A Quickie: Some of My Favourite Parenting Posts

After a week of snowbound staying home with the baby joy, you might think I'd have some original thought to share. I do. I'm just having difficulty deciding how I want to frame it.

In the meantime, here's a new favourite and some old favourites that I'd like to share with you. The first I just got fwd'd today. The others are ones I literally return to re-read periodically. I hope you find them as interesting and wonderful as I have:

• The Inconvenient Truth About Parenting. Monica on dealing with your stuff and letting your kid be themself.
• Mindfully Loving My Children. On the languages of love and how Melodie's kids know she loves them.
• CIO: 10 Reasons It's Not For Us. On crying it out as a baby sleep strategy and the science behind why Annie won't use it.
• On Breastfeeding and Things We Don't Talk About. Arwyn on what makes her uncomfortable about nursing. This post scared me while I was pregnant as I worried I'd experience the same thing. I've not, but I still think it's important to talk about.

I'll leave you with these to chew on and I hope to be back with you soon on some other stuff I'm chewing on.

Would you like to leave me with some of your favourite (re)reading material?

UPDATE: Almost - well, briefly actually did - forgot:

• Venusimo. Honest to Betsy on the female equivalent of machismo. It speaks to a lot my ongoing - not dissatisfaction but - lack of satisfaction with my birth experience.

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?

Weird Dreams

I've sometimes taken medication that have caused, as a side effect, very vivid dreams. The one I remember best was Diamox, which I took for altitude sickness during a trip to Bogota, Colombia. It didn't seem to help the symptoms of the altitude sickness (shortness of breath, nausea, headache, insomnia), but when I could sleep, I had crazy dreams - very vivid, realistic dreams where it was difficult to forget them on waking. I remember waking up, speaking to DH in English (we usually speak in Spanish) as a continuation of the dream, and both of us being very confused. It's funny that I can't find vivid dreams listed as a side effect of Diamox now, but I remember reading that at the time... Go figure.

At any rate, being pregnant has been like 24 weeks give or take of vivid dreaming. Alas, no lucid dreaming (where you're conscious of your dreaming state and can sometimes even control what happens in the dream). I've read it's pretty common to have wacky dreams during pregnancy, though all I've read suggests that the dreams are usually baby related thematically.

I've had several of those - that the baby came premature (and a boy) and needed to be in the NICU for awhile. Several where I've forgotten that I was pregnant and gotten totally drunk - those were mostly in the first trimester where I was trying to get used to not drinking. So far I haven't had the pregnant with an alien/parasite dream. But I'm expecting it.

Last night, however, I had the most unusual dream I've had in awhile. It was very vivid and realistic, with all kinds of believable details. I had just finished medical school (which, in non-dream life, I've never considered attending) and was starting an internship at a hospital. I was initially very disoriented, but was actually attending an orientation where a group of us were being shown where to go and what to do, etc.

There was some issue about the scrubs and shoes I was wearing, but it got sorted out. My group started out on rounds - I think there was a movie-like montage of interns trying to keep up with rounds - and then I was leaving the hospital at the end of a long first day. I'd learned lots, and I was extremely tired, happy and proud of myself.

I woke up, not immediately realizing that the dream wasn't real. For a good bit of time - well, several minutes - I was savouring this happiness and pride that I felt for that first good day in my internship. I saw DH beside me, and began planning how I'd tell him about it. Then I remembered I'd never been to medical school, nor interned at a hospital, and I'm not a doctor.

I can't describe how disappointed I was. My current life, with which I am very happy, felt like a great big failure, for a few minutes this morning. Then I remembered that I'm pregnant and that cheered me up a bit. It's unusual for me to be disappointed when I realize a dream isn't true. And the dream has stuck with me all day, which is also unusual for me.

Anyone feel like interpreting the dream for me? Any good pregnancy dreams to share?

Photo Credit: Elfleda