On Sleeping

As I've mentioned, I take parenting advice with some grains, or bags, of salt. People I talk to seem to be obsessed with sleep.

The first few weeks after Em was born, sleep was precious and infrequent. If she was sleeping, I'd wake up all the time to check that she was ok. And then she woke up needing attention/love/food often. Babies are like that! I don't know how parents who put their babies in another room to sleep manage the anxieties of those first weeks.

But then she adapted to our patterns and started mostly sleeping at night and mostly being awake during the day. I started trusting that she'd live through the night. There was that rough day at seven weeks when my Dads were here, when I'd kept her in the Infantino baby carrier all day, so she'd been asleep all day, and then only slept, and thus I only slept, four hours that night.

We're now in a nice routine where she naps once or twice a day for a few hours at a time and then sleeps from nine or ten in the evening to three or four in the morning for a brief snack, and then back to sleep again for a few more hours, often until seven in the morning. I've actually realized that it's often me (and my milk supply!) waking her up at four - she's no longer that hungry, so I usually pump a little extra for while I'm at work. And then we go back to sleep.

Before baby, I expected my sleep would be interrupted regularly with baby. First with feedings and diaper changes, then nightmares and nighttime illnesses, fevers, vomiting, then as she gets older, just worrying while she's out for an overnight with friends, and then parties and more! Parenting, as far as I'm concerned, is not about getting a good night's sleep.

I thought this was commonly known. I'm surprised by everyone's interest in how the baby is sleeping, if I'm sleeping, and the suggestions and tricks for getting her to sleep more. She's a baby with a teeny tiny tummy! I just don't expect her to sleep through the night for awhile, and even when she starts, I hear it's common to stop and start again.

I suspect that some people's inquiry as to whether or not I'm getting any sleep (and oh! I am, thank you) is more about making conversation, like commenting on the weather or making jokes about working hard vs hardly working. I know before I had a baby, I didn't know what to ask about them.

However, the parents who seem to be sleep obsessed make me wonder if I've just got a weirdly easy baby, which is entirely possible, or if my expectations are just a lot lower. I know the nights to come where she's awake once an hour again will be challenging. But knowing that they are coming makes them easier to deal with.

Do you talk a lot about sleep? What are/were your expectations about parenting and sleep?

On Parenting Advice

Parenting advice, I've found, is a real mixed bag. I think most of it comes from a good and helpful place: people want to tell you things that worked for them, or that they think is accurate. You get to thank them and do what you think is right, or argue with them if that's your style.

I'm so new to being a mom, that handing out parenting advice seems a bit foolishly optimistic to me. I've only been doing this for just over three months - who am I to say if I'm doing it right? Yet I am confident enough to reject some parenting advice out of hand, like the well meaning acquaintance who outlined his detailed plan for crying it out, which he inflicted on his children. To which, you might be interested to know, I said it was interesting that it worked for him but I absolutely couldn't see how I could do it.

I had lunch with a pregnant friend yesterday who may end up being a single parent by choice, after trying to conceive for a long time. She's not told our group of friends that she's pregnant yet, so I'll keep her identity under wraps for the moment.

She said something about now that she's finally pregnant, the idea of parenting is overwhelming and scary. I mumbled something about having felt the same way when I saw that pregnant indicator on the pee test stick late that night last November. And many times since then - there were even thoughts of OMFG, what have I done? I can't do this!

At least, that's what went through my head up til Emily was born. Then, other than the breastfeeding issues we had, I've just been questioning if I'm doing it right.

While I was pregnant, I worried that I'd be completely incompetent, that my husband would abandon us (I have no idea why I thought that - he was the one who lobbied for a baby after all!), that Emily wouldn't be healthy, that I'd chicken out during labour, that I'd be a terrible parent.

I didn't seriously worry about being a single parent - my husband is very loyal and family oriented. I knew we'd have parenting style conflicts and oh boy has that been accurate! But he's here, parenting along side me. I almost wrote helping me, but considering he's at home with Emily every day I'm at work, which most weeks is five out of seven days, and doing a lot of things like cooking, shopping, cleaning and grocery shopping, it might be more accurate to say I'm helping him!

Today, I'm working on learning how best to apply the Attachment Parenting principles, and balancing parenting with working, looking for a new job and doing a little bit of career development too. She's going to be a work at home mom - awesome - but probably a single mom too - and I think that presents a special set of challenges. I murmur reassuring noises but I've got very little in the way of practical suggestions for her, on how to manage money, day care, breastfeeding, meetings...

So I don't know what to say to my friend who is not only having normal pregnancy anxiety, but also may be additionally anxious about doing all of this essentially on her own (her family is almost as far away as mine).

Advice on parenting I have always found most useful when it falls in the category of "this is what works best for us, do what you feel is right" - so any thoughts or resources you'd like to share on what you wish you knew about parenting in general or specifically, taking care of things as a single parent, please share them below! And of course, she isn't actually asking for advice, but it's what I can offer, plus hand me downs... :)

Hypnobabies Review

While helping me to create a birth plan, my doula suggested I consider hypnosis as part of my pain management plan. She said the Hypnobabies course was ... I don't recall the word: I think she said the course was the only birth hypnosis class that DONA accepts for continuing education credit, or something along those lines, but that I should look at a bunch of different classes and pick what works for me.

I did a bunch of reading and decided the HB was right for me. I can't remember why, but I think it was at least partly because the course helps to teach you to do hypnosis while being up and moving around. The others focused on hypnosis and delivery in the on your back position as far as I could tell.

So, I went to the HB website, put out about USD$200 for the self study course and overnight shipping, and started studying away. This review is just based on my experience with my purchase: I didn't get any free stuff from the good folks at HB.

As the stalwart readers who made it through our birth story know, I did rely on the HB CDs during labor, especially some of the middle part that was long and sometimes painful. By the time I had the epidural, I had kind of given up and had figured I was going off for a surgical birth anyway, so I wasn't really trying anymore.

During labor, it was great to have had that training in managing how my brain processed the feelings of labor, and for that I'm very thankful.

However, what was especially great for me, and the main reason I'd recommend the HB course to any pregnant lady I meet is the Pregnancy Affirmations recording. I am normally a person who worries. Sometimes I literally lose sleep while worrying about stuff: ironically, I will lie awake worrying at night about oversleeping and missing a flight. Somehow missing a flight is an earth-shattering catastrophe in my mind. I worry about money, my family, my health, my family's health.. etc.

That affirmation CD helped me be the most relaxed, happy pregnant lady you'd ever want to see. I figured pretty much everything was normal and healthy. During my slightly hilarious prenatal class at the birth center, everyone else always seemed so nervous. I'm guessing it's because I had repeating over and over in my iPod that everything's fine and wonderful.

I loved how useful the CDs were for me. What I didn't love:

• the name Hypnobabies. Who came up with that? I was embarrassed to talk about it. I kept picturing zombie babies. Weird.
• the book that came along with the CDs which purported to be the only prenatal class one would need. Most of it focused on preparing for birth, which was great, but I felt like when the author veered out into other topics, their far out man started showing. The author has some pretty wacky ideas about prenatal health: grain of salt here readers! And it was desperately badly edited: spelling and grammatical errors as far as the eye could see.

It just occurred to me that I've not posted about my prenatal class, the one I had to endure every other Wednesday afternoon in order to give birth there. And then get kicked out anyway. I must share that with you all at some point.

Has anyone else tried self hypnosis for birth or anything else? Any thoughts on the difference between hypnosis and mediation? I've never been clear on what distinguishes them.

Didn't you have a baby? In which I make a lot of links

You'd be forgiven for thinking that I was pregnant, had a wild and wacky birth experience and then the baby went *poof* and disappeared, considering how little I suddenly have to say.

To be sure, here's a picture of her Royal Cuteness, Piranha Princess here. She's somehow caused time to advance extremely quickly and will be three months old very shortly.

Well, the issue is really just that I'm so busy being blissed out with her, working my job that I love, and looking for a new job in the Vancouver/Lower Mainland area for next year, that little time is left for the niceties of keeping folks up to date, beyond the tweeting and postings to Flickr that I try to maintain.

I should note that I'm meeting some awesome new people on Twitter - many in the Vancouver area, and some rather far away. But all have interesting things to say.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming

The Working Mama

The working mama, or why this blog hasn't been updated in a long time.

The last update was Sept 11. I think that was right before the Grandpas arrived. We had a great time and I got my September plugged duct (there has also been an October plugged duct but let's not get ahead of ourselves...)

We did loads of touristy things, ate loads and then they went home. The above photo was of me and Em sitting on a double decker tour bus with the Grandpas on their first full day in DC. Then I went back to work. My first day back was tough but I didn't cry. Alex was awesome - he texted me loads of photos of Emily. I've been posting my favourites to my flickr collection of Emily photos.

Day two was actually better because we finally took my friend's advice and took Emily to an ENT to have her tongue tie evaluated. He clipped it on the spot and she immediately started nursing better. I have a whole post or two burbling around inside me about the incompetent boob I had for a lactation consultant who didn't think her tongue tie was the problem. Anyway, she's nursing so much better now! Then I went to work and it was ok.

Working during the day and nursing during the evening and overnight has been going well, but it's been exhausting. When I do have some free time, or the energy to balance my netbook on my knees while feeding Em, I'm applying for IT consulting and support jobs in the Vancouver BC area.

I seem to be getting a plugged duct about monthly, not sure why. It's always on the left, where I have less supply and Em prefers to nurse off the right: which came first, the supply or the preference, I'm not sure.

But at any rate, if you know anyone in the Vancouver area looking for a brilliant and charismatic communicator geek, tell them to drop me a line! I'm normally a lot more modest, but I'm in job search mode and I figure it's time to (temporarily) throw modesty out the window!

Brief Breastfeeding Update

First things first. Thank you all for the awesome comments on my blog, on facebook, twitter and in email. Your support and kind words have been sustaining me through some dark and challenging moments. I'm drafting a post in my head with the title "Thank PTB We Have No Formula in the House." And now:

I think we're getting the hang of this. And now it's time to go back to work (well, next week) and figure out how that's going to work all over again.

But, no, seriously, starting a few days ago, Em started to really nurse using the nipple shield. She'd get a few ounces at a time and I was really pleased.

Somewhere along the line, I noticed that it seemed like she would latch on better to the shield if I laid her down and hovered my breast over her. One day I tried doing that without the shield, after we'd already been nursing a bit with the shield. She latched on! It was wild.

She's still doing that - latching on without the shield after a bit of time with the shield. It's not all the time, and she goes back and forth on whether it's ok with her or if it's going to make her cranky, but it seems to be mostly ok. Funny too that she prefers the right side - I'm going to take her back to my awesome chiropractor in a week and ask her to see if everything is ok in her neck. Apparently it's not just mommies that can have birth injuries!

She also doesn't nurse well at night - we still haven't gotten side lying nursing figured out, and she just doesn't latch as well, nor stay awake very well, so I'm still pumping before bed and when I get up so that we have milk to feed her overnight. I think she's getting better overnight too though.

My dads are here this week and we're having a great time. But it's very busy with sightseeing in addition to the baby care that I'm still just getting used to.

Bonding

So, speaking of being grateful, before Emily was born, I was nervous about how I'd feel about her when she was born. I was worried I wouldn't bond with her. I wasn't sure what everyone meant, precisely, when they go on about bonding, but I was worried that I wouldn't do it, or wouldn't do it right.

There are loads of reasons why I was worried about this, a lot of them when boiled down, point to my anxiety about reproducing my mother's mothering, which involved a lot of neglect, manipulation and eventual abandonment. I'm pretty sure she was mentally ill in some way or another, and that she suffered from post partum depression at least after my sister was born, if not after my birth as well.

I thought I felt connected to Emily while she was still in my womb, but I wasn't sure that was real. I spoke to her, and rubbed my belly, and did everything I could to care for and protect her. But I wasn't sure it was real or if I was going through the motions.

I was worried that when she was born, I'd be repulsed or cold or somehow feel wrong or disconnected from her.

I am giving thanks to the PTB every day for being wrong about that. The moment that she came out and I had her on my chest, I was totally in love. She was immediately so beautiful and precious to me, I feel silly, in retrospect, for having been concerned about bonding.

Despite our ongoing problems breastfeeding (more on that in another post), and some dark moments, where like Whozat, I worry she is rejecting me or doesn't love me when she won't latch, I feel she has bonded with me as well.

When she's not nearby, as she isn't right now, I feel like I'm missing an arm. Or a vital organ - you can live without an arm. I am dreading returning to work: I thought six weeks' leave would be great - nice to have longer - but I'd probably be bored and stir crazy and eager to get back. Couldn't be further from the truth!

Don't get me wrong, especially coworkers and supervisors reading this - I love my job. I was out with some new mommies the other night, and we were trying to not talk about our babies, so we started talking about our paid jobs. I was trying to explain why my job is difficult to telecommute, despite it being an IT job, and I was illustrating the troubleshooting we do. I had a huge wave of appreciation for how much I really like my employer and my job. That hasn't changed. I just wish I was going to have more time to be a full time mom to Emily.

I'm just glad I'm no longer in school so I can dedicate evenings and weekends to being with her and available to her. Because I feel so connected to her, very little else matters. If that's not bonded, I don't know what is!