Indispensable Baby Stuff

I've been buying baby shower gifts lately, which has me thinking about what baby items I think are fantastic.

I'm getting everyone I know the DVD of the Happiest Baby on the Block. Oh my goodness, this saved our lives. I never would have thought to turn on the hairdryer to calm a newborn, but it worked! (But not as immediately as the "womb noises" sound tracks on the DVD!)

I've also been buying swaddlers (this was our favorite, though if we're blessed with another baby, I want to try this one and this one, too). We swaddled Sarah for a looong time.

Speaking of swaddling, it was so frustrating to try to swaddle a baby in a standard size receiving blanket! Sarah is tall, but I think it would be hard even with a shorter baby, especially once the baby starts to grow. If we have another, I might just make my own.

We borrowed a swing and a co-sleeper, both of which were great, and I shudder to think what I would have done without a swing. Given that we immediately (well, once she was four weeks old, but close enough!) had a second, older child, having a place where I could put Sarah down and she would be happy for a little while was wonderful, especially since she would only sleep on me or in the swing for quite a while.

Hmm. That's all for now. We just got our first wool diaper cover (my mother-in-law bought it for us), and I'm really curious to see how it works. For now, I've got to sleep. Last night was really windy, which disturbed the kids, and I went in to Sarah three times and Nick twice between 3:15 and 6:00 this morning, so I'm beat!

My Baby's Growing Up

I've sung Sarah the same two songs while I'm nursing her every night. Tonight, I sat down with her in the rocking chair and started singing. While nursing, she starting making little "mm-mm" sounds of protest. Finally, she pulled off, looked at me, and said "ABC song." So I sang her the alphabet song. She sang along for a while, and then nursed some more. When I was done, I asked if she had any other requests. She said "happy song." It took me a minute to realize she meant "Happy Birthday." So, I sang "Happy Birthday" to Sarah, Nicholas, and Grandpa at her request. I don't know why it struck me so funny, but it cracked me up to have this little person nursing and throwing out song requests at bedtime.

Last night, she slept just as well as the night before, so we'll see how tonight goes!

Peaceful Night

Last night was night 5 of the sleep training with Sarah. In our spiritual formation class last night (Mr. X stayed home to put her to bed, and our babysitter came and helped with Nicholas), I was reminded that we need to ask in order to receive, and so I prayed specifically for a peaceful night's sleep for all of us. This might sound odd, but I also heard from someone I know slightly that she had been told that one of the ways Satan works against parents is through lack of sleep, so I said a spiritual warfare prayer, too. And she slept through the night! She made noises a couple of times, though once I could tell they weren't waking noises, and the second time I went in and rubbed her back, but she was actually asleep. She woke up and called me at 7:00, and when I walked in, she smiled, waved, and said "Hi Mommy!" Thank you, thank you, thank you Jesus!

Pretending

Shortly before Christmas, I went to pick up Nick from preschool, and his teacher said, "Are you, by any chance, Catholic?" I said, "Yeeessss . . . what did he do?" It turns out he had been walking around the room, holding a book over his head and singing "Alleluia." And it turns out both his teachers are Catholic and finally figured out what he's doing!

One of Nick's favorite things to do is to play priest. He started out pretty simply, late this summer, singing "Alleluia"--interestingly, he sings the "Celtic Alleluia" beautifully, even though the parish we're currently attending doesn't use that setting. Then, one day, Mr. X draped a blanket around Nick's shoulders. Nick looked at it, then folded his hands and started slowly walking around, singing "Alleluia."

At this point, he sings the Alleluia, Amen, parts of the Sanctus and Gloria, and the Memorial Acclamation. He'll hold processions carrying a book over his head, a block or stick (which, he will tell me, is a candle or a cross), or his sippie cup. Sometimes, he convinces Sarah to join in, and she either holds a book and sings Alleluia or folds her hangs and sings Amen. He turns over boxes to make an altar, and then he'll put blocks (as candles), cups, and books on top. Sometimes he kneels in front of the altar. He shakes hands and says "peace-a-lou." In the past week, every once in a while, he'll say "Jesus Christ. Lamb of God. Take away sins of the world." He'll lean over to me at dinner and hand me a little piece of food (usually a pea) and whisper, and I finally realized a couple of weeks ago that he's whispering "Body Christ." But probably the most entertaining instance happened last week when he was standing in front of his "altar," chanting, and I was talking to Sarah. He stopped, looked at me, and said "Shh. Priest talk."

So, I think I'll choose to interpret the incident this morning, when he figured out how to open his sippie cup and ran through the kitchen, living room, and hallway splattering apple juice everywhere, as his version of a sprinkling rite. If only he had really had holy water, I wouldn't have had to wipe the floor down twice!

Let's Give This a Try . . .

Well, here I am again. The goal this time is to post something, ANYTHING, every day for a month and then re-evaluate. I'll try for something a bit deeper later this week (maybe about why I haven't been posting, ha!), but for now . . .

I'm on a second maternity leave (the complicated policy at work meant that I could take one maternity leave when Sarah was born but couldn't take leave for Nick's adoption till now), hooray!

I'm feeling proud of myself because today we made it to daily mass (well, communion service), I got the kids to the park, I baked two dozen cupcakes from scratch for Sarah's preschool class tomorrow (with real buttercream frosting, thankyouverymuch), both kids napped, I vacuumed our disgustingly dirty carpets, I threw the dogs disgustingly dirty bed in the washer, and I caught up on dishes. Unfortunately, I forgot to wash any of my own pants, so I'll be wearing slightly dirty dress pants to be the parent helper in Sarah's class tomorrow. I am, however, feeling like a slug because I still have I-shudder-to-think-how-many Christmas cards sitting downstairs waiting to be sent. These are cards with this year's picture AND last year's BABY ANNOUNCEMENTS inside them. They WILL be sent, even if I end up writing "consider this a Valentine" on the envelopes.

We're on night four of sleep training for Sarah. Why, oh why did I wait till she was almost 18 months old??? The first night was pretty rough, but since then she hasn't cried at bedtime or naptime or night wakings for more than a minute or two at a time. We're using The Sleep Lady's Good Night, Sleep Tight, which Jennifer at Conversion Diary recommended. The first three nights, you (Mr. X in our case) sit beside the crib until the baby's asleep, then over the following days you move further away. She's doing so great. Of course, her crib is still in our room, and we thought it would be lunacy for us to try to do this while we're sleeping in there, too, so we're sleeping on couches for the time being, but the end is in sight. I think we'll finally be able to move both kids into the same room soon.

Speaking of which, I should jump into bed onto the couch since I am on duty for night wakings. There have been none so far tonight, but who knows what's in store.

Coming up for air

It's been a rocky few days around here, but last night was an improvement, thank God! We made it through those first few nights of "nurse briefly, put the baby down awake," and then moved on to the "pick up and comfort the baby, but don't nurse." We were so exhausted by that point that we slowly worked up to doing the "no nursing" for seven hours over a few days. And then we hit the time change. And then Mr. X went out of town.

Mr. X left on his business trip on Sunday. On Sunday night, we had cheese ravioli for dinner. Nick loooves cheese ravioli. He kept asking for more, and since I had taken the kids for a loooong walk before dinner (because it was fun, and also in hopes that the exercise would help them sleep) I thought he had just worked up a really good appetite. I had the kids in bed and asleep by 8:30. Sarah woke up at 10:30 and I got to bed myself around 11:00. I had a really hard time falling asleep, as I always do when Mr. X is gone--I just feel so "on" and worried about taking care of both kids overnight. But I fell asleep, and woke up to Nick crying really hard just before 1:00. I went in the room, and he had thrown up all that cheese ravioli. He wanted out of the crib (no kidding!), and then seemed fine. I asked him if he felt OK, and he said "OK." Evidently, he just ate too much. It took about an hour to get him cleaned up and the sheets changed and room aired and settle him back in to sleep. Thank God, Sarah didn't wake up! But then she woke up at 3:30 and 4:30 and 6:00. On Monday night, I got the kids to bed pretty early, but there were many wakeups, I stayed up late working till after midnight, and they woke up for good at 6:30. So I took them to daily mass with friends, which was great, and then I planned on napping with them in the afternoon. But they didn't nap. I just about lost it! But I got them up and they were good as gold while I finished up the work I had to get done. Then our babysitter came, I went to my spiritual formation class, and she had them asleep by 7:30. And Sarah slept for eight hours! And Nick slept all night! And they both woke up at 7:30 this morning! So life is looking pretty great right now. Just two more nights till Mr. X gets home!

Night Weaning: The Saga Continues

Oh, the drama! So, we've got two nights of night weaning behind us now. It's going OK. I'm so relieved that Sarah seems her usual happy self, so I don't think she's scarred for life yet! The system we're using has three stages. In Stage 1 (the first three nights), when the baby wakes up, you nurse briefly, then put the baby down awake and comfort her till she's asleep. You only do this for a seven-hour block, and outside of those seven hours, you can nurse or do whatever. So, we're working on night weaning from 10:30 to 5:30. Here's how night 1 went:

12:28 Sarah woke up. I nursed her for a couple of minutes, unlatched her, talked to and cuddled her while she cried for--honestly--one minute and then fell asleep. Score! Put her in the crib next to the bed and went back to sleep.
12:40 Sarah woke up. I nursed her for a minute, told her "we nurse in the daytime, we sleep in the nighttime" and that we'd cuddle and sleep. She fell asleep without crying. Yay! Put her in the crib.
12:52 Sarah woke up. Hmm. She said "nurse." I said we'll nurse for a minute and she said "minute" in a sad little voice. After a minute, I said "all done," and she stopped nursing, cried for a minute, and went to sleep.

She woke up four more times before 2am. She never cried for more than a minute, and she talked to me a lot like this:

Sarah: Nurse!
Me: OK, sweetheart, we'll nurse for a minute. [Nursing.] OK, sweetheart, all done, time to cuddle and sleep.
Sarah: Nurse!
Me: No, sweetheart, it's nighttime. It's time to cuddle and sleep. Do you want to cuddle with Daddy?
Sarah: No.
Me: Do you want to cuddle with Mama?
Sarah: No. Yes.

At 2:00, I got up to go to the bathroom and Mr. X walked her around. While I was in the bathroom Nick woke up and started crying. I went back to the bedroom, Mr. X handed Sarah to me, and she quickly fell asleep while he went in to Nick. I put Sarah down in the crib. Mr. X then was in and out of Nick's room for about an hour and a half while he cried. At 4:30, Sarah woke up again, nursed for a minute, then slept, and I put her in the crib. She woke up again at 5:50 and I brought her into bed, and she nursed and slept till the babysitter rang the doorbell at 8:45.

Last night, Mr. X and I were both totally exhausted. Sarah woke up once at about 1:30, we nursed for a minute, she fell asleep, and I put her in the crib. She woke up again about 15 minutes later. I nursed her, then thought it might be good if Mr. X tried cuddling her so she'll get more used to him comforting her at night. I nudged him and asked him if he would cuddle her. Still mostly asleep, he said, "No, I'll do it tomorrow." Huh. I said, "You'll do it tomorrow?" He said, "Later tonight. Later tonight." I debated saying: "Let me rephrase that: Your turn!" but by that point, she was almost asleep, and I figured I'd let him take the next turn 10 minutes later. He said, "It's really hot in here, isn't it?" (We have a terrible time regulating temperature in our house.) He got up and opened the window.

We all fell asleep. Next thing I knew, I woke up at 4:00, with my legs (which were uncovered) freezing and Sarah nursing! I could have sworn I had buttoned my nightgown, but the top couple of buttons were unbuttoned. She definitely didn't make any noise when she woke up, and I have no idea if she had been nursing for 2 minutes or an hour. I unlatched her, she stayed asleep, and I put her in the crib. Mr. X got up and closed the window. Sarah didn't wake up again until 5:44.

So, Mr. X and I are both working at home today, and we've been cracking up at his "I'll do it tomorrow" line (he didn't remember doing it until I reminded him, at which point he apologized profusely and promised to be on duty tonight) and at Sarah's stealth nursing. Maybe she's learning "If I wake mom up, she'll nurse me for a minute, but if I don't wake her up, I can nurse all I want!"