time I tell someone that O sleeps in bed with us I feel like I need to explain why.  I feel like they are judging me and think that I am doing the wrong thing.

You know what?  That’s it.  I’m not going to feel bad anymore and other moms shouldn’t either.  I have talked at length to moms about how they get their kids to sleep and every single one of them does something that they feel uncomfortable telling you about and feel like they have to justify it.  Moms that have their kid sleep in their own crib in their own room and had to let their kid cry until putting themselves to sleep will say that there was no other way that worked and this was their last resort.  Moms that sleep with their baby in bed with them will say the same thing.  Moms that put their baby to sleep on their stomach will say the same thing.   We don’t need to explain why we do this to anyone.  The name of the game is survival.  You do what puts your baby to sleep so that you can get just enough sleep not to go crazy.

I do believe that there are a lot of things that moms can do that make them bad moms.  Here are some examples: put soda in your kid’s bottle, not giving your kid a chance to like veggies and always feeding them chicken nuggets and quesadillas, letting them play Halo and Grand Theft Auto, etc.  But sleeping with your baby, putting your baby in a crib, or letting them sleep on their stomach  is not one of them.

So next time I am talking to you and the topic of co-sleeping with O comes up don’t tell me that you think babies should sleep in cribs and don’t tell me that you know someone whose aunt’s hairdresser’s tax attorney’s dog groomer rolled over and smothered their baby after coming home drunk one night.  Don’t want to hear it.

#2 I have been thinking for a while that it is time to transition O into a crib.  Not because I want her out of our bed, but because she sleeps pretty well when she is asleep in our bed by herself but when I get in bed she wakes up about every hour.  I think she would sleep better in her crib.  And now that she is starting to be more mobile, I am worried about her being able to crawl off the bed.  (It is a commonly known precaution that if your baby sleeps in bed with you you should put your mattress on the floor to prevent this from happening.)  Thing is, I just have not built up the resolve that I need to fight this battle.  I am very sleep deprived at the moment and the thought of rocking O to sleep for hours and then her waking up 5 minutes after I put her in her crib makes me want to cry.  So I’m working on it.  Not to mention, we have a queen size bed which was fine until she started getting so big and likes to sleep with her arms outstretched as if she was Jesus.

Just like all families, we are a work in progress.

I don’t know why I thought parenthood would be much different from my past jobs in terms of progress.  I know I’ve had a short run as far as the job world is concerned but all my jobs have been working with people that don’t change/improve quickly.  Being a Catholic Worker, a case manager for Meals on Wheels, a high school teacher, and now a mother, I’ve learned to revel in small victories.

It’s such a weird thing that you have to teach babies how to sleep.  As essential as water, sleep is such a biological necessity that you would think that babies would instinctively do it.  Nope.  Especially not the Squeaker.  She has been a bad sleeper from day one.

From the day she was born, she would not sleep by herself or put herself to sleep.  Those few nights in the hospital consisted of me and Kraft sleeping off and on an hour to hold her because every time we’d put her in the little bassinet, she would start wailing.

When we brought her home.  Same thing.  She would not stay asleep unless she was in someone’s arms.  For the first three weeks of her life, we alternated between having her sleep on her diaper pad in our bed between me and Kraft and in our arms.  I would take the 1-4am shift and Kraft would take the 4-7am shift.  We realized quickly that we needed more sleep than this.

Then I figured out how to sleep on the couch sitting up propped up by pillows while holding her so that she wouldn’t roll off of me during the night.  This lasted a couple more weeks.

Then I found that if I rocked her for a couple hours until she was soundly asleep I could lay her down on our couch and lay down next to her and she’d stay asleep for 30mins or so until I’d have to rock her to sleep again.  This lasted about another month. (She was 3 months old at the end of this stage.)

Then I could rock her for a couple hours and lay her down (extremely carefully) in our bed and she would stay asleep maybe an hour at a time.  Of course she would wake up at the slightest noise.  A car alarm going off, people walking by the apartment and talking too loudly, a cat meowing, anything would wake her up.  So there I would go again to the rocking chair for a few more hours until she was sound asleep.  I got so sick of this rocking chair.  Cracker Barrel sure can sell a sturdy, cheap rocking chair but man is it uncomfortable and hard on the back.  There were some nights that I totally thought I was going to go crazy from rocking for hours then putting her down only to wake up 5 minutes later.

One night out of sheer desperation I swaddled her.  She had fought this like a fiend before this point.  She would scream as if we were killing her when we had tried the swaddle previously.  But magically this time, she was fine.  In fact, she slept like 4 hours straight.  Hallelujah.  Praise the Lord.  Between 3.5 and 4.5 months she started sleeping super well. She was sleeping about 5 hours stretches at night in a swaddle.

Then she started learning how to break out of the swaddle and by 5 months we couldn’t do it anymore.  Damn.  After coming to hate rocking O to sleep, I figured out how to nurse her to sleep lying down in our bed and then sneaking away when she was asleep.  This still took forever but at least I could lay down during it and rest while trying to get her asleep.  Now, of course, she cannot fall asleep unless she is nursing.  She won’t even fall asleep rocking anymore, which while I hated rocking before, now means that Kraft cannot help with putting her to sleep.  Damn, again.

For the last month we’ve been following Elizabeth Pantley’s No-Cry Sleep Solution techniques to wean O from having to nurse to sleep.  Pantley said it would be a gradual weaning and, man, it sure is.  Here we are one month later and we have made very little progress in that department.

However, yesterday was a glorious day.  It took two hours to get O to finally fall asleep around 9pm.  She did not wake up until 3:30am, at all.  I kept going in to make sure she was still breathing because it was so unbelievable.  Of course tonight she woke up 5 times in 4 hours but that is neither here nor there.  She slept six and a half hours yesterday without waking up.

I will take this one small victory and pray for more in the near future.