Giving up

There was a moment, when W was maybe 36 hours old, when I realised I had to stop waiting for sleep. Up until then, any time in my life where I'd been tired, sleep was just a wait away. True deep long uninterrupted sleep. I sat in the hospital room and felt this dawning realisation seep into me. He was ours. We had to take him home. Sleep as I knew it was a thing of the past.

Later, there was a moment when Jeremy left the house - to go to work or to see friends or maybe just to take the trash out - but I understood with a searing jealousy that when he leaves the house he really leaves. That he's actually able to just walk out of the house without a care. That his autonomy and independence is still wholly intact. I missed being solitary singular Me with an acuteness that felt physical. And I kind of hated my husband a little. 

At four or five months I had to accept that W was not a baby who suddenly slept through the night. People had told me it would change at four months - that it would get better - and I believed them. I was stupid. So we started co-sleeping because it was the only way I could get enough sleep to function during the day. And that is how we live now. 

I haven't eaten cheese since May. If you know me, you know that I alone do not have the will power to forgo cheese (or butter or cream or cake or curry or chocolate or ice-cream) for 24 hours. But W has a dairy sensitivity. I'm thinner than I've ever been, which is the one and only upside and I think I prefer eating cheese and having an arse. 

I've never been super well-kempt. But I'm down to maybe two showers a week and I let Jeremy cut my hair. And if you can't see the baby sick on my jumper, it was never there.

New mum hair

Nothing to fear but fear (and Donald Trump)

I have always been a worrier. I self diagnose myself with at least one fatal disease a week. I see peril wherever I go and have to get Jeremy to watch me unplug the iron because there's no way I'll believe my own memory. Sometimes thinking about the future and all its infinite unknowns gives me vertigo and I have to breathe myself back into the present.

Having a baby has not helped.

Here are a few things I am now afraid of (and a few that I've always been afraid of):

Walls
Gravity
Donald Trump
Stairs
People who think Donald Trump should be a presidential candidate
Lonely sad men with access to guns
Electricity
Blind cords
People who are more afraid of terrorists than the lonely sad men
Elmo
Isolationism
NRA
Furniture
ISIS
Grapes
Fox News
Water
Compassion Fatigue
Cars
People who get their news from Fox News
Ben Carson
People who think Ben Carson should be a presidential candidate
Flying

With most of these things, I swallow down my terror and smile. I make sure there are no fatal hazards around and let him explore the world in the presence of walls and gravity. When we fly and it's turbulent and I imagine us all plunging to our deaths, I don't let him see my fear. I don't want him to be afraid of flying, or of grapes or of water. Or even of Elmo, although that high pitched third person thing is crazy creepy. I want W to toddle out into the world and to feel safe and confident doing so.

I'm perfectly fine with him being terrified of Trump though. That's just common sense.

Wholemeal Paper

W made a beeline across the kitchen floor. I looked to see what he was aiming for (he only moves that fast when it's something illegal) and saw I'd left a brown paper Trader Joe's bag in the corner. He's got a bit of a thing for paper. Junk mail is his favourite - the glossy finish perhaps, or maybe he likes bargains. He pretends he's just flapping it around, inspecting the artwork, and then I spend the next five minutes trying to fish out a wad of paper from his cheek while avoiding losing a finger to those new teeth we were so excited about.

So the approaching fate of this brown paper Trader Joe's bag was fairly obvious. However my first thought was not that I should move the bag he was about to gum into chokeable mush, but instead that 'brown paper has to be better for him than white...'

Human Pacifier

Our next child, assuming we have a next child, is going to have a pacifier thrust upon them pretty much the second they emerge (that seems too gentle a word... erupt? eject?) and henceforth will have it offered to them on every possible occasion.

They cry? Pacifier.

They breathe? Pacifier.

Yes it will become a sleep crutch and yes we'll probably curse the thing once it's decided that 'we don't use pacifiers during the day' but that's OK.

Our next child is going to love their pacifier.

Our firstborn - love of my life, dear of my heart, loves his pacifier too. But his pacifier has legs, a head and a Master's degree in International Relations. The next child's pacifier is going to be a lot less educated and a lot more bought from Babies-R-Us.

Accidental Parenting

I didn't go into this with any particular parenting philosophy. I knew I wanted to breastfeed and that I didn't want to do 'Cry It Out' and that was it. I figured we'd figure it out as we went along. I did not think that at 9 months I'd be co sleeping with my baby on a futon mattress on the floor in his room, or that his nap times would be spent with me sitting close by, ready to stick a boob in his mouth when he stirs.

And yet...

Sleep baby sleep

I've come to the conclusion, again, that the internet is a bad bad thing sent only to mess with the minds of new mums. On it, you can find all the answers. Like actually ALL the answers, so that you come away with no answer at all - just a sense of fear and paralysis that clearly you're doing it wrong because every way is wrong as far as someone on the internet is concerned. I know this. I've been here before. I've read the books and blogs and forums. I've memorized theories, strategies, philosophies. I've realised that everything contradicts everything else. I've put it aside, understood that babies are unpredictable and everything is a phase and I should just trust my gut. And then I've had two weeks of being woken up every two hours and have returned once again to the fountain of all information.

This week I decided to attempt putting him down to sleep semi awake - because the internet told me to. W had other ideas though. He's almost certainly a mind reader. And when I came to put him down without our usual count and rock and repeat dance, as I prepared to stay there with him singing and stroking but not rocking or nursing, he just stayed asleep. I put him in his crib, his eyes flickered open, closed, he gave a groan, rolled over onto his stomach and stayed asleep some more. Six hours more. And then after feeding, he did the same thing with the staying asleep for six more hours. And then he did it again last night. It's not officially sleeping through the night, but who the heck cares. He's in the 90th percentile for height and weight. If I was in the 90th percentile for height and weight I think I'd want a midnight snack.

I'm not counting any sheep just yet. I still haven't forgiven myself for uttering the words 'I think we've cracked the sleep thing' about 4 months ago (stupid woman). I am feeling slightly more alive for the first time in a long time.

Take that, internet. (she says as she joins the ranks of sleep stories and opinions on the internet).

It's all a phase

It's a phase is my solace and my sorrow. My mantra and my mourning.

He wakes up, I stumble blearily into his room and nurse him to sleep again, counting to 50 until I stand up and then rock him some more, counting again for no real reason other than it's what I do now. I ease him down into his crib, pausing if he resists, ready to rock again. Slowly, slowly, praying and begging for this to work, I rest him down and wait. He cries. I resist the urge to scream and stamp and instead pick up and soothe and repeat again. And again. And again. Then I give up and bring him into my bed, nurse him to sleep beside me and we both sleep - him more comfortably than me.

It's a phase. (It better bloody be a phase)

He wriggles awake and looks around, finding my face and smiles the sweetest smile, looking up at me and gazing in wonder as I gaze in wonder down. It's 6am but that face, that smile, that look.

It's a phase.

He rolls back to front and yells. He doesn't like to be on his front and even though he can roll the other way, he doesn't seem to have figured out that it's the solution to his problem. Or that rolling over in the first place isn't the best idea. We roll him back, he rolls again.

It's a phase.

We play peekaboo except just hiding behind our hands isn't enough - we have to hide behind couches and jump up like a jack-in-the-box. He laughs, gurgles, cackles. We hide and jump, hide and jump - anything for that laugh.

It's a phase.

He's half a year old now. Half a year of him and life without him seems an impossibility. My heart aches when I hear of mothers losing children - I can't get as far as actually imagining it, it's too deep and dark. That my own mum lost two sons makes my soul weep for her; makes the fact that she continued living and provided us a home full of laughter and fun and security and love actually incredible. Each phase of W seems to last a lifetime and pass in a flashing moment. Naps are too short, nights are too long, except if I sleep in which case they're too short. The hour before Jeremy gets home is the longest of the whole day. It's all a strange combination of exhaustion, joy, boredom, delight and wonder. I wouldn't change a thing (except the sleep bit).