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).

Breastfeeding

(W is one week shy of six months. I find the days have so much time within them. Sometimes way too much time within them. And yet no time at all to actually do anything. Babies are like black holes for Time [and energy and clean clothes]. That's my reason for not blogging.)

Ever since I emerged from the delirious wondrous joyous hellish madness of the first 2 weeks of W I've been meaning to write about Breastfeeding. I feel like I owe it to all the women out there who may one day attempt this insane task, although they probably won't hear me so it's probably pointless, but I'm going to try anyway.

They say Breastfeeding is hard at first.

They need to learn to use their words better.

Breastfeeding is not hard at first. Breastfeeding is hell at first. It is a crazed obsessive compulsion. It would be hard if, say, you'd had a decent amount of sleep and could move about without cringing and wincing. Or if the baby, instead of screaming like the world is ending and will end very soon if he does not get fed immediately, simply asked politely for some more food please mummy (seriously - can we teach babies to talk already, like, in the womb??). It would be hard if the world around you was cool and relaxed about the whole thing and wasn't weighing the baby every 5 seconds to see if he's lost weight and wasn't telling you about all the benefits of breastfeeding, from lower likelihood of allergies to bonding to decreased tendency towards psychopathy (I made that last one up). Nope, Breastfeeding isn't hard at first. Hard is not the word.

Here are the bullet pointed 'high'lights of my breastfeeding journey. If you've already done this particular path, I'm sure it's entirely different to yours and exactly the same.

Here is what I remember:

• After approximately 48 hours of no sleep, of which 24 hours had been spent connected to machines and at least 12 in labor with 1 hour of pushing, a couple friendly neighbourhood lactation consultants stopped by to help me help him latch. They showed me how to hold his body with one hand, his head with another, my boob with my third hand and to help open his mouth with my fourth while also squeezing things a little to encourage the milk to flow. Instead of reminding them that I was one of those defective humans with only two hands, I smiled and nodded and fell apart when they left the room. 

• We brought W home and embarked on figuring out feeding him without all the tips and advice and chance drop ins of lactation consultants. It started to work. Sometimes. And on the times when it did work I felt like the cleverest most highly developed human being on the planet. 

• Our pediatrician made her standard house call and told us he was jaundiced and we needed to supplement with formula until my milk came in. 

• We did as we were told and then my milk took forever to come in. 

• W then decided bottle feeding was way easier than feeding from the crying woman with only two hands. 

• Sleep deprivation and hormones and goodness knows what else made me feel like if I couldn't breastfeed then all hope was lost for ever more. He was crying for food every 2 hours or more and every time I tried to feed him he just cried more. Then I cried. More. 

• I said the words 'lactation consultant' about 20,000 times a day. My buddy Henny sent me fenugreek tea by the busload. I drank all the tea. 

• I had to remind myself every five seconds that we were oh so lucky that he was healthy. That after all our fears with the genetic stuff he was fine. I had to remind myself that it was only day three, day four, day five. And that for flip sake there are other ways to feed the child and he was still gonna be OK. Get it to-flipping-gether woman. Etc etc

• The world almost ended

• My mum arrived

• We summoned the bravery to quit formula and went cold turkey for two days. I sat on the couch, more or less shirtless, and people waited on me while I breastfed for approximately 48 hours. By the end of it he wasn't screaming quite as much and was latching more than he wasn't. And my flipping milk showed up. 

It didn't all come together completely then, but that was the turning point I think. I wish I could tell me in those early days to take a breath. That there are benefits to bottle feeding too - the primary one being that Jeremy could get up in the night with him. I wish I'd known that this experience was so common to so many women. That 'breastfeeding is hard at first' is the world's biggest understatement.

i have no wisdom to impart. However this would have been a helpful article for me ahead of time: http://jezebel.com/5885739/what-type-of-nipple-are-you

The wave with all the love

Loving W is a curious thing. I'm not sure if it came upon me as a wave as much as a tide - one that's coming up and up and carrying me with it. (And, presumably, isn't going to recede otherwise this is a crappy metaphor for parental love). At first it was instinctive - the biting knowledge that I now came second to me, that he came first. It was responsibility and need and nature. I didn't know him, but I loved him.

Now I know him, or I know as much as there is to know so far. I know he loves the sky and will watch it with wonder. I know he loves my face and that he really objects to being woken up. I know he makes the very best faces when he's waking up. I know he likes it when Jeremy shaves or that he doesn't like being kissed when Jeremy doesn't. He's currently entirely indifferent to the cat, which is just as well because the cat is entirely indifferent to him. He is strong and big and we think he'll walk before he crawls. He's very very noisy. He much prefers being upright to lying down and isn't the biggest fan of sleeping for long stretches. He has the best smile and seems interested in books, although I might just be wishing that on him. He loves food and that there was ever a time when we worried about his weight or if he was getting enough milk seems utterly ludicrous. His eyes are the bluest grey or the greyest blue.

And I still wonder why we do this to ourselves, while also knowing there is no other way. I wonder if we'd still have done this had we known, while knowing that of course we would, or that it's all of a mootness anyway since now we know. Not the sleeplessness or the fact that everything I wear is spit up on before I finish my coffee in the morning, or even the craving I sometimes get for time alone, time to do something other than the basics, time to be separate and just me even though there is no just me anymore. But the fact that when you love this much you also allow the potential for sorrow and loss and a profound unmitigable (not a word) anxiety into your world. You welcome it in because with it comes joy and the best smiles and the bluest greyest eyes. It's insanity and yet there is no other way.

sleep

All through pregnancy there were questions everybody asked every time and I got tired, so tired, of answering. The questions bored me to actual tears and I used to avoid the office kitchen at times just to escape telling another person how I was feeling and when I was due.

The question everybody asks now he's here is "how are you sleeping?" But instead of groaning with boredom at the question, I want to answer. I want to talk and analyse and strategise - like when you first meet someone and all you want to do is talk about them and ponder their every move. That is how I feel about sleep right now. I miss it all the time. I think about it all the time. I wonder if it's ever going to call and I stare at the phone (the metaphorical sleep phone) and wait for it to ring.

And sometimes it does ring. Not often or predictably. Not enough for me to get comfortable and to rely on it. But sometimes, I get to sleep for more than 2 hours. Sometimes I get to sleep lying down. Sometimes I get to sleep when not holding a snortling infant at the same time and hearing a chorus of baby books judging me for lying down in bed with my baby boy instead of making sure he's not actually asleep before I put him down flat on his back so that he can learn to put himself to sleep (they clearly have never met an infant in their whole lives).

Oh my dearie me I miss sleep.

The good news is that baby is sleeping just fine, provided he's being snuggled or rocked or nursed or driven or walked with...

post breast-feeding snooze.

An attempt to put him down after he fell asleep in the sling. He woke up about 2 minutes later. 

Out and about snooze

Sleeping position of choice, if only mean old mummy could hold him like this all night long. 

Bloody good job he's so darn cute.

Where to begin?

I've showered and had a reasonable amount of sleep. The house isn't horrifically messy. We're ordering in take-out and Jeremy's out for an hour or so. I've a sleeping baby strapped to me in the carrier, there's music playing and a glass of wine waiting. For the first time in 6 weeks I'm able to write.

In many ways I've been writing all of these 6 weeks, narrating everything in my head and trying to pin down words to describe the indescribable. Because never has there been so much material or so little time or energy to get anything down. 

So, where to begin? 

At some point I'll write about the labour, which has faded somewhat in my memory but I made sure I jotted down notes soon after to be able to recall everything - the names of our amazing nurses; the icky uncomfortable leakiness following my waters breaking and me being confined to bed, hooked up to monitors and an IV (I was induced); the excruciating accuracy of the term 'ring of fire'; the bewilderment Jeremy and I both felt when left in a room on our own with a tiny baby, waiting for them to come back and tell us exactly what to do. I'll write about all of that, perhaps, soon. Each thing is probably it's own post, although I'll spare you one about leaky discomfort.  

I'll also write about the wonder and the way the world shifted. The moment I realised I had to stop waiting for a proper night's sleep and the heart rending joy of watching my husband become a father. 

And then there's the help we had in the early weeks - my mum bringing me toast, cut up apple, and coffee while I tried to reconcile the fact of another day beginning after 3 hours of sleep. There's watching my parents fall in love with their grandson. Watching my sister snuggle with him. 

And breastfeeding! I could write a book about breastfeeding. It'd probably scare most people off of it. It's OK now but oh my gosh how desperate those early days felt. They need to tell women that - that when they say it's 'hard at first', they mean it's the most heartbreaking thing you've ever experienced. Pretty much everyone I've spoken to so far since remembers this. They just failed to tell me before hand. Or maybe it's not possible to be told. 

Because certainly it's not possible to explain this Love. It's too much in some ways, in most ways. Like if you'd known ahead of time what it'd really be like, maybe you wouldn't have chosen it... except that once you know you're already locked in and there's no way you'd choose anything else. I remember a point immediately after delivery when they were washing and weighing him and I was sat there, exhausted, examining my emotions (I'm me, of course I was analyzing my emotions) and wondering if I'd felt the 'Wave Of Overwhelming Love' yet. And then I realised that I now came second to myself - that this screaming sticky creature, who I'd only held for a brief second, had laid claim not just to my heart but to my everything. That he was going to come first no matter what. That I'd die to protect him. The wave of love came later, when I was singing to him to comfort him, a song that I'd sung often during pregnancy, and he stopped crying immediately and I started crying instead, because here he was. 

So there's nowhere to begin, really. And some of this (most of this?) probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I'm starting to try to unjumble it where possible. 

In summary though, we're fine and he's amazing. It's not easy, of course, and it's not always pretty. There's been a fair amount of tears, mostly at 3am, but there's joy too. Hopefully this marks the start of me being able to write more often and I can start to unpick it all a bit more thoroughly. 

We're still doing cloth diapers by the way. Mostly. 

How am I doing?

If you've asked me how I'm doing over the past few days I will have told you I'm fine. Sometimes I may have added in a bit more detail, othertimes not. I appreciate your asking (really!) but I'm so darn bored with the answer that even saying 'I'm fine' can be hard to choke out. I wish I had something more interesting to say - like 'I'm in acute pain every 5 minutes for 1 minute long stretches and have been for the past hour'. That'd be much more interesting to report. Although chances are I'd be ignoring your texts by then. I'm not the best at talking about myself - I prefer to hear about other people and ask rather than answer questions. But here I am at 41 weeks pregnant (which has to be 10 months by anyone's counting, right?) and I feel like I'm been watched warily like an unexploded bomb. Heck, I'm watching myself like an unexploded bomb. A big one that ate all the cake. Even my spam email is taunting me, since 'Destination Maternity' and whoever else they sold my data to knows my due date and is now asking me what the first week of motherhood has been like.

I actually don't really know quite how I am. I'm not massively uncomfortable - a bit, but not ridiculously so... and for the most part I've been sleeping OK. It's just the mental element that's doing me in. This will go down as one of the strangest weeks of my life, where I have done very little and yet every moment has carried with it a weight of anticipation paired with the anticlimax of the moment before when I didn't go into labour after all. 

The snow and predicted snow isn't helping my brain. Even when it's not currently falling and the roads are passable, it makes me feel trapped. Poor Jeremy shoveled the roof snow onto our deck and there's now an actual ski mountain outside our back door. A non pregnant me might consider making it into a sledding hill. The pregnant me just looks and laments and eats mini-eggs. 

So it's just me and the cat, netflix and mini eggs... which isn't all that bad really. In fact it's pretty amazing, or it should be and would be if I could stop trying to think myself into labour. 

By Monday we can all stop watching me because by Monday they'll have induced me and he'll be here (or by Tuesday morning at the latest if I'm in for a long'un). For once I'm thankful I live in America 'cause in England this could be allowed to continue for another 2 weeks and by then I might actually have gone insane.