(Noah is 9 months, 1 week, and 5 days old)
Today we were visiting my parents, and my cousins with Ottawa were over. We haven't seen each other since my brother got married 7 1/2 months ago, so Noah is obviously very different than he was back at 8 weeks old! Their son Tyus is Noah's second cousin. He loved Noah, and Noah loved him.
My parents have tons of toys, and one toy they've gotten since Noah was born is this thing that looks like a tree house. It has 4 balls that come with it, various places to stick the balls in, and two discs that spin around at the bottom when you press a button or the balls go through the "paths" to the discs (I hope I'm describing this toy so you can kind of picture it). Noah has always loved this toy. Pretty much right when they got it back when he was 5 or 6 months he understood that if he pressed the big red button the balls would spin around on the disc, music would play, and it would make a bunch of racket. Us adults would sometimes put the balls in the hole at the top, but Noah wasn't really ready to purposefully put a ball through a hole, so we haven't pushed it.
Today Tyus was playing with Noah with this toy. Noah was holding one of the balls and banging on the toy. Tyus took another ball and said "Take the ball and put it in the hole, Noah," while showing him.
A light bulb clicked on in Noah's head, and he suddenly was picking the ball up and putting it through the hole over and over again. He would watch the ball spin around on the discs, then when it stopped he would pick the ball up and put it through the hole again.
It was SO cool to see him make that cognitive connection. He obviously has been understanding cause and effect for a long time. But to know that if he puts this ball through this hole, things will happen is different from knowing that if he presses this button things will happen.
I was so impressed. So was Justin. Then we laughed, because we know that in a month Noah will probably be doing stuff like that all the time and we'll look back on how amazed we were the first time he did it and laugh at ourselves. Just like we laugh at ourselves when we think back to our reactions the first time he rolled over, sat unassisted, pushed up on his hands and knees, or pulled up to stand. Everything becomes so "normal." And that is why I'm so happy to have this blog, where I record all of these "silly" little moments. I get to look back and remember how monumental Noah's life really has been for me.
He's a pretty rad kid.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Walker-Walker
(Noah is 9 months, 1.5 weeks)
Noah has been fairly early to meet many of his milestones. He was sitting at 5 1/2 months, army crawling at 5 months, getting himself to a sitting position from lying down at 6 months, pushing up on his hands and feet at 6 months, full-time hands and knees crawling at 7 months on the nose, pulling up to stand at 7 months on the nose, standing independently (not holding on to anything) for "longish" periods at 8 months... he's grown up very quickly.
Because he's met so many milestones so early, I kind of expected him to be even further along by 9 months. I thought he'd be even better at standing independently (he can stand for about 15 solid seconds without holding on to anything, and he does this a few times a day, but I just thought it would be more by now considering how quickly he's developed so far). I thought he'd be motoring around the house using his walker (an actual push walker, not a walker that you put a baby IN). He's not, and that's okay.
Despite my personal expectations of him being "high", I was pretty annoyed all during Christmas when everyone's questions were "Is he walking? Is he talking?"
Ummm, no, he's 9 months old. Walking and talking at 9 months old is very early. It's like asking a parent of a 4 month old if their kid is sitting up independently yet. It's not impossible, but it's pretty friggin uncommon. It's like expecting a 5 month old to crawl on his hands and knees. Again, not impossible, but pretty friggin uncommon.
I was bothered by these questions because Noah is doing really well for his age, but everyone was wondering about walking and talking, two skills that usually happen more around the year mark. I'm not kidding either, when I say "everyone." Well, it may be a slight exaggerration, but about 90% of the people we saw over Christmas asked those questions.
Noah got his walker back at 7 months when he was pulling up to stand and standing at things without us spotting him. His Nana and Papa figured he'd go crazy for it. Well, he liked the "toy" aspect of it, but hasn't been so interested in the function of it. We've pretty much pushed it to the side and not pulled it out to play with much over the past couple of months, because everytime we'd put Noah behind it, instead of walking forward he would sit down and crawl away.
(That's the "problem" with good crawlers... they are already very efficient at getting around, and don't necessarily have any desire to learn a new method.)
Yesterday my parents were over for dinner and they were saying that Noah is for sure going to be walking by a year. I didn't necessarily think so, especially since a couple of months ago everyone was saying he'd be walking at 9 months (I never thought he would be, for the record, and that's definitely not going to happen this month). I wanted to show them how uninterested Noah is in walking, so I took out his walker to demonstrate. To my surprise, Noah started walking behind it.
He made a total liar out of me. Don't kids always do that??
He suddenly has gotten pretty good at walking behind that walker. Funny how that can happen out of nowhere.
Today we had an 8 month old (and his parents) over for a playdate. This was our first playdate together, and I was very surprised to see that 8 month old James is about as physically skilled as Noah was at 5 months. He still falls all the time while he's sitting up, just rolls over if he wants to get somewhere, doesn't pull up on anything (his crib mattress is still where it was when he was a newborn), and spends a lot of time lying on his back to play (Noah hasn't spent any time lying on his back - unless he's sleeping - since he was 4 months old).
This reminded me (not that I need reminding) that there is such a huge range of "normal." And made me even more annoyed by all the questions I got at Christmas time. I was also impressed by the relaxed nature of this mother, who also happens to be a infant/child public health nurse. Personally, I'd probably be freaking out if that's where my child was at developmentally at 8 months. But she's not worried at all, because, like I said, the range of what's "normal" is pretty large.
If Noah walks by 12 months, that's cool. If not... I'm going to try my best not to be bothered by it.
If people would stop asking me if he's walking and talking, that would be very helpful.
Noah has been fairly early to meet many of his milestones. He was sitting at 5 1/2 months, army crawling at 5 months, getting himself to a sitting position from lying down at 6 months, pushing up on his hands and feet at 6 months, full-time hands and knees crawling at 7 months on the nose, pulling up to stand at 7 months on the nose, standing independently (not holding on to anything) for "longish" periods at 8 months... he's grown up very quickly.
Because he's met so many milestones so early, I kind of expected him to be even further along by 9 months. I thought he'd be even better at standing independently (he can stand for about 15 solid seconds without holding on to anything, and he does this a few times a day, but I just thought it would be more by now considering how quickly he's developed so far). I thought he'd be motoring around the house using his walker (an actual push walker, not a walker that you put a baby IN). He's not, and that's okay.
Despite my personal expectations of him being "high", I was pretty annoyed all during Christmas when everyone's questions were "Is he walking? Is he talking?"
Ummm, no, he's 9 months old. Walking and talking at 9 months old is very early. It's like asking a parent of a 4 month old if their kid is sitting up independently yet. It's not impossible, but it's pretty friggin uncommon. It's like expecting a 5 month old to crawl on his hands and knees. Again, not impossible, but pretty friggin uncommon.
I was bothered by these questions because Noah is doing really well for his age, but everyone was wondering about walking and talking, two skills that usually happen more around the year mark. I'm not kidding either, when I say "everyone." Well, it may be a slight exaggerration, but about 90% of the people we saw over Christmas asked those questions.
Noah got his walker back at 7 months when he was pulling up to stand and standing at things without us spotting him. His Nana and Papa figured he'd go crazy for it. Well, he liked the "toy" aspect of it, but hasn't been so interested in the function of it. We've pretty much pushed it to the side and not pulled it out to play with much over the past couple of months, because everytime we'd put Noah behind it, instead of walking forward he would sit down and crawl away.
(That's the "problem" with good crawlers... they are already very efficient at getting around, and don't necessarily have any desire to learn a new method.)
Yesterday my parents were over for dinner and they were saying that Noah is for sure going to be walking by a year. I didn't necessarily think so, especially since a couple of months ago everyone was saying he'd be walking at 9 months (I never thought he would be, for the record, and that's definitely not going to happen this month). I wanted to show them how uninterested Noah is in walking, so I took out his walker to demonstrate. To my surprise, Noah started walking behind it.
He made a total liar out of me. Don't kids always do that??
He suddenly has gotten pretty good at walking behind that walker. Funny how that can happen out of nowhere.
Today we had an 8 month old (and his parents) over for a playdate. This was our first playdate together, and I was very surprised to see that 8 month old James is about as physically skilled as Noah was at 5 months. He still falls all the time while he's sitting up, just rolls over if he wants to get somewhere, doesn't pull up on anything (his crib mattress is still where it was when he was a newborn), and spends a lot of time lying on his back to play (Noah hasn't spent any time lying on his back - unless he's sleeping - since he was 4 months old).
This reminded me (not that I need reminding) that there is such a huge range of "normal." And made me even more annoyed by all the questions I got at Christmas time. I was also impressed by the relaxed nature of this mother, who also happens to be a infant/child public health nurse. Personally, I'd probably be freaking out if that's where my child was at developmentally at 8 months. But she's not worried at all, because, like I said, the range of what's "normal" is pretty large.
If Noah walks by 12 months, that's cool. If not... I'm going to try my best not to be bothered by it.
If people would stop asking me if he's walking and talking, that would be very helpful.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
Tooth #8
I forgot to mention that Noah got his eighth tooth a few days ago. I'm not sure of the exact day, because I just noticed it yesterday (Dec 23). It's not very far in, but its matching tooth on the other side has been very slow growing as well.
He now has his four bottom teeth and four top teeth (the one he just got was his top right, next to his middle teeth).
I wonder which tooth will come in next...
He now has his four bottom teeth and four top teeth (the one he just got was his top right, next to his middle teeth).
I wonder which tooth will come in next...
Merry Christmas Eve!
Today was a GREAT day! The visit with Nona Anna was short but sweet. She loved her gift and loved seeing Noah. The visit at my inlaws' was great as well. I got the lamest gifts (Christmas tea towels and a Christmas sleigh candy dish thing that I'm pretty sure is a hand-me-down), but Noah got totally spoiled. They bought him:
-all 5 Sing-A-Ma-Jigs
-a Mega Blocks fire truck and a box of 40 pieces of Mega Blocks (we already have about 200 other pieces)
-a $70 Columbia snowsuit (18 months, but fits him PERFECTLY)
-a cute Carter's fleece track suit with a onesie (18 months)
-a cool cloth book
-a Christmas ornament and stocking
-a box of Pampers Cruisers (size 3, which is good, because Noah is going to be in size 3 a lot longer than I thought, and I only have a few boxes left).
And a couple of weeks ago they gave him a Fisher Price train that goes on its own.
They totally spoiled him. It was great:)
They also got us a GPS! Justin got his own presents from them, which weren't lame like mine (haha). I really think my mother-in-law has NO idea what to get me. She always gets me the worst gifts. It just makes me laugh.
They LOVED their present. I bought a collage of picture frames (1-11x14, 1-8x10, 2-5x7s, and 2-4x6s) and framed mostly pictures she had never seen before. She went nuts over it. It was so fun to watch. She was gasping and ooing and ahhhing. I was happy it made her so happy.
-all 5 Sing-A-Ma-Jigs
-a Mega Blocks fire truck and a box of 40 pieces of Mega Blocks (we already have about 200 other pieces)
-a $70 Columbia snowsuit (18 months, but fits him PERFECTLY)
-a cute Carter's fleece track suit with a onesie (18 months)
-a cool cloth book
-a Christmas ornament and stocking
-a box of Pampers Cruisers (size 3, which is good, because Noah is going to be in size 3 a lot longer than I thought, and I only have a few boxes left).
And a couple of weeks ago they gave him a Fisher Price train that goes on its own.
They totally spoiled him. It was great:)
They also got us a GPS! Justin got his own presents from them, which weren't lame like mine (haha). I really think my mother-in-law has NO idea what to get me. She always gets me the worst gifts. It just makes me laugh.
They LOVED their present. I bought a collage of picture frames (1-11x14, 1-8x10, 2-5x7s, and 2-4x6s) and framed mostly pictures she had never seen before. She went nuts over it. It was so fun to watch. She was gasping and ooing and ahhhing. I was happy it made her so happy.
Noah only had two 40 minute naps all day, but he did great. I managed to transfer him into the bottom of the pack 'n play at my inlaws' house without waking him up, which was amazing in my books. Dinner was awesomely tasty, and I managed to eat the entire thing before Noah woke up.
After Noah woke up from his nap he nursed for an hour! He wasn't drinking the whole time, he was just comfort suckling and playing with my face. It was kind of ridiculous how long he was on there for (not that I minded). I was just sitting in the living room (thank goodness I wasn't by myself in a bedroom) with him under the nursing cover and he just wanted to cuddle and suckle. For a full hour. I had to take him off the one side and put him on the other side after 40 minutes because he was showing no signs of coming off. He wasn't even sleeping. It was so weird. And we were all talking, which would normally distract him, but not tonight.
I think my mother-in-law was jealous. She always makes comments about how she can't wait until he's older and isn't so attached to the boob (you're going to be waiting awhile, woman). From all the comments she makes I really get the feeling that she's jealous of the bond Noah and I have in general (duuhh, I'm his MOTHER - and a stay-at-home-mother), and the fact that she never nursed Justin so she doesn't know what it's like to have that kind of relationship. Tonight she made a comment about the nursing and how she just wishes I could get "even a 15 minute break." Um, hello? He nurses every 2 hours and is usually done in 10 minutes. How am I not getting a 15 minute break?
Besides, I love nursing him. And he doesn't usually nurse for an hour! I think he just had such a big day, going to the retirement home and seeing a million old people, opening up tons of presents at a house he's not familiar with (my inlaws just moved), then waking up in a pack 'n play in a bedroom he's not familiar with. Plus he only had the two 40 minute naps all day. I think he just needed to relax and zone out. I'm glad nursing gives him that option and ability.
Tomorrow is Christmas Day!! It's going by too quickly!! I finally wrapped all of Noah's presents this morning. There are a lot more than I thought there were, and we gave him about 4 presents already. I guess I kind of ended up going overboard. Hehehe.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Merry Christmas!!
Tomorrow starts several days of holiday festivities. But it's not totally the beginning for us. This past Saturday we went to 'Kennedy Christmas', which is just a group of friends of my husband's parents who get together every year in December (it's called 'Kennedy Christmas' because the Kennedys always host it). We got there about an hour late because Noah's last nap did not go as planned. We only got to stay for a couple of hours, because the stupid thing didn't start until 4pm and we had to get home and get Noah to bed (he ended up going down over an hour late).
When we first got there Noah was not impressed. I supposed walking into a strange house where 20 people are all talking at once would be kind of alarming. He started wailing. I took him to a corner of a fairly empty room so I could take him out of the carseat and console him. My mother in law stuck her face in front of him and said "It's okay Noah, Nana's here!" (as if that would help). That made him start wailing again. She kept wanting to hold him, and I eventually told her to just back off until I had him totally calm and adjusted to his surroundings. She's always wanting to jump the gun (I think she wanted to "show off" to her friends and pretend like her and him are sooo close or something).
After about 15 or 20 minutes of acclimatizing Noah was good to go, and he didn't make another peep the rest of the night, escept for happy sounds. No fussing. It was a fun time, even if it was shorter than we would have liked.
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and we're spending most of the day at my inlaws. It will be rather boring, because it will be only me, Justin, Noah, and his parents. Justin is an only child, and both of his parents have only one sibling. Normally Christmas Eve is spent with my mother-in-law's side of the family, which is only 4 extra people, but still, it's 4 extra people. However, there's some big, fat, Italian feud going on that has caused a huge rift on that side, and we haven't seen them in months. Noah is 9 months old and his aunt and uncle have only visited ONCE, even though they live 20 minutes away. It's ridiculous, and apparently we all just pretend like it's not happening. Not that we know what's actually happening that we're pretending isn't happening. Nobody answers questions straight, and even if they did we wouldn't know who to believe because it's always a blame game.
Christmas Day will be at my parents' house with most of my siblings and their spouses (I'm pretty sure Nick, Hilary, Elijah, and Josiah are skipping out since we had our immediate family Christmas on December 5 and they have to drive 2 hours with 2 kids). My Pake and Beppe (my only living grandparents) and a mess of aunts, uncles, and cousins on my Dad's side will also be there (but not my Dad, because he has to work). We are also expected to try and make it to Justin's aunt and uncle's on his Dad's side, but there isn't a lot of time in the day when you have a baby and need to leave town at 6pm to get him home and in bed on time. We spent pretty much all of last Christmas Day with them, so I think we should be able to take a year off. But whatever.
Boxing Day we're supposed to go to brunch with a different group of my husband's family's friends. They do a brunch every year on Boxing Day. I'm not sure how it will go this year, since it starts right during Noah's naptime and we live 25 minutes away. We'll probably end up seeing people for 20 minutes at the end of brunch, and it won't even be worth the drive. But apparently we're trying.
Then on the 27th we're supposed to have Justin's aunt, uncle, and cousin out here - the ones who usually are at Christmas Eve. This just got arranged today by my husband. We'll see how that goes.
I am actually really loving this holiday season, even though it may sound like I'm not because my husband comes from a family of fools. But I love Christmas. It is my absolute favourite time of year.
It's funny, every year I always say "It doesn't feel like Christmas." Sometime in the last few years I figured out that it never feels like Christmas because each year feels different, and I always expect it to feel like it did the year before in order for it to feel like Christmas. So Christmas doesn't feel like Christmas until it's over.
But this year, it feels like Christmas. I feel like I'm surrounded by the wonderful Christmas spirit. And it's so weird to me that that's true. I don't have a single Christmas decoration up in my house (I didn't want to fight Noah and the cats away from a tree for weeks on end - that would tick me off). We haven't been to a single Advent service (we haven't been to church since October because we live 25 minutes away from our church and Noah always has naptime SMACK in the middle of the church service, and he cannot nap in the nursery... we really miss church). I haven't done a lick of baking. I haven't wrapped a single present. But somehow this year feels more like Christmas than any other year.
I think it's my incredible gratitude. This is my first Christmas as a real Mommy. I have a baby boy. I have a little kid to spoil (and I did end up spoiling him a little... I couldn't resist when I was out shopping a couple of days ago!) He doesn't know it's Christmas, but I know it's Christmas, and it's a better Christmas because he's here. He's the light of my life. He makes everything worth it, and makes every bad thing seem like not such a big deal. He makes every good thing seem like a WONDERFUL thing.
I'm amazed by my level of thankfulness this Christmas season. And while Christmas has never been about Santa and presents to me, this year I feel even more like I'm celebrating the true meaning of Christmas.
When we first got there Noah was not impressed. I supposed walking into a strange house where 20 people are all talking at once would be kind of alarming. He started wailing. I took him to a corner of a fairly empty room so I could take him out of the carseat and console him. My mother in law stuck her face in front of him and said "It's okay Noah, Nana's here!" (as if that would help). That made him start wailing again. She kept wanting to hold him, and I eventually told her to just back off until I had him totally calm and adjusted to his surroundings. She's always wanting to jump the gun (I think she wanted to "show off" to her friends and pretend like her and him are sooo close or something).
After about 15 or 20 minutes of acclimatizing Noah was good to go, and he didn't make another peep the rest of the night, escept for happy sounds. No fussing. It was a fun time, even if it was shorter than we would have liked.
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and we're spending most of the day at my inlaws. It will be rather boring, because it will be only me, Justin, Noah, and his parents. Justin is an only child, and both of his parents have only one sibling. Normally Christmas Eve is spent with my mother-in-law's side of the family, which is only 4 extra people, but still, it's 4 extra people. However, there's some big, fat, Italian feud going on that has caused a huge rift on that side, and we haven't seen them in months. Noah is 9 months old and his aunt and uncle have only visited ONCE, even though they live 20 minutes away. It's ridiculous, and apparently we all just pretend like it's not happening. Not that we know what's actually happening that we're pretending isn't happening. Nobody answers questions straight, and even if they did we wouldn't know who to believe because it's always a blame game.
Christmas Day will be at my parents' house with most of my siblings and their spouses (I'm pretty sure Nick, Hilary, Elijah, and Josiah are skipping out since we had our immediate family Christmas on December 5 and they have to drive 2 hours with 2 kids). My Pake and Beppe (my only living grandparents) and a mess of aunts, uncles, and cousins on my Dad's side will also be there (but not my Dad, because he has to work). We are also expected to try and make it to Justin's aunt and uncle's on his Dad's side, but there isn't a lot of time in the day when you have a baby and need to leave town at 6pm to get him home and in bed on time. We spent pretty much all of last Christmas Day with them, so I think we should be able to take a year off. But whatever.
Boxing Day we're supposed to go to brunch with a different group of my husband's family's friends. They do a brunch every year on Boxing Day. I'm not sure how it will go this year, since it starts right during Noah's naptime and we live 25 minutes away. We'll probably end up seeing people for 20 minutes at the end of brunch, and it won't even be worth the drive. But apparently we're trying.
Then on the 27th we're supposed to have Justin's aunt, uncle, and cousin out here - the ones who usually are at Christmas Eve. This just got arranged today by my husband. We'll see how that goes.
I am actually really loving this holiday season, even though it may sound like I'm not because my husband comes from a family of fools. But I love Christmas. It is my absolute favourite time of year.
It's funny, every year I always say "It doesn't feel like Christmas." Sometime in the last few years I figured out that it never feels like Christmas because each year feels different, and I always expect it to feel like it did the year before in order for it to feel like Christmas. So Christmas doesn't feel like Christmas until it's over.
But this year, it feels like Christmas. I feel like I'm surrounded by the wonderful Christmas spirit. And it's so weird to me that that's true. I don't have a single Christmas decoration up in my house (I didn't want to fight Noah and the cats away from a tree for weeks on end - that would tick me off). We haven't been to a single Advent service (we haven't been to church since October because we live 25 minutes away from our church and Noah always has naptime SMACK in the middle of the church service, and he cannot nap in the nursery... we really miss church). I haven't done a lick of baking. I haven't wrapped a single present. But somehow this year feels more like Christmas than any other year.
I think it's my incredible gratitude. This is my first Christmas as a real Mommy. I have a baby boy. I have a little kid to spoil (and I did end up spoiling him a little... I couldn't resist when I was out shopping a couple of days ago!) He doesn't know it's Christmas, but I know it's Christmas, and it's a better Christmas because he's here. He's the light of my life. He makes everything worth it, and makes every bad thing seem like not such a big deal. He makes every good thing seem like a WONDERFUL thing.
I'm amazed by my level of thankfulness this Christmas season. And while Christmas has never been about Santa and presents to me, this year I feel even more like I'm celebrating the true meaning of Christmas.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Amazing Pictures, Hidden in My Stash
For my remaining Christmas presents I am giving out framed pictures of Noah. My inlaws are getting the best of the lot, because my husband is an only child, thus Noah is an only grandchild. You can imagine how obsessed they are with him, so for Christmas they're getting a collage of picture frames (One 11x14, one 8x10, two 5x7, and two 4x6). While searching through my albums to find the perfect pictures, I found these two amazing pictures that I've never seen before, even though I took them:
How perfect are these pictures? I can't believe I've never seen them before, and that I've never posted them here or on FB before (that ends up making it perfect for the present, though, because it's better if they haven't seen the pictures, and almost all of my best pictures make it on FB).
In this picture Noah is 4 months and 9 days old. This was the day he broke out in hives, and I had been taking pictures of his hives to document them. After taking those pictures, I took a few quick snapshots of his face. Most of them were out of focus because of him moving closer to further away right before I took the picture. But these two shots were beautiful!!
It was such a nice surprise to find these in a random album that I thought was filled simply with pictures of the ugly red marks all over his body.
How perfect are these pictures? I can't believe I've never seen them before, and that I've never posted them here or on FB before (that ends up making it perfect for the present, though, because it's better if they haven't seen the pictures, and almost all of my best pictures make it on FB).
In this picture Noah is 4 months and 9 days old. This was the day he broke out in hives, and I had been taking pictures of his hives to document them. After taking those pictures, I took a few quick snapshots of his face. Most of them were out of focus because of him moving closer to further away right before I took the picture. But these two shots were beautiful!!
It was such a nice surprise to find these in a random album that I thought was filled simply with pictures of the ugly red marks all over his body.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
9 Months Old
At 9 months old, here is where Noah is at:
-On December 23 (9 months and 5 days) he weighed 19lbs 6oz (totally naked). This is about the 25th percentile.
-He's 30.5 inches tall, which is about 100th percentile
-His head circumference is 19 inches (48.3cm), which is 100th percentile.
-He wears size 3 diapers.
-He wears 12 and 18 month clothing by Carter's (my yardstick). The 12 month clothing is on the verge of being too small. Most of the 18 month clothing is a little too big. We're in the awkward in between stage, since he's 30.5 inches and that's the max height for 12 months and min height for 18 months.
-He has 7 teeth, but his 7th tooth has not grown very much since it popped through.
-He's a very good eater, according to everyone who watches him (they all make comments). He's accepting of so many foods, he opens his mouth well, hardly any food gets on his face... just a good eater.
-He points to everyone and everything with his tiny pointer finger. And he "shows" you things by holding them up in your direction. "See?? Look at my toy!!"
-His pincer grasp is getting better. He picks things up between his thumb and forefinger, it's just not necessarily the tip of his forefinger. He could still make improvement in this area. But he doesn't get a ton of chance to practice, and was only presented with the opportunity about a month ago, so I can't really blame him.
-He's still exclusively breastfed (no bottles or cups) except for a dinner of solids, and the occasional snack or taste of food during the day. Most days he doesn't need anything until dinner, though.
-He nurses usually every 2 hours during the day. More right now, since I've trying to build my milk supply back up after having the flu for 4 days.
-He is 100% swaddle free, and has been since a few days after he turned 8 months.
-He sleeps very well at night, usually about 11 hours total. He usually starts nursing to sleep at 7:15, although if he doesn't fall asleep I can put him in bed awake and he'll only cry for about 30 seconds before going to sleep. He sleeps 9 to 11 hours straight (usually around 10 hours), then nurses and goes back to sleep for a bit. If he wakes up before 4, I don't get him up to nurse, because I have found that he will STILL wake up sometime in the 4-5:30 range even if I nurse him at 3:45. He falls back asleep very well if he wakes up in the middle of the night. In the morning he has no consistent wake up time, but he usually does have a period of wakefulness in the 6-7am range, we don't turn on the lights or get him out of his crib until 7am, so if he wakes closer to 6 he often falls back asleep for a bit.
-Naps are still crap. A usual day has three 30 minute naps. We started a half-hearted attempt at nap training, but I'm not very consistent. It's bad, I know.
-I think he may need to go down to 2 naps a day, because I'm finding it harder and harder to get him to fall asleep before the 3 hour mark. The problem is that two half hour naps a day is not enough for any child.
-He still uses a soother every time I rock him to sleep, but if he goes to sleep on his own he spits it out (because of crying) and doesn't put it back in. So he only needs it if I'm rocking him.
-He had his fourth haircut today.
-He had his 4th illness this past week, a stomach bug, but was over it very quickly thanks to breastfeeding. No such luck for me.
-He's very capable, physically. He started full-time hands-and-knees crawling and pulling up 2 months ago, so you can imagine how good he is at it now. He's a great climber, too.
-He's getting better at cruising, but isn't amazing at it.
-He waves!
-He's back to social coughing again - A LOT. He was doing it way back at around 5 months, but my Dad got him back into it a few weeks ago when he copied him every time he coughed. He thinks it's hilarious.
-He's very talkative and babbles incessantly, but hasn't connected any words with any actual objects yet. As far as we can tell, the only word he truly understands is "Up."
-This month he started making an adorable scrunchy face. He does it often, when he's smiling, whining, whenever. It's so cute.
-When we click our tongues he copies us, and thinks it's the greatest.
-He never goes in his jumperoo or exersaucer. He prefers to play with the toys while standing next to it. Whatever!
-He loves to play peekabo in the mirror, and to watch you make faces at him in the mirror. This isn't new (he's loved the mirror for a long time), but he's just really really enjoying it this month.
-He still enjoys his jolly jumper, but we don't put him in it very often. He jumps way too high and hard, and the spring slams shut really hard and he continues to fly past the point where he should have stopped. It's not dangerous or anything, but sometimes he doesn't like the jolting he gets when that happens.
-He has separation and stranger anxiety, but it's not too bad at the moment. It seems like it's really bad when he's teething.
-Bathtime hasn't been tons of fun this month. Some days he hates the actual bath (for whatever reason), some days he's fine. But everyday is a huge struggle getting him undressed, giving him his vitamin D, getting him dried off, lotioning him (his skin has very dry spots, so he needs to lotion) desitin-ing his bum, diapering him, and getting him dressed again. He will flip over and bear crawl away so fast (he doesn't like the cold ceramic tile, so he bear crawls... lol). And he's so strong now, there's really nothing we can do about it. Justin pretty much has to pin down his upper body while I deal with the diaper. After that I can dress him as he's sitting and standing. But getting the diaper on is HARD.
This past month has had ups and downs. Noah reached his peak of separation anxiety this month, and I had many days (some entire weeks) where he was literally glued to me. I couldn't even stand up without him freaking out. As a SAHM, this gets very tiring. I couldn't get anything done, my house was a mess, and I couldn't even go to the bathroom without bringing him with me. Since he hardly naps, the only time I wasn't concentrating on him was at night when he was sleeping. It got tough after several long days.
I may have connected increased separation anxiety with active teething, though. It seems to get worse when he's actually cutting a tooth, and he cut 4 teeth in the past month, including his two front teeth (which are rather large, and I assume painful to cut). Unfortunately none of his teeth cut at the same time, so it meant a lot of painful days for him.
Noah has also reached the lowest of valleys in napping habits. 3 naps a day, all less than 30 minutes. This is frustrating, and I haven't been very good about nap training. There are several reasons for this. One, I don't enjoy listening to him cry, and oh-boy does he cry when I nap train. Two, for the past couple of weeks (since I decided to nap train) I've had a very hard time figuring out his optimal awake time, which is key if I'm not "putting" him to sleep. He's seemed to need awake times of at least 3 hours, but I can't fit 3 hour awake times plus 3 half hour naps PLUS the time it takes for him to fall asleep on his own into our day (3 naps means he has 4 awake times). It seems to be a time of transition, so maybe my efforts will go better if I cut him down to 2 naps a day.
Furthermore, we both got sick again this month with the stomach flu. I was laid up for 4 days, and today, day 6, I'm still not feeling great. Being a nursing mom with the stomach flu really sucks.
There have also been good times this month. Like when I connected the separation anxiety/crankiness with teething and was able to give him Motrin to avoid him being miserable all day long. Like the seriously improved night time sleep that has given me my evenings and nights back - uninterrupted! I've also been sleeping pretty good for the most part. Very few nights do I lie awake for hours on end, although I do still wake up upwards of 6 times a night - and this is medicated sleep, people. That's how bad a sleeper I am. But not being rudely awakened by a crying baby 10 times a night is a joy that every mother should experience. And that being your NORMAL? It's fantastic.
There have also been GREAT times this past month. The hugs and kisses and cuddles from my wonderful son. The fun games of copy cat that make him smile sooo big. Chasing after his skinny little naked body as he bear crawls out of the bathroom before bathtime so he can go out and happily play with his toys and stand naked at his baby gate. Seeing him relax on Daddy's lap in the rocking chair by the front window, watching the snow. Him really being so happy and well behaved after the teething was over. Being complimented over and over on what a cute, cheerful kid he is. Listening to Christmas music, and singing Silent Night to Noah before he goes to sleep. Just enjoying this wonderful time of the year and being sooooooo thankful that our miracle baby is here to share it with us.
I just can't even put into words how incredibly in love I am with Noah. He is the perfect baby for us, the only baby for us. I honestly can't imagine how empty our lives would be if he wasn't here. And all the challenges and tiring days don't for a second make me wish anything was different. He completes my life. I had this big hole, and now it's overflowing because of this most perfect child.
I am so full of thankfulness and love, I feel like my heart could burst. I freakin' LOVE my kid, and I love my life, and I can't imagine things being any different. THANK YOU God, for blessing us with Noah.
(PS - did you know a post can only have at most 20 labels, and those labels can only have a maximum of 200 characters? I only know since I surpassed that and needed to delete some of my labels on this post. What is the purpose of that limit? Let people label as much as they want!!)
-On December 23 (9 months and 5 days) he weighed 19lbs 6oz (totally naked). This is about the 25th percentile.
-He's 30.5 inches tall, which is about 100th percentile
-His head circumference is 19 inches (48.3cm), which is 100th percentile.
-He wears size 3 diapers.
-He wears 12 and 18 month clothing by Carter's (my yardstick). The 12 month clothing is on the verge of being too small. Most of the 18 month clothing is a little too big. We're in the awkward in between stage, since he's 30.5 inches and that's the max height for 12 months and min height for 18 months.
-He has 7 teeth, but his 7th tooth has not grown very much since it popped through.
-He's a very good eater, according to everyone who watches him (they all make comments). He's accepting of so many foods, he opens his mouth well, hardly any food gets on his face... just a good eater.
-He points to everyone and everything with his tiny pointer finger. And he "shows" you things by holding them up in your direction. "See?? Look at my toy!!"
-His pincer grasp is getting better. He picks things up between his thumb and forefinger, it's just not necessarily the tip of his forefinger. He could still make improvement in this area. But he doesn't get a ton of chance to practice, and was only presented with the opportunity about a month ago, so I can't really blame him.
-He's still exclusively breastfed (no bottles or cups) except for a dinner of solids, and the occasional snack or taste of food during the day. Most days he doesn't need anything until dinner, though.
-He nurses usually every 2 hours during the day. More right now, since I've trying to build my milk supply back up after having the flu for 4 days.
-He is 100% swaddle free, and has been since a few days after he turned 8 months.
-He sleeps very well at night, usually about 11 hours total. He usually starts nursing to sleep at 7:15, although if he doesn't fall asleep I can put him in bed awake and he'll only cry for about 30 seconds before going to sleep. He sleeps 9 to 11 hours straight (usually around 10 hours), then nurses and goes back to sleep for a bit. If he wakes up before 4, I don't get him up to nurse, because I have found that he will STILL wake up sometime in the 4-5:30 range even if I nurse him at 3:45. He falls back asleep very well if he wakes up in the middle of the night. In the morning he has no consistent wake up time, but he usually does have a period of wakefulness in the 6-7am range, we don't turn on the lights or get him out of his crib until 7am, so if he wakes closer to 6 he often falls back asleep for a bit.
-Naps are still crap. A usual day has three 30 minute naps. We started a half-hearted attempt at nap training, but I'm not very consistent. It's bad, I know.
-I think he may need to go down to 2 naps a day, because I'm finding it harder and harder to get him to fall asleep before the 3 hour mark. The problem is that two half hour naps a day is not enough for any child.
-He still uses a soother every time I rock him to sleep, but if he goes to sleep on his own he spits it out (because of crying) and doesn't put it back in. So he only needs it if I'm rocking him.
-He had his fourth haircut today.
-He had his 4th illness this past week, a stomach bug, but was over it very quickly thanks to breastfeeding. No such luck for me.
-He's very capable, physically. He started full-time hands-and-knees crawling and pulling up 2 months ago, so you can imagine how good he is at it now. He's a great climber, too.
-He's getting better at cruising, but isn't amazing at it.
-He waves!
-He's back to social coughing again - A LOT. He was doing it way back at around 5 months, but my Dad got him back into it a few weeks ago when he copied him every time he coughed. He thinks it's hilarious.
-He's very talkative and babbles incessantly, but hasn't connected any words with any actual objects yet. As far as we can tell, the only word he truly understands is "Up."
-This month he started making an adorable scrunchy face. He does it often, when he's smiling, whining, whenever. It's so cute.
-When we click our tongues he copies us, and thinks it's the greatest.
-He never goes in his jumperoo or exersaucer. He prefers to play with the toys while standing next to it. Whatever!
-He loves to play peekabo in the mirror, and to watch you make faces at him in the mirror. This isn't new (he's loved the mirror for a long time), but he's just really really enjoying it this month.
-He still enjoys his jolly jumper, but we don't put him in it very often. He jumps way too high and hard, and the spring slams shut really hard and he continues to fly past the point where he should have stopped. It's not dangerous or anything, but sometimes he doesn't like the jolting he gets when that happens.
-He has separation and stranger anxiety, but it's not too bad at the moment. It seems like it's really bad when he's teething.
-Bathtime hasn't been tons of fun this month. Some days he hates the actual bath (for whatever reason), some days he's fine. But everyday is a huge struggle getting him undressed, giving him his vitamin D, getting him dried off, lotioning him (his skin has very dry spots, so he needs to lotion) desitin-ing his bum, diapering him, and getting him dressed again. He will flip over and bear crawl away so fast (he doesn't like the cold ceramic tile, so he bear crawls... lol). And he's so strong now, there's really nothing we can do about it. Justin pretty much has to pin down his upper body while I deal with the diaper. After that I can dress him as he's sitting and standing. But getting the diaper on is HARD.
~~~~~~~~~~
This past month has had ups and downs. Noah reached his peak of separation anxiety this month, and I had many days (some entire weeks) where he was literally glued to me. I couldn't even stand up without him freaking out. As a SAHM, this gets very tiring. I couldn't get anything done, my house was a mess, and I couldn't even go to the bathroom without bringing him with me. Since he hardly naps, the only time I wasn't concentrating on him was at night when he was sleeping. It got tough after several long days.
I may have connected increased separation anxiety with active teething, though. It seems to get worse when he's actually cutting a tooth, and he cut 4 teeth in the past month, including his two front teeth (which are rather large, and I assume painful to cut). Unfortunately none of his teeth cut at the same time, so it meant a lot of painful days for him.
Noah has also reached the lowest of valleys in napping habits. 3 naps a day, all less than 30 minutes. This is frustrating, and I haven't been very good about nap training. There are several reasons for this. One, I don't enjoy listening to him cry, and oh-boy does he cry when I nap train. Two, for the past couple of weeks (since I decided to nap train) I've had a very hard time figuring out his optimal awake time, which is key if I'm not "putting" him to sleep. He's seemed to need awake times of at least 3 hours, but I can't fit 3 hour awake times plus 3 half hour naps PLUS the time it takes for him to fall asleep on his own into our day (3 naps means he has 4 awake times). It seems to be a time of transition, so maybe my efforts will go better if I cut him down to 2 naps a day.
Furthermore, we both got sick again this month with the stomach flu. I was laid up for 4 days, and today, day 6, I'm still not feeling great. Being a nursing mom with the stomach flu really sucks.
There have also been good times this month. Like when I connected the separation anxiety/crankiness with teething and was able to give him Motrin to avoid him being miserable all day long. Like the seriously improved night time sleep that has given me my evenings and nights back - uninterrupted! I've also been sleeping pretty good for the most part. Very few nights do I lie awake for hours on end, although I do still wake up upwards of 6 times a night - and this is medicated sleep, people. That's how bad a sleeper I am. But not being rudely awakened by a crying baby 10 times a night is a joy that every mother should experience. And that being your NORMAL? It's fantastic.
There have also been GREAT times this past month. The hugs and kisses and cuddles from my wonderful son. The fun games of copy cat that make him smile sooo big. Chasing after his skinny little naked body as he bear crawls out of the bathroom before bathtime so he can go out and happily play with his toys and stand naked at his baby gate. Seeing him relax on Daddy's lap in the rocking chair by the front window, watching the snow. Him really being so happy and well behaved after the teething was over. Being complimented over and over on what a cute, cheerful kid he is. Listening to Christmas music, and singing Silent Night to Noah before he goes to sleep. Just enjoying this wonderful time of the year and being sooooooo thankful that our miracle baby is here to share it with us.
I just can't even put into words how incredibly in love I am with Noah. He is the perfect baby for us, the only baby for us. I honestly can't imagine how empty our lives would be if he wasn't here. And all the challenges and tiring days don't for a second make me wish anything was different. He completes my life. I had this big hole, and now it's overflowing because of this most perfect child.
I am so full of thankfulness and love, I feel like my heart could burst. I freakin' LOVE my kid, and I love my life, and I can't imagine things being any different. THANK YOU God, for blessing us with Noah.
(PS - did you know a post can only have at most 20 labels, and those labels can only have a maximum of 200 characters? I only know since I surpassed that and needed to delete some of my labels on this post. What is the purpose of that limit? Let people label as much as they want!!)
Friday, December 17, 2010
Not Ready for It
The past 4 days have shown me that I'm not really ready to be pregnant again.
I forgot how much 24/7 sickness (I didn't have just "morning" sickness) SUCKS. Last time I was pregnant, the height of my illness was during summer vacation (although I still experienced daily nausea until sometime in the second half of my pregnancy). So I literally spent all of August in bed. I went nowhere and did nothing.
This wouldn't dissuade me from giving it another go right now if I didn't currently HAVE a baby. And a nursing baby, at that. The past 4 days have been awful with the intense nausea and still having to nurse every 2 hours and rock him to sleep. Thankfully Noah has been an angel, and this didn't coincide with any teething to create more misery. But I've felt very bad for him that I've been so unavailable. Justin has been amazing with Noah when he's been home, but he can't be here all the time, or even half the time. Plus, he is a terrible housekeeper. My house is a disaster zone, but I think he's just waiting for me to be better and then it will get clean. Men.
On Wednesday, I hadn't really experienced the runs yet, and the constant nausea (and the fact that it seemed like my stomach wasn't emptying even though I was starving and had barely eaten anything all day) felt eerily similar to how I felt when I was pregnant with Noah. I was 99% sure I wasn't pregnant, but I decided to use an OPK (I've got like 30 of them lying around, but only one pregnancy test) to see if it was positive, since OPKs detect HCG.
(Sidenote: One of the indicators that I had fertility issues was that my LH was always high, and my OPKs were constantly positive or nearly positive. The only time this wasn't an issue was when I was on the right cocktail of drugs and injections that made me actually ovulate. I forgot to mention in my Baby #2? post that I have peed on about 5 OPKs on various days in the past couple of months, and they have all been positive, even though I am clearly not ovulating.. I've been really disappointed about this, because I was hoping that my fertility issues were due in large part to stress, and that being pregnant, giving birth, and nursing would all make my body "get it" and start working properly. Then we'd only have MFI to contend with. No such luck.)
The OPK was positive. Very positive. Not just two lines the same colour, which is what I normally have. The test line was clearly darker, which is what happened at 12DPO the cycle I got pregnant with Noah.
I was still fairly certain I wasn't pregnant, but I had to know, so I used my only HPT. It was negative, but that's not the point here. The point is that I was actually kind of scared that it might be positive.
Justin dared to get annoyed at me when I admitted that I was afraid of that outcome. I'm ignoring that, because men can be idiots and they have no idea what being pregnant is like, nor do they know what being a nursing mother is like, so they can't even BEGIN to imagine what being a pregnant, nursing mother would be like.
It's not just "being pregnant" that scared me, nor the thought of having a newborn when Noah would only be 18 months old. It's the thought of the here and now. The constant nausea while trying to be a full time nursing mother. The thought of possibly having to cut short the way I want to do things with Noah because I'm pregnant and then another baby will be here. I'm just not ready to handle that. Or rather, I'm not ready to chose to handle that. If it happened, I would of course handle it and would be grateful for a miracle pregnancy, even if it did put my current life in shambles.
I don't think I'm going to be ready to be pregnant again until Noah is on a mostly solid diet (right now he only has one meal of solids a day) and less dependent on me and me alone. And I've said before, I don't want to force that. So it'll probably be awhile.
I forgot how much 24/7 sickness (I didn't have just "morning" sickness) SUCKS. Last time I was pregnant, the height of my illness was during summer vacation (although I still experienced daily nausea until sometime in the second half of my pregnancy). So I literally spent all of August in bed. I went nowhere and did nothing.
This wouldn't dissuade me from giving it another go right now if I didn't currently HAVE a baby. And a nursing baby, at that. The past 4 days have been awful with the intense nausea and still having to nurse every 2 hours and rock him to sleep. Thankfully Noah has been an angel, and this didn't coincide with any teething to create more misery. But I've felt very bad for him that I've been so unavailable. Justin has been amazing with Noah when he's been home, but he can't be here all the time, or even half the time. Plus, he is a terrible housekeeper. My house is a disaster zone, but I think he's just waiting for me to be better and then it will get clean. Men.
On Wednesday, I hadn't really experienced the runs yet, and the constant nausea (and the fact that it seemed like my stomach wasn't emptying even though I was starving and had barely eaten anything all day) felt eerily similar to how I felt when I was pregnant with Noah. I was 99% sure I wasn't pregnant, but I decided to use an OPK (I've got like 30 of them lying around, but only one pregnancy test) to see if it was positive, since OPKs detect HCG.
(Sidenote: One of the indicators that I had fertility issues was that my LH was always high, and my OPKs were constantly positive or nearly positive. The only time this wasn't an issue was when I was on the right cocktail of drugs and injections that made me actually ovulate. I forgot to mention in my Baby #2? post that I have peed on about 5 OPKs on various days in the past couple of months, and they have all been positive, even though I am clearly not ovulating.. I've been really disappointed about this, because I was hoping that my fertility issues were due in large part to stress, and that being pregnant, giving birth, and nursing would all make my body "get it" and start working properly. Then we'd only have MFI to contend with. No such luck.)
The OPK was positive. Very positive. Not just two lines the same colour, which is what I normally have. The test line was clearly darker, which is what happened at 12DPO the cycle I got pregnant with Noah.
I was still fairly certain I wasn't pregnant, but I had to know, so I used my only HPT. It was negative, but that's not the point here. The point is that I was actually kind of scared that it might be positive.
Justin dared to get annoyed at me when I admitted that I was afraid of that outcome. I'm ignoring that, because men can be idiots and they have no idea what being pregnant is like, nor do they know what being a nursing mother is like, so they can't even BEGIN to imagine what being a pregnant, nursing mother would be like.
It's not just "being pregnant" that scared me, nor the thought of having a newborn when Noah would only be 18 months old. It's the thought of the here and now. The constant nausea while trying to be a full time nursing mother. The thought of possibly having to cut short the way I want to do things with Noah because I'm pregnant and then another baby will be here. I'm just not ready to handle that. Or rather, I'm not ready to chose to handle that. If it happened, I would of course handle it and would be grateful for a miracle pregnancy, even if it did put my current life in shambles.
I don't think I'm going to be ready to be pregnant again until Noah is on a mostly solid diet (right now he only has one meal of solids a day) and less dependent on me and me alone. And I've said before, I don't want to force that. So it'll probably be awhile.
The Flu Chased Away the Milk
Our county's state of emergency lasted into Wednesday as the military continued to help rescue stranded motorists with their helicopters. Helicopter and snow mobile were pretty much the only way to get around, as you would run into 6 foot snow drifts out of nowhere. On Wednesday the schools in our zone were closed again. And thank GOODNESS, because I really needed my husband home.
On Tuesday afternoon I got sick with the stomach flu. It started with my skin hurting and a general feeling of ickiness. Tuesday night I was awake the majority of the night battling nausea, despite taking large doses of anti-nauseants. Wednesday was awful, but thankfully Justin was home all day to do everything for Noah except nurse him and put him to sleep for naps and nighttime (he is incapable of transferring Noah into his crib, and I pretty much feel like unless I'm dead this falls on my shoulders).
Unfortunately, on Thursday he had to go back to work. I spent the day lying on the floor in the living room while Noah played. I couldn't stomach anything, and I had the runs as badly as I had when I took those prescription preparation laxatives before my colonoscopy. Most of you have probably never had a colonoscopy, and thus never experienced that, but it is basically peeing out of your you-know-what. Just a clear, steady stream of liquid. Everything I drank went right through me. I don't think I absorbed any liquid all day.
Today, Friday, has been better, although I still had really bad runs this morning. I'm still very weak, and showering is a major undertaking, but I don't feel nearly as nauseous as I have the past few days. I'm able to stomach more food (although still not alot). But a problem has arisen as a result of this illess:
Where the heck is my milk supply???
Seriously, where is it? I have never had problems with undersupply before. I have had oversupply problems, but never undersupply. But this illness kicked the CRAP out of me and for the past few days my milk supply has been dwindling. By noon today my boobs were already tiny little deflated bags. That usually doesn't happen until Noah goes to bed.
Noah was sick on Tuesday. He puked up like 6 ounces of milk in the morning, and pooped 8 times in 24 hours. He usually poops a hard little nugget once every 4 or 5 days, so 8 times in 24 hours is NOT like him. And his poops were very watery, yellow, and mucousy. Also not like him. (Alright, writing about his poops is making me nauseous again. Moving on...) He also got a huge rash on his lower back. It was the size of my hand, and bright solid red. It has since turned into more separated bumps, but at the beginning it was just a solid, bright red splotch.
He ate a little less on Tuesday because he was not feeling well. So on Wednesday I thought my slightly decreased supply might be because of that (my boobs have always responded very quickly to changes in his eating habits). But by Thursday I knew that was not the case. And today... seriously, where is my milk???
I learned from Dr. Google that your milk supply can be temporarily affected when you're ill. And seeing as I've hardly eaten anything since noon on Tuesday, I've lost about 4 pounds in 36 hours, and all my fluids were going right through me, I would expect a decrease. But I didn't expect this much of a decrease.
I'm nursing Noah about every hour and a half, up from every 2 hours (frequency of nursing is the best thing for increasing milk supply). I'm drinking as much as I can, and I've been eating as much as I can, which still isn't a lot, because I know I obviously need it to make milk. If things aren't improved tomorrow I'll probably dig into my stash of Fenugreek and Blessed Thistle for the very first time since Noah was born.
I'm finding this all rather annoying.
On Tuesday afternoon I got sick with the stomach flu. It started with my skin hurting and a general feeling of ickiness. Tuesday night I was awake the majority of the night battling nausea, despite taking large doses of anti-nauseants. Wednesday was awful, but thankfully Justin was home all day to do everything for Noah except nurse him and put him to sleep for naps and nighttime (he is incapable of transferring Noah into his crib, and I pretty much feel like unless I'm dead this falls on my shoulders).
Unfortunately, on Thursday he had to go back to work. I spent the day lying on the floor in the living room while Noah played. I couldn't stomach anything, and I had the runs as badly as I had when I took those prescription preparation laxatives before my colonoscopy. Most of you have probably never had a colonoscopy, and thus never experienced that, but it is basically peeing out of your you-know-what. Just a clear, steady stream of liquid. Everything I drank went right through me. I don't think I absorbed any liquid all day.
Today, Friday, has been better, although I still had really bad runs this morning. I'm still very weak, and showering is a major undertaking, but I don't feel nearly as nauseous as I have the past few days. I'm able to stomach more food (although still not alot). But a problem has arisen as a result of this illess:
Where the heck is my milk supply???
Seriously, where is it? I have never had problems with undersupply before. I have had oversupply problems, but never undersupply. But this illness kicked the CRAP out of me and for the past few days my milk supply has been dwindling. By noon today my boobs were already tiny little deflated bags. That usually doesn't happen until Noah goes to bed.
Noah was sick on Tuesday. He puked up like 6 ounces of milk in the morning, and pooped 8 times in 24 hours. He usually poops a hard little nugget once every 4 or 5 days, so 8 times in 24 hours is NOT like him. And his poops were very watery, yellow, and mucousy. Also not like him. (Alright, writing about his poops is making me nauseous again. Moving on...) He also got a huge rash on his lower back. It was the size of my hand, and bright solid red. It has since turned into more separated bumps, but at the beginning it was just a solid, bright red splotch.
He ate a little less on Tuesday because he was not feeling well. So on Wednesday I thought my slightly decreased supply might be because of that (my boobs have always responded very quickly to changes in his eating habits). But by Thursday I knew that was not the case. And today... seriously, where is my milk???
I learned from Dr. Google that your milk supply can be temporarily affected when you're ill. And seeing as I've hardly eaten anything since noon on Tuesday, I've lost about 4 pounds in 36 hours, and all my fluids were going right through me, I would expect a decrease. But I didn't expect this much of a decrease.
I'm nursing Noah about every hour and a half, up from every 2 hours (frequency of nursing is the best thing for increasing milk supply). I'm drinking as much as I can, and I've been eating as much as I can, which still isn't a lot, because I know I obviously need it to make milk. If things aren't improved tomorrow I'll probably dig into my stash of Fenugreek and Blessed Thistle for the very first time since Noah was born.
I'm finding this all rather annoying.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
State of Emergency
We are the lead news story across Canada this morning. There's been declared a state of emergency in our area (which allows the province to get federal help and military helicopters to rescue people... although it's not helping because conditions that close roads also tend to ground helicopters). The roads are terrible, and ALL of the county roads are still closed. The roads are impassable. There are almost 400 vehicles currently stranded on just a small stretch of a single highway. It got to the point that the police told the motorists they'll have to stay in their car overnight, and to call again if they run out of gas. They've been using snow mobiles to try and get to people and bring them food and water. They've asked stranded truckers (which we get a lot of because we're a border town) to let stranded motorists have shelter in their heated rigs They physically can't get to everybody.
All the busses are cancelled again this morning, and so far all the schools in the area are closed, which NEVER HAPPENS. Literally it never happens. I don't know if it has EVER happened, actually. At least not for decades. Apparently the main city nearby isn't too bad, and the roads are actually passable. But us county people have been hammered. It's weird how you can be just 20 minutes apart and have such drastically different weather conditions.
I don't like weather like this. But at the same time, there's a tiny tiny part of me that thinks it's cozy that we're snowed in and roads are shut down. I have nowhere I need to go, we still have power, and we have enough groceries to last for a long time.
They've also set up warming centres for people because so many people's power is out. I am PRAYING that doesn't happen to us, because taking a 9 month old to a warming center would pretty much be a disaster. We have to figure out how our gas fireplace works without the switch on the wall, just in case.
I don't think Justin is going to like the drift that found it's way into our driveway overnight. It's only like 3 feet tall, though. lol
All the busses are cancelled again this morning, and so far all the schools in the area are closed, which NEVER HAPPENS. Literally it never happens. I don't know if it has EVER happened, actually. At least not for decades. Apparently the main city nearby isn't too bad, and the roads are actually passable. But us county people have been hammered. It's weird how you can be just 20 minutes apart and have such drastically different weather conditions.
I don't like weather like this. But at the same time, there's a tiny tiny part of me that thinks it's cozy that we're snowed in and roads are shut down. I have nowhere I need to go, we still have power, and we have enough groceries to last for a long time.
They've also set up warming centres for people because so many people's power is out. I am PRAYING that doesn't happen to us, because taking a 9 month old to a warming center would pretty much be a disaster. We have to figure out how our gas fireplace works without the switch on the wall, just in case.
I don't think Justin is going to like the drift that found it's way into our driveway overnight. It's only like 3 feet tall, though. lol
Monday, December 13, 2010
Naps and a Snow Day
It's been an interesting day in our neck of the woods.
Noah slept straight through from 6:50pm to 6:20am (yay!). We woke up to a heavy blizzard and a 5 foot high enormous snow drift in our driveway and across our front lawn. About a foot of snow had accumulated overnight. When we woke up we could hardly see across the street and it hasn't let up all day. Not for a second. It's been snowing and blowing this heavily every second today. Winds have been blowing up to 90km/hr (that's about 55 miles/hr for all my American readers), with a minimum speed of 60km/hr.
The school busses were all cancelled but most of the schools in the district remained open. Which was very stupid. No parents were going to drive their kids in (they never do in high school anyway), and most teachers couldn't get to school! The ones who tried ended up stranded and stuck on the side of the road. But they NEVER close the schools where we live. It's so stupid. Oh, we're both teachers, by the way, (or rather, I was a teacher) which is why I'm discussing bus cancellations and school closures.
We now have over 2 feet of accumulation out in the county where we live, and the entire county has been closed down. The provincial police closed ALL THE ROADS. I have never heard of this happening before! Sure, a highway here, a highway there. But basically we're in lockdown. Even the side streets are closed! This morning the police pulled all the cruisers off the roads, and the 4 X 4's were going out ONLY for emergencies.
Justin has been out to shovel 4 times. It took two attempts, two neighbours, and a guy with a snow plow on his truck to clear our driveway of the 5 foot drift. We were the only ones with that kind of drift in our driveway, by the way.
Now the drifts and piles beside the driveway are over 6 feet tall. Justin is 6'5", and he can barely get the snow on the top of the piles.
It's been nice to have Justin around for the day, even though he was doing marking. And Noah had a great day for naps! He had his first nap on me (I'm a sucker). It was only 35 minutes. Nap #2 was the BEST nap we've had since he about a month old. It was an hour and 45 minutes long. He woke up twice, fussed a little, and went back to sleep. He has not napped that long while lying down in his crib since he was a newborn. Definitely not since he was 2 months old. And the last time he had a nap that was longer than an hour and 20 minutes (which we all know is a rarity in this house) was at the beginning of July when we were at the cottage. He had a freak nap that lasted almost 3 hours while he was swinging in his swing. It's been over 5 months since he's had a nap that lasted longer than 80 minutes. And sure, it was only like 25 minutes longer, but that is a BREAKTHROUGH in our house!
Nap #3 was a little over an hour. Again he woke up in the middle of it, fussed a little, then went back to sleep. His fussing in the middle of both naps was very minimal, but enough that he was awake, possibly sat up, changed positions, and then laid back down and went back to sleep.
I also put him to sleep for all his naps today. I think tooth #7 is really bugging him, because he had kind of a rough day. He was pretty cranky, and I keep checking his tooth and it's stayed at the same status it was at a few days ago. It's still only partially cut through his gums. So it must be bugging him. It's not like he would have been tired.
I'm looking forward to seeing what tomorrow will bring. The snowstorm is supposed to continue overnight. It'd be nice to have Justin only have to go to work for 3 days this week. Then next week is the beginning of Christmas break! Having him home for 2 weeks will be wonderful:)
Noah slept straight through from 6:50pm to 6:20am (yay!). We woke up to a heavy blizzard and a 5 foot high enormous snow drift in our driveway and across our front lawn. About a foot of snow had accumulated overnight. When we woke up we could hardly see across the street and it hasn't let up all day. Not for a second. It's been snowing and blowing this heavily every second today. Winds have been blowing up to 90km/hr (that's about 55 miles/hr for all my American readers), with a minimum speed of 60km/hr.
The school busses were all cancelled but most of the schools in the district remained open. Which was very stupid. No parents were going to drive their kids in (they never do in high school anyway), and most teachers couldn't get to school! The ones who tried ended up stranded and stuck on the side of the road. But they NEVER close the schools where we live. It's so stupid. Oh, we're both teachers, by the way, (or rather, I was a teacher) which is why I'm discussing bus cancellations and school closures.
We now have over 2 feet of accumulation out in the county where we live, and the entire county has been closed down. The provincial police closed ALL THE ROADS. I have never heard of this happening before! Sure, a highway here, a highway there. But basically we're in lockdown. Even the side streets are closed! This morning the police pulled all the cruisers off the roads, and the 4 X 4's were going out ONLY for emergencies.
Justin has been out to shovel 4 times. It took two attempts, two neighbours, and a guy with a snow plow on his truck to clear our driveway of the 5 foot drift. We were the only ones with that kind of drift in our driveway, by the way.
Now the drifts and piles beside the driveway are over 6 feet tall. Justin is 6'5", and he can barely get the snow on the top of the piles.
It's been nice to have Justin around for the day, even though he was doing marking. And Noah had a great day for naps! He had his first nap on me (I'm a sucker). It was only 35 minutes. Nap #2 was the BEST nap we've had since he about a month old. It was an hour and 45 minutes long. He woke up twice, fussed a little, and went back to sleep. He has not napped that long while lying down in his crib since he was a newborn. Definitely not since he was 2 months old. And the last time he had a nap that was longer than an hour and 20 minutes (which we all know is a rarity in this house) was at the beginning of July when we were at the cottage. He had a freak nap that lasted almost 3 hours while he was swinging in his swing. It's been over 5 months since he's had a nap that lasted longer than 80 minutes. And sure, it was only like 25 minutes longer, but that is a BREAKTHROUGH in our house!
Nap #3 was a little over an hour. Again he woke up in the middle of it, fussed a little, then went back to sleep. His fussing in the middle of both naps was very minimal, but enough that he was awake, possibly sat up, changed positions, and then laid back down and went back to sleep.
I also put him to sleep for all his naps today. I think tooth #7 is really bugging him, because he had kind of a rough day. He was pretty cranky, and I keep checking his tooth and it's stayed at the same status it was at a few days ago. It's still only partially cut through his gums. So it must be bugging him. It's not like he would have been tired.
I'm looking forward to seeing what tomorrow will bring. The snowstorm is supposed to continue overnight. It'd be nice to have Justin only have to go to work for 3 days this week. Then next week is the beginning of Christmas break! Having him home for 2 weeks will be wonderful:)
Failed Photoshoot
In an attempt to take a nice picture to frame for the grandparents for Christmas, this ended up being my favourite shot:
Noah was just not in the mood. Almost every "smile" was a grimace.
I guess we'll try again another time. We're running out of time, though!
K I just went through again and did a little editing. Do you think this could make the "blow up and frame" cut?
Noah was just not in the mood. Almost every "smile" was a grimace.
I guess we'll try again another time. We're running out of time, though!
K I just went through again and did a little editing. Do you think this could make the "blow up and frame" cut?
It's still more of a grimace than an actual smile, but it's not terrible... right?
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Not for the Faint of Heart
Nap training is not for the faint of heart. At least not if your child is Noah. I had to remind myself this morning that nap training takes longer than nighttime sleep training, and it could take several weeks to really see improvements in Noah's sleep.
I'm not sure if those first couple of days were flukes, but things have not gone terrific since then. A lot of crying is taking place, a lot of waking up early from naps and crying for over half an hour before finally falling back asleep.
Noah and I were at my parents' house yesterday. We were there for many hours, and Noah obviously had to go down for a nap. He'd been awake for 3 1/2 hours, so I figured it'd be pretty simple to nurse him to sleep and put him in the crib. Well, he nursed to sleep easily, but woke up as soon as I put him in the crib. I tried to get him to go back to sleep by putting the soother in his mouth and cuddling him while he was lying there, but it didn't work. So I had to pick him back up.
I was bouncing around the room to try and get him to sleep but he wouldn't close his eyes. I was getting really frustrated because the weekend beforehand at my parents' house I had to put Noah to sleep THREE TIMES for one nap because he kept waking up everytime he hit the mattress, and he ended up not napping at all.
I finally put a blanket over his face because he was refusing to close his eyes. I was incredibly sick of walking around, so I sat down on a bed (there are two beds and a crib in that room) right beside the loud fan, and just kind of jiggled a little. He fell asleep like that, and I didn't want to deal with him waking up again so I decided to just hold him.
I was getting soo sleepy with the sound of the fan (plus it was the time of day I always get tired), so eventually I moved enough blankets and pillows around so that I could lie down with Noah draped overtop of me. It was so hard to get in that position without waking him up, because he is not a sound sleeper, and he did open his eyes a bunch of times. But he ended up sleeping for over an hour, so I was in the dark, boring room for over an hour and a half instead of visiting with my parents. I only dozed for about 10 minutes of it. Then Noah jolted and woke me up. So the rest of the time I was just lying there awake with my eyes closed. It was dull. The sleepy/dozing part was nice, and the cuddling was nice, but I wished I had TV or a book or something!
I have a feeling this is how we're going to be spending all his naps at all the Christmas functions we go to. There is no way he's going to transfer into the bottom of a pack 'n play without waking up if he can't transfer into a crib with the dropside down without waking up. This is going to suck for me. I wish he would sleep in a room full of people like he used to.
I'm not sure if those first couple of days were flukes, but things have not gone terrific since then. A lot of crying is taking place, a lot of waking up early from naps and crying for over half an hour before finally falling back asleep.
Noah and I were at my parents' house yesterday. We were there for many hours, and Noah obviously had to go down for a nap. He'd been awake for 3 1/2 hours, so I figured it'd be pretty simple to nurse him to sleep and put him in the crib. Well, he nursed to sleep easily, but woke up as soon as I put him in the crib. I tried to get him to go back to sleep by putting the soother in his mouth and cuddling him while he was lying there, but it didn't work. So I had to pick him back up.
I was bouncing around the room to try and get him to sleep but he wouldn't close his eyes. I was getting really frustrated because the weekend beforehand at my parents' house I had to put Noah to sleep THREE TIMES for one nap because he kept waking up everytime he hit the mattress, and he ended up not napping at all.
I finally put a blanket over his face because he was refusing to close his eyes. I was incredibly sick of walking around, so I sat down on a bed (there are two beds and a crib in that room) right beside the loud fan, and just kind of jiggled a little. He fell asleep like that, and I didn't want to deal with him waking up again so I decided to just hold him.
I was getting soo sleepy with the sound of the fan (plus it was the time of day I always get tired), so eventually I moved enough blankets and pillows around so that I could lie down with Noah draped overtop of me. It was so hard to get in that position without waking him up, because he is not a sound sleeper, and he did open his eyes a bunch of times. But he ended up sleeping for over an hour, so I was in the dark, boring room for over an hour and a half instead of visiting with my parents. I only dozed for about 10 minutes of it. Then Noah jolted and woke me up. So the rest of the time I was just lying there awake with my eyes closed. It was dull. The sleepy/dozing part was nice, and the cuddling was nice, but I wished I had TV or a book or something!
I have a feeling this is how we're going to be spending all his naps at all the Christmas functions we go to. There is no way he's going to transfer into the bottom of a pack 'n play without waking up if he can't transfer into a crib with the dropside down without waking up. This is going to suck for me. I wish he would sleep in a room full of people like he used to.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Tooth #7 and Nap Training Update
Tooth #7 (his right left tooth right next to his front teeth) is cutting today.
For the past week Noah has been an absolute angel. The week before he was a huge pain in the bum, really cranky, really clingy, temper tantrums... not fun. But for the past week he's been perfect. Cheerful, silly, fun, and no temper tantrums.
This morning he woke up after sleeping over 11 hours straight last night, and he was pretty fussy. That didn't fit with the sleep he had gotten and the fact that I had already fed him twice. So I checked his gums. This is pretty hard to do, because he really doesn't like me gently moving his lips out of the way to see in his mouth. It took a few tries, but I knew where to look because I had seen that tooth close to the surface when he cut his last tooth.
Sure enough, the gums were starting to split apart there. I gave him advil since he was clearly miserable, and he's been great ever since it kicked in. I haven't checked since just after his first nap, but the tooth moved considerably further out between the first check and the second check. Hopefully it'll be done cutting by tomorrow.
Both of his naps so far today have been about an hour. Nap #1 I nursed him to sleep. He woke up after 35 minutes, fussed for a minute, then went back to sleep. Nap #2 I nursed him but didn't let him fall asleep in my arms. He had popped off because he was done, but I put a soother in his mouth and he cuddled up against me with his eyes closed. I wanted to cuddle with him, but I didn't want to miss a chance to put him down full, dry bum, drowsy, but awake. He FREAKED when I put him in his crib, but only for 2 minutes and went back to sleep. He woke up after half an hour, cried for 3 or 4 minutes, then went back to sleep for about half an hour.
Hopefully things will continue to improve. They already seem a lot better, but I would really like to get rid of the crying in the middle of his naps!
For the past week Noah has been an absolute angel. The week before he was a huge pain in the bum, really cranky, really clingy, temper tantrums... not fun. But for the past week he's been perfect. Cheerful, silly, fun, and no temper tantrums.
This morning he woke up after sleeping over 11 hours straight last night, and he was pretty fussy. That didn't fit with the sleep he had gotten and the fact that I had already fed him twice. So I checked his gums. This is pretty hard to do, because he really doesn't like me gently moving his lips out of the way to see in his mouth. It took a few tries, but I knew where to look because I had seen that tooth close to the surface when he cut his last tooth.
Sure enough, the gums were starting to split apart there. I gave him advil since he was clearly miserable, and he's been great ever since it kicked in. I haven't checked since just after his first nap, but the tooth moved considerably further out between the first check and the second check. Hopefully it'll be done cutting by tomorrow.
Both of his naps so far today have been about an hour. Nap #1 I nursed him to sleep. He woke up after 35 minutes, fussed for a minute, then went back to sleep. Nap #2 I nursed him but didn't let him fall asleep in my arms. He had popped off because he was done, but I put a soother in his mouth and he cuddled up against me with his eyes closed. I wanted to cuddle with him, but I didn't want to miss a chance to put him down full, dry bum, drowsy, but awake. He FREAKED when I put him in his crib, but only for 2 minutes and went back to sleep. He woke up after half an hour, cried for 3 or 4 minutes, then went back to sleep for about half an hour.
Hopefully things will continue to improve. They already seem a lot better, but I would really like to get rid of the crying in the middle of his naps!
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Nap Training
(Noah is 8 months and 3 weeks old)
Around the time that Noah turned 2 months old his napping went in the crapper. Before this time he was a normal napper. Some long naps, some short naps, but he was a newborn, it was all normal. Then right around the 2 month mark he stopped having long naps. He only took four 30-40 minute naps a day (I've never understood this 45 minute mark people speak of... Noah has never had a 45 minute mark). But at that time he was sleeping 12-13 hours at night.
Since then he'd occasionally have a good nap. He's had a week or two where I could almost count on 1 good nap (of about an hour) each day. He even had a week where he had TWO good naps on most of the days. I think this occured around 5 months.
For the past long while I have been very lucky if he has two "long" naps in a week. That means out of 21 naps he takes in a week, 2 of them are about an hour long. Maybe. That's not very many.
It doesn't even matter how long he's been awake before his naps. I've tried shortening his awake times and lengthening them - he still only naps 30 minutes (rarely - almost never - does he make it to 40 minutes). This past weekend we had Christmas festivities at my parents' house (which I have yet to post about) and Noah only had two half hour naps on both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday he was awake for FIVE HOURS between his first and second nap, and he STILL only slept 30 minutes max. This 5 hour awake period was not by my choice; he had woken up as soon as he hit the mattress everytime I put him down in the crib, and since he wasn't in his own room he refused to just close his eyes again, which is what he does 90% of the time that we're at home ever since I used CIO at night.
For quite awhile now Noah has been not even hitting the 30 minute mark for most of his naps - including the time that he spends sleeping in my arms. So since he can only fit in three naps a day because he refuses to go to sleep before he's been awake for at least 2 hours and 15 minutes, sometimes longer, that means he's getting about an hour and 15 minutes of naps each day.
That's it. And it's not like he's even sleeping 12 hours at night. He sleeps about 11 hours most nights, often a little less, occasionally a little more. But he never sleeps 12 hours at night. So if you do the math, my 8 month old is getting 12 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. That is on the low end of what a child over a year old is supposed to get; most children over a year old get a lot more than this.
I have been getting AWFULLY tired of him waking up from his naps after 20 or 25 minutes, regardless of how long he has been awake. I am also getting concerned, because as he gets older his awake times are going to lengthen even more. Currently his awake times are usually about 2.5 hours (although he often goes a lot longer than that before bedtime). That's already pretty long considering how short his naps are. But when his awake times length again and he needs to go down to 2 naps a day, he is STILL only going to be sleeping for half an hour per nap. So then he'll only nap an hour each day.
I've been hoping Noah would self-correct his crappy naps. I don't know why I would hope this, because all his tendencies lean toward him being a crappy sleeper. But people would always say "Oh, as he gets older and more active he'll nap longer" (BULL! He's been on the move since 5 months and he's been a little spider monkey since 6 months, bear crawling, real crawling, standing, climbing stairs, trying to climb couches and beds, HE NEVER STOPS MOVING). Also, a lot of the research I've done has said that it's VERY common for young babies to have 30-45 (again with the 45!) minute naps, and this often self-corrects around 6 months of age - so don't sleep train if you don't have to.
Well, Noah was 11 days early... and not every baby follows the same timetable... so I was hoping maybe the self-correction was still coming.
It's not. In 10 days he's going to be 9 months. I'm done waiting. I have decided to take matters into my own hands. We are now nap training.
I'm not using any specific method. Yesterday was the day I made this decision. Noah woke up from a nap just as I was getting out of the shower. He immediately started crying, and he had only slept 25 minutes, so I decided he could CIO. It was kind of a decision by default. I was annoyed with his super short naps, and I didn't want to run and get him while I was in a towel and then have to comfort a disgruntled baby and not be able to get dressed or brush out my hair until after he was happy enough to play on the floor in my bedroom. So I let him cry. Then by the time I was all ready for the day, he'd been crying for 25 minutes. I didn't want to go get him then, because I didn't want to teach him that if he just cries for a really long time then Mommy will come. I want him to realize that it's okay to cry for Mommy, but if Mommy doesn't come in a couple of minutes, she's not going to come and you should go back to sleep. This is the same idea I use at night. When he wakes up to eat I get him within a couple of minutes. If he wakes up earlier than he actually needs to eat and decides to cry, I don't go get him and after a couple of minutes he realizes that and just goes back to sleep because there really wasn't anything wrong with him.
So at this 25 minute mark I was feeling bad because I didn't know if he would go back to sleep, but I also didn't want to get him and teach him to cry for a long time. I was describing the situation to my friend who had just called, and about 2 minutes later Noah was asleep. He slept for another 50 minutes.
Nap #2 yesterday was the same. Noah woke up after half an hour and I let him cry. He only cried for 7 minutes that time and then went back to sleep - although only for 25 minutes for that second chunk. There was no nap #3 because there was no time for it.
Today I had really made the decision to nap train. So for nap #1 I nursed him, changed his diaper, put him in his sleep sack, and cuddled, rocked, and sang to him. His normal naptime routine. But this time, about 30 seconds after he closed his eyes I put him in his crib and left the room. He was drowsy, but awake. He started crying, I got in the shower, and 10 minutes later he was asleep (he had slumped forward from a sitting up position). 35 minutes later I heard him kind of grunt/whine, but nothing else. I checked on him after a minute and he was lying flat on his tummy. He slept another half an hour, then got up.
Nap #2 I did the same thing. Nursing, diaper change, sleep-sack, cuddle, rock, sing. About 30 seconds after he closed his eyes I put him in his crib. I am fairly certain he was still awake, and he squirmed a lot on the way down, but he just rolled onto his tummy and went to sleep. He slept about an hour.
Nap #3 I just put him all the way to sleep. We were on a time crunch and I didn't want him to cry for half an hour and miss his nap window and then be awake for 5 hours before bed.
I'd say today was a success. We'll see how things go tomorrow!
Around the time that Noah turned 2 months old his napping went in the crapper. Before this time he was a normal napper. Some long naps, some short naps, but he was a newborn, it was all normal. Then right around the 2 month mark he stopped having long naps. He only took four 30-40 minute naps a day (I've never understood this 45 minute mark people speak of... Noah has never had a 45 minute mark). But at that time he was sleeping 12-13 hours at night.
Since then he'd occasionally have a good nap. He's had a week or two where I could almost count on 1 good nap (of about an hour) each day. He even had a week where he had TWO good naps on most of the days. I think this occured around 5 months.
For the past long while I have been very lucky if he has two "long" naps in a week. That means out of 21 naps he takes in a week, 2 of them are about an hour long. Maybe. That's not very many.
It doesn't even matter how long he's been awake before his naps. I've tried shortening his awake times and lengthening them - he still only naps 30 minutes (rarely - almost never - does he make it to 40 minutes). This past weekend we had Christmas festivities at my parents' house (which I have yet to post about) and Noah only had two half hour naps on both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday he was awake for FIVE HOURS between his first and second nap, and he STILL only slept 30 minutes max. This 5 hour awake period was not by my choice; he had woken up as soon as he hit the mattress everytime I put him down in the crib, and since he wasn't in his own room he refused to just close his eyes again, which is what he does 90% of the time that we're at home ever since I used CIO at night.
For quite awhile now Noah has been not even hitting the 30 minute mark for most of his naps - including the time that he spends sleeping in my arms. So since he can only fit in three naps a day because he refuses to go to sleep before he's been awake for at least 2 hours and 15 minutes, sometimes longer, that means he's getting about an hour and 15 minutes of naps each day.
That's it. And it's not like he's even sleeping 12 hours at night. He sleeps about 11 hours most nights, often a little less, occasionally a little more. But he never sleeps 12 hours at night. So if you do the math, my 8 month old is getting 12 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. That is on the low end of what a child over a year old is supposed to get; most children over a year old get a lot more than this.
I have been getting AWFULLY tired of him waking up from his naps after 20 or 25 minutes, regardless of how long he has been awake. I am also getting concerned, because as he gets older his awake times are going to lengthen even more. Currently his awake times are usually about 2.5 hours (although he often goes a lot longer than that before bedtime). That's already pretty long considering how short his naps are. But when his awake times length again and he needs to go down to 2 naps a day, he is STILL only going to be sleeping for half an hour per nap. So then he'll only nap an hour each day.
I've been hoping Noah would self-correct his crappy naps. I don't know why I would hope this, because all his tendencies lean toward him being a crappy sleeper. But people would always say "Oh, as he gets older and more active he'll nap longer" (BULL! He's been on the move since 5 months and he's been a little spider monkey since 6 months, bear crawling, real crawling, standing, climbing stairs, trying to climb couches and beds, HE NEVER STOPS MOVING). Also, a lot of the research I've done has said that it's VERY common for young babies to have 30-45 (again with the 45!) minute naps, and this often self-corrects around 6 months of age - so don't sleep train if you don't have to.
Well, Noah was 11 days early... and not every baby follows the same timetable... so I was hoping maybe the self-correction was still coming.
It's not. In 10 days he's going to be 9 months. I'm done waiting. I have decided to take matters into my own hands. We are now nap training.
I'm not using any specific method. Yesterday was the day I made this decision. Noah woke up from a nap just as I was getting out of the shower. He immediately started crying, and he had only slept 25 minutes, so I decided he could CIO. It was kind of a decision by default. I was annoyed with his super short naps, and I didn't want to run and get him while I was in a towel and then have to comfort a disgruntled baby and not be able to get dressed or brush out my hair until after he was happy enough to play on the floor in my bedroom. So I let him cry. Then by the time I was all ready for the day, he'd been crying for 25 minutes. I didn't want to go get him then, because I didn't want to teach him that if he just cries for a really long time then Mommy will come. I want him to realize that it's okay to cry for Mommy, but if Mommy doesn't come in a couple of minutes, she's not going to come and you should go back to sleep. This is the same idea I use at night. When he wakes up to eat I get him within a couple of minutes. If he wakes up earlier than he actually needs to eat and decides to cry, I don't go get him and after a couple of minutes he realizes that and just goes back to sleep because there really wasn't anything wrong with him.
So at this 25 minute mark I was feeling bad because I didn't know if he would go back to sleep, but I also didn't want to get him and teach him to cry for a long time. I was describing the situation to my friend who had just called, and about 2 minutes later Noah was asleep. He slept for another 50 minutes.
Nap #2 yesterday was the same. Noah woke up after half an hour and I let him cry. He only cried for 7 minutes that time and then went back to sleep - although only for 25 minutes for that second chunk. There was no nap #3 because there was no time for it.
Today I had really made the decision to nap train. So for nap #1 I nursed him, changed his diaper, put him in his sleep sack, and cuddled, rocked, and sang to him. His normal naptime routine. But this time, about 30 seconds after he closed his eyes I put him in his crib and left the room. He was drowsy, but awake. He started crying, I got in the shower, and 10 minutes later he was asleep (he had slumped forward from a sitting up position). 35 minutes later I heard him kind of grunt/whine, but nothing else. I checked on him after a minute and he was lying flat on his tummy. He slept another half an hour, then got up.
Nap #2 I did the same thing. Nursing, diaper change, sleep-sack, cuddle, rock, sing. About 30 seconds after he closed his eyes I put him in his crib. I am fairly certain he was still awake, and he squirmed a lot on the way down, but he just rolled onto his tummy and went to sleep. He slept about an hour.
Nap #3 I just put him all the way to sleep. We were on a time crunch and I didn't want him to cry for half an hour and miss his nap window and then be awake for 5 hours before bed.
I'd say today was a success. We'll see how things go tomorrow!
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Baby #2?
A few people commented on my post about how I wish Noah had a twin by suggesting that perhaps those feelings mean that I'm ready for another baby. This is something that I pretty much never stop thinking about, and have been wanting to write a post about for awhile. So here is my messed up jumble of thoughts regarding Baby #2. It's hard to write out neatly, because my thoughts on this are like a plate of spaghetti noodles - all interwoven with each other.
In case you don't want to read the whole post, the short story is: I'm ready for another baby, but I'm not ready to start trying for another baby.
Now the long story.
I want another baby. I want another 2 or 3 babies, really (not at the same time). I'm for sure going to have at LEAST one more, and would like to have at least 3 children total. If God allows us to get pregnant again. Which isn't a given, as most of us know.
In some ways I feel like I'm almost ready to be pregnant again, give birth again, have a newborn again (ohhh I miss those tiny days). I always wanted my kids to be about 2 years apart. Me and my 3 siblings are all 19 months apart (give or take two weeks). And we went boy-girl-boy-girl... how perfect is that, seriously? Who knows how that happened because my mom had the most irregular cycles, and every single one of us were accidents, but whatev. It happened.
I loved being that close in age with my siblings, and it's even better now. The 3 oldest of us are married, the two oldest of us have children (currently 21 months, almost 9 months, and 2 months old). My younger sister is only 3 years and 2.5 months younger than me, even though we have a brother in between us. We were great friends growing up, and we're great friends now. I don't feel like there's an age difference between any of us anymore, because there barely is. Family get togethers are awesome, it's great, I love it.
That being said, I don't want to TRY to have my kids 19 months apart. That's a bit too close for me. My nephews Elijah and Josiah are 19 months apart and it seems crazy, especially since Elijah isn't talking (yeah, I don't know what's up with that). If it happened for us naturally, I would be massively thankful, but I'm not going to start the hormones and injections and daily 2 hour round trips to try and make it happen. I'll revisit that subject in a minute.
After Noah was born Justin and I didn't (and still don't) use any form of birth control (unless you count abstinence... haha). I'm 100% positive we'll need to do treatments for baby #2. I don't intend to ever EVER try to get pregnant naturally again. It's a pointless emotional drain that will send me into a hellish tailspin.
To be honest, I still have not recovered from trying to get pregnant with Noah. I still have a considerably decreased desire to have sex because it became such a chore when we were TTC. After we started treatments I felt relief that I didn't have to have sex at least every other day anymore. But even then, in my head I was always thinking along the lines of "If we have sex today or tomorrow after our IUI then we're increasing our chances of getting pregnant... if we don't and we don't get pregnant, I'll wonder if it's because of that!"
Furthermore, having sex was like a constant failure. We wanted to get pregnant. You're supposed to get pregnant when you're having sex nonstop. But we weren't. We were broken. If you sucked at, say, cooking, and everytime you cooked you were made aware of how much your cooking sucked, would you want to keep cooking? No.
Besides being turned off by sex because of our terrible experience TTC, I have never had a very high libido, and I'm nursing and feel fairly confident that my sex drive is quite affected by that. All that being said, I love my husband very much and I do want to have sex with him sometimes - not that the two ideas are related in my mind (unfortunately, he's often not home during those times, because he's away so much). But even now, everytime we have sex, I can't help but think that maybe we just conceived our miracle baby. I can't separate sex and babies anymore.
I digress. My point was that we don't use any birth control, and would be happy if we got pregnant naturally right now, even though it's not "planned." I suppose it probably wouldn't be impossible for an unplanned pregnancy to occur. It's pretty frickin unlikely, but not impossible. He has some sperm (not a lot), and I haven't hit menopause, so anything can happen.
With that being said, I still don't have my period back. I don't expect it back anytime soon, since Noah still nurses every 2 hours all day long. And even if I did have my period back, I suck at ovulating (or rather, I don't ovulate), so its presence in my life doesn't even make me fertile.
I don't want to wean Noah so that I can just continue to not get pregnant. At this point I don't even want to wean Noah if I could get pregnant. The Canadian and American Pediatric Associations (or whatever they're called) recommend nursing for at least a year, and then as long as both mom and baby want to after that. The World Health Organization recommends nursing for at least 2 years, and then as long as you both want after that. There has been a lot of research done into how beneficial and healthy it is to nurse your toddler. I would get into it all now, but it really deserves it's own post. All that really needs to be said in this context is that extended nursing is extremely beneficial for a child (and the mother). I'm not sure how long exactly I will be nursing Noah, but I plan on nursing him well into his second year of life.
I thought I would for sure have to wean Noah before starting fertility treatments again. Now I don't know how true that is. In my research I came across a renowned breastfeeding expert from Toronto. He has information on his website about medication and breastfeeding. Very few medications are actually contraindicated in breastfeeding, and the information "out there" is all from pharmaceutical companies who just want nothing to do with any research, testing, and/or possible liability, so they say not to breastfeed while taking their drugs. He also said that most drugs taken by injection are fine because most of them can't be absorbed by the stomach (which is exactly the case with injectible FSH), so even if they go into your breastmilk the baby can't absorb them, so he won't be affected. I will obviously contact him and ask about my specific medications, but I was very relieved to find this out.
However, if I don't have my period back, I'm pretty sure the point is moot. I don't have it back because of my prolactin levels, and the only way to change those is to stop nursing. I doubt fertility treatments would work very well if my prolactin levels are sky high. Or would they? I don't know, because that wasn't my problem before.
I'm also not ready to get into the whole fertility treatment dance. It's so all-consuming. And it has to be. I firmly believe that if I hadn't paid as much attention to every little follicle and every little medication, I wouldn't have gotten pregnant when I did. I was pushy. I didn't just walk in and walk out and wait for them to tell me things. I asked questions. I suggested medication increases. I demanded review appointments with the RE. I pushed for triggering when I knew I needed it (for some reason after CD13 everything would go to hell and my follicles would start shrinking). And almost every cycle I would take things into my own hands by adding an extra injection here or there because the nurses could never remember how retarded my ovaries were.
My clinic is an hour away. I don't know when I'm going to be ready to either take that drive with Noah every day for a week out of every month (how fun for him), or try and line up grandparents to babysit him while I go on my own.
I really enjoy Noah. And while having a baby kind of turns your entire life upside down, you do get used to the new "normal." This is as simple as our lives as parents is ever going to be. One kid. As Noah gets older it gets easier for us to go places and do things. As he gets even older it will be even more fun. I already can't wait for springtime and summertime with an actual toddler. It will be a blast! Parks, beaches, playing outside, swimming... I can't wait to do all these fun things with Noah. This past summer was kind of a drag. Noah couldn't sit up until 5 1/2 months, which was the end of August, and couldn't sit indefinitely until 6 months, which was the middle of September. Whenever we went somewhere outside he had to be held. And it was friggin BOILING out this summer. My hydro bill was TWICE as high as it's ever been. It was crazy. So besides our vacation to the cottage at the beginning of July (which will be so much more fun this coming July), we didn't really do anything.
I don't want to rush into having another baby and not be able to enjoy Noah's ages and stages because I'm consumed with the newer, needier baby. But on the other hand, I would love for my boys (I'm 90% certain my next child will be a boy) to be close in age.
I can't really decipher exactly what I want here. I don't know when we'll start trying for baby #2, because it's not a simple thing. If it just involved "pulling the goalie" and we'd be pregnant a couple of months later, that's not a huge decision. You can just have the attitude of "Whatever happens, happens." Because of our infertility, the decision to have #2 is really a DECISION. It's a decision times a thousand. Trying to have baby #2 involves long daily trips, many doctors and nurses, referrals, invasive tests, injections, mood swings, hot flashes, and a lot of emotional turbulence.
I don't know when I'm going to be ready to go through all of that. I'm really having a good time with Noah, and when I start to get pregnancy-fever, or new-baby-fever, I remind myself that Noah is a baby (a very mobile baby who sometimes seems older than he is). He's still little. He still nurses exclusively all day long. He still needs me to help him fall asleep at naptime and nighttime (although not throughout the night). He still needs to nurse once overnight. He's a Mama's Boy. He's not ready to share me with another baby (a littler, extremely needy baby). And I don't want to force him into doing that too early.
When Noah was born I was fairly sure we would start trying for #2 shortly after he turned a year old. That would give us about 6 months to get pregnant (using fertility treatments) and to have the two kids about 2 years apart. But Noah turns a year old in less than 3 1/2 months! I don't feel like I'll be ready in 3 1/2 months, or 4 months, or even 5 months.
So while, yes, I would love to be pregnant again, I also don't relish the idea of nursing Noah with tender pregnancy boobs. And while I would be thrilled to have another baby soon, I don't like the idea of feeling stressed out about getting Noah to become more independent so that he can handle the presence of the new baby (ie. falling asleep on his own, weaning him, etc).
The conclusion: I would like to have another baby, but I'm not ready to start trying for another baby. And I don't know when I really will be ready for the gong-show that is fertility treatments.
I apologize for the jumbled mess of thoughts. Like I said, it's like a plate of spaghetti noodles.
In case you don't want to read the whole post, the short story is: I'm ready for another baby, but I'm not ready to start trying for another baby.
Now the long story.
I want another baby. I want another 2 or 3 babies, really (not at the same time). I'm for sure going to have at LEAST one more, and would like to have at least 3 children total. If God allows us to get pregnant again. Which isn't a given, as most of us know.
In some ways I feel like I'm almost ready to be pregnant again, give birth again, have a newborn again (ohhh I miss those tiny days). I always wanted my kids to be about 2 years apart. Me and my 3 siblings are all 19 months apart (give or take two weeks). And we went boy-girl-boy-girl... how perfect is that, seriously? Who knows how that happened because my mom had the most irregular cycles, and every single one of us were accidents, but whatev. It happened.
I loved being that close in age with my siblings, and it's even better now. The 3 oldest of us are married, the two oldest of us have children (currently 21 months, almost 9 months, and 2 months old). My younger sister is only 3 years and 2.5 months younger than me, even though we have a brother in between us. We were great friends growing up, and we're great friends now. I don't feel like there's an age difference between any of us anymore, because there barely is. Family get togethers are awesome, it's great, I love it.
That being said, I don't want to TRY to have my kids 19 months apart. That's a bit too close for me. My nephews Elijah and Josiah are 19 months apart and it seems crazy, especially since Elijah isn't talking (yeah, I don't know what's up with that). If it happened for us naturally, I would be massively thankful, but I'm not going to start the hormones and injections and daily 2 hour round trips to try and make it happen. I'll revisit that subject in a minute.
After Noah was born Justin and I didn't (and still don't) use any form of birth control (unless you count abstinence... haha). I'm 100% positive we'll need to do treatments for baby #2. I don't intend to ever EVER try to get pregnant naturally again. It's a pointless emotional drain that will send me into a hellish tailspin.
To be honest, I still have not recovered from trying to get pregnant with Noah. I still have a considerably decreased desire to have sex because it became such a chore when we were TTC. After we started treatments I felt relief that I didn't have to have sex at least every other day anymore. But even then, in my head I was always thinking along the lines of "If we have sex today or tomorrow after our IUI then we're increasing our chances of getting pregnant... if we don't and we don't get pregnant, I'll wonder if it's because of that!"
Furthermore, having sex was like a constant failure. We wanted to get pregnant. You're supposed to get pregnant when you're having sex nonstop. But we weren't. We were broken. If you sucked at, say, cooking, and everytime you cooked you were made aware of how much your cooking sucked, would you want to keep cooking? No.
Besides being turned off by sex because of our terrible experience TTC, I have never had a very high libido, and I'm nursing and feel fairly confident that my sex drive is quite affected by that. All that being said, I love my husband very much and I do want to have sex with him sometimes - not that the two ideas are related in my mind (unfortunately, he's often not home during those times, because he's away so much). But even now, everytime we have sex, I can't help but think that maybe we just conceived our miracle baby. I can't separate sex and babies anymore.
I digress. My point was that we don't use any birth control, and would be happy if we got pregnant naturally right now, even though it's not "planned." I suppose it probably wouldn't be impossible for an unplanned pregnancy to occur. It's pretty frickin unlikely, but not impossible. He has some sperm (not a lot), and I haven't hit menopause, so anything can happen.
With that being said, I still don't have my period back. I don't expect it back anytime soon, since Noah still nurses every 2 hours all day long. And even if I did have my period back, I suck at ovulating (or rather, I don't ovulate), so its presence in my life doesn't even make me fertile.
I don't want to wean Noah so that I can just continue to not get pregnant. At this point I don't even want to wean Noah if I could get pregnant. The Canadian and American Pediatric Associations (or whatever they're called) recommend nursing for at least a year, and then as long as both mom and baby want to after that. The World Health Organization recommends nursing for at least 2 years, and then as long as you both want after that. There has been a lot of research done into how beneficial and healthy it is to nurse your toddler. I would get into it all now, but it really deserves it's own post. All that really needs to be said in this context is that extended nursing is extremely beneficial for a child (and the mother). I'm not sure how long exactly I will be nursing Noah, but I plan on nursing him well into his second year of life.
I thought I would for sure have to wean Noah before starting fertility treatments again. Now I don't know how true that is. In my research I came across a renowned breastfeeding expert from Toronto. He has information on his website about medication and breastfeeding. Very few medications are actually contraindicated in breastfeeding, and the information "out there" is all from pharmaceutical companies who just want nothing to do with any research, testing, and/or possible liability, so they say not to breastfeed while taking their drugs. He also said that most drugs taken by injection are fine because most of them can't be absorbed by the stomach (which is exactly the case with injectible FSH), so even if they go into your breastmilk the baby can't absorb them, so he won't be affected. I will obviously contact him and ask about my specific medications, but I was very relieved to find this out.
However, if I don't have my period back, I'm pretty sure the point is moot. I don't have it back because of my prolactin levels, and the only way to change those is to stop nursing. I doubt fertility treatments would work very well if my prolactin levels are sky high. Or would they? I don't know, because that wasn't my problem before.
I'm also not ready to get into the whole fertility treatment dance. It's so all-consuming. And it has to be. I firmly believe that if I hadn't paid as much attention to every little follicle and every little medication, I wouldn't have gotten pregnant when I did. I was pushy. I didn't just walk in and walk out and wait for them to tell me things. I asked questions. I suggested medication increases. I demanded review appointments with the RE. I pushed for triggering when I knew I needed it (for some reason after CD13 everything would go to hell and my follicles would start shrinking). And almost every cycle I would take things into my own hands by adding an extra injection here or there because the nurses could never remember how retarded my ovaries were.
My clinic is an hour away. I don't know when I'm going to be ready to either take that drive with Noah every day for a week out of every month (how fun for him), or try and line up grandparents to babysit him while I go on my own.
I really enjoy Noah. And while having a baby kind of turns your entire life upside down, you do get used to the new "normal." This is as simple as our lives as parents is ever going to be. One kid. As Noah gets older it gets easier for us to go places and do things. As he gets even older it will be even more fun. I already can't wait for springtime and summertime with an actual toddler. It will be a blast! Parks, beaches, playing outside, swimming... I can't wait to do all these fun things with Noah. This past summer was kind of a drag. Noah couldn't sit up until 5 1/2 months, which was the end of August, and couldn't sit indefinitely until 6 months, which was the middle of September. Whenever we went somewhere outside he had to be held. And it was friggin BOILING out this summer. My hydro bill was TWICE as high as it's ever been. It was crazy. So besides our vacation to the cottage at the beginning of July (which will be so much more fun this coming July), we didn't really do anything.
I don't want to rush into having another baby and not be able to enjoy Noah's ages and stages because I'm consumed with the newer, needier baby. But on the other hand, I would love for my boys (I'm 90% certain my next child will be a boy) to be close in age.
I can't really decipher exactly what I want here. I don't know when we'll start trying for baby #2, because it's not a simple thing. If it just involved "pulling the goalie" and we'd be pregnant a couple of months later, that's not a huge decision. You can just have the attitude of "Whatever happens, happens." Because of our infertility, the decision to have #2 is really a DECISION. It's a decision times a thousand. Trying to have baby #2 involves long daily trips, many doctors and nurses, referrals, invasive tests, injections, mood swings, hot flashes, and a lot of emotional turbulence.
I don't know when I'm going to be ready to go through all of that. I'm really having a good time with Noah, and when I start to get pregnancy-fever, or new-baby-fever, I remind myself that Noah is a baby (a very mobile baby who sometimes seems older than he is). He's still little. He still nurses exclusively all day long. He still needs me to help him fall asleep at naptime and nighttime (although not throughout the night). He still needs to nurse once overnight. He's a Mama's Boy. He's not ready to share me with another baby (a littler, extremely needy baby). And I don't want to force him into doing that too early.
When Noah was born I was fairly sure we would start trying for #2 shortly after he turned a year old. That would give us about 6 months to get pregnant (using fertility treatments) and to have the two kids about 2 years apart. But Noah turns a year old in less than 3 1/2 months! I don't feel like I'll be ready in 3 1/2 months, or 4 months, or even 5 months.
So while, yes, I would love to be pregnant again, I also don't relish the idea of nursing Noah with tender pregnancy boobs. And while I would be thrilled to have another baby soon, I don't like the idea of feeling stressed out about getting Noah to become more independent so that he can handle the presence of the new baby (ie. falling asleep on his own, weaning him, etc).
The conclusion: I would like to have another baby, but I'm not ready to start trying for another baby. And I don't know when I really will be ready for the gong-show that is fertility treatments.
I apologize for the jumbled mess of thoughts. Like I said, it's like a plate of spaghetti noodles.
Monday, December 6, 2010
8 1/2 Month Pictures
I have so many things I need to post on here and on FB. I decided to go with here first. I was just uploading pictures from my camera onto my computer and found some I just really want to post for my own memories. So, I bestow upon you a plethora of pictures.
Yes, Noah can hang from the top of his gate:
We bought his this Santa hat, size 12-24 months. He's 8 1/2 months, and the hat barely fits on his head. I had to shove it on. I think I'm returning it, but he looks sooo cute, doesn't he?
I was cleaning up after dinner while Justin got ready for his first basketball game of the season. Noah had just gotten up from his nap, and Justin wanted to know what to do with him. I told him to take him with him. I figured when I went in there (the spare bedroom where Justin keeps his clothes) that Noah would be crawling around on the floor. Instead, he was still in his sleep sack with his soother in his mouth, sitting in the middle of the bed playing with a hanger and his Dad's belt. It melted my heart.
Little stinker getting into my cupboards:
I want it!
And his little stinker face:
In a track suit:
He started waving this past Saturday!!
I think he looks young here:)
Mommy and Noah at 8 1/2 months... couldn't get a smile from him:
But we got a wave!!
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
I Wish He Had a Twin
Today we had a playdate with Erin and Aubrey. It's nothing out of the ordinary, as we usually have at least one playdate a week. But Noah and Aubrey are just so cute together. They love each other so much. As soon as they see each other they get so excited, babbling to each other, laughing, holding hands, touching each other, following each other around as they crawl and cruise the furniture, giving each other kisses, playing with toys together... it makes me wish Noah had been a twin.
When I was doing fertility treatments I wanted twins. When I was first pregnant I hoped it would be twins. There were two follicles side by side, just waiting to become babies. It didn't happen. Then when my pregnancy got so excruciatingly painful that I was so happy I wasn't pregnant with twins, because I could barely move without breaking into a sweat and tears springing to my eyes. Imagine if there had been two in there!
I was also happy I didn't have to deal with any twin pregnancy complications, or having a c-section. Vaginal childbirth SANS EPIDURAL is absolutely, positively, agonizingly torturous (or at least mine was - I was completely delirious from the pain), and the episiotomy recovery is no walk in the park, either! But at least I didn't have to push out TWO babies (oh the horror) without an epidural (they're not available at my hospital, for anyone who is wondering why I would choose not to get one when I was experiencing pain 80 thousand times worse than what I anticipated - and I anticipated BAD). And I'm glad I got to experience that whole vaginal birth thing; as horrifying as it was, it was so miraculous. I still can't believe my body could DO that! And it's true that the second that baby leaves your body, all the pain is gone and it was all totally worth it. Besides, not being able to get pregnant naturally makes me want more of the other steps in childbearing/rearing to be natural. Anyway, I digress.
After Noah was born I was even happier he wasn't a twin. I didn't know what I was thinking before! Newborns are HARD WORK. Babies of any age are hard work. But newborns are especially hard. And I didn't have a baby with colic. Noah was an amazingly good newborn. He never even cried until he was, like, 2 weeks old. He did have a period from about 3 weeks until 8 or 9 weeks that he was cranky and fussy pretty much all the time, but no constant screaming. No colic. Just whiny.
He may not have had colic, but that kid LIVED on my boobs. He nursed every hour to an hour and a half for MONTHS. He was about 5 months old before he started making it to 2 hours between feedings. Even now at 8 months he needs to nurse every two hours. I think he has a small stomach.
Plus he has always needs to be rocked or nursed to sleep. He is not a child who can be laid down drowsy but awake and put himself to sleep. Maybe I made him that way. In fact, that wouldn't surprise me at all if that was completely my fault. Regardless, he is a SHITTY napper and has been since he was a couple of months old. He is a good nighttime sleeper again, but only because we used CIO. He tends to lean in the direction of being a crappy all-around sleeper.
I don't know what I would have done if there were two of him. First there's the breastfeeding thing. Exclusive breastfeeding is important to me. I was lucky to have a good latcher and therefore a great supply, and my milk came in FULL FORCE 48 hours after I gave birth. So I could have kept up with triplets. But if I had twins who both nursed as often as Noah nursed, I would have had to have 24/7 help because I would have been able to do nothing but nurse, with the occasional pee break. But, like I said, exclusive breastfeeding is extremely important to me. It's just my thing.
Then there's the sleep thing. It boggles my mind to think of having TWO horrible sleepers to deal with. Hats off to you twin mommies who do it.
So while I love Noah, I would NOT have wanted two of him at the same time during the first, say, 4 or 5 months of his life. And even now, having one baby is obviously easier than having two, so I enjoy the singleton aspect of his existence.
BUT... now that he's older, and mobile, and loves other kids, and has separation anxiety... I think he would be perfect as a twin. And I really think I could handle it now.
When I was doing fertility treatments I wanted twins. When I was first pregnant I hoped it would be twins. There were two follicles side by side, just waiting to become babies. It didn't happen. Then when my pregnancy got so excruciatingly painful that I was so happy I wasn't pregnant with twins, because I could barely move without breaking into a sweat and tears springing to my eyes. Imagine if there had been two in there!
I was also happy I didn't have to deal with any twin pregnancy complications, or having a c-section. Vaginal childbirth SANS EPIDURAL is absolutely, positively, agonizingly torturous (or at least mine was - I was completely delirious from the pain), and the episiotomy recovery is no walk in the park, either! But at least I didn't have to push out TWO babies (oh the horror) without an epidural (they're not available at my hospital, for anyone who is wondering why I would choose not to get one when I was experiencing pain 80 thousand times worse than what I anticipated - and I anticipated BAD). And I'm glad I got to experience that whole vaginal birth thing; as horrifying as it was, it was so miraculous. I still can't believe my body could DO that! And it's true that the second that baby leaves your body, all the pain is gone and it was all totally worth it. Besides, not being able to get pregnant naturally makes me want more of the other steps in childbearing/rearing to be natural. Anyway, I digress.
After Noah was born I was even happier he wasn't a twin. I didn't know what I was thinking before! Newborns are HARD WORK. Babies of any age are hard work. But newborns are especially hard. And I didn't have a baby with colic. Noah was an amazingly good newborn. He never even cried until he was, like, 2 weeks old. He did have a period from about 3 weeks until 8 or 9 weeks that he was cranky and fussy pretty much all the time, but no constant screaming. No colic. Just whiny.
He may not have had colic, but that kid LIVED on my boobs. He nursed every hour to an hour and a half for MONTHS. He was about 5 months old before he started making it to 2 hours between feedings. Even now at 8 months he needs to nurse every two hours. I think he has a small stomach.
Plus he has always needs to be rocked or nursed to sleep. He is not a child who can be laid down drowsy but awake and put himself to sleep. Maybe I made him that way. In fact, that wouldn't surprise me at all if that was completely my fault. Regardless, he is a SHITTY napper and has been since he was a couple of months old. He is a good nighttime sleeper again, but only because we used CIO. He tends to lean in the direction of being a crappy all-around sleeper.
I don't know what I would have done if there were two of him. First there's the breastfeeding thing. Exclusive breastfeeding is important to me. I was lucky to have a good latcher and therefore a great supply, and my milk came in FULL FORCE 48 hours after I gave birth. So I could have kept up with triplets. But if I had twins who both nursed as often as Noah nursed, I would have had to have 24/7 help because I would have been able to do nothing but nurse, with the occasional pee break. But, like I said, exclusive breastfeeding is extremely important to me. It's just my thing.
Then there's the sleep thing. It boggles my mind to think of having TWO horrible sleepers to deal with. Hats off to you twin mommies who do it.
So while I love Noah, I would NOT have wanted two of him at the same time during the first, say, 4 or 5 months of his life. And even now, having one baby is obviously easier than having two, so I enjoy the singleton aspect of his existence.
BUT... now that he's older, and mobile, and loves other kids, and has separation anxiety... I think he would be perfect as a twin. And I really think I could handle it now.
Standing Alone
For the past month (since about 7 1/2 months) Noah has been occasionally standing alone - as in not hanging on to anyone or anything - for short bursts. He started out with bursts of just a couple of seconds of steady standing, and by last week (8 months and 1 week) he had a record of standing totally unassisted for almost 10 seconds straight.
It all just depends on his mood. He can do it really well if he wants to, but he isn't always interested in doing it when we try to get him to. A lot of the time that we stand him up in front of us he tries to jump up and down, because our hands are under his armpits. If I hang onto his hands he doesn't usually try to jump, but sometimes he'll just sit down so that he can crawl away.
Sometimes he forgets himself and lets go of what he's holding onto when he's standing. At this point he'll either plop on his bum after a second, or actually stay steady for awhile before doing a slow and controlled move to his bum.
He's not adept at this unassisted standing thing, by any means. But I'm pretty impressed with his degree of balance so far!
It all just depends on his mood. He can do it really well if he wants to, but he isn't always interested in doing it when we try to get him to. A lot of the time that we stand him up in front of us he tries to jump up and down, because our hands are under his armpits. If I hang onto his hands he doesn't usually try to jump, but sometimes he'll just sit down so that he can crawl away.
Sometimes he forgets himself and lets go of what he's holding onto when he's standing. At this point he'll either plop on his bum after a second, or actually stay steady for awhile before doing a slow and controlled move to his bum.
He's not adept at this unassisted standing thing, by any means. But I'm pretty impressed with his degree of balance so far!
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Tooth #6 (and Possibly #7)
Today I discovered that Noah has cut his sixth tooth, the other top middle tooth (his left one). So luckily he won't have a snaggle-tooth. He might have an ENORMOUS gap though, because the two teeth look really far apart right now.
I believe he is soon going to cut his top left tooth beside the middle teeth. That tooth is RIGHT there, and since he seems to be on a teething spurt, hopefully it will come out soon. He seems pretty miserable the past couple of days. It's hard to know for sure where the misery is coming from, though. There are so many possibilities at this age. Teething, overtiredness, frustration (because he keeps doing things he's not allowed to do), separation anxiety, hunger... it's really hard to tell what the culprit is.
My mom bought me some homeopathic teething drops, which I gave Noah 20 minutes before I nursed him (they're supposed to be given away from meals). I doubt I'll be able to tell if they're working or not. But he IS playing happily in his jumperoo right now. And that is a rare occurance these days.
I believe he is soon going to cut his top left tooth beside the middle teeth. That tooth is RIGHT there, and since he seems to be on a teething spurt, hopefully it will come out soon. He seems pretty miserable the past couple of days. It's hard to know for sure where the misery is coming from, though. There are so many possibilities at this age. Teething, overtiredness, frustration (because he keeps doing things he's not allowed to do), separation anxiety, hunger... it's really hard to tell what the culprit is.
My mom bought me some homeopathic teething drops, which I gave Noah 20 minutes before I nursed him (they're supposed to be given away from meals). I doubt I'll be able to tell if they're working or not. But he IS playing happily in his jumperoo right now. And that is a rare occurance these days.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Separation Anxiety
(Noah is about 8 1/2 months old)
I can't remember exactly when Noah's separation anxiety started. I think it was one of those things that gradually crept up on me. I do know it's been going on for at least a month.
It started out with some fussing if I put him in the playpen, or if he was on the floor and I walked into the kitchen.
It has progressed to full blown, red-faced screaming as he sadly jumps in the jolly jumper while I shower with the curtain open talking and singing to him as the puddle on my floor gets bigger and bigger. Lesson learned. Do not attempt a shower unless he's taking one of his half hour naps.
I can't do anything. I can't do chores. I can't make myself something to eat. I can't even stand up when we've been playing on the floor without him crying and trying to climb my legs. As soon as he senses I'm about to walk away - even if it's to somewhere nearby where he can still see me - he starts crying. And the shower thing: I was about 5 feet away from him, looking at him and talking to him, but he apparently knew that I was otherwise incapacitated and couldn't pick him up. Because normally he loves his jolly jumper.
I do all my housework while Justin is home so he can be with Noah. Justin isn't always enough for Noah, though. Sometimes he just needs his Mama. For example, after his last nap today he woke up crying, as he almost always does. Justin went and got him and he was okay (not great). But as soon as he saw me the big pouty lip came out and the eyes welled up and he reached for me.
Just now I went to the kitchen to check on dinner. We have an open concept house, so I'm still visible when I'm in the kitchen. Justin was with Noah in the living room, but Noah started whimpering and crawling after me. When I came back I sent his wheely giraffe toy rolling across the floor to him. He usually loves that thing, but he knocked it over, pushed it to the side, and crawled into my arms. "I don't want no stinkin' giraffe, I want my Mama!"
Last week sometime he woke up really early from a nap (after about 20 minutes of sleep, including the time he spent in my arms). I had just finished making a really nice lunch, and I was frustrated because so many of my meals have been interrupted by having to hold him because he's upset. So I got Noah from his crib and put him in his jumperoo. Clearly he could sense that I was frustrated, because he started wailing. Justin picked him up and tried to calm him down but the wails and crocodile tears continued until I took him in my arms. This was perhaps not an issue with separation anxiety, but instead an example of how intuitive Noah is, and how sometimes only Mommy will do. Even when it has nothing to do with boobs.
It's not ALWAYS like this though. I'd say 30% of the time he's happy enough without me right next to him. But 70% is a lot of the time. I can hardly go to the bathroom. Noah has to come with me and sit on the floor playing with something.
The playpen? Forget it. Not unless I want an automatic meltdown.
It's hard to be a SAHM in a remote little town where there's nothing to do and nowhere to go and be totally glued to your kid for his every waking minute. And my husband is gone A LOT.
I'm not going to lie. About 20% of this post is flat-out complaining. Being a SAHM is not always easy. I'm not going to say that I'd rather be a working mom - I wouldn't. But it's not easy to be alone all day everyday with a cranky baby who needs to be right next to you every second, especially when you don't get to see your husband - or any other adult - much (or at all) several days in a row (like last week) and the previously-mentioned baby barely naps.
The other 80% of me feels very tolerant of this behaviour. It makes me feel loved, and important. Noah obviously knows that I am his most important caregiver. I nurse him all day, I put him to sleep every single time he sleeps, I bathe him every single time he has a bath. Noah knows that without me, he'd be screwed. He loves me. In a funny way, I feel that the separation anxiety means that he appreciates me.
Furthermore, I am fairly certain this is not "put on." He is literally feeling anxiety. That's not fun! I had bad separation anxiety when I was about 4 years old, and I remember it very vividly. I remember being terrified when I didn't know where my mom or an adult was. One time I ran to my neighbours house panicked because I couldn't find my mom. It turned out she was just upstairs blowdrying her hair, but I was crying and yelling for her and she couldn't hear me so I was convinced she had left the house without me.
Another time we were being babysat by this woman and she left the house and went to the neighbours for some reason. I was so scared that there was no grown up around so I ran outside and went down the driveway to find her. She ended up getting me in so much trouble and I had to sit in a chair facing the corner. Needless to say, she never babysat us again. It still makes me feel anxious inside when I think about it! I remember how scared I was running down the driveway to find a grownup and then I got in trouble for it.
So I try not to get annoyed at Noah's separation anxiety, even though it's crippling my life. Because it's obviously very real to him, and I don't want to cause him extra anxiety by acting frustrated or ignoring his cries. Hopefully he will get past this sooner rather than later. In the meantime, any coping suggestions are more than welcome!
I can't remember exactly when Noah's separation anxiety started. I think it was one of those things that gradually crept up on me. I do know it's been going on for at least a month.
It started out with some fussing if I put him in the playpen, or if he was on the floor and I walked into the kitchen.
It has progressed to full blown, red-faced screaming as he sadly jumps in the jolly jumper while I shower with the curtain open talking and singing to him as the puddle on my floor gets bigger and bigger. Lesson learned. Do not attempt a shower unless he's taking one of his half hour naps.
I can't do anything. I can't do chores. I can't make myself something to eat. I can't even stand up when we've been playing on the floor without him crying and trying to climb my legs. As soon as he senses I'm about to walk away - even if it's to somewhere nearby where he can still see me - he starts crying. And the shower thing: I was about 5 feet away from him, looking at him and talking to him, but he apparently knew that I was otherwise incapacitated and couldn't pick him up. Because normally he loves his jolly jumper.
I do all my housework while Justin is home so he can be with Noah. Justin isn't always enough for Noah, though. Sometimes he just needs his Mama. For example, after his last nap today he woke up crying, as he almost always does. Justin went and got him and he was okay (not great). But as soon as he saw me the big pouty lip came out and the eyes welled up and he reached for me.
Just now I went to the kitchen to check on dinner. We have an open concept house, so I'm still visible when I'm in the kitchen. Justin was with Noah in the living room, but Noah started whimpering and crawling after me. When I came back I sent his wheely giraffe toy rolling across the floor to him. He usually loves that thing, but he knocked it over, pushed it to the side, and crawled into my arms. "I don't want no stinkin' giraffe, I want my Mama!"
Last week sometime he woke up really early from a nap (after about 20 minutes of sleep, including the time he spent in my arms). I had just finished making a really nice lunch, and I was frustrated because so many of my meals have been interrupted by having to hold him because he's upset. So I got Noah from his crib and put him in his jumperoo. Clearly he could sense that I was frustrated, because he started wailing. Justin picked him up and tried to calm him down but the wails and crocodile tears continued until I took him in my arms. This was perhaps not an issue with separation anxiety, but instead an example of how intuitive Noah is, and how sometimes only Mommy will do. Even when it has nothing to do with boobs.
It's not ALWAYS like this though. I'd say 30% of the time he's happy enough without me right next to him. But 70% is a lot of the time. I can hardly go to the bathroom. Noah has to come with me and sit on the floor playing with something.
The playpen? Forget it. Not unless I want an automatic meltdown.
It's hard to be a SAHM in a remote little town where there's nothing to do and nowhere to go and be totally glued to your kid for his every waking minute. And my husband is gone A LOT.
I'm not going to lie. About 20% of this post is flat-out complaining. Being a SAHM is not always easy. I'm not going to say that I'd rather be a working mom - I wouldn't. But it's not easy to be alone all day everyday with a cranky baby who needs to be right next to you every second, especially when you don't get to see your husband - or any other adult - much (or at all) several days in a row (like last week) and the previously-mentioned baby barely naps.
The other 80% of me feels very tolerant of this behaviour. It makes me feel loved, and important. Noah obviously knows that I am his most important caregiver. I nurse him all day, I put him to sleep every single time he sleeps, I bathe him every single time he has a bath. Noah knows that without me, he'd be screwed. He loves me. In a funny way, I feel that the separation anxiety means that he appreciates me.
Furthermore, I am fairly certain this is not "put on." He is literally feeling anxiety. That's not fun! I had bad separation anxiety when I was about 4 years old, and I remember it very vividly. I remember being terrified when I didn't know where my mom or an adult was. One time I ran to my neighbours house panicked because I couldn't find my mom. It turned out she was just upstairs blowdrying her hair, but I was crying and yelling for her and she couldn't hear me so I was convinced she had left the house without me.
Another time we were being babysat by this woman and she left the house and went to the neighbours for some reason. I was so scared that there was no grown up around so I ran outside and went down the driveway to find her. She ended up getting me in so much trouble and I had to sit in a chair facing the corner. Needless to say, she never babysat us again. It still makes me feel anxious inside when I think about it! I remember how scared I was running down the driveway to find a grownup and then I got in trouble for it.
So I try not to get annoyed at Noah's separation anxiety, even though it's crippling my life. Because it's obviously very real to him, and I don't want to cause him extra anxiety by acting frustrated or ignoring his cries. Hopefully he will get past this sooner rather than later. In the meantime, any coping suggestions are more than welcome!
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