Learning to Parent

DH: Hi!He slept a lot last night. I think we can safely let him nap during the5:00-7:00 hours... eh? Remember:- No drawing blood- No peeing on the floor- Nothing other than Mother's milk to drink. Keep me informed on what your schedule is looking like with the Dr. Appt.

Me: Yes, he slept GREAT. I had to wake him at 7 to eat again because he was still snoozing pretty soundly. I wish I knew what the secret is. Maybe it's just a gradual process and we are reaping the benefits of being consistent about day vs night routines. I'm curious to see how he does tonight. Yesterday he stayed awake after his first feeding, but right now he is asleep again. If he stays sleepy all day I may start to get worried again and try to go back to the 2 hour poke-the-baby routine... I could only get him to nurse for about 15 minutes this morning so I pumped afterward; you'll have just a little less than 3 oz in the fridge unless I am able to pump again. I am hoping he has nice long sessions the rest of the day so I may not have the opportunity.
Mom will be here while I go to dr (appt at 3:30). I will arrange things so I feed him right before leaving, so I think I should be back well before he needs to eat again. Do you want me to show her the syringe technique just in case? I am a little reluctant to ask her to do it, because I think it will be a bit outside her comfort zone, and I feel pretty confident I won't be gone too long. But if you want me to show her I will.

DH: Don't show her. I'll leave here a little early. I think we are starting to see his days/nights inverted. All theliterature says it takes a few weeks, and we've had him home for 2.5weeks now. See if he gets a little more lively throughout the day. I found this link on infant sleep. It contains a chart broken showing sleep requirements broken down by how many months old the child is. http://www.lpch.org/DiseaseHealthInfo/HealthLibrary/growth/infhab.html If he is needs to sleep 16 hours a day, that leaves 8 hours awake. Ifyou are feeding him 8-10 times at 30-40 minutes a go, that is 4-6.5hours. Tack on a wakeful period in the morning and one in the afternoon,and the little guy should be tuckered out. I've read several resources now that recommend not letting the baby fall asleep in your arms. Instead, rock or cuddle them to the point of drowsiness and then put them down and let them fall asleep on their own. Otherwise we may condition him to only fall asleep if he is being held...and may increase sleep problems around 6 months when he starts to experience separation anxiety. Don't forget I have a lesson @ 6:00 tonight.

Me: I have read the same thing about putting them down drowsy rather than fully asleep, but I thought it applied to older babies, starting about 3 mos. old. We can try it this weekend if you want...I don't want to get adventurous when you have to go to work the next day. Plus he falls asleep so frequently while nursing, I don't know if that means I should try to keep him from doing so? That seems extreme to me.
He is awake right now, on his blankie looking out the front door.

DH Back at Work

Me: We are doing fine. Speck slept till about 6:45 so I was able to catnap a little after you left. Mom got here not long after that, so I was able to eat breakfast and take a shower. He's awake right now, chillin and looking out the front door. I will try to nap when he goes to sleep...hopefully after he eats next time. Hope work is not too crazy. love ya

Me2: He's been a little fussy; I think he has gas. I had gas last night too...maybe it was the piz-ghetti.

DH: Still catching up on messages-n-stuff. I'm going to end up needing to interview everyone to see where we are at with everything. Shouldn't be too bad. I feel pretty good this morning. Glad to hear that you got some more sleep. I'm wondering if seeing if he would sleep a little longer when he started to stir last night was a mistake. It just prolonged your wakefullness, and made it so that he was really hungry, cranky, and awake by the time that you got to him. Dunno. We can play with it.

Me: I think his problem last night was digestive. It was never more than just a very few minutes between when I first heard him and when I got up, because he never stayed quiet for long.

Mommy Daze 5/6/07-5/20/07

There are no emails or other records I can use to help me remember the dark and crazy days right after Speck's birth. DH was at home for 2 weeks (thank God) so we didn't have to correspond.

Frankly I'm glad those days are behind us now. I wish I could talk about how lovely it was and how totally in love we were with our new baby, but I think DH would agree with me that we both felt overwhelmed and exhausted, as well as filled with anxiety that we would never be relaxed or rested or maybe even happy ever again.

The main problem was that Speck had trouble learning to breastfeed. To the uninitiated this seems incredible, but I assure you it happens. Based on some research and googling, we believe that the vacuum delivery and associated trauma to his head interfered with his suck reflex and caused him to be very sleepy. Babies reportedly self-sedate in order to deal with pain (e.g., baby boys often sleep a lot after circumcision) so we figured the sleepiness was his way of dealing with the massive headache we assumed he had. Seriously, he was a total Remulak. It wasn't too noticeable to the casual glance because he had so much hair, but his conehead was no joke. But I digress.

The first couple weeks of Speck's life were pretty frickin miserable for his mommy and daddy. He wouldn't latch on, so at every feeding, I spent a while desperately trying to get him to nurse, and then DH would use a syringe to feed him milk I had pumped. I hooked up the torturous pump while DH was wielding the syringe. This whole process took about 45 minutes and was repeated roughly every 2 hours round the clock so it really felt our whole lives were being spent this way.

The other cruel irony was that Speck seemed to sleep all the time, except of course when DH and I were sleeping.

After much heartache and lactation consultation, we did finally get feeding worked out. Once he got the idea, Speck was soon nursing like a champ and gaining weight like crazy.