Reflections on Mother’s Day

May 10, 2015Leave a comment

To someone living outside my perspective, today, my first Mother’s Day, didn’t proceed in any unusual or special manner. In fact, in a lot of ways, it proceeded just like a normal Sunday.

And yet all those normal moments are so special because, at long last, I am a mother.

My day started before sunrise. Babycakes has been sleeping a lot better overall, though we’ve had several disrupted nights as she’s actively cutting teeth. Last night, she woke up twice needing to nurse, the second time around 5:00 am. She was awake again at 6:00, at which point the hubs brought her to our room so I could nurse her a little more (she really didn’t finish the first time) while laying in bed. Of course, being snuggly and warm resulted in her finally falling back to sleep.

So there I lay, tummy to tummy with my beautiful daughter, my husband curled against me on the other side. Not sleeping because of my hyper vigilance any time we bring Babycakes to bed in the early morning like that, but feeling completely blessed because, in that quiet pre-dawn time, I was literally surrounded by the peaceful warmth and breathing of the two people I love most in the world.

Somehow, Babycakes managed to get crying hard enough to revisit part of her breakfast while the hubs was getting her dressed for church (fortunately while down to her diaper). And I felt the sweetness of being needed in that desperate, deep baby-sigh of relief when she saw me walk back into the room, her beautiful, long-lashed eyes following mine as I murmured quietly to her, got her cleaned up, and dressed.

We did go out for a late lunch, and there I was able to enjoy the dimpled smiles as Babycakes took everything in, waving to strangers and making friends with another baby sitting nearby. The peals of laughter as we played peekaboo with our napkins.

Even though the nursing gymnastics in the car before we headed back home meant a failed feed and a rather fussy baby, the way Babycakes curled against me when we got home and nursed until nearly asleep for an early evening nap made up for it. Her little warm hand pressed against my shoulder. Her knees tucked up against my side. Her feet daintily crossed at the ankles, as she’s done while nursing since the day she was born.

The splashes and giggles during bath time while I sang “Rubber Ducky” and “Under the Sea.”

The way the hubs got her riled up during the pre-bed playtime, even knowing it would take a little extra effort to bring her down from the high.

When it was time to go upstairs and get ready for bed, she pulled herself up to standing by tugging on my pants, then reaching with her chubby arms for me to pick her up.

More nursing gymnastics that settled to the tunes of “London Bridge is Falling Down” and “For the Beauty of the Earth”, as they do every nap and bedtime, cuing her to drift toward dreamland in the soft glow of her crystal nightlight.

A last sip of water as she rested her heavy head against my shoulder, then turned to wrap her arms around my neck with a sigh.

Up to turn off the crystal nightlight.

Retrieving the musical giraffe and turning it on just before laying her in her crib.

Watching her lay her hand beside the glowing tummy of the giraffe as it started cycling through the seven or eight tunes it plays three times before turning off.

Little tired eyelids going blink, blink, blink.

And my day ends watching her watch the yellow light of the giraffe slowly fade to darkness as the music plays on, tonight with no final glance in my direction to see if I’m still there.

Then there is nothing but her soft breathing, the whir of the white noise machine, and the slight creak in the floor as I lean over to adjust her blanket before tiptoeing out and closing the door.

She will probably wake at least once in the night and need us. She may go readily back to sleep for the hubs, or she may need me to nurse her back down. But even those middle of the night times, as frustrating as they can be and as tired as I sometimes feel, are just part of the sweetness of being a mother.

Every moment so normal and mundane. And yet every moment worth treasuring.

Remembering What I’m Doing Here

February 23, 2015Leave a comment

This past week has been something of a comedy of errors around here. Babycakes has been suffering through her very first cold (at least we made it six months without any illnesses at all), which has included a fever and such bad post-nasal drip that she’s gagged and thrown up four times and has had a terrible time sleeping, even after we elevated the head of her crib mattress.

Whether it’s due to my own lack of sleep or just first-time mom with baby’s first cold jitters, I’ve been having a series of mom-fails that have included gagging my child with Tylenol (that was the first puke-fest), jamming a nasal aspirator too far into her nose (because she decided to flail at a most inopportune time), dripping saline drops into her eye because she does not want to have them put into her nose (again, flail), and, perhaps the worst, sitting her on the bathroom floor so I could get her ready for her bath, only to have her faceplant on said bathroom floor.

And like the saying goes, when it rains, it pours. Among all the other life stuff going on, I’ve heard back from both of the editors I submitted the chick lit romance to back in December. One asked me to revise and resubmit, and the other is interested outright.

Sometimes, in the midst of being a stay at home mom, I forget to think about myself and the goals I have for my writing career. My family, the hubs especially, is so supportive. But finding time to devote to writing is often the biggest challenge. I know it’s important to find that time somehow, and now that Babycakes is older, it is getting easier.

But it’s times like this, as with that nap transition/sleep regression crap we went through a few weeks ago, that I get so wrapped up in seeing to her needs, I forget to prioritize myself.

Or anything else, for that matter.

It’s only ridiculous luck that I heard back from both editors within a couple weeks of Babycakes getting sick and needing extra attention.

But I need to remember what I’m doing here.

Being on maternity leave has not made me stop being a teacher.

It has not changed the fact that I am on my way to being a published author.

Somehow, I can and will find a way to balance everything. It’ll be hard, and some days I’ll probably want to run screaming into the night.

But I can do this.

10 Things You Realize By the Time Baby is Six Months Old

February 12, 20151 Comment

It’s hard to believe that Babycakes is six months old on Saturday. I mean, where did the time go? Six months ago and some change ago, she was just this wiggly little Someone in my not-so-little baby bump, and now she’s an actual person! Watching her grow and learn and change has been amazing, and I can’t wait to see what the next six months brings.

Some curious and interesting things have happened to me (and my husband, really) since entering this state called Parenthood. I doubt every new mom has experienced everything on this list, but in my house, these are some pretty standard realizations.

Giving a baby manicure is only slightly easier than neurosurgery. If you’ve never tried to trim a baby’s fingernails, you really can’t empathize with the difficulty level the task entails. I’m sure someday, Babycakes will love having me fuss with her nails and will probably ask her father to give them a coat of bright pink polish, but right now, any attempt to trim even one fingernail is like expecting someone to perform the most delicate brain surgery with naught but a pair of tiny scissors. I’ve talked to other moms about this. Babies generally don’t like having their hands held perfectly still while you attempt to cut something from them with a pair of razor sharp scissors. A lot of people recommend attempting this while baby is sleeping, but I’ve never had success at this (poor angle, bad light, etc.). The times I’ve actually managed to trim Babycakes’s nails were during long pre-nap nursing sessions when she’s beyond relaxed. It’s probably like when people sip daiquiris during their pedicures or something. So far I haven’t nicked her, but I’m sure the day will come because she won’t always be nursing. And baby pedicures? It’s a week long process because I can only ever manage about two toes a day.
Almost all adult conversations eventually work their way around to discussing poopy diapers. Yeah, sorry that’s kind of a gross but sad fact. But it happens, especially when the conversation participants are other parents. My husband and I discuss our daughter’s dirty diapers so often, especially since she’s started solids, I’ve come up with an acronym: the FACCs (frequency, amount, color, consistency).
Pregnancy and labor eventually do unexpected things to your postpartum body. I’m not talking about the belly pooch or the hormonal fluctuations. I’m talking about the weird things that happen to parts of your body that have nothing to do with pregnancy or labor, or at least don’t come to mind when you think of pregnancy and labor. Every mom will have a different list of these. But for me, here’s the rundown. During pregnancy, I had periodic flare-ups of my bilateral rotator cuff tendinitis, which after giving birth got so bad that just about every nursing position resulted in physical torture as I silently prayed Babycakes would unlatch herself before my arms completely popped out of the sockets, leading me to need physical therapy (again) and the acquisition of a TENS unit to use at home. Similarly, the extra thirty pounds I carried around during the last weeks of pregnancy wreaked havoc on my knees, especially the right which I tweaked pretty bad during an exercise session a couple years ago. The pain returned several weeks after Babycakes was born, to the point where I had to use the TENS unit on them despite it being purchased for my shoulders. And lastly, perhaps the most unexpected thing was unbearable pain in my tailbone. Turns out back labor (which I had for 12 hours) can bruise your tailbone, and hours of sitting to nurse were ridiculously painful until I purchased one of those special cushions that have a space cut out to relieve pressure on your coccyx. Also, for no apparent reason, I’m also no longer lactose intolerant.
The definition of “me time” changes drastically. Before becoming a parent, alone time involved reading a book for hours, watching romantic comedies, and treating myself to a mani-pedi-massage package at a local day spa. Now, “me time” involves going to the grocery store by myself or, at the simplest, taking a shower while the baby sleeps. For a while when Babycakes was between 3 and 4 months old, the most relaxing thing I did was go to my physical therapy session (see above), where I could lay down for a while in a dim room, listen to music, have heating pads wrapped around my aching joints or over my stiff back, and then get something of a massage as part of the therapy treatment. Lots of times, I’d stop and get a cup of hot chocolate and a donut from the Tim Horton’s I’d pass on the way there. Now that I’m not going to PT anymore, I kind of miss that hour of time when I could just lay down without worrying about somebody crying over the monitor. I also miss having hot chocolate and a donut two to three days a week, but it’s probably better for me in the long run.
Physical hygiene tasks happen at warp speed, if they happen at all. Before having a baby, I would take long showers followed by a somewhat prolonged moisturizing routine. After having a baby, I shower so fast it’s questionable whether I even get wet. Even brushing my teeth is rushed, which probably isn’t good. I usually forget to put moisturizer on my face, and I’ve joined the ranks of moms who can’t remember if they brushed their hair that morning. And sadly, even after weeks of not being physically able to do so, I tend not to shave my legs unless a) we have to go somewhere that requires us to look sort of dressed up, or b) I realize I can see the hair and it’s approaching a quarter inch in length.
Mom hands. As a kid, I remember my mom complaining about how dry her hands would get and how she’d get painful splits in the skin around her fingernails. I never understood exactly why that was. I just knew that my mom’s hands were ridiculously comforting. They were cool when I was to hot, and warm when I was too cold. But mom hands are a thing that happens. I think it’s because you wash your hands so much more often, not to mention doing baby dishes that can’t go in the dishwasher and giving baby a bath. No matter how much lotion I use throughout the day, my hands are a mess. Like, dry to the point of cracked and bleeding knuckles. This has happened to me in the past during the winter, but winter skin and mom hands combined? Sometimes the lotion actually burns. I only hope the curious but awesome temperature anomaly is happening, which I believe is the result of biofeedback.
Phantom crying is a thing. I’m constantly hearing Babycakes crying when she’s not. It’s even happened during the handful of times I’ve been home alone while the hubs took her for a walk when the weather was nice. The sink in our bathroom has some sort of weird frequency it gives off that sounds exactly like a baby crying over a monitor and through a closed door. Freaks me out. I also sometimes hear the little musical giraffe Babycakes sleeps with, even if it’s not playing.
Obsession over some aspect of baby’s well being is also a thing. For me, as I’ve mentioned, it’s the sleep thing, particularly the nap thing. For some moms, it’s the feeding thing. Or a temperature thing. Or the FACCs (see #2) of baby’s dirty diapers. The people around us eventually learn to just smile and nod when we get going.
Oversensitiveness about noise will make all sleep times an exercise in your slow motion and/or ninja skills. I know, and every other mom knows, that you can’t shut out all noise during the day, no matter what you do to try and make nap time as similar to night time as possible. It’s even recommended that, while you don’t want to blast music at top volume, you shouldn’t try to mute the daily activities you tend to while baby naps. And I’m sure, like most new parents, I underestimate my baby’s capacity to sleep through noise. But even so, I’m ridiculously oversensitive about every noise that anyone makes in my house during naps, probably because the odds of Babycakes getting in a solid nap are kind of crappy most days. Inevitably, no matter how hard I try not to clang pans when preparing dinner or ban the flushing of all second-floor toilets at night, somebody at some point is going to make a loud noise during a sleep time. The hubs and I, however, have become quite proficient at miming stuff to each other and watching T.V. with next to no sound.
There’s a Mom Uniform. I’ve always been a proponent of yoga pants (or in the winter, fuzzy pants, because where I live it gets dang cold from December through February) for comfort. And they’ve really come a long way. I remember once standing in a sporting goods store, looking at some yoga pants in a bootcut style, and wondering if anybody at work would notice if I wore them rather than my usual dress pants. But now that I’m a mom, I’ve joined the ranks of everybody who throws on yoga pants, an easy-access-for-nursing top, and a hoodie for day to day wear. If I’m wearing jeans, it means I’m not only leaving the house, I’m going somewhere “special”.

So, moms of the world – what have you realized since your baby was born?

Debating With Myself About Sleep Training

January 22, 20151 Comment

I really can’t complain too much about how well Babycakes sleeps. I’ve mentioned before that she’s always been a bit of a crappy napper (other than the three days we were in the hospital), but besides the first night home when the hubs and I had no clue what the hell we were doing and Babycakes spent the majority of the wee hours screaming her poor little face off, she’s really had great night sleep. By three weeks she was doing a consistent 6 hour stretch, and by 12 weeks was hitting the 10-12 hour mark every night. We had a bit of a sleep regression…thing around Thanksgiving, and since then she’s been back to waking anywhere from one to three times a night to eat. Additionally, while she was taking four pretty solid 45-minute naps a day, she suddenly started resisting naps at the beginning of January and then transitioned to three naps. She might be on the cusp of another transition down to two naps, but I’m not sure yet.

We’ve also been working on an earlier bedtime. When she was still room-sharing with us, we’d all head to bed around 9:00. This started getting a little tricky once she began sleeping those monstrously long stretches. Babies make noise in their sleep, which disturbed me, at least. And it’s kind of hard to keep from disturbing baby when you’re snoring, or tossing in bed, or getting up to go to the bathroom, whatever. That was the main reason we decided to move Babycakes to her nursery once she hit the 3-month mark. Doing so also meant we could work on putting her to bed earlier, like by 8:00, and still have a little time to be adults before heading to bed ourselves (which for a while was still close to 9:00, at least for me). Granted, that “adult time” tended, and still tends, to consist of cleaning up the kitchen from bath time and doing baby dishes and maybe finally checking some email and, occasionally, watching a TV show or that Netflix that’s been sitting there for two weeks. We have a great bedtime routine in place, and have for a long time, and the sleepy sweet spot seems to be pretty consistent between 7:30 and 8:00. (Seriously, there’s a sweet spot. Too early and it takes forever for her to fall asleep on her own. Too late and there’s the chance, if she doesn’t completely conk out while nursing, it’ll take forever for her to fall asleep, and then she has a wakeful night. I tested this last night. It was a little rough until about 1:15.)

For quite a long time, I’d say since she was at least a month old, Babycakes hasn’t been completely lights-out when I set her down after nursing. She’d be all swaddled up, full of milk, and nice and warm, and when I laid her down in her cradle, she’d do this little resettling thing before truly falling the rest of the way asleep. Even when we moved her to her own room (and went cold turkey on swaddling because she managed to accidentally flip herself on her tummy that evening), I’d lay her down, she’d do a little stretch, then settle for the marathon sleep session.

Suddenly, sleep training started to creep into the conversation. “She’s old enough now to learn to go to sleep on her own.” That’s usually how it’s phrased. And this was something I’d known for a while, long before any relatives mentioned it, or before the baby development books brought it up in force. I think she was already kinda doing this, but I wasn’t laying her down wide “awake but drowsy”, which is what sleep training basically requires them to be. Nursing to sleep is very appropriate, especially for newborns up to 3 months of age, but even beyond that if it works. And I think it’s important to really tank Babycakes up before bed. Plus she really only eats well when she’s going to sleep, not after she’s woken up (which is why the eat-play-sleep routine during the day hasn’t worked for us, at least not yet).

I’ve been a little obsessed with her sleep for a long time, particularly once we moved her to her nursery and she seemed to settle into a predictable routine revolving around her waketimes and naps. But after Thanksgiving, I felt like I was being bombarded by so much information – and let’s face it, a little bit of pressure from a lot of different sources – to start working on sleep training. Since the beginning of December, I’ve been gathering as much information as I can get my hands on about sleep training methods. I’ve read everything from the Ferber Method (also known as the dreaded “cry-it-out”), Elizabeth Pantley’s “No-Cry Sleep Solution”, the Sleep Sense program by Dana Obelman, Nicole Johnson’s Baby Sleep Site, and many others. Even the American Academy of Pediatrics has weighed in. I won’t deny that there are babies out there who need sleep training so that everyone in the house can get a full night’s sleep. I’m talking about the babies who wake up every two hours or less. So yeah, there’s definitely a time and place for sleep training, if it’s what the family needs, right? Otherwise, why would there be so many pediatric sleep specialists and sleep consultants out there, promising personalized sleep plans to help your baby learn to fall asleep and stay asleep for that magic 12-hour night?

No one method seems to jive with our parenting goals and ideals, and while I can cull a lot of suggestions from each that, altogether, could make a method that’ll make me, the hubs, and Babycakes happy, it’s so overwhelming and confusing, I’m not even sure if it’s something we should systematically attempt at any point. They all contradict each other. One resource says to start working on sleep training at night, another says to do it first at naptime. One says to respond quickly when baby cries in the night, another says to set a time frame that you’ll wait (sometimes as long as ten minutes or more!) before responding if baby doesn’t go back to sleep on her own. Some say to keep baby alert during breastfeeding (have the “experts” ever actually tried doing this?), others say that because breastfeeding is so relaxing for both mom and baby, it’s an acceptable way to get baby nice and drowsy. Some say to keep baby fully awake during night feeds, even if it means changing the poor little one’s diaper in the middle of things, while others say to keep it quick and simple, not to change the diaper unless it’s a stinky one, and not to worry if baby falls asleep while nursing (though a lot of night feeds in our house happen when Babycakes isn’t even fully awake to begin with).

I recently shared a humorous but oh-so-true new mom’s take on the whole sleep training thing that illustrates how ridiculously all the expert advice contradicts itself. And here’s what I’ve determined about all the “rules” of sleep training:

I’ve been a big proponent of following my own maternal instincts when it comes to our daughter, and while I know I’m obsessing over how much she sleeps, how well she sleeps, how she falls asleep, whether she can effectively self-soothe when she wakes up in the night, etc., she’s really doing awesome at the sleep thing. I know that.

Plus, there is stuff out there that basically says not to worry about sleep training at all because it’s more of a societal thing rather than a developmental need, it doesn’t really work, and baby will figure it out when she’s ready.

See why I’m debating with myself over this?

For now, we’ll keep doing what we’re doing. Babycakes generally is well-rested, happy and healthy. I’m sure at some point, we’ll have to decide on a game plan for our own version of sleep training. I do miss the nights when she was sleeping 11 or 12 hours (and waking up between 7 and 8 rather than 6 and 7, as has been the case the past several mornings), but overall we’re not desperate for sleep.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to put Babycakes down for a nap.

What I’ve Learned About Being a Mother

November 14, 2014January 22, 2015Leave a comment

Today, Babycakes is three months old.

How did that happen?

In this time, I’ve learned several things about motherhood, at least in my own life and for my own baby, that I never imagined I’d learn. Let me share.

You do actually forget how much labor hurt. I mean, I know it hurt. I remember crying, struggling to breathe through back labor, throwing up, squeezing my husband’s hand, and, at one point saying, “I don’t think I can do this!” But I don’t physically remember the pain.
You shouldn’t doubt your maternal instincts. They’re called instincts for a reason. We’re programmed to intuitively know certain things, and that includes knowing what to do for our babies. I spent a lot of time in the beginning (and admittedly still) second-guessing myself. Am I feeding Babycakes often enough/too often? Do I respond too quickly when she cries, or not quickly enough? Is she getting enough stimulation and learning time? Do I hold her too much or not enough? Once I learned to stop questioning myself and start listening to my daughter, things seemed to get a lot easier.
You are the expert on your own child. Sure, it’s great to read up on all the different parenting techniques and ask for advice. But you’re also going to get a lot of unsolicited input from a lot of people, especially well-meaning relatives who think you should’ve been giving the baby cereal by now and nursing her to sleep is a bad thing. But as with maternal instincts, I am the most knowledgeable person when it comes to my baby. And I’m going to do what seems right to me. Will I make mistakes? Sure. Probably already have. Oh well.
That whole “babies sleep all the time” thing is a total myth. At least in my house. Babycakes is a stellar sleeper at night – we were getting 5-6 hour stretches by 3 weeks, and now she regularly sleeps up to 10 hours a night, interrupted by an early morning feed. But she does not like to nap at all. The lack of time during the day to do anything but entertain her is offset by the uninterrupted sleep we’ve been getting.
No baby is as adorable/smart/funny/etc. as yours. My daughter still hasn’t really figured out her hands, and tummy time is like torture. But she figures things out that we didn’t think she was developmentally ready to do. Plus she’s hilarious. And beautiful. And far too alert for her own good – she has to look at and listen to everything. That’s probably why she’s such a crappy napper. She communicates to us in her own language that can sound like anything from a kitten to a baby wookie, and responds when we imitate. She’ll be going to Harvard next week, I’m sure.
Each baby accepts things out in their own time. Babycakes screamed her face off every time we put her in the car or stroller for the first month of her life, which was particularly challenging since she also hates pacifiers. Suddenly last week, the car was no longer akin to being put on the rack (though she still hates the buckling/unbuckling process), and just on Tuesday the stroller was not a torture device. She loves eating milk off a spoon, but still won’t take a bottle, even if it’s the only option she has.
Things will hit your emotions in weird ways. All it takes sometimes is a particular song on the radio to make me well up. It took all my willpower not to start sobbing in the doctor’s office waiting room when one of those hungry-kids-in-Africa commercials came on the TV. I cry sometimes when I see tears in my baby’s eyes. It was probably harder on me for her to get her first set of vaccines than it was for me, though she’d probably assert the opposite if she could say more than, “Ah-goo.”
You will discover immense capacity for worry. Along with hypersensitivity to every sound your baby makes. You want only the best, and for your baby to be happy and healthy. You’ll wonder every minute you’re awake in the middle of the night if the baby is sleeping okay. You’ll reach over and lay your hand (gently) on her chest to feel that it’s still rising and falling properly. You might even try to get her to squirm a little in her sleep, just to make sure she’s alright. Moms have been doing this, I’m sure, for centuries.
Your capacity for worry will be nothing compared to your capacity for love. I loved my baby before I ever met her, but since she’s been born, I often find myself overwhelmed by how much I love her. There are many times I’ll be snuggling and rocking her after she’s fallen asleep nursing, and I just can’t contain my tears of joy and love. The first time my husband found me practically sobbing over our newborn, he was afraid something was very wrong. But rather, everything was very right.
You will finally understand how much your own mother loves you. My mom said to me recently, “You know how you feel about her? That’s how I feel about you.”