Ever since Matt and I opened joint bank accounts a month after we got married (eight years ago next week!) we made a goal of saving money for an emergency fund as well as for a maternity leave fund. The idea was that I'd take one year off teaching after our first baby arrived and then I'd return to the classroom. Matt always said that even when I was "taking time off" from teaching I'd probably still be doing some kind of work (of course he thought that -- he's an eternal optimist). Being a pessimist, though, I always said let's plan as if I am not working at all during my year off.
But then I had a January baby. So a year off turned into 19 months off. And during that time I became a self-employed private tutor. Oh, and I also got pregnant, again, so I extended my maternity leave again, and 24 months after I temporarily left the classroom I had baby #2, the final installment. Because I was already heavily involved in my tutoring business while pregnant with baby #2, this time around I was responding to essays the night before I went into the hospital for my c-section, and I even did some work a few hours after delivery. Within four weeks I was back to working with my students.
Though this may or may not sound intense, depending on your vantage point, I have to say that I love my job and I love my work-life balance. My choice to leave the classroom temporarily and start my own business has had a monumental impact on our family life. It is an ideal situation for our little family. I know everyone's situation is different, but I share our pros and cons to add another voice to this ongoing work-life dialogue among modern parents.
I tutor middle and high school students in a variety of subject areas. I work between 20 and 28 hours a week depending on my current client list. I can work as many hours as I do because my husband is also a teacher, so his schedule mimics the schedules of the students I teach and therefore he can be home just in time for my work to begin. I work Saturday through Thursday, only pausing for breath on Fridays, which I've made into my official work-free day. During the summer I work four days a week, morning, afternoon and evening, which I can do because my husband is off work. We're able to then enjoy three-day weekends as a family in the summer months. My students come to my house for tutoring, and we did a slight renovation to our downstairs living room that has now officially transformed into an area solely used for my tutoring business.
This whole gig is rather perfect, and here's why:
Pros
I am working just the right amount -- If I was still in the classroom, to be the kind of teacher I'd want to be, I'd need to work long hours grading and planning. Something would have to give, as I wouldn't be able to devote myself to my job and still spend time with my kids, let alone my husband, relatives and friends. I couldn't, though, be happy not working at all. When I was on total maternity leave following Natalie's birth, neither teaching nor tutoring, I was not very happy. I needed an outlet, and we needed money, so this time around with Adam I was eager to get back to tutoring as fast as possible.
We do not pay for childcare -- Financially we are in a much better situation than I ever could have imagined while having two little kids. This is in large part due to the fact that the only childcare we pay for is when we hire a babysitter on a weekend night. Additionally, besides the money, we do not have to experience some of the anguish associated with finding and maintaining good, reliable childcare.
We have equal parenting -- Matt spends every afternoon and evening, Sunday through Thursday, with the kids. He spends every Saturday and Sunday morning with them, too. If you tallied all the time each of us spends with the children while they're awake, our hours would come out as being fairly equal. Yes, I still spend more hours with them, but I also work part-time, so it makes sense. Matt always does bath time. He almost always handles dinner. He reads to our kids just as much as I do. And, he makes our dinner between the time when the kids go to bed and the time when I stop working each night, which is crucial.
No commute -- In the Washington, D.C. area, this is also crucial.
I'm my own boss -- I never thought I would be self-employed. I am not a risk-taker, and being your own boss is inherently risky. But I'm really understanding that cliche idea so many self-employed people say about the joys of not having to answer to anyone else (except my clients).
There are, though, many drawbacks to this lifestyle. Here's what we've experienced:
Cons
We don't have much "down time" -- I'm not sure any set of parents with two small kids gets down time. If anyone does, though, we are certainly not in that group. Matt and I both have great jobs and great schedules, but we work opposite schedules. Some days when Matt's work schedule and my work schedule are particularly packed, I am literally handing the kids off as I begin working with a student. Part of being a parent, I think, is learning to get everything done in way less time. So, we've simply adjusted. (Side note: Our latest favorite show is "The Americans," and in a recent episode Keri Russell's character told her daughter that being an adult means doing things you don't want to do when you don't want to do them. I couldn't agree more.)
I have to work weekends -- I guess I could decide to scale back my tutoring business, but right now I'd rather not; therefore, I have to work weekends. I get Saturday afternoons and nights and some time on Sunday to spend with family and friends, but I've missed out on many baby/wedding showers, picnics, parties, and other events because of my schedule. Unless I have major advance notice on an event or I get a last-minute cancellation from a student, I have to RSVP "no" more often than I'd like. To protect my professional reputation I try to keep my work schedule as consistent as possible, only taking time off for illness or special occasions.
Our home needs to be clean -- This really a pro-con. My clients come in through our front door and stay on our entry-level floor. I don't want them to see a mess or dirt. This isn't, thankfully, that hard to do because that level only get used for my business, but it's definitely something I spend time each day straightening so as to keep a good appearance.
Sometimes working from home is more stressful than having an office to retreat to -- Matt is fantastic at keeping the kids entertained, fed and clothed while I'm working, but there are inevitably times when someone's having a tantrum or someone's fallen down and screams, and I can hear it downstairs. As a mother I feel that pain of knowing something's wrong but I can't do anything about it, or I feel annoyed that I'm just generally hearing noise while I'm working.
Ultimately, the cons are heavily outweighed by the pros, and for now this is our life. It's a good life as I can't imagine a better situation for our family. No situation is perfect and everyone figures out what works for them. Fortunately, we've found something that works for us.
Showing posts with label motherhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label motherhood. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Mothering a newborn vs. a toddler
I do not think I'm a very good mother of a newborn. Lest you think I'm losing my self-esteem or trying to solicit your sympathy, let me add: I'm a fantastic mother to a toddler. I've been grappling with this a lot lately. I share my thoughts on this not because I need you to say, "But Stephanie, I am sure you're a fantastic mother of a newborn," but rather because these are things I feel few people I know share out loud, though I think a lot of people feel similarly.
Newborns are easy and hard to deal with, as are toddlers. But I'm much better at the difficulties of toddlerhood than I am at the newborn stage. I schedule formal and informal activities for the toddler. She attends classes. She has an art bin full of quiet activities that keep her interest. I read to her. I make her laugh. I challenge her to conquer her fears. I teach her many new words each day. I do what you'd expect a parent of a toddler would do, plus I'm getting not too shabby at this whole toddler discipline thing. But this second time around with a baby I feel I'm an even worse mother of a newborn, mostly as a result of the attention I give the toddler.
Also, the newborn is a fine sleeper, but he's taking longer to become an excellent sleeper the way his sister was at this age, so that factor is no doubt clouding my judgment. I think we are all a little less chipper when we are waking up in the middle of the night. I am trying not to compare my kids all the time, as I know this is setting me up for a life-long struggle, and I know it's just generally wrong to do/not fair, but I'm human and I can't help it.
Because the newborn isn't staying asleep all night every night, I'm left wondering what I'm doing wrong. Is he not sleeping enough during the day? Is he sleeping too much during the day? Should he get a bottle before bed? (He almost always does because I'm usually working during his bedtime.) Is he eating enough during the day? Would he sleep better if he had formula or started solid food before six months? Should my husband take over night feedings? So far we have done everything practically identical to what we did with his older sister at this age, but it has not yielded the same results. I know every baby is different, but I feel like I've already exhausted (pun intended) my bag of tricks. I was afraid of this.
I also worry that he's not stimulated enough during the day. I try to read a few books to him at least twice a day. I sing, put him on his belly some, and dangle colorful toys for him to grab. We recently brought the Exersaucer out from storage, and he's grabbing all the toys a lot more than his sister did at this age (yay, Adam, you win this one!). But a lot of his daily activity involves watching his sister, tagging along to her little classes.
Sometimes I realize that when the toddler is napping and the newborn's awake, I barely talk to the newborn. Am I smiling at him enough? I wonder. The fact that he's a boy also makes me worry about conditions more prevalent in males than females, such as autism, ADHD or speech delays. So, even though he has no signs of any concerns, I still feel like I should talk to him more, do more activities just for him.
A friend recently shared her anxieties regarding stimulating her second kid as much as she did her first. In a moment of clarity, I reassured her that I am a second-born child and I turned out just fine. Plus, in many cases our second kids' experiences will be even richer than our first-borns' because they'll be exposed to more toys, books and activities from an earlier age. And, as our babies absorb us speaking all the time to our toddlers, maybe they'll learn even more than our toddlers did at this age. When I'm feeling like a confidence parent, this is what's running through my head.
I'll admit I wrote part of this post on a crappy day and part of it on a better day, which might explain the duality contained within. But rather than deleting what I wrote when things weren't so hot, I think this post is, if nothing else, an accurate window into the mind of a parent in the trenches. In one day I can go from feeling like I'm doing everything perfectly to feeling like I'm barely doing anything but feeding and dressing my kids and I just want bedtime or my work time, whatever comes first, to arrive.
So, I've decided in the past week to also start scheduling some activities for the baby that the toddler will tag along to, just for equity's sake. This could be a giant disaster, but I'm hopeful that my toddler can exercise her patience on such outings and we can all emerge better for it.
Newborns are easy and hard to deal with, as are toddlers. But I'm much better at the difficulties of toddlerhood than I am at the newborn stage. I schedule formal and informal activities for the toddler. She attends classes. She has an art bin full of quiet activities that keep her interest. I read to her. I make her laugh. I challenge her to conquer her fears. I teach her many new words each day. I do what you'd expect a parent of a toddler would do, plus I'm getting not too shabby at this whole toddler discipline thing. But this second time around with a baby I feel I'm an even worse mother of a newborn, mostly as a result of the attention I give the toddler.
Also, the newborn is a fine sleeper, but he's taking longer to become an excellent sleeper the way his sister was at this age, so that factor is no doubt clouding my judgment. I think we are all a little less chipper when we are waking up in the middle of the night. I am trying not to compare my kids all the time, as I know this is setting me up for a life-long struggle, and I know it's just generally wrong to do/not fair, but I'm human and I can't help it.
Because the newborn isn't staying asleep all night every night, I'm left wondering what I'm doing wrong. Is he not sleeping enough during the day? Is he sleeping too much during the day? Should he get a bottle before bed? (He almost always does because I'm usually working during his bedtime.) Is he eating enough during the day? Would he sleep better if he had formula or started solid food before six months? Should my husband take over night feedings? So far we have done everything practically identical to what we did with his older sister at this age, but it has not yielded the same results. I know every baby is different, but I feel like I've already exhausted (pun intended) my bag of tricks. I was afraid of this.
I also worry that he's not stimulated enough during the day. I try to read a few books to him at least twice a day. I sing, put him on his belly some, and dangle colorful toys for him to grab. We recently brought the Exersaucer out from storage, and he's grabbing all the toys a lot more than his sister did at this age (yay, Adam, you win this one!). But a lot of his daily activity involves watching his sister, tagging along to her little classes.
Sometimes I realize that when the toddler is napping and the newborn's awake, I barely talk to the newborn. Am I smiling at him enough? I wonder. The fact that he's a boy also makes me worry about conditions more prevalent in males than females, such as autism, ADHD or speech delays. So, even though he has no signs of any concerns, I still feel like I should talk to him more, do more activities just for him.
A friend recently shared her anxieties regarding stimulating her second kid as much as she did her first. In a moment of clarity, I reassured her that I am a second-born child and I turned out just fine. Plus, in many cases our second kids' experiences will be even richer than our first-borns' because they'll be exposed to more toys, books and activities from an earlier age. And, as our babies absorb us speaking all the time to our toddlers, maybe they'll learn even more than our toddlers did at this age. When I'm feeling like a confidence parent, this is what's running through my head.
I'll admit I wrote part of this post on a crappy day and part of it on a better day, which might explain the duality contained within. But rather than deleting what I wrote when things weren't so hot, I think this post is, if nothing else, an accurate window into the mind of a parent in the trenches. In one day I can go from feeling like I'm doing everything perfectly to feeling like I'm barely doing anything but feeding and dressing my kids and I just want bedtime or my work time, whatever comes first, to arrive.
So, I've decided in the past week to also start scheduling some activities for the baby that the toddler will tag along to, just for equity's sake. This could be a giant disaster, but I'm hopeful that my toddler can exercise her patience on such outings and we can all emerge better for it.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Helping new parents
The other week a good friend alerted me to a great post: 100 Ways to Encourage a New Mom. This list really speaks to me, especially now that we're exiting the earliest of newborn weeks (and crossing our fingers that "the worst is behind us" as so many people have tried to remind me).
The author of the list invites everyone to share her post and add their own thoughts. I have to say that after now having had two newborns two years apart, we've experienced a tremendous outpouring of love and support from so many friends and family. I've learned from their example in discovering what is most (and sometimes least) helpful for parents of a new baby. So, below is the compiled wisdom of my friends and family. Though this list is mostly geared toward helping a new mom, because, let's face it, much of the physical toll falls on her, this is also applicable to all those great fathers like my own husband who are in the trenches too. Some of the items on my list likely overlap with the list in the link above. Please forgive me for any repeats; I'm the mom of a newborn.
The guiding philosophy behind dealing with parents of a newborn is: Don't enter your interactions with any selfish motives. You want to see a cute little baby, one likely tinier than you've ever seen, but they just want to get through the day (and the night...oh, the night). Make everything in your visits and offers of help about the parents, not about yourself, and you'll be the most helpful.
Here are some more specific ways we've been helped:
Gifts
Gifts don't have to be new!
Food
The most appreciated gifts often come in the form of food. Really, you can't go wrong here, but here are a few additional ways we've been shown kindness:
Helping around the house
Emotional support
The author of the list invites everyone to share her post and add their own thoughts. I have to say that after now having had two newborns two years apart, we've experienced a tremendous outpouring of love and support from so many friends and family. I've learned from their example in discovering what is most (and sometimes least) helpful for parents of a new baby. So, below is the compiled wisdom of my friends and family. Though this list is mostly geared toward helping a new mom, because, let's face it, much of the physical toll falls on her, this is also applicable to all those great fathers like my own husband who are in the trenches too. Some of the items on my list likely overlap with the list in the link above. Please forgive me for any repeats; I'm the mom of a newborn.
The guiding philosophy behind dealing with parents of a newborn is: Don't enter your interactions with any selfish motives. You want to see a cute little baby, one likely tinier than you've ever seen, but they just want to get through the day (and the night...oh, the night). Make everything in your visits and offers of help about the parents, not about yourself, and you'll be the most helpful.
Here are some more specific ways we've been helped:
Gifts
- When giving a gift after the baby is born, tell them no thank you note or email is necessary. My good friend who sent me the link above reminded me of this one. I try to say this to my friends, too.
- Provide gift receipts for baby clothes
- Buy 9 or 12 month baby clothes
- Bring diapers and baby wipes
- Don't regift them items you know they won't like/need, and don't give them your leftovers of items you know are not the best quality, like cheap diapers that don't actually hold leaks
- Give her a robe she can wear for late-night nursing sessions
- Give her a nursing tank she can just wear (and sweat through) at night (seriously, my night sweats need to end already)
- Give her beauty items she can use on days when she doesn't shower or just wants to feel a little better. A friend brought me these Say Yes to Blueberries Age Refresh Towelettes and they're awesome.
- Share your Amazon Prime membership with them (it can be shared between two mailing addresses)
- Bring toys or other activities to entertain the toddler that: don't make really loud noise, don't require batteries, don't require parental supervision
Gifts don't have to be new!
- Bring any of your leftover, unused baby essentials, such as newborn or size 1 diapers, breastmilk storage bags, nursing pads, extra breastpump parts, formula
- Offer to loan her big-ticket baby items she may not own, such as a swing, bouncer, carrier, infant gym, Snap n Go or Pack n Play
Food
The most appreciated gifts often come in the form of food. Really, you can't go wrong here, but here are a few additional ways we've been shown kindness:
- Bring food in disposable containers or containers you don't except returned
- Bring food that can be easily frozen. Don't have time to cook? A friend brought us frozen meals from Dinner Done. See if there's a similar service where you live.
- Bring breakfast and lunch food they can eat with one hand -- muffins, bagels, fruit that doesn't require cutting or peeling (or that's already cut/peeled)
- Bring food the week that she and/or her mate returns to work
- Bring gift cards for places that offer takeout and/or delivery
- Bring coffee
Helping around the house
- Offer to do the chore they hate the most
- Hire a cleaning service to come by when they've been home from the hospital for two weeks and the house has gotten sufficiently dirty
- Take care of their animals -- take the dogs for a walk or the cat to get its nails trimmed (or, dear god, someone figure out how to make my dogs' breath not smell horrible...)
Emotional support
- Tell her you've also cried in the shower
- Tell her it gets better
- When asked, couch any advice in, "What worked for us was..."
- Help connect her with other moms who have babies roughly the same age as hers
- If you're going to send her links about parenting or babies, make sure there is not a hint of judgment in what you're sending (i.e. the benefits of breastfeeding to a mom who's formula feeding or the dangers of co-sleeping to a mom who's co-sleeping)
- Send her links to articles and websites that have nothing to do with motherhood or babies
- Watch the baby, even if only for an hour, so she and her mate can leave the house together and do something without the baby
- Give her the benefit of the doubt -- she is likely unable to maintain coherent conversations, she might have a meltdown in front of you. (True story: my dog stole my hard-earned sandwich off my plate while one of my best friends was visiting, and I started crying rather irrationally in front of her. She understood.) Don't take it seriously or personally. Just say, "I've been there."
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Leaving the house with two kids
Today I completed my first by myself out-of-house adventure with my toddler and my baby. I wanted to write it all down for myself so I can remember the steps of this quasi-routine for the future. I did not really plan ahead for today's outing, except to set my alarm, and somehow the cards fell into place.
Here's photographic evidence of our excursion:
Here, now, for your amusement, an account of my nearly two hours of preparation for a 45-minute toddler music class:
7:33 a.m. Human alarm clock (aka baby) goes off seven minutes before my iPhone is scheduled to wake me up. Oops, false alarm. Baby just let out a cry and put himself back to sleep. Still, I rush downstairs, turn on the coffee maker, get out a bottle for Natalie, fill up the diaper bag while waiting for coffee to brew. Put cereal in a snack trap for toddler, fill up a sippy cup with water and ice for toddler, grab more newborn diapers for baby, pull my wallet and keys from purse, fill up my water bottle, and add all those items to the diaper bag. Finish just in time to pour myself a cup of coffee.
7:43 a.m. Baby and toddler are still miraculously asleep, so I turn on shower and hop in. I manage to even do my hair when...
8:05 a.m. Baby is legitimately screaming now, and I'm at least partly dressed, so I go grab him.
8:10 a.m. Bring baby downstairs to nurse while I drink coffee and watch Today Show.
8:30 a.m. Baby is done and sufficiently burped and has even drifted back to sleep. Put baby in bouncer seat that is upstairs in our master bedroom. Take bottle to toddler who of course wants to read books in her crib. She reads while I put on a shirt and brush my teeth. I also lay out all needed diapers and clothes (even remember socks!) for baby in nursery and toddler in big girl room. I run downstairs, Ergo, Ergo infant insert, baby's hat, and diaper bag in tow to throw in the car during this rare moment when neither child needs me.
8:40 a.m. Time to dress toddler. She wants to take her bunny (aka her "lovie") out of her crib. Then she wants to put him back in the crib with his friends. Then she wants to analyze all the colors of all her new socks.
8:50 a.m. Baby's still sleeping, so I take toddler downstairs to put her hair in ponytails while she watches videos on her YouTube channel. I make it through "Five Little Monkeys" with her and then set up the videos on autoplay. I run downstairs to grab toddler's coat, scarf and shoes, then put them on her while she watches the "Old McDonald" video. As I rush upstairs to change the baby, I hear toddler say, "Please may I watch more videos please?" (this is a new, shocking development -- the complete sentence, polite request) and, with perfect timing, the next video in the queue comes up. Wish granted!
8:55 a.m. Baby has an especially dirty diaper and isn't pleased to be aroused from sleep. He's especially not pleased when I put his onesie over his head and cram his tiny, refusing-to-bend arms through the long sleeves. He wears a pair of socks for the first time. Those Trumpettes are amazing. They only sort of fit, but the elastic is so quality that they still don't fall off his miniature feet. I grab baby's burp cloth, and oh, yes, baby, and head downstairs.
9:07 a.m. I tell toddler it's time to leave for music class. "NO!" she whines. I say, "OK, well, then Baby Adam and I are going to music class and you can stay here." "Natalie go to music class too, please!" she whines. "Great, then follow me," I say. I open the baby gate while holding baby, toddler grabs my hand (she's finally getting the hang of going down stairs but still needs assistance at least some times). Toddler makes it down about three steps before letting go of my hand, so I go ahead and put baby in car seat. With perfect timing, by the time baby is in car seat, toddler is all the way downstairs. I get toddler into her car seat. I run back inside to get my shoes. As I'm getting into the car, I realize I'd like a scarf but decide it's too much trouble. I reach into diaper bag to hand toddler snack trap full of cereal and sippy cup right as toddler says, "Blue and red cup!" Eureka! Another wish granted. Then toddler asks for Rufus, the teddy bear who spends 90 percent of his life in our car. Rufus, though, came inside two days ago and has been residing in the living room ever since. I'm not going back inside. So, I say, "Rufus didn't make it. Sorry." Yes, I tell my toddler the teddy bear is a casualty of this morning. Ha.
9:12 a.m. I turn on the car and we're on the road, seven minutes after the arbitrary, imaginary time I gave us for leaving.
9:22 a.m. We pull into the rec center parking lot.
9:28 a.m. We have made it past the rec center front desk just in time to walk down the stairs to the music class.
Two minutes to spare! Seriously, where is my medal.
Here's photographic evidence of our excursion:
Here, now, for your amusement, an account of my nearly two hours of preparation for a 45-minute toddler music class:
7:33 a.m. Human alarm clock (aka baby) goes off seven minutes before my iPhone is scheduled to wake me up. Oops, false alarm. Baby just let out a cry and put himself back to sleep. Still, I rush downstairs, turn on the coffee maker, get out a bottle for Natalie, fill up the diaper bag while waiting for coffee to brew. Put cereal in a snack trap for toddler, fill up a sippy cup with water and ice for toddler, grab more newborn diapers for baby, pull my wallet and keys from purse, fill up my water bottle, and add all those items to the diaper bag. Finish just in time to pour myself a cup of coffee.
7:43 a.m. Baby and toddler are still miraculously asleep, so I turn on shower and hop in. I manage to even do my hair when...
8:05 a.m. Baby is legitimately screaming now, and I'm at least partly dressed, so I go grab him.
8:10 a.m. Bring baby downstairs to nurse while I drink coffee and watch Today Show.
8:30 a.m. Baby is done and sufficiently burped and has even drifted back to sleep. Put baby in bouncer seat that is upstairs in our master bedroom. Take bottle to toddler who of course wants to read books in her crib. She reads while I put on a shirt and brush my teeth. I also lay out all needed diapers and clothes (even remember socks!) for baby in nursery and toddler in big girl room. I run downstairs, Ergo, Ergo infant insert, baby's hat, and diaper bag in tow to throw in the car during this rare moment when neither child needs me.
8:40 a.m. Time to dress toddler. She wants to take her bunny (aka her "lovie") out of her crib. Then she wants to put him back in the crib with his friends. Then she wants to analyze all the colors of all her new socks.
8:50 a.m. Baby's still sleeping, so I take toddler downstairs to put her hair in ponytails while she watches videos on her YouTube channel. I make it through "Five Little Monkeys" with her and then set up the videos on autoplay. I run downstairs to grab toddler's coat, scarf and shoes, then put them on her while she watches the "Old McDonald" video. As I rush upstairs to change the baby, I hear toddler say, "Please may I watch more videos please?" (this is a new, shocking development -- the complete sentence, polite request) and, with perfect timing, the next video in the queue comes up. Wish granted!
8:55 a.m. Baby has an especially dirty diaper and isn't pleased to be aroused from sleep. He's especially not pleased when I put his onesie over his head and cram his tiny, refusing-to-bend arms through the long sleeves. He wears a pair of socks for the first time. Those Trumpettes are amazing. They only sort of fit, but the elastic is so quality that they still don't fall off his miniature feet. I grab baby's burp cloth, and oh, yes, baby, and head downstairs.
9:07 a.m. I tell toddler it's time to leave for music class. "NO!" she whines. I say, "OK, well, then Baby Adam and I are going to music class and you can stay here." "Natalie go to music class too, please!" she whines. "Great, then follow me," I say. I open the baby gate while holding baby, toddler grabs my hand (she's finally getting the hang of going down stairs but still needs assistance at least some times). Toddler makes it down about three steps before letting go of my hand, so I go ahead and put baby in car seat. With perfect timing, by the time baby is in car seat, toddler is all the way downstairs. I get toddler into her car seat. I run back inside to get my shoes. As I'm getting into the car, I realize I'd like a scarf but decide it's too much trouble. I reach into diaper bag to hand toddler snack trap full of cereal and sippy cup right as toddler says, "Blue and red cup!" Eureka! Another wish granted. Then toddler asks for Rufus, the teddy bear who spends 90 percent of his life in our car. Rufus, though, came inside two days ago and has been residing in the living room ever since. I'm not going back inside. So, I say, "Rufus didn't make it. Sorry." Yes, I tell my toddler the teddy bear is a casualty of this morning. Ha.
9:12 a.m. I turn on the car and we're on the road, seven minutes after the arbitrary, imaginary time I gave us for leaving.
9:22 a.m. We pull into the rec center parking lot.
9:28 a.m. We have made it past the rec center front desk just in time to walk down the stairs to the music class.
Two minutes to spare! Seriously, where is my medal.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Two kids, one adult
For the past four weeks, when friends and family would ask how we were doing adjusting to life with two kids, Matt and I would respond that things were going shockingly well. Nothing has changed in that regard, except to say that life got a lot more real yesterday when Matt returned to work full time. Adam's first four weeks of life will forever be referred to as our "honeymoon" period because it really was quite easy having two adults at home managing two kids. Now that Matt's back at work and my work is picking up again, I can't say we're going to have the same easy experience.
So, I am trying to adjust to the new normal. With Natalie, the new normal came at times as a bit of a shock. I had to feed her just the same amount any newborn needs to be fed, but as a first-time mom it felt like I was just always feeding my child. Now I see breastfeeding Adam as a quiet break from the sometimes-chaos of the day. But with two kids the constant question in my mind is, "What do I do when they're both freaking out at the same time?" To this, I have no good answer, other than to say that kids are just going to cry at times, and they'll have to be patient (I know, not really something either of them understands) because one adult cannot handle two kids' every needs at every single minute of the day. I just try not to cry with them.
A particularly good moment
Of course, as I said at the beginning, the transition to two adults and two kids and now one adult and two kids has been majorly easier than I thought it would be. Here are some key points from our new life thus far:
The morning shower necessity
Somewhere between 7:30 and 8:45 a.m. Adam and I are "up for the day." The point is, newborns don't have schedules, right? And newborns sleep the majority of the day anyway, so to say that Adam will or won't be awake at any given time is a crap shoot because he's only awake for about two hours at a time max.
Although I feel about 95 percent recovered from my c-section, I am still experiencing the notorious postpartum night sweats and they absolutely suck. I am so tired of waking up (or really, being woken up) in the middle of the night in a pool of my own sweat. Add to this the fact that it's the dead of winter, so the sweats make me super cold, and I'm just unhappy in bed. The point of this is that for me right now skipping a morning shower is just not an option. As tempting as it is to get in 10 more minutes of sleep, I've been trying to orchestrate a shower for myself every morning so I can not feel disgusting.
There are mornings like yesterday when Adam wakes up at 8:25 am., does a quick feeding, and then sleeps in his crib for another hour, giving me a perfect window for taking a shower before tending to Natalie.
Then there are mornings like today when Adam wakes up at 8 a.m. just as I have started running the shower water and I have to quickly throw on a robe, change him, feed him, soothe him, and manage to get him to sit in his bouncer seat in our bathroom for 10 minutes while I get myself together.
Either way, it's not bad, and I'm not complaining. There's just no sure-fire way for me to get in a shower unless I'm ready at a second's notice when there's a moment of peace.
The obliging toddler
Of all the things in my current bag of tricks, here's the best one: my two-year old happily hangs out in her crib until 9 a.m. I know. This is insane and absolutely not normal, but I am hoping to ride this wave as long as possible. Because Natalie is so obliging, on mornings like this one I was able to feed Adam a second time while Natalie played with her (now eight) stuffed animals who have taken up residence in her crib in her new room. I handed her five books from her bookcase, and while I was in the nursery adjacent to her room I enjoyed eavesdropping on her reading Peter Rabbit and Llama Llama to herself. There's something about hearing her say "Floppsy, Mopsy and Cottontail" that makes me smile.
After Natalie's officially done with her books in her crib for the morning, I get her dressed and then bring her downstairs for a morning bottle (yes, she is still drinking milk three times a day out of a bottle -- it continues to be her final vestige of babyhood). We sit and watch a few videos from her YouTube channel while I put her hair in ponytails (still haven't gotten her a first haircut...probably should). Adam may or may not be with us during this time.
She is still a horribly picky eater, so breakfast may or may not happen, with cereal or berries or a bagel. If I suggest cream cheese on her bagel, she says "no cream cheese." If I assume that she does not want cream cheese on her bagel, based on her track record for the past two weeks, she'll of course insist that I get out that cream cheese and slather it all over her bagel. Such is life with a toddler.
Natalie oversees Baby Adam's activity gym time
In addition to showing a positive interest in what Adam's doing for at least a portion of each day, Natalie has been totally into using her art supplies, which is amazing. I just strap that child into her amazing high chair and let her go to town. I have a whole bin of art supplies stationed above our fridge since Nat's art happens exclusively in the kitchen. That bin and its contents will have to be the subject of its own blog post. What I can say now is that art supplies can keep this child happy for up to an hour at a time, and it is glorious.
Breastfeeding 2.0
Although I could probably also write a whole post about breastfeeding Adam, I'll give you a quick update.
I briefly alluded in Adam's birth story to the fact that I have such better supply this time around. This is definitely thanks to him being with me since birth. This is also likely attributed to the fact that apparently in subsequent pregnancies many women have increased breast tissue. Whatever got me to this point, I am grateful. At Adam's two-week appointment he was already a full pound over his birth weight, which means we are not concerned about growth charts the way we were forced to be when Natalie wasn't up to her birth weight after three weeks of life.
Part of my routine each day is to meet my goal of pumping twice. Some days this happens, some days this doesn't. If both kids oblige me with a mid-day nap, then pumping is something I'm able to do fairly easily after putting Adam down (he's almost always asleep after Natalie gets down for her nap and rarely before she goes down). I had to relearn the fact that I should pump after feeding Adam, not before, and not an hour or two between feedings. This is one of those facts I forgot in the span of the last two years. I also pump at night while Matt is giving Adam a bottle. We've been successfully meeting our goal of having Matt give Adam one bottle a day, right now at night, so he gets accustomed to being fed by someone besides me. Of course, this means that I had to disregard the admonition of the lactation consultant at the hospital, who cautioned me against pumping or bottle feeding before Adam hit the one-month mark. He's still a couple days shy of one month, and I've been pumping practically since the day I returned home from the hospital, and he's been getting a bottle a day since he was about a week old. Breastfeeding has not suffered as a result -- no nipple confusion here. My philosophy with pumping and bottles is definitely to start as early as possible. That means that I now have in our freezer after about four weeks of pumping as much as I ever had in the freezer throughout Natalie's entire life. This will come in handy in the next couple weeks as I resume my work schedule.
As a quick sidenote, the pump itself has turned into a symbol of the latest healthcare legislation. When Natalie was born I rented a hospital-grade pump -- the Ameda Elite -- from where I delivered and kept extending the rental until Natalie was over 10 months old. I planned to do the same thing this time around, but then I discovered that the hospital I delivered at with Natalie no longer carries that pump for rental, and the prices for Ameda pump rentals from there have increased dramatically. Remembering too that under the Affordable Care Act legislation women are able to get coverage for breast pumps, I looked into what my insurance offers. After getting conflicting information from six sources -- the HR person at my husband's work, the head nurse at my practice, two customer service reps through our insurance (whose statements contradicted what our statement of benefits says), our insurance's lactation consultant, and finally my own doctor -- I realized that because our insurance plan was "grandfathered in" and because the employer mandate does not kick in until 2015 (though the individual coverage mandate kicked in this year) I was going to get zilch in the way of breast pump coverage.
Wanting to have a breast pump at our house the moment I got home from the hospital, I researched online breast pump rental options. The best deal I could find came from the AmedaDirect website, which allows users to rent an Ameda Elite pump for 6 months at $240. This offer also includes free shipping (normally $15) and a free accessory kit (normally $50). This is the best deal, as monthly rentals run $50 and do not cover shipping or the accessory kit. So, we're paying for my pump rental out-of-pocket with no hope of reimbursement, but in the grand scheme this is fairly cheap. I know I could buy a single-user pump for the same cost (or even less) but I just love this breast pump. Yes, loving a breast pump is an oxymoron I suppose, but hey, it's super-duper efficient so it takes me just minutes to pump a lot of milk. Renting from the AmedaDirect site has been really easy -- I did not, as the site suggests, have to send in the rental agreement via snail mail but instead scanned and emailed the completed form, and then the pump shipped out the same day I sent the email, arriving at our house within three days of placing the order.
The dual nap
Natalie has been taking one nap per day since right around the time she turned one year old. She goes down for this nap sometime between 12:30 and 1 on a typical day. I've been trying to get Adam to oblige me with a solid mid-day nap at the same time. Yesterday he did not, so I held him for the two and a half hours Natalie was sleeping. Not bad, but not productive. Today, though, he's contentedly snoozing in his room while Natalie tries to fall asleep. Whether Natalie really falls asleep or not during her nap is a little up in the air lately. She used to religiously sleep for about two and a half hours for her nap, falling asleep within moments of me leaving her room, but now she seems to be entertaining herself and taking an hour or more to fall asleep. She's clearly tired when I leave her, but she's no doubt experiencing a little sleep interference thanks to her brother's arrival (they do share a wall, after all). Whether she sleeps or not, though, Natalie is quiet and content in her crib, and she needs this quiet time in order to make it happily to bed time.
When the dual nap occurs, I can eat lunch using both my hands. If there's no dual nap then I need to figure out what I can easily eat in stages, often while standing. Thankfully, the dual nap occurs more often than not.
Because Natalie stays in her crib until at least 3 p.m., and because Matt is usually able to be home from work between 3 and 3:30, the afternoon is pretty manageable. It will not be as easy in a couple weeks when I resume my afternoon and evening work schedule, as Matt will have to rush home, walk the dogs and be ready for a dual-baby hand off within a matter of minutes before I have to get to work, but he will figure out a way to make it work just as I'm learning to care for two kids during the first half of the day.
Nighttime "routine"
Although we're raising Adam in almost an identical way to how we raised Natalie as a newborn, here's something that's different: Natalie stayed in her bassinet next to our bed for about six weeks, whereas Adam spent a little more than two weeks next to our bed before we decided it was time to make the switch. I am way less concerned about whether or not he's breathing (I watched Natalie in the middle of the night like a hawk) because I know that worrying isn't going to change anything. That helped making his transition to his bassinet in his nursery less difficult for me. Adam? He did not notice the change at all. I'm glad we did this as early as we did. I'm sleeping better, Matt's sleeping better, and Adam wasn't affected positively or negatively -- he's just a typical newborn.
One aspect of newborn life that Matt and I kind of forgot is that newborns don't have much of a routine when it comes to sleep and "bedtime" (what is bedtime to a newborn? Isn't their life one perpetual bedtime?). So, we tried a couple weeks ago to get Adam to go to sleep for the night starting around 8 p.m. so we could enjoy some evening adult time. After a few nights of doing what Matt correctly dubbed "chasing our own tails" as it would take a couple hours to get Adam to go to sleep, we finally realized we needed to accept the fact that for at least the next few months we don't get an evening break. We have to trade off who's eating dinner when and live with the fact that one, if not both, of us will be eating cold food.
With Matt back at work, though, we have been trying to change Adam for bed and give Adam a bottle sometime between 9:30 and 10. Ideally, Adam would fall asleep after having a 3-ounce bottle, and then he'd stay asleep for at least a few hours. But, nights like last night remind me that Adam is most content breastfeeding. So, he took the bottle, but then he fussed, and fussed, and fussed. Traditional soothing methods did not calm him down, so I resorted to doing what I do not like to do and breastfed him for comfort rather than nutrition. He barely fed -- because of course he was totally full -- but he did fall asleep within a matter of minutes.
So last night Adam slept for 3.5 hours, then woke up at 2 a.m., breastfed for 15 minutes, and immediately fell back asleep in his bassinet for another two hours. He woke up at 4:30 a.m., breastfed again for another 15 minutes, but wouldn't fall back asleep in his bassinet. Not wanting to experience what we did a couple weeks ago when it would take him at least two hours at a time to fall asleep each time he'd wake up in the middle of the night, I resorted to putting him to sleep in his swing. He slept contentedly in there for another 3.5 hours. This is, for the record, one of his best nights of sleep. Although I don't like to put him anywhere but his bassinet at night, I need to remember -- as my current rereading of my favorite baby book, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, reminds me -- that there's really no such thing as establishing bad habits for a baby under four months old. A line I reread last night said to "do whatever is necessary to get your baby to sleep." Duly noted!
Sometimes I wonder if Adam is going to be a good sleeper or not. It's way too early to tell. But I am meticulously tracking his eating and sleeping habits on my iBaby Log app just as I did with Natalie. I can still see all of Natalie's data from two years ago. It's reassuring to see that Adam and Natalie are so far practically identical in their newborn sleep habits. In fact, Adam wins bonus points for the fact that he's willing to take at least one nap a day in his bassinet in the nursery, whereas Natalie basically never did that for the first six weeks of her life, and rarely even took naps in her crib before she was four months old.
Seeing the world through rose-colored glasses?
I'm writing this blog post on a good day after a really good night, so I know it sounds like my life is easy and everything is perfect. And my life is pretty easy and I am pretty lucky as well. But I've also just spared you from another post I drafted on a really crappy day. It sounded really complain-y, so I'm happy to have something real but less annoying to share.
Also, I have yet to venture out of the house with the two kids by myself. That experiment will take place later this week when we (attempt to) attend Natalie's music class. We have done plenty of family-of-four outings, and Matt is getting the hang of the Baby Bjorn carrier we borrowed from our friends (I'm still rocking the Ergo, but Matt's not comfortable getting that on by himself, hence the Bjorn loan). So, for now, while I contentedly hang out at home with two kids, I feel like I have things somewhat under control and will wait to tackle the next challenge of the outside the house adventure in a couple days.
So, I am trying to adjust to the new normal. With Natalie, the new normal came at times as a bit of a shock. I had to feed her just the same amount any newborn needs to be fed, but as a first-time mom it felt like I was just always feeding my child. Now I see breastfeeding Adam as a quiet break from the sometimes-chaos of the day. But with two kids the constant question in my mind is, "What do I do when they're both freaking out at the same time?" To this, I have no good answer, other than to say that kids are just going to cry at times, and they'll have to be patient (I know, not really something either of them understands) because one adult cannot handle two kids' every needs at every single minute of the day. I just try not to cry with them.
A particularly good moment
Of course, as I said at the beginning, the transition to two adults and two kids and now one adult and two kids has been majorly easier than I thought it would be. Here are some key points from our new life thus far:
The morning shower necessity
Somewhere between 7:30 and 8:45 a.m. Adam and I are "up for the day." The point is, newborns don't have schedules, right? And newborns sleep the majority of the day anyway, so to say that Adam will or won't be awake at any given time is a crap shoot because he's only awake for about two hours at a time max.
Although I feel about 95 percent recovered from my c-section, I am still experiencing the notorious postpartum night sweats and they absolutely suck. I am so tired of waking up (or really, being woken up) in the middle of the night in a pool of my own sweat. Add to this the fact that it's the dead of winter, so the sweats make me super cold, and I'm just unhappy in bed. The point of this is that for me right now skipping a morning shower is just not an option. As tempting as it is to get in 10 more minutes of sleep, I've been trying to orchestrate a shower for myself every morning so I can not feel disgusting.
There are mornings like yesterday when Adam wakes up at 8:25 am., does a quick feeding, and then sleeps in his crib for another hour, giving me a perfect window for taking a shower before tending to Natalie.
Then there are mornings like today when Adam wakes up at 8 a.m. just as I have started running the shower water and I have to quickly throw on a robe, change him, feed him, soothe him, and manage to get him to sit in his bouncer seat in our bathroom for 10 minutes while I get myself together.
Either way, it's not bad, and I'm not complaining. There's just no sure-fire way for me to get in a shower unless I'm ready at a second's notice when there's a moment of peace.
The obliging toddler
Of all the things in my current bag of tricks, here's the best one: my two-year old happily hangs out in her crib until 9 a.m. I know. This is insane and absolutely not normal, but I am hoping to ride this wave as long as possible. Because Natalie is so obliging, on mornings like this one I was able to feed Adam a second time while Natalie played with her (now eight) stuffed animals who have taken up residence in her crib in her new room. I handed her five books from her bookcase, and while I was in the nursery adjacent to her room I enjoyed eavesdropping on her reading Peter Rabbit and Llama Llama to herself. There's something about hearing her say "Floppsy, Mopsy and Cottontail" that makes me smile.
After Natalie's officially done with her books in her crib for the morning, I get her dressed and then bring her downstairs for a morning bottle (yes, she is still drinking milk three times a day out of a bottle -- it continues to be her final vestige of babyhood). We sit and watch a few videos from her YouTube channel while I put her hair in ponytails (still haven't gotten her a first haircut...probably should). Adam may or may not be with us during this time.
She is still a horribly picky eater, so breakfast may or may not happen, with cereal or berries or a bagel. If I suggest cream cheese on her bagel, she says "no cream cheese." If I assume that she does not want cream cheese on her bagel, based on her track record for the past two weeks, she'll of course insist that I get out that cream cheese and slather it all over her bagel. Such is life with a toddler.
Natalie oversees Baby Adam's activity gym time
In addition to showing a positive interest in what Adam's doing for at least a portion of each day, Natalie has been totally into using her art supplies, which is amazing. I just strap that child into her amazing high chair and let her go to town. I have a whole bin of art supplies stationed above our fridge since Nat's art happens exclusively in the kitchen. That bin and its contents will have to be the subject of its own blog post. What I can say now is that art supplies can keep this child happy for up to an hour at a time, and it is glorious.
Breastfeeding 2.0
Although I could probably also write a whole post about breastfeeding Adam, I'll give you a quick update.
I briefly alluded in Adam's birth story to the fact that I have such better supply this time around. This is definitely thanks to him being with me since birth. This is also likely attributed to the fact that apparently in subsequent pregnancies many women have increased breast tissue. Whatever got me to this point, I am grateful. At Adam's two-week appointment he was already a full pound over his birth weight, which means we are not concerned about growth charts the way we were forced to be when Natalie wasn't up to her birth weight after three weeks of life.
Part of my routine each day is to meet my goal of pumping twice. Some days this happens, some days this doesn't. If both kids oblige me with a mid-day nap, then pumping is something I'm able to do fairly easily after putting Adam down (he's almost always asleep after Natalie gets down for her nap and rarely before she goes down). I had to relearn the fact that I should pump after feeding Adam, not before, and not an hour or two between feedings. This is one of those facts I forgot in the span of the last two years. I also pump at night while Matt is giving Adam a bottle. We've been successfully meeting our goal of having Matt give Adam one bottle a day, right now at night, so he gets accustomed to being fed by someone besides me. Of course, this means that I had to disregard the admonition of the lactation consultant at the hospital, who cautioned me against pumping or bottle feeding before Adam hit the one-month mark. He's still a couple days shy of one month, and I've been pumping practically since the day I returned home from the hospital, and he's been getting a bottle a day since he was about a week old. Breastfeeding has not suffered as a result -- no nipple confusion here. My philosophy with pumping and bottles is definitely to start as early as possible. That means that I now have in our freezer after about four weeks of pumping as much as I ever had in the freezer throughout Natalie's entire life. This will come in handy in the next couple weeks as I resume my work schedule.
As a quick sidenote, the pump itself has turned into a symbol of the latest healthcare legislation. When Natalie was born I rented a hospital-grade pump -- the Ameda Elite -- from where I delivered and kept extending the rental until Natalie was over 10 months old. I planned to do the same thing this time around, but then I discovered that the hospital I delivered at with Natalie no longer carries that pump for rental, and the prices for Ameda pump rentals from there have increased dramatically. Remembering too that under the Affordable Care Act legislation women are able to get coverage for breast pumps, I looked into what my insurance offers. After getting conflicting information from six sources -- the HR person at my husband's work, the head nurse at my practice, two customer service reps through our insurance (whose statements contradicted what our statement of benefits says), our insurance's lactation consultant, and finally my own doctor -- I realized that because our insurance plan was "grandfathered in" and because the employer mandate does not kick in until 2015 (though the individual coverage mandate kicked in this year) I was going to get zilch in the way of breast pump coverage.
Wanting to have a breast pump at our house the moment I got home from the hospital, I researched online breast pump rental options. The best deal I could find came from the AmedaDirect website, which allows users to rent an Ameda Elite pump for 6 months at $240. This offer also includes free shipping (normally $15) and a free accessory kit (normally $50). This is the best deal, as monthly rentals run $50 and do not cover shipping or the accessory kit. So, we're paying for my pump rental out-of-pocket with no hope of reimbursement, but in the grand scheme this is fairly cheap. I know I could buy a single-user pump for the same cost (or even less) but I just love this breast pump. Yes, loving a breast pump is an oxymoron I suppose, but hey, it's super-duper efficient so it takes me just minutes to pump a lot of milk. Renting from the AmedaDirect site has been really easy -- I did not, as the site suggests, have to send in the rental agreement via snail mail but instead scanned and emailed the completed form, and then the pump shipped out the same day I sent the email, arriving at our house within three days of placing the order.
The dual nap
Natalie has been taking one nap per day since right around the time she turned one year old. She goes down for this nap sometime between 12:30 and 1 on a typical day. I've been trying to get Adam to oblige me with a solid mid-day nap at the same time. Yesterday he did not, so I held him for the two and a half hours Natalie was sleeping. Not bad, but not productive. Today, though, he's contentedly snoozing in his room while Natalie tries to fall asleep. Whether Natalie really falls asleep or not during her nap is a little up in the air lately. She used to religiously sleep for about two and a half hours for her nap, falling asleep within moments of me leaving her room, but now she seems to be entertaining herself and taking an hour or more to fall asleep. She's clearly tired when I leave her, but she's no doubt experiencing a little sleep interference thanks to her brother's arrival (they do share a wall, after all). Whether she sleeps or not, though, Natalie is quiet and content in her crib, and she needs this quiet time in order to make it happily to bed time.
When the dual nap occurs, I can eat lunch using both my hands. If there's no dual nap then I need to figure out what I can easily eat in stages, often while standing. Thankfully, the dual nap occurs more often than not.
Because Natalie stays in her crib until at least 3 p.m., and because Matt is usually able to be home from work between 3 and 3:30, the afternoon is pretty manageable. It will not be as easy in a couple weeks when I resume my afternoon and evening work schedule, as Matt will have to rush home, walk the dogs and be ready for a dual-baby hand off within a matter of minutes before I have to get to work, but he will figure out a way to make it work just as I'm learning to care for two kids during the first half of the day.
Nighttime "routine"
Although we're raising Adam in almost an identical way to how we raised Natalie as a newborn, here's something that's different: Natalie stayed in her bassinet next to our bed for about six weeks, whereas Adam spent a little more than two weeks next to our bed before we decided it was time to make the switch. I am way less concerned about whether or not he's breathing (I watched Natalie in the middle of the night like a hawk) because I know that worrying isn't going to change anything. That helped making his transition to his bassinet in his nursery less difficult for me. Adam? He did not notice the change at all. I'm glad we did this as early as we did. I'm sleeping better, Matt's sleeping better, and Adam wasn't affected positively or negatively -- he's just a typical newborn.
One aspect of newborn life that Matt and I kind of forgot is that newborns don't have much of a routine when it comes to sleep and "bedtime" (what is bedtime to a newborn? Isn't their life one perpetual bedtime?). So, we tried a couple weeks ago to get Adam to go to sleep for the night starting around 8 p.m. so we could enjoy some evening adult time. After a few nights of doing what Matt correctly dubbed "chasing our own tails" as it would take a couple hours to get Adam to go to sleep, we finally realized we needed to accept the fact that for at least the next few months we don't get an evening break. We have to trade off who's eating dinner when and live with the fact that one, if not both, of us will be eating cold food.
With Matt back at work, though, we have been trying to change Adam for bed and give Adam a bottle sometime between 9:30 and 10. Ideally, Adam would fall asleep after having a 3-ounce bottle, and then he'd stay asleep for at least a few hours. But, nights like last night remind me that Adam is most content breastfeeding. So, he took the bottle, but then he fussed, and fussed, and fussed. Traditional soothing methods did not calm him down, so I resorted to doing what I do not like to do and breastfed him for comfort rather than nutrition. He barely fed -- because of course he was totally full -- but he did fall asleep within a matter of minutes.
So last night Adam slept for 3.5 hours, then woke up at 2 a.m., breastfed for 15 minutes, and immediately fell back asleep in his bassinet for another two hours. He woke up at 4:30 a.m., breastfed again for another 15 minutes, but wouldn't fall back asleep in his bassinet. Not wanting to experience what we did a couple weeks ago when it would take him at least two hours at a time to fall asleep each time he'd wake up in the middle of the night, I resorted to putting him to sleep in his swing. He slept contentedly in there for another 3.5 hours. This is, for the record, one of his best nights of sleep. Although I don't like to put him anywhere but his bassinet at night, I need to remember -- as my current rereading of my favorite baby book, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, reminds me -- that there's really no such thing as establishing bad habits for a baby under four months old. A line I reread last night said to "do whatever is necessary to get your baby to sleep." Duly noted!
Sometimes I wonder if Adam is going to be a good sleeper or not. It's way too early to tell. But I am meticulously tracking his eating and sleeping habits on my iBaby Log app just as I did with Natalie. I can still see all of Natalie's data from two years ago. It's reassuring to see that Adam and Natalie are so far practically identical in their newborn sleep habits. In fact, Adam wins bonus points for the fact that he's willing to take at least one nap a day in his bassinet in the nursery, whereas Natalie basically never did that for the first six weeks of her life, and rarely even took naps in her crib before she was four months old.
Seeing the world through rose-colored glasses?
I'm writing this blog post on a good day after a really good night, so I know it sounds like my life is easy and everything is perfect. And my life is pretty easy and I am pretty lucky as well. But I've also just spared you from another post I drafted on a really crappy day. It sounded really complain-y, so I'm happy to have something real but less annoying to share.
Also, I have yet to venture out of the house with the two kids by myself. That experiment will take place later this week when we (attempt to) attend Natalie's music class. We have done plenty of family-of-four outings, and Matt is getting the hang of the Baby Bjorn carrier we borrowed from our friends (I'm still rocking the Ergo, but Matt's not comfortable getting that on by himself, hence the Bjorn loan). So, for now, while I contentedly hang out at home with two kids, I feel like I have things somewhat under control and will wait to tackle the next challenge of the outside the house adventure in a couple days.
Monday, June 3, 2013
Early terrible two's
So I hesitate to write a post that sounds very complain-y because I'm trying to be conscious of how much I complain (especially when compared in ratio-form to how grateful I should be for all the positive aspects of my life). But, so I don't forget, I think it's important for me to share a little bit about the hardest month I've had as a mom so far.
I had heard that the Terrible Two's can start as early as 12 months. I think in our case they started practically the moment our daughter turned 15 months old.
It was like one morning she woke up and didn't want to do anything. Everything set her off.
Diaper change? Time to scream.
Time to eat? No, time to scream.
You're telling me you want to play on the playground across the street? I take you there, and then you immediately scream?
You get the idea.
I felt like for the six or so hours that she'd be awake in the morning before her nap (she's been down to one nap per day reliably since about 13 months) I spent the whole time trying to figure out what I could possibly do to make her happy, what I was possibly doing wrong. Every question was met with a "no" head shake. (Now she can at least say "no," which is oddly cute.) Every time I put her down for a second, or went to get something from the kitchen, I had to deal with at least 20 minutes of whining.
I tried being super attentive to her every need, talking to her in the sweetest, softest voices I could muster. I'll admit I lost it a couple times, screaming something along the lines of, "What could you possibly need!?"
Now that I have a little distance (a month and a half, to be exact) from those four weeks of unpleasantness, I now realize I really wasn't doing anything "wrong." My child was clearly going through a major, major developmental milestone. All I could do was stand by and keep her safe.
Just days after she turned 16 months old she became the new and improved version of the baby/toddler I've known and loved. My suspicions that she had been going through a major developmental milestone were confirmed by her explosion of language and her much further advanced fine-motor skills. Now she tells me the names of all her body parts and points to all the objects in our house that don't have a direct impact on her life (the clock, the trash can, the umbrella on the deck). Now she spins around in circles and feeds herself with her spoon and fork and pushes her tricycle down the sidewalk. A bunch of new behaviors immediately followed the dark month we endured with her temper.
The parenting lessons I need to hold on to from this experience involve the obvious one -- patience, young grasshopper -- and the reminder that sometimes, no matter what we do, there are some things our kids just have to work out on their own.
I had heard that the Terrible Two's can start as early as 12 months. I think in our case they started practically the moment our daughter turned 15 months old.
It was like one morning she woke up and didn't want to do anything. Everything set her off.
Diaper change? Time to scream.
Time to eat? No, time to scream.
You're telling me you want to play on the playground across the street? I take you there, and then you immediately scream?
You get the idea.
I felt like for the six or so hours that she'd be awake in the morning before her nap (she's been down to one nap per day reliably since about 13 months) I spent the whole time trying to figure out what I could possibly do to make her happy, what I was possibly doing wrong. Every question was met with a "no" head shake. (Now she can at least say "no," which is oddly cute.) Every time I put her down for a second, or went to get something from the kitchen, I had to deal with at least 20 minutes of whining.
I tried being super attentive to her every need, talking to her in the sweetest, softest voices I could muster. I'll admit I lost it a couple times, screaming something along the lines of, "What could you possibly need!?"
Now that I have a little distance (a month and a half, to be exact) from those four weeks of unpleasantness, I now realize I really wasn't doing anything "wrong." My child was clearly going through a major, major developmental milestone. All I could do was stand by and keep her safe.
Just days after she turned 16 months old she became the new and improved version of the baby/toddler I've known and loved. My suspicions that she had been going through a major developmental milestone were confirmed by her explosion of language and her much further advanced fine-motor skills. Now she tells me the names of all her body parts and points to all the objects in our house that don't have a direct impact on her life (the clock, the trash can, the umbrella on the deck). Now she spins around in circles and feeds herself with her spoon and fork and pushes her tricycle down the sidewalk. A bunch of new behaviors immediately followed the dark month we endured with her temper.
The parenting lessons I need to hold on to from this experience involve the obvious one -- patience, young grasshopper -- and the reminder that sometimes, no matter what we do, there are some things our kids just have to work out on their own.
Friday, February 8, 2013
Who wears a two-piece to Baby Swim?
Several weeks into the class, through a serendipitous set of circumstances, I come to find out that at least one other mom is talking about me and the Russian girl in the class behind our backs because we're the only two moms wearing two-pieces out of about 15 moms in the class. "Who wears a two-piece to Baby Swim?" was this mom's way of judging myself and the other woman who see no problem with moms wearing two-pieces.
The thought of being judged by other moms for wearing a two-piece bathing suit not only makes me laugh out loud but also kind of makes my year, mostly because Matt and I predicted this could happen. In a larger sense, though, I am bothered by this statement because of its broader cultural implications. The thought process seems to fit into this American cultural mindset that moms give up their identity on the delivery room table. And the people who especially perpetuate this belief are other moms.
Moms wear one-piece bathing suits. And mom jeans. They don't do their hair or their make-up or wear nice clothes. They get mom haircuts that require little to no maintenance, and they buy frumpy clothes that hide their bodies.
And that's just the physical stuff.
If and when a mom decides to go back to work, she better not be a high-powered executive like Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, because clearly her desire to have a career demonstrates that her priorities are out of whack.
She better breastfeed for a year or more, because how long you breastfeed is a symbol of how much you love your baby and how much you're willing to sacrifice.
She better not trust anyone else to babysit her child, because no one can do it as well as she can, and time for herself, for her husband, for her friends can wait until her children are in college.
I really believe in my slightly over one year as a mom that fellow moms are each others' worst critics. I am not saying I am not guilty of this at times as well. We believe our decisions are the best decisions, and out of lack of confidence, or jealousy, or both we judge other moms for something as simple as a two-piece bathing suit to something as complex as a career choice. In our relationships together as moms but first and foremost women we need to nurture all sides of our personalities and identities. And we need to applaud the new moms who are ready to jump back into their two-pieces.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Mama-led weaning
I don't like to label stuff related to parenting, so when friends asked me if I'd be doing "baby-led weaning" with Natalie, I sort of gave a blank stare, shrugged, and said, "I don't think so? Probably not?"
In all honesty, I still don't really understand what baby-led weaning is or how it is different from just giving your baby food and letting it go to town. I do know that baby-led weaning as a movement seems to be against the rice-cereal-as-baby's-first-food tradition, and it's in favor of babies deciding what to eat, but that's about it. If you want to read more from people who have happily and successfully followed this philosophy and actually know what they're talking about, you can read what Kate has to say here and check out baby Finn's mama here.
Baby-led weaning or whathaveyou aside, I have been most surprised and confused by the fact that the term is really a misnomer. Starting a baby on solid foods, most likely no later than the 6-month mark, does not actually have to relate to weaning. In fact, babies who are breastfeeding are still going to be consuming a ton of milk and that milk is going to provide the vast majority of their calories and important nutrients. At 6 months and even, apparently, 10 and 11 months, the baby is still going to be drinking roughly the same amount of milk as it did at 5 months, even though it's eating three solid meals a day. As your child grows you're going to spend more of your day feeding your child, not less. Yes, hear that, mother of a two-week old. I was naive too.
I never gave myself a breastfeeding goal. Friends would ask, "Are you going to breastfeed for a year?" I'd say, "Maybe."
Here's my final answer: I breastfed for 46 weeks. That's 10 and a half months, if you're keeping track. I breastfed my daughter for the last time today.
How do I know we're done?
Well, for starters, she fed once for about one minute and decided she was done. Yesterday she cried after her morning nursing session. She bit me about a month ago. I've been feeling for a while like we were done. Today just sealed the deal.
Plus, today I parted with a friend and foe of the last 10 and a half months.
No, not my baby -- she is more endearing than ever. My breast pump, specifically the one I've been renting from the hospital, is what I kicked to the curb. I could have kept it until tomorrow. I could have extended the pump rental for about the fifth time. But it was more appropriate than I could have ever planned that the day Natalie and I decided we had had enough I drove us back to the place of her birth to hand over the pump.
Although I said earlier in this post that baby-led weaning is just another name for starting solid food -- and I should add that many women I know didn't see their breastmilk supply change when their baby started solids -- my supply definitely started to decrease once Natalie started eating food. Pretty soon after she started solid food we were down to four nursing sessions a day. Then I would have afternoon and evening commitments that caused me to miss a feeding and she'd get a bag of milk from the freezer. Try as I might, I didn't consistently pump to make up for every lost nursing session. So then I'd see my supply diminish. Then I would get stressed out about not pumping or missing a feeding or whatever because my supply was diminishing. So I'd try to pump more on certain days. One afternoon Matt got home from work to a scene that looked like this: the dogs were going crazy, the printer was jammed, I was running late and desperately needed the printer to unjam, Natalie wasn't taking naps, and I was attached to the breast pump in preparation for my departure. I just thought I couldn't do it anymore. Of course, that was about two months ago, so I clearly kept doing it, but I knew it was reaching a point where we'd be starting to shut down this operation.
A couple weeks ago I tried giving Natalie formula for the first time since she was in the NICU. The first time she took a few sips and then started screaming. The second time she had caught on and knew to reject the bottle. She even became skeptical of the next bottle that solely contained breastmilk. After Googling something along the lines of "how to get a breastfed baby to drink formula" I found two solutions: a few splashes of apple juice in the formula or a dash of Nesquik Strawberry. The apple juice solution worked like a charm and Natalie has been accepting and even enjoying formula. I started with one bottle of formula a day, and then went on to two, then three, and today we did four.
Although Natalie's true breastfeeding days are over, thanks to the many hours I spent attached to the breastpump we still have a stash of breastmilk in the freezer.
I'm glad I breastfed Natalie as long as I did (and didn't choose formula a long time ago), and I will say that 98% of the reason I'm glad is because it's what the medical establishment tells me I'm "supposed" to do. From conversations I've had with lots of other moms it seems like medical/societal guilt is a main reason they do it, too. We want what's best for our children, so we breastfeed. Fortunately, the actual act of breastfeeding was never the problem for me. But the actual act of breastfeeding is only one tiny piece of the breastfeeding experience. So much of breastfeeding, unfortunately, also involves being connected to a pump; pumping into the night when all you want is to go to bed; sleeping uncomfortably at night because you were too lazy to pump before going to bed; sterilizing your pump parts; timing your day in three-hour increments; worrying about what you're eating and drinking; worrying about whether or not your baby is getting enough in terms of ounces and nutrients; literally crying over spilled milk (did this a couple times); running out of space in your freezer thanks to your bags of frozen milk; taking your pump on out-of-town trips; timing outings around feedings; feeling unsexy; wearing nursing pads and nursing tanks and nursing bras; leaking. I could keep going, but I know I'll be accused of treason.
I recommend feeding your baby in whatever safe method works for your family. Breastfeeding worked for us for a time. It was OK while it lasted. Statistically, we beat the odds in a variety of ways. My c-section and Natalie's week in the NICU are two factors that decrease the likelihood of successful breastfeeding. Still, formula is a remarkable invention. It will be our baby's main fuel for the next six weeks until she becomes a sage one-year old.
In all honesty, I still don't really understand what baby-led weaning is or how it is different from just giving your baby food and letting it go to town. I do know that baby-led weaning as a movement seems to be against the rice-cereal-as-baby's-first-food tradition, and it's in favor of babies deciding what to eat, but that's about it. If you want to read more from people who have happily and successfully followed this philosophy and actually know what they're talking about, you can read what Kate has to say here and check out baby Finn's mama here.
Baby-led weaning or whathaveyou aside, I have been most surprised and confused by the fact that the term is really a misnomer. Starting a baby on solid foods, most likely no later than the 6-month mark, does not actually have to relate to weaning. In fact, babies who are breastfeeding are still going to be consuming a ton of milk and that milk is going to provide the vast majority of their calories and important nutrients. At 6 months and even, apparently, 10 and 11 months, the baby is still going to be drinking roughly the same amount of milk as it did at 5 months, even though it's eating three solid meals a day. As your child grows you're going to spend more of your day feeding your child, not less. Yes, hear that, mother of a two-week old. I was naive too.
I never gave myself a breastfeeding goal. Friends would ask, "Are you going to breastfeed for a year?" I'd say, "Maybe."
Here's my final answer: I breastfed for 46 weeks. That's 10 and a half months, if you're keeping track. I breastfed my daughter for the last time today.
How do I know we're done?
Well, for starters, she fed once for about one minute and decided she was done. Yesterday she cried after her morning nursing session. She bit me about a month ago. I've been feeling for a while like we were done. Today just sealed the deal.
Plus, today I parted with a friend and foe of the last 10 and a half months.
No, not my baby -- she is more endearing than ever. My breast pump, specifically the one I've been renting from the hospital, is what I kicked to the curb. I could have kept it until tomorrow. I could have extended the pump rental for about the fifth time. But it was more appropriate than I could have ever planned that the day Natalie and I decided we had had enough I drove us back to the place of her birth to hand over the pump.
Although I said earlier in this post that baby-led weaning is just another name for starting solid food -- and I should add that many women I know didn't see their breastmilk supply change when their baby started solids -- my supply definitely started to decrease once Natalie started eating food. Pretty soon after she started solid food we were down to four nursing sessions a day. Then I would have afternoon and evening commitments that caused me to miss a feeding and she'd get a bag of milk from the freezer. Try as I might, I didn't consistently pump to make up for every lost nursing session. So then I'd see my supply diminish. Then I would get stressed out about not pumping or missing a feeding or whatever because my supply was diminishing. So I'd try to pump more on certain days. One afternoon Matt got home from work to a scene that looked like this: the dogs were going crazy, the printer was jammed, I was running late and desperately needed the printer to unjam, Natalie wasn't taking naps, and I was attached to the breast pump in preparation for my departure. I just thought I couldn't do it anymore. Of course, that was about two months ago, so I clearly kept doing it, but I knew it was reaching a point where we'd be starting to shut down this operation.
A couple weeks ago I tried giving Natalie formula for the first time since she was in the NICU. The first time she took a few sips and then started screaming. The second time she had caught on and knew to reject the bottle. She even became skeptical of the next bottle that solely contained breastmilk. After Googling something along the lines of "how to get a breastfed baby to drink formula" I found two solutions: a few splashes of apple juice in the formula or a dash of Nesquik Strawberry. The apple juice solution worked like a charm and Natalie has been accepting and even enjoying formula. I started with one bottle of formula a day, and then went on to two, then three, and today we did four.
Although Natalie's true breastfeeding days are over, thanks to the many hours I spent attached to the breastpump we still have a stash of breastmilk in the freezer.
I'm glad I breastfed Natalie as long as I did (and didn't choose formula a long time ago), and I will say that 98% of the reason I'm glad is because it's what the medical establishment tells me I'm "supposed" to do. From conversations I've had with lots of other moms it seems like medical/societal guilt is a main reason they do it, too. We want what's best for our children, so we breastfeed. Fortunately, the actual act of breastfeeding was never the problem for me. But the actual act of breastfeeding is only one tiny piece of the breastfeeding experience. So much of breastfeeding, unfortunately, also involves being connected to a pump; pumping into the night when all you want is to go to bed; sleeping uncomfortably at night because you were too lazy to pump before going to bed; sterilizing your pump parts; timing your day in three-hour increments; worrying about what you're eating and drinking; worrying about whether or not your baby is getting enough in terms of ounces and nutrients; literally crying over spilled milk (did this a couple times); running out of space in your freezer thanks to your bags of frozen milk; taking your pump on out-of-town trips; timing outings around feedings; feeling unsexy; wearing nursing pads and nursing tanks and nursing bras; leaking. I could keep going, but I know I'll be accused of treason.
I recommend feeding your baby in whatever safe method works for your family. Breastfeeding worked for us for a time. It was OK while it lasted. Statistically, we beat the odds in a variety of ways. My c-section and Natalie's week in the NICU are two factors that decrease the likelihood of successful breastfeeding. Still, formula is a remarkable invention. It will be our baby's main fuel for the next six weeks until she becomes a sage one-year old.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
French lessons: Bringing Up Bebe review
As an American, I am used to our culture's tendency to deride the French, as no doubt you are too. This is perhaps part of the intrigue behind the book Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman. "The French are wise parents?" the average American may ask. Putting stereotypes aside, I would have to agree with Amy Chua, author of the controversial Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, quoted on the back of Bringing Up Bebe's book jacket, who states that "parents of all cultures should be able to learn from one another."
At 8-and-a-half-months old Natalie feels more like a toddler and less like a baby. I will happily learn from anyone as I try to figure out how to really be a parent -- up until this point I felt like my title has been "sustainer of life" more so than parent. Now the real parenting begins. For some visual imagery, this...
...is now Natalie's favorite face. I think I have my work cut out for me.
I got through Druckerman's book super quickly, perhaps due to a looming book club/library due date deadline, but also thanks to Druckerman's conversational writing style and compelling observations. Ultimately, I agree with her assessment, based on her examples, that French parents on the whole seem to know what they're doing. I'm also happy to see that we are well on our way to establishing some good habits with Natalie even though there are some newly arising parenting conundrums. I'll try to employ some of these French principles as we move into these uncharted waters.
It is important to note that it's futile to compare cultures in an apples-to-apples type of way, particularly American and French. The French, after all, have a national maternity leave system and government-subsidized childcare, among other differences. So, I've left out those elements of French parenting that are virtually unattainable in American culture and tried to focus instead on what we can control.
At the heart of French parenting are a couple main ideas: delaying gratification and developing independence. You'll see these at work in most of the items listed below. Additionally, the concept of the "cadre" -- or framework -- is central to French parenting philosophy. Essentially parents raise their children to develop within a framework that French parents will admit is really strict in some areas and fairly laid back in others. The idea is to decide what really matters -- politeness, for example -- and not focus one's energy on small infractions, or "betises."
Here are some more specific ideas I took away from Druckerman's book:
1) "The Pause" -- French babies are on the whole amazingly good sleepers. They "do their nights" (aka truly sleep through the night for at least eight or nine hours...not the American version of six hours of continuous sleep) between six-weeks old and four-months old. A baby who isn't yet sleeping through the night in France by four months is considered late. To help babies achieve this milestone, many French parents, knowingly or not, use "The Pause" to determine whether to enter the baby's room. This means after a baby makes an initial noise they wait about five minutes to determine if the baby is truly awake. They understand that babies go through sleep cycles that last roughly two hours and the babies have a tendency to make lots of little noises or cries throughout the night. Many of these noises do not require a response from the parents because the baby is not truly awake. Druckerman quotes French pediatrician Michel Cohen who writes, "'parents who were a little less responsive to late-night fussing always had kids who were good sleepers, while the jumpy folks had kids who would wake up repeatedly at night'" (45).
My reflection: I can definitely relate to this concept, and we've been employing "The Pause" with Natalie ever since she was about a month old. Perhaps "The Pause" does partly help explain why she's such a good sleeper.
2) The French children's meal plan -- We all know that French women don't get fat, right? Well, apparently their children don't either, and it makes sense given the meal plan that virtually every child beyond the liquid-only diet stage consumes. French babies and children eat four times a day -- three meals and one snack, known as the gouter. The protein-heavy meal of the day occurs at lunch. At the maternelle -- France's free public preschool available for children starting at three-years old -- children are served a four-course lunch that includes, you know, a cheese course. The gouter, or afternoon snack, is almost universally served at 4 p.m. after school and often involves a sweet, such as cookies or cake, that parents have made together with their children. French children are discouraged from being picky eaters by eating foods of the same textures and flavors as adults from a young age. It's not OK for French children to subsist on an all mac-n-cheese diet.
My reflection: There's no way I'm baking daily or even weekly, but I do like the idea of not giving kids food merely as a way to placate them. Constant snacking, an unfortunate American invention, also seems like an easy way to gain weight. Also, I think I'll be using the cheese course concept with Natalie, as in "eat your cheese after you've eaten your veggies." She loves cheese (hooray!) but I've made the mistake of setting cheese out with her main course and sides, and she has been on the edge of throwing a tantrum until she gets the cheese. Cheese course it is! I am hoping that Natalie won't be a picky eater thanks to efforts to introduce her to lots of foods, but I fear the toddler years could do us in.
3) Francoise Dolto's philosophy -- This psychoanalyst/pediatrician is revered by many French parents. Her core principles of child rearing stem from her emphasis on children as rational beings who can be reasoned with from infancy. (One reason some French parents believe their babies almost universally sleep through the night by four months? That's around the time moms start heading back to work, and the moms rationalize with their babies, "Mom needs sleep for work," so babies start sleeping. Right.)
My reflection: I do like the idea of talking to babies like they are adults, or at least little adults. I hate "baby talk." I find myself doing it at times, but I always try to stop as quickly as the realization sets in. I see Natalie's face light up, and she sometimes looks at me sideways, when I explain to her what's going on. It's not that I think she's really understanding me, but I like to think we're moving in that direction.
4) French children say bonjour -- Once they learn to speak, French toddlers are expected to say hello and goodbye (in addition to please and thank you) to all adult visitors. The idea here is that children are part of the relationship. The mother and father saying hello does not exempt the child from saying hello. According to Druckerman, this seems to be ingrained in French culture, as it's considered offensive to not say hello to a sales clerk before asking a question or to the barista before placing an order. The French parents Druckerman spoke to acknowledge that their youngest children's "bonjours" may not be sincere, but they hope the repetition will eventually bring out the sincerity (155).
My reflection: I love this aspect of the culture. It brings humanity to everyone, especially the children. It holds them accountable.
5) Adult time -- Children are taught that there are not the center of the universe by parents observing the daily ritual of "adult time" -- from bedtime until morning, children are expected to stay in their room. As Druckerman writes, French parents "treat 'adult time' not as an occasional, hard-won privilege, but a basic human need" (187). This is why it's not unusual for French children to spend 10 days or two weeks with their grandparents or why children as young as four-years old take week-long class trips.
My reflection: I relish adult time. When Natalie is awake she is my absolute focus, but at night Matt and I need time to ourselves. Although I don't think we're at the level of taking a two-week vacation without her, I am seriously contemplating celebrating her first birthday by taking a little parents-only weekend.
6) Authoritative parenting: "It's me who decides" and "no" -- I remember learning in AP Psychology that authoritative parents (versus authoritarian parents) have the most well-adjusted kids. Apparently the French read my psych textbook, too. They rely on a firm "no" to help set limits for their children and are willing to back up their authority by reminding children that they make the decisions, not the children.
My reflection: Absolutely kids need firm limits. I am finding myself already telling Natalie "no" when she tries to get into something dangerous or tries to yell to get her point across (a point that was clear before any yelling ensued). Having dogs has at least helped me develop a firm "no." Saying "no" seems like the easy part, though. It'll be how to follow up after the "no" that I'll constantly need to work on.
7) Autonomy -- Ultimately, French parents want their children to learn to be autonomous. They don't want to micromanage their kids by hovering, helicoptering or otherwise controlling. To this end French parents encourage independent play. Not only does teaching a child to be content playing by himself or herself relieve some pressure on the parent to be constantly entertaining the child, it also helps the child develop creativity, problem-solving skills and, in the long term, autonomy. Druckerman frequently conjures the image of French parents at a playground, mostly on the sidelines, chatting among themselves, contrasted with American parents at a Brooklyn playground narrating every single thing the kid is doing in a (competitive) effort to develop early language.
My reflection: I thoroughly enjoy playing with Natalie, reading to her, taking her to nursery rhyme sessions at the library, and all other shared activities that fill our days. I look forward to the day when she can climb around on a playground and I'll do some of it with her. But I also believe it's important for her to play alone some each day, whether in her crib or on the floor. I enjoy moments to myself and moments of silence; no doubt she does, too. I've even noticed sometimes if I go into her nursery too soon after she's woken up from a nap she'll often cry -- almost as if I'm interrupting her time to herself -- but she doesn't cry when I enter several minutes after she's woken up. Instead, on these occasions, I'm greeted with a smile and sometimes a giggle or an intense happy flailing of arms.
There are definitely elements of French parenting I disagree with, but those are not nearly as compelling of a discussion, so I'll spare you the details. The point for me is that no single book -- or culture, for that matter -- has all the answers. As I move from "sustainer of life" to "parent" I'm hoping this book will help me as I develop a parenting philosophy of my own.
At 8-and-a-half-months old Natalie feels more like a toddler and less like a baby. I will happily learn from anyone as I try to figure out how to really be a parent -- up until this point I felt like my title has been "sustainer of life" more so than parent. Now the real parenting begins. For some visual imagery, this...
...is now Natalie's favorite face. I think I have my work cut out for me.
I got through Druckerman's book super quickly, perhaps due to a looming book club/library due date deadline, but also thanks to Druckerman's conversational writing style and compelling observations. Ultimately, I agree with her assessment, based on her examples, that French parents on the whole seem to know what they're doing. I'm also happy to see that we are well on our way to establishing some good habits with Natalie even though there are some newly arising parenting conundrums. I'll try to employ some of these French principles as we move into these uncharted waters.
It is important to note that it's futile to compare cultures in an apples-to-apples type of way, particularly American and French. The French, after all, have a national maternity leave system and government-subsidized childcare, among other differences. So, I've left out those elements of French parenting that are virtually unattainable in American culture and tried to focus instead on what we can control.
At the heart of French parenting are a couple main ideas: delaying gratification and developing independence. You'll see these at work in most of the items listed below. Additionally, the concept of the "cadre" -- or framework -- is central to French parenting philosophy. Essentially parents raise their children to develop within a framework that French parents will admit is really strict in some areas and fairly laid back in others. The idea is to decide what really matters -- politeness, for example -- and not focus one's energy on small infractions, or "betises."
Here are some more specific ideas I took away from Druckerman's book:
1) "The Pause" -- French babies are on the whole amazingly good sleepers. They "do their nights" (aka truly sleep through the night for at least eight or nine hours...not the American version of six hours of continuous sleep) between six-weeks old and four-months old. A baby who isn't yet sleeping through the night in France by four months is considered late. To help babies achieve this milestone, many French parents, knowingly or not, use "The Pause" to determine whether to enter the baby's room. This means after a baby makes an initial noise they wait about five minutes to determine if the baby is truly awake. They understand that babies go through sleep cycles that last roughly two hours and the babies have a tendency to make lots of little noises or cries throughout the night. Many of these noises do not require a response from the parents because the baby is not truly awake. Druckerman quotes French pediatrician Michel Cohen who writes, "'parents who were a little less responsive to late-night fussing always had kids who were good sleepers, while the jumpy folks had kids who would wake up repeatedly at night'" (45).
My reflection: I can definitely relate to this concept, and we've been employing "The Pause" with Natalie ever since she was about a month old. Perhaps "The Pause" does partly help explain why she's such a good sleeper.
2) The French children's meal plan -- We all know that French women don't get fat, right? Well, apparently their children don't either, and it makes sense given the meal plan that virtually every child beyond the liquid-only diet stage consumes. French babies and children eat four times a day -- three meals and one snack, known as the gouter. The protein-heavy meal of the day occurs at lunch. At the maternelle -- France's free public preschool available for children starting at three-years old -- children are served a four-course lunch that includes, you know, a cheese course. The gouter, or afternoon snack, is almost universally served at 4 p.m. after school and often involves a sweet, such as cookies or cake, that parents have made together with their children. French children are discouraged from being picky eaters by eating foods of the same textures and flavors as adults from a young age. It's not OK for French children to subsist on an all mac-n-cheese diet.
My reflection: There's no way I'm baking daily or even weekly, but I do like the idea of not giving kids food merely as a way to placate them. Constant snacking, an unfortunate American invention, also seems like an easy way to gain weight. Also, I think I'll be using the cheese course concept with Natalie, as in "eat your cheese after you've eaten your veggies." She loves cheese (hooray!) but I've made the mistake of setting cheese out with her main course and sides, and she has been on the edge of throwing a tantrum until she gets the cheese. Cheese course it is! I am hoping that Natalie won't be a picky eater thanks to efforts to introduce her to lots of foods, but I fear the toddler years could do us in.
3) Francoise Dolto's philosophy -- This psychoanalyst/pediatrician is revered by many French parents. Her core principles of child rearing stem from her emphasis on children as rational beings who can be reasoned with from infancy. (One reason some French parents believe their babies almost universally sleep through the night by four months? That's around the time moms start heading back to work, and the moms rationalize with their babies, "Mom needs sleep for work," so babies start sleeping. Right.)
My reflection: I do like the idea of talking to babies like they are adults, or at least little adults. I hate "baby talk." I find myself doing it at times, but I always try to stop as quickly as the realization sets in. I see Natalie's face light up, and she sometimes looks at me sideways, when I explain to her what's going on. It's not that I think she's really understanding me, but I like to think we're moving in that direction.
4) French children say bonjour -- Once they learn to speak, French toddlers are expected to say hello and goodbye (in addition to please and thank you) to all adult visitors. The idea here is that children are part of the relationship. The mother and father saying hello does not exempt the child from saying hello. According to Druckerman, this seems to be ingrained in French culture, as it's considered offensive to not say hello to a sales clerk before asking a question or to the barista before placing an order. The French parents Druckerman spoke to acknowledge that their youngest children's "bonjours" may not be sincere, but they hope the repetition will eventually bring out the sincerity (155).
My reflection: I love this aspect of the culture. It brings humanity to everyone, especially the children. It holds them accountable.
5) Adult time -- Children are taught that there are not the center of the universe by parents observing the daily ritual of "adult time" -- from bedtime until morning, children are expected to stay in their room. As Druckerman writes, French parents "treat 'adult time' not as an occasional, hard-won privilege, but a basic human need" (187). This is why it's not unusual for French children to spend 10 days or two weeks with their grandparents or why children as young as four-years old take week-long class trips.
My reflection: I relish adult time. When Natalie is awake she is my absolute focus, but at night Matt and I need time to ourselves. Although I don't think we're at the level of taking a two-week vacation without her, I am seriously contemplating celebrating her first birthday by taking a little parents-only weekend.
6) Authoritative parenting: "It's me who decides" and "no" -- I remember learning in AP Psychology that authoritative parents (versus authoritarian parents) have the most well-adjusted kids. Apparently the French read my psych textbook, too. They rely on a firm "no" to help set limits for their children and are willing to back up their authority by reminding children that they make the decisions, not the children.
My reflection: Absolutely kids need firm limits. I am finding myself already telling Natalie "no" when she tries to get into something dangerous or tries to yell to get her point across (a point that was clear before any yelling ensued). Having dogs has at least helped me develop a firm "no." Saying "no" seems like the easy part, though. It'll be how to follow up after the "no" that I'll constantly need to work on.
7) Autonomy -- Ultimately, French parents want their children to learn to be autonomous. They don't want to micromanage their kids by hovering, helicoptering or otherwise controlling. To this end French parents encourage independent play. Not only does teaching a child to be content playing by himself or herself relieve some pressure on the parent to be constantly entertaining the child, it also helps the child develop creativity, problem-solving skills and, in the long term, autonomy. Druckerman frequently conjures the image of French parents at a playground, mostly on the sidelines, chatting among themselves, contrasted with American parents at a Brooklyn playground narrating every single thing the kid is doing in a (competitive) effort to develop early language.
My reflection: I thoroughly enjoy playing with Natalie, reading to her, taking her to nursery rhyme sessions at the library, and all other shared activities that fill our days. I look forward to the day when she can climb around on a playground and I'll do some of it with her. But I also believe it's important for her to play alone some each day, whether in her crib or on the floor. I enjoy moments to myself and moments of silence; no doubt she does, too. I've even noticed sometimes if I go into her nursery too soon after she's woken up from a nap she'll often cry -- almost as if I'm interrupting her time to herself -- but she doesn't cry when I enter several minutes after she's woken up. Instead, on these occasions, I'm greeted with a smile and sometimes a giggle or an intense happy flailing of arms.
There are definitely elements of French parenting I disagree with, but those are not nearly as compelling of a discussion, so I'll spare you the details. The point for me is that no single book -- or culture, for that matter -- has all the answers. As I move from "sustainer of life" to "parent" I'm hoping this book will help me as I develop a parenting philosophy of my own.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Magical mystery kind
This morning at 8:45, while searching for activities to keep Natalie entertained in the time between waking up and nap 1, I put on our iTunes "Natalie" mix and we started dancing. Somewhere between Florence + the Machine's "Shake it Out" and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zero's "40 Day Dream" I was overcome with emotion. My 8-month-old baby was holding on to me tight, exposing her four front teeth every time she giggled and squealed, scrunching her nose in delight every time we shook it out together.
I feel like I've been waiting for this a long time. I loved the idea of my baby long before she was ever born. Upon her birth I loved her existence. As she develops into her own little person, though, I feel a much deeper love for her as a unique individual -- I love her, not the idea of her, not just the existence of her. I didn't gush emotion in the early days, but I see our collective love growing exponentially (and yes, this includes her love for her father, since she babbles "dada" all day long, intentionally or not).
So, I express gratitude for this random Wednesday morning in September. I am thankful for our healthy, happy baby. It still feels like a miracle. I don't want to take all this good fortune for granted.
I feel like I've been waiting for this a long time. I loved the idea of my baby long before she was ever born. Upon her birth I loved her existence. As she develops into her own little person, though, I feel a much deeper love for her as a unique individual -- I love her, not the idea of her, not just the existence of her. I didn't gush emotion in the early days, but I see our collective love growing exponentially (and yes, this includes her love for her father, since she babbles "dada" all day long, intentionally or not).
So, I express gratitude for this random Wednesday morning in September. I am thankful for our healthy, happy baby. It still feels like a miracle. I don't want to take all this good fortune for granted.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Responding to the critics
In a few more days Natalie turns 5 months old. Right now I feel confident enough in my mom-of-an-infant routine to reflect publicly on many of the common comments I received as a soon-to-be mother.
"You will never sleep well again."
False.
I've written about this before briefly, but I have had better sleep in the past five months than I did in the five months leading up to Natalie's birth. Yes, there are nights that I don't get very good sleep, but overall sleep is not nearly as bad as everyone made it sound like it would be, even in that early newborn stage when I was up every 2-3 hours.
"You will be more alert when you sleep."
Totally true.
While this may sound like it contradicts the previous point, it really does not. I am getting way more uninterrupted sleep than I did during pregnancy or imagined I would in general, but my sleep is much lighter these days. If Natalie makes any type of noise, it wakes me up, but fortunately she does not make much noise at night and I have learned which of her noises require attention and which do not.
"Leaving the house takes about two hours."
False hyperbole, but embedded with some truth.
The actual act of getting in the car takes about 2 minutes, but planning to go somewhere simply requires...well, planning. It often means feeding Natalie, then changing her diaper, then getting the diaper bag (which is usually well enough stocked that it only takes about 2-3 minutes to check and replenish), then getting in the car and going. So, if we're heading to meet friends or make an appointment, it just means starting the preparation process at least 45 minutes before we need to leave. If we want to go somewhere by ourselves, like on a long walk with the dogs or an early dinner out, it just means realizing that Natalie dictates the schedule, so even though we might be ready to head out at that moment, we need to be flexible. Most of the time I can get places on time, but I've also found that it's a good idea when we're meeting up with friends without kids for them to recognize that it's more realistic to say we'll meet them within a window (say, between 5 and 5:15) and that we'll text when we're officially in the car.
"You will not be spontaneous anymore."
Very true.
This complements the point above, but I thought it deserved its own place on this list. The baby does control the schedule a good degree.
"You will never have time for yourself."
False.
From my own experience thus far and what I've witnessed watching friends who've gone before me, it seems like a child's infancy is the stage at which parents have the most time for themselves because that's when kids sleep the most and they can't really move much or get into trouble when they're awake. I had the most time for myself before Natalie turned 2 months old. When she hit 2 and 3 months old, though, she started to be more alert and subsequently up more during the day, and that's when I had a lot less time to myself. After turning 4 months old her sleep started to become more predictable, and I went back to having more time for myself. Now as she gets ready to turn 5 months old she's taking really long naps and sleeping for 11 or 12-hour uninterrupted stretches at night, so I'm back to having more time for exercising, reading, household chores, and blogging. The key that I've discovered is to make the most of the baby's downtime to do those things for yourself that you want to do. Like I said, the baby does control a lot of the schedule, so I just need to motivate myself to exercise or whatever when Natalie's sleeping, even if that's not the time I would naturally pick for myself.
I'm the boss around here!
"Ain't got no time for no haters."
True.
My friend who's been a mother much longer than me quoted me this line from T.I. and Rihanna a few months before I gave birth. Her point was that people will judge you as a mom no matter what you do, but you won't have time to worry about their Judgey McJudgerson-ness, so you just have to ignore it and do what's best for your family. So ridiculously true. I was prepared for older people to judge Matt and me, but I was less prepared for my peers, particularly some of my child-less peers and some of my peers who also have small babies and children, to state to me and to one another what they think is best for me and my family. We all have our opinions, but it shocks me that there are people who judge new parents (and there are plenty), and you won't know who in your life will until you give birth. At the end of the day, though, my buddy is right, and Rihanna's lyrics are often playing on loop in my mind. Live your life.
"You will never know a love like this."
Jury's out on this one.
Before I had a baby everyone said this to me all the time. I love Natalie. I also love lots of other people. I love my husband and my family; I love my best friends; I love my dogs. If anything happened to any of these people I would be devastated and heartbroken. I can't say that having a baby has caused me to see love in a whole new way yet. Maybe this makes me a bad mom; or maybe it means that I'm lucky to have lots of great people in my life; or maybe it means lots of people speak in hyperbole (I am leaning toward this potential answer). Natalie's birth brought even more love into my life, but I can't say it has rocked my world. Perhaps as she grows I really will experience a love I haven't known before.
"You will never sleep well again."
False.
I've written about this before briefly, but I have had better sleep in the past five months than I did in the five months leading up to Natalie's birth. Yes, there are nights that I don't get very good sleep, but overall sleep is not nearly as bad as everyone made it sound like it would be, even in that early newborn stage when I was up every 2-3 hours.
"You will be more alert when you sleep."
Totally true.
While this may sound like it contradicts the previous point, it really does not. I am getting way more uninterrupted sleep than I did during pregnancy or imagined I would in general, but my sleep is much lighter these days. If Natalie makes any type of noise, it wakes me up, but fortunately she does not make much noise at night and I have learned which of her noises require attention and which do not.
"Leaving the house takes about two hours."
False hyperbole, but embedded with some truth.
The actual act of getting in the car takes about 2 minutes, but planning to go somewhere simply requires...well, planning. It often means feeding Natalie, then changing her diaper, then getting the diaper bag (which is usually well enough stocked that it only takes about 2-3 minutes to check and replenish), then getting in the car and going. So, if we're heading to meet friends or make an appointment, it just means starting the preparation process at least 45 minutes before we need to leave. If we want to go somewhere by ourselves, like on a long walk with the dogs or an early dinner out, it just means realizing that Natalie dictates the schedule, so even though we might be ready to head out at that moment, we need to be flexible. Most of the time I can get places on time, but I've also found that it's a good idea when we're meeting up with friends without kids for them to recognize that it's more realistic to say we'll meet them within a window (say, between 5 and 5:15) and that we'll text when we're officially in the car.
"You will not be spontaneous anymore."
Very true.
This complements the point above, but I thought it deserved its own place on this list. The baby does control the schedule a good degree.
"You will never have time for yourself."
False.
From my own experience thus far and what I've witnessed watching friends who've gone before me, it seems like a child's infancy is the stage at which parents have the most time for themselves because that's when kids sleep the most and they can't really move much or get into trouble when they're awake. I had the most time for myself before Natalie turned 2 months old. When she hit 2 and 3 months old, though, she started to be more alert and subsequently up more during the day, and that's when I had a lot less time to myself. After turning 4 months old her sleep started to become more predictable, and I went back to having more time for myself. Now as she gets ready to turn 5 months old she's taking really long naps and sleeping for 11 or 12-hour uninterrupted stretches at night, so I'm back to having more time for exercising, reading, household chores, and blogging. The key that I've discovered is to make the most of the baby's downtime to do those things for yourself that you want to do. Like I said, the baby does control a lot of the schedule, so I just need to motivate myself to exercise or whatever when Natalie's sleeping, even if that's not the time I would naturally pick for myself.
I'm the boss around here!
"Ain't got no time for no haters."
True.
My friend who's been a mother much longer than me quoted me this line from T.I. and Rihanna a few months before I gave birth. Her point was that people will judge you as a mom no matter what you do, but you won't have time to worry about their Judgey McJudgerson-ness, so you just have to ignore it and do what's best for your family. So ridiculously true. I was prepared for older people to judge Matt and me, but I was less prepared for my peers, particularly some of my child-less peers and some of my peers who also have small babies and children, to state to me and to one another what they think is best for me and my family. We all have our opinions, but it shocks me that there are people who judge new parents (and there are plenty), and you won't know who in your life will until you give birth. At the end of the day, though, my buddy is right, and Rihanna's lyrics are often playing on loop in my mind. Live your life.
"You will never know a love like this."
Jury's out on this one.
Before I had a baby everyone said this to me all the time. I love Natalie. I also love lots of other people. I love my husband and my family; I love my best friends; I love my dogs. If anything happened to any of these people I would be devastated and heartbroken. I can't say that having a baby has caused me to see love in a whole new way yet. Maybe this makes me a bad mom; or maybe it means that I'm lucky to have lots of great people in my life; or maybe it means lots of people speak in hyperbole (I am leaning toward this potential answer). Natalie's birth brought even more love into my life, but I can't say it has rocked my world. Perhaps as she grows I really will experience a love I haven't known before.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
WHO cares about growth charts anyway?
For the past month I've been a little stressed out about something to the point that I haven't had the desire (or the time) to write about it until now. At Natalie's two-month check up, which actually happened when she was closer to turning three months old, our doctor expressed concern over Natalie's weight. Weighing in at 9 lbs., 13 oz., she was only 1 lb., 12 oz. up from her birth weight. But, she had grown 4 inches since birth. Four inches!!! Can you imagine growing so quickly in a matter of weeks? This meant she was now in the 85th percentile for length and 10th percentile for weight. At first I took issue with the growth chart itself, thinking that maybe our doctor was using the older growth charts that are no longer considered particularly accurate because they deal with a small population sample, but then I realized after going home and looking it up myself that our doctor is in fact using the World Health Organization's (WHO) growth charts that look at breastfed babies worldwide. (Fun resource: You can also enter your baby's stats into the BabyCenter Growth Chart Calculator.) In one breath the doctor said that Natalie's weight being in the 10th percentile is probably no big deal because Natalie is likely genetically predisposed to be thin, but in the next breath she said she wanted Natalie back in four weeks for a weight check. If she hadn't made sufficient weight gain the doctor said we would have to discuss alternatives, or something to that effect.
As a breastfeeding mom, I took this fairly personally. On my extended leave of absence from work I treat raising my baby, and particularly feeding my baby, as my full-time job. I devote many hours of my day to nourishing Natalie. The doctor's words, though they obviously come with good intentions/medical concern and no true judgement, still felt like she was saying I wasn't doing a good job at my new full-time job.
So then I went through a range of thoughts and feelings:
1) Breastfeeding is going great for Natalie and me. Unlike what feels like the majority of moms I know I am not experiencing any problems with the process: I do not have a supply issue, I do not experience pain, Natalie has a good latch, and dare I say it we both enjoy breastfeeding (most of the time....even though it is hard work). Why should I have to supplement with formula, as the doctor seemed to imply might need to happen, when we are not having any issues? If the American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months and the free book on breastfeeding that the hospital gives all new moms says that 99 percent of women produce the right amount of milk for their babies, why mess with a good thing?
2) Natalie is probably going to be small. Matt is of average size for the American male. I am slightly below average in height and weight and have been all my life, but I've always been healthy. I come from a family of remarkably short people, and despite the odds I am only marginally petite.
3) Natalie produces plenty of diapers every day, sleeps well, and has a rather perfect disposition. If she was undernourished, wouldn't she display clear outward signs of distress, and wouldn't I, as her mother, pick up on those signs easily?
4) I just feel, in my gut, that Natalie is fine.
5) Still, I tackle challenges head on, and this is a new challenge, so bring it. I'll come up with a way to tip the scales, literally.
Then I got to thinking, perhaps Natalie enjoys breastfeeding too much. It almost always puts her to sleep, which is great, but maybe she's not always feeding long enough to get to the good stuff, the hind milk, which is what the baby drinks after the first third of the milk, or foremilk, is depleted. The hind milk is fatty and calorie-packed, so maybe I needed to help Natalie get that more often.
Determined to get Natalie to put some meat on her bones, I started pumping 3-4 times daily. I wasn't stockpiling the milk in the freezer; instead, I was doing half of Natalie's 7-8 daily feedings with a bottle. I was frequently giving her 4.5 to 6 oz. bottles, and I knew that she needed approximately 25 oz. of milk a day, so I figured those bottles plus whatever she was getting while nursing would meet her daily nutritional needs.
I started to also perform some weight checks of my own using the Medela infant scale available at the New Moms group I attend through a local hospital. From one week to the next Natalie gained about 8 ounces! But then the following week Natalie gained nothing. I went from moments of elation to moments of disappointment. When I would get disappointed, the nurses at the New Moms group reminded me that babies don't always gain weight every single week. As my gynecologist likes to say to expectant moms, babies don't read textbooks so they don't follow the rules whether in utero or out.
I tried performing my own breastfeeding weight experiment where I weighed Natalie before and after feeding her. I didn't know what I was doing, though, so I did it wrong. The scale showed that Natalie gained a couple ounces after the feeding, but: 1) I was supposed to weigh her in grams, not ounces, for the best results and 2) I was supposed to keep her clothed for this weigh-in so that if she went to the bathroom during the feeding it would be accounted for through her diaper. One of the nurses who volunteers to run our New Moms meetings very nicely emailed me a ton of resources after the fact so that in the future I can go back and do the weigh-in correctly.
Finally, on Monday morning, the day of reckoning had arrived. Natalie didn't have the best night Sunday night, but I was so tense that I could hardly sleep to begin with so her erratic sleep patterns Sunday night weren't a problem. Monday morning before we went to the doctor's office Natalie had a couple last bottles, but then of course she had a dirty diaper and I thought to myself, "Great, there go a few ounces." This is what you think when you're trying to do everything in your power to get your baby to gain weight.
As I placed my naked baby on the doctor's office scale, I was sufficiently freaked out to see where the numbers would land, but I was thrilled to see the scale read 12 lbs., 3 oz. In four weeks Natalie had gained 2 lbs., 6 oz. The nurse was shocked. She had me weigh Natalie again, this time only to see the scale read 12 lbs., 2 oz. She told me to dress that baby and take her home because she is completely healthy and there is nothing wrong with her.
I walked out of the office elated and with these thoughts in my head:
1) Growth charts are silly. Yes, they exist for a reason, particularly for majorly outlying babies, but basically no babies are 50th percentile in everything and most babies are fine. Some babies will be small. Some babies will be in the 10th percentile. Even after gaining so much weight in a matter of weeks, Natalie is still only somewhere between the 10th and 25th percentile, but she is a healthy weight for her size.
2) Babies grow at different rates. When we had gone in for Natalie's two-month appointment her length had just gone through a major growth spurt and her weight was waiting to catch up. She was clearly growing, but she was growing up rather than out, and that's part of the reason why the doctor was concerned.
3) I need to trust my instincts. I knew there was nothing wrong with Natalie. I see her for every waking minute of her day. I knew, moments after her birth, that there was something wrong with Natalie even though the doctors thought I was crazy and under the influence of whatever drugs they'd given me. I knew she was going to the NICU before any doctor or nurse acknowledged the possibility. Similarly, I knew Natalie's weight was fine but I let the doctor's slight concern weigh (ha!) on me too much when I needed to just be enjoying my time with Natalie.
Ironically, we haven't once called our pediatrician with any health concerns, and it wasn't until after going to the doctor that I had my first parental freak-out moment. I will continue to give Natalie a couple bottles a day just in case she is, in fact, a lazy eater who isn't always getting to the hind milk, but I won't stay so attached to the breast pump as I've felt this past month. It has been exhausting.
As a breastfeeding mom, I took this fairly personally. On my extended leave of absence from work I treat raising my baby, and particularly feeding my baby, as my full-time job. I devote many hours of my day to nourishing Natalie. The doctor's words, though they obviously come with good intentions/medical concern and no true judgement, still felt like she was saying I wasn't doing a good job at my new full-time job.
So then I went through a range of thoughts and feelings:
1) Breastfeeding is going great for Natalie and me. Unlike what feels like the majority of moms I know I am not experiencing any problems with the process: I do not have a supply issue, I do not experience pain, Natalie has a good latch, and dare I say it we both enjoy breastfeeding (most of the time....even though it is hard work). Why should I have to supplement with formula, as the doctor seemed to imply might need to happen, when we are not having any issues? If the American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months and the free book on breastfeeding that the hospital gives all new moms says that 99 percent of women produce the right amount of milk for their babies, why mess with a good thing?
2) Natalie is probably going to be small. Matt is of average size for the American male. I am slightly below average in height and weight and have been all my life, but I've always been healthy. I come from a family of remarkably short people, and despite the odds I am only marginally petite.
3) Natalie produces plenty of diapers every day, sleeps well, and has a rather perfect disposition. If she was undernourished, wouldn't she display clear outward signs of distress, and wouldn't I, as her mother, pick up on those signs easily?
4) I just feel, in my gut, that Natalie is fine.
5) Still, I tackle challenges head on, and this is a new challenge, so bring it. I'll come up with a way to tip the scales, literally.
Then I got to thinking, perhaps Natalie enjoys breastfeeding too much. It almost always puts her to sleep, which is great, but maybe she's not always feeding long enough to get to the good stuff, the hind milk, which is what the baby drinks after the first third of the milk, or foremilk, is depleted. The hind milk is fatty and calorie-packed, so maybe I needed to help Natalie get that more often.
Determined to get Natalie to put some meat on her bones, I started pumping 3-4 times daily. I wasn't stockpiling the milk in the freezer; instead, I was doing half of Natalie's 7-8 daily feedings with a bottle. I was frequently giving her 4.5 to 6 oz. bottles, and I knew that she needed approximately 25 oz. of milk a day, so I figured those bottles plus whatever she was getting while nursing would meet her daily nutritional needs.
I started to also perform some weight checks of my own using the Medela infant scale available at the New Moms group I attend through a local hospital. From one week to the next Natalie gained about 8 ounces! But then the following week Natalie gained nothing. I went from moments of elation to moments of disappointment. When I would get disappointed, the nurses at the New Moms group reminded me that babies don't always gain weight every single week. As my gynecologist likes to say to expectant moms, babies don't read textbooks so they don't follow the rules whether in utero or out.
Finally, on Monday morning, the day of reckoning had arrived. Natalie didn't have the best night Sunday night, but I was so tense that I could hardly sleep to begin with so her erratic sleep patterns Sunday night weren't a problem. Monday morning before we went to the doctor's office Natalie had a couple last bottles, but then of course she had a dirty diaper and I thought to myself, "Great, there go a few ounces." This is what you think when you're trying to do everything in your power to get your baby to gain weight.
As I placed my naked baby on the doctor's office scale, I was sufficiently freaked out to see where the numbers would land, but I was thrilled to see the scale read 12 lbs., 3 oz. In four weeks Natalie had gained 2 lbs., 6 oz. The nurse was shocked. She had me weigh Natalie again, this time only to see the scale read 12 lbs., 2 oz. She told me to dress that baby and take her home because she is completely healthy and there is nothing wrong with her.
I walked out of the office elated and with these thoughts in my head:
1) Growth charts are silly. Yes, they exist for a reason, particularly for majorly outlying babies, but basically no babies are 50th percentile in everything and most babies are fine. Some babies will be small. Some babies will be in the 10th percentile. Even after gaining so much weight in a matter of weeks, Natalie is still only somewhere between the 10th and 25th percentile, but she is a healthy weight for her size.
2) Babies grow at different rates. When we had gone in for Natalie's two-month appointment her length had just gone through a major growth spurt and her weight was waiting to catch up. She was clearly growing, but she was growing up rather than out, and that's part of the reason why the doctor was concerned.
3) I need to trust my instincts. I knew there was nothing wrong with Natalie. I see her for every waking minute of her day. I knew, moments after her birth, that there was something wrong with Natalie even though the doctors thought I was crazy and under the influence of whatever drugs they'd given me. I knew she was going to the NICU before any doctor or nurse acknowledged the possibility. Similarly, I knew Natalie's weight was fine but I let the doctor's slight concern weigh (ha!) on me too much when I needed to just be enjoying my time with Natalie.
Ironically, we haven't once called our pediatrician with any health concerns, and it wasn't until after going to the doctor that I had my first parental freak-out moment. I will continue to give Natalie a couple bottles a day just in case she is, in fact, a lazy eater who isn't always getting to the hind milk, but I won't stay so attached to the breast pump as I've felt this past month. It has been exhausting.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)