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.

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.

I filled out a 4-page questionnaire and a guy named Ben came and got me, and we talked in his office. He basically validated all of my feelings, didn’t think they were out of line or crazy. He doesn’t think I have actual clinical OCD, altho he mentioned something called “mother’s OCD” or something like that, which is when new moms suddenly go on a compulsive need to tidy up and clean house constantly, or become hyper-vigilant about cleanliness in general, especially around or regarding their child. He didn’t even think an episode I had last nite, which Mr. W felt was very OCD, was anything other than “you were just pissed.” (Allie had another odd 2am feeding, and after I fed her, I realized the stepdaughter had left the light on downstairs when she went to bed so I had to go down and turn it off. Then I saw a wadded up blanket she’d left on the couch. That got me in a cyclical angry thought about all the stuff she’d left laying around in the past couple of weeks, how many things I’d had to put away for her after leaving them there for 3 days to give her a chance to clean them up herself, and because we’d talked to her about her need to pick up after herself and because she had agreed and understood and then talked about how she goes to her new bf’s place and cleans up after him and his roommates all the time, and because she’d offered before to “help out more” around our house and didn’t, I was FUMING. I kept thinking of how she sleeps in every morning and can’t even take 5 seconds to put her stuff away from the common areas and I wake up at 4a and have to do it one-handedly while holding an infant, and the conversation I WANT to have with her regarding this. Allie had rolled over after her feeding and miraculously went out like a light within a minute or two, but I laid in bed unable to take advantage of it for 3+ hours. Mr. W woke up and asked what the problem was, and I unloaded. He patted me and gently said this is stuff I need to tell the therapist in the morning, that I’m way too upset about stuff that’s way too insignificant, but I got worse and worse until I was sobbing. He got up and tidied up downstairs in the wee hours despite my protest and I was left in the dark alone with my guilt, tears, and an iPad showing the solidly sleeping form of Allie.) Ben said the stepkidlet acts in a way that could be considered disrespectful to the household and that she’s simply unaware of how to be more considerate in a home with a newborn. He said I can simply talk to her and let her in on how I feel about having to pick up after her, or have her dad talk to her. (When I returned home, turned out Mr. W had already talked to her in my absence, which is great cuz I don’t want to bring up a freakin blanket and some shoes and seasoning and fork like it’s the end of the world, despite how dramatically I reacted to it.) As for the crying, inability to make decisions or project forward into the future, inability to feel bonded to Allie or “enjoy” her, walking on eggshells around the baby, he said it’s normal hormonal stuff with “baby brain.” Re my guilt about ruining Mr. W’s life, he said it’s Mr. W’s baby, too, and that when Mr. W offers help, to let him help and take the baby and to allow the father the opportunity to bond with his child. (Yes, Flip Flop Girl had already said as much in a comment before.) Even if Mr. W doesn’t offer to help, it’s okay to ask for his help so that I could take a shower or use the restroom or something. He said there’s no guilt in that. The only time I should feel guilt is when I deliberately hurt or plan to hurt someone, myself or the baby, which is not the case here. He said I’m not giving myself credit for the things I’m doing well with the baby, and that nothing I do or feel this first year is my “fault.”

I didn’t expect someone to justify all of my feelings and reactions. It made me feel like I’d wasted my time there.

And in the end, he referred me to a female therapist he thought would be a good fit for me to talk to and made me an appointment on Valentine’s Day. I was hesitant because I didn’t have baby care and didn’t want Mr. W to take another day off for my appointment. Ben said if I can’t find baby care, to take her along. I was concerned it would be disruptive to her routine. He got quiet. I asked if he felt that it was important or beneficial to me and my baby’s care to go to therapy. He said he really did, so I finally agreed. My mom has offered to take a day off to care for Allie, and I’d accepted. (“There’s nothing a grandparent can do that would permanently affect an infant,” he said regarding my concern she may not do what I would do when caring for Allie.)

On my way out, I asked if there’s any way to document this for work. He said sure, the therapist he put me with for the next appointment can set all that up, refer me to a psychiatrist who could do an psychological evaluation on me, and then set me up for an extra month off on disability. So there are more hoops to jump through, and now I was more confused. I need to be referred by the next person to a psychiatrist? Then who is Ben? Who’s the next person? How many more therapy sessions would I need to sit through to get something to show work so that I could use paid sick days and take that additional stressor off my plate?

Just now I checked Kaiser’s website for my past-visit information. It says Ben is a MFT. What’s that? Mother-effing trainee? I didn’t mean that, he was very nice. And it says my diagnosis is “Adjustment disorder with mixed anxiety and depressed.” Can I just print that out and fax that to work? Cuz I’m not ENJOYing feeling like this, as effective as it is in dropping 40 lbs in 2 months.

P.S. As I was finishing the post, the stepdaughter came back into the house through the garage, went straight to the restroom then her room, closed the door behind her, and in half an hour or so left again through the garage. Even tho she could see me at the computer, she didn’t come by or say a word. I’m feeling guilty like she’s upset at me for the talk she had with her dad this morning, but that’s ridiculous because I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m going to tell myself that if she’s offended that I’m unhappy picking up after her, then that’s not my problem. I still folded her towels from the laundry and placed them on her chair in her bedroom.

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

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?

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.

Allie seems to have some trouble settling into sleep. She kicks around and sucks on her fists for awhile first. It used to be a minute or two; now it seems like half an hour. Even after her middle-of-the-night feedings which thankfully is only one during early morning (between 4 and 6am), she doesn’t go right back to sleep anymore. It takes her 10 minutes or more during which I watch her anxiously as I pump behind the feeding. This morning, I had to go back in mid-pumping and feed her on the other side because she started fretting after being put down despite not being awake enough to take the other side the first go-round. But she did have her last feeding last night at 8:20p-ish, fell asleep finally around 9:30p, then didn’t wake for her next feeding until 5:45a-ish. Sounds like a good night of sleep, but I had insomnia. Mr. W was snoring next to me, the cat was asleep, the baby was asleep, and I laid there counting down the hours I had left to sleep before her next waking. I wondered about herbal teas and whether they stained teeth like regular tea. I wrote haikus in my head looking at her tummy going up and down on the baby monitor. Then at 10:45p, the stepdaughter came home. She has a habit now of coming in by opening the garage door which is right under the baby’s room even tho she doesn’t park in the garage, so it makes me jump and anxious to see if the garage opening and closing woke the baby up (it usually doesn’t unless the door between the garage and house slams). The garage door didn’t seem to wake Allie up, but the conversation the stepkidlet held on her cell phone in a normal [daytime] volume of voice as she walked in the house, followed by the bathroom and bedroom doors closing downstairs, did. The baby fell right back to sleep but I was laying there stuck listening to the conversation in the dark downstairs about some discussion held about drugs as the stepkidlet walked around the kitchen talking. As soon as she went back into her room and closed the door, her voice was muffled enough for me to finally fall asleep. I wish we had more carpeting downstairs for noise control. *sigh*

Mr. W suggested that maybe now that Allie’s sleeping better and longer through the night, I’m more rested so I’m less tired. Maybe. But I still took a long time to fall back asleep after Mr. W got up at 4am, since I still expected the baby to be up at that time. She wasn’t. So I laid there listening to his kitchen noises, occasionally checking the baby monitor. She slept through it all, it seemed. She usually sleeps through Dodo’s yowling now. (Not meowing, the loud echoing deep “owwwl” he does repeatedly right outside her door after he eats. I still don’t know why he does that.) I’ve been able to cut the yowling down by turning on my cell phone in the dark and flashing it in his direction. It distracts him and makes him aware there’s someone there so he stops the howls. I finally fell asleep after Mr. W left the house, but had nightmares of showering at my old bathroom at my parents’ house, knowing I was alone, and noticing suddenly that a darkness was creeping over the bathroom. The door to the bathroom was opening, and I thought quickly for a rational reason like the cat, but I knew Dodo wasn’t at that house. I freaked out and tried to scream. Then I woke up, saw it was past 5:15am, checked the baby on the monitor, saw she was well asleep still. And then I worried that she was sleeping TOO long and would throw off her schedule. I’m a headcase.

“Allie is practicing disco-dancing positions in her sleep. My research has found that babies 3-4 months begin to need earlier bedtimes (which we’ve seen because her fussy times get earlier at night) & begin to develop a naptime between 9-10am. 4-6 month old babies begin showing a regular naptime in the afternoon also, between 12-2p. The last couple days, I’ve noticed Allie yawning around 10a & I’ve put her to nap in her crib. She wakes from that nap in less than an hour, but with the pacifier, she can be convinced to sleep until about noon, which of when I feed her again. She starts getting fussy & yawning again around 2p, so I put her down for her nap again, also in her crib. Right now is the 2pm nap. She goes down pretty easily, but is still noise-sensitive. Pacifier helps. There may be another short nap later in the evening, according to the book about child sleep I’m reading, but it’s more unpredictable. I’m going to try putting allie to sleep earlier at night to see if her night fussing is due to being over-tired, even though the book says to expect up to 2 night feedings with the earlier bedtime, the first 4-6 hrs after feeding (betw midnight & 2a, which had happened brogue when I put her down early) & the 2nd about 4a-6a (her usual middle-of-the-night feeding time). I’m hoping she will still continue to skip the first of these 2 feedings. The payoff is that at around 6 months, she should be sleeping 12 hrs thru the night, from 6p-6a.”

Thank you to our neighbor who recommended the book, saying our entire block used it on their kids and it was life-changing for all of them.

I haven’t been to an adult gym since the 2nd trimester of my pregnancy, so it’s only right I swap something I’m not using for something that’s teaching me what I don’t know how to do (interact with age-appropriate education with Allie). Since it’s month-to-month membership with no cancellation penalty, it gives me something to do three days a week until I get back to work.

Mr. W suggests daily that I quit work forthwith. It’s too unsettling to consider at this point. I get the logic points, that most of my salary will go toward paying someone else to watch the baby, and who better but a parent to watch her own baby? But work is more than just an exchange of money for me. It’s social, I still feel a sense of obligation to my staff, and it has a huge thing to do with my sense of self-worth. I’ve been financially independent since very early on and I am loathe to give up that comfort. Plus, full-time childcare is temporary until Allie goes to school; quitting my job in this economy is permanent.