It's Done

You may have been wondering how my plan for weaning has been going.

Like many things that have to do with babies, for awhile it was one step forward, two steps back. I actually got Amelia down to nursing four times (not "sessions," as I had named her constant nursing in my last post on this subject) a day: first thing in the morning, before nap, after nap, and around 5. If she asked or tried to nurse at a different time, I could distract her pretty easily with a snack (dill pickles have been a favorite, if strange, substitute) or drink (chocolate milk, a juice box). Or I could just tell her no. In the afternoon, I would say "Not till 5:00!" It got to where almost any time I held her off, she would agreeably say, "Five!"

But once I got there, I decided to stay for awhile. It was easy, comfortable, and convenient. I knew we had a trip to NC coming up in which I would be alone with Amelia on planes and putting her to bed without Dean. The nursing, now that I knew its days really were numbered, was something special rather that something that drove me crazy.

Until.

For whatever reason, Amelia started waking up at least once every night and early, early in the mornings. I was nursing her at night if she woke and early in the mornings to try to get her to go back to sleep. It's like she was sneaking in another nursing session. I was going with it. It didn't bother me. Amelia woke up Friday morning at 3 AM, and I went in to nurse her. I sat in the glider thinking, I really should stop this. But I didn't feel ready. I figured I would know when it was time.

Three hours later, Amelia woke up again. I was very tired because it had taken me a long time to go back to sleep. Dean tried to get up with her but she kept crying "Momma, Momma!" "Milk, milk"! (Actually it sounds more like "Mik! Mik!") He brought her to me and she was doing this very strange thing with her teeth that was sort of painful. (I think she's teething.) And she kept latching off and latching back on. Then she put her Giraffe lovey up to my boob and said, "Num num num." And I thought, "It's time."

I didn't nurse her at all the rest of Friday. For nap time (oh yeah, since NC I was nursing her to sleep at nap time again because oh, it was so wonderfully EASY) I put her in the crib and sang and rubbed her belly till she fell asleep. When she asked for "mik" I told her that we were going to be saying bye-bye to milk. She would look skeptical and say, "Five?"

Yesterday morning, Saturday, I nursed Amelia for the last time.

I felt like I was saying bye-bye not only to mik but also to my baby. Toddlers are not known for sitting still and snuggling, which is another reason I was holding on to breastfeeding. Amelia curled around me,totally relaxed, her head nestled in the crook of my arm. She was calm and peaceful, nursing rather slowly. She let me rub her little tummy and touch all of her fingers. I think she might have known it was the last time too. She lingered.

And then, all of a sudden, it was over. Dean was getting out of the shower, and Amelia heard the water go off. She jumped up and said "Towel!" (She likes to hand us our towels.) She got down from the bed by herself ("Self! Self!") and she was gone.

I have to admit, I cried, but just a little. It really is time.

I have a gmail account that I got when I started this blog, but I really don't use it. It's somehow connected to my phone, though, and I had to get my phone reset because it wasn't working. They told me I might need to get my saved phone numbers and pictures through my gmail account. When I signed in, I saw that I had 1,443 unread messages. They are all from astrology.com. Apparently, about 1443 days ago I signed up for a daily horoscope and used the gmail address. When I saw all the messages, I thought that surely 1443 unread horoscopes would make a good subject for a poem. This morning, I remembered them and opened the message for today:

Forget caution, discretion, and waiting for the best time to act. You're all done, and it's time to let that fact be known.

Bye-bye, mik. I am deeply thankful you could serve us so well.

The Plan

I have decided to wean. I even have a plan.

I am not sure what made me finally make this decision. I guess it's a combination of things. First, Amelia has a lot more teeth these days. Enough said there. Also, she is in stage of huge attachment to me. Sometimes I think she is more clingy and whiny just because I am around. I am starting to feel like nursing is just a habit for her, and one that is not always serving her well. And she is almost 18 months old, which is how old both I and my sister were when my mom weaned us, so 18 months has always seemed like a good age to wean to me because of that.

Not to say I am not conflicted. A couple of weeks ago, I checked out a bunch of books from the library with titles like Mothering Your Nursing Toddler and How Weaning Happens. Turns out all of the books were published by La Leche League. They did offer some good tips-- ways to distract a child from nursing, for example, and the fact that if you're not going to nurse, you are going to need to pay a lot of extra attention to your child--but overall the message from the books is that kids wean themselves when they are ready. Usually by age 4 at the latest. As in four. Years. Old.

Part of me--the part that really wanted to do yoga during labor, to give birth at home, to fire my male OB for a bescarved and tattooed midwife--still really wants to let Amelia wean herself. However, the part of that decided to stick with the male OB and give birth at a hospital strongly suspects that Amelia is one of those kids who would happily breastfeed till she is 4. Or 5. Or older. And that part of me has no interest in breastfeeding that long.

My plan is this. Yesterday, I cut off the nursing during naptime (again). I figure this would be hard but still maybe one of the easiest times to cut out because if Amelia is sleepy, she will eventually go to sleep. I told Amelia that we weren't going to have milk at naptime. She understood. She even said "no mama" as I was changing her diaper. I said, "Yes, you still have mama, just no milk!" and tickled her. She laughed. I kept doing that for a minute. It was funny. When it was time to put her down, we put some dolls and stuffed animals in her crib in case she was not sleepy right away. She looked interested. Then I sat in the glider and rocked her and sang. She snuggled and listened for about 2 seconds and then tried to nurse. "No milk at naptime," I said. I offered her water. She refused it. She cried. Angrily. I tried to rock her and sing, but she was having none of it. So I put her in the crib with the water.

She cried. Loudly and angrily.

Since Dean was home, he went up to sing to her like he does at bedtime. She cried. She was mad. But as soon as he left the room she went to sleep.

I, however, cried for quite awhile. In the meantime I was reading _Unbuttoned_, and in one essay about weaning, the author mentioned a study somewhere that asked older children who nursed about breastmilk. They said it was better than ice cream, better than cookies. Something about that made me cry and cry. I want Amelia to be happy and healthy. What if weaning is traumatic for her?

But, she woke up. She was fine. She ate Veggie Straws while sitting on my lap--actually, that could be called the first nursing session to go, the post-nap session, since the day I got some Veggie Straws for myself to eat while Amelia nursed after her nap. She snuggled in to nurse, looked at my snack, then sat up and took my bowl. And today at naptime, she only cried for about 3 minutes, then went to sleep. She is still sleeping.

To get back to the plan: although Amelia has never had an exact number of feedings a day, I have divided the day by feeding "sessions". There is first thing in the morning. The rest of the morning. Pre-nap (that's the one that's out this week). Afternoon. And evening. Each week, I will just say there is no milk right now for one of those sessions. So, if all goes according to plan, we'll be done in... 4 more weeks after this. Maybe sooner. She doesn't always do the evening. I am sure things won't go exactly as I plan. But at least I have a plan.

In my book, I came across another passage that stuck with me. It's in an essay called "Wean" by Catherine Newman. In it, she describes "accidentally" nursing her baby (who is 2 years old) a few weeks after she has weaned. It sums up how I am feeling these days:

I have loved nursing, but I have not cherished every moment of it because, frankly, there has just been too much of it. I savor these last few moments with the baby, the baby who is disappearing even as I hold her.

What's Going On

Time for a good, old-fashioned Amelia update. I'll sprinkle in a few pictures I just downloaded from my cell phone.



She is talking up a storm. She tries to repeat a lot of what we say, so I am trying even harder to eliminate the surprisingly high number of things I say that I would not want her to say. (I am not sure where I picked up such bad language. I'll blame my past students.)

Here are some of Amelia's new words:

fish
fall
up
down
apple
pear
pizza
crackers
two (as in, I want two crackers, two apples, etc. She wants one for each hand.)
Nanny
Luli
Poppa
Guru
Jes
Hea (for Heather) (She says these family names pointing at pictures; don't worry, we are working on the rest of the family but we need to put up more pictures!)
Momma
Daddy
shoes
boots
phone
pla (plate)
bowl
cup
fork
spoo (spoon)
slide
car
wa (wagon)
ride
dough (as in play dough)
star
moon
ca (helicopter)
Suki (or at least Su, she hardly ever says Gee anymore)
gaffe (giraffe)
no (She says no a lot.)
na (This is what it sounds like when she tries to say "another one" or "the other one" when there are two of things and she wants them; for example "put on my other shoe" or "where is the other baby.")
My mom just taught her yes ("ses") and, in relation to dirty diapers and things you should not put in your mouth, "nasty," which she says extremely clearly.

It's a fun time hearing her say new things. Oh, she also says "new." She loves "new" things. For example, she loves her new wagon, and she wants to ride in it every time she sees it. She also likes climbing on these little bouncy cars they have at the park, and she is proud because she can climb up on them all by herself--mostly. She has been climbing more and more--she can get up on the coffee table, and from there the couch. Scary. She likes to play with her farm animals, and her baby dolls, and her stuffed animals. She likes playing with play dough, but still pretty much just wants to chew on crayons. She can stack a couple of blocks without them falling, although she loves knocking down tall towers built by someone else. She is getting really good at putting small lids on things and has successfully sorted a few different shapes (star, circle, etc) in the sorting toy she has. She has started giving kisses, and will sometimes go through the room kissing all the animals and bringing them to whoever else is in the room so we can also kiss them. She also likes to feed things, making a little chewing sound as she does.



On the eating front, she is still nursing a few times a day, not nearly as much as when she came home from the hospital. She is not eating as much as she was when she came home from the hospital either, but that makes sense. She is falling back in what seems to be a more normal toddler pattern, eating a lot sometimes and hardly anything other times. she still loves noddles and rice and spinach and cheese, and she will usually eat a couple of servings of cut-up fruit a day, and she likes those tubes of yogurt for kids. Overall I feel happy with the amount she is eating and what she eats, which is a good feeling.

A note on teething--I feel like Amelia has been teething constantly since about 13 months. She keeps getting new teeth. Sometimes her gums seem to bother her, sometimes not. I have gotten better at recognizing teething signs like drooling, diaper rash, and gnawing on things, and Amelia realized that she loves Orajel, so it's not too bad. I do wonder if she is teething a lot today. She has a low fever.



Amelia seems to be almost totally over the stranger and new-place anxiety she had after the hospital. For quite awhile--and this partly explains the lack of recent posts, as I was too tired or too discouraged to write--she was not sleeping well. First she was waking up multiple times a night, sometimes screaming, a scared scream, not just a tired fuss. We really think she was having nightmares. Then that slowly faded, and she was sleeping through the night--until between 4 and 5 AM, when she was up for the day. But still tired. It would be one thing to rise at 4 each morning with a sunny, bright-eyed toddler, but this was coming downstairs and facing an immediate tantrum because you wouldn't let Amelia fling ground coffee all over the kitchen. So we started trying things. We tried earlier bedtimes. We tried later bedtimes. We tried leaving her in the crib for a long time, and then going to her right away. I tried nursing her back to sleep. We tried getting her to back to sleep in our bed. We tried early naps. Late naps. One nap, two naps. There were really no clear patterns to what worked and what didn't. One morning--I think it was last Sunday--she woke up at 5, Dean went to check on her and said night, night, and she was quiet. Then she fussed. Then she was quiet. And so on. About 30 minutes later, I gave up and went to her, but she wanted to nurse, and she fell asleep and slept for almost 2 more hours. (Of course Dean and I were wide awake, but whatever.) That return to morning sleep seemed to break the pattern, and she has been sleeping later, waking between 5:45 and 6:30, all week since then. We have been putting her down a littler later too, between 7 and 7:30. I also think, on a nap note, that it has helped to keep her up till at least 11 AM or noon even if she is sleepy earlier. She is definitely taking longer naps in the middle of the day, usually between 1 and a half and two hours, although they have been as short as an hour, and as long as, once last week, three hours and 15 minutes. That is an all time Amelia-nap record.

(In the interest of full disclosure, and for the record, I will note that I have been nursing her to sleep at naps. This started post-hospital and it has been so peaceful, so easy, so much better than the 10-20 minutes of pre-nap crying that went on every nap for the 5 weeks we tried not nursing at naps, that I have kept doing it. I know that it could have something to do with the bedtime problem, but... not willing to give it up yet.)




The one thing Amelia is still doing that seems related to hospital anxiety is having these horrible bedtime-related fits. They seem to be related to separation anxiety from me. She was crying a lot a bath time, so I started going into the bathroom with her, and now she cries when she is put in the crib. She can be perfectly happy, snuggling with Dean and reading stories, and then when it is time to actually go to bed, she just cries and cries. It is very stressful, and sad too because bath and bedtime had been such a peaceful and happy daddy-daughter time. But we are just hanging in there because one thing that seems true about raising a child is that nothing lasts, not the stuff you love but, luckily, also not the stuff you hate. It is just endlessly replaced with new stuff to hate--and luckily, new stuff to love.

13 on 31

I never seem to find the time to write the developed posts I compose in my head at 4am, so here are 13 things about life, lately:

1. Amelia is sick. Poor baby. She and I both had colds for the past two weeks or so, but when mine went away, hers seem to get worse, and a fever appeared. A trip to the doctor showed no ear infection, and when I called again today, the nurse said a virus that sounds like what Amelia has is going around. So I am giving her ibuprofen, and she is drinking a lot of juice.

2. She says, "Juice!" Also fish, mask (because of an African mask Jes got us that hangs on the wall above our reading/nursing chair) and, just this weekend, Daddy! ("Da!")

3. Naps have been challenging, lasting 45 minutes, tops, for most of last week. Maybe because she has been sick? With 10-15 minutes of crying when I put her down. But today, for the first time since I cut her off from nursing to sleep: no pre-nap crying! She just talked to herself for a few minutes, then all was quiet on the napptime front.

4. Night sleep has remained mostly great, even through the sickness. A couple of early morning wakings. I have nursed her at night twice. My hope is that this is fine, as long as it doesn't turn back into a habit. It seems okay so far. There is a middle way!

5. List of lunchtime food items on the table and floor right now: wheat bread. Strawberry jello. Cheerios. Milk. A french fry. A slice of turkey ("gobble gobble gobble"). Vanilla ice cream. Something gooey I can't name--oh, mayonaise.

6. Number of the above items Amelia actually ate for lunch: 0.

7. What has Amelia eaten today? About 1/3 of a bag of rainbow goldfish crackers. (Don't worry, they are colored using natural ingredients, like beets.)

8. What have I been doing during these 45 minute naps last week? Writing! Somehow when I know there is only going to be 45 minutes, I can make myself get more work done than if I think there might be 2 hours. I have been working on my manuscript and work for the class I am taking. My class met again last week (it meets about every 3rd Monday). We discussed my manuscript and one other (6 students, 2 manuscripts per session, for two rounds). I got lots of positive feedback and several helpful suggestions. And a few crazy suggestions, but that is par for the workshop course.

10. And, I just got an email from the instructor asking me if I want to be in a reading soon! A nice boost for my confidence. Especailly considering that

11. I spent some time this weekend looking into jobs for the fall, mostly getting very discouraged. I read too many faculty bios of people who had PhDs and lots of publications. Whatever, guys. I can recite both Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and Dr. Suess's ABCs.

12. I am looking forward to spring. Although we had some days in the high 50s and low 60s last night, tomorrow's high is supposed to be -3. Can people even exist in that kind of weather? How did the pioneers survive out here? I am making it my personal business not to leave the house tomorrow.

13. After 16 months, I am beginning to feel like my old self again, whoever that is. I think sleeping through the night helps. So does getting to leave the house at night and not being the only person in the universe who can get Amelia to go to sleep. Plus having a toddler is really a lot of fun! Hard sometimes, what with the tantrums and the poor communication skills, but fun. I like playing with Play Dough and stickers and puzzles. And Amelia is only just beginning to be able to do those things, so more fun is in store. I've also been doing more stuff I want to do, generally. I made a sort of New Year's resolution to try to integrate more reading and writing and yoga into my daily life, even if I don't have large swaths of free time. I came up with a concept of "5 and 20." Basically, I try to take a span of 5 minutes to do something I want to do sometime during the day, and then another span of 20 minutes to do something else I want to do. So I might read the news for 5 minutes in the morning, or read a poem for 5 minutes while Amelia plays on her own. Or I might try to do 20 minutes of yoga while Amelia plays around me. Or write for 20 minutes during Amelia's bath and bedtime. After roughly 31 days, I feel happier and more... well-rounded is the best word I can think of. Reading more of the news, for example, has allowed me to actually think of something besides Amelia and exhaustion to talk about to my mom friends (not the conversation often turns from babies and/or sleep, but just in case!), and to Dean and my other friends as well. And doing a little bit of yoga each day makes me feel better physically, and I think helps during the yoga classes I go to too. It turns out that there is more to life than motherhood, and I have been finding ways to access that life. And that is a good thing.

Diary of...Well, You'll See

I started this post at the beginning of this week. I had planned to do another week or so of entries before I published it, but it is getting kind of long, and changes are happening so quickly that it is already getting hard to follow. Basically, I meant this to be a record of our attempt to wean Amelia from nursing before bedtime and at night. But, as you will see, the week didn't go exactly as I planned...

January 3, 8 AM:

About two months ago, I signed up for a writing class that meets every 3rd Monday from 6:30-8:30 PM. It begins just at Amelia's bedtime. So for months, we have wondered what will happen when Amelia can't nurse before bedtime. We discussed and even planned on trying a nursing-free bedtime before the class started, but inertia and apprehension and the ease of the familiar made us never follow through.

But time went by, and tonight my class starts, but Dean will put Amelia to bed by himself. So obviously, there will be no nursing. I feel nervous, both about the class and about about leaving Amelia. But Dean is not nervous at all, so I am not too worried. I am sure it will work out some way or another.

January 3, 9 PM:

I am home from my class! I loved it, but before I could tell Dean anything about it I had to hear about bedtime. Amelia had her bath and stories as usual, then Dean moved into her bedroom and rocker her for a few minutes. When he put her in the crib, she was super mad and screamed. But only for a few minutes. He went back in to pat her and reassure her after a minute or so, then planned to wait 3 or 4 more minutes before going in again. But in the meantime--

she fell asleep.

He seemed worried about her crying, and I am sure it was that horrible loud angry screaming that is terrible to listen to. But--hey, only 5 minutes! This for a baby who is super attached to nursing, and who has been nursed immediately before going to bed and taking a nap since she has been going to bed and taking naps. Her whole life.

January 4, 11:30 AM:

Due to indecision, sleepiness and perhaps missing Amelia at bedtime I ended up getting up at 3:30 am to nurse Amelia back to sleep, and then she woke up at 5:30. I felt grouchy and discouraged this morning, especially since Amelia was tired and whiny and kept trying to nurse every 5 minutes.

But somehow, during the course of the morning, I convinced myself that now is the time to seize the moment and make a change. I I don't do something now, who knows when I will make a change.

I have decided I only want to nurse 3 times a day: first thing in the morning, pre-nap--but NOT as a going-to-sleep method--and in the late afternoon, say 5:15 or so.

So, this morning, in between distracting Amelia from nursing with cow's milk, pears, apples, cheese, a Nutra-Grain bar and who knows what else, I moved the glider into our bedroom. Amelia was concerned. She didn't seem to like it. Then, I kept A up till 10:45, even though she was super sleepy early on, from getting up so early.

Then, in the glider in our bedroom, I nursed her, for just a few minutes. Then we stopped nursing and read stories. She held her giraffe lovey as usual through the stories. After 3 books, I decided to nurse her just a tiny bit more, through one round of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." When the song was over, I moved Amelia into her crib. She was sleepy, but wide awake.

Angry screams ensued.

Butterflies in my stomach, I went back in after 2 minutes, then 5. She was standing up both times, clutching her giraffe, her little face all red and teary. I hugged her and said night night and laid her back down each time. I was waiting 10 more minutes before I went in again, but in the meantime, her angry screams faded to sad wails, then a tired whimper, and now:

silence.

I feel like this is the start of a brand new world.


January 4, 7:00 PM

Dean just put Amelia to bed while I made dinner. I made myself scarce and he did the whole bedtime routine by himself again. I was making dinner feeling a little sad, but mostly not. It's time.

Dean came downstairs. Upstairs:

silence.

He took in to the bedroom, gave her a little hug, which she returned, and put her in bed. She snuggled up with her giraffe, made a little noise, and--we assume--went straight to sleep!

January 5, 6:45 AM

Amelia slept soundly through the night until 4:30, a success that is overshadowed by the fact that she went back to sleep for only 15 minutes or so (after 5-10 minutes of crying). She was shouting and fussing again by 5:00, so after 15 minutes of that I just got up with her. I thought then Dean could get some more sleep, and to be honest I was ready to nurse.

When I went in Amelia's room, though, she was rolling around in the way she does when she is trying to go to back sleep. She sat up when she saw me, so I picked her up and we went downstairs. I sat with her to nurse, and she did--for about 20 seconds. Then she started crying and refusing my breast. "No, no," she said.

What in the world.

It quickly became clear that Amelia was not ready to get up. She is whiny and fussy and yawny. She was actually crying less in her crib than she has been since she has been up.

Her refusal of nursing has me truly dumbfounded. Yesterday morning she tried to nurse like 35 times. I was really happy with the plan of some nursing. Now my left breast is at least 2 cup sizes larger than the right and is leaking milk all over my bathrobe. And I am sad to think that I might have nursed for the last time without knowing it. Surely not. But who knows.

11:00 AM:

All morning, Amelia refused to nurse. I alternated between feeling sad and worried that nursing is over and surprised and relieved that weaning might be this easy. Before A's nap, we read books in the glider again. She nursed for a few seconds and then stopped, seeming to prefer to read. She patted my boob a lot while we read but refused to nurse every time I offered. Then we finished the books, and she said "Bye-bye?" like she does sometimes at night at bedtime. I said, "Night, night" and carried her into the bedroom. She was crying before we got to the crib. She screamed for a few minutes again, and I went in once but she had wound down enough in 3 or 4 minutes after my first reentry that I didn't go in again. After she was asleep I went in to check on her and her giraffe was on the floor. She throws it out when she is mad.

So sad.

To make matters worse I came upstairs to write this but before I did I googled self-weaning and 15 months and discovered that there is a such thing as a nursing strike. The LLL site I read (bad idea) gave me the impression that A could be not nursing because her feelings are hurt, something I actually said to Dean this morning. So now I feel guilty on top of everything else. Maybe she will nurse later. I really am not ready to wean totally. I was hoping for at least 3 more months of peaceful morning and afternoon sessions. But if it's a choice between not nursing at all and continuing the way we were going, with me being the only one who could put A to bed, or to soothe her at night, and with her nursing a million times a day with all of those teeth--then I guess I prefer this. But I am still sad.

Motherhood, will you ever stop being so confounding???

January 6, 11 AM:

I got over my worries (sort of) yesterday afternoon with encouragement from both my mom and from Dean that A is just probably ready to wean. Of course that didn't help my giant, swollen breast, but it was a start. And, I realized something amazing: I COULD GO TO AN EVENING YOGA CLASS. Gasp! I don't have to be at home to put Amelia to bed anymore!

So that is what I did. Dean got home at 5:15 or so and he and A left for swimming lessons, and I left for a yoga class! I was exhausted and hungry and very happy. It was not the most fabulous class ever as the instructor kept doing all of these cobra type poses that were not working well with my boob... situation. I just kept not doing those poses until he came over and asked if everything was okay.

"Yes," I said. He hovered, obviously wanting an explanation. I was not sure where to begin.

Finally, I just gestured to my left boob and said, "I'm weaning."

He looked blank.

"I'm weaning a baby," I said.

"Oh... okay," he said. "Let me know if I can do anything to help."

Okay, buddy! I don't think he understood what I said. Probably not something you get a lot of in the way of special conditions that affect your yoga practice. I was still super happy to be at a yoga class.

Anyway, Dean again put baby A to bed with no trouble. She cried out a few time last night, but only for a few minutes, not even long enough to make me wake up and look at the clock. She woke up around 5:20 or 5:30, and Dean got up with her at 5:45 when it was clear she was not going back to sleep. This morning, again, she said "No, no" to nursing, although she did try for just a second. I held her while she drank milk from a cup and ate Cheerios and tried not to be sad. She ate a big breakfast, a whole blueberry waffle with peanut butter and some raspberries and more milk. Then we went out to the store and she saw the Snap Pea Crisps I was buying and ate some of those.

Then we started a new activity, Mommy and Me Toddler Yoga, new to a nearby Denver studio. I am super excited about it. It was great fun. Toward the end of it Amelia got tired and clingy and...

NURSED

for about 5 minutes. It was a huge relief because my breast was swollen to the point that my whole arm hurt when I raised it over my head. And I really would like it if she would nurse just occasionally for a few more months. I am worried about what would happen if she got sick or something. Anyway, after 5 minutes, maybe less, I distracted her and we went back to yoga. On the way home she was falling asleep in her carseat just as we pulled in to the garage, so we came in and I did the stories in the glider thing. She did not cry until I actually placed her in her crib, but then she cried a LOT, a little over 20 minutes. It would be great if she would go down for naps as easily as bedtime, but naps are always harder than bedtime, at least for A. Anyway now she is peacefully snoozing and I am enjoying having a moderately pliable left breast.

January 7, 11:45 AM:

Yesterday afternoon, Amelia nursed twice more, once at the park and again when we got home, around 5:00. I temporarily abandoned the plan to limit her to the three times a day until she gets into the swing of the new routine.

Today's nap went better than yesterday. A only cried for 7-10 minutes. Bedtime continues to be a huge success. AND, Amelia is sleeping all the way through the night! I feel more rested already. Unfortunately, A seems to think the end of the night is at 4:30 or 5:00 AM, But when she gets up at those times, she is sleepy and fussy all morning. So that will be our next battle, I guess.

As I wrap up this week of big changes, I am very glad both that we have finally broken the pattern of nursing to sleep and that Amelia decided to nurse again, not only for my breasts' sake. I was sad to think that I had nursed for the last time unknowingly. I like the closeness and cuddlyness of nursing, and I like knowing that I have some milk in case Amelia gets sick and doesn't want to eat. It's still cold and flu season, after all. I would like to continue breastfeeding 2-3 times a day till 18 months, at least. Of course if this week has shown anything it's that you can't make plans with a baby. So we will see.

Breaking News: Motherhood Remains Challenging Beyond Baby's First Year

I don't know when I am going to stop being surprised that parenting is hard work.

I guess when you have a newborn and you are shocked and exhausted, everyone's first instinct is to tell you that "it gets easier." I have told several new moms and dads that very thing over the past 14 months. And it is true: compared to having a newborn, having a 14 month old is much easier. But every day presents new challenges. I never seem to hit the stride I keep expecting to hit.

The main issue continues to be sleep. We went to a playgroup the other day and it seemed like all the other moms were radiantly well-rested. Their babies, all roughly Amelia's age, sleep 12 or 13 (13!) hours a night. (Well, there was one other mom whose baby sleeps worse (much worse) than Amelia. Interestingly, Amelia and that baby are the only ones who are still breastfeeding.) Amelia was only waking up once around 4 am but since our return from Santa Fe she was been up at 1:30 and 4 or so and is more often than not up for the DAY at 5:30. We have been trying to let her work it out on her own but she has had a little cold and half an hour of crying is all I am willing to do when I know she is not in perfect health. After all, when I have a cold I wake up stuffy and thirsty and such. So if she does not go back to sleep within about half an hour, I go to her and nurse. I alternate wildly between thinking that this is the best thing for her and thinking that she is just in a bad habit of nursing back to sleep. Last night between 1:30 and 1:45 I had decided I was DONE nursing at night and I was not going to do it EVER AGAIN but by 1:45 Amelia sounded so sad and tired that I had to will myself to wait 10 more minutes to go to her. And when I did she was stuffy and her little cheeks were wet with tears. So I felt terrible for leaving her in there alone for even 25 minutes.

Self-doubt, anyone?

Obviously, I have not solved the sleep issue. Please let me know if you have the answer.

In other news, Amelia may not have been a toddler on her first birthday but she is definitely one now. She toddles from hither to yon all day long. She almost never crawls anymore. And: she has tantrums. Toddler tantrums. If she doesn't want to get into her carseat or her stroller, she arches her back and screams. If we won't let her, say, bite into a grapefruit or climb on the stove, she protests with gusto. She has her own agenda now and it involves exploring anything and everything at her own desired pace.

So one of the new challenges is to pick the right battles. We try to make our house so that we don't have to say "no" all the time but we can't anticipate every potential tantrum-causing event before it happens. I have been trying to pick a few things to be very firm about, like the aforementioned climbing on the stove. She has been trying to use the handle of the drawer under the stove as a stairstep and grabbing the knobs on the stove to pull herself up. Obviously that is very dangerous, especially if something is cooking. So when she does this I give a stern "No, no."

After I did this the second time I found out that Amelia may have inherited my very strong sensitivity to being scolded. I was, by all accounts, an excellent baby so I wasn't scolded very much but when I was I would cry and cry. (I also cried a lot.) I hated thinking that I had done something wrong and that anyone was mad at me. When Amelia turned around from the stove to see my grave expression her own face crumpled and she burst into tears. Not tantrum tears, hurt feeling tears.

So there again is a new challenge. I tried to simultaneously comfort her and emphasize that she can't climb on the stove.

The same thing happens when we remind her to be "gentle" to the Christmas tree. Actually after only a few times of this she really won't touch the tree at all and just looks at it. So I suppose we are doing something right, at least as far as holiday decorations are concerned.

It's so interesting watching Amelia's little personality. She is definitely more extroverted than both Dean and I combined, but she also seems to be a kind little soul. She hardly ever takes anything from another baby anymore, which is not kind of rare from what I have seen. She will walk up to the baby and his or her ball or whatever it is she wants to see and put out her hand, but then stop and just look. Of course if said baby does not "share" the item fairly soon, unless Amelia is distracted into playing with something else) it is another story.

The good news is that while parenthood certainly makes life infinitely more challenging, it makes like more interesting and more delightful to an equal degree. Amelia has been "dancing" and has moved from what Luli named "the cool jerk" to a little twist and bounce. It is adorable. She loves music. (I wonder where she gets that?) I will try to capture her new dance on video soon.

What else? Amelia eats a ton now. Some of her current favorites are soy sausages, Cheerios, cheese, rice, raspberies, pears, green beans from a can, chicken salad, and these Snap Pea Crisps. (Take the time to read the product description. It's hilarious.) She drinks a lot of whole milk from a sippy cup and recently discovered orange juice. And she is a pro with the sippy cup now, having finally learned how to hold it up. (I taught her (!) by making game of putting the sippy cup in my mouth and dramatically throwing back my head. I was proud.)

She can say "baby" for sure also "momma." She is working on replacing "ball" for "dog." She understands a ton of what we say to her, and will follow fairly complicated directions.

Her hair is getting very long and has to be brushed every morning--she wallows in her crib and wakes up with crazy bed head. To fix her hair, I put a towel in the sink and set her on the bathroom counter. She plays with the toothbrushes and things while I douse her with detangler and comb. And comb and comb. Then she gets a little ponytail.

In mommy news, if you remember that book contest I entered, I am pretty sure I did not win because I have heard nothing about it, but this spring I am going to take a class designed to help writers create their first book. It's not cheap, but I think it will be worth it, as it will get me out of the house and working with other writers again. (And since it is in the evenings, it will be a catalyst in making us learn how to put Baby A down without nursing.)

I obviously lost steam on my influential book project but I been reading, among many other things, Leaves of Grass. I promise to write about it soon. If you don't know anything about Leaves of Grass, it's got a really interesting history so check it out. (There will be a quiz.) I have also been reading a lot of other books. I am 1/4 to 1/2 into at least 3 novels and 4 books of poetry, plus two issues of Poetry and an article about the stock exchange from The New Yorker. I seem to have a short attention span.

Maybe I should use the remainder of naptime to read. Of course as I am typing this last sentence, Amelia is waking up.

November News

Amelia is walking!

She took some of her very first steps at her Nanny's house in late October. From there it was a gradual progression. She would "cruise" between chairs and such. But one morning Dean and I sat about 3 or 4 feet apart and played "walking", having her walk back and forth between the two of us. She did it several times, and from there just started walking more and more on her own. If she wants to get somewhere really quickly, she will drop to her knees and crawl, but otherwise she is venturing out on two legs pretty often.

These are from last week, one of her walking to me,




and then back to Dean.




Amelia is changing by the day. She is more and more aware and interactive. She has started initiating games like peekaboo: she'll put a cloth over her head and then uncover herself, grinning, or hide behind the couch and peek back out at us. She points at EVERYTHING, wanting us to name objects--and wanting to hold them, which can be problematic, because it turns out there are a lot of objects around our house that a baby should not hold. She has started really playing with a few toys, too. In addition to rolling a ball, which she has done for awhile, she will move her toy car and dump truck on the floor making a rmmm, rmmm noise, and just the other day I showed her how to hug and rock her baby doll. She gently hugged the doll--threw her headfirst onto the floor.

Sleep-wise, night sleep is holding steady at one wake-up a night, more or less. We are struggling with naps. This one nap or two thing is really difficult. Usually, no matter what I try or when I put her down, Amelia ends up sleeping for about an hour. If that hour is in the morning, she wakes up happy; if it's in the afternoon, she wakes up screaming. I think an hour is not really enough for her, because of the difficult wake up in the afternoon, and the fact that if she naps in the morning she is a complete mess by about 5 pm. But I really don't know what to do about it. So we are trying to go with the flow.

Speaking of which--I thought I was going to have a long, long time to catch up here, but SOMEONE is babbling in her crib. ("Ball, ball!") So more ASAP.

Are You Sleeping? Continued...

Yes we are! We've been night weaning, and here's how things have been going:

CIO Night 2: Silence till 2:20. Yelling--not crying, just angry "Ba-ba-ba"'s for about an hour. Real crying for about 10 minutes. Dean went in to check. Initially, more angry crying, maybe 5 minutes worth, then silence. Slept till 6:15 or so with no night nursing.

CIO Night 3: Loud and sudden yell at 3:45. Silence. Babbling increasing to crying-ish sounds at 4:00. Waited a couple of minutes, nursed. Silence for 15 minutes, then quiet talking. Slept till 6:30 or later.

CIO Night 4: Less than one minute of crying at about 2:00. Crying at 4:30. Nursed, slept till 6:30.

CIO Night 5: No crying till 5:45. Nursed, slept till 7:00.

CIO Night 6: No crying till around 4:00. Nursed, slept till 6:45.

I forget what night we are on now, but the last couple of nights have looked a lot like night 6.

Yea!

I couple of things have really helped this time around. The main one is my true and firm commitment to not nursing Amelia between bedtime and 4am. Before I might have given in at 3:00 or 3:30 or 3:45, and the thought did cross my mind those first nights, but I stuck to my rule. It has really helped because nursing at 3:30 one night can lead to 3:00 the next, then 2:30, and suddenly it's 11:30 and you find yourself wrenched from your deep sleep and walking to the crib. I actually see now that we probably could have just gone with no night nursing at all--no milk till the morning--but the 4am limit helped me hang in there those first nights because I knew that at least we would get a few more hours of sleep in the early morning. I think I will go for total night weaning in a month or two, after we are (HOPEFULLY) more used to this new pattern, and I am able to bear the thought of losing those early morning hours of sleep for a few nights.

NOW... we are in the battle of the naps. I think Amelia might be switching from two naps to one. Notice how she did this just as I had gotten totally settled into the pattern of two naps. My days have gone nothing like that schedule I posted since the day I posted it. It has helped with the allotment of chores throughout the week, but that's it. She has been heartily resiting each and every nap. I am a bit at a loss about what to do. I think I am going to try moving her morning nap back later and later till I find a time at which she will go to sleep with less than 15 minutes of fussing and sleep for more than an hour. Preferably more than 2 hours if it's going to be her only nap. That's the ideal, anyway; we'll see what actually happens.

Deja Vu...

So we are crying it out again. After consulting with several other breastfeeding mothers I decided that I had to make up my mind either to commit to night weaning or accept the fact that Amelia was going to wake up 1-3 times a night for however long and not worry about it anymore. Then Tuesday night, she woke up 3 times, at 11:30, 2:00 and 4:00. The anger I felt about being wrenched out of all my deep sleep plus the exhaustion and despair I felt on and off all day yesterday indicated to me that I need to commit to night weaning. Yesterday morning it was like I had had no break from Amelia at all and I did not feel like playing, talking, singing, or reading board books. Since those are important parts of my job, I decided:

no more milk between bedtime and 4 am.

I explained the new plan to Amelia yesterday evening as she went to sleep. She seemed game.

Last night she cried, on and off, for 20 minutes at 12:30, less than 5 minutes at 3:00, and then again 4:45, when I went to her. Oddly, she cried LOUDLY when I put her back down after the 4:45 feeding, but only for about 5 minutes. Then she slept (mostly--there was some faint babbling) till just after 7:00 am.

Whew.

It wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. Of course I was wide awake between 12:30 and after 2:00.

I am hoping that after 3 nights she will be back into her previous pattern of sleeping most of the night... and then, one fine day, I will be able to sleep all night too.

In case you're wondering

how the sleep training is going, it's kind of a draw. Amelia got a cold, seemed to get better, and then suddenly had really watery eyes and a runny nose again, so we were hesitant not to check on her when that was going on. She's recovered. I had a low point of rage and despair the third time I got up with her, oh, maybe Sunday night, and we did the crying thing again the next night. The last couple of nights she has cried really early, like 7:45 and 8:30 pm, so after looking in the room to make sure she wasn't tangled up in her giraffe lovey or something we just let her cry because what could she possibly need that early? Then she has been sleeping till 2 or 2:30 and I let her cry for about 15 minutes, then break down and feed her, and she sleeps again till 5:30 or so. So. This is as much as I can really do right now when we are about to move halfway across the country and then return to NC for a wedding a week later and then go back to Denver a week after that.

I realize I've been strangely silent on the subject of moving but we are in fact moving in 4 days. We have been calmly preparing for weeks but I am starting to get stressed out about things like cleaning out the refrigerator and packing for the trip and starting a new life under the shadows of the comical and unlikely Rocky Mountains.

Right now I am more concerned with leaving the house in the next hour. Amelia heard I had plans to leave her at her father's office to go shopping for an hour and she decided to take the Longest Afternoon Nap in the History of Amelia. She did have a big morning of eating small pieces of solid things* (cheese, cherries, turkey, puffs) and practicing standing up (she reaches for your hands, grasps them, and pushes herself to her feet, looking quite pleased with herself) and then Lucy came to visit. But I really want to go to H&M. I figured trying to write would make her wake up. I might just go rustle outside her door.

*Amelia refuses to eat anything off of a spoon or that you try to hand to her. Having discovered the pincer grasp, she will only eat what she can pick up off her high chair tray. Or the floor.

For the Record

Amelia babbled to herself from about 3 am to 3:40, when the babbles turned to cries. I held out for another 10 minutes or so, then fed her. She woke for the day at 5:45.

Am I breaking down? It's hard to say. We had a plan for how long to let her cry (30 minutes) but not how long to let her babble, then cry. Who knows. If I'm only getting up once a night, I am okay with it for now.

For the record: night 7 (or is it 8 now?) did not a pattern make. Amelia woke up at 2:25am, and after letting her cry for 15 minutes I decided to go try to pick her up and comfort her without nursing her. As soon as I picked her up she began to wriggle herself into the breastfeeding position. So I put her into the crib and she SCREAMED. After quickly checking with Dean I went ahead and nursed. She went back to sleep quickly and woke again at 4:48, and seemed to almost wake herself up for the day, but I managed to put her back down. Sadly, she was up again at 5:53. Dean got up with her and I slept for another hour or so, but I still feel groggy and kind of headachy. My voice was all hoarse this morning, and Amelia's nose is runny again, so maybe this cold is just hanging on. Anyway she is down for a nap and I have exhausted my poem energy for the day.

I guess tomorrow night we will have a more specific plan again. After only 2 nights of sleep we were both unprepared for the night crying. I think I might try for a 30 minute limit tonight.

In the meantime since I have been trying this sleep/crying experiment I have written to the MOTHs and gotten about 50 emails from parents about their experience with crying it out. (MOTH="Moms on the Hill;" it's a Yahoo group of like 4000 parents who live in Capitol Hill. You can post questions, give away or search for baby items, and do all kinds of other things. We found our real estate agent--in Denver--through MOTH.) I want to compile all of their advice, as well as the advice I have gotten from my friends (thanks everyone!), into a crying it out tip sheet, and hope to do that soon.

Questions

Last night Amelia slept till 1:45, then cried. She only ended up crying for about 10 minutes but it was much, much harder for me to deal with last night than it was the previous nights. I was awake until after 3am delving into my deeper concerns about crying it out, which I had buried for the purpose of the experiment.

The CIO success story most parents tell sounds like this: "We let our baby cry it out for 3 nights. Each night the baby cried less and less, till on the 3rd night there was no more crying. And ever since the baby has slept from 7pm to 7am!"

So this does not seem realistic to me, or even possible. These babies NEVER cry at night again? This cannot be the case. And so my question is, what do you do after the initial "crying it out" period? Say Amelia sleeps well for the next 3 or 4 nights, then one night cries a whole lot? Obviously I will want to go comfort her, but if I end up nursing her back to sleep, is everything ruined? I guess I need a new, nursing-free plan for comforting... but last night, for example, I was thinking how Dean and I are both stuffy because of our colds. Amelia's cold seems all gone, but what if it isn't? What if her throat hurts and she just wants a drink? If she were older and were calling for a drink of water, I would certainly give her one, not make her thirstily cry herself back to seep. But then on the other hand, if she were older and were just calling for a glass of water to postpone sleeping... I would have to try to break that habit.

Sigh. Welcome to parenting, I guess.

It's just frustrating, because the one consistent piece of advice I've been given regarding baby sleep, no matter the method, is to "be consistent." But the one thing it seems that you can count on with babies is that nothing is ever really the same, even from day to day! So when you are adapting to change all the time, it's hard to be truly consistent.

It's easy, relatively speaking, to resolve to let a baby cry it out for the sake of learning how to sleep, especially when you are super exhausted and are hopeful about the possibility of more sleep in a matter of days. But it's a lot harder, I think, to figure out the right long term plan for balancing nighttime crying and nighttime comforting. If anyone has the magic answer, let me know.

CIO

Everyone else in this house is sleeping, and I have been writing and sipping coffee. It's lovely.

On Monday and Tuesday I reached a breaking point with Amelia and the sleep thing. I was so, so tired. Bone tired, literally. Achy. Grouchy. I was standing in the market Tuesday, trying to buy lettuce and cheese, thinking it was the most difficult thing I had ever done. And it WAS kind of a hassle, because it was a tiny DC market whose aisles are too narrow for the stroller, and because I had forgotten the bike lock I had to park the stroller in a corner and carry the diaper bag, the groceries, and Amelia-who-lunges-at-all-she-sees, which was particularly difficult when it came time to pay. But in a dim corner of my brain, the thought occurred to me that this shouldn't be THIS hard, and that I should no longer be THIS tired.

So I turned to Dr. Wiessbluth.

I have done my share of complaining about Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. I tried his methods around 5 months and they simply did not work. But we had made some progress with Amelia's sleep--she has been pretty consistently going down for a 1-2 hour morning nap, and without nursing to sleep. She nurses, then I put her in the crib, "drowsy but awake," and she cries. I come downstairs, set the kitchen timer for 10 minutes, and usually within 7 minutes she is asleep. If she is still crying hard after 10 minutes, I go soothe her, and we try again.

This method had started working for her afternoon nap, too, although if she does go down in her crib in the afternoon, it's usually only for 30-40 minutes. And I had made some progress in soothing her to sleep without nursing her, by turning her on her side and rubbing her back, sometimes holding her hands. But she was still waking up about 4 times a night, and I was nursing and rocking her back to sleep each time. I was back in bed in less than 10 minutes, but I was never getting more than 3 hours of sleep at a time. And on top of it all, Amelia was waking up for the day at 5 or 5:30 am. Once she got up at 4:30. Thank goodness, Luli was here that day, and they were early birds together.

So Wednesday night, we started CIO. Crying It Out.

There are lots of variations on crying it out, but we decided to go with full extinction, in which the baby cries and you don't go to her. (Dr. W says to remember that you aren't doing "nothing," that you are "letting the baby learn to go back to sleep.") My experience is that when I go in to Amelia at night, she wants to nurse, and it just makes her madder if you pick her up and put her back down. There is a variation where you wait 5 minutes, then go soothe, for 2 nights, and then wait 7 minutes for 2 nights, and so on, but that requires more time and effort, and my experience is also that when I get up with A, I want to do whatever it takes to get her back to sleep ASAP, and I could see myself just giving up with that method in 3 or 4 nights due to exhaustion. So Dean and I talked it over, decided we were both up to the task of letting her cry, and that our limit of how long she would cry would be an hour.

Wednesday night she woke up at 9:47 pm. Dean and I were in bed but not asleep yet. It actually made it easier that she woke up so early because I KNEW she wasn't hungry at 9:47 pm. She cried loudly but not hysterically for 30 minutes, then went to sleep. Success! I had more trouble sleeping. I was imagining that she was quiet because she had tangled herself in her blanket and strangled to death. After 30 minutes more of this fun thinking, I crept in her bedroom and peeked in her crib. The blanket was kind of wrapped around her legs, but she was fine. She cried for another 30 minutes at 1:40, then woke up and cried at 5:20. I just got up with her then, as I didn't want to feed her and put her back down, and I had had enough of listening to her cry. Plus, since I am used to feeding her 4 times a night, there was milk everywhere.

On Thursday morning, I realized A had a little cold. Turns out the baby of the mother who seduced me with crying it out at a playgroup on Monday WAS contagious, after all. So I worried all day about what we would do Thursday night. If A was sick, I didn't want to just let her cry, but if she wasn't crying due to her cold, I didn't want to ruin everything from the first night. We decided that if she cried a lot more or a lot worse than the night before, we would check on her, but otherwise we would keep going. Thursday night, she slept till 3:30, then cried for an hour. Since that was our limit I went to her, nursed her, and put her back down. She slept till 7 am!

Last night, her sniffles were much better, so I wasn't as worried. She slept till 12:30 or so, cried intermittently for about 30 minutes, then slept till 5. She fussed a bit, so I got up and fed her about 5:30, and she went back to sleep! She babbled a mildly fussy babble till about 6, and now, at 7:28 am, she is STILL ASLEEP!

So, all in all I think we are successful so far. I am definitely already getting more rest, and Amelia is too. I still suspect the CIO method isn't as foolproof as it gets credit for being, and I don't expect that all of our sleep issues are solved forever, as nice as that would be, but this method seems to be a good one for us right now. We'll see how it goes over the next few weeks. We have a lot of traveling in our futures.

Five Months

Amelia is five months old today! Happy March 5th, Little A.

I know I haven’t been writing much. Amelia-at-four-months has come and gone without much documentation. But she is a Q.T. Pie. She smiles all the time and is beginning to laugh a lot. She pulled herself up from a reclining position into a sitting position the other day—so exciting!!!—and she is working hard on learning to roll over. She makes a variety of noises, including squeals, squeaks, shrieks, cackles, grunts, and a Marge Simpson-esque grummbly hum. She gets visibly excited about new toys and new events: her eyes light up and she kicks her feet and waves her arms with joy. And she has started to notice Suki; this morning she was whooping and clutching for Suki’s fur while I brushed her.

Dean and I have made some strides in integrating having a baby into our lives, too. For the past two Fridays, I’ve taken Amelia to the grocery store. This gives me and A something to do and gets what used to be a weekend chore over with before the weekend. I think A actually really likes the grocery store, and if I put her in the Ergo I can get what I need with two hands. And we’ve taken some longer outings with Amelia on the weekends. I think we will do that more and more as spring arrives. (I can’t wait. I am so sick of cold and wind.)

I wish I did a better job of documenting A’s babyhood. One of the main inspirations for this blog is Liz of AD and BC, a wonderful friend and my go-to person for all things baby. She has done a great job of documenting her son Oliver's progress on her blog. It's very reassuring to me to be able to go to her blog and look up what Ollie was doing at Amelia's age. It makes me feel like I am on the right track.

I was looking at AD a lot last week to see what Liz did as far as starting Oliver on solids, and then I read about his sleep at 4-5 months. I was glad to see that his sleep habits weren’t so different from Amelia’s. Sleep is a huge topic in our home these days. We are tired.

So tired.

So tired that a moment ago I just typed that Liz was a "onederful" friend.

Amelia, who was a champion sleeper between 9 and 15 weeks, started waking up 2-4 times a night again at around 15 weeks. If you google "4 month sleep regression" you get a zillion hits, so apparently this kind of sleep pattern in common in babies her age. It is still a terrible blow to my sanity. I am a sleeper. Generally I am a pretty happy, patient, and generous person, if I do say so myself, but I discovered in college that I become depressed and grouchy without consistent sleep. And that's putting it mildly.

Due to the sleep issue, it's been hard for me to really enjoy Amelia some days. It's just very hard to get up 2 or 3 or more times a night--it's not even that A stays awake--she eats and goes back to sleep right away 99% of the time--but it's that more often than not it takes ME a long time to go back to sleep. I start thinking and worrying and tossing and turning. (And sometimes I think Suki and Amelia are plotting against me. If Amelia goes back to sleep at 4:30, Suki will come in at 5:00 and scratch my desk or meow for breakfast.)

Naps have been another issue. Amelia’s naps have never been terrible regular but about two weeks ago she went on a nap strike. It was almost impossible for me to get her down. Even though she was very sleepy, rubbing her eyes, yawning and generally being a grouchpuss, she would not go to sleep. I had to nurse her, rock her, and nurse her some more. Once she fell asleep I had to carefully stand up and kind of dance around shushing and nursing even more. Then there was the s-l-o-w easing of her sleepy self into the crib—and as soon as I let go of her, more crying. I tried the pacifier, which sometimes worked, as well as trying to sort of lean over the crib and rock her while she was in it. More often than not these episodes ended not with Amelia napping but with BOTH of us in tears.

And—here’s the icing on the cake—when she did go to sleep, she woke up in 30-45 minutes. Which is NOT a long enough nap for her. So she was still fussy.

All of this is written in past tense because as of yesterday afternoon, we are in nap training. I have decided I can no longer handle these scenes. So when I think she is getting sleepy, we have a wind down time in a quiet room, then we go into Amelia’s room and read 2 or 3 stories, and then I hug her, tell her I love her, put her in her crib and leave the room.

She then cries.

So I wait.

And wait, as long as I can, or until I think she is getting too upset. Then I go in, hold her for a minute, tell her I love her, tell her she needs to sleep to be a happy baby, a baby that other people can stand to be around, and put her back down.

She cries again.

Yesterday afternoon, our practice ended in Amelia not taking a nap. She got herself into a second wind and I gave up. This morning, we had a bit more success: after the fifth or so time I went in, she fell asleep as I was comforting her and didn’t wake up when I put her down. She then slept for AN HOUR AND A HALF!!! (She also fell asleep both on the way to and coming home from the grocery store, more evidence that she is overtired.) And this afternoon, she got so upset that I decided to nurse her, she fell asleep, and again, didn’t wake up when I put her down. She is sleeping now.

So maybe that doesn’t sound all that different than before, because she still isn’t falling asleep in the crib on her own. But my mindset is different. As opposed to just desperately trying to get her to sleep in any way I can, I now have a plan that I think is a good one. She does need to learn to fall asleep on her own, and I think this nap practice might eventually facilitate that.

Letting her cry is hard. The other night, I was putting clean sheets on our bed, and I used these sheets that came from my grandmother’s house. Somehow they still smell like her house, a clean, Clorox and floral-laced scent, even after all this time. And I was thinking about how my grandmother and mother always made me feel so safe, and always took care of me, how they would never have just let me cry alone in my bed. And I thought, that’s why I can’t let her cry it out.

Still, yesterday I was talking to Meg (while Amelia cried, as a matter of fact), and I was telling her about the sheets, and she pointed out that my mother and grandmother also had to let me learn things on my own. Also that I don’t remember being five months old and that I probably did sometimes cry in my crib. So for now, we are not not crying, but we’re not exactly “crying it out.” I am not even sticking to any particular rules, such as a time limit on the crying or saying I will never nurse her to help her sleep. I am just trying to follow my intuition, striking a balance between helping her learn a skill that will make her a happier baby in the long run and not letting her become too hysterical at any given moment while she learns it.

And besides—or perhaps MOST importantly—if she doesn’t eventually sleep more, I will lose my mind. A sane mommy is a happy mommy.

Little Star

Six weeks old!

Amelia is definitely smiling at us from time to time, and she is trying hard to get her thumb in her mouth.



I have a new haircut, and we got a Moby Wrap.

In other news, I accidentally just Ferberized Amelia. I didn't mean too; it's just that she cried for over an hour and clearly needed to sleep. I fed her, rocked, sang, swaddled, walked, and started over from square one. So I put her in her Pack & Play just to take a break. The crying continued, then suddenly stopped. She is still asleep. Ahh, silence.

Cat, Mouse, Milk

I am writing this blog entry at my upstairs desk, at which I haven't sat for months and months. This special occasion is due to the fact that Suki finally caught the mouse that has been lurking under our sink. I opened the cabinet doors when I noticed her crouching there, and a few minutes later, I heard a crash, and looked up to see Suki run by with the mouse in her mouth. But she can't just kill it. No. She is carrying it all around, dropping it, letting it run away a little bit, and re-catching it. It's injured, so it can't get far. It's a horrifying scene. Plus now I feel the downstairs is going to have to be mopped with Clorox.

Suki's catching of the mouse interrupted Amelia's nap in her Pack and Play, which provided free and quiet time I was using to actually write poems. !!! This is big news. I haven't sat down to write since a couple of weeks before Amelia was born. It was great. I revisited some stuff I was working on through the spring and summer to find that some of it has potential! And I started something brand new, which is very energizing.

In the meantime I thought I would write here since it's been awhile since I've said anything of substance on the blog. Two words: time and tired. Not only is it hard to find the time to sit down and write, when I do have a few minutes during naptime or when Dean is home and caring for Amelia, I feel so brain dead I can't put together a coherent sentence.

So, here's going on with us. Amelia is much less fussy during the day than she was for a week or so. We are waiting excitedly for her to really, truly smile at us. Dean's thinks she smiled for real yesterday morning but it's hard to know for sure. I am trying to play with her during the day, but she seems to be sleeping more for the last couple of days. She is still sleeping pretty well at night, going for 3 or 4 or stretches most of the time. Tuesday night, she slept for about 6 hours, but that stretch was tragically wasted due to me waking up once with a horrible stomach ache and then later with a milk overflow situation. I don't feel I am using the word "tragically" hyperbolically, either.

Anyway, speaking of breastmilk, I have been trying to pump some milk since I am going back to teach on Tuesday, believe it or not, and I will leave milk so Dean can feed Amelia while I am gone. It's a bit difficult to know when and how much to pump. Last might I did it right before Amelia woke up hungry after a nap. I fed her a little, but we had to wait for Dean to come home to give her the bottle I just pumped. (I read I am not supposed to give her a bottle since she already associates me with an alternate method of obtaining her food.) Amelia seems to take the bottle fine, so I am not worried about her eating while I am gone, but I am a little worried about myself, not being able to feed her or to pump for almost 5 hours while I travel to school, teach and come home. There are only 15 minutes between my classes, which is probably enough time to pump, but there is no where to go to do it. My office is in another building, plus I share it with three other people. I guess I can lock myself in a bathroom stall during the break, but that is going to be noticeable to the many other women who use the bathroom at that time. Maybe there is a quieter, less-used restroom on the upper floor of the building. We'll see.

I've also had a couple of adventures in breastfeeding in public. Once was right before Dean went back to work. We took some sandwiches to the park to eat. There were some young boys, maybe 7-9 years old, playing there, running all around with plastic guns. After Dean and I finished eating, Amelia was hungry, so I fed her. Everything was covered by both a scarf and my windbreaker, but I suddenly noticed the boys had become very interested in the park bench next to ours. I looked directly over at them to show them I was on to their spy tactics. It was strange to have an audience.

The second time I tried to feed Amelia in public was in my doctor's office's very crowded waiting area. I was holding the scarf all wrong and got flustered by the silence in the room, a silence that was being broken only by Amelia's cries and grunts as she tried to latch on. I am pretty sure my breasts were on display for everyone there. Finally Marla, Dr. Footer's wife/receptionist/nurse, said I could go back to this big soft chair in one of the exam rooms "where I might be more comfortable." So I did.

It's funny; breastfeeding is totally natural and I had imagined myself being cool and composed when Amelia needed to eat while we were out, but I got pretty flustered on both of these occasions. The third time I fed her in public, though, I did a better job. This was last weekend at Dean's office mate's wedding. It helped to have another mother breastfeeding at the next table. Also, I got the hang of the scarf.

Parenthetically, Amelia's first wedding happened to be a same-sex wedding. DC will recognize gay marriages from other states, so Dean's office mate and her partner went to Connecticut to be officially married, then had their ceremony here a few days later. It was very beautiful. Everyone was so happy for the couple, and their families gave extremely touching toasts that showed how supportive they were.

And, it was really fun for Dean and I to be out in public. We enjoyed talking to Dean's co-workers and the other guests and showing off the baby. Dean's office mate had knitted Amelia a little bear outfit, which she was wearing, so Amelia was a great conversation piece. And of course everyone thought she was beautiful.

In the meantime, I just took a break to change and feed the awake Amelia. We tried to go downstairs, but found that the mouse is still alive. I am typing with one hand while A finishes lunch. When she finishes, we might have to brave the wind and rain to escape the carnage.

Question.

Or, Questionair returns to its roots.

For all you other mommies out there: how much did your new babies cry? (I am starting to feel like Amelia cries all the time!!! This is an exageration, of course, but she does cry a lot. I am starting to wonder what is normal.)

You can post your answer in the comments box... thank you!

"Good times, bad times...

you know we've had our sha-ar-re..."

These lyrics have been in my head recently. (Is the real song in first person singular? Hmm.) Anyway, these lines describe our last few weeks very well. A few weeks before Amelia was born, I was talking to my friend Corrie on the phone, telling her about my mood swings: sometimes I was very happy, sometimes in bleak despair. She said she thought maybe that was what having kids was like in general, some really good times, some really bad ones. Based on four weeks with Amelia, I'd say that sounds about right. Sometimes I am incredibly delighted by her; other times, such as when she has been screaming for an hour, I look at her and think, "What have we done?"I guess this is normal. In general, it's a good spiritual lesson for me about living in the moment, enjoying the good times and breathing though the bad times.

I've always been a worrier, and recently I've been remembering something I used to do when I was a little girl. I would create a mental checklist of all the different categories of my life: school, home, friends. I would think through all of the recent events in these categories and consider whether they were all problem-free. If they were, I could relax and be happy. If they weren't, I would worry until whatever wasn't "perfect" was fixed. For example, one Christmas vacation--I think it was in third grade--I had an overdue library book. Actually the librarian said it was overdue; I thought I had turned it in. So I thought maybe it was lost. I hemmed and hawed in my mind about the book all of Christmas break. Even as I opened presents, the book was in the back of my mind. When I went back to school, the book had turned up. So all the worry was for naught.

Obviously there is a lesson here. I am getting a little better about saying, this too shall pass, as opposed to being constantly worried about the next crying fit or how much Amelia will sleep during the coming night. Currently Amelia is sleeping in the carrier and Suki is on my lap. I'll see how far I can use this quiet time to write about our last couple of weeks!

So yesterday, Amelia began wearing her cloth diapers:



We thought they were too big but Dean decided just to put one on her and they actually fit pretty well! She seems to like them. They are much softer than the disposable ones. We are figuring out our system of rinsing and storing them until they are washed. The hose that attaches to the toilet is key in this process. There has only been a little random spraying of freezing cold water.

As we tried out the diapers, Suki discovered the diaper drawer:



Second, yesterday was of course Halloween. Amelia wore her Halloween pajamas that Bubbles sent her. She loved them.




We were going to take her trick or treating, but she decided to be a colicky baby for Halloween. (It was a good choice: that is, obviously, the scariest thing she could possibly be.) She cried from about 5-8 last night. I think it was because we took her on a long walk right before 5 and it messed up her normal nap schedule. By 5:30, she was clearly very tired but wouldn't let herself drop off to sleep. We rocked, swaddled, and sang, but she didn't settle down till after 8pm, when I tried to feed her again. She nursed furiously for about 3 minutes and fell asleep. Luckily she then slept well for the rest of the night, waking up as usual every 3 hours or so to eat but going back to sleep soon after.

We plan to be more careful about her afternoon nap today.

Also, Amelia likes to read:



She is quite a thinker.



In general, Dean and I have just been hanging out and getting to know our baby. We are excited about the coming weeks, in which she might smile at us! Also, the baby week-by-week books says she might sleep for 6 hours at a time...

Before Amelia's birth, I kept thinking about the metaphor of the roller coaster. Now that she is here, I realize we are still on the ride--and for better and for worse, we are never getting off! For now, we are all gradually settling in to our new family and learning how to enjoy the ride.