cindy's world

GIFTS…
I’ve gotten a gift delivered to me every week for the past 3 weeks from Mr. W. Once it was beautiful sunny yellow roses in a white pitcher with a card that said it was from Allie and Mr. W, and that they love me, and that I’m the best mother and wife ever. That came in the really bad week I had when I cried constantly, not being able to get Allie to nap, so I joked that Allie felt bad and wanted to apologize for her difficulty. The next week it was a box of big frosted shortbread cookies in the shapes of red hearts, white hearts, and green frogs wearing yellow crowns. The gift message said it was from Allie, for daddy’s sweet tooth and for her sweet tooth, too. I joked that I think Allie has got her hands on Mr. W’s credit card. Last week, I got a giant bouquet of something like 3 dozen large red roses in a beautiful teardrop glass vase. Mr. W said it was for Valentine’s Day, and didn’t give Allie credit this time. The card said it was from him, and “I love you! You are such a wonderful mom and terrific wife.”

So here’s how sick I am in the head… instead of it making me feel happy and appreciated, which is clearly the goal, I feel like crap because I don’t think I deserve it. Now I feel guilty that he’s having to waste his money on me to keep reassuring me that I’m doing a fine job on maternity leave, when the baby’s sick and I can’t do anything about it, and she’s not eating well, napping well, breathing well. I emailed the pediatrician earlier to tell him her current symptoms now that she’s on day 10 of this cold, to ask him if there’s anything else I can do, such as use a decongestant. I’m concerned all the mucus sitting in there for the past 10 days is going to cause a secondary infection in her sinuses or ears. I keep seeing other kids walk around with their parents and I think, “I can’t wait till Allie gets to that age so I don’t have to worry about this baby stuff anymore, I can just talk to her and she’ll understand and it’ll be easier.” But I’m sure it’s NOT easier because at that age, the kids probably have public tantrums and say hurtful things to their parents and refuse to do things like sleep or eat or get dressed. And I feel guilty for wishing away these precious baby times when I’ll probably look back in the future and think, “I should’ve appreciated those days more; they were so much easier than these days.”

…SHRINKS…
I have my first psych session with whomever the 2nd therapist/counselor/psychiatrist is at 2pm today. My parents are coming over to watch the baby while I go. I’m afraid they’re going to catch what we all have and for that reason I didn’t have them visit this past weekend. Today, however, I have no choice. My dad took the day off because he’s loathe to miss too many consecutive days of Allie; as it is, he talks about how much she’s grown and changed in between the week since he’d last seen her. My mom may have switched her normal day off (she’s on a 4-longer-days workweek schedule instead of 5 regular days) to today. I’m nervous about a recurrence of what happened the last time my mom came over and wouldn’t respect Allie’s need to sleep and kept picking her up, claiming Allie was up. Right now Allie is doing her morning nap, and she wouldn’t nap more than 10-20 minutes each segment yesterday, so she really needs to nap well today. She’s been down a little over an hour so far, but woke up 3 times already crying and I had to run up and put the pacifier in her mouth to soothe her back down. I’ll have to insist that my parents do this instead of what my mom really wants to do, which is go, “Oh, she’s crying, she needs to be comforted and she’s clearly awake, so I’m going to pick her up,” and that’s the end of that nap even though Allie’s exhausted and still wants to sleep. My mom also complained last time that Allie’s room’s too stuffy. Well, the humidifier makes it that way for a reason, and she needs to not air it out.

…AND NANNIES…
This is also the nanny concern. I need someone whom I feel will take care of Allie by doing what’s best for Allie, not someone who just wants to play with or hold a baby all day. It’s clear to me now that Allie doesn’t sleep well or deeply when she’s in motion, such as when she’s held or when she’s in the car. Whomever naps Allie must put her down for restful sleep, and let her get enough of it. I would love it if, when I leave for work each day, I feel like the person with Allie has more experience than I do and can do a better job than I can, which really shouldn’t be hard cuz I have a whole 2.5 months of infant experience so far. And I need someone who can teach me about progressing the baby, such as “Now is a good time to start introducing her to sippy cups.” Cuz I don’t know any of that stuff. The overqualified CNCS (certified newborn care specialist) who’s the reason I joined this nanny site finally checked the email, told me to call her last nite, and eliminated herself. She said the start time of 6:30a is really too early for her as it makes for a long day to go till 5:30p. It was nice of her to do that, and I was having the impression that she’s the type who’s busy doing something else and will likely ditch us for a better job anyway, which seems like what she’s doing now. She said she currently has a job starting at 8am and she’s already having trouble getting there at that hour. So if she’s present employed, and she’s looking for something else, I wonder if the other job knows that. I’d freak if she did that to us and we’re left out in the cold. But at least she brought me to join the website, where I hopefully will find the right fit.
I had an interview scheduled with Mr. W’s 2nd choice (1st being the CNCS), a person named Sara, for Wednesday. She’s one who’d contacted me through the site and we’d exchanged some emails and she seemed very experienced in infant routines and such. After we confirmed Wednesday’s interview, she wrote me back immediately and said that someone she’d interviewed with the weekend before I joined the site just called her and asked her to do a trial run, so she was letting me know she’d be unavailable. I wrote back and wished her luck, thanking her for promptly letting me know. My impression of Sara was that she’s competent, but was more formal with us so there’s less of a friendly relationship, which I’m not sure matters because her job is taking care of Allie, not being our friend, right?
Mr. W’s 3rd choice is the 31 yr old German lady, Susanne. We scheduled her interview in Sara’s former time slot, Wednesday evening. She’s enthusiastic and friendly, and has au pair and experience with infants and kids, but because she’s a German national, Mr. W is curious what her connections are here. I’m interested in whether there would be a cultural difference in parenting philosophies. She doesn’t seem to have extensive nannying experience with infants, and she was a teacher in Germany as her last formal occupation. I feel like I’d get along with her more on a peer level, but I don’t want Allie to suffer in getting competent care.
And then there’s a 59 yr old who lives 40 miles away who emailed me over the weekend, wanting to interview for the position. Her credentials look great on paper, saying she’s registered with Trustline, is CPR and 1st Aid certified, has certification for TB and flu shots. I emailed back pointing out that she’d have to drive 40 miles by 6:30 in the morning, and she wrote back that it’s not a problem, that a prior job required her to be there at 5am “over several months” and she was never late (why such a short job?). Her baby experience seems to be with child protective service departments’ infant units, and I’d written back asking if she’d had specific *nanny* experience with infants, and she replied about her experience with infants in a general way. She was eager for an interview and I scheduled it for Thursday evening, and figured I could ask her specific experience questions in person. I wonder why she’d be willing to drive so far, and what ended her child protective services jobs.
I don’t think I’m going to interview the 22 year old who’s transferring to UC Irvine to be a full-time student and wants to nanny full-time for us in the day. She may be able to juggle it, but I don’t want Allie to be the experiment. Plus, what about changing class schedules every semester? Finals weeks? Her wanting to do college student stuff like hang with friends?
Best location is a woman the next city over (minutes away) who emailed me. She has experience teaching preschool to elementary school, but when I wrote back asking if she’s had specifically nanny experience with infants, she hadn’t written back (altho the site tells me she read the email).
Why’s it so hard to find credentialed, experienced, knowledgable people who live nearby and could give us reliable nanny service as a live-out? =/ Too bad the woman who sounds PERFECT who’s moving here from out-of-state wants a live-in situation, only. That was Mr. W’s true #1 choice except that she’s not really in the running because she wants to be a live-in. She did tell me to keep her contact information so she could maybe sit for us on weekends or times when the regular nanny isn’t available.

In all this nanny-hunting angst when I’m desperate to find a great person for Allie, there’s also a growing concern that Allie will bond with the nanny, spending so much more time with her than with us, and will want the nanny on weekends or evenings instead of us. I can already see that Allie seeks me for comfort instead of Mr. W, and I’ll soon be spending the same little time with her as Mr. W does once I return to work.

Since Allie’s been sick, she’s having a hard time breathing thru her nose, is horribly congested, & has a phlegmy-sounding cough. Newly added, she eats very little & pulls off the breast & bottle crying. I can’t get her to latch, so more often than not, one side gets uncomfortably engorged from her skipping it until the next meal. The nasal aspirator bulb can’t get to the mucus I hear messing with her breathing, the elevated mattress makes her slide down the crib when she kicks around, the shower steam & room humidifier may or may not be helping, I can’t tell. She took a long time to go to sleep last night after a long fit of crying when I couldn’t get her to relatch on the other side. I was angry to be so helpless & frustrated, & I’m trying not to freak out even now.

Me: I understand now the huge sacrifice you made when you decided you want to marry me.
Mr. W: And don’t you forget it.

I’ve started the nanny search. I initially looked into two full-service nanny agencies each with its own prescreened (allegedly) nannies whom they’ve interviewed, prequalified and meet minimum requirements like passing background checks and being infant CPR-certified. These agencies will match and send nannies that fit my requirements and needs to me for interviews. I pay the agency a referral fee if/when I hire one of their prospects. The problem: the referral fee is approximately 10% of the nanny’s annual salary, due in a lump sum, so we’re looking at $4K-ish paid to an agency to make the introductions.

Because the full-service agencies are so expensive, Mr. W looked into preschools. There are two local Montessories and a local preschool who would take an infant 4 months old, which is how old Allie will be at the time I return to work. However, it breaks my heart that Allie would have to be plucked out of bed at 6am every morning to be sent into a loud roomful of strangers and strange crying babies and toddlers. She won’t get personal attention, they may not have time to soothe her and respect her nap schedule, and she’ll likely get sick — a lot. Given how this cold is already killing me, hearing Allie slosh around in her sinuses and being unable to clear that mucus for her (the nasal aspirator bulb only sucks out what’s in her nostrils), hearing her phlegmy cough interrupt her sleeping, I can’t imagine having her in this condition being a regular thing. She’ll get sick as she goes to kindergarten and elementary school, why put her through this as an infant? Poor thing’s having a hard time napping because she can’t breathe well and can’t use her pacifier if she needs to breathe through her mouth. BTW, I raised her mattress with a pillow on one end, lengthwise, yesterday. We sleep her perpendicularly in her crib, so if she slides down the incline she won’t go more than a couple of inches, if that. And she does slide down until her feet hit the side of the crib. *sigh*

I signed up for a compromise yesterday — an online nanny database site. I’ve seen this site referred to a few times by people reviewing the nanny agencies. Sure, I’ll have to set up, contact, research my own candidates, but it’s $100/month vs. $4000. If I don’t have any luck with the database site, I could always then pay the big bucks for the nanny agencies. I’ve contacted two promising-looking nannies looking for jobs, and two have on their own contacted me through the site. Of the two I’d contacted, one was the reason I joined the site, but she hadn’t checked the email yet. She seems overqualified, but that’s what I want. =P The other is a 31-year-old German lady who did respond with interest and seems very nice. She’s open for an interview. Of the two who contacted me, one seems perfect and also a touch overqualified, but she wants to be a live-in because she’s moving from out-of-state. I wrote back and said that depends on whether we’ll have a bedroom free once Mr. W’s 21 yr old daughter makes up her mind whether she wants to stay or move out. Really, tho, I’m not sure I want a live-in because it does affect my privacy and freedom. Plus, how will I know her lifestyle will be compatible with ours? The stepdaughter came by yesterday to pick up some more things, which she’d apparently given her dad a heads-up about, but didn’t tell him when. The time she chose was 9:45pm, again after she knows the household is usually asleep. I happened to be up searching for nannies online. She said she had “a few things to print” and took out her laptop and started printing. Her dad heard and came downstairs. I immediately switched to the nanny cam to check on the baby, because the printer is noisy and is downstairs in the living room. I bit my tongue, but was very grateful Mr. W said, “You need to come over earlier if you want to print things; you can hear how noisy that is.” She didn’t respond, which tells me she’s biting her tongue and thinking, “Now I can’t even PRINT, either?” I’d already explained to her in our talk that it’s not the activity; it’s the time. Anyway, I just don’t want this type of thing to be an issue with a live-in nanny. It’ll be hard to tell an adult stranger, “You’re being too noisy too late! Go to bed already!”

I guess I’m gonna be passing names through to Rebecca soon…

The baby’s been down for her late morning nap for the past hour-plus. I’m loving how well she’s napping, but hating how much she gets woken up by coughing. 🙁 Looking in the babycam, she seems to usually go right back to sleep, though. She naps the best on her tummy. It prevents the nocturnal jerks from waking her, and possibly because she’s sick, it makes her feel better than laying on her back having the post-nasal drip thing happen.

I realized that she’d really only skipped 1 meal, because she usually has a late-night meal (2-3am) OR an early morning meal (4-6am) and then goes back to sleep until about 7a. That made me feel better. Plus, she had a good-sized poopie this morning so I know she’s getting enough nutrition. Crap, poor thing’s coughing right now, her little body bouncing up and down on her mattress. 🙁 And now she settled back down and went back to sleep. I’m glad she’s able to still rest. Her body needs that. It also seems to keep her in good spirits despite how uncomfortable she must feel. She still smiles big at me after I deboogerize her, like she thinks it’s a game.

I never knew how much babies need to sleep. I just figured if she’s tired, she’d fall asleep. Not so; if she’s tired, she’d yawn. If not soothed to sleep and given the opportunity to sleep right about then, she’ll get overtired, wired, and start the fussing crying bit. I didn’t realize that at this ripe old age of 2.5 months, she can still only be up 1-2 hours at a time. After I read the sleep book where it addresses her age group and I’d been respecting her naps, the fussing has just about disappeared. Even if she were crying for a specific reason, the moment you address it she’s smiling. Sometimes the smile comes before the cry even ends. So what I’m doing is…

She wakes up around 7a. I change and feed her. She shows drowsy signs (yawning, spacing out, rubbing her face) within 30 mins after she finishes eating, which only gives me enough time to have put her in the Boppy and do some interactive songs with her before I pick her up, put her against my shoulder and start walking around humming or singing to soothe her. She’s asleep within a total of 1.5 hours after being awake, like 8:30a.
She naps from 8:30a to 10a-ish. It’s been 3 hours since her last feeding around 7a, so I change her, feed her, play with her a bit. She may watch me get ready in the bedroom while she hangs out in the Boppy on our bed, propped up with another pillow under the back of the Boppy. She’s now good on her own for up to 20 minutes so that gives me tons of freedom to do things like change, make food, etc with both hands. She just eats her hands, grabs a burp cloth so she can bring it to her mouth and “chew” on it, while looking around or watching me, giving me a big smile every time I turn and make eye contact with her or talk to her. Sometimes she coos her side of the conversation to me. She’s especially cooey in the mornings. She starts to show drowsy signs around 11:30a, after she’s been up 1.5 hours. I pick her up, soothe her, and she goes right to sleep easily in her crib when she’s drowsy enough.
She naps from 11:30a to 1:30-ish (unless we have Gymboree, then I sort of “encourage” her to wake up at 1p by opening her bedroom door and letting my downstairs sounds drift into her room). Since it’s been 3 hours or so since I’d last fed her, again I change and feed, then we go to Gymboree, or we take a stroll from the backyard to the front yard, get her some fresh air, have her say hi to all the plants and trees and flowers. Then we come in, hang out a bit or she sits in her high chair and plays with toys while I eat lunch, then she’s showing drowsy signs at 3-ish, and I soothe her and put her down. She may sleep until her daddy gets home from work a bit after 4:30p.
Then daddy gets her after a diaper change and a feeding. If the timing is such that I could pump and have a bottle for her when he gets home, then he bottlefeeds her so she would learn that someone other than I can provide nourishment to her (in preparation for my return to work). Then he plays with her as I wash all the pump parts and bottle parts.
Then she naps while we make/eat dinner. If the timing is such that we’re eating during her awake time, we put her in the high chair at the table and she hangs out while we eat, watching us, looking around, grabbing her burp rag to chew on, or watching us move her rattle around her face to work on her tracking skills. Sometimes daddy’ll entertain her during this awake time and I’ll go return phone calls or take a shower.
These days I try to time it so she gets her 6th meal around 7:30p-8p so that she could go down for the night around 8p. She may not fall asleep until 9:30p sometimes, but at least she’s quietly in her crib in the dark learning the difference between day and night. I’m usually sitting in the recliner next to her until she falls asleep, or seems stable enough with the pacifier that I could leave and hang out with the hubby. Yesterday we caught our first few TV shows together after months of not having the time to watch it together because of caring for Allie. (I say “watch it together” because he gets some TV time on his own here and there.)

Times are approximate and totally depends on her signs of drowsiness and the time she starts her day by waking up in the mornings. Basically, in any given 3ish-hour segment between feedings, it breaks down to
5 mins diaper change
25 mins feeding
30-45 mins awake and alert interactive playtime
15-30 mins soothing
1.5-2 hours nap (sometimes she sleeps half an hour and wakes up; some of those times she can be convinced to go back to sleep with a pacifier, sometimes not. and some of those times, something has to be fixed before she’d go back to sleep, such as a dirty diaper or a temperature issue. other times it’s okay to just give up and try again at the next nap time.)
The total time she’s up: 1.5 hours average. Amazing how fast that goes.

This is for future reference to document how much sleep a baby needs, in case I wondered what the heck I did all day on maternity leave.

The stepkidlet left the night she had been planning to. I feel a strange sense of freedom, like I can now hang out in my PJs all day, or relax about the living room looking too “babied up.” This makes me think that I’d been all stressed about the common areas of the house looking perfect before because I don’t want clutter to impact a shared space with someone who’s not a parent (stepdaughter), or having it look bad when her friends come over. Now that it feels like just my, Mr. W’s and the baby’s space, I suddenly don’t have that compulsive need to tidy anymore. Interesting.

Mr. W is feeling well enough to return to work today, having taken Monday and Tuesday off. Monday because he felt like total crap from his sickness, Tuesday because it’d become undeniable that the baby caught his bug and he wanted to take us to the pediatrician. We went to whatever pediatrician had an appointment available, which was not Allie’s regular pediatrician, but she was great. Allie was behaving well, performing well, in good spirits. We had a rough start before being called in with Allie pooping in the waiting room, we waited to be called in but they were late getting to us, so I went to go change her in the public restroom, but the room with the changing station was locked with someone inside. I turned my back briefly to walk a few paces from the door so that I could wait for that person to come out, but while I had my back turned, she came out and some old man, despite seeing me, slid right in as the girl came out and locked himself in there forever. When he finally came out and I could get in, I’d had to wait too long and Allie’s poopie had squished up her back, through her inner shirt, hit her outer outfit. Cleanup was a pain and Mr. W came by the restroom and said irrately that they’d called us already but I was taking too long. I said that he should’ve come to get me as I was contemplating changing her there or later since she had to strip in the medical room anyway. Then when we went back to the waiting room, they had called in other patients so we had to wait even longer. I was pissed.
So anyway, the pediatrician checked Allie for common secondary infections (ear, lungs, throat, etc) but Allie was all clear and smiley. She was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection that came from the cold virus. The pediatrician said the rattling I hear and feel from phlegm was coming from Allie’s upper chest only, like her throat, and her lungs were clear. It would run its course in a week or two, and as for the new phlegmy cough she developed, to just leave it alone and she’ll be fine. Keep feeding her to keep her hydrated, put a humidifier in her room to help her loosen phlegm or take her in a steamy bathroom if necessary, use the bulb nasal aspirator with maybe a drop or two of saline in each nostril whenever necessary, she has no temperature and she’ll hopefully be recovering soon. It was the advice everyone had been giving me anyway. I have smart friends. 🙂

Last nite, I stayed mostly in Allie’s room. She went down pretty smoothly altho she woke up 6-8 times with a cough that broke my heart. But she went right back to sleep each time. And she slept through her late-night feeding and early-morning feeding. Last time she ate was close to 8pm. I was considering waking her if she doesn’t by 7am, but she just did.

Perfecting timing. Off to feed my baby.

P.S. I have the beginning stages of what they each had. Last nite my throat got sore, and it remains sore. I hear that’s how this starts. 🙁

It’s not even 10:30 in the morning this sunny Sunday, and I’m ready to cry or puke or both.

The hubby had complained of a sore throat early last week, but thought it was due to his work building flooding (busted water pipe, seeped down 3 floors and apparently the building had to be evacuated for awhile) and whatever genius’ solution it was to put up giant fans all over the place to dry up the carpeting. Old building + mildew/mold spores + dust + fans = messed up throat and hacking. It didn’t get better, and he started coughing more and has been blowing his nose like crazy. So we thought, secondary infection due to earlier allergic reaction? And then I found out that lots of people from his building are sick and there’s something going around. So now we’re scared he’s actually sick and the baby is going to catch it. He said it’s horrible, it’s a head cold and feels like it’s settled into his chest. He can’t breathe and has a headache, so if that hits Allie, she wouldn’t be able to breastfeed or suck on a pacifier. Plus she’s so young and I don’t know how her immune system would combat something like this. I know Mr. W is pretty miserable.

Also, living with the stepdaughter has become very hard on me. She’s an easy-going wonderful person and just does her own thing, but her own thing isn’t very compatible with the life I now have because of a newborn. For example, she invited friends over without telling us. It was something I just sorta dealt with before because that’s how her parents have allowed it, but one time I was in the living room breastfeeding and a car pulled up and a guy walked up to our front door. If the door opens, I have nowhere to hide and my boob was hanging out. I freaked. Mr. W told her someone was at the door and asked if she knew about it; turned out she’d invited this guy over but didn’t tell us. She went and got him and let him in through the garage straight into her bedroom so that his path didn’t cross the living room, but I was really upset. Mr. W and I fought about it, his feeling was that her life shouldn’t have to change just for me because she lives here, too and has a “right” to have her friends over; I felt that she should’ve had the courtesy to get permission or give a heads up. He agreed I could talk to her, so I did. She was very understanding and we agreed she didn’t need permission per se, but should let us know. She’s held that up without exception since.
But other things she’s not aware of are harder for me to deal with, such as her noise level; she’s not aware of how much her voice on the phone or her doing things in the kitchen carries up the house. She comes home late, enters through the garage, and the garage door opening/closing underneath Allie’s room makes me jump and sometimes makes the baby jump. Mr. W said altho she parks in the driveway, it’s easier to come in through the garage because she doesn’t have to worry about finding her housekeys. I’ve never said anything to her about the garage thing, but because having a new baby makes new moms very light sleepers, I keep being woken up and would check the baby monitor to make sure Allie either didn’t wake up, or would go back to sleep on her own.
Last night, the baby went to sleep at around 9pm. The house was dark, Mr. W was asleep in bed and I was next to him, trying to fall asleep. As I was finally starting to doze off, the garage door opened and I jumped and woke up. It was about 10:15pm and the stepdaughter had come home. Then 10 minutes later, I heard her start doing laundry! I was livid. The washing machine was so noisy and I know that Allie, if napping, would always wake up and jump when the washing machine changed phases from spin to wash. I sat there a few minutes in disbelief and checked the baby monitor. I saw Allie kick around when the machine started to spin, and when it got REALLY loud, I stormed downstairs and turned off the washer. The stepdaughter opened her bedroom door and walked out to see what was going on. I said, my voice actually shaking with anger, “Can we not do laundry this late?”
She said, “It’s only 10:30!”
That made me see red. I told her “only 10:30” may be early by the hours she keeps, and that’s fine, but when she’s in a household where everyone’s asleep, the house is dark, and there’s a baby that she knows is put to sleep early and is a light sleeper, 10:30 is too late to be making this much noise. It keeps me from sleeping and I already don’t get enough sleep as it is. I was going to have to get up for a 2am feeding soon, I’m trying to sleep in between, and I have to get up early. I’m unable to nap in the day. She said that she HAS to do the laundry now because she has an event early in the morning she has to attend while wearing a uniform she’s washing. I said she should’ve washed that uniform earlier. She said she wasn’t home earlier (well, duh). I said she could’ve done it before she went out. And really, she could’ve come home earlier, or done it yesterday. But I see that she’s right, because she procrastinated, she HAS to get the laundry done right now, so I turned the washing machine back on. But I was really, really pissed. I told her I understood what she’s saying about the uniform, fine, but this is causing me to not be able to sleep. She apologized, and then I apologized for my tone. I told her to ignore my tone, I’m just really angry right now. Implicit was the message to not ignore my words.
After I went back to bed, I still laid there unable to sleep, hearing the squeaking, rumbling, rushing, humming of the washing machine. Mr. W rolled over and said, “If you weren’t so neurotic you could get to sleep! The baby’s fine, and you already addressed it, so just go to sleep!” I nearly hit the roof. There’s noise downstairs that shouldn’t be occurring, and it was keeping me from the few valuable hours of sleep I could get, and I’m NEUROTIC for being unable to sleep through it? I turned on the TV in the bedroom for the first time since Allie’s been born. The TV used to put me to sleep but I haven’t watched it in my insomnia times out of consideration to Mr. W because the TV keeps him from sleeping well. Mr. W grabbed some pillows and went to sleep downstairs on the couch. Seeing Allie kick around on the baby monitor, I was afraid the TV was still getting to her room so I turned it off and eventually fell asleep. I had nightmares of Mr. W and I fighting, of him asking me something and my response being just to give him the bird. And then in the nightmare, I realize, if we were out there fighting, who’s watching the baby? I rushed back to the hotel room where the baby was sleeping and saw paramedics coming out, bringing people on stretchers covered with white sheets from head to toe. I was relieved to see there was no baby-sized shape on any stretcher. And then I woke up at 4am hearing the stepdaughter turn on the clothes dryer.

This morning I explained to Mr. W that biologically, a new mother becomes a light sleeper. It’s hard enough being sleep-deprived and caring for a newborn, but it’s harder when I have to deal with another person who keeps late hours and does things that are incompatible with the new life I have to lead. I realize she didn’t change, but I had to, and it’s not working well for me. It’s an additional stressor that none of my other friends with newborns have to worry about. On top of that, when he tells me it’s my problem and calls me neurotic, it makes it even more stressful for me. He looked angry, but didn’t say anything. I just wanted him to understand and to not insult me and call me names when I’m already down.

Weirdly, Allie skipped her middle-of-the-night feeding last night and after her 7:40p feeding, the next time she ate was 5:40a. I guess she really was tired or something. She went back to sleep and woke up for the morning at 8:30a. In the free moments I had, I had to do my own laundry and Allie’s, but opened the washing machine to see that once again, the stepdaughter left her laundry half-done in there and had left the house. I usually finish her laundry for her and put it in her room, and I know her dad does the same when he needs to wash clothes and sees her stuff in there. I asked Mr. W what I should do. He looked really peeved and put her wet clothes from the washer into the dryer. Now I’m waiting for her clothes to dry so that I could put my load into the dryer and start Allie’s load.

Mr. W is upstairs having quarantined himself in the bedroom, watching TV. I know he’s upset at me for being upset about his 21 yr old daughter, and I feel like I want to restore peace, but don’t know how except to apologize. And yet, I don’t see anything I have to apologize for. I want to go up and talk to him again, try to smooth things over, get him to understand, but I know he’ll just see it as my harping on the same thing over and over again when he just wants to not talk about it or think about it anymore. As a female, not talking about it is not a resolution to me and I want a resolution. Allie was fussy when I tried to put her down for her morning nap and was making odd noises from her nose, so I used the nasal aspirator bulb and pulled out a bunch of mucus. I hope she’s not sick, and I’m stressed about that, too. AND, my cell phone which is my lifeline to the outside world has stopped updating. I noticed yesterday I hadn’t gotten any new emails and since last nite I haven’t gotten any texts. I checked email on the PC and I do have new email, so my phone isn’t receiving and syncing. Everything feels like it’s blowing up around me. I haven’t eaten or drank anything yet today.

Now that Allie’s almost 10 weeks old, her development advances day-to-day. It’s really remarkable. One day I look down at her and I’m like, “When’d your hands get so big? When’d YOU get so big?”

A couple of weeks ago, she found her fists. Since then, she’d been slurping on the backs and knuckles of her little balled up fists, drooling down her fingers. A couple of days later, she learned to grasp. Sitting at her high chair, she’d reach for the burp cloth and pull it toward her and hold it at her chest, then bring it up to her mouth. She hasn’t learned to grip larger or heavier objects, yet. I’m glad for now. She still dislikes tummy time and will cry so I don’t do much of it, but having done it just a few times, she has quickly learned to keep her head and chin off the ground surface for up to 5 minutes now.

When I’m burping her sitting up, I hold the burp cloth vertically under her chin in case there’s a lot of spitup. Now she holds it herself to her chest, and if she does spit up, she instantly shoves the stained part right in her mouth and starts sucking at it. “Nooo, you just spit that out! Don’t put it back in!” I’d say as I try to pull it away from her. When I do, she’d get upset and whine, “Lehhhhh!” like I’m stealing her milk from her.

She’s also learned to coo in the past couple of weeks, pretty much right when she turned 2 months. The vowels are what’s coming through, “ay,” “al,” “owl,” “eye,” “ooh.” Now both she and Dodo say “owl.” She also occasionally razzes as bubbles come out between her lips and tongue like she’s a little crab. The cooing is often directed at someone, and I think she’s trying to communicate. When I talk to her facing her, she concentrates really hard on my mouth and I can see her own lips quivering as she unconsciously tries to imitate me. She ALMOST seems to say her own name. “Who’s mommy’s pretty little girl?” “Aaaallie.” It’s just a variation of “al,” really.

Now that she’s easier to put down for naps as I’m reading her drowsy signs better and being more aware of her 1-2 hour maximum awake times, I simply put her over my shoulder, hum softly as I walk her around, and she’ll doze over my shoulder. I feel her get limp and I walk to a mirror and see her eyes closed. Then I’ll set her down on her tummy on the couch or today, for the first time, on her tummy in her crib. She’s always supervised if she sleeps on her tummy. The transfer has gotten much easier, too. The sleep book was right; when a baby naps regularly, she sleeps more easily, period. The first week of it nearly killed me, though, trying to set her up for motionless sleep instead of being held and rocked. She’s happiest after a long nap and in the morning when she wakes up. I sit her up in the Boppy on the couch like a big girl after her diaper change and first feeding, and I kneel on the ground in front of her and we sing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” while I touch each of the body parts on her that I’m singing about. She coos along, smiling and laughing (not “hahaha” yet, but more like a breathy “hehhhh!” or a sharp inhale one-syllable giggle sound). She especially likes when I get to “toes” and will coo along in rhythm with the “toes.”
Me: Head, shoulders knees and toes, knees and toes!
Allie: Oooh,…ooh, ooh!
Mr. W wants to video it one of these days.

I’ve advanced her last feeding to between 7:30p and 8p, but depending on the day, she may go to sleep anywhere between 8p and 10p. Last nite, for example, she was overtired from having crappy naps since the afternoon. My mom came over around noon as she usually does on Fridays, and Allie was already napping on the couch. My mom hovered over her and tried to move Allie’s hand away from her face, manipulate her pacifier, saying that Allie can’t breathe. Allie was breathing fine, I could see her nostrils perfectly and they weren’t not obstructed. I’m all about the priority being that Allie gets the maximum hours of undisturbed sleep. My mom is about something else. She sat right at Allie’s head, talked to me, and it roused Allie. Then I had to keep waving my mom’s hand away and saying, “She’s fine! Let her sleep!” Eventually Mom told me to go eat in the kitchen and that she’d take over watching Allie. Of course I heard Allie rousing within a couple of minutes and I saw my mom patting her back and messing with her hands and pacifier. The rest of the time was trying to get Allie to settle back down, and it didn’t really work. I’d given up trying to get my mom to leave Allie alone because her hands were quicker than mine and was constantly rearranging Allie’s hands and pacifier. At least I didn’t let her move Allie’s head cuz she said facing the same direction would make Allie’s neck sore. So Allie didn’t nap well. My mom eagerly offered to pick Allie up and hold her to sleep, and I told her no, once picked up, she’s not going to sleep anymore. Eventually, I had to admit defeat and just pick Allie up from where she was crying and struggling on the couch, her naptime over. She was in my mom’s happy arms after that.

For her next naptime yesterday, my mom wanted to soothe her to sleep so I let her, but mom has trouble following my directions. She had Allie up on her shoulder so I said we’ll then just put her down on her stomach on the couch again, since that was the way she was laying against my mom. She said okay, but then soon rearranged a drowsy Allie so that she was laying on her back in my mom’s arms. I said since she was laying back, we’ll put her in her crib on her back. That means I’d have to swaddle her. We walked up to Allie’s room, I set up the swaddle and asked my mom to set her down on it with her head above the fabric. Mom placed her too high, so I had to move her again, then in swaddling her, my mom asked me, “Why are you wrapping her up all tight?” I had to explain about Allie’s nocturnal jerks waking her up as she naps on her back, and my mom kept talking, so Allie was now totally awake. I gave up and said she’s not tired enough to put down yet. My mom eagerly plucked her up to resoothe her. I left them upstairs for a few minutes then returned to put Allie down. My mom refused and said Allie wasn’t asleep long enough yet. I eventually made my mom give her up, then I swaddled and Allie was put down on her back sleeping soundly within seconds. I asked if mom was going to stay there for awhile and she said yes, and I went downstairs. My mom followed soon after to tell me how well Allie was sleeping. I turned on the baby cam, checked email, then realized my mom had disappeared. I checked the cam and saw mom upstairs in Allie’s room again, hovering over her crib. I didn’t think anything of it until 10 minutes later, I heard Allie make a sound, clicked on the cam and saw my mom unswaddling Allie and picking her up. I went upstairs. “What are you doing?” I asked her.
“She woke up. She was trying to get out.”
“Babies always move in their sleep. You just leave her alone or give her the pacifier and she’ll go back to sleep,” I told my mom over Allie’s now loud crying. Poor Allie was so tired, she didn’t get a good enough nap and I know that now she wasn’t going to sleep because she was picked up and disturbed. My mom ignored me and kept singing to Allie, bouncing and walking her over her shoulder. I gave up and went downstairs. For the next 20-30 minutes I listened to Allie wail, and saw my mom walking around with her in the nursery. I was not going to be able to help Allie nap until after her grandma leaves, I knew. Hoping mom learned something, I left them alone until it was 4pm, the time my mom said she was going to leave. Then I went upstairs and tried to take Allie, telling my mom it was after 4. She ignored me and kept holding Allie, singing. I said, “Didn’t you want to leave at 4? You’re gonna hit traffic.”
“I always hit traffic when I leave anyway.”
I stood there awhile with them, then finally, my mom said, “It’s 4:15? So fast!” I took Allie and walked her to the front door. Allie stopped crying, finally, and was looking warily alert. “She’s happy now! Aww, now I don’t want to leave,” my mom said, opening the door. We waved goodbye to grandma, thanked her for visiting, and I went to feed Allie.

That evening, for the first time since I’ve had her napping down (which is about 3 days), Allie had one of her old bouts of evening fussiness. Mr. W wasn’t happy when I told him what had happened with all Allie’s messed up naps. He tried to soothe Allie into an early evening nap and even snapped at the stepdaughter twice when she went up to Allie, put her face level, and teased Allie. “Stop stimulating her! You guys don’t respect the baby’s naptimes cuz you don’t have to be around when she’s overtired and cranky!” The old “witching hour” luckily didn’t last an hour, and I fed her early and tried to put her down to bed early. Although she fell asleep easily while feeding, it took her about an hour to settle into a deep sleep for the night. I did have to do the pacifier thing. I had to do it again after her 2am feeding, too.

Today, we’re taking Allie to Diamond Bar for her 2nd weekend visit of grandma and grandpa’s house. Since we’re doing the traveling, I get to control when we go. I’m giving her two solid naps under my control before we go. She went down easily for her morning nap and slept 1.5 hours in her crib. Just as easily, she went down for her early afternoon nap and it’s been 1.5 hours already and she’s still solid, as just confirmed on the baby cam. This way, even if she misses her early evening nap, she won’t be that badly off.

Allie must’ve heard me cry uncle. And she must’ve felt bad, too, because she was a perfect angel yesterday. In the morning, she laughed and cooed along with me as we sang some songs while she sat like a big girl upright in her Boppy. Then she went down for a nap on her back in the crib for half an hour. Then she got up, ate, and sat like a big girl in the Boppy on our bed as I washed my face and got ready. She smiled at me, didn’t fuss at all. She recently found her hands, so she was busily sucking on her fists as she looked around. And THEN, she went down in her crib for half an hour on her back. Her nocturnal jerks kept waking her up, so I swaddled her after half an hour of constantly trying to pacifier her. After that, she slept for AN HOUR AND A HALF. For her afternoon nap, I managed to get her transferred from my shoulder to a sofa cushion and with the aid of patting her back and a pacifier, she fell back to sleep and napped there for another half hour. She only got 10 minutes of her next nap because Mr. W’s friends came to visit her. Despite that, she was lovely, smiling and cooing at them. I’d expected her to sleep on our way to dinner after Mr. W got home, but she stayed in her carseat wide awake, didn’t fuss at all as she usually does against the seat restraints. She also stayed wide awake and smiley in her carseat at dinner with us. She was SO good that Mr. W’s two friends offered to come babysit for us in the next few weeks or subsequent weekends so we could have some grownup time out. Way to go, Allie! Way to trick Auntie Yvonne and Auntie Yvette! She fell asleep at 6:30p in the carrier finally, and slept on the way home. I thought because she missed 2 afternoon naps, she’d want to go down for the night earlier, and fed her at 7:30p instead of after 8p. Nope, she stayed up and kicked around, and I had to do the pacifier thing with her whimpering every time it fell out until she finally fell asleep a little after 9pm. Weirdly, she had a nighttime feeding this time at 2:30am when she normally stays down till 4-6a, but I figure she had dinner early, too. She next woke up around 6:30a and we started our day with a 7am feeding so we’re on track.

Right now I got her to nap on her tummy on the couch, transferred tearlessly from my shoulder, sans pacifier. With all the getting ready noises and loud Christian music coming from the stepdaughter right now, I’ve had to keep running there to pat her back to sleep when she rouses, but she’s still down. I’ll have to load photos later when I get a chance, maybe this evening. I just need her to stay on this nap till 10a and she’ll be rested and in a good position for a 10a feeding, then 3 hours later a 1p feeding before we have to leave for Gymboree.

She may be on to a new phase, one with longer alertness, more playfulness, less crying. But I’ve jinxed us before by counting my chickens before they’re hatched.

BTW, was hoping to make new parent friends at Gymboree. Haven’t done that yet with the 2 times I’d gone, but the 2nd time I did see who I want to avoid. 2 women were talking about some other woman in the class. “The one who wears waaaaay too much makeup? On Saturdays.”
“Yeah.” Some more catty stuff I tuned out as I tended to putting Allie in her carrier.
*sarcastically* “I hope you’re not offended if I don’t invite them to [my baby’s] birthday party.”
“Ha. I’d be offended if you DO invite them, knowing how I feel about them.”
WTF. And these are 2 large frumpy women, too. Mr. W said it’s sour grapes for them.

*** added 2-2-12: the 2 ways that Allie naps, photos taken the day of the above post:

The Tearless Couch Set-Down

The In-Crib Back Swaddle

Went back to my parents’ home for the first time since Allie was born. Some relatives met us there yesterday. I brought Allie to meet Grace’s parents (5 houses up from my parents’, but they’re moving to NorCal soon). All the adults were charmed. She’s charming when she’s out. She smiles, coos, flaps her limbs for the audience. She collected lots of red envelopes, which made me feel guilty. She also napped on her tummy on my parents’ couch for 2.5 hours, then poopied afterwards as I fed her. She was great at her second Gymboree class today, too. She’s not like this at home except for the hour after she wakes up around 8am (during which she charms me with her smiles, singing along to my singing to her with coos).

Mornings are still hard and stressful. Naptimes are worse. I cry nearly every naptime as I can’t get her to stop crying and go to sleep for more than 3 minutes at a time. She’s taking longer and requiring more intervention to go to sleep at night and in her early morning feedings, too. Awareness, I suppose.

Right now Mr. W had put her to sleep on a cushion in the living room on her tummy and they’re napping together. I tried that tummy thing earlier this afternoon and failed and went nearly deaf in a ear as a consequence. I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to do anything. Even something I took for granted, breastfeeding, nearly put me to tears in two afternoon feedings as she pulled away after a few sucks and cried “leh.” I have milk, so I don’t know what’s wrong. I’m scared to do the frantic research I did with baby sleep, because that had messed me up so badly, put me in a tailspin, gave me more things to worry about, feel inadequate at accomplishing, confused me with more conflicting theories and tactics.

I’m looking forward to my first psych appointment on Thursday.

If I cried uncle, will Allie hear me?

I failed in getting Allie to nap in her crib this morning. She wailed and wailed, and I lost it. I was holding her in my arms sleeping up against my shoulder when Mr. W came back from his massage around 11:30a, and I refused to hand her over because I was afraid she’d wake up. She didn’t nap more than 30 mins or so at all her naps yesterday, and it took forever to put her down in her crib, and she also refused to go to sleep last nite and Mr. W ended up having to swaddle her to keep her from flinging her arms and legs about in her fits on her back, and he rocked and held her, and she didn’t fall asleep until more like 11:30p despite our maintenance of her bedtime “routine” at between 8-8:30p. I was just defeated this morning, and mouthed to him, “I can’t do this.” I felt like I was an utter failure at the one thing most important to me to get right — her sleeping schedule. Then I sobbed as he quickly took Allie from me and told me to go upstairs and take some time for myself. I cried but still came down to clean up the two spots of Dodo vomit (which thankfully was on tile this time). There’s just always stuff to do.

The afternoon started the day better; after a feeding we took her to San Juan Capistrano for a late lunch and stroll, and she didn’t fuss in the carseat the entire time. She smiled at me, spit up, and admired her dangling bugs hanging over her carseat. We ate at the Hummingbird Cafe (Greek) at the Capistrano train depot, and altho they didn’t give us the pita bread that was supposed to come with the Greek salad, or the chips that was supposed to come with Mr. W’s gyro, we didn’t care. I convinced myself that the worst that could realistically happen was that Allie would cry, and that’s not gonna kill her. Mr. W said this is the right perspective. But somehow at night when she’s not sleeping, we’re all tired, and Mr. W has to get up in a few hours for work and I can’t get her to stop screaming, it FEELS like the end of the world.

When we came home, she I let her nap on me since she so badly needed sleep from her crappy night sleep and naps yesterday. Mr. W took her from me and put her down on a sofa cushion after half an hour and she stayed asleep on her stomach (fully supervised by us). This happened TWICE, two naps, the first about 2 hours, the second this evening was an hour including the half hour she slept on me. Too bad we can’t place her on her tummy in her crib for night sleep.

After she woke from the evening nap, she was crabby and screamed. Mr. W gave her gripe water and after that, she tooted, calmed down, and he read a Dr. Seuss book to her on his iPad. She sat there in his arms quietly, sometimes cooing along (as she does when I sing “Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes” with her). Then I started my nighttime routine to put her to bed earlier. Unfortunately, I added a lavender baby oil massage to the routine and she was probably too hungry to tolerate that. She cried “leh” so I tried to dress her. The onesie shirt would NOT go on. She started screaming at the top of her lungs and for the first time since I had her, I got PISSED. I eff-worded all over the place and used it as an adjective, adverb, noun, however I could use it. Mr. W told me the baby oil made the clothes stick and I shouldn’t have altered my routine. Anyway, with a raging headache and now sweaty, I calmed down enough to feed her at 8. She burped each time easily, was sleepy, and when I put her down and exited, she was mildly awake. I expected her to cry and that I’d have to go in her room for another long night of pacifier-stuffing, but I wanted to take a break and wash my face, remove my contacts first. I didn’t hear her. Either I’d gone deaf, or…I peeked in the cam…she was ASLEEP. AT 8:30p. This was the earliest she’d gone to sleep for her nights, EVER. Even when I finished a feeding at 8:30p before, she fussed and kicked until 9:30p, earliest.

Thank you, God. Thank you, Allie. So I’m now having dinner standing up in the kitchen.