Thu 29 Dec 2011
I might be counting my chickens before they’re hatched, but today, IT GOT BETTER! (College roommie Diana’s baby experience seems to be following ours at 2 weeks behind, so she’s been hoping to see a “it got better” post somewhere to give herself something to look forward to.)
My friend Lily had an extra copy of “What to Expect in the First Year,” so she sent it to me. In it last nite, I found a chart that deciphers baby’s crying. I already know Allie’s “I’m hungry” cry with her “le le leh”s. The rest sound the same to me, only differing in severity. The chart described the “I’m uncomfortable” cry as whiny, nasal, continuous, building in intensity, often accompanied by squirmy, kicky legs. She did that this morning, I changed her diaper, and found a poopy! YAY! An hour later, I used another chart description: an “I’m bored” cry starts off as cooing to try to engage the parents, then proceeds to fussing to get more attention, then bursts of indignant crying when she gets upset she’s being ignored alternating with whimpers. I also read that at this month-old stage, she’s got a wakeful time when she’s learning and gets bored with the same scenery after half an hour or so, so this morning, as she was in her swing, I heard her start the cooing sounds. I went to her and imitated her, which is supposed to encourage their language skills. It soon became fussing. I picked her up and took her to a different environment, talking to her, and altho it looked like she had a wrinkled brow as if she was about to cry, she suddenly stopped and it didn’t proceed to crying. YES! She soon started her straining squeals like she was pushing, so I gave her a belly massage and she was happy and smiley through it. I also took her cues of sucking on her fist, tested her cheek and lips with the backs of my fingers and watched her root around, so I fed her and she ate hungrily, BEFORE SHE HAD TO DO HER LEH LEH LEH CRY! And THEN…while I was feeding, she had a GIANT POOPY! I felt so rewarded. This ends her 3-day most recent poopy dry spell.
It was a busy day we had planned; I strapped her into her car seat carrier as Mr. W supervised and gave instructions (it wasn’t as hard as I thought), then practiced clicking the carrier into the car seat base in my car, took it out, and clicked it into the car seat base in Mr. W’s car. Then we went to our local Registrar-Recorder’s office and obtained a few certified copies of her birth certificate (prices go up January 1st! they’re $19 each now, will be $21) for putting her on our insurance and for other legal agencies. We had a healthy vegetarian lunch at Mother’s Market Cafe where she did fuss a little, but she was overheated in her carrier and fell asleep when Mr. W held her and gave her a pacifier. It make mealtime harder for him to eat and it made me nervous as I wolfed my food, but she didn’t have a meltdown or anything. She did have a meltdown in the car on the way to my rental property because it was a long drive and she was “leh”ing and I couldn’t do anything about it. As soon as we pulled into the garage I fed her from one side and she was fine, but I also understood why she was SO upset in the car — she was overheated and her entire back, neck and back of head were sweaty. After we met up with the next tenant, we went a nearby Costco and in the car she demanded loudly for the second half of her meal, so I fed her from the other side in the parking lot as Mr. W did the Costco run, and she fell asleep afterwards, sleeping all the way home.
Back at home, I watched her sucking her fist again, so I tested her, she rooted, and I fed her before she cried. Then as she fell asleep, Mr. W placed her in the carrier and she’d been sleeping there for at least a good half hour.
By the way, the “I’m in pain” cry starts out as a sudden shriek and is loud, high-pitched, and each scream is long (2-3 seconds), the baby having to pause to take in air in between the shrieks. For those babies that don’t use “leh,” the “I’m hungry” cry is short rhythmic cries, low-pitched, with a pleading quality to it. I’m hoping that as I get better at reading her and can prevent the crying, she’ll learn she can cry less and only use crying as a last resort. I did ask her as I fed her this morning, per Flip Flop Girl’s suggestion, to cry less and reassured her that she is priority and we will try to meet her needs without her having to bellow as she had in the past.
First, I didn’t comment yesterday, but I should have…I have thoughts like that all the time, and I think every Mother does. It doesn’t mean you are a bad mother:-) It is possible to love your kids, but maybe not love children, if that makes sense.
I always found that they do pretty well in restaurants…there is so much to look at and so much stimulation that it keeps them interested for a short time. But, that feeling of inhaling your food? Get used to that, because that is here to stay!
And it is good that you are getting her out and about. Babies do better when they are busy. It is a huge pain to try and feed and change them everywhere, but they are generally much more content to ride around in the car and in their carriage all day than to stay at home and do nothing.
Finally, I will leave you with some words of wisdom that my Mother in Law gave me: “The years fly by, but some of the days last forever”. Indeed, it gets much better:-)
I definitely can’t call myself a lover of children in general. I always knew that, and my mom and some friends told me it’d be different once it’s my own. It IS different, but my lack of interest in kids/babies of course affected me negatively in that I have zero experience with them. 🙁
Allie does decently in restaurants if she’s fed and sleeping. At some point, though, she tends to wake up suddenly and start wailing. It could be because she got uncomfortable or too hot in her carrier seat, or because she now needed her diaper changed, or maybe she decided she’s hungry. Either way, if the pacifier can’t put her back to sleep, I’m having a nervous breakdown.
We went for a walk today, stopping at my ATM and at a local bagel place for breakfast. She did well until just as we were about to leave; then she wailed in her carrier/stroller. At some point on our way home, walking thru a thankfully isolated neighborhood, she fell asleep.
You’ve made it unanimous still — everyone insists it’ll get better. God, I hope so.
You know, if I ever decided to have a child all these posts are really going to come in handy!
hopefully you won’t have to deal with any of this. =/ but hopefully i can help SOMEONE who is dealing with it, that’s why this is the blog-o-honesty. otherwise I’d just pretend everything is tra-la-la wonderful like everyone else seems to. (I’m not bitter. ha.)