This baby business? Whew. Our average weekday is hard. I made a log:
515-530: henry wakes, nurse while ben showers
530-545: play with henry in bed, change his dipes while ben gets ready for work
545-615: get ready for work (dress, shower, make smoothie and eggs, help pack diaper bag, squeeze in a few last minute baby kisses, no wonder I almost never make it out of the door on time)
615 ben leaves to drop H off at the caregivers, i leave for my carpool to work
630-4: feel underworked and terribly sad that i am not making better use of my time at home with henry. crunch numbers to try and see if there is anything to be done. there isnt.
430-445: get home and nurse H, who has just woken up (ben and H have been home for a couple of hours)
445-530: spend time with my boys. try not to "get stuff done" but make it quality time.
530-545: H and ben bathe while i start dinner and get the room ready for bed (make bed, get dipes and pjs together, pick up floor, change water in humidifier)
545-630: nurse H and spend some more quality time with him before putting him to sleep while ben finishes cooking and watches a little surfing on the net and cleans up a little
630-640: wolf down our dinner
640-710: chat while we clean up (not the dishes- too noise) prepare for the morning, take care of little thing
710: H wakes up. we know that until we come to bed, he will just keep waking up. so ben goes to bed and reads a bit and lies with him
710 till i give in and go to bed to read (930ish?): edit photos for that wedding, make a tiny dent in the laundry that needs to be folded, type up these notes, refrain from blogging, try and give the cat 5 minutes of affection, pick up messes, wash cloth dipes, pay some bills
bed time to 5ish: lie in bed and try not to focus of what did not get done (those dishes, the rest of the laundry, mailing that package, calling my mom....) H wakes several times in the night to nurse.* i honestly have no idea how many. in the beginning of the night (9-12) i think it is every hour. then we get a long stretch. then it is frequent again in the early morning hours and we are using every trick to keep him asleep past 5.
we love H more than anything we could have imagined. we are so completely filled with joy and gratitude that he is in our life, and almost every moment spent with him is a good one. but. it is still hard. i hate that H goes to sleep so soon after i get home from work. miss alone time with my husband. i am frustrated that our only day off together too often involves catching up around the house instead of taking an adventure with H. i'd love to watch at least half a movie one evening without one of us having to go to bed.
so i wonder; how does this compare with your routine, if you are also in the thick of it. if you have made it to the other side (please tell me there is one) when does it get better?
*unless he is sick or teething, for the most part this just involves scooting him down from the crook where he is nuzzled by me, then scooting him back up after he passes back out within 5 to 10 minutes. THANK GOD.
Oh it gets better! It is still hard, but know that it not only gets better very soon, but also WAY MORE FUN. Watching your baby turn into a crawler and then a toddler happens really quickly. And the development they make in other ways is AMAZING.
ReplyDeleteExample: This morning, Greg still sleeping (meanie), Dax was SO hyper and going everywhere and I was so tired and cranky and then I took off his diaper and he peed on the book corner blanket, but then he came up to my face and kissed me on the lips and I immediately felt amazing. The end.
I nurse on demand in bed too. The sleep thing ebbs and flows. When he's teething or having a freak week where he learns 80 new things, he wakes every hour, etc. But then he transitions into sleeping for 3-4 hours, which is pretty nice for me. I am so used to worse, so no biggie. Oh, and now that he nurses like a toddler, meaning he supports himself entirely -- I can sneak in so much extra sleep even when he is awake.
Mothers are amazing. I had NO idea. Where is all the serious literature lauding our supremeness?
I feel you Jamie. I really do.
ReplyDeleteThis schedule pretty much sounds like ours, but with two kids, who wake up around 6:30-6:45 and a daycare pickup at 5:45 (which is so late it blows my mind). :-( They go to bed around 8:15-8:30. Now that I've stopped nursing, we sometimes have better nights, but most of the time the both of us will get up once of twice and at some point F will probably end up in bed with us.
I feel so stretched and overwhelmed most of the time right now. But I know it will eventually get better (our house being for sale is responsible for a lot of that).
I feel basically the same while I'm at work. I like working, I would choose to continue doing so, but I hate this current schedule where the kids spend 10 hours a day at daycare because of traffic and of my schedule which is less flexible now that it has ever been. I would need fewer hours and better flexibility! But for now we have no choice, so we're going on and we'll reassess when it's possible. I still wish I was able to be more in the moment with them as well, instead of always taking care of something that needs to be done.
The kids are doing well, mind you. They love it at daycare, even the little one, and they spend the day together. That's what's comforting me, knowing that this is probably more my issue than theirs.
And I promise that it does get easier. H is still very little now, but you'll see your routine and comfort level will change as he grows. I think the first year is the hardest, no matter what. And I remember when LP was maybe 20 months or so, I suddenly realized that I wasn't always so stressed and tense and tired anymore.
I wanted to breastfeed but it didn't work out. And now, I must say, I see the good side of it. P is 2 months old and sleeps from around 9 PM to 6 or 7 AM. He takes 4 meals in 24 hours now. Also, he has been sleeping in his own room from the start.
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't get the benefits nursing gives, but he gets plenty of care from parents who are not exhausted. What was a big disappointment at first turns out not to be so bad...
I hope it gets better soon for you.
(Also, I realize that I am writing from a different perspective, but I still say it gets easier!)
ReplyDeleteI feel you. I've been so busy at work lately that I sometimes don't get home until after 6. I start Wolf's bedtime routine at 7:30 and he's usually asleep by 8 or 8:15. and {huge, gigantic knocks on wood} Wolf sleeps through the night. sometimes he doesn't wake up until 6:45 or 7, sometimes even 8. I have to get up to start my day at 7 to be at work by 8:30, so most days I only get to spend a little bit of time with him and IT SUCKS. I miss him so much during the day!! and he's growing way to damn fast. it just makes me cherish my weekends with him so much. {I, too, crunch numbers but sadly for me as well, it just won't work for me to stay at home} siiiiiggghhh.....
ReplyDeleteI am still on maternity leave for three more weeks and deperately trying to get the sleep thing under better control before I go back. Zoe is 9 weeks and she goes to bed between 6:30 and 7:30 and wakes once or twice to nurse then wakes at 6 to eat and then we can sometimes "luxuriate" in bed for another hour.
ReplyDeleteThen there are the nights that she is up every two hours to nurse. It is slowly trending to at least 4 hour stretches. We twice have gone 7 hours.
She is still in the moses basket 5 inches from my head and she is a NOISY baby. So I still am up a lot during the night listening to her and trying to decide if she needs anything.
And it is THE HARDEST THING THAT I HAVE EVER EVER DONE.
ReplyDeleteAnd they must get to the other side because people have second chidren.
thank you for this post and all of these comments. makes a mama feel not so alone. finn is 14 months and i'm going through a bit of a rough week (he's sick, so we've been up a lot at nights), but i would second what intwo said about it getting more and more fun as the babe gets older. watching finn start walking at 10 months and start exploring more and more of his world is fantastic. lately he's been sitting for 10 minute (amazing, as he is an incredible busy little one) stretches to page through books on his own and it makes my heart hurt it's such a beautiful thing. i take heart hearing that at some point i won't feel so exhausted, cause tho' i thought we were there last month, but struggling again with lack of sleep and feeling overwhelmed and isolated.
ReplyDeleteyes, thankyou. i, too, am in the thick of it. i see friends post things like "a whole week of baby sleeping through the night" on facebook and i secretly cuss them! my 5 month old is up every 2 hours, sometimes 3, and (blissfully but rarely) 4 hours at night. but, i am so lucky to be at home with my little boy. (It's so sad to see all my fav bloggers in the States go back to work so quickly -here in Australia it really is unusual for a mum to go back to work before 6months. I do feel so lucky.)
ReplyDeletep.s. meghan: [re: it is THE HARDEST THING THAT I HAVE EVER EVER DONE.] AMEN sister.
we're at the 1 year mark and it's gotten much better (save for teething, sickness, travel, unusual noises, etc etc). but seriously, it gets better. for us, the major turning point with sleep is when we moved E to her own room.
ReplyDeletewe also found sleep training to be a MASSIVE help. Celia and I have talked a lot about it (or I've mentioned it and she looks panicked ;) ) and if it's something you're comfortable with then it can be a god-send.
otherwise, my guess is that Henry is super attuned to you both and is trying his darndest to do what babies are supposed to do...spend as much time as possible with you guys. having his own dark, quiet space might help tremendously. and it's pretty darn fun, for a multiple of reasons, to get your bedroom back.
you should have titled this post 'in the thick of it' - you really, really are. my memory has been kind and i had nearly forgot about the almost nervous breakdown i had at six months when i was working tons and elodie was just not sleeping. we finally bit the bullet and sleep trained around 7-8 months. once we did that, night weaned and lost the swaddle things got much easier. you guys are riding the waves of the first beautiful, challenging year. it gets better. sure there are still really intense patches but nothing like the first year.
ReplyDeleteeverything gets a lot less 'handle with kid gloves' after that. hang in there love!!
Man, it was super hard. My daughter is 16 months old now, and the early weeks (months?) are just a haze. I was working from home, trying to finish a dissertation, and I remember thinking "What have I gotten myself into?" It was hard. As everyone above is saying, it gets better...and there are a lot of things that I miss about those early days.
ReplyDeleteJaime, you are not alone! I have a sixth month old who wakes up every hour or so at night. We also co-sleep, and I lie down with him when he goes to bed at 6 p.m. to prevent him from waking immediately. Because my son is a classic high needs baby (by Dr. Sear's definition) who insists on mommy, I have to be the one to go to bed with him. This means that my day is only 12 hours long! The rest of the time I spend fitfully sleeping next to the baby. I have given up on keeping the house clean--that's now my husband's job. The silver lining is that all of the nursing keeps my supply up. If we didn't co-sleep, I am not sure I could function during the day.
ReplyDeleteHi Jamie. It does get much much better! Kate is 17 months old and for the first 9 months she woke almost every hour. I was her sleep association (I nursed her to sleep) and it was like living in a haze (but a happy one). I started hallucinating during the nights so my husband and I tried some no-cry sleep training, which may have worked if Kate didn't get croup and her first three teeth in the space of 2 weeks. At 14 months I very very very relunctantly agreed to sleep training and from the first night she slept through and has been since. It has changed our lives (and I think it saved our marriage). I'm back at work full time next month and I'm heartbroken at the thought of not seeing my gorgeous girl during the day. x
ReplyDeleteOk obviously the sleeping experience is different for everyone, so it's almost unfair to try to compare yourselves to others. But I do know that transitioning W to his crib in his own bedroom has led to a longer night's sleep for us. W slept in our bed until he was about 3 months and woke up to nurse a lot... Sometimes I think he just woke up because one of us woke him up on accident but then once he was awake he wanted to eat. Then around 3 months we transitioned him to sleeping in his crib, but we kept it in our room till he (and I) got used to it. We were so excited that he started sleeping longer stretches! After about 1 month of crib in our room, we moved W and his crib to his own bedroom and now he sleeps through the night (roughly 8:30/9 - 5:30/6.... KNOCK ON WOOD). Anyways, long story short... I LOVED co-sleeping but we all have gotten into a much better sleep routine since W moved to his crib.
ReplyDeleteDitto on the crib/bedroom transition. We did that early too and actually that ended up being best for all of us. Our daughter seemed like she slept better, but it was hard to not have her with us at first. She's 6 months old now and sleeps from 6:30pm to 5:45-6 am now. I feel like a human being again.
ReplyDeleteI'm late to the party, but..
ReplyDeleteOur 6 month old was waking to nurse A LOT during the night until we moved him into his own room and introduced a dreamfeed (breastfeed while still half asleep) at 10.30ish at night. It seriously changed our lives and we haven't looked back.
During the first week I found it really helpful to have my husband respond to any night waking as
if I went Tom would think it was feed time. It also meant that I wouldn't be tempted to give him a quick feed for the sake of getting back to bed.
Hang in there. It's tough, but it will get better :)
as others have said, you are in the middle of the hardest stretch. working full-time on limited sleep makes it all feel so overwhelming. for us, when we transitioned our little dude (also a henry!) to his own room at around 7 months, everyone started getting much more rest. from that point to about 10 months i would nurse once in the early morning (4-ish) but otherwise, he would sleep from 7:00 to around 6:30 in the morning. now, at 15 months, he sleeps a solid 11 hours a night. this gives my husband and i chance to hang out, drink wine, watch movies, etc. before bed.
ReplyDeletei don't know if i will ever feel great about the hours i spend away from hank during the day, but i try not focus on that (since staying home is not an option financially) and make the most of the time we have together.
as others have said, you are in the middle of the hardest stretch. working full-time on limited sleep makes it all feel so overwhelming. for us, when we transitioned our little dude (also a henry!) to his own room at around 7 months, everyone started getting much more rest. from that point to about 10 months i would nurse once in the early morning (4-ish) but otherwise, he would sleep from 7:00 to around 6:30 in the morning. now, at 15 months, he sleeps a solid 11 hours a night. this gives my husband and i chance to hang out, drink wine, watch movies, etc. before bed.
ReplyDeletei don't know if i will ever feel great about the hours i spend away from hank during the day, but i try not focus on that (since staying home is not an option financially) and make the most of the time we have together.
I just found your blog and was reading through some of your archives and came across this entry. The other night my husband was away on business and as luck would have it that night was the night my daughter decided to get up every hour and a half. Ugh. It was crazy. I was a zombie the next day at work. I couldn't imagine having to do that on a regular basis.
ReplyDeleteI have this weird love/hate relationship with working. I love being able to spend part of the day not being completely submerged in baby-related things. But I hate my job and I hate that my daughter is spending time with someone other than family for such a long period of time.
That last paragraph you wrote, I could have written something nearly exactly the same many, many times over the last five months. I hope that things are starting to turn a corner for you.
Lovely blog, by the way. And lovely family too.