Mostly a Good Day

One of the best things about this sleep thing has been how much less stressful bedtime has become! Instead of bursting out of the room in frustration to say "I can't take it! Your turn!" D and I now argue over who gets to do it. "No, it's my special time!"

Naps are not quite as relaxing - apparently they take longer, and Little Man fusses a bit when we put him in, so that's not as fun. But the amazing thing is, he eventually gets to sleep every time... no more, "he looks tired, he acts tired, he sounds tired, but he won't sleep!"

Part of me wishes I'd done this five months ago, but actually, no regrets really.

I had such a delicious moment in the shower this morning; I was just so happy I couldn't stop smiling. I'm not sure why, except that I knew I had a perfect day ahead to spend with my two favourite people. We went to the local farmer's market and ate loads of delicious fruit, then organised the house a bit, web-cammed with my older brother and walked around the neighbourhood. Perfection.

There was one major jolt in my day - my aunt is very ill. She has been undergoing intense chemo and radiation for cancer, but her chances seem very good. However, several days ago she lost feeling in one hand, or so she said. I haven't seen her but it seems she may have lost more than that - according to my mother her whole side seems affected. The cancer centre and her GP were apparently nonplussed and booked a CT scan for several days from now. When I heard that she might wait more than a week, I was appalled. I advised my mother to take her to the emergency room, which she has since done. My aunt is not at all aggressive about advocating for herself or taking care of herself and so I imagine she may have downplayed it quite a bit so that it sounded more like nerve damage than what we think it might be - a stroke (or worse). The emergency room doctors appear to be taking it seriously (FINALLY!) and I am waiting to hear news. In the meantime if you have any spare vibes or prayers or anything please send them her way.

Puff Piece

I a currently being Bad Mummy - feeding LM pieces of my Clif Bar. I think having an older child is going to force me to improve my eating habits - now that he demands what I'm eating I can't very well have graham crackers for lunch. On the bright side, having a child who eats table food is also great. Yesterday I grabbed an impromptu sushi dinner and I hadn't packed any proper food for him but he happily munched away on gyoza and edamame beans. Mmmm.

Speaking of food, the naturopath is having me cut out dairy for LM as she thinks he might be allergic and that may be what's causing his cough/constant mucousyness. She hinted that wheat might also be a cause but we'll start with dairy. On the one hand, I am skeptical because with the exception of things like milk protein allergies and celiac disease, I find it hard to believe that so many of us are sensitive to things that have been staples of Western diet for so long. On the other hand, it's true that his cold/flus have been much worse since I started making yoghurt and cheese a major part of his diet. I'll try anything if it might help but I am going to have to get creative now in term in deciding what protein to feed him. I also have figure out something to do with all the frozen papaya-cottage cheese cubes and the cheesy chicken puree I made last weekend. Shit... I just realised Clif Bars "may contain" milk products.

And since you asked, the sleep stuff is going extremely well! The night before last he slept 10 hours straight in his crib... it was thrilling. Last night he regressed a bit and was up again three times, but was very easy to get back to sleep. The consultant had warned us that there would likely be regression on night four of the no nursing portion of our plan (weird, how did she know?) It's funny how you get greedy - initially I said "if we could just get him down to two night wakings." But now that he's done it, I'm all "when will he sleep through again???!" I do miss our nighttime cuddles, but we have a nice long skin-to-skin nursing session in the morning, which we never did before since he was snacking all night so that's a pretty good substitute.

The consultant also developed a schedule for me during the day to help him adjust to daycare since at daycare the kids take a long nap in the afternoon. Obviously the daycare provider will be flexible with LM since he's still small, but it would be easier if he gets on that schedule since they go out in the mornings. So right now I let him nap just a half-hour in the a.m. and then put him down for a longer nap in the afternoon. For the first time he is taking an afternoon nap that lasts more than 45 minutes.

I'm not sure he is entirely ready for such a short morning nap as he gets very tired and cranky. And if I'm out between 11 and 12 (prime errand time) and he happens to be in the stroller, the carrier or the car seat there's just no way to keep him awake, or even rouse him. But the afternoons are awesome and since it's my last week "off" I'm using my spare time not to clean up, do house stuff or sleep but rather to lazily watch dozens of episodes of Sex and the City. I bought them at the start of my meat leave when I assumed I'd have all this free time while he napped and played by himself (ha ha ha!)

Anyway I am even a teensy bit excited to go back to work - or at least to buy lots of glamourous office clothes and new lipstick! I can tell I'm not 100% in work mode quite yet though - I was looking at bags yesterday for work to carry papers/laptop and the one I ended up (this one, was much cheaper at the store than online) looks professional but also doubles as a diaper-bag complete with a wipes container, and wet bag. I was hesistant to get a purple bag since I have a red winter coat, but the salesgirl assured me that red and purple go really well together and in fact they "need to be worn together more often". So I pretty much had an obligation to buy it. It's so much hipper than the diaper bag I have now that I wish I'd splurged months ago; then again it's probably much easier to convince D to carry a red canvas SkipHop bag than the "Paltrow" in plum.

Night 2

We're now two days into our sleep training. Night one was just about making him stay in the crib all night. He was up seven times. Well, that's better than eight, right? He only nursed twice since D and I traded off going in and he didn't need to nurse the first time I went in, so that was okay.

Last night we started to reduce how much he is nursing, meaning he could only have two feeds (would have been three except he only had two feeds the night before so I jumped straight to two) of prescribed lengths; after that I removed him from the breast and handed him to D, which caused some protest, but not for very long. He was only up four times all night, so I call that some progress.

If there's one thing I've learned it's that it's much better to start training after some thought and reflection rather than in the spur of the moment because you're frustrated - that was most definitely part of my earlier problem. I also hate ther term training; I don't feel like I'm training him. And sleep learning sounds too, well, too much like I'm just trying to justify training...

In any case, I'm optimistic.

Remedies

Well we still haven't implemented our sleep plan because we're away on vacation (hence the lack of posts). It's wonderful - I'm listening to the rain right now and staring at the ocean mere metres away from my window. I think I may even have a glass of wine.

And miracle of miracles, LM's sleep has improved tremendously. I don't know if it's the sea air, the white noise machine, the darker room, the change of environment or what - but I'll take it! He's now taking a short morning nap and a nice long afternoon one, and sleeping a good four or five hours before his first wake-up. It's heavenly. So I'm hoping (and praying I don't jinx myself) that this all means that he is ready to go through the very gradual program we have planned for when we get back.

He's got another fever tonight. Perhaps it's my anxiety over going back to work, but it does worry me. Before we hired the sleep consultant I took him to a naturopath. It was partly because I figured maybe she'd have some suggestions and I could rule out any other causes of his sleep issues. But the main reason I went was because he has had a cough (one of several he's had in his life) for over a month and he has these wretched little fevers every couple of weeks. He's healthy and thriving in every other way and there doesn't appear to be any traditional medical cause, so I guess it's just a part of babyhood, but I do find it stressful. The naturopath gave me some fabulous diaper rash cream that works wonders and some supplements that appear to have cleared up the cradle cap he's had for months, but the cough is still there.

2.4

So we got the plan from the sleep consult*nt and I am so happy with it! It's very gradual and involves slowly weaning him of his feeds and slowly reducing our "involvement" in his sleep, so to speak. So it will take a while but I think it will work for our family. I am feeling so much better about my ability to follow-through and the trade-offs that it involves (i.e. him not in the bed anymore.) If it works, I'll be a very happy mama. We are on vacation, so we'll start when we get home, but right now I'm feeling really good about it.

Right now I am trying to enjoy my last 2.4 weeks of mat leave (but who's counting??) I was sitting next to a woman on the ferry the other day who has a very tiny baby - with those spidery fingers sort of aimlessly clawing at its face, and the tiny little ears and the wobbly head and furrowed brow and sleepy exaggerrated yawns. It looked so miniature, like a doll that they advertise in magazines, but just beautiful. I can't believe it was almost a year since LM was that tiny and fragile and dependent. And I can't believe it's already been almost a year!

Sleep Updates

Sleep has been a challenge in this household for many months. Little Man slept fantastically the first night we brought him home, waking only every 3 or four hours for the first several weeks. Looking back on it, it was bliss. Four months in, we had some major sleep regressing and basically it's been a roller-coaster ever since. There have been some times in there where LM has only woken two or three times a night (and by night I mean from the time I go to bed, not from the time he goes to bed) but there are still many, many nights when he is up seven, eight or nine times and in fact, in the last month that pattern has been more often than not. I don't think he's had a three-hour stretch since we moved.

It's not that I'm trying to make him conform to some idea of how he should sleep - when he wakes up he clearly needs to sleep more; he's tired, disoriented and crying, but he just can't seem to realise that he should just roll over, close his eyes, and wait a minute or two to see if he'll doze off again.

I've tried a variety of things over the past few months, and I've alternated between feeling very Zen and at peace with the fact that he's up all the time, and being extremely frustrated. I've tried to rid myself of my preconceptions about what I should or shouldn't do - I've become a sleep agnostic. I've read half a dozen books that are all over the spectrum, from Dr. Sears to Weissbluth. They all contain some good, and some terrible advice. A brief history of my efforts:

• at four months I tried a technique to get him to fall asleep in his crib; it worked wonderfully, but very temporarily and a month later he wouldn't go near the thing;

• at six months I tried to nightwean; we did get some longer stretches for a while, but it was an abbreviated success;

• at eight months I started to leave him to cry himself back to sleep if he woke up within three hours of falling back to sleep; it worked at reducing how often he woke up, but only for a short period and a month later he was back to being up every 20 minutes;
  

• at ten months we tried full-fledged CRY-IT-OUT with a capital C! Yes, the very same thing I said I was "vehemently opposed to" six months earlier. Well, at that time, I had a much smaller baby and the thought of letting him cry alone was repugnant, but after ten months of sleep deprivation, it starts to seem like a pretty good idea - if it works. I am still vehemently opposed to it in some ways. For one thing, I think it's over-used as a method; it is presented as a great choice to many people whose kids sleep just fine, only up once or twice, or who are still quite young. And everyone tries to justify it as if you are "teaching" your baby some new skill by doing it. Bullshit - I was doing it for myself, and you know what? That's okay! If you get your cure, I don't think there's anything (really) wrong with letting a kid fuss for a few nights. But the other misleading thing about the "CIO" method is that it is always presented as a miracle cure, and it's not. If it had worked for me, I'd be singing its praises - but I think it's important to realise it's not for all kids, especially not one as determined and opposed to sleeping as LM is. We were quite hardcore, and we let him cry for well over an hour more than once. I cringe to think about it now, but at the time I really could not go in that room - I was so damn frustrated that he was awake. But by night seven the kid was still crying for extended periods (not fussing - SCREAMING) and I was done. Sure, eventually he fell asleep, but we were all miserable in the meantime and he seemed even more upset and shaken by the time he woke up again. I don't regret doing it - at least now we know it's not for us and I don't think anyone suffered any permanent psychological damage as a result (except maybe our tenant).
  

So now we're back at square one. LM has his good nights - like tonight; he's only been up twice since he went down two and a half hours ago (yes, that's a good night). Other nights he can be up almost every 20 minutes; he can have awake periods in the middle of the night for an hour where he won't tolerate being left alone; he can be up at 8:30 one day and 5:30 the next. And he never naps more than 45 minutes but wakes up cranky.

In a perfect world, I'd love to just keep meeting his needs - rocking him back to sleep, nursing him down, patting his little bum for ten minutes at a time. And if it worked consistently, maybe I would. But as it is, I am just so over this whole sleep-deprivation thing. Every night is a new and different challenge and it stresses me out more than any other aspect of parenting. So I've hired a sleep consult*nt. We've exchanged lots of information, and I'll be having a chat with her tomorrow on the phone.

I'm nervous - not about whether there will be crying; undoubtedly there will be a little, but honestly, there's a lot of crying about sleep these days despite all our efforts to make it positive and wonderful. I am anxious about my ability to be consistent - I know she doesn't think any sort of co-sleeping is compatible with her methods. I don't fully buy that aspect of sleep myself - I think it's normal and natural to share a bed with someone. But I'm also not opposed to him sleeping alone if it means that we are all sleeping better. Up until now, giving up the option of having him in the bed wasn't a sacrifice I was willing to make. But I think I am ready now - I'll be back at work so our daytime naps together won't happen anyway. And I like having my bed to myself in the evenings. Besides, I'm sure the occasional morning snuggle or weekend family snooze will be fine once he is sleeping better. But basically, I just want someone to tell me what to do. I'm tired (literally) of trying to figure it out myself.

I'm not sure when we will implement - we have a little more summer travel to do, so we may wait until that's over. But I don't want to wait too long as I want to have it established before I head back to work permanently.

Does anyone else have a baby who sleeps like this? Because I don't know anyone else who does; I have friends who still struggle with sleep - their child is up two or three times. But nine or ten? It's crazy. Anyway, if you have ANY sleep advice, I'd love to hear it. I'm curious about what has worked for you.

Back At 'Er

The first few days back at work have begun since I am doing my training. I have now spent two full days away from LM. It's been easier and harder than I thought. I haven't missed him as much as I expected during the day - oh, sure there was that initial moment of panic when I was waiting in the lobby before the day started. I saw a pregnant woman, and you know how pregnant women have that sort of air of superiority about them? They have that look that says, sure, what you're doing is sort of important, but I'm generating LIFE here. Well, suddenly that pregnant woman I saw really intimated me, even though I haven't felt that way since I got pregnant myself. Without LM by my side I felt stripped down and insecure.

But mostly I've been fine; I haven't felt the need to dash back to see him on my lunch-break or to phone constantly. It's felt nice to be in the company of adults again.

The hardest part is when I get home, even though it's also the best part. LM is so thrilled to see me, and I love that. But I have no idea what he's done, when he slept, or whether he's eaten. His whole day is a mystery to me and as such his needs are too. Usually my day is based around the minutiae of his sleeping patterns. Suddenly I feel like only D knows what's going on and I suddenly need him to instruct me on all manner of things; but D's still in the habit of asking me if LM should eat, sleep et cetera, so together we're the blind leading the blind. I guess we'll get used to that and it won't feel so strange not to know every little thing he's been doing all day. That makes me a little sad though.

My other issue is LM's eating - he refuses the bottle all day while I am gone; today that meant he drank only a couple of ounces in almost 11 hours; he did get some solids down. I'll try fresh milk tomorrow as yesterday and today it was frozen stuff, carefully shipped out here with an ice-pack in my checked luggage. Frozen has never been an issue in the past, but perhaps he is refining his pallette. But if that doesn't work, I'm not sure what to do. Maybe I should just relax and just make sure there's lots of opportunity to feed before and after work; I guess he won't starve himself.

Pumping at work has been a challenge too - I'm using someone's office to do it, which is a little awkward. It's especially awkward when you accidentally don't seal that storage bag tightly enough and drip milk all over the occupant's address book... I've also got to wear mega pads to ensure no leakage as the only real opportunity to pump is at lunch and that's quite a long stretch for me. I come in with a padded B-cup and leave with a double D. I'm hoping there will be a better option at my own office, but there may not be since all our offices have glass that permits people to see into them. I may end up in ladies' room or something which will not be conducive to maintaining a bottle-a-day supply as I had hoped. But then if LM doesn't take the bottles I guess it's all moot anyway and maybe it's fine just to let my day supply go.

The Eagle Has Landed

In the past week, I've had several conversations with a nanny agency, interviewed two nannies, responded to and posted numerous Craig's List ads, and checked out another daycare. And I have finally found my childcare!

The nannies I met were both great (well actually, just one was great, but the other one was fine). But the one I really wanted was quite blunt in saying she wanted full-time work, which I can't offer (read: afford; I was planning to fill in the blanks with family/friend's help) so there was the huge danger that I'd pay the $700 finder's fee and four months later she'd fly the coop. Not to mention the salary. I strongly believe that we should pay the people who look after our children a living wage, and it totally nauseates me when I hear about people paying their nannies little more (or less) than what I used to make as a 16-year old babysitter. But at a decent hourly wage ($14-$15) it would have made us really cash-strapped if we couldn't have found someone to share with.

When I walked into the daycare, I just got this "right" feeling. It's in an apartment building a few kilometres away, so not exactly close, but it's more or less on the way to work. She has a ground-level apartment that's quite small with a securely fenced patio area. In my mind, small size is a bonus - the kids can't be out of sight. She takes them out each day to the park, or for walks or to activities at the community centre. She was very gentle and kind and fun too - she got down on the ground with him to play. Her 20-something son was in town for the weekend and we met him; he was absolutely sweet, affable and intelligent (not to mention hot!!!). As D said, if she can raise someone like that, she's alright by us! The place had lots of toys and books, but was still neat and tidy (and CLEAN!) She had a little schedule drafted up which showed they do circle time and have a nice little predictable daily routine.

The one drawback is that we need to get there by 5, and I would have preferred 5:30 since the optics of leaving at 4:30 aren't awesome. But my firm will just have to deal and D and I will trade off which days we get him.

Anyway, I am so, so happy.