Blog Update: Whoosh
Whoosh
Two and a half weeks since I last posted, and I hardly remember where we were then. It's amazing how life changes so imperceptibly slowly with a baby, until you look back only a few weeks, and things seem so different.
The weekend before last, Jason's parents came up to visit. I joked with him that, really, the purpose of the visit was for grandma to spend time with Daphne, and while I'm sure that she would have liked more time to spend with her, that's what happened. Jason and I took advantage of the help and had an actual date! Not only do we not do the whole "date" thing all that much, we hadn't gone out in over three months, given the whole baby thing. Still, we're predictable, and there was little question what we were going to do - sushi and a movie. (Really, in the reverse order, which was perfect, because the theater wasn't packed at all.) We enjoyed Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and then further enjoyed a larger quantity of sushi than I can remember eating. Nom!
Daphne did well with the visit, not yet showing signs of separation anxiety, but I know it's coming. We were home so much that the grandparents didn't really have to worry about trying to get her to sleep, but were able to enjoy her being awake. I know Daphne loved the attention, and enjoyed getting to dance with grandpa, though it may be a few years before she's really picking up the west coast swing steps.
At the same time that they were here, Daphne was hitting the second half of her growth spurt. So far, she has a distinct growth spurt pattern - the first signs are that she starts mauling my nipples badly again. It rather worried me at first, making me fearful of a nursing regression that would head us back on the path of more pumping when it's become obvious that my boobs do not respond to the pump nearly as well as to her. But we rode it out, and after five or six days of the pain, she was back to her usual, tolerable, feeding. I happened to have scheduled a visit to Lauren, the craniosacral therapist, that fell during this growth spurt, and she noted something that I am suspicious of causing her feeding regressions - she doesn't grow symmetrically. (That is, specifically in her case, the right and left sides of her head weren't caught up to each other at the same size yet.) It makes sense that we wouldn't grow exactly the same on both sides even if we end up about the same. But I think it means for her that she goes through a period of essentially relearning how to use her new size and shape during a growth spurt. If you've ever tried walking again after having a cast on a foot for six weeks, you can understand how we sometimes have to relearn something we already "know" how to do.
The growth spurt has certainly ushered in the "four month wakeful period", where she is far more interested in what's going on in the world than eating or sleeping. This has had the net effect of making nursing a pain in the butt. (Figuratively, anyway. Literally, it's a pain in the boob.) She's too interested in looking around at anything bright and shiny, or noisy, or new, or not new, or that just exists. So, the boob gets pulled around and she does a little less actual eating. She makes up for this by not going "to bed" until 11pm or so, and then waking up every three to four hours to eat a real meal. I understand this is totally normal, and given that she's making at night for what she's not eating during the day, I have no interest in trying to "sleep train" her to sleep through the night, but I look forward to her at least getting back to giving me something closer to five hours of sleep at a time, and to maybe going to bed sometime between 9pm and 10pm. (I have a theory, that Jason is probably a little leery to test out, that she will go to sleep for the night better if BOTH of us are in bed. Oh, he might have to come to bed before midnight now! :P)
Monday, Daphne had her first babysitter. Tracy is going to watch Daphne approximately once a week to help me get to the yoga classes I need to take for my next teacher training session. This Monday was a dry run, with me not yet going to a yoga class, and being around the first half of the time, and not very far away doing a bit of shopping the second half. Fortunately, Daphne ate just before Tracy arrived, so that was convenient. As Tracy and I talked about Daphne's routines and I showed her around (the cloth diapers are always a tough one), Daphne got to know Tracy and generally charm her way into Tracy's good graces.
As, expected, about an hour after she ate, Daphne was showing signs for a nap, so I showed Tracy how we put Daphne down, but noted that if she comes up with something that works better for the two of them, that's totally fine! So she gave it a go, and I was surprised when she came out of the bedroom relatively quickly (10, 15 minutes?), and not so surprised when Daphne started crying 15 minutes later. Fortunately, this gave the prompting to talk about whether or not we're doing "cry it out" (which we're not), and whether to go in to her. (I take a minute or two to gauge her cry. 10% of the time, it's a single vocalization or two before going back to sleep, and I try not to disturb her for those. The rest of the time, it's that she wants someone with her, and I am happy to do so. (I'm not knocking cry it out - if it works for you, great. I'm opting to parent a different way, and, while it is fairly demanding on my time, it is generally working for us.)
I did my best "back-off mommy" attempts, and let Tracy handle it. She ended up getting her up, which sometimes happens despite the best efforts, so it wasn't surprising when I got home from the errands I was running that, three hours after first waking up, she was overtired and now just getting hungry. It was the first time in quite a while that I had heard a really intense cry from Daphne, and I think she had gotten so overtired and hungry that she didn't know what to do with herself. Fortunately, that's exactly what boobs are for.
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="210" caption="Mr. Wuffles (AKA Patch, from Gund)"]
[/caption] In general news, she is having a great time playing with a few toys she has around. She particularly enjoys Mr. Wuffles, the toy links that Jen got her, and her O'ball. But her hands are a pretty fun toy too. She is learning more about her feet, and can touch them when she sits and leans over. She often tilts over in that position too, but I have no idea what that's teaching her, other than gravity. She's started doing what I think of as babbling. She has no consonants yet, but will string together, for at least a full minute, whatever sounds she can make, complete with varied intonation, just like she's trying to tell you a story. It is quite cute. She has also decided that, though she can't do it on her own yet, sitting is so last month, so whenever you try to pull her to a sitting position, she plants her heels and tries to stand up instead. She can hold virtually all of her weight on her legs, though she does a whole lot of booty shaking in the process.
Two and a half weeks since I last posted, and I hardly remember where we were then. It's amazing how life changes so imperceptibly slowly with a baby, until you look back only a few weeks, and things seem so different.
The weekend before last, Jason's parents came up to visit. I joked with him that, really, the purpose of the visit was for grandma to spend time with Daphne, and while I'm sure that she would have liked more time to spend with her, that's what happened. Jason and I took advantage of the help and had an actual date! Not only do we not do the whole "date" thing all that much, we hadn't gone out in over three months, given the whole baby thing. Still, we're predictable, and there was little question what we were going to do - sushi and a movie. (Really, in the reverse order, which was perfect, because the theater wasn't packed at all.) We enjoyed Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and then further enjoyed a larger quantity of sushi than I can remember eating. Nom!
Daphne did well with the visit, not yet showing signs of separation anxiety, but I know it's coming. We were home so much that the grandparents didn't really have to worry about trying to get her to sleep, but were able to enjoy her being awake. I know Daphne loved the attention, and enjoyed getting to dance with grandpa, though it may be a few years before she's really picking up the west coast swing steps.
At the same time that they were here, Daphne was hitting the second half of her growth spurt. So far, she has a distinct growth spurt pattern - the first signs are that she starts mauling my nipples badly again. It rather worried me at first, making me fearful of a nursing regression that would head us back on the path of more pumping when it's become obvious that my boobs do not respond to the pump nearly as well as to her. But we rode it out, and after five or six days of the pain, she was back to her usual, tolerable, feeding. I happened to have scheduled a visit to Lauren, the craniosacral therapist, that fell during this growth spurt, and she noted something that I am suspicious of causing her feeding regressions - she doesn't grow symmetrically. (That is, specifically in her case, the right and left sides of her head weren't caught up to each other at the same size yet.) It makes sense that we wouldn't grow exactly the same on both sides even if we end up about the same. But I think it means for her that she goes through a period of essentially relearning how to use her new size and shape during a growth spurt. If you've ever tried walking again after having a cast on a foot for six weeks, you can understand how we sometimes have to relearn something we already "know" how to do.
The growth spurt has certainly ushered in the "four month wakeful period", where she is far more interested in what's going on in the world than eating or sleeping. This has had the net effect of making nursing a pain in the butt. (Figuratively, anyway. Literally, it's a pain in the boob.) She's too interested in looking around at anything bright and shiny, or noisy, or new, or not new, or that just exists. So, the boob gets pulled around and she does a little less actual eating. She makes up for this by not going "to bed" until 11pm or so, and then waking up every three to four hours to eat a real meal. I understand this is totally normal, and given that she's making at night for what she's not eating during the day, I have no interest in trying to "sleep train" her to sleep through the night, but I look forward to her at least getting back to giving me something closer to five hours of sleep at a time, and to maybe going to bed sometime between 9pm and 10pm. (I have a theory, that Jason is probably a little leery to test out, that she will go to sleep for the night better if BOTH of us are in bed. Oh, he might have to come to bed before midnight now! :P)
Monday, Daphne had her first babysitter. Tracy is going to watch Daphne approximately once a week to help me get to the yoga classes I need to take for my next teacher training session. This Monday was a dry run, with me not yet going to a yoga class, and being around the first half of the time, and not very far away doing a bit of shopping the second half. Fortunately, Daphne ate just before Tracy arrived, so that was convenient. As Tracy and I talked about Daphne's routines and I showed her around (the cloth diapers are always a tough one), Daphne got to know Tracy and generally charm her way into Tracy's good graces.
As, expected, about an hour after she ate, Daphne was showing signs for a nap, so I showed Tracy how we put Daphne down, but noted that if she comes up with something that works better for the two of them, that's totally fine! So she gave it a go, and I was surprised when she came out of the bedroom relatively quickly (10, 15 minutes?), and not so surprised when Daphne started crying 15 minutes later. Fortunately, this gave the prompting to talk about whether or not we're doing "cry it out" (which we're not), and whether to go in to her. (I take a minute or two to gauge her cry. 10% of the time, it's a single vocalization or two before going back to sleep, and I try not to disturb her for those. The rest of the time, it's that she wants someone with her, and I am happy to do so. (I'm not knocking cry it out - if it works for you, great. I'm opting to parent a different way, and, while it is fairly demanding on my time, it is generally working for us.)
I did my best "back-off mommy" attempts, and let Tracy handle it. She ended up getting her up, which sometimes happens despite the best efforts, so it wasn't surprising when I got home from the errands I was running that, three hours after first waking up, she was overtired and now just getting hungry. It was the first time in quite a while that I had heard a really intense cry from Daphne, and I think she had gotten so overtired and hungry that she didn't know what to do with herself. Fortunately, that's exactly what boobs are for.
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="210" caption="Mr. Wuffles (AKA Patch, from Gund)"]
[/caption] In general news, she is having a great time playing with a few toys she has around. She particularly enjoys Mr. Wuffles, the toy links that Jen got her, and her O'ball. But her hands are a pretty fun toy too. She is learning more about her feet, and can touch them when she sits and leans over. She often tilts over in that position too, but I have no idea what that's teaching her, other than gravity. She's started doing what I think of as babbling. She has no consonants yet, but will string together, for at least a full minute, whatever sounds she can make, complete with varied intonation, just like she's trying to tell you a story. It is quite cute. She has also decided that, though she can't do it on her own yet, sitting is so last month, so whenever you try to pull her to a sitting position, she plants her heels and tries to stand up instead. She can hold virtually all of her weight on her legs, though she does a whole lot of booty shaking in the process.