cindy's world

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. 🙁

Stepdaughter was outside hanging in the backyard patio with her computer yesterday late morning, and I said to her dad, “She seems pissed.”
“Yeah, she is,” he said. “She’ll get over it.”
“I don’t want her to ‘get over it,’ it doesn’t resolve anything and would probably lead to a lot of resentment. I’ll go talk to her and let her get it out.”
Despite Mr. W feeling that “getting over it” IS a resolution, I disagree, so I went outside with the baby and told the stepdaughter, “I get the sense that you’re pissed, so I want to give you the opportunity to air it with me.”
She jumped right in. She said she’s tried to be “the one positive happy influence in the house,” but the negativity is affecting her health. She feels like she’s a roommate living here, no worse, she corrected, like a tenant. She doesn’t feel like she’s part of a “family” and instead feels like she’s always on eggshells because she’s not allowed to do anything. She feels picked on because she wants to bring friends over, do things in the kitchen, watch TV, do laundry, and feels like she’s constantly being told not to. She said the laundry thing the other night was “the last straw” because she thought, ‘Great, I can’t even do laundry anymore?’ She said she hasn’t been around and yes she does come home late, but that’s because she doesn’t WANT to be here. She says the baby crying affects her, too, and she wakes up at night when she hears the baby, too, and doesn’t get uninterrupted sleep through the night.
I told her that I completely understand what she’s saying and how she feels, and that her feelings are valid, but life with a newborn has everyone on eggshells, not just her. I said no one has a problem with her cooking in the kitchen, watching TV, having friends over, or doing laundry, it’s just the HOURS she chooses to do them. If she’s doing all these things after 10pm, she knows the household is asleep and it takes an hour to put a baby down, and another hour to calm her down back into sleep if she is woken up by noise. Yes, hearing a baby cry and getting your sleep interrupted is hard, having to be quiet around a baby is hard, but that’s my life 24/7. I’m well aware of how hard that is. But when she’s out all day and then does laundry cuz she absolutely has to at 10:30pm, it makes me wonder if someone sprung on her at 9:30p that she has to perform in uniform the next morning, so that she had to rush back home and wash her uniform really quickly at 10:30p.
She said that she knew she procrastinated on the washing of her uniform, which is why she didn’t argue with me, she just apologized. But even so, she doesn’t like the new lifestyle we’re imposing on her and again, she feels like she’s being targeted for criticism. She feels like she can’t do anything without someone telling her she’s too loud because the baby’s sleeping. (The problem is that if she chooses to only come home after 10:15p nightly, then just about everything IS too loud for that hour.) She says she’s a college student and she WANTS to have her friends over and she WANTS to be able to watch TV or whatever late (she sold the TV in her room for Haiti money so she watches now in the living room). Last night, for example, she had her new bf over from 10p-12a. He’s super-good about staying quiet, tho, so I never heard them. So basically, she’s resentful that she has to live in a household where the lifestyle has changed to accommodate a newborn, and she doesn’t want to change her lifestyle to make it suitable to what’s going on in the house.
She said she’s already talked to her mom and wants to move in with her mom.
I asked if her mom was upset. She said not at all, her mom said that this is just how life is with new parents of a new baby. Her mom thinks the stepdaughter will just “get over it” and encouraged her not to move out, but said that if she wanted to go stay with her mom for a week, that she could do that. So the stepdaughter is going to move in with her mom for a week at some point this week as a “trial” to see if it would work for her, “and then maybe you guys can get a live-in nanny or something.”
I told her that this is up to her and she can do whatever she wants, but that it was important for her to understand that we’re not kicking her out. She nodded. I told her I need her to also know that I don’t think badly of her, she’s not a bad person and even earlier yesterday I’ve thought about how lucky I am that she is a wonderful person. I acknowledged that she hasn’t changed or done anything differently from before the baby, but I understand what she’s saying and I agree that that her lifestyle is just not compatible with the necessarily changed lifestyle in the house right now and yes, it’s causing everyone to get a little resentful. I said that yes, a live-in nanny would be great, but not at the expense of losing her. I meant that as in, losing a relationship with her, not as in I’m not letting her move out, I hope she understood that. I got teary-eyed and she reached out for my hand. Then she said she loved me and I said I loved her, too.

After that, she seemed to come around. She probably felt good she got the communication out. She said she and the bf (who came over w/o her telling me, at least, but I left it alone at that point) were walking to Subway, would we like anything? Mr. W and I both declined, and they left in good spirits, returned in good spirits, even watched a little of the Superbowl with Mr. W. Then the bf left for a bit, then came back later as I found out the next morning (that’s how quiet he is!).

I asked her later in the evening, after I put the baby down, when she was planning to go to her mom’s. She said maybe tomorrow (today). I said this is probably a great week to go because the baby’s sick. Allie definitely has the sniffles, and I’ve been using the bulb aspirator on her. (Thankfully, she doesn’t appear to mind being “deboogerized” much. She usually smiles after I suction.) I’d meant that the baby would probably be fussy from being uncomfortable, but the stepdaughter took it as it’s a great time to avoid catching something herself. I’m not sure if she still wants to move out, but I’m torn between hoping to have a room free for the possibility of a live-in, getting some quiet, and having a spare room again, vs. having a damaged or at least less close relationship with her. Mr. W said it wasn’t worth worrying about because it’s not my decision anyway. When a 21 yr old adult decides she can’t tolerate living in a house with a newborn, she gets to leave. It’s not her baby, after all.

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.

I thought I oughta capture Allie’s voice so she’d know what she used to sound like when she was a couple months old. So here’s her first video, taken upon Allie’s first awakening on January 26.

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.

I had my appointment with the Psychiatry Dept this morning. Mr. W stayed home with Allie after he put her to nap on the couch.

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.

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.