Today I was almost "that" mother who showed up at daycare, late, with her kid dressed in pajamas that say "Baby's First Christmas" on them.... even though it's April.
But I managed to change her into daytime clothes and was still only five minutes late to Pilates class.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
Lean baby
Papa doesn't like this photo of Mini-Me... he says it makes her look fat, which the therapist in me believes is him projecting his own issues with his weight onto her. It's true that she does have his chubby cheeks... but check out how lean the rest of her is!
Better living through telemetry
I had an insomniac night recently and stumbled across Trixie Tracker, which, as one review writes, is like "crack for Type-A parents". I initially planned to use it just for sleep tracking, but I'm also monitoring nursing and solid food meals. I sent my parents a guest password, in an effort to avoid having to detail the baby's meals every time I call home. Here's the data I've got so far after three days of tracking Mini-Me's sleep. Blue is asleep, yellow is awake, and the grayscale bar at the top is a probability map of sleep patterns (black = 100% probability of asleep, white = 100% probability of awake).
The Sleep Saga
I have been meaning to check in and update about the sleep struggles and triumphs we have had lately, but I've waited so long at this point that it feels too long to detail... here's the summary:
Stage One: Mini-Me gradually gets less and less reliable at napping, and finally has a week with no naps at all. We are all exhausted and cranky. This kicks in around 4.5 months. A good friend lends us Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child and we dig in eagerly.
Stage Two: We enact a rigid sleep schedule, making the following changes: sleeping and napping swaddled in the crib (no more swing), bedtime at 8, first nap within 90 minutes of waking up in the morning. We aim for naps at 9 AM, 1 PM, and 5 PM (just for an hour) if the first two naps go poorly.
Stage Three: Visiting friends in a tiny apartment with no crib. Mini-Me gradually starts waking up more frequently, and I nurse on demand so she won't wake everybody up. Growth spurt kicks in on last day and I am waking up every hour with her. Five days after we return home I end up severely sleep deprived and dysfunctional. Fall asleep standing up against a doorframe. Have abandonment dreams about the pediatrician. End up in her office in tears. She tells me it is time for Mini-Me to learn to sleep through the night. Dr. S. is my hero.
Stage Four: Sleep training start. New rules: bedtime at 8, dream feed at 11, no feeding after that. Do not reward baby for fussing with feeding. Let the baby cry for up to an hour, try to comfort her without picking her up if possible. Mini-Me is not happy but we stick with it. Pediatrician has promised progress after 3-4 days.
Stage Five: On fifth night of being kept up by baby crying all night, feel worse than before. Swear in the night about pediatrician being full of shit. Stick with it for five more days, but cheat and feed baby a few times in order to finally get back to sleep. Staying up late enough to do dream feed is getting harder and seems counterintuitive, denying myself sleep in order to get a good night's sleep later.
Stage Six: Decide to feed Mini-Me the first time she cries in the night, but not after. Mini-Me moves back to very reasonable pattern of feeding once in the night, usually sandwiched between two five-hour sleep shifts.
So, the even shorter version of this is that we tweaked the napping schedule, fixed it, and the nighttime schedule broke down. It took seven weeks for the whole cycle to right itself.
Stage One: Mini-Me gradually gets less and less reliable at napping, and finally has a week with no naps at all. We are all exhausted and cranky. This kicks in around 4.5 months. A good friend lends us Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child and we dig in eagerly.
Stage Two: We enact a rigid sleep schedule, making the following changes: sleeping and napping swaddled in the crib (no more swing), bedtime at 8, first nap within 90 minutes of waking up in the morning. We aim for naps at 9 AM, 1 PM, and 5 PM (just for an hour) if the first two naps go poorly.
Stage Three: Visiting friends in a tiny apartment with no crib. Mini-Me gradually starts waking up more frequently, and I nurse on demand so she won't wake everybody up. Growth spurt kicks in on last day and I am waking up every hour with her. Five days after we return home I end up severely sleep deprived and dysfunctional. Fall asleep standing up against a doorframe. Have abandonment dreams about the pediatrician. End up in her office in tears. She tells me it is time for Mini-Me to learn to sleep through the night. Dr. S. is my hero.
Stage Four: Sleep training start. New rules: bedtime at 8, dream feed at 11, no feeding after that. Do not reward baby for fussing with feeding. Let the baby cry for up to an hour, try to comfort her without picking her up if possible. Mini-Me is not happy but we stick with it. Pediatrician has promised progress after 3-4 days.
Stage Five: On fifth night of being kept up by baby crying all night, feel worse than before. Swear in the night about pediatrician being full of shit. Stick with it for five more days, but cheat and feed baby a few times in order to finally get back to sleep. Staying up late enough to do dream feed is getting harder and seems counterintuitive, denying myself sleep in order to get a good night's sleep later.
Stage Six: Decide to feed Mini-Me the first time she cries in the night, but not after. Mini-Me moves back to very reasonable pattern of feeding once in the night, usually sandwiched between two five-hour sleep shifts.
So, the even shorter version of this is that we tweaked the napping schedule, fixed it, and the nighttime schedule broke down. It took seven weeks for the whole cycle to right itself.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
More travel tips
We just got back from a week visiting friends in DC, with more observations about how to make it work with Mini-Me on the go:
* we were staying in very small quarters - sharing a one-bedroom apartment with dividing walls instead of doors. Having our own space and time was very important, so we implemented the tradition of the bedtime walk, just the two of us without our hosts. We also scheduled some morning naps in the lounge of the apartment building, with Mini-Me sleeping in her stroller and Mama playing computer games or reading.
* now that Mini-Me is "sleep trained", it is not so important where she sleeps as much as when. We got off cycle when we flew in and it took about two days to recover, but after that, she would nap pretty much wherever we plopped her down - packing box, swing, stroller, on the bed - as long as we watched for signs of tiredness. The new rule of thumb is: go by the baby or by the clock, whichever comes first.
* the inclusion of a spoon in the restaurant toys buys us about a half an hour during meals out. We carried an extra lanyard and slipknotted it around Mini-Me's spoon so it wouldn't end up on the floor. Spoon-banging on the table may be annoying to the people sitting around you, but it is at least cuter than fussing and crying.
* we flew with the stroller and car seat for the first time. I imagine different airlines have different policies, but on Jetblue infants flying get a stroller and car seat checked for free, even if they are lap infants. Get claim checks for both right when you get to the gate so you can pre-board without delay. You have to collapse the stroller yourself at the end of the jetway right before you get on the plane. Click all the car seat straps together to make sure nothing is loose. Also you have to send the car seat and stroller through the X-ray machine, so if your Mini-Me is sleeping in it when you go through the security line you are out of luck.
Despite the difficulties (and the fact that Mini-Me had her six month growth spurt our last night there) we had a great trip. Our friends got along with Mini-Me really well, and Mama enjoyed getting to hand her for meals or a leisurely shower.
* we were staying in very small quarters - sharing a one-bedroom apartment with dividing walls instead of doors. Having our own space and time was very important, so we implemented the tradition of the bedtime walk, just the two of us without our hosts. We also scheduled some morning naps in the lounge of the apartment building, with Mini-Me sleeping in her stroller and Mama playing computer games or reading.
* now that Mini-Me is "sleep trained", it is not so important where she sleeps as much as when. We got off cycle when we flew in and it took about two days to recover, but after that, she would nap pretty much wherever we plopped her down - packing box, swing, stroller, on the bed - as long as we watched for signs of tiredness. The new rule of thumb is: go by the baby or by the clock, whichever comes first.
* the inclusion of a spoon in the restaurant toys buys us about a half an hour during meals out. We carried an extra lanyard and slipknotted it around Mini-Me's spoon so it wouldn't end up on the floor. Spoon-banging on the table may be annoying to the people sitting around you, but it is at least cuter than fussing and crying.
* we flew with the stroller and car seat for the first time. I imagine different airlines have different policies, but on Jetblue infants flying get a stroller and car seat checked for free, even if they are lap infants. Get claim checks for both right when you get to the gate so you can pre-board without delay. You have to collapse the stroller yourself at the end of the jetway right before you get on the plane. Click all the car seat straps together to make sure nothing is loose. Also you have to send the car seat and stroller through the X-ray machine, so if your Mini-Me is sleeping in it when you go through the security line you are out of luck.
Despite the difficulties (and the fact that Mini-Me had her six month growth spurt our last night there) we had a great trip. Our friends got along with Mini-Me really well, and Mama enjoyed getting to hand her for meals or a leisurely shower.
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