Forward, back, sideways

Under advice of our pediatrician, we started Nuala out on rice cereal for a few days, then switched to oatmeal, expecting to move on to vegetables in another week. The rice has been a big hit, I think because it’s pretty mild, so it’s basically like eating solid breastmilk.  The oatmeal has been less of a hit, though she’s still eating almost the whole little bowl I’ve been fixing (about 2T of cereal with about 1oz of milk).  It has more fiber, so it’s required a bit more of her gut, which I suppose has led pretty directly to the kind of writhing and back-arching she’s been doing at night.  And also the not sleeping.

Not that she was sleeping all the way through before, but four wakings feels about like eight wakings when you’ve been spoiled with two wakings for a few days.  The only way I can get anything resembling a good night’s sleep is to actually sleep with her in the bed and roll over and feed her when she wakes again demanding to be fed.

Now here’s the rub. I know she can survive through the night without eating.  And we’ve tried to get her to settle again without feeding her.  But when she starts whining and crying, and I go to pick her up out of her crib in the middle of the night, she wraps her little arms around my neck and attaches herself like a barnacle to my face, my neck, my shoulder, and whatever else gets in the way before I can get her latched on.  She eats like she’s never going to eat again, and then she falls back asleep for another 2-3 hours.

The only thing I can think to do is to mix half rice cereal, half oatmeal today, and move on to veggies sooner than later, in case the oatmeal is actually gut-wrenching and keeping her up.  I feed her in the afternoons since my milk supply is a bit lower then, so I guess I could also start feeding her earlier until we go to 2x/3x a day. But otherwise, I don’t know what to do to convince her to sleep with fewer breaks during the night.  I can’t tell you how badly I DON’T want to let her cry it out.  One, because I simply don’t want to hear her squalling all night long, and two, because I need to sleep at night, and a crying baby is going to keep me up more effectively than a briefly-waking-and-eating baby.  Any other good ideas?  Or are we just going to have to wait?

Ahh, so that’s why we had a kid

She’s playing happily in the ExerSaucer, sticking her thumb in her mouth and gabbing about who knows what, and then she gets quiet.  I look up from my laptop (gotta work when I can), and she’s just staring at me, smiling like I’m the best thing she’s seen all day.  How am I not supposed to snatch her up and squeeze her to pieces?

Seat-of-the-pants parenting

The American Academy of Pediatrics, as well as most breastfeeding-friendly experts, say to breastfeed exclusively for six months.  Nuala’s pediatrician, as well as the ubiquitous advice of Dr. Sears, says to introduce solids when the baby’s ready, sometime between 4 and 6 months.  How to know when she’s ready?  Besides the physical signs (good head control, can swallow well, keeps reaching for mom and dad’s food…), one tidbit of Dr. Sears’ jumped out at me: when she increases the frequency of feedings for several days with no sign of slowing down.  I tried to space her out to 2.5 hours between feedings for a couple weeks, and only got a fussy baby in return.  So for all but a couple weeks of her short life, she’s pretty much eaten every 2 hours around the clock (usually every 3 overnight).  It’s good for keeping my milk supply up, sure, but Lord, I could use some help.

So anyway, we decided this would be the week to try out rice cereal.  The plan, insofar as we have one, comes from the pediatrician: rice for a few days to a week, oatmeal (single-grain) for a week, then start in on some vegetables.  How did the rice cereal go on Monday?  Check it out.

I think she’s ready.

Fourth time’s a charm

I don’t know whether her difficulty falling asleep tonight and last night is due to the tooth, the interrupted sleep schedule she had this weekend, or the fact that she’s gotten used to sleeping with at least one of us in the same bed again something like five out of the last seven or eight nights.  Or maybe it’s just that she misses her daddy, who is away at a conference until tomorrow night.  Perhaps his incessant coughing (the last remnants of a cold) is comforting.  Tonight and last night, I’ve put her down and had her cry herself awake three times afterwards before settling for the night.  This last time I went to get her, all I did was pick her up and sit down on the bed, and she stopped crying and went right back to sleep.  Do I love the fact that all she needed was Mom to hold her a little bit, or resent the fact that I’m still not going to get the opportunity to watch that last episode on the Mad Men DVD tonight?  Why not both?

First weekend away with baby: check.

Left on Friday, back today, with lots of goodness in between.  I am very happy to report that it was a success.

First off, Nuala slept the whole way up there, a big bonus because we were unable to find a sitter for the rehearsal/dinner night and I was anxious about her missing sleep.  The hotel room was fantastic, with plenty of room in the sitting area for the crib (also supplied by the hotel).  Seriously, if you ever have to spend some time in Grand Rapids and don’t have a ton of money to spend doing it, go to the SpringHill Suites behind Target on 28th St.

The little booger didn’t end up falling asleep until 11pm or so, but she was very well behaved up until the ride from the restaurant back to the hotel at the end of the night.  That was a screamy ride, but it ended with her passing out cold, so at least we didn’t wake up the whole hotel. I had some difficulty falling asleep, but the bed was so comfortable I almost didn’t mind just laying there with random snippets of songs running through my head for a few hours, flinching every time Spouse coughed, and trying to lean away from a kicking baby (she would NOT settle in the crib).

Saturday morning I’d hoped we would have some time to take her to the pool, but we dragged around a bit getting breakfast and showers and whatnot.  Nuala did have her first bath in the big tub, and I found it a lot easier to handle a slick, squirmy baby to take a bath with her than lean over the edge.  It was a thoroughly adorable experience, since she had a lot more room to kick and splash.  Thoroughly adorable right up to the moment she looked at me with a determined brow, and pooped, that is.  Oh well.

After noon, I had to go do bridesmaid-y things with one of the loveliest brides I’ve ever known. I’ve done bridesmaid duty a handful of times over the years, but juggling a breastfeeding schedule with a wedding-day schedule was a new experience.  I made it through all the pictures without a single milk stain, so I think that means I did it successfully.  Also, I managed to navigate a playground spiral slide in silk chiffon and 3″ heels with no injuries unless you want to count some seriously sore pecs today.  I cannot WAIT to see the playground wedding-party pictures.  If anyone you know is getting married and has access to an elementary-school playground, insist that they go do pictures there.  It’s a tremendous amount of fun.

The wedding went off as smoothly as could be, and Nuala made her own vocal contribution at various points.  I fed her one last time after the ceremony and handed her off to Spouse, who then handed her off to the complete stranger to whom we entrusted her safety.  And then I spent the rest of the evening clutching my phone JUST IN CASE. The only call came around  9:45 when the sitter wanted to know if after her second bottle she was supposed to go back to sleep.  Nuala apparently had no plans to wind down again, but she was as happy as could be when we got back to her around 10:30, so the whole stranger-babysitter thing was also a success.

And the reception?  Jeez, where do I start? Mashed potato bar.  Panini station.  Giant raviolis with meatballs.  Big honkin’ pork loin at a carving station.  And then there were the pies and cakes.  Seriously, it was like going into your favorite bakery and having the person behind the counter say, “Take your pick! Come to think of it, why not have a piece of everything?”  After all that, you get to see aforementioned very good friends do an actual choreographed, real-dancing first dance to the Proclaimers’ 500 Miles.  I challenge any and all comers to outdo it as a first dance.  I challenge any and all comers to outdo the food. For the purposes of judging, I must be invited, of course.

It was the first night out for me and Spouse since Nuala was born.  It was a very, very good first night out.

We capped off the weekend with a quick drive back home today, a frantic unpacking and eating of lunch, and sending Spouse off to Wisconsin for a conference until Tuesday.

….

And here I am watching the last minutes of the Vikings game, and she’s fussing a bit, so I stick my knuckle in her mouth to gauge whether she’s bored or hungry, and what do I feel but a sharp little tooth poking through that bottom gum.  Holy moly, our baby’s got her first tooth.

Mark it 10/14/2009

Today shall henceforth be known as The Day Nuala Learned the Joys of Peekaboo.  Big belly laughs tonight before her bath (the giggliest time of the day by far) as I inadvertently dropped the blanket over her face and suddenly pulled it back with a “Gol-LEE!” look on my face.  She’s been laughing on purpose much more often in the last couple weeks, and we couldn’t be more pumped about it.  Belly laughs work wonders for erasing the pain of interrupted sleep…

Ta-da!

As good as she is at grasping, gumming, and squealing, she cannot work technological miracles.  ’Tis a pity, because our internet stopped working sometime when I was working on campus on Saturday, and hasn’t resurrected itself yet.  The AT&T man is supposed to come tomorrow and sort it out, but who knows.

Also, I got a new memory card for my camera, one that doesn’t randomly decide to quit working, so I can take some pictures of a certain wedding this weekend.  Ran into a hitch with that, too–I couldn’t get it to upload anything last night.  I finally worked it out by uploading it through the memory card reader on my printer, of all things, and thus you see the picture above.  I remembered that I hadn’t formatted the card, though, so let’s hope that was the problem.  Otherwise, my uploading will be considerably more cumbersome from here on out.

And finally, my phone has decided my library carrel is a time-warp zone.  I go into the carrel at 11:45, check the time on my phone, and it instantly resets to some earlier time.  10:07am, perhaps.  Or 7:42 of the previous evening.  I should probably lodge a complaint at the front desk.  Or get a new phone.

Here’s hoping we have internet at home sometime soon.  I’m really missing my Hulu.  I mean, what are Spouse and I supposed to do at dinner, talk to each other?

Hello, feet. Have you met mouth?

Naked Baby Time/Diaper Time is getting more difficult, but certainly more adorable every day.

Ruthless

The wasteland surrounding her demesne is littered with the carcasses of the dead.

Know a good psychic?

Send them my way, won’t you? I’ve got an array of questions to ask concerning our immediate future.

I don’t know if Nuala’s teething (she could always be teething!) but we’ve got a new hitch in the routine. Runny nose and sleeplessness, hooray!  She’s in a fine mood still, no fever, and perfectly clear snot, so I can’t really tell if she has a cold or if it’s teething-related.  If she did have a cold, we’d be doing the same thing anyway–sucking snot with that bulb syringe when necessary, doing the saline-up-the-nose trick from time to time, elevating the head of her mattress with a couple pillows underneath, and running the humidifier in her room.  And wiping, wiping, wiping that ooey-gooey mixture of snot and drool that plasters the lower half of her face 24/7.  My life has taken a turn for the moist.

So because of all that snot and drool, she’s not sleeping very well, and neither are we.  When she naps (if she naps), she wakes herself up coughing.  And (I assume) because she doesn’t feel totally awesome, she’s clingy and only sleeps for a good long stretch right next to me after waking in the middle of the night.  I can get in a good four hours that way, but that seems to be the limit these days.  Two plus four plus one hour of sleep does not really equal seven hours of sleep.  It does, however, equal fifteen minutes of being beaten mercilessly with a baseball bat if it continues for several weeks.  Which it has.

I know all this will resolve soon…or it won’t…and either way I’ll learn to deal with it better a little more each day.  But getting dizzy just about every time I stand up and having a persistent low-grade headache is getting mighty old.*

*Yes, I’m eating enough. I think.  And yes, I’m still taking my prenatal vitamins.  I don’t seem to be sick-sick, just tired. Disheveled. Bedraggled.