Sunday, April 25, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Crib Training 2.0
My son has never been a great sleeper and his most recent cold/fever has definitely set us back a bit. I think most babies, when they aren’t feeling well, just want to be held. My son is no exception to this rule. On Wednesday and Thursday night, I slept with him on the couch because it was the only way either one of us were going to get any shut-eye. He just would not stay down in his crib. I would rock and rock and rock him in the glider until he was fast asleep and as soon as his head hit the crib mattress, he would pop right back up and reach his arms out to be picked up. (Maybe I’m just a sucker, but I couldn’t resist!)
His fever is gone and his cold is on the way out (mostly), but a good portion of my weekend was spent trying to get him to sleep in his crib again. I guess 96 straight hours of being held can certainly make a crib feel like cruel and unusual punishment.
Last night, after an hour and a half of rocking and a few false starts, he finally stayed in his crib and slept the night through. The world is truly a glorious place after getting 7 uninterrupted hours of sleep.
His fever is gone and his cold is on the way out (mostly), but a good portion of my weekend was spent trying to get him to sleep in his crib again. I guess 96 straight hours of being held can certainly make a crib feel like cruel and unusual punishment.
Last night, after an hour and a half of rocking and a few false starts, he finally stayed in his crib and slept the night through. The world is truly a glorious place after getting 7 uninterrupted hours of sleep.
Friday, April 16, 2010
First Fever
Well, it happened.
I arrived home from on Wednesday work to find my son with a 103 degree fever. Several months ago, right after C split, one of the scenarios that kept running over and over in my head was his first fever. I pictured it happening and being alone and scared and not knowing what to do. In my mind, that scenario was with a 3 month old baby and not a 10 month old, so in that sense, I think it was a bit easier, but it was still pretty brutal.
I gave him some Tylenol which he promptly threw up. Looking back on it, I think it was just spit up because he it only happened once, and it didn’t seem to cause him much discomfort. He didn’t sleep at all that night – he just wanted to be held and rocked in his glider. He was pretty cheerful and playful considering, but just couldn’t sleep. Around 3:00 am after a luke-warm bath, I moved us to the couch, which is where we slept together for the first 4 months of his life, and we had a little luck there. I was able to doze for a couple of 20-minute stints while he lay in my arms.
My babysitter arrived that morning so I handed him to her and crawled into bed to try and get a few hours sleep before going in late to work. He was so tired and so uncomfortable, he just cried and cried, so I couldn’t fall asleep. I know this is the understatement of the century, but there is just nothing worse than the no-sleep. All of my fear and worry about him is already there, all of my self-doubt about being able to do this on my own is right under the surface – and when I don’t sleep, they just multiply. It is so hard and takes so much energy to talk myself out of that fear and to soothe myself.
I took him to the doctor last night to rule out a bacterial infection since the fever stuck around for 24 hours and was happy to hear that it was only viral. We got home and his fever broke pretty fast. I managed to get him to sleep in his crib for about 30 minutes and we spent the rest of the night on the couch together. We were able to get some 90 minutes stretches in there – but not too many. At least it was better than the night before.
Anyone else have any traumatic first fever stories?
I arrived home from on Wednesday work to find my son with a 103 degree fever. Several months ago, right after C split, one of the scenarios that kept running over and over in my head was his first fever. I pictured it happening and being alone and scared and not knowing what to do. In my mind, that scenario was with a 3 month old baby and not a 10 month old, so in that sense, I think it was a bit easier, but it was still pretty brutal.
I gave him some Tylenol which he promptly threw up. Looking back on it, I think it was just spit up because he it only happened once, and it didn’t seem to cause him much discomfort. He didn’t sleep at all that night – he just wanted to be held and rocked in his glider. He was pretty cheerful and playful considering, but just couldn’t sleep. Around 3:00 am after a luke-warm bath, I moved us to the couch, which is where we slept together for the first 4 months of his life, and we had a little luck there. I was able to doze for a couple of 20-minute stints while he lay in my arms.
My babysitter arrived that morning so I handed him to her and crawled into bed to try and get a few hours sleep before going in late to work. He was so tired and so uncomfortable, he just cried and cried, so I couldn’t fall asleep. I know this is the understatement of the century, but there is just nothing worse than the no-sleep. All of my fear and worry about him is already there, all of my self-doubt about being able to do this on my own is right under the surface – and when I don’t sleep, they just multiply. It is so hard and takes so much energy to talk myself out of that fear and to soothe myself.
I took him to the doctor last night to rule out a bacterial infection since the fever stuck around for 24 hours and was happy to hear that it was only viral. We got home and his fever broke pretty fast. I managed to get him to sleep in his crib for about 30 minutes and we spent the rest of the night on the couch together. We were able to get some 90 minutes stretches in there – but not too many. At least it was better than the night before.
Anyone else have any traumatic first fever stories?
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Hi Again
What a wonderful, terrible, beautiful 12 months.
I’m back after a long break and am so thrilled to see so many pregnancies and babies from all the bloggers out there!
I’m over the hump of trying to navigate single-motherhood, return to work, house-sale, move, divorce, name-changes, etc. Now I’m trying to settle into my life as it is each day rather than gearing up for the next big moving-on-milestone.
My son is almost 10 months old and gets better every day. I won’t go into too much detail about what transpired between 10 weeks and 10 months, but here are some highlights:
• He started as a terrible sleeper. For his first 4 months, he would only sleep latched on to me. I spent those nights ‘sleeping’ sitting up on a couch. At about the 4 month mark, when he could roll himself over on his stomach – it was a whole new world. Then came 5 and 6 hour stretches IN HIS CRIB at a time and now we are probably 50/50 with a full sleep through the night. The other 50% he usually wakes up once and needs to be rocked back to sleep – this is pretty manageable.
• Eating has been relatively easy compared to sleeping. He hasn’t really met a vegetable he doesn’t like. Fruit is OK as long as it’s heavily diluted in oatmeal or plain yogurt. We’ve moved on to some finger foods, which he kind of refuses to feed himself. In fact, he usually picks them or his sippy cup up and hands them to me so that I can feed him myself. Pretty funny.
• Still breastfeeding. This has been easy all along the way, the only bummer is how quickly the supply shrinks. He’s still getting about 10-12 ounces of breastmilk per day (1 nursing session and the rest in bottles) and about 12 ounces of formula.
• Day care – since my split, my mom has been coming out to San Diego for two weeks each month to help me take care of my guy. She and I have a great relationship and I know how lucky I am to have the help. Because of this, I am able to afford a babysitter the other two weeks of the month. I love my babysitter – I found her on a website called care dot com.
• He’s got two bottom teeth and his first top one just broke through.
• When he’s not crawling - he’s pulling himself up on anything he can.
• He is starting to play games with me like laughing and crawling away really fast so I’ll chase him.
I love being a mom. I knew I’d love it, I didn’t know how much. I know everyone says this and it sounds trite – but he is the greatest thing I’ve ever done.
I’m glad to be back.
Here's my guy:
I’m back after a long break and am so thrilled to see so many pregnancies and babies from all the bloggers out there!
I’m over the hump of trying to navigate single-motherhood, return to work, house-sale, move, divorce, name-changes, etc. Now I’m trying to settle into my life as it is each day rather than gearing up for the next big moving-on-milestone.
My son is almost 10 months old and gets better every day. I won’t go into too much detail about what transpired between 10 weeks and 10 months, but here are some highlights:
• He started as a terrible sleeper. For his first 4 months, he would only sleep latched on to me. I spent those nights ‘sleeping’ sitting up on a couch. At about the 4 month mark, when he could roll himself over on his stomach – it was a whole new world. Then came 5 and 6 hour stretches IN HIS CRIB at a time and now we are probably 50/50 with a full sleep through the night. The other 50% he usually wakes up once and needs to be rocked back to sleep – this is pretty manageable.
• Eating has been relatively easy compared to sleeping. He hasn’t really met a vegetable he doesn’t like. Fruit is OK as long as it’s heavily diluted in oatmeal or plain yogurt. We’ve moved on to some finger foods, which he kind of refuses to feed himself. In fact, he usually picks them or his sippy cup up and hands them to me so that I can feed him myself. Pretty funny.
• Still breastfeeding. This has been easy all along the way, the only bummer is how quickly the supply shrinks. He’s still getting about 10-12 ounces of breastmilk per day (1 nursing session and the rest in bottles) and about 12 ounces of formula.
• Day care – since my split, my mom has been coming out to San Diego for two weeks each month to help me take care of my guy. She and I have a great relationship and I know how lucky I am to have the help. Because of this, I am able to afford a babysitter the other two weeks of the month. I love my babysitter – I found her on a website called care dot com.
• He’s got two bottom teeth and his first top one just broke through.
• When he’s not crawling - he’s pulling himself up on anything he can.
• He is starting to play games with me like laughing and crawling away really fast so I’ll chase him.
I love being a mom. I knew I’d love it, I didn’t know how much. I know everyone says this and it sounds trite – but he is the greatest thing I’ve ever done.
I’m glad to be back.
Here's my guy:
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Didn't see this one coming
My wife decided on Sunday that she doesn't want to be in this relationship anymore.
Our son is 10 weeks old.
Our son is 10 weeks old.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Anyone still out there?
Sorry for going MIA. Between work and the 3rd trimester insanity, I couldn't find enough time to keep this blog up. I was reading blogs as often as I could, but just didn't have it in me to update.
In the off chance that anyone is still out there, I'm thrilled to announce the arrival of our son. He was born via c-section on June 23 weighing 7 lbs 2 ounces and measuring 19.75 inches. He is beautiful and we are falling more in love with him each day. The picture is our boy at two weeks.
The c-section was not in the birth plan, but had to be done because, apparently, I've got a platapoid pelvis. This made it difficult for him to enter the birth canal. It was a really difficult turn of events as I was really hoping for a natural birth. Our OB was really wonderful though the whole thing. He was just as into the natural birth as we were. When it became apparent that surgery was imminent, he gave us time to mourn the loss of the birth we wanted and was really gentle through the whole procedure. I was most terrified of getting the spinal. I've heard horror stories and I was really freaked out that something would go wrong or that I'd have terrible lasting effects, but it turned out to be very manageable. The hospital staff was top-notch.
The recovery from the c-section has been a piece of cake. I realize how lucky I am for this. I took vicadin and ibuprofin while I was in the hospital (4 days) and then stopped all meds about 3 days after discharge.
Breastfeeding is going really well too. We're finally at the point where I can start pumping, which is great because C can help out with the feeding.
On the down side, our little boy is a little sleep resistant and doesn't seem to like any of the beds we have for him. He doesn't sleep unless he's on my chest and this makes for a horrible night's sleep for me. It's amazing to me how quickly one can get used to 4-5 hours of sleep per night and getting 3 uninterrupted hours is like winning the lottery. Anyone have any tips on how to get a baby in a crib?
Thursday, February 19, 2009
24 Weeks (almost)
Almost at 24 weeks – things are going well. Here’s a new interesting little symptom. When I sit for long periods of time, I get a burning pain just below my bra line on the right side. I started noticing it about 2 weeks ago. According to the goog.le, it’s pretty normal and most seem to chalk it up to round ligament pain. It’s weird and can be a bit distracting.
We’ve found a lawyer for the second parent adoption. I’m trying not to get too sideways about the absurdity of having to spend thousands of dollars so that my wife can adopt her own child, but that’s just the way it goes. The lawyer has estimated that the whole thing will cost about $3K, which is great since I was thinking it would be closer to $5K. We meet with him next week to get the paperwork started. I’m due to give birth in June and we are planning a vacation with friends in August. I really don’t want to leave the state, let alone step foot into a red state, without paperwork in hand. He thinks we should be able to be wrapped up by then.
Here’s something interesting. We’ve been doing research on cribs. Consum.er Re.ports ranks 2 cribs as having the highest rating for safety – one of them is an Ike.a crib and only costs $150! Now, it’s not going to win any design awards – it’s pretty plain and understated, but did I mention that it’s $150 AND that it converts to a toddler bed?! Sold.
Lately, I’ve found myself facebooking all sorts of people who I haven’t talked to in years. College friends who I haven’t thought about in 10 years – friends that I made after college who I’ve lost touch with. It’s weird, all of the sudden I’ve just had this burr up my butt out reaching out to people who I’ve grown apart from. I don’t know if the pregnancy is to blame or what. Anyone else out there finding themselves digging through the past?
We start birthing classes in about a week and a half. Right now we’re signed up with a Bradley method class – our OB is recommending Hypnobirthing. Any opinions?
We’ve found a lawyer for the second parent adoption. I’m trying not to get too sideways about the absurdity of having to spend thousands of dollars so that my wife can adopt her own child, but that’s just the way it goes. The lawyer has estimated that the whole thing will cost about $3K, which is great since I was thinking it would be closer to $5K. We meet with him next week to get the paperwork started. I’m due to give birth in June and we are planning a vacation with friends in August. I really don’t want to leave the state, let alone step foot into a red state, without paperwork in hand. He thinks we should be able to be wrapped up by then.
Here’s something interesting. We’ve been doing research on cribs. Consum.er Re.ports ranks 2 cribs as having the highest rating for safety – one of them is an Ike.a crib and only costs $150! Now, it’s not going to win any design awards – it’s pretty plain and understated, but did I mention that it’s $150 AND that it converts to a toddler bed?! Sold.
Lately, I’ve found myself facebooking all sorts of people who I haven’t talked to in years. College friends who I haven’t thought about in 10 years – friends that I made after college who I’ve lost touch with. It’s weird, all of the sudden I’ve just had this burr up my butt out reaching out to people who I’ve grown apart from. I don’t know if the pregnancy is to blame or what. Anyone else out there finding themselves digging through the past?
We start birthing classes in about a week and a half. Right now we’re signed up with a Bradley method class – our OB is recommending Hypnobirthing. Any opinions?
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