V's Voice

Last night was not great, to say the least.  The Squeaker screamed off and on for 1 hour 43 minutes.  She just would not sit down or lie down until she was so extremely exhausted that she slumped down.  Here legs were out in front of her in a wide V and she was slumped forward as if she was stretching to touch her toes.  And this is how we found her dead asleep.  We didn't want to move her because we know she needs to learn how to do this on her own.  So we made some noise so that she would wake up and hopefully just reposition her body and go right back to sleep.  Nope.  She woke up screaming and stood up in her crib again until she slumped down again.  Not laying down, sitting down hunched into a ball. 

What a stubborn ass.  I am certain she knows how to sit in her crib.  She goes from standing to sitting all the time.  She is just so freakin' stubborn.  I know where she gets it from but, man, this makes life so hard right now.  She's not learning how to soothe herself.  She is crying to the point of exhaustion and passing out.  This does not teach her to sleep.  In fact this is why all the other methods didn't work because they caused the same problem. 

O, just go to sleep.  Just lay down and go to sleep.  Is it really that hard?

On the up side, she was so happy today.  Made me feel like we're not scarring her for life.

We have no other recourse. 

As much as I talked about how much I hate baby sleep books in the last post, we bought one more.  Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby by Marc Weissbluth.  I know whenever I get a sleep book I am confident and eager to see it work and this one is no different.  Except that if this doesn't work there is seriously nothing more to do. 

This is complete and total cry-it-out.  Put her in the crib and don't get her out til morning.  We did some practice runs last night and for naps today and the real problem is that the Squeaker doesn't give up and lay down.  Tonight for example.  She cried hysterically for 10 mins and since then intermittenly every 5 mins.  Why?  Because she falls asleep standing up holding on to the crib rails and when she starts to fall she wakes up and cries hysterically again.  She just won't sit down or lay down.  And she knows how to.  She pulls up and sits back down on her own all the time.  The last month we have been showing her how to sit down and lay on her side.  But she won't do it.  Ack. 

This is what prompted this method of sleep training.  Everything that we have tried to teach her how to sleep has been completely ineffective.  She still relies on us totally to fall asleep.  She's only going to learn if she does it on her own.  Eventually she'll get so sleepy she'll fall backward on her bum and hopefully lay down and go to sleep.  That or she'll go crashing into a crib rail which I hope really won't happen because then we'll have to start the process all over again.

It's a little ridiculous how much we have fought this.  We have literally tried every play in the playbook.  We've tried Sears, Pantley, West.  All different schools of thought, all different methods and all failures.  Ok, we haven't tried Ferber but at this point we just need this done.  The whole gradual thing doesn't work.  It's been gradual for 9 months.

So here we are.  Me glued to the video monitor (which our friend graciously lent us) hoping that the next time O cries she will plunk down on her butt and go to sleep.  Kraft coming in and out of his office to look at the monitor.  And O so so sleepy fighting a battle she can't win. 

Saint in charge of sleep problems, pray for us.

It has been crazy around this house.  Lots to tell. 

I had posted about the first couple days of sleep training.  It got great really fast.  Amen.  Alleluia. 

Until Day 8 or 9. 

The Squeaker started teething.  Damn.  We couldn't get back on the sleep train since then.  She teethed (toothed?) for a couple days.  Then I realized that O was not eating very much.  She wasn't nursing as much and not eating as much solid food.  Then her diapers became lighter and she seemed to not be peeing as much. 

Is my milk supply decreasing?  Yup.  I tried to pump about 3 hours after last feeding her and could not even get an ounce out.  Damn again.  I'm guessing the night weaning we did was too drastic of a change for my milk supply and when O stopped eating at night my milk decided to stop, too.  That just shows how much milk she was drinking at night. 

Ok, we need to buy formula.  My friend sent me a link to Dr. Sears' formula comparison chart.  After reading that I decide that buying a toddler formula that does not contain corn syrup was the best thing to buy.  For some reason I guess that Whole Foods would not carry a formula that contains corn syrup so we go there.  They only had two formulas.  One was for toddlers and one was a regular organic formula.  I try to buy O organic stuff and it had a DHA supplement which the other one did not contain, so we go with Earth's Best Infant Formula. 

We get home and I make O 4oz of formula.  She guzzles it down no problem.  I tried for about 20mins to get her to burp with no luck so I stick her in the exersaucer.  Five minutes later she projectile vomits, not just the 4oz of formula she just ate, but everything in her stomach.  I didn't even know a kid could hold that much liquid in their body.  Brandon picks her up and whisks her off the the bathtub.  I'm not sure what to do so I call a couple people.  While I'm on the phone with my mom and pouring water over O I see that see is covered in very red and raised hives.  O has eczema so her breaking out in a rash isn't super alien to us but hives that are actual welts is totally different.  I hang up on my mom and run for the baking soda to put in the bath water that a nurse told us soothes skin reactions.  O is scratching furiously. 

Kraft calls the after hours nurse line and we answer a gazillion questions.  Short story, give her Benadryl and take her to the ER because if she has an anaphylatic reaction it will happen in the next hour. 

Off we go to Dell Children's.  O is fine but starts falling asleep in the car which worries us so we're both singing at the top of our lungs to keep her awake.  Probably just the Benadryl but we know you're not supposed to let people who get concussions fall asleep, I thought that might be good advice to follow at the moment.  We get there.  All the staff is super calm and very nice. 

Again, short story, Dell Children's is wonderful and O just had a super allergic reaction to that specific formula.  The doc knows she is not allergic to lactose because she has been breastfeeding this whole time but we have to give her Alimentum formula just in case since we don't know what she is allergic to. 

O was fine and the hives were slowly going away.  After seeing her doc a few days later, we were told to see an allergist to find out exactly what she is allergic to.  Phew.  But overall, O is doing fine and guzzling down that formula.  She is also almost 100% weaned.  Only nurses when she wakes up and she is increasingly getting annoyed with it because she gets such little milk.  Will probably not even offer it tomorrow.  Her appetite is great now.  Eating a surprising amount of solid food.  Poor kid, she was hungry.

After all this you can guess her sleep is ridiculous.  We tried to get back on the Sleep Lady's schedule which was working beautifully at the beginning but now is a total nightmare.  After all this commotion it started taking a solid hour of screaming/crying to get her to sleep for naps and nighttime. 

We continued in this horrendous pattern for a week until last night when I had a total meltdown.  I can't spend 3 hours a day trying to get her to sleep and have her screaming at me the whole time consistently.  We tried to get her back on schedule for about a week with absolutely no progress and if anything her sleep was getting worse.  She was starting to wake up every couple hours at night instead of sleeping at least until 1am as usual. 

Last night I declared a big F you to the Sleep Lady and said obviously O and schedules do not get along.  I vowed to just watch her very carefully all day and only put her down when she was sleepy and not try to make her sleep hour-long naps.  My very wise mama friend today told me that she's always done this.  She doesn't go by the clock but by what her daughter needs and her daughter has been sleeping wonderfully for months. 

And today, O has slept great.  Sure her naps were only 20mins and 40mins long but then she went to sleep for the night in 8mins.  You can't argue with facts.  I have half a mind to pitch all these sleep books out the window.  Them and their bossy, condescending advice that haunts you at night. 

Last night in our misery we looked up sleep training problem solvers and found some really great links that are hilarious: Train Wreck and this one we found very interesting about too much attachment parenting and whether crying-it-out is actually harmful like Sears says it is: Baby Sleep Training Re-examined.

Moral of story - don't follow the advice of a "pert, blonde social worker" and just trust your gut and your baby.  You'll both be much saner and much happier. 

I will at least give Kim West a thank you for getting us to put O in the crib consistently and for night weaning.  I am actually very happy to not be breastfeeding anymore, but that's for another post.

Ok, so this is going into the "not a good mom move" folder and a copy is going in the "sometimes we freakin' rock folder."

After a minor setback called top tooth coming in we are finally back on track with the sleep training.  It's frustrating that she is crying now just about as much as at the beginning because we soothed her more than we should have because she was just in so much pain teething. 

So today after I put the Squeaker down she immediately sprang up and was standing up in her crib crying/screaming at me.  Then she paused, made her strained poop face, then continued crying.  Darnit.  She pooped.  I didn't want her to figure out that if she pooped we would pick her up and then use that against us later.  Ridiculous, I know.  I should have changed her immediately but I just couldn't.  4 minutes later she was fast asleep in her crib.  I stood over her thinking about what I should do.  I should just wake her up and change her.  No, I should wait until she wakes up.  What if she doesn't wake up until 1am?  Shoot.  I left her and figured she would wake up in a couple hours.  I know, I know, when a kid poos you gotta change them right then.  I just couldn't do it.  Getting her to sleep is hard enough, I couldn't deal with this.  So I closed the door softly behind me and went to cook dinner.

Kraft got home a while later and I confessed what I had done.  What should I do, Kraft?  He shrugged.  So I decided we were going to try to change her diaper without waking her up.  And can you believe it?  We did it.  We totally did it.  She stirred a little but never woke up.  We took off the diaper, wiped, put on new diaper and she stayed asleep.  A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.  Sure the diaper she has on right now is not the best put on diaper in the world but man, am I impressed with us.

I'm sure the self-congratulatory pat on the back will stop when she wakes up in the middle of the night soaked in pee because the diaper isn't on very well but right now I'm just going to revel in the glory.

So we are on Day 8 of sleep training.  At the end of it I'll give a summative evaluation of our progress which should be like day 14 or so. 

But for now I am pretty pissed at Kim West or the "Sleep Lady" as she likes to call herself.  So let's put aside that she calls herself the "Sleep Lady" and that her method is called the "Sleep Lady Shuffle".  And let's put aside that parents that have been sleep-deprived for over half a year have no patience for cutesy little titles, they just want their baby sleeping. 

When it comes down to it, she is a moneychanger.  You know, like the people that Jesus overturned their tables and kicked them out of the Temple.  Yeah, she's one of those.  She exploits the desperate.  I don't mind at all paying full price for books or whatever but she wrote her book with the express intention of making more money off of it.  She is a licensed social worker or something so I'm sure she is worth a hefty price for her private consulations.  But you can call her for private over-the-phone consultations.  For one hour it is $150, for her full services it is $450, and to join her online forum just to ask a few questions in public, it is $40.  Gimme a break.  Who can pay that?  I'm sure few can pay it but many make the sacrifice because they're so desperate for help.

At one point we were actually desperate enough to entertain the idea of paying the $450 because the Squeaker is such a tough case and then we came to our senses and just bought her book. 

But, the thing is, she writes just enough in her book for you to get the basics of the method but not enough to actually get you through it.  All the other sleep books I've read definitely answer as many common questions as they can think of.  Kim West doesn't.  And I'm not talking specific questions like:

• What do I do when my daughter has asthma and was 6 weeks premature and my husband smokes and we have a cat in an efficiency apartment? 

I want the answer to very common problems that have come up that everyone I'm sure has.  Like:

• What do we do when she wakes up from her nap and has not slept a full hour?  Do we just chalk it up as a bad nap or do we put her back down and start over?

• What happens if she starts teething in the middle of the training?  Do we have to stick to whatever routine we're doing that day or can we back up a few days and be a little closer to her crib?

• How does the method change when you live in a one bedroom apartment and her crib is in your room?

She kinda touches on these questions but doesn't explain the answers in enough detail to actually give you an answer.  I like to give people the benefit of the doubt but in this case I'm pretty sure she doesn't fully answer these questions because she hopes you'll need to pay for her private services.

I really think that the method of sleep training she figured out is good and effective but I think she is manipulating vulnerable parents.  She's a moneychanger.

I've been leading up to this for awhile.  We started sleep training the Squeaker on Monday night.  We decided to do everything in one fell swoop -  training her at night to sleep in her crib and also her naps in the crib and night weaning her.  I know, big shock to poor O but I'd rather be completely miserable for a few weeks than kinda miserable for months if we separated each thing.

We are following the "Sleep Lady Shuffle" which means for the first three nights we sit on a chair by the side of her crib and stay there until she falls asleep.  We can talk to her, pat her, but no picking her up unless she is hysterical.  No nursing to sleep, just putting her down "drowsy but awake."  We have yet to reach hysterical but we have definitely gotten super pissed and completely dejected from O.

Brandon bravely did night 1 duty.  Thank God.  It was much easier for me to deal with her cries when I was in the next room with the door closed watching TV and eating dinner.  On the first night it took O 42mins of crying to fall asleep.  We had yet to see O stand up in her crib from a laying down position.  Come to find out she can do this, and very well I might add.  This has made sleep training almost unbearable.  She pulls up and just cries and screams in our face.  After a while when we don't pick her up, she just lets her head and arms go limp and slumps over the side of the crib while still sobbing.  It's heartbreaking.  Truly heartbreaking.  Well, this happened to Brandon on the first night and he laid her down a couple times because she can get up but does not know how to get back down.  But eventually he just let her stay standing to tire her out.  She fell asleep standing up slumped over the crib rail.  Ugh.  Poor thing.  Brandon said he laid her down and she didn't even flinch. 

Day 2 I had to do naps and sleep time training which was rough.  That's too much heartache for one day.  It's too hard to hear your kid cry that much in one day.  The only thing that kept me from caving in after a day of crying was that all this misery would be in vain and we would probably just have to start over at a later date. 

Naps are the worst and so hard to get her to do.  She takes 2 naps a day.  For her morning nap she cried 20mins and slept almost an hour and a half.  Pretty good.  For her afternoon nap she cried 48mins and slept 36mins.  Damn.  But then she only cried for 8mins when I put her to bed at night and she slept for a little over 6 hours.  Tough day so thank God the progress is pretty quick.

Night weaning has been the hardest part for her I think.  She has woken up both nights in the 1-2am hour and the 5-6am hour because these are usually the times she not just snacked but had an all out feast.  She basically cries for these hours but hopefully it'll get better.  Her doctor has been telling me that she doesn't need to eat at night since she was 4 months old so I know she can get through the night without eating.

Even though I can see her improving very quickly, ugh, this is  just torture.  I've been walking around with the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach for the last 3 days.  This is what I felt like in the days leading up to my first day of teaching.  Nervous.  Sick.  Nauseous.  I know that we have to teach her how to sleep and I know we have to do this for the sake of the whole family but man, it's hard.  Having to see her sobbing and confused and angry and tired and pressing her little face against the crib slats literally make me sick to my stomach. 

But we're holding strong.  And praying a lot.  Dear God, just get us through another night.

Ok, ok, I know I said that we were going to start sleep training on Sunday but we went to a friend's benefit fundraiser so instead we started today.  I'll blog about our experience tomorrow but for today it is a bittersweet feeling.  The Squeaker has slept in bed with us for almost 9 months.  While it wasn't always comfortable there are things that I'm going to miss.  So...

10 Things I'm Going to Miss About Bedsharing:

1) When she would wake up and curl up closer to me and then go back to sleep.
2) Getting to see her smile in her sleep.
3) Waking up to her being wide awake and hitting me in the face to wake me up.
4) Watching her roll over to her dad and snuggle up with him to fall asleep.
5) Her thrashing around wildly trying to stay asleep and ending up upside down with her feet at my head.
6) Not having to get out of bed when she wakes up at night.
7) The bed having that great baby smell.
8) Being able to hear her breathe and not having to worry that she stopped breathing.
9) Feeling very secure about her safety because she was right there.
10) Being able to snuggle with our baby during the rare moment that she isn't squirming all over the place and getting into everything.

That's it.  It's been almost 9 months of the Squeaker's horrible sleeping and I can't do it anymore.  I've been fighting sleep training this whole time thinking that her sleep will get better.  It's not and I am so sick of it.  I'm so frustrated with it and starting to get really resentful.  I've been fighting the "cry-it-out" thing because I can't get those silly books out of my head that say if you do this to your baby they give up and feel isolated.  What changed my mind, other than teetering on the brink of insanity, is when I read in one of those stupid books that "a resentful mom is not a good mom.  So if you're getting resentful you have to change something."  I agree.  They also said that crying is a natural thing when you're trying to change your baby's sleep habits because they are so used to one thing.  The difference is the baby crying alone or crying in your presence.  At least they know you are there.

I'll take it.  I've found a way in between the super-slow gradual way I've been doing and the let the kid cry alone way.  It's called the "Sleep Lady Shuffle".  For some reason I really don't like this lady that invented it which I'm sure I'll expand upon in another post but I like her ideas. 

So I bought her book today and plan on implementing it on Sunday with no turning back.

I would start today if my parents weren't coming into town tomorrow night.

Just to give you an idea, I started trying to put O to sleep at 6:30 and it is 9:15.  She has slept the following spurts 27mins, 7mins, and 34mins.  She should have been sleeping for the last 2hrs and 45mins and she has slept only 1hr and 8mins and the rest has been me working hard to get her to sleep.  Can't do it.  I don't like being angry at my baby for something that isn't her fault.  It's my fault.  I haven't taught her to sleep and I've failed as a parent in that regard.  But not anymore.  Sunday is the day.  Sunday...

Right off the bat I know that this is a great problem to have.  Being in a position to be looking for a house is such a blessing and one that many don't have at the moment so I promise I'm not complaining.  I just have no idea what to do.

So we've been looking for a house for a month and half and we've looked at tons online and a lot in person not the mention the countless times we've just driven aimlessly through neighborhoods hoping the perfect house would show up on sale.

We are quickly realizing that we're not going to find a house in 78704 like we hoped so we've started looking at other parts of Austin.  It's tough because we have gotten so spoiled.  We can walk anywhere and it's so important to us to be able to walk somewhere.  Even just to a park or to some shops or restaurants. 

Here's what we're really trying to discern.  We have found some great houses in the Mueller development and we may have found a few good ones on the east side off of Fiesta Gardens.  Mueller is so convenient and the houses are new and there are parks and pools and a great, close-knit community, it's super safe but it is a suburb.  It seems a little forced, fake.  The east side on the other hand is just "real".  We wouldn't be living in a homogeneous place.  It would be very diverse.  The Squeaker would know people from all walks of life but safety is more of a concern.  Would we be comfortable walking at night?  The house we would live in would be nicer than others on the block.  Would we be paranoid about being targeted for break-ins?

We just can't figure out what the best thing for our family would be.  We're open to suggestions/advice if you got 'em.

Yesterday was my first Mother's Day (with a baby not on the inside of me) and it was great.  Olivia was so thoughtful and got me exactly what I wanted (kitchen gadgets) and Kraft has promised a 6-pack of my favorite beer next time we're near Specs.  And we're going to Alamo Drafthouse's baby day and watching Babies tomorrow.  I am sooo excited about it.

So I was thinking and reflecting on what it means to be a mother and I started thinking about what it takes to be a mother. 

"It's important to not make the decision based on fear."
If you've known me for any reasonable amount of time you know that the issue of "planning" kids is one that I am constantly thinking about, reading about, discussing, reflecting on, etc.  I don't always understand the decisions that people make but I know they are doing what they think is best for the family.  When it comes to me and Kraft making decisions about kids, I have yet to come up with a better answer than - leave God in control of it. 

If me and Kraft were in charge of our fertility I'm not sure we'd ever have a kid.  Having a kid is inconvenient, uncomfortable, expensive (and completely wonderful, but that's besides the point).  If we were planning it I don't know if we'd ever think we had enough money or were in a place good enough in our relationship to have a kid.  So from the beginning we decided we have to leave it up to God.  It was very tempting to say after the Squeaker was born that we want to space kids out, that we want to figure out how to be parents, that we need to save up some money, but when it came down to it we were just plain scared of getting pregnant right away. 

I was discussing this with a friend and honestly just trying to see if I could come up with a reason that would convince me that the situation was grave enough to use NFP to not conceive a child.  In our conversation we came to the conclusion that when it comes to making major decisions like this we cannot let fear dictate our decision.  Just because we were scared of getting pregnant again quickly does not mean that we should take it into our own hands.  So we decided to leave it in God's hands (obviously always the right choice but of course the hardest) and here we are 8 months later and not pregnant yet.  God knows what we need.  And if I had gotten pregnant in these last 8 months, God would know what He was doing sending us that baby.

"Always button baby clothes from the bottom up."
At one of my baby showers everyone wrote advice for us new parents and this was one of the few suggestions that I think about constantly.  Whenever I'm putting O in her pajamas, I always start from the top with the buttons and I always miss a button by the time I get to the end and I think about this advice card.  I should know to start from the bottom by now but I never do.  Such a simple piece of advice but so right on.

"If you don't buy me the candy I'm going to tell grandma that I saw you kissing daddy's peepee."
A horrible embarrassing story that I read about in some parenting magazine.  The little kid yelled this at her mom when they were trying to check out at the grocery store.  Being a mom requires such humility in so many different ways.  Carrying added baby weight when I've always been so self-conscious about weight.  Walking around UT with O by myself and getting looks of shock from students/parents walking around. (We always joke that I should put on a UT tshirt and hang out with O and the stroller in front of some sorority house just for laughs.)  Having O scream at the top of her lungs in a restaurant or totally meltdown in public and getting ugly looks.  Breastfeeding in public when there is no other recourse.  Looking frumpy in public because O just wouldn't let me do anything to make myself presentable that morning.  Moms have got to have such thick skin.

"You just never know what's going to happen in life so really enjoy it and be thankful."
On our first flight with O we sat next to this absolutely wonderful lady.  She was telling us how much she wanted a big family but her husband divorced her after they had their first kid and she never remarried or had any other kids.  I know, sad huh?  But she's so right.  We may want a huge family but that doesn't mean that God has other plans.  Maybe God will only send us O for the rest of our lives.  So we have to be so thankful and enjoy every moment with O because maybe we won't walk this newborn part again.

"No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I'm clinging.  Since Love is Lord of heaven and how can I keep from singing."
This is a hymn from church that I constantly have to sing to keep sane.  It's kinda like my mantra.  When I feel like I'm about to lose it because I'm so frustrated with O I sing this in my heard and picture me holding onto the rock of sanity and it helps me calm down.  God always sends me the grace to calm down when I ask for it.

"9:20 sleep, 9:55 awake, 10:35 sleep, 10:37 awake, 10:45 sleep, 10:55 awake, 11:05 sleep, 11:45 awake, 11:48 asleep, 11:55 awake, 12:08 asleep, 1:22 awake,  1:40 sleep, 4:00 awake, 5:00 sleep, 6:20 awake, 7:45 sleep, 10:30 awake"
This is O's sleep log from a night in January.  We have had some really rough nights.  She's not much better at sleeping.  She still sleeps at least one good 3 hour block but other than that wakes up about every hour but it's much easier to put her back to sleep than it used to be.  Patience is the name of the game.  And sometimes I lose at the game but everyday is a new day.

So here's to all the moms that have to be not afraid, practical, humble, thankful, sane, patient, and a million other things to keep the family running. 

Happy (belated) Mother's Day.