I got only one uninterrupted hour of sleep last night. One hour is enough time for many things—making piecrust, getting a haircut—but a night’s restful slumber is not one of them. I am realizing, belatedly, that sleep deprivation is cumulative, meaning that what seemed manageable a week ago now results in me whisper-snapping “What is the matter? WHAT??” at my poor crying baby at three a.m. Mother of the Year!
Said baby has become exponentially fussier, either due to her reflux or the fact that she has decided to really commit to the role of newborn now that her adjusted age is out of the negative numbers. Tragically, the gypsy swaddle seems to have stopped working, and Simone has now decided she must nurse to sleep after her night bottles, which would be fine—not great, you understand, but acceptable—except that she will then only sleep until I attempt to move her.
When she is not actively crying at night she is grunting angrily and whining “Meeeh. Eh. Ehh. Ahihh. Meheh. Ehhhhhh!” But the moment someone gives up on sleep, disconnects the apnea monitor, and takes her into the living room to hold, she is down for the count. Not that either Scott or I can remember how to count, at this point.
Simone had her first appointment with the pediatrician yesterday, and holy hell, but I hate car seats. I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to force Simone’s legs through what turned out to be the arm straps, and am already experiencing anticipatory anxiety about repeating the whole rigmarole tomorrow for her eye appointment.
The pediatrician, in what was undoubtedly a move calculated to soothe anxious mothers, shook my hand at the end of the appointment and said “You’re doing a great job.” Calculated or not, it was appreciated, especially after being told that Simone needs to gain more weight. Full-term babies are expected to gain half an ounce a day, but preemies are held to a higher standard, which hardly seems fair. I have taken the doctor’s pronouncement to mean that I must introduce more bacon and heavy cream into my diet. To fortify my milk, you see. For the baby.
But while Simone’s growth concerns me, it is in a “Huh, I guess I’ll step up the feeding schedule” way, rather than one characterized by diaper-weighing and Google-induced hysteria. This has been the biggest surprise since our homecoming, just how calm and almost…lackadaisical I am as a mother. It is easily the best thing to come from Simone’s varied and several brushes with death, this feeling that as long as she’s breathing, the rest is gravy. I always expected that I would be the sort of parent who keeps spreadsheets detailing her kid’s every feeding and bowel movement, but instead I make sure she eats every three-ish hours, and gets her medicines every 12-ish hours, and otherwise merely go about my business with my baby in the sling all day, licking the occasional dropped crumb from her head.
Simone has started spitting up more, and your recommendation that I stock up on cloth diapers was the best baby advice I received. In fact, if you are pregnant right now, let me tell you that no matter how silly you feel filling your cart with what seems like an excessive quantity of Gerber prefolds, trust me when I say that YOU DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH. Take the number of packages you think would be reasonable, double it, and then add two or three more.
The spitting up doesn’t seem to faze Simone one bit, and in fact only renews her appetite. She is like a tiny Roman.
She also appears to be under the misguided impression that milk courses under my skin like a river, and will attempt to latch on to whatever part of me happens to be closest—thigh, shoulder, collarbone—and become furious when no sustenance is forthcoming. If she is hungry enough, even eating will upset her, something I find baffling. Say you’re a baby. You want food, the food source is in your mouth, but instead of eating you prefer to wail and fling your giant bobbling head from side to side? What’s your motivation? Simone would be a star on this website.
This last Saturday was my due date. Go ahead and roll that around in your mind for awhile. Though I would be hard-pressed to categorize the pregnancy as “successful,” I am ever, ever mindful of how much worse things could have been, and how lucky I am to be here, with my sweet, wiggling, living daughter.
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Awww she’s so beautiful and you are such a good mama! I can’t even begin to comprehend the joy/exhaustion combo you must be feeling but keep it up (I’ve heard they have to sleep eventually – albeit in the car on the way to somewhere you will eventually have to move them)
P.S. I love the Oral B Pulsar as well – other electric toothbrushes make my teeth feel itchy. My only complaint is that they don’t come in more colors.
I feel your pain. I have three boys and none of them slept worth a damn for the first six weeks unless they were on their tummies on someone’s chest. They did learn eventually, though–a good thing, too, since it’s unseemly for an eight-year-old to sleep with his face buried in his mother’s ample bosom.
It’s a good thing they’re cute, right? Hang in there.
She’s adorable! I hope she starts sleeping more so you can get some rest soon.
I love the description – she’s like a “tiny Roman”! LOL!
Oh yeah, the first few weeks suck ass. My girl was a big grunter too. But with my son, the first-born, we recorded every single poop for the first three or four days: color, consistency, etc. We still laugh about that.
You’re doin’ great!
“Congratulations” and “I’m so happy for you”s are so weak, I don’t even know how to say it well enough. But it is just so, so, so good to read a post like this. Beautiful.
As for the increasing fussiness, I am NOT, NOT, NOT wishing this on you, but. . .if you find that you have an “extreme fussy” baby (traditionally, “colicky”), you are going to get an awful lot of advice. And I know advice from strangers is probably all but meaningless.
But have I ever let that stop me? Just in case you care, and just in case she is extremely fussy for a while. . .remember, you’re not a bad mom just because you find yourself hissing at a tiny, innocent baby in the middle of the night. My two year old was “colicky” for her first four months. Literally cried 8 to 10 hours per day. And you know what? THAT IS baffling. Being overwhelmed by something that is so hard to understand is okay. Go easy on yourself.
As for real, practical advice, no matter how much fussiness you experience: have you been told about Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth? It’s the best book I’ve read in my entire life. No really. There were so many things that I just simply didn’t understand about a baby’s sleep before I read that book, and it seriously changed our lives. Of course you can’t sleep-train a baby as young as Simone, but being armed with some information was invaluable to me. And if you can fit in time to at least skim through it now, then when she’s three or four months old (adjusted), you’ll at least have a clue about what direction to point your spinning, sleep-deprived head.
By the way, it’s not some crazy CRY IT OUT or ANTI CRY IT OUT kind of preachy book. It’s very moderate, middle-of-the-road, realistic kind of stuff. Highly recommend!
Has anybody mentioned Happiest Baby on the block? Kind of hokey, and simple — but also reassuring with some good tips. Since Simone loves a good swaddle, some of the other things he says might speak to her as well.
And sometimes you just accidentally hit on the right thing for your baby. My son would be instantly quieted by the song “Song for my Father” by Horace Silver — we would play it as a loop sometimes…
I feel your pain. My husband and i reminisce (I can’t spell) about how hard it was when the baby came home. Never mind the five weeks in the hospital, the night-after-night sleepless thing compounded by a month of stress is a lot for anyone to handle.
I, like you, am a pretty laid-back mom. All that initial “oh shit” makes it hard to worry too much about wet diapers or feeding schedules.
Have you tried gripe water for the reflux? People were raving about it in my breastfeeding class.
Can you believe that reading this is making me MISS those first weeks home? I miss my little tiny baby that I could carry in the Moby Wrap, the little baby who rooted around for my breast. I blinked my eyes and all of a sudden she’s this kid who doesn’t want to be held anymore.
Simone is the cutest thing, and I love that onesie!
When people told me that preemies were fussy, I wanted to be like, “screw you, wouldn’t YOU be if you were evicted that early and had to go through all that?” But DAMN! Preemies are fussy! And just wait until they start teething. Holy Hell. It is madness. Mine is teething now at four months adjusted age, and I want to just bash bricks against my head to drown out the crying. Mine, not hers.
My due date was a really eerie day. But here’s to our girls, who both came home before their due dates!
I’m your average happened-here-by-linkage lurker; been reading you since you named your babies publicly. I have a fifteen month old, and I’m sitting her all warm and tingly thinking of your living daughter, and the joy you must be feeling about the simplest of things. My advice: Smell her head. Lots. It won’t smell that way forever. I know, right? The cloth diapers thing is spot on, but you can buy new shirts. New Baby Smell is worth taking a moment for. And you are doing a good job, mama: We all futzed things up in the first weeks, and trust me, at twelve months you will want to do it all over just so you can use what you know then. I’m convinced that’s why people have more kids. (Because when my kid was four weeks old, I honestly had no idea how you got people to sign up for a second go.) But it’s so easy at first (she says, ducking): change when wet, feed when hungry, rock with fussy, love all the time. So if you’re doing all that, you are doing fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine. Good on you.
Sounds like you are doing excellently. Keep up the good work – the amount of sleep you get will gradually increase :-). Simone is adorable.
Oh my God I remember the horror of that stage so well and it still makes me shudder and go “Yes I confess to everything, just stop torturing me!”
I remmeber when I was exhausted and despairin and crying and people were telling me it would get better and I was all but hissing “Bastards YOU LIE it never will” but it did. True, I remember the first three months with a lingering sense of horror, because my baby would not sleep at night for longer than a two hour stretch and would want to stay up and party in between and I was convinced I would not sleep again until he moved out but then at three months he conked out around midnight, we went to bed with the glum air of people who know that their very own wee claxon of doooom will be sounding within a couple of hours but instead we woke up on our own to sweet sweeet sunlight at 7am. That moment was akin to an orgasm.
My baby was a loud sleeper too -grunting and wheezing and all but muttering angrily in his supposed slumber but he grewout of it.
I cannot say this strongly enough – but please please don’t feel guilty for feeling impatient/frustrated/angry when you get woken up for the zillionth time by an infant with unfathomable needs. It’s so normal. As far as I am concerned we are all Mothers Of The Year when we don’t walk out, and when we keep getting up to respond to the damn crying.
Do you have one of those yoga balls? In my son’s fussy moments, sitting on the yoga ball and bouncing him gently is sometimes the only thing which will soothe him and make him sleep.
I remember when he was born that all his crying sounded the same to me, and I remember many nights when the only thing to make him for the love of god shut up was being able to nurse and my nipple was hurting and I just wanted to sleep and I’d be crying and the baby would be crying and my husband would be trying to comfort us both and it was awful. But since then I have learned to distinguish different crying of which one is overtired crying (a particular whiny tone) signalling the baby would love to conk out but doesn’t know how and while you try to help it it fights you all the way. Babies! They are so contrary!
I honestly don’t want to give assvice, and offer these thoughts on the off chance that you’re feeling as helpless as I felt then:
-My baby would SHRIIIEEEEEK like a banshee when his stomach hurt from gas but a more thorough burping would pacify him.
-I used to do a sneaky pacifier manoever where I’d whip away my bosoms and whip in the pacifier and he was kind enough to accept the substitution and sleep.
-He was soothed by gentle bouncing on the ball and the singing of songs. Unfortunately it was the same song but whatever gets him to sleep fastest I say.
It will get better, I promise you. It will it will it will.
All of the sleepless nights, hysterical crying, 24×7 nursing & non stop holding (yes I had one of these too, he is now 12 mos.-ish) is so amazingly worth it every single day, isn’t it? ;-) Knowing she is home with you & the husband after her amazingly long and winding journey makes the world a brighter place, go you!
Are you co-sleeping? Or is this something you can’t do with Simone because of her ‘equipment’?
My eldest son always suckled to sleep and would wake if I put him down, so I hardly ever put him down for six months!!!! He fed almost continuously, and spit up copiously – he was a projectile vomiter. No health probs, just greedy! ;-D
And my youngest co-slept with us right up until he went into his own BED!!! Other people tutted and shook their heads (and maybe still do) but we all got some sleep, which was what we desperately needed and weren’t getting.
One of my sons and daughters-in-law have twins and another one a year younger. They just put them all to bed and let them cry it out, otherwise they would have got no sleep. The girls are now 3 and 2 and they all go to bed with no problems.
Another has a year old daughter who is still co-sleeping with them.
I think you’re doing a great job! Just keep on doing what works best for YOU and your family, whatever advice other people may offer. Remember there’s no right way or wrong way – there’s just many different ways! Whichever way we go about it, we all get there in the end :-)
Sleep? What is that…
She is gorgeous and you are doing an amazing job.
Strange, isn’t it? The realisation that as soon as you have your child at home in your arms, all the worrying you did when he/she was still in the hospital seems to fade to the background. The feeding schedules, pooping charts, weighing before and after meals, it all seems a lot less important. All that matters is being able to hold your baby and cuddle her whenever you want (or, er, mostly whenever she wants), and seeing her grow into the perfect little person she is…
But yes, those nights… A couple of days after we got to take our twins home from the hospital we finally understood why all those nurses kept telling us to just skip some visits and get some SLEEEEEEEP… We didn’t want to listen to them, because what could be more important then being with our children. But yes, sleep, very important. And also almost non-existent the first few months at home… You might not believe it now, but it WILL GET BETTER! She will eventually start sleeping through the night (or at least for a couple of hours in between nursing sessions). Until then, please don’t beat yourself up over a few snippy remarks you make to your beautiful little girl. She won’t even remember them by the time morning sets in…
Oh, and brace yourself for the eye-exam. It’s some pretty nasty shit! I remember almost wanting to kill that nasty eye-doctor when he performed the test on our daughter. And that was before he even started on our son. But even that they forget… Babies are so blissfully forgetful…! And with a bit of luck she will sleep for a couple of straight hours after the exam, like ours did!
My son was unbelievably colicky (hasn’t changed much – just call it teething now) and slept on his stomach on top of me for weeks.
The only thing that helped was when someone suggested propping him in a boppy to sleep at night. That’s how he slept (swaddled, in boppy, on my bed) for months. I think I transitioned him to his crib in boppy a few months ago, then just swaddled, then on tummy when he started rolling. I’m pretty sure it helped because of reflux.
Boppies are not supposed to be used for sleeping, but if you could use it with an apnea monitor?
I really sympathize with you – I still feel sleep deprived, and now he only is up once at night to eat and wakes up at 5-5.30 in the morning (at 9.5 months).
Kat
What a wierd website that was! Who comes up with these things?
Yay! that she’s home and Yay! that she’s eating and boo! for no sleep but Yay!! that she’s home to torment you! Think of it as future blackmail. She’s so beautiful Alexa and you ARE doing great.
When my oldest was around 6 months old, she was crying (AGAIN!) and I held her up, looked in her eyes, and said, angrily, “Would you PLEASE stop being such a BABY!?”
Hahaha…
My oldest and I slept in the La-Z-Boy chair for the first 8 weeks or so, because I was afraid I’d drop her anywhere else (and nearly did, several times, sitting up to nurse her in bed or in the glider). Finally, I learned how to nurse lying down, and everything improved. When she was a little older, she slept in her swing for the first part of the night. That lasted until she was around 1, when she outgrew the swing.
You do what you can to survive, right? It sucks rocks that you guys can’t co-sleep. Is there someone in your lives who could come over one night (soon!) and hold her for you, so you can get some good rest for a change?
Hang in there. This too shall pass.
Amy @ http://prettybabies.blogspot.com
I’m so happy to read this…. only because you are just as you should be – with two-pissholes-in-the-snow eyes, completely flipping exhausted, having to endure the classic preemie grunting, having a rabid feeder scrabbling at your flesh.
Because DAMN. All those things? Truly, truly, amazing, after all you’ve been through. I know it’s hard, and I don’t whatsoever mean to say “be thankful!” because if someone had said that to me, I would have kneed them in the crotch.
What I mean is just WOW. I’ve been waiting a long time for those post, wishing for it despite not knowing you, and now it’s here, and it makes me smile. Hang in there, mama.
xo
Is it ok to bring out the terrifying mom stories now? The ones that don’t involve breathing apparatus(-i?)? MY KID NEVER SLEPT. Ever. Not when she was an infant. Not later. A “nap” for her was 30 minutes, if she took one. By her first birthday those were largely absent. I read all the books, and her pediatric folder is the size of a phonebook based largely on those first few months when we were going bananas trying to figure out WHY. No reason — just not a sleeper. Still isn’t. I predict she’s going to be one those “5 hours is plenty!” people who are richly successful. (humor me.) When you start blogging about how big AND what a good sleeper Simone is, I’m outta here.
Lovely to be chatting sleep dep with you instead of heart rates. Hang in there, both of you — keep eating Simone. And I’ll be thinking of you all this Saturday.
Some thoughts…
We all have, and all will hiss angrily at our helpless babes at 3 or 4 or 5 in the morning. The lack of sleep is a real misstep in the evolutionary progression. I’m not sure how we get through it, but somehow we do.
If she’s suckling on all and any body parts, and is sometimes immensely pissed while eating, she may need to eat more. (Sorry.) Some babes nurse every hour. I do not wish that on you, but try slightly more frequent feeds, or let her feed longer. Seeing as how they want her weight up, you’re sortof doomed to tinker with this anyway.
Less walking around for you during the day. Buy blackout curtains and nap. With her on your chest if she must. And only after you’ve licked off the crumbs to fulfill dietary needs.
Take care of you. Or take a stab at it.
;)
Congrats, she is gorgeous, and you are doing wonderfully!
I just wanted to chime in to agree with the above poster….(sorry, more assvice)…when breastfeeding, its a supply and demand kinda deal. You cant really schedule them this early. Every 3 hours is probably too long for her. Plump that gorgeous thing up! Just let her eat all the time…cause this signals your boobs to produce the amount she is going to need as she gets bigger. Park it on the couch with snacks and water and just nurse nurse nurse. My son nursed every 45 minutes to an hour for WEEKS (yes, I know, the horror) but thats what kept his weight on the up and up. Its hard, oh yes, and it sucks mightily…but you can totally do it!
She just keeps getting more and more adorable every day! The sleep thing will come (just not fast enough). Like PP mentioned, Patrick also had to sleep on his stomach on my chest for many nights. He was just so miserable and that was the only way for either of us to get any sleep. I felt like I was breaking some rule. You know the babies should sleep in their cribs rule, but I decided it was more important that he sleep well and less important where. We also let them sleep in their bouncy seats as well. And no, they had no problems transitioning to their cribs when they were a few weeks older. Hang in there. You’ll find Simone’s preference (of course then she’ll change her mind 2 days later!)
Simone is absolutely precious!! I can relate to the fussy baby. It’s been several years though. I quit taking the pediatrician’s advice and started allowing myself to introduce some of those ‘don’t do’ things I met a much happier baby. I tried nursing and thought I was being successful then realized that my baby wasn’t trying to milk me to death … she was actually starving to death! My milk was not satisfying her and it was so indicated by the lack of decent weight gain. She should have weighed a ton with the way she was eating but she wasn’t gaining weight, if anything she was losing weight. And the spit-up … Lord have mercy on us all … the spit-up was horrible. I didn’t want to give up nursing completely so I began supplementing with a rice thickened formula and the results were amazing. I nursed when she was happily hungry and gave her a bottle when she was ravenous. She started gaining weight, started sleeping (in her bed rather than attached to my chest), and life was good … as it should have been!
You are doing an awesome job…and she’s just gorgeous.
you don’t need any more advice but that won’t stop me from giving some. mairin WOULD NOT SLEEP OUT OF MY ARMS for roughly the first three months of her life. and then we discovered…sleep cycles. truly. if i held her (nipple in mouth, as she preferred) through her roughly 45-minute sleep cycle, then when she hit deep sleep again HER DADDY could take her from me and put her down. i couldn’t put her down–that woke her instantly.
i don’t know why this worked but it did and saved our life. so sure, read the books (i also love the karp books) but then watch your baby and experiment and eventually something will work. like, she’ll grow up and move out.
another plug — back to the karp books — mairin liked being swaddled but she REALLY liked “the milkshake.” people would laugh at shannon when he bobbled her up and down in public but she really was soothed by it.
good luck — AND SUPERHUGEMASSIVETREMENDOUSCONGRATULATIONS! i’m so glad you’re all together under your own roof.
So glad that you guys are home and you’re doing a wonderful job. The first couple of months are so hard due to sleep deprivation. You guys have been through so much, it will get easier in the sleep department, just takes a while. Enjoy these momments as they will be gone in a blink of an eye. Literally…
She’s an angel.
Hang in there, Flotsams! This is the bad bit. I found myself bellowing imperiously at the hubby to ‘come and take IT away!’ and inwardly marvelling how I’d descended so far and so fast as to call my beloved baby It. And it was usually hot gravy that ended up on the child’s head. If you set expectations fairly low in terms of domestic, non-baby-related achievement, all will be just fine.
These are such NICE posts to read lately, you know!
I love to say this: She sounds like a normal infant! Driving her mom insane via sleep deprivation. The usual newborn ploy.
She is very adorable and you are a kick-ass mom. Have a great week.
I read Dr. Sears book while I was still stuck in the antepartum unit, and he described preemies as “very.” Very fussy, very needy, very clingy. Just very. We turned a corner at about 3 months actual age/1 month adjusted. That’s when the colic stopped and we were left with “just” preemie fussiness. But she is an absolute delight at age two!
Re: the weight. My ped was fine with half an ounce a day. She’d call our primary neo about once a month and fax him my daughter’s growth chart, and the neo would say, “Yep, looks like this is a kid who is going to do her catch-up growth beyond the first year.” And so it was. Not saying that you should disregard your pediatrician, but hopefully you can stop worrying. They have 3 years to get caught up. Worry about weight consumed most of the first 8 months of my daughter’s life, and it was miserable.
Hey there. I have a seven month old and all I can say is, it gets better. You are doing a good job. The first few months can be hell. My daughter was a terrible sleeper- pretty much every 1-2 hours, 3 if I was lucky for the first four months. The funny thing is, now it seems like forever ago. I had many nights were I threatened to throw her out the window (not seriously, but in a major sleep deprived desperate mommy way). It gets better so hang in there!!!!
No advice here, just wanted to say, lord, just when I thought that peanut couldn’t get any cuter, she done gone proved me wrong. Nicely done, mama.
She is beautiful and you ARE doing a great job! It WILL get easier, I promise. Have you tried Tri-Vi-Sol? It’s an iron supplement. Our pediatrician recommended it for our 32-week preemie. Might help with the weight gain.
Mine cry even when the bottle is in their mouth, too. It makes you want to tell them that if they think life is hard now, they haven’t seen anything yet.
We fought the reflux war here as well. We learned to sleep sitting up in the recliner so LK could also sleep sitting up in the crook of an arm. I put a pillow under my chin so I wouldn’t pitch forward when I dozed off. This bought us a little bit of sleep… eventually we put him in the toddler car seat and leaned it up against the wall to keep him far enough upright.
I’m betting her tummy is on fire when it is empty, thus she is hungry but in pain. I eventually learned to feed him before he got really hungry.
It’s a tough battle, and different than just dealing with a cranky newborn. Hang in there, and hopefully you’ll find something that works for her. Meanwhile, that is one beautiful baby.
The sleep thing really blows for the first several weeks. It does. But it gets better most of the time. And, I’m a bad mom, because I’d always let them sleep with me when it got really bad. Then we’d BOTH sleep, and that was a miracle in itself. I even figured out a new way to sleep on the couch with 4th while I would breasfeed her at night. Can’t say my neck was all that appreciative of my new sleep position, but you know, you hit a point where you just do whatever it is you need to do for that moment so as to Not go insane. She’s fed, she’s doing well, you’re tired as all get out and probably very flustered at the lack of sleep and being “baffled” at things.. but that’s all part of it. She WILL sleep through the night eventually. So just do what I do. Cross your fingers and hope that it doesn’t take until she turns 16(says the woman who’s 22 month old refuses to sleep in her crib anymore and mom has completely given up because she just wants to sleep for the first time in over 4 years and said 22 month old now sleeps with mom every night. I have no idea where to go with the situation, but I get more than 2 hours of sleep at a time now, and that’s good enough for me.)
My 5 week old ( I refuse to say 1 month, because that sounds old. We’re counting in months already?)does the try to latch on to the closest available body part as well. And my shameful confession is that I sometimes hold him up to my cheek and let him do it there, because I can then kid myself that he is trying to give me a kiss. Delirious from lack of sleep, anyone?
Have you thought about trying a co-sleeper? Then you could stick her in the co-sleeper, nurse her to sleep, and you wouldn’t have to move her afterwards. Worked for me with my fussy babies. My second daughter was only quiet on long car trips if I nursed her to sleep in her car seat. I had many macabre fantasies about what would happen if we had an accident while I was leaning over her seat with my nipple in her mouth.
My first daughter latched on to my neck two days before I went back to work – I didn’t pry her off soon enough and returned to work with a small hickie – that was as close to sex as I wanted to get for the first six months of her life.
Ooooh, look at the yawn! :-D
She’s adorable, and you are doing a great job.
I say success, all around.
It will get better.
And then she’ll hit puberty.
I’m glad you are enjoying her now. She is beautiful.
Have fun.
It’s tough being a momma to a newborn. Everything you described (from Simone and yourself) is completely normal. They eventually outgrow the screaming-for-no-apparent-reason stage. I had to keep telling myself that in the beginning. (“This screaming won’t last forever, I can make it, this will end.”)
Can you nurse with your sling? Could you put Simone in, let her latch on and nurse, and then sit down in a comfy chair and nap? I know I would never have been able to sleep with an actively nursing baby, but maybe once she falls asleep, you could both sleep that way? Or is it a no no to have her sleep without the apnea monitor hooked up and with you not cognizant?
She is so cute I just want to mush (hug tightly) her!!
Wow, your description of sleepless nights sent me right back 13 years to when my son was a baby. I was snappy too, so much so that my husband would tell me to stay in bed and he’d do the nighttime feeding. I could never sleep though until he was back in bed so it didn’t help.
What DID help was the stroller. After a while I’d put the baby in the stroller when he woke up (immediately after falling asleep while feeding at the breast and being moved) and stroll him in circles around the living room until he fell asleep then I’d leave him in the stroller sleeping. Worked like a charm.
It also worked for when he got his days and nights mixed up. I’d let him nap during the day in the stroller by a window so it was very light. That got him turned around in a day.
You’re doing great!
Well my goodness, she certainly looks like a gorgeous chubby baby to me. She is beautiful and soon enough, you will be gnawing on chubby baby thigh rolls. Sounds like she’s eating like a champ.
You are doing a great job!
Now, I have two children, and both of them, especially as newborns, were absolute assholes. I love them tenderly, but they were horrific. Honest to God.
Simone sounds like Alex was, and I promise that it does get better, the barfing ends, and eventually they get to be more than a drain on you (I mean this lovingly. Please don’t think I’m all “I hate my kids”).
If sleeping in your arms is what she wants, well if you’re like me, you do it anyway. Because any sleep, even sleep with babies, is better than none.
I’m thinking of you guys. And sending big puffy sleep-filled hearts your way.
And dude? That is one fracking cute baby girl!
She’s adorable.
As for the sleeping situation, have you tried the swing yet? I discovered it when my own was 6 weeks old and when it calmed her down for 2 hours and I slept and it was GOOD. My daughter tended to peck her way when she wanted to nurse and get angry when it wasn’t a nipple and then she was so upset when she was finally on the nipple, that she would thrash her head and not nurse! That used to frustrate me, but it shows what type of personality she has and will have.
You are doing wonderful! Every new mama needs that pat on the back once in a while, whether in the calm or in the storm.
Love the pictures!
(And cloth diapers, I still use them on the toddler for her little messes. I’m so used to them!)
I’m all verklempt. She’s so beautiful.
Word of advice on the lack-of-sleep front: Keep a notepad and jot down stuff you want to remember, like if you’ve given a dose of medicine or you need to change the wash out. Seriously, lack of sleep leads to short-term memory loss!
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