The Holidays

So the long and short of it is that the nap plan failed.  Elijah was sleeping good in his bouncy chair so it was working for awhile, but then he outgrew his chair, so we're back to the terrible 30-40 minute naps.  Also now night sleep is getting bad again because I think he's teething.  So I give up and am just going to try to wait it out.  In the meantime, though, I don't want to just be in survival mode and be hoping for him to get bigger.  I want to enjoy him at the age he is.  I feel like too often I'm just waiting for the next stage of my life and thinking that once I get there, everything will be okay.  And then I don't savor the place I am in.  I did this in college and then in law school.  I do feel like I did a decent job enjoying my time as a young professional and a newlywed, but once I started trying to get pregnant it became another situation where I just had to get where I was going before I could be happy.  And now that I have my son, I am happy to be a mother, but it gets very tiring never having any time to myself and such.  I am trying to keep perspective, though, since his life as a baby will only be a year or two of his life.  But I want to keep that perspective while still enjoying his time as a baby.  It's a difficult balance.

Recently we had his first Christmas.  This was both a blessing and a difficulty.  First off, we had early Christmas with Mike's family because we were going to be out of town right around Christmas Eve and Day.  His parents went way overboard buying gifts not only for Elijah, but also for us.  It always makes me feel terribly guilty when we spend like $25 a piece on them and they spend about $500 on us.  But then my parents do the same thing and I guess I shouldn't complain about getting gifts.  After that we took a week-long vacation to Oklahoma City to see my mom and stepdad and brother and sister-in-law.  Like I said, my parents also went insane buying stuff for us and making me feel guilty for getting them only one thing.  But other than that it was a nice break.  It was especially nice for me because having my mom and Mike around 24/7 meant that I didn't always have to be the one to hold Elijah and try to get him to sleep all day.  Mike actually became pretty adept at getting him to sleep for longer periods of time.  Basically he would hold him and stand up and bounce with him until he went to sleep, at which point he would find a comfy spot and sit down and hold Elijah while he slept.  Then when Elijah would start to wake up, Mike would stand up and bounce some more and sometimes it would put him back to sleep.  Not always, but sometimes.

We also got to see my dad, who came up for a couple days to do gift exchange and hang out.  Elijah got to wear Papa's Harley Davidson hat.  As far as Mommy is concerned, this is as close as he's going to get to a motorcycle, at least until he's 18 and I have no more say in the matter.

We stayed the week between Christmas and New Years and got to see some long distance friends of mine that I hadn't seen in a really long time.  We didn't get to spend much time with them but it was lots of fun and I think we get to see them again in May.  Two of them just had a baby so the babies got to meet each other and play together--at least as much as a five month old and an eight month old can.

After that on New Year's Eve we drove back home with my mom and stepdad following us home.  They came to help with some projects that needed to be done around my house.  Most of the projects got done, but not until after I nearly had a nervous breakdown from the stress of having multiple projects going on at once and not getting finished at a pace that I preferred.  Plus, all the changes, I think, stressed Elijah out too much.  He did not sleep well the few days we got home.  I think all the activity and people being around just got to be too much for him.  The past few nights he's slept better now that we are kind of getting back into our routine (of course, I'm using the word "routine" very loosely here since his erratic napping really does not provide us with any kind of a normal routine).  So even though I have many other things around this house that need to get done, I'll probably just have to stick to taking care of Elijah myself for several days until he feels semi-normal again.

On the plus side, several of the difficult projects I needed done are now done thanks to my wonderful stepdad.  And Elijah now has several new toys, including a walker that he can almost use--his legs just need to grow like one more inch.  I feel certain that next Christmas will be even more fun--and possibly more stressful, but hey, what is parenthood if not stressful?

The Nap Plan

So if you've been keeping track of me at all, you know that Elijah isn't napping like I'd like him to.  He also isn't sleeping at night like I'd prefer, but I really can't complain that much about night sleep.  He generally sleeps until about 5:30 or 6:00 a.m., it's just that he's still sleeping in our bed.  I'd like to transfer him to his crib at night because I don't sleep well with him right there next to me.  I hear *every* little peep or movement he makes and so I don't sleep soundly.  (Plus, Mike and I don't really have any time to ourselves.)  However, not sleeping soundly, but sleeping for 7 hours straight is preferrable to actually being totally woken up every 30 minutes and then being up for another 30-45 minutes, which is what happens right now if I try to put him in the crib to sleep at night.

Anyway, so I read Elizabeth Pantley's "The No-Cry Sleep Solution" and "The No-Cry Nap Solution" and have a plan in place to get him to nap in his crib eventually.  That will, hopefully, lead to him being comfortable sleeping in his crib so that I can let him sleep there at night.

The first part of the plan is extending his naps from 30-45 minutes to 1 & 1/2 to 2 hours at a time.  Right now I am letting him nap in his bouncy chair at approximately 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. because he likes it and it has vibration.  The vibration helps him put himself back to sleep if he wakes up before 2 hours is up.  This week is going to be all bouncy chair on the kitchen table where I am at 10 and 2.  Next week it will be the same except the bouncy chair will be moved to his room.  I haven't decided if I'm going to start out with it on the floor or if I'm going to just put it in his bed.  This is going to be annoying for me because I'll have to stay in the room unless this week he perfects his ability to put himself back to sleep (right now I often have to intervene and help him get back to sleep).  So I am looking for some good books to read while I deal with that.  Eventually, I'll start turning off the vibration when he falls asleep so that he can learn to stay asleep without vibration.  Then he gets in it without the vibration on at all.  Then, finally, he gets laid down in the crib itself without the bouncy chair.  I am praying that this plan works because after he's had a few good weeks of napping in his crib, I'm going to start trying to put him in his crib to sleep at night.  I expect that it will take a few weeks of Mike and I getting up and going to him in his room and helping him get back to sleep, but after that, hopefully, our sleep problems will be more or less fixed.  I really hope it works because I have no other tricks up my sleeve.

I'm also introducing a "lovey".  It's this stuffed animal that he and I cuddle with when he nurses and I give it to him while he sleeps so that it can be like a comfort item.  I hope between "the plan" and the lovey and the fact that he'll be getting older as this goes along, that we will have this problem nipped in the bud by the time he's 6 months old.  Because then it's time to start introducing solid foods and soon after that we'll probably be dealing with separation anxiety.

Please, Lord.  Just one problem at a time, okay?  Love, Bonnie.

The Day I've Had or Things For Which I Am Grateful

So this morning Elijah had his follow up appointment with his cardiologist and the day started out very interesting.  First, Elijah is having to sleep unswaddled now and so he's not sleeping terrifically at night anymore.  So he had already woken up several times and even though I didn't have to get him up and feed him, I did have to keep getting up and helping him settle back to sleep, which can sometimes take as long as a feeding.  Then around 5:30 I woke up to hear him crying, but it was a muffled crying sound.  Now normally when he wakes up in the middle of the night he doesn't cry, he just kind of makes grunty noises like he's having trouble settling.  This was different.  And it sounded muffled like there was something near his nose.

So I sprang up and reached for him only to discover that he had flipped over onto his tummy AGAIN and wasn't able to flip back over.  So while swallowing my heart back down into my chest, I flipped him back over and then picked him up and brought him up to feed him since it was already 5:30 and the experience had scared him a little.  That brings us to thing #1 for which I am grateful: That I heard Elijah on his tummy and that he was not swaddled.

After that we tried to lie back down and go back to sleep, but he was pretty awake so we didn't get to sleep until what I would guess was about 6:45 because when the alarm went off at 7:00 I didn't feel like I'd slept at all, even though I was clearly asleep before it went off and woke me up.  And unfortunately I couldn't go back to sleep because I had to get up and get ready to take Elijah to the doctor's office.

So I did that and we all drove downtown to Children's Mercy Hospital where his appointment was.  We had to wait a long time before we finally got to go back for our appointment.  It was scheduled at 9:00 and I don't think we went back until like 9:30, I don't think they did his echo until 10:00 and I'm positive we didn't actually see the doctor until almost 11:00.

But while she was doing the echo he was starting to fuss because he was tired, so we gave him his pacifier with some sugar water on it and he settled down.  I stroked his head and let him hold my finger and he fell asleep.  Then when she was done and we went back to the exam room, I put him down on the exam table and he slept there, too, until the doctor finally came in.  It was baffling to me how well he was sleeping since he got startled several times but just went back to sleep without much trouble.  Later I asked the doctor if he thought his heart issues had anything to do with his sleeping troubles, but as I described them the doctor said he just thought Elijah was a social person and didn't like being in the room alone.  So, thing #2 for which I am grateful: I though of another thing to try to help him sleep better.  I'm going to try leaving the TV on low for him to see if the people talking on TV makes him think he's not alone in the room.  If that doesn't work I'll try recording myself talking or singing and play that for him and see if it helps.

So we finally saw the doctor and he said that the defects in Elijah's heart have not gotten any smaller but they have also not grown even though he has grown.  So if they stay the same size even though he gets bigger, he may not have to have any procedure and he doesn't want to see Elijah again until next year.  So that is things\ #3 for which I am grateful.

However, we had been there so long that it was past time for Elijah to eat again.  I fed him a little at the doctor's office but there's really no comfortable place (for me or Elijah) to nurse.  (You would think there would be since it's a children's hospital, but whatever.)  I was hoping the small nursing would stave off his hunger until we could get home.  But first we had to drop Mike off at work and Elijah was starting to cry even as I got into the driver's seat to go home.  People on the road probably were calling me all sorts of colorful names as I attempted to race home so that he wouldn't have to go for too long before he got to eat (especially since I hate listening to him cry) and downtown is pretty far from our house.  So thing #4 for which I am grateful is that I did not get a ticket for speeding.

I finally got home around noon and after letting the dog out, I immediately went upstairs and fed Elijah.  I was pretty hungry by then, too, but he comes first, obviously.  So then I went back downstairs and was going to put him in his bouncy chair so I could finally get some lunch when I smelled something familiar and decided I probably needed to change his diaper before I ate.  Ah, if only it had been that simple.  See, Mike has suddenly decided that he doesn't like putting Elijah's diapers on very tightly because he's afraid it hurts him or something.  I don't really know why.  But since he was the one who changed Elijah's diaper at the doctor before I came home, the poo didn't really stay in the diaper.  Instead, it ended up all over his legs and back and bottom and tummy.

So I wiped it up as best I could and took off his soiled clothes.  I threw the diaper away and took him downstairs to give him a bath.  He, of course, decided to pee while I was giving him a bath so that added another thing to the giant list of things I had to clean up.  But after bathing him, I put a new diaper on him and put him in his bouncy chair.  Then I cleaned the pee off the counter, changed the changing table cover and crib sheet, and took his soiled clothes to the bathroom where I rinsed the poo off them as best I could and then took them down to the basement to put spray and wash on them and leave them in the laundry hamper.

When I got downstairs I discovered a spider in the hamper which I am afraid might have been a fiddleback.  So I went back upstairs and got a flip flop to kill it and a piece of toilet paper to scoop up the carcass.  So spider died and went down the toilet, but I'm afraid if there was one there might be more so I'm making Mike a HazMat suit and sending him down there with bug spray tonight.  But thing #5 for which I am grateful is that I saw the spider and was able to kill it without getting bitten.

So then I sprayed the soiled clothes with spray and wash and then go back upstairs and FINALLY make my lunch.  Thing #6 for which I am grateful: Elijah played happily in his bouncy chair the whole time I was dealing with this poo/pee mess and spider situation.

Anyway, now things have finally calmed down and I'm fairly certain Elijah is getting hungry again so I'd better go feed him.  But after today I have no energy to make dinner for the 7th and final thing for which I am grateful: Mike is picking up Panera for dinner tonight.

Fall and Fighting Naps

Fall is my favorite season.  The weather is just right for wearing fuzzy sweaters and jeans (although I'm not quite fitting into these things yet and the weather has been unseasonably warm lately) and the leaves on the trees turn to such pretty colors.

And this October my baby turned 3 months old.  But I think I read too many books telling me that things got easier at 3 months.  Granted, he's only been 3 months for a few days but he's seemed unusually grumpy and his grumpiness seems to stem from frustration.  At least as far as I can tell, he wants to go places and be able to do things that he can't do yet.  But of course, he hates tummy time which is designed to strengthen his muscles so he can learn to sit up and crawl eventually.  Even when we go outside and go for a walk in the pretty fall weather he only lasts for so long before he seems frustrated that he can't get out and play in it.  It all leads me to the conclusion that I am going to have my hands completely full when he does start crawling.

Therefore, he MUST start taking regular naps or else I'm not going to have time to use the bathroom once he starts crawling, let alone do anything else like get dinner ready.  But as always, we are constantly having nap problems.  For one thing, he doesn't seem to like his crib.  For right now it's okay because I can put him in the pack and play bassinet next to our bed for naps.  But he's so friggin long that pretty soon he's going to outgrow the pack and play bassinet and then he'll have to sleep in his crib because there will be nowhere else.  Plus, once he does start crawling, I will need that pack and play downstairs so I can put him in it while I make dinner.

For another thing, he can now roll over so I can't swaddle him anymore.  This is causing even nighttime sleep to be problematic because when he wakes up, it's like pulling teeth to get him to settle back down.  He doesn't start crying or want to be picked up, but he's constantly wiggling and making little grunty noises and trying to flip over, thus preventing his mommy from ignoring it and going back to sleep.

Finally, he's still only taking 30-45 minute naps at a time, which means I can't get anything done while he's napping.  I finally got a handle on the getting him to sleep problem by holding him until he's dead asleep, but now he can't seem to settle himself back down and go back to sleep if he wakes up even a little while he's napping.  And it doesn't help when Nickel starts randomly barking, although I have decided now that the dog will go down in the basement while Elijah is napping to prevent Nickel making startling noises, causing the baby to wake up and me to want to take a frying pan to his doggy head.

On the positive side, Elijah is much more efficient at eating now and we've completely eliminated the use of the breast shields.  That has helped greatly in removing him from my breast when he falls asleep.  When I was using the shields, there was always milk left in the shield that would drip when I pulled him away from the breast.  Now there's no dripping.

Another positive is that he seems somewhat more interested in toys.  I don't think it will be much longer before he's able to grasp and play with toys, which will make our days more interesting and fun.  If he was a older, I'd rake up leaves and let him jump in the piles, but obviously we can't do that right now.  Maybe next year.  This year all we were able to do is make him a spider costume and take him to the Cider Mill.  Of course he slept most of the time because he didn't take a good morning nap.  And I couldn't really get a good picture of him in his costume, but there's always next week.  I'll dress him in his costume again for Halloween Day and hopefully we can get a decent picture before he conks out on me again.

Road Trip

So this coming weekend we are taking our first road trip with Elijah.  This will be the first time he's ridden anywhere farther than downtown Kansas City where Daddy works.  I'm trying to plan when to leave and what to pack without bringing the entire house with us.  So far I've concluded that it would be best to try to leave as early as possible and as close to just after a feeding as possible.  Hopefully if we leave right after a feeding he'll be content and just go to sleep in his car seat.  However, it does put us at higher risk for immediate poo diaper, which would mean we'd have to stop quickly and change his diaper.  I guess we'll just have to cross our fingers and hope the poo stays at bay for at least a few hours.

Leaving just after a feeding also gives us the advantage of being able to drive for about three hours before we have to stop for another feeding.  The problem then becomes whether I feed him in the car, which will be very difficult logistically, or if I feed him in whatever restaurant we stop for lunch at and deal with disapproving looks even though I'll be wearing my cover (because you know there will be some).  And I'm not feeding him in the bathroom.  No one else eats in the bathroom so my baby shouldn't have to either.  I guess it will depend on where we stop and how hungry I am (like can I feed him in the car and then wait until he's done feeding before I get to eat).  Alternatively I guess I could pump some milk that I could just feed to him while Mike drives and Elijah doesn't have to get out of his seat.  But I hate for him to be stuck in that seat for 6 straight hours and I'd rather not end up with rock boobs by the time we get there.

As far as packing goes, I know I'll need to bring his clothes, the bassinet sheet (my mom has a playpen with bassinet for him to sleep in, just not a sheet for it), my moby wrap, my breastfeeding cover and his shampoo and baby wash.  I also don't plan on bringing a ton of diapers and wipes because my mom and I can get some at the store once I get there.  But should I bring his bouncy chair?  His bathing chair?  His stroller?  The baby monitor?  If we bring all those things I'm not sure we're going to have room for it all in our car.  If I don't bring the bouncy chair it means someone has to hold him the majority of the time we're there.  If I don't bring the bathing chair it's going to be a lot more difficult and potentially dangerous to give him a bath and I don't want him to go five days without a bath.  The stroller would take up practically the whole trunk but if we don't bring it, if we go anywhere we either have to carry him in the car seat or in the moby wrap.  And I really don't want to pack the monitor but I don't know how else to keep tabs on him while he's napping in another room.

Road trips are way more complicated with an infant.  But we're very excited nonetheless.  It's been a couple months almost since he's seen my mom and stepdad.  And my brother & sister-in-law's baby shower is that weekend.  So that should be fun.  Hopefully Elijah won't be grumpy so I can sit and enjoy it without his crying making my chest ache and leak.  And so he doesn't scare the crapola out of my sister-in-law getting ready to have her own. ;)

Developments

Well, it's been quite awhile since I last posted and that's mainly because taking care of Elijah takes all of my time, attention and energy (or at least takes 95% of it).  Right now he's napping so I'm trying to find a moment to update this blog.  He's been asleep for over an hour, though, so he could wake up at any minute.

Since my last entry, however, some different developments have occurred.  For one thing, Elijah is now making eye contact with me and smiling a lot more.  I'm not sure what he's smiling at, but it's really super cute when he does it.  I've also heard him laugh a few times.  Usually he laughs when he's falling asleep.  I'm not sure why that is, but it's the cutest sound in the world.  He also is trying SO hard to hold his own head up.  He does it pretty well when I'm holding him on my shoulder, but he can't do it anywhere else yet.  Again, I'm not sure why it's easier to hold his head up when he's on my shoulder, but apparently it is.  He's so good at it that usually I can hold him with one arm under his bottom and just have the other hand around in case he lurches one way or the other and then I have to catch him.

The biggest thing, though, is that he is starting to nurse without the breast shields.  I can't really get him to do it if he's frantic or upset or super tired, but when he's calm or only slightly fussy I can sometimes get him to latch on without the shields and eat.  The only thing is, since it's much easier to get the shields in his mouth, we are kind of having to relearn how to latch properly.  The other day he bit the end of my nipple and I yelped so loud Mike came in to see what was wrong.  I'm just glad Elijah didn't think it was funny and turn it into a game, but maybe he's not old enough yet to think like that.  Hopefully we can get the feeding without the shields down before that becomes a possibility.

So those are his developments, now onto mine.  I have bitten the bullet and gone back on Weight Watchers.  After I had Elijah I lost a bunch of weight but then the last few weeks, my weight loss just kind of stalled at a number which I will not repeat because it's just atrocious for someone as short as I am to weigh that much.

I was trying to simply lose weight on my own by counting calories but that wasn't really working for two reasons.  One, I just couldn't do much exercise.  Yesterday I had my six week postpartum appointment so now I'm finally allowed to do strenuous exercise (and *other* stuff) again.  Today was the first day in almost a year that I got on my elliptical machine (there were cobwebs growing on it--I'm not kidding).  So that should help kick up the weight loss

The other reason it wasn't working is because counting calories is confusing and takes a lot of time and I didn't really have a good system.  So even though Weight Watchers is really similar to counting calories, it gives me a system to use and I can look most foods up through them so I don't have to go searching the internet for how many calories are in something I just ate.  I can just use their system.  I signed up for four months, so surely I will have lost the weight I need to lose by then--or at least be close enough to be able to finish it off myself without their help anymore.

In other "me" news, I haven't really been successful at putting Elijah on a napping schedule.  For a couple weeks there he was doing good at taking naps at 10 and 3 but then last week it just went haywire and he refused to nap when I tried to put him down.  He would just cry and cry and would only nap in my lap again--or in this bouncy chair that Mike's mom gave us.  I was pretty much at my wits end last week.  But I read a couple of parenting books that have given me some good tips and I think the reason it wasn't working is because I was letting him get overtired and then he was so upset he couldn't fall asleep.

Instead this week so far I have been trying to take my cues from him and see when he seems tired and swaddle him and put him in his crib when it seems to be the case.  It worked fairly well yesterday, although it kind of got messed up because I had my doctor's appointment in the afternoon and I had to take him with me.  Today he napped this morning from about 9:15 to 10:00 (that's when I got to run on my elliptical machine).  Then he ate and we went for a walk with the stroller and he went back to sleep about 11:40 and is still asleep now... it's 1:22.

I'm sure he'll wake up soon and be hungry, but I got time to eat lunch and take a shower so it's not been a bad day.  I just hope he goes back down around 3:00 and sleeps until about 5:30 because Mike and I are supposed to have a date night tonight, which means we have to take him to Mike's parents' house and I want to have time to feed him really well before we go over there so he can be there for awhile.  But if there's anything being Elijah's mommy has taught me it's that I can't count on any of my plans to work out.  If they do, it's just a nice surprise.

Getting in a routine

So it's been awhile since I posted anything.  This is due to the fact that I never have my hands free anymore and I can't seem to get the baby on a nap schedule.  Ideally I would like to get up at 8:00 a.m. after Mike leaves for work and then play with him until 10:00 at which point I would put him down for a nap and I would either nap myself or do other things around the house that need to get done.  Then ideally he'd wake up somewhere around noon and we'd go for a walk and play some more until about 2:00 when he'd go down for another nap, at which point (once my doctor clears me to exercise) I would do more exercise down in our basement with the elliptical machine and weights.

However, this plan is not working out because I haven't been managing to get myself up at 8:00 and because he won't sleep unless he's in my arms.  He slept for 8 hours last night (non consecutive, but 8 hours nonetheless) and only woke me up once for about 40 minutes.  Pretty spectacular.  So I managed to make myself get up at 7:30 while Mike was still getting ready to leave.  I let bitty boy sleep longer while I went downstairs to get my breakfast and planned to get him up at 8:00.  It is now 8:17.  I should go get him up, but I just hate to wake him when he's sleeping so well in his bassinet and I don't have to hold him while he sleeps.

Yesterday I was trying to put him down for a nap around 2:00 and he didn't go to sleep and stay asleep until about 3:30 when I gave up trying to put him in his crib and just held him on my lap and let him sleep there.  I swear, it was like I was pressing a "cry" button every time I would move him away from my body.  And it didn't matter how asleep he was because I let him sleep on my lap for like an half an hour and then tried to put him down and he still immediately woke up and started crying.

I don't really get it.  He has slept in the crib before.  And he sleeps in the bassinet every night by himself.  The only thing I can figure is that he's not swaddled tight enough in the crib and me holding him has the same effect as the swaddler we use at night.  It is the one the hospital gave us and it swaddles him really tightly and keeps his hands from coming out near his waist.  But it's wool and during the day it gets hotter in the house and I don't like putting him in the wool swaddler because I'm afraid he'll get too hot.  So we bought some cotton swaddlers but they're made differently than the wool one the hospital gave us and I don't think they swaddle him as tightly.  Either that or the way they swaddle him isn't as good.  They allow his hands to get free at his waist.  He never gets his arms totally free, but his hands get out and I think maybe that wakes him up.

Anyway, today I was planning on trying to enforce my routine plan with the 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. nap schedule, but put him in his wool swaddler in the bassinet in my bedroom, so it's like when he goes to bed at night.  Maybe eventually once he gets used to sleeping at these times I can transition him to his crib so I can leave the baby monitor in there.  I guess I'll just have to use the wool swaddler and turn the ceiling fan up high until it gets cooler outside.  Fortunately, the master bedroom tends to be the coldest in the house so I don't think he gets too warm in there.  I'm more worried about him in his nursery.  Anyway, we'll see how well my plan works.  So far nothing I've planned with him has really worked out, so I don't have high hopes.  But it's almost 8:30 now and he's fussing so I'd better get him up if I even want to try.  Here goes nothing....