If it weren't for the lack of pooping, Lightrunner would be the easiest baby I have ever had. He caught on to the Eat, Play, Sleep routine really quickly. He sleeps in his crib (or cosleeper at night). When he has good days I can predict when he will need to sleep pretty easily and I usually have to wake him up to feed him. Yes, I wake him up (during the day).
When he doesn't poop, which is often, the whole thing can get out of whack. 2 hour naps become 45 minutes. He cries. He's gassy and cranky. I gave him brown sugar water a couple of times and it worked but it seems to have stopped. Today is day 4 of no poop, after 2 days of brown sugar water. BUT he is happily sleeping in his crib. I will have to go wake him up in 10 minutes or so. He doesn't seem to be quite as bothered as he used to be. The only change is that I'm cutting down on my dairy. I seem to be able to have milk in my tea and cereal in the morning. But a big glass of milk--or two--before bedtime will result in a night of gassiness. I bought American cheese from Organic Valley and it's SO GOOD and I've had that at lunch time and a few times the following nap was less than stellar... I'm still trying to figure out what our limits are... can I have ice cream before bed? Yogurt seemed okay. Is it just whole milk? It's possible that all those times he was crying and I thought it was not pooping it was actually just dairy-related gas. He's not constipated--breastfed babies are rarely constipated and the signs are more about what's coming out than how often it comes out. So for now I need to forget about big glasses of milk, double up on my Vitamin D, and hope he gets over this soon!
Other than this little hiccup, everything is going swimmingly. The big kids have adjusted to school (well, I shouldn't say swimmingly, homework with SkyWalker is still a battle. He does his math work without hesitation, but he has to write a paragraph a week and it's THE WORST THING EVER.). The Princess is doing well in kindergarten and it feels like she's been in school forever. Chewie is doing GREAT in preschool. It's just what she needed. She's happy to go and listens well and enjoys it. She loves gymnastics and is often one of the best listeners in the class. When we go out she stays in the stroller with Lightrunner and is helpful and listens. It's insane. But once the big kids are home, she once again becomes the little kid and the screaming/crying starts. If she's going to misbehave at any point during the day it is most likely when they are home. Which gets really annoying. Our mornings together are quite nice though... I can run on the treadmill and shower and she entertains herself with Reading Rainbow on the iPad or her toys. She behaves. Doesn't whine or cry for me. It makes things a lot easier to get done.
We're all fitting into our grooves.
Showing posts with label baby whisperer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baby whisperer. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Monday, March 15, 2010
Newborns
A friend recently asked what was so hard about having a newborn. She wanted a detailed specific answer. Unfortunately twitter only lets you use 140 characters. I've been thinking about it ever since.
The quickest obvious answer is the sleep deprivation.
But that's not it.
There's crying. Explosive poop. Constant feeding.
But that's not it.
I kept thinking of my own recent experience and what was hard was trying to meet her demands while also taking care of two other children. I had to think way back, 5 1/2 years back, to when SkyWalker was a newborn to realize what was really so hard about newborns.
All the self-doubt. The second-guessing. The not knowing if I was making the right decisions or not. The floundering without a plan. Am I feeding enough or too much? Should I wake him or let him sleep? Is this poop normal?
I think that's why I was so attracted to The Baby Whisperer. It gave me the plan. The framework I could use to better understand him and know what he wanted. And when things started to fall into place it gave me the confidence to continue. When the Princess was a newborn it was hard juggling two kids and we didn't really do all that much. I was a new SAHM (and I stayed at home), so I was adjusting to being home with my son, having a new baby, and my best friend moving a million miles away. But I was somewhat confident in myself by then (with her, not so much with SkyWalker). With Chewie I knew what I had to do I just couldn't necessarily do it because I had two older children who needed to leave the house and be entertained. Or needed to be taken care of. It was frustrating. Annoying. And yes, it was hard. But not in the same way. If I had other people to entertain my kids (which I sometimes did) the newborn was "easy."
I'm not saying that your 3rd or 4th newborn experience is a piece of cake, but I knew she would sleep, I knew I could breastfeed, I knew poop came in all different shapes, sizes & colors. I had faith in my skills. And that makes a world of difference. Even when Chewie was napping for only 45 minutes I knew the likely reasons (overtired, undertired, or hungry) and just had to tweak things to fix it. Sometimes tweaking wasn't always possible because of the other two, so we just dealt with it the best we could.
Once you have faith and confidence in yourself, all of the newborn stress and problems are just inconveniences. I'll take newborns over big kids and their crazy half-logical thinking anyday!
Friday, October 23, 2009
Summin' up
I don't know why it's so hard to update here. Oh... yeah...
But that's okay, because the 3 people that read this probably know it all already.
I've been big into the lists now:
1. I quit my job back in August. An amicable split that benefits both parties. Although weird at first, this not working at all thing is lovely. Particularly because I have no idea how I would have done it and taken care of 3 kids. So it's all good. Someday I'll go back... maybe. ;-)
2. We might just hibernate for the winter. I'm cutting back on the playdate activity. I'm seriously paranoid about swine flu--I know that people can die from regular flu too--but I have a 4 1/2 month old baby and a toddler who has had THREE surgeries. I did not get her the swine flu vaccine. I did get her the regular flu vaccine so I'm not worrying about that. SkyWalker got the swine flu one because he's in school. Did I put that here already? I don't remember. Anyway, forgive my paranoia--I have delicate little ones.
3. Chewie is 4 1/2 months old. I'm trying to hold out until 6 months for cereal. I know lots of moms do it right at 4 months, but I would rather wait. She doesn't seem to really need it. On a good day I feed her every 4 hours and then the dream feed at night. On a bad day it's more often but I think that's more my own reaction to bad naps... She needs the right combination of feeds and activity time or she's victim to the 45 minute nap syndrome. Usually if her first nap is 45 mins we're screwed for the rest of the day, but today I fed her and fed her and fed her and managed to get her to nap for over 2 hours for her second nap, so she wasn't quite as overtired as she would normally be. EASY* is not as easy when you have older siblings. Anyway, I don't want to do cereal until I really have to, so I'm holding out.
4. I have a new quest--couple friends. Yes, I have become Lily on HIMYM. I've done a good job making mom friends and friends for my kids but we have no couple friends. Part of that is that my husband has no friends--or rather, the one friend he does have is just so busy that we never do anything. I'm not sure how one goes about making couple friends. I'm quite sure I will get no help from my husband.
5. I'm an Aunt! My brother and his wife finally quit playing around and had their baby almost a week late. Ridiculous. ;-) All is well and I'm quite sure she will be bigger than Chewie is when we go down there for Thanksgiving. I feel very far away.
6. Chewie rolled over! From her tummy to her back. Let the games begin!
*EASY -- Eat. Activity. Sleep. You. I'm a Baby Whisperer. I don't feed to sleep. I structure my baby's day according to the same routine of eating, activity and then sleeping. The You flew out the window as soon as I had more than one child. It's much harder when an older sibling makes you go to gymnastics and storytime. But she doesn't need my boob to fall asleep. Or rocking or any other kind of prop. She falls asleep on her own. When she's had a horrible napping day and I'm feeding her extra I might let her sleep-eat for 10 minutes or so, but that's as close as I ever get to feeding to sleep. Except at 3 am. Anytime after bedtime there is no activity, it's just straight back to bed. But luckily there really aren't too many wake up nights anymore, and when she does wake up she *usually* puts herself back to sleep (one of the benefits of EASY).
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Books that changed my life
These are not reviews--if you want reviews you can visit my book blog (although one can argue that I haven't been reviewing very well over there as of late...) and they are all parenting related.
I can't tell you how often I look through this book when I have an issue and wind up saying "Duh... of course!". When the Princess was refusing to nap in her crib I checked this book and went through the suggestions and sure enough she started sleeping in her crib. The only area I have veered from it is in breastfeeding. I think it pushes solids a little bit too much. It does advocate waiting until the 6 month mark (I tried! I really tried!) but then after that breastfeeding takes a back seat. But the AAP recommends keeping breastfeeding the main source for the first year. And my boobs also advocate this. Other than that this book has been indispensable. So much so that I bought my sister and my sister-in-law copies of both of these books for Christmas.
You'd think that after getting pregnant the first time I wouldn't have any problems doing it again. Nope. I was starting to think I was one of those infertile the second time around women when readingjag (to whom I will always be indebted!) recommended this book. I checked it out from the library, read it, started tracking my temps and all the other stuff and within 3 months I was pregnant with the Princess! I recently bought it for myself so I'd always have it. I've begun tracking my temps again for the exact OPPOSITE reason as the first time, but I should have a nice pattern so that when we do start trying for #3 maybe it won't take as long.
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