Sleep training and the crunchy mom

I am definitely what I'd consider a crunchy mom. I co-sleep. I like baby wearing. We use coconut oil instead of lotion. We're planning to do baby-led weaning. Etc, etc. Being a little more on the AP end of things, sleep training was WAY off my radar.

Until now.

Basically, our issue is that I was over-attentive to Rowan during the night. (So sue me...I'm a first-time mom.) He would start squirming around and I'd immediately nurse him back to sleep. I also often rocked him to sleep at night while nursing. This resulted in Rowan being totally convinced that he NEEDS to nurse to go to sleep. I wouldn't mind THAT quite so much, except that now he's also decided that if he wakes even the tiniest bit in the night, he needs to be nursed. A couple nights ago, I decided to keep track of just how many times that was.

-He nursed to sleep at 9:20
-Nursed again at 10:15
-Nursed again three more times in the 11:00 hour
-No waking during the 12:00 hour
-Nursed twice during the 1:00 hour
-Nursed a couple more times each during the 2:00 and 3:00 hours
-Nursed once each during 4:00, 5:00, 6:00
-Nursed once in the 7:00, and we got up around 8:00

Seriously, I was getting better sleep when he was a newborn. He also has suddenly decided that he doesn't like pacifiers (what the heck, kid?!) so only Mommy nursing him will suffice.

Momma don't play that game.

I'm hardcore opposed to CIO, even with babies who are "old enough", because anything that makes me feel sick like that and makes me ignore my screaming, sobbing child just is not a good thing in my book. So I looked for something that involved sleep training and was compatible with my crunchy mom ideals. Enter "The No-Cry Sleep Solution". Ahh, a plan. Hallelujah. It has great information about how to slowly, gently sleep train your child without making them cry it out. Just what we needed. She does say that it may take a few weeks to change things, but to be consistent and patient and you'll get there.

I can already see a difference in Rowan two days in. It's awesome! We're being better about starting his bedtime EARLY instead of just letting him go to sleep whenever. (Bad habit of mine...I just always would put him to bed when I was ready to go to sleep myself.) We're instituting a bedtime routine to help wind him down at night. He slept from 7:30 last night until 11:00 in his own room, and then I brought him into bed with me. (I'm not totally ready to give up co-sleeping just yet...I love waking up to his coos and smiles in the morning.) We're still working on the using-Mommy-as-a-paci bit, but we're getting there. Slowly but surely. If you're an AP or AP-ish mommy and you're having sleep issues with your kiddo, I highly recommend the book. For now, at least. If we haven't gotten anywhere in a couple months, I may take it back. Hah.

I'm so much less cranky when I've had some sleep!

EDIT: I realize this post seems in direct contrast to the last one. I should clarify...that putting him down to sleep on his own? That only works when he'll take a paci. And since he's decided they're teh debbil, that ended pretty quickly.

The beginning of the end? Eh...maybe.

Since Rowan was born, I have rocked him to sleep. For naps, for bedtime...he was always in my arms. And often, he was in my arms, screaming and arching and fighting me with all the will and strength he had in his little body. Bedtime was especially disastrous. We often would start the process before 9:00 and not have a sleeping baby until 11:00 or later. I figured he was just one of those kids who didn't like going to sleep.

Yesterday was a high energy day and when it came time for him to nap around 5:30, I just didn't have the energy to rock him. So I swaddled him, put him down in his crib, turned on the sound machine, and walked out. And you know what? He went to sleep on his own.
Color me shocked...I had never seen him fall asleep on his own before that. I told DH about the success and when it came time for the next nap, he suggested we try it again. And it worked again. When bedtime came, we did it all over again, and again it worked. (Although, at bedtime, he did take a long time to fall asleep...but without fighting, without screaming. He slept in his crib from 10:30 until midnight, and when he woke up I brought him into bed with me and nursed him back to sleep.

Honestly, a big part of me is really sad. What happened to little babies needing their mommies? What happened to getting the memories of sweetly rocking my ever-growing child every night? It was really odd going to bed last night without his little warm body snuggled up against me. And like the title of this post indicates, I feel like this is the beginning of the end of my cosleeping adventures with my sweet baby boy. He's suddenly rolling, trying to crawl (!?!?), and putting himself to sleep. (Actually, he's asleep right now, and that's why I finally have time to write.) I'm oddly proud, but also feeling wistful for his newborn days when he'd curl up on my chest and zonk out without hesitation. And ok, part of me is kicking myself for not realizing sooner that I could just put him down to get him to sleep...do you know how many hours I've struggled with him in the evening, and both of us ended up in tears?!? Sheesh.

Maybe when he's a little bigger, he'll go back to wanting his Momma to snuggle him. Maybe this is just a phase tied to his new-found mobility. I dunno. Regardless, I'm still having a ton of fun being his mom and this is just another reminder to soak it all up and enjoy every minute because it is absolutely flying.

Play-dates and fat babies

I'm so excited for tomorrow. Ro and I are going to meet up with a couple of my friends from pregnancy classes and have a play-date! I'm excited to meet their little ones...last time I saw them, the babies were just a bump. :)

Obviously, at this point, this play-date is more about mommy hang-out time than actual playing for the babies. They'll probably all lay on the floor and stare at each other, which, granted, will be pretty dang cute. Rowan hasn't had much of a chance to interact with other kiddos, so I'm curious to see how he'll react. He met a little girl at church last night and cooed at her for several minutes. (She cooed and grinned back...future love interest?) One of the bad things about living in such a tiny town is that there are no other young couples with little babies around here.

I am so, so ready to move away from here. I'm tired of having limited grocery shopping options. (Seriously, we have Piggly Wiggly, Walmart, and Dollar General. I'd like some organic options, please.) I'm tired of having no friends around here. I'm half an hour away from most of my friends, which leads to extremely limited hang-out time, and there are no other young couples at church, either. I miss being around people my own age. Even though most of my friends aren't in the same stage of life as me, it's still nice to be around other girls sometimes. It gets lonely, even when I'm spending all my day with a cute little boy. I just keep praying that DH finds a new job that gets us out of here.

Speaking of cute little boys, my kiddo is a total chunk. He's up to 13 pounds now, and is just so full of spark! He giggles and grins and "talks" to us non-stop. We finally figured out that he's not dairy-sensitive, but instead was having foremilk/hindmilk issues. I'm block feeding now and that seems to really be helping. We have his 3-month photos scheduled for January and it breaks my heart that he's growing so fast. I love being his mom, though...always an adventure.

My big boy on Saturday after being stuck in traffic for over an hour. He was so good and patient, and thank goodness I had my pump and a clean bottle or we would've been facing a major meltdown when we hit the 2.5 hour mark!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm a day early, but tomorrow will be pretty hectic since we'll be packing up and hauling ourselves and a baby 2.5 hours north.

So, Happy Thanksgiving!

This year has been one that has given me so much for which to be thankful. On January 10th, I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. It was so exciting knowing that our lives were about to change forever. After having a miscarriage in August of 2011, I was anxious about being pregnant again. I was so afraid I'd lose this baby, too. But time passed, we heard a strong heartbeat, and my belly started expanding as the baby grew. March 2nd, we found out it was a boy. In June, we picked the name Rowan Bennett. And after what felt like a lifetime of waiting, Rowan was born in September.

Since then, I've spent every day with him, watching him grow and change so rapidly. He smiles and coos at us daily now. He's starting to discover his hands, which for him involves lots of fist-sucking. It's adorable! For a week or so, he had suddenly begun screaming his little head off for a couple hours a night. We were SO frustrated. Nothing we did could calm him, and I would end up crying as I held this angry, sobbing baby. I finally took him to the chiropractor a couple days ago and they did some adjustments, and we've had two lovely, peaceful, normal nights since then. I'm definitely a believer in the power of good chiropractic care! It's been wonderful having my happy, smiley baby back.

All my life, I've wanted to grow up, get married, and have babies. My life is so fantastic right now, and I am nothing but thankful for how blessed I am. How many people are lucky enough to get to live out their childhood dream? God is good.

What are YOU thankful for this year? Come on, guys, I know y'all are reading...cough up a comment or two. ;)

Fail.

Um. So. Yeah.

That whole "less TV thing"? Total, total fail. I still watch just as much TV. Does it count that I've been reading a book while the TV is on? *guilty face*

In other news, my kiddo is growing ridiculously fast. He's up to 11 pounds (!!!) and smiles and grins all the time. Unfortunately, he's had his first cold for the last week or so. He's finally on the mend but oh man, mommy's heart was breaking the first couple days as he snorted and snotted and sounded absolutely miserable. Breaking news: babies hate having saline sprayed up their nose. And they also hate nasal aspirators. I can't say I blame him...I don't think I'd like someone shoving some sucky thing up my nose, either. I came down with a cold a couple days after him but mine is almost totally gone other than a tiny bit of congestion on the right side. Thank goodness for my trusty Neti pot.

It looks like I'm going to be doing an elimination diet once I've used up the delicious mac n' cheese in my pantry. Rowan still has a little rash on his face and chest. It looks like little teensy red pimples; I would think it was heat rash if it wasn't there all the time. It still doesn't seem to be bothering him, but I can't figure out what's causing it, so out dairy goes. I've been casually doing the elimination diet, cutting out big stuff like milk and cheese, but it hasn't helped so I'm going to have to go hardcore and actually cut all dairy, including hidden dairy. (Hidden dairy is stuff like bread made with milk, milk chocolate, etc.) Not going to lie, I'm really intimidated. My husband is a super picky eater, and I don't have the energy to cook two dinners to keep him happy. This will be a rough transition for us, but I told DH that we only have to do it for a couple weeks to see if dairy is the culprit behind Rowan's rash.

And now a little whine. (Can't have cheese with that...har har.) I cannot stand status hijackers on Facebook. You know what I mean...the people who come along and use your status/wall as a chance to talk about themselves. There's one girl on my friends list who CONSTANTLY does that. I posted a status about what a good dad DH is, and she somehow used it as an opportunity to talk about how her daughter used to have trouble falling asleep. Um...what? Post that mess on your own wall. Honestly, if I didn't use FB as a way to post pictures of Rowan for my grandma and keep in touch with some far-away friends, I would just delete the thing. People be cray.

Can't miss an opportunity to shamelessly AW my kiddo, so here ya go. I took these yesterday. (For the record, his shirt is open because we were between a diaper change and a bath, so I had him unzipped and laying on my bed.) His facial expressions are a constant source of entertainment to me.

The Boob Tube

Ironically, this post has nothing to do with boobs. Which is, again, ironic, since I feel like my entire life revolves around breastfeeding and pumping and milk production right now.

Instead, this post is all about television.

I've come to the conclusion that I watch way too stinkin' much of it. I don't like admitting it, but I probably watch a good 8 hours of TV a day. *hangs head in shame* I usually give up trying to sleep in with Rowan around 9:00 in the morning, head into the living room, and turn on the box. (Can a flat screen be called a box? "Turn on the square" just sounds dumb.) And I leave it on. All day.

To be fair, I try to watch educational stuff sometimes. I'm a sucker for Jeopardy! and I like NatGeo and the History Channel. But there are also Friends reruns, The Big Bang Theory, etc. I'm pretty sure I'm rotting my brain, and possibly Rowan's.

My excuse for being a lazy blob

I really want to break myself of this habit, but it's just SO easy to keep myself entertained with TV. It's hard to read when I'm nursing a flailing baby, and crocheting encounters the same obstacle. I just don't want to raise Rowan in a TV-centered household, where he sits in front of the tube all day and never plays outside or uses his imagination. I see that happening with too many kids I know and I think that's part of the reason that American kids are fattening up at an alarming rate.

Combating this won't be easy. DH likes to come home and kick back in front of the TV until bedtime to relax. Granted, at this stage, interacting with Rowan pretty much consists of holding/burping/rocking, but what happens when he becomes play-with-able? So, my new rules for fighting our excessive TV habit are:

-No more eating dinner in front of the TV. We will sit at the table, with the TV off, until the meal is done. Anything that's on at the moment can get paused or DVRed.

-No more all-day TV for me. (This one will be HARD.) I can play music, read when Rowan naps, and get a little more housework done than I have been. My housekeeping skills have been sadly lacking since the arrival of bebe.

-The TV needs to get turned off at least half an hour before bedtime. We need to start winding down on our own instead of staring at the screen until we're in a stupor.

Wish me (and us) luck! I get the feeling I'm going to need it.

The first few days

Life as a mom is so different from how I expected. Honestly, it's so much more fun and rewarding than I thought it would be at this point! Here's a little look at what life is like for us as Rowan's parents.

Rowan's a great sleeper. I'm probably still getting five or six hours a night. Which, as a girl who loves sleep, is still less than I'd like, but realistically, I know that's awesome for a newborn. I told myself through the whole pregnancy that there was NO WAY I was going to bed-share, but I was wrong. I find myself having more separation anxiety than I expected. I want him there, cuddled next to me. We've got a co-sleeper next to the bed, but if he gets grunty or squirmy, I just pull him up next to me and he zonks out. (And when he's sleeping quietly, I do, too.) I'm blessed that he'll nurse in the mornings around 6:30 or 7:00 and then go back to sleep with me for another hour and a half or more.

Rowan is probably the most laid-back baby I've ever seen. I thought at first it was because of the jaundice, but that's (mostly) cleared up now and he still is just so chill. He sleeps a lot, but when he's awake, he almost never fusses. He'll just sit and stare at us, or the light from a window, or whatever. He's not a huge fan of diaper changes or sponge baths, or anything that pins him down or makes him be still. He had to be re-hospitalized because of the jaundice, and I could hear him screaming from several rooms away while they did his IV. (I cried more than he did, I think.) My mom stayed with him and said that honestly, she thought he was screaming mostly from being pinned down, rather than from pain. Same with his circumcision. (We had a mohel do the circ...LOVED him.)

all warm under the bili-lights

Daddy and Rowan are bonding more and more, and it totally melts my heart. One of the things that I was most excited about was watching my husband become a father, and it has totally been everything I hoped it would be. Right now he's got Rowan sleeping on his chest, and he's leaned back in the recliner playing Final Fantasy 9. It's adorable.

In terms of post-partum recovery, I'm doing amazingly well. So much so that it almost scares me a little. I keep waiting for the crazy hormones and whatnot to hit me and make me feel lost or overwhelmed or manic, and it just hasn't yet. I'll go ahead and credit that largely to the placenta encapsulation that we did. I've been taking the capsules and haven't had the tiniest bit of baby blues or anything. The only time I cry is when I look at Rowan sometimes and am so overwhelmed with love and joy that I can't help but get weepy. (Scares the heck out of DH, haha.) Again, I am so blessed that PP recovery is going so smoothly. I'm barely even bleeding anymore, at 11 days post-birth. Amazing!

Life as a new mom is way cool. I love my little scrunchy, cuddly baby. I love my husband even more than I did before. To those of you who haven't experienced this yet: I can't wait for you to become moms. It is so, so worth every bit of struggle and prayer and waiting that you're going through right now. I know I didn't have to wait as long as a lot of my friends, and I'm so thankful for that, but I know that to have this little guy in my life, it would've been worth a lifetime of waiting.

Rowan's Very Long Birth Story

On Wednesday, September 12, I had Braxton Hicks. Nothing unusual for a pregnant lady who is 38w3d, right? Except they wouldn't go away. Every five minutes or so, I would have a painless BH contraction. I also noticed that I felt absolutely exhausted, despite having gotten a really good amount of sleep the night before. I was starting to suspect something was up with all those BH contractions, so I went for a walk to stall them out. They kept going. I took a nap...they did not. I called my midwife's office and my favorite nurse, Janette, told me to take a nice hot bath and relax. If they were nothing, they'd stall themselves out. If it was something, they'd keep going. So I took the bath, and they kept going. I was also having some mild spotting, which I assumed was from the cervical check I'd had the day before.

DH and I decided to head down to my mom's house (much closer to the hospital than ours) just in case something was going on. I tried to contact the on-call doctor at the hospital to ask their opinion. They finally called me back and told me that they didn't think I was in labor, but that I could come in and get checked if I wanted to. I did. At 10:30 at night, we got checked in at the ER and sent up to triage. They checked me and I was at a centimeter and a half, and 80% effaced. But, my blood pressure was crazy high. They decided to do a blood draw and a cath urine test (ow) for pre-eclampsia. While I was sitting in the bed waiting for the results of my test, I started having some actual contractions, and then I felt a gush. I paged the nurse and they checked, and sure enough, my water had broken! I was so surprised. It was about 2:30 when contractions started, and I guess around 3:00 when my water ruptured.

They sent us to a real L&D room, and we hunkered down for the long haul. Little did we know HOW long it was going to be! They told me to hang out, and they'd check me again in 4 hours. So I labored, breathed through the increasingly painful contractions, and rejoiced over the fact that my little boy would be in my arms in a few hours. (Or so I thought.) After four hours, they checked my cervix. I was up to 3cm and still 80% effaced. So I labored some more. I was getting SO uncomfortable and was really having a lot of pain with each contraction. DH and I walked the halls, and my mom showed up and walked with me too. I had to stop and lean against the walls when each contraction hit. After another 4 hours, they checked again, and I was at...3 cm, 80% effaced. I was SO discouraged that I hadn't made any progress. They moved me to a room with a seat in the shower so that I could sit in the hot water. They thought that the hot water hitting my chest would stimulate contractions to become more regular and productive. I spent an hour in the shower, and then got out, labored more, and waited. And at the next check? Still 3cm, 80% effaced. I broke down and cried.

At this point, they introduced the idea of Pitocin to try and get my contractions to regulate and become more productive. I was so devastated, but I agreed to try it because I had been without sleep and food for a very long time at this point. The Pitocin made the contractions hit me like a sledgehammer, and I began to REALLY struggle to get through each one. They gradually increased the Pitocin from .5 to 2, and when we got to 2, they offered me Stadol. I was in so much pain that I agreed to try it. The nurse told me that it'd just make me too loopy to care that I was in pain. What she SHOULD have told me was that I was going to go on the craziest psychedelic trip in the world. There were so many colors and images flying around in my head that I don't think I really got much rest under the Stadol, but man, was it fun. While under the Stadol, they increased my Pitocin from a 2 to an 8. When the Stadol wore off, I was suddenly in more pain than I even knew it was possible to experience. I was almost screaming through contractions...I truly felt like I was going to die with each one. After trying my best to labor through them, they checked me again and I had only progressed to 4cm after HOURS of Pitocin. I knew at that point that I couldn't do it without pain meds anymore.

I won't lie...I cried when I finally admitted that I needed the epidural. I wanted a natural birth SO badly, and had mentally and physically prepared myself for it from before I had ever even conceived Rowan. I felt like a failure and a disappointment to myself and to everyone who had encouraged me to go med-free. My sweet nurse Patrice looked in my eyes and told me, "Honey, getting the epidural will not make your birth any less beautiful, I promise you." Getting the epi itself was incredibly painful, especially because it wasn't placed properly the first time and they had to go back and move the catheter to adjust the flow of the meds. Once the numbing spread properly, I crashed. I was so incredibly exhausted. Two hours after the epidural, I woke up and they checked me again. I had gone from 4cm, 80% effaced to complete in TWO HOURS. Wow. It was time to push!

I couldn't feel my legs because of the epi, so I felt like half of my effort on pushes was expended holding my legs. They turned the epi off and let me labor down for a little bit, and once I had a tiny bit of sensation back, I started pushing. They told me that I was doing a great job, which was nice to hear because I couldn't feel much except for some pressure when contractions would start. Rowan's heart rate started decelerating a little with contractions, so the doctor delivering him told me that I needed to push with all my might. After what I think was about 20 minutes of pushing, I felt him crowning (weird sensation!) and a couple pushes later, he was out. They pulled him up on my belly and I burst into tears. He was so beautiful, and had hair!

Rowan Bennett was born at 3:45 a.m. on September 14th. He was 6lbs, 10oz and 19 inches long, and so beautiful. He has his daddy's eyes and nose, but has mommy's lips and fingers. We are so in love.

Rowan is here!

I'm really tired, what with having a newborn and all, but I promise I'll update with his birth story soon. It's a long one, and definitely did NOT go the way I had hoped, but he's here and healthy and that's all that matters.

We're currently dealing with a little jaundice, so T&Ps please that it clears up quickly!

Some stats, and a pic!

Rowan Bennett
September 14th, 2012
3:45 a.m.
6lbs, 10oz
19 inches long