I had always assumed that my baby's foray into solids would involve a food processor, frozen cubes of pureed sweet potatoes prepared in ice cube trays and a baby perched in a high chair with someone (most likely poor me) imitating the sound of an airplane and trying to coax another spoonful into his mouth. Isn't this just how it's done? Then a new friend from my moms group lent me the book Baby-Led Weaning and I had the biggest "aha moment" of my relatively short parenting career. The premise? Let your baby self-feed. No purees, just foods in their original form, cut into manageable pieces for the baby to eat him or herself. It's how the rest of the world feeds their babies. And probably how we did in this country before the invention of baby food mills and marketing by baby food companies.
The premise of baby-led weaning (BLW) just seemed so easy and that was a relief. Other moms were turning giddy pouring through baby food cookbooks and organizing babyfood-making parties and I just couldn't get excited about the work. And this is coming from someone who likes to cook. But the truth is, I often feel parenting is overwhelming because it's never-ending work and like I'm barely keeping my household afloat. Where was I going to find time for all of this? Despite how much I resented breastfeeding at first, I've grown to appreciate the simplicity of not having to decide what my kid is going to eat, shop for it and prepare it. While not as simple as breastfeeding, BLW appeared just a few notches up in level of involvement, and a natural progression in easing both baby - and parents - into solids.
Although I was hooked on BLW based on the idea it would make my life easier, I believed in its principles, namely that it's developmentally appropriate. When infants are breast- or bottle-fed, they decide how much they want to eat - they refuse to suck or even turn their heads away when they've had enough. Toddlers decide how much to eat, too, because they're feeding themselves. With baby-led weaning, you're not interrupting the natural progression of self-feeding. As a parent, you provide the what, when and where and the baby or child decides how much.
Developmentally, babies learn about the world using all their senses and by playing. They touch, shake, throw, grasp anything they can get their hands on, oh, and then put it all in their mouths. Hence the saying, "What goes in the mouth, goes in the brain." So to learn about food, they need to touch it. They learn about its size, texture, temperature, consistency and cause and effect, and they develop the motor skills to handle food. They learn that oatmeal is kind of slimy, but also sticky, that fruit is cold and juicy and that toast has a rough texture, but that like other foods, it dissolves into a manageable mush with the addition of saliva and some food. They learn that they need to grasp a slice of pear just the right way or it'll shoot out of their hands. They need to develop the coordination to put different sizes and consistencies of food in their mouths. Mystery mush, as I've come to call purees, is just one-dimensional learning.
Besides BLW being developmentally appropriate for him at this stage in Oliver's life, I'm also a believer in the claims that it will positively affect his relationship with food for life. Because babies are deciding how much to eat, it teaches them to eat to satisfy hunger and not to overeat. It supposedly lessens the chance of becoming a picky-eater by exposing them to different kinds of foods, and to the foods the adults around them are eating. A picky-eater myself straight into adulthood, I'm very interested in encouraging a healthy interest in food and exploration. And as one who has proclaimed that she will not be cooking separate meals for a picky child and the rest of the family, I'm taking an opportunity I can to avoid creating a picky eater.
After reading Baby-Led Weaning in its entirety and awwing over the pictures of adorable babies happily covered in their lunches, Chris and I patiently waited until Oliver turned six months old to start on his adventure with solids, where it seemed, the sky was the limit. We really were excited to finally start giving him something more interesting to eat. I think most parents get excited about starting solids, because it's something different. We're not the ones consuming breastmilk or formula day in and day out, but we can't help but think it's gotta get old for them. Sweet potatoes, green beans, carrots - as unexciting as they may be, these are foods we can identify with. Plus, I'd been listening to my friend who raves about the variety of foods her son has tried and his adventurousness with food.
Despite our eagerness, the solid food stage in Oliver's life got off to a rough start. I knew that with any stage in a baby's life, just because a baby can start doing something at a certain age or may start doing something by a certain point, doesn't mean he or she is ready, and I still naively believed that on the night of Oliver's six-month birthday, we'd place him in his new booster seat, present him with food and he'd happily devour it.
The first two or three days Oliver seemed almost scared of his food. He'd reach for a piece of food and then pull his hand away as if the food was too hot. I tried giving him foods with different textures to see if there was something he'd be interested in. Eventually he did start handling more food and even put much of it in his mouth. But just as soon as I was seeing progress, Oliver began to cry every time I placed him in his booster seat, and needless to say, family meal time wasn't enjoyable for mom or son.
After one particular meal with a lot of crying on Oliver's part, frustration on my part, and a lot of wasted food after I decided to call an end to the meal just minutes after it started, I immediately e-mailed a friend, who had become kind of like my BLW mentor. She's a family practice doctor, so I respect her opinion, and her son is two months older, so she's not that much farther along in the solid foods adventure. I felt like I was locked in a battle over food when one of the attractions to BLW was that there are no battles, because there's theoretically nothing to battle over. She provided the pep talk I needed, but also the reminder to revise my expectations, slow down and let Oliver set the pace. I had gotten myself caught up in what he should be eating, what he should be capable of doing and how he compared with babies who were being spoon-fed purees. I went back to exclusively breast-feeding for the next two days and when I tried again with the solids, and taking a few of my friend's suggestions, I changed my approach. I only fed Oliver solids when he was in a really good mood, which, since we were in the middle of some challenges over naps, meant we didn't even bother with solids some days. And I only gave him little bits of food at a time so that we both weren't frustrated - Oliver with the overwhelming selection and I with the waste of food. I also reevaluated my unrealistic understanding of how much Oliver should be eating.
The mini tantrums stopped almost immediately and by the next week, he wasn't just playing with his food and swirling it around in his mouth, but he was actually consuming sizable quantities. Just that little bit of improvement was a confidence boost for me as a mom to know that Oliver was indeed going to learn how to eat.
After trying baby-led weaning, I'm confident we made the right decision for Oliver and I can't imagine spoon-feeding him now. It frankly seems unnatural. Babies can't communicate effectively that they're full or not in the mood for a particular food, but this isn't an issue for Chris and me since we've given Oliver complete control. I grow weary of the mess, but I discovered when I babysat a friend's daughter that spoon-feeding isn't mess-free either. Extra cleaning aside, I feel like we've freed ourselves from all the challenges other parents of babies Oliver's age are experiencing with spoon-feeding. We don't have Oliver grabbing for the spoon we're trying to feed him with because we just give him the spoon to play with along with his food. He's not clamping his mouth shut at the sight of the spoon dipping into the jar of pureed green beans because the green beans are on his tray for him to eat, or not to eat. We don't have to worry about stages of purees or whether he'll be eating finger foods by his first birthday, because he's already eating finger foods.
Despite how passionate I feel about BLW, it wasn't always easy figuring out what worked best. When few people around you are doing something, you don't have many real examples to go with and end up figuring things out by trial and error. Thus I had to include the following tips to share with others who may be considering BLW.
- The authors of Baby-Led Weaning warn you it will be messy and they were not exaggerating. Oliver has mashed bananas through his fingers, smeared hummus and soft cheese in his hair while waving sticks of toast in the air, dropped food on the floor or between his body and the booster seat, wiped his face and rubbed his eyes with food-covered hands, thrown up on his tray (just that gag reflex proving it's working) and smacked his hands in it, and while maneuvering food around his tray, usually gets his arms covered past his elbows in a mishmash of food. The book provides several tips on how to handle the mess. Pick your method and use it. Since we have hardwood floors, we wait until Oliver is finished eating and then mop up the floor around his chair. I put on an apron and then wipe down his hands and face and then take him over to the sink and wash his hands and arms with warm water and no soap to keep from drying his skin out.
- Six-month-old babies don't know the difference between food and toys or that food can be swallowed and will satisfy their hunger. The first couple of months are about discovery and experimentation and they don't need the nutrients from solid food. While we sit down to eat because we're hungry, for babies it should be the opposite. They should only be given solids when they're NOT hungry, or tired. Oliver was often extremely fussy when I put him in his booster seat to eat, which I interpreted as meaning that he didn't like eating, and it took me a couple of weeks to realize that he was tired. So I would only sit him down to eat when he was well-rested, fed and ready to play, even if that time didn't coincide with family meal time.
- Take the pressure off. You want to foster a positive association with food and meal times, so offer your baby food and then back off. You don't need to cajole her to eat or take one more bite. If she eats nothing, there's no harm. She doesn't need the calories or nutrients from solid food yet.
- Don't stare. This is difficult for me to do, because it's just too much fun to watch him eat and I'm curious what he's going to try next. But some babies get too self-conscious if they have a table full of people staring at them.
- Start composting. I was alarmed at how much food is wasted when babies are learning to eat solids. Oliver will drop whole pieces of food he hasn't even tried putting in his mouth on the floor. He hasn't developed the dexterity to work with smaller pieces of food, so he'll grab a stick of food with his first, chew on the piece poking out of his fist and then discard the rest. Then there's the food he just plays with, but doesn't really try to eat. So any food I place on his tray will not be salvageable.
- Keep it simple. I had read a section in the book about how you should offer your baby three to five kinds of food at a meal, because the point of BLW is to expose your baby to a variety of foods. Oliver often seemed uninterested or even disgusted by everything on his tray and I was growing frustrated. A friend suggested that he may be overwhelmed by the pile of food and to instead scale back and offer just one or two pieces of food at a time. Not only does he seem more relaxed now, but when I decide that he's finished eating, anything that I haven't put on this tray, I can wrap up and save for the next meal.
- Skip elaborate cooking until your baby is consuming more than what she's dropping on the floor. Your baby doesn't appreciate how much time and energy you put into preparing a gourmet meal. The first six weeks, Oliver only ate about one meal of solids a day, some days none and they weren't at regular mealtimes. So he got leftovers from our meals, or whatever I had on hand that I could prepare easily when the opportunity to have him sit down and eat presented itself. My friend's baby is ten months old and has just transitioned to eating three meals a day at the same time his parents eat, so only now is she inspired to prepare something for the family for dinner based on the baby's tastes.
- Be patient. It will take months for your baby to develop the skills, and maybe even the interest, in eating solids. Just like we realized that you can't compare the percentiles of breastfed and formula-fed babies, it's unrealistic to compare the "progress" of baby-led and spoon-fed babies.
- It's not all or nothing. If you're getting frustrated by your baby's lack of interest in food or you can't help but wonder if she really does need more nutrition from solid food, you can try purees. This isn't like breastfeeding where everyone tries to scare you away from giving your baby a bottle of expressed milk with horror stories about "nipple confusion." There's no such thing as "spoon confusion." You can start with purees, switch to finger food, switch back to purees, or do a combination of both from the beginning.
- It's true, babies don't need teeth to chew. The authors reassure readers that baby don't need teeth to chew food because they can gnaw and mash food quite well with their gums, but I couldn't fathom how this could be true. Lack of teeth doesn't make for the most efficient break down of food, but I've been surprised (and relieved) by how comfortable Oliver has gotten chewing food, despite the fact that he has no teeth at eight months old and shows no signs of teething.
- BLW requires trust on many levels. Trust that your kid really won't choke. Trust that he will figure it out on his own. Trust that he really doesn't need the nutrients from solid food quite yet. Trust that playing with food is developmentally appropriate. Trust that you're doing the right thing despite skeptics and naysayers.
- Have your talking points ready. We haven't gotten any negative reaction to BLW, but I've had friends say one reason they're so apprehensive about trying BLW is the fear about backlash from their extended families. Everyone's got an opinion about babies and parenting and some friends just don't have the energy to do something interpreted as non-mainstream. So have a couple main points rehearsed about what BLW is, why you're doing it, why it's safe, repeat them if asked and move the conversation on.
So I saved the question I know every reader is wondering purposefully until the very end. Won't he choke?!?! The authors devote an entire section to this subject and their explanation was fascinating. Babies actually learn to chew first and then swallow, so anything that falls towards the back of their mouth won't automatically be swallowed. Saliva, along with chewing, also helps break down food to a puree form. The gag reflex on babies up to about eight or nine months old is also farther forward on the tongue, and the reflex is thus triggered sooner in a baby. All combined, the body's built-in safety mechanisms work together to reduce the risk of choking.
While it's not pleasant to watch your baby gag, (and there is a difference between gagging and choking) it signals that the reflex is working just as should and that he's learning how far back he can put his food or that he has to chew more. Oliver gagged more frequently in the beginning, and even threw up, but just like the authors said, it didn't bother him. As soon as the episode passed, he resumed eating.
Eventually your baby will have to learn to chew food not already in a puree form. Oliver's learning at a point when I believe it's actually safer, because of the location of the gag reflex in younger babies. Since he's the one putting the food in his mouth, he has control over how much goes in and how far back.
We follow the precautions advised in the book. Oliver sits upright and Chris or I sit with him while he eats. Afterward, we check his mouth to make sure he hasn't left anything in his mouth and I go as far to make sure I nurse him to wash down anything we could have missed.
After just two months, Oliver still makes a huge mess when he eats, but we've seen enough of an improvement that Chris wondered whether or not we'll end up with those adorable pictures of the birthday kid with cake smeared in his face on Oliver's first birthday. We shall see.
Kiera, Matteo, Oliver and Soren
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Urban Farming
Now that we have a home with a yard, albeit a standard 40x130 lot dominated by a house with an addition and deck on the back and an over-sized garage, we're skipping the CSA this year and are trying our luck at urban farming. Well, just with a focus on plants and sans the chickens and goats. The former owners left behind two raised garden beds and two planter boxes, so with most of the hard work of the garden prep done for us, we'd have felt really lazy if we didn't at least try to plant something.
So there we were on Mother's Day, a day of blue skies and pleasant temperatures, a respite from an unseasonably cold and dismal May, our happy, little family turning the soil in our first gardening venture. Oliver sat on a blanket in the grass happily gumming the garden hose and watched his parents debate an activity completely outside their standard repertoire. Chris peppered me with questions I couldn't answer, like how wide the rows should be or how close together we should place the seedlings. I had checked out numerous books on gardening from the library with titles like Garden Primer, Edible Gardening for the Midwest, Container Gardening for the Midwest, Small-Plot, High-Yield Gardening and so on - practically the whole gardening section - and then found little time to do more than page through them. I decided it would be less stressful to let the books decorate our coffee table and instead just throw down some seed and see what happens. Chris, who strove for perfection in planning and executing the gardens, had claimed the bed on the side of the house as "his garden," and spent the weeks before the last frost planning and building the perfect bunny-proof cedar fence for his small plot. With the perimeter of his garden looking that good, he wanted a planting strategy with proven results and didn't like my laissez faire approach.
Our plantings include the usual tomatoes and zucchini, as well as peanuts and one lone pumpkin plant. I purchased it with visions of carving pumpkins with my son (as if a then 13-month-old is going to be actually doing any carving). Now I'd wished I'd bought more, even at the risk of over-running my garden with what will turn into huge plants, since I'm afraid my one plant could die on me. Chris assured me that come fall, there'll be no shortage of jack-o-lantern-worthy pumpkins I could just buy.
If we experience a complete crop failure, we won't be without other options for locally-grown produce. The revered St. Paul farmer's market is within biking distance and the metro area's most urban "farmer" is utilizing otherwise unused land right in our own neighborhood. Or I can try looking longingly over the fence at my neighbor's well-tended garden bed and hope they take pity on us and share some of their crop.
When I told my grandmother that we'd started on our first garden and how I had no idea how successful we'd be, she hoped Chris and I wouldn't be repeating family history. My grandparents started their family in the rowhouses of Northeast Philadelphia, which sprouted following World War II and stretch block after block for miles. The tuck-under garage on the backside of the house left no yard, so when they moved with my dad and uncle to the suburbs in the late 1950s, my grandfather had big plans for vegetable gardening on his 3/4-acre lot. According to my grandmother, he liked golfing more than tending to his garden and the only vegetables to be grown in any following year on Annasmead Road were my grandmother's tomatoes.
So there we were on Mother's Day, a day of blue skies and pleasant temperatures, a respite from an unseasonably cold and dismal May, our happy, little family turning the soil in our first gardening venture. Oliver sat on a blanket in the grass happily gumming the garden hose and watched his parents debate an activity completely outside their standard repertoire. Chris peppered me with questions I couldn't answer, like how wide the rows should be or how close together we should place the seedlings. I had checked out numerous books on gardening from the library with titles like Garden Primer, Edible Gardening for the Midwest, Container Gardening for the Midwest, Small-Plot, High-Yield Gardening and so on - practically the whole gardening section - and then found little time to do more than page through them. I decided it would be less stressful to let the books decorate our coffee table and instead just throw down some seed and see what happens. Chris, who strove for perfection in planning and executing the gardens, had claimed the bed on the side of the house as "his garden," and spent the weeks before the last frost planning and building the perfect bunny-proof cedar fence for his small plot. With the perimeter of his garden looking that good, he wanted a planting strategy with proven results and didn't like my laissez faire approach.
Our plantings include the usual tomatoes and zucchini, as well as peanuts and one lone pumpkin plant. I purchased it with visions of carving pumpkins with my son (as if a then 13-month-old is going to be actually doing any carving). Now I'd wished I'd bought more, even at the risk of over-running my garden with what will turn into huge plants, since I'm afraid my one plant could die on me. Chris assured me that come fall, there'll be no shortage of jack-o-lantern-worthy pumpkins I could just buy.
If we experience a complete crop failure, we won't be without other options for locally-grown produce. The revered St. Paul farmer's market is within biking distance and the metro area's most urban "farmer" is utilizing otherwise unused land right in our own neighborhood. Or I can try looking longingly over the fence at my neighbor's well-tended garden bed and hope they take pity on us and share some of their crop.
When I told my grandmother that we'd started on our first garden and how I had no idea how successful we'd be, she hoped Chris and I wouldn't be repeating family history. My grandparents started their family in the rowhouses of Northeast Philadelphia, which sprouted following World War II and stretch block after block for miles. The tuck-under garage on the backside of the house left no yard, so when they moved with my dad and uncle to the suburbs in the late 1950s, my grandfather had big plans for vegetable gardening on his 3/4-acre lot. According to my grandmother, he liked golfing more than tending to his garden and the only vegetables to be grown in any following year on Annasmead Road were my grandmother's tomatoes.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Oliver update: 6 months
Oliver is already in his sixth month of life and has transformed from infant to baby. He's no longer the little peanut who looked like he was going to be swallowed up by his car seat, who could barely hold his head up and who peacefully fell asleep in my arms. He's gained six inches and ten pounds and his feet reach the end of his car seat.
I laugh at how naive I was when I think back to when my grandmother would ask in the weeks right after Oliver's birth how he was doing, and I'd report with surprise and mild disappointment that "he doesn't really do much." I knew being a new parent would be tiring and stressful, but I never knew that in a lot of ways it'd be quite boring. Infants really just eat, cry and sleep. But I also remember a friend telling me that the first six months with his son were really rough, but that it then got fun.
Oliver is finally doing something. He smiles and even laughs, sits up unassisted and is reaching for everything he can and can't reach, all of which makes him more fun to interact and play with. He's showing no interest in crawling, but, he loves to "walk" with someone holding his arms or hands to keep him upright and steady. Making sure he does enough "tummy time" has been a struggle since he was born, and I've tried every trick in the book to get him to enjoy being on his stomach long enough to work those neck and shoulder muscles. He's always liked looking at himself in the mirror and I recently bought a mirror rimmed with clashing colors and contrasting designs and that has been the ticket! Or not. Because he's also really taken to rolling in the past two days, so I don't know if he's now happy with tummy time because he knows how to get out of it.
Sleep is a hot topic in the parent circle, and, yes, he's sleeping through the night. Thank goodness! However, his daily 6:30 a.m. wake up call, regardless of weekends or holidays, is leaving me more tired in some ways than during the days of his middle-of-the-night feedings.
Although he never tired of breast milk (or the smattering of servings of formula) day in and day out for the past six and a half months, now that we've started him on solids, he's getting some variety. And I sadly say that Oliver is no longer a vegetarian. We're skipping the purees and baby food "stages" and going straight to finger foods, and he got to sample grilled chicken his dad made the other night. With all the flak I've taken for being vegetarian, I felt I had the last laugh with Oliver's de facto vegetarianism. Regardless of what kinds of foods Oliver chooses to eat, for now, he's still working on getting more of it in his mouth, and less of it on his face and in his hair.
I couldn't be more thankful for spring, especially the warm, dry one we've been having, because after dealing with the logistical challenges of taking walks with a stroller in winter, retreating outdoors for late afternoon walks has saved Oliver - and me - from many meltdowns. No matter how action-packed or mellow of a day, we've had, and regardless of the quantity and quality of naps, late afternoons are just a difficult time. But we're enjoying our walks and since Oliver sits up so well now, I realized I don't need to use the infant car seat with the stroller. So just last week, he went for his first walk sitting up in his stroller and seeing how giddy he was, I could tell he liked the view of the world sitting upright.
I can't believe how much Oliver has grown, but at least he'll be a baby for a little while longer. I'll still be able to pick him up, bounce him in the air and cuddle with him. And I tell him often, that when he gets bigger, even when he's eventually bigger than mommy, he'll still be my little boy.
I laugh at how naive I was when I think back to when my grandmother would ask in the weeks right after Oliver's birth how he was doing, and I'd report with surprise and mild disappointment that "he doesn't really do much." I knew being a new parent would be tiring and stressful, but I never knew that in a lot of ways it'd be quite boring. Infants really just eat, cry and sleep. But I also remember a friend telling me that the first six months with his son were really rough, but that it then got fun.
Oliver is finally doing something. He smiles and even laughs, sits up unassisted and is reaching for everything he can and can't reach, all of which makes him more fun to interact and play with. He's showing no interest in crawling, but, he loves to "walk" with someone holding his arms or hands to keep him upright and steady. Making sure he does enough "tummy time" has been a struggle since he was born, and I've tried every trick in the book to get him to enjoy being on his stomach long enough to work those neck and shoulder muscles. He's always liked looking at himself in the mirror and I recently bought a mirror rimmed with clashing colors and contrasting designs and that has been the ticket! Or not. Because he's also really taken to rolling in the past two days, so I don't know if he's now happy with tummy time because he knows how to get out of it.
Sleep is a hot topic in the parent circle, and, yes, he's sleeping through the night. Thank goodness! However, his daily 6:30 a.m. wake up call, regardless of weekends or holidays, is leaving me more tired in some ways than during the days of his middle-of-the-night feedings.
Although he never tired of breast milk (or the smattering of servings of formula) day in and day out for the past six and a half months, now that we've started him on solids, he's getting some variety. And I sadly say that Oliver is no longer a vegetarian. We're skipping the purees and baby food "stages" and going straight to finger foods, and he got to sample grilled chicken his dad made the other night. With all the flak I've taken for being vegetarian, I felt I had the last laugh with Oliver's de facto vegetarianism. Regardless of what kinds of foods Oliver chooses to eat, for now, he's still working on getting more of it in his mouth, and less of it on his face and in his hair.
I couldn't be more thankful for spring, especially the warm, dry one we've been having, because after dealing with the logistical challenges of taking walks with a stroller in winter, retreating outdoors for late afternoon walks has saved Oliver - and me - from many meltdowns. No matter how action-packed or mellow of a day, we've had, and regardless of the quantity and quality of naps, late afternoons are just a difficult time. But we're enjoying our walks and since Oliver sits up so well now, I realized I don't need to use the infant car seat with the stroller. So just last week, he went for his first walk sitting up in his stroller and seeing how giddy he was, I could tell he liked the view of the world sitting upright.
I can't believe how much Oliver has grown, but at least he'll be a baby for a little while longer. I'll still be able to pick him up, bounce him in the air and cuddle with him. And I tell him often, that when he gets bigger, even when he's eventually bigger than mommy, he'll still be my little boy.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Oliver the research subject
The University of Minnesota is known world-wide for its decades-long twins study and I have friends who have participated since infancy. I thought having twins would be the only way to contribute to research at the U, but when I received a card in the mail a few weeks after Oliver's birth asking me if I'd like to place his name on a list to be called upon if relevant studies need participants, I happily filled out the card and mailed it back in. The only way I, the one who took the "Rocks for Jocks" and "Physics for Poets" type classes in college to satisfy the math and science distribution requirement, was ever to be able to make any meaningful contribution in the science community would be to donate my body upon death - or offer up my kid as a research subject.
I'd forgotten about the card when I received a phone call in mid-February from a student saying they needed four-month-old participants for a child development study at The Yonas Perception Lab at the Institute of Child Development, which is within the College of Education and Human Development at the U. They were studying infants' abilities to perceive depth using a depth cue called "Height in the Picture Plane." She had already lost me with that quick explanation of the study, so I just asked when and where we should show up.
The experiment was simple and quick - two key variables in a study whose participants have an attention span of maybe ten seconds. Oliver wore a patch over one eye and sat on my lap. I wore goggles blocking my vision so that I wouldn't influence Oliver's reaction as he watched images appear on different spots on a computer screen. He was videotaped so researchers could see what he looked at first and how long it took him to look at an object. I do my best to keep Oliver's screen time more or less non-existent, but when he does catch a glimpse of a TV, he's immediately drawn to the lights and moving images on the screen, so I knew we'd have no problems with his participation.
Oliver had a blast. He was allowed to watch "TV," and he was a total ham in front of the researchers, including Dr. Yonas himself. The window of opportunity between nap time and feeding time is so small for a four-month-old and part of me panicked that we'd arrive just as Oliver was entering a near meltdown, but the timing was perfect and he was just jazzed to be there.
I received a letter this week written to the parents of participants to follow up on the study.
"We found that children as young as four months old are already responding to the depth cues we present them. Five-month-olds are even better at it, as they respond to depth cues even when they see conflicting information. It is intriguing that this ability has emerged so young in a child's infancy! It tells us that the brain is maturing at an astounding rate."
I was never interested in child development until I had a baby. It's exciting to witness a baby sit up by himself or crawl or walk for the first time, but the other changes are either unnoticeable to someone who doesn't spend every day with the baby, or are boring to watch for unless it's your own kid. But I manage to find interest in watching Oliver work on something on something like depth perception as he reaches for a dangling or moving toy.
Dr. Yonas continued with the announcement that the findings would be submitted to a well-known scientific journal called Child Development, and that the results would also be presented to peers in the field at a conference in Naples, Florida. And the nerd in me is going to e-mail the lab and ask if I can have a copy of the study once it's published.
I'd forgotten about the card when I received a phone call in mid-February from a student saying they needed four-month-old participants for a child development study at The Yonas Perception Lab at the Institute of Child Development, which is within the College of Education and Human Development at the U. They were studying infants' abilities to perceive depth using a depth cue called "Height in the Picture Plane." She had already lost me with that quick explanation of the study, so I just asked when and where we should show up.
The experiment was simple and quick - two key variables in a study whose participants have an attention span of maybe ten seconds. Oliver wore a patch over one eye and sat on my lap. I wore goggles blocking my vision so that I wouldn't influence Oliver's reaction as he watched images appear on different spots on a computer screen. He was videotaped so researchers could see what he looked at first and how long it took him to look at an object. I do my best to keep Oliver's screen time more or less non-existent, but when he does catch a glimpse of a TV, he's immediately drawn to the lights and moving images on the screen, so I knew we'd have no problems with his participation.
Oliver had a blast. He was allowed to watch "TV," and he was a total ham in front of the researchers, including Dr. Yonas himself. The window of opportunity between nap time and feeding time is so small for a four-month-old and part of me panicked that we'd arrive just as Oliver was entering a near meltdown, but the timing was perfect and he was just jazzed to be there.
I received a letter this week written to the parents of participants to follow up on the study.
"We found that children as young as four months old are already responding to the depth cues we present them. Five-month-olds are even better at it, as they respond to depth cues even when they see conflicting information. It is intriguing that this ability has emerged so young in a child's infancy! It tells us that the brain is maturing at an astounding rate."
I was never interested in child development until I had a baby. It's exciting to witness a baby sit up by himself or crawl or walk for the first time, but the other changes are either unnoticeable to someone who doesn't spend every day with the baby, or are boring to watch for unless it's your own kid. But I manage to find interest in watching Oliver work on something on something like depth perception as he reaches for a dangling or moving toy.
Dr. Yonas continued with the announcement that the findings would be submitted to a well-known scientific journal called Child Development, and that the results would also be presented to peers in the field at a conference in Naples, Florida. And the nerd in me is going to e-mail the lab and ask if I can have a copy of the study once it's published.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Falling in Love
Did I gaze into my newborn son's eyes for the first time, sigh and think it was love at first sight? Not really. Harsh? Nope, just honest. I loved my son, but I wasn't in love with him. That came later.
After a 20-hour labor that ended at 1:15 a.m. in a c-section, I was too exhausted to think or feel much of anything. As I lay immobilized on the operating room table, a nurse held Oliver above me and I craned my neck to take a look at him for the first time, and all I remember thinking was that he didn't have a striking resemblance to either Chris or me. I felt guilty that if he had been put in a newborn lineup, I might not have been able to identify him as my son. The reality of the minutes after Oliver's birth were in contrast to the images I had filed away in my mind of the woman giving a final push, the baby being pulled out and immediately put on mom's bare chest where they meet each other for the first time in an ultra-emotional moment.
Instead, I waited to hear him cry to know he was okay, shed a few tears, felt relieved the pregnancy, the long labor, the will it end in a c-section, will it not, if it's gonna be a c-section, can we please just get a move-on,(oh, sorry, you gotta go wake the anesthesiologist up, right) and the anticipation of the birth were all over with, and then reportedly said, "I can't believe that used to be inside of me." That was it. Oh, and I felt really thirsty. I was begging for a glass of water.
In the days and weeks that followed, had you asked me if I loved my son, the answer would have been an honest, "yes." But it was a love out of obligation and void of emotional attachment. I loved him because he was my son, but I'd never had a child before and the concept of me having a son was still foreign. It felt like I had been handed a baby, a stranger, really, and told he was mine and told I was to be in love with him. I thought he was adorable, for sure, and I was curious about him and alternated between feelings of excitement that he was here and disbelief that I was finally meeting him.
In the weeks that followed, when the days blended into nights and nights that blended into days, when I didn't know if the meal I was eating should be called breakfast or a second dinner, when I was physically tired and emotionally spent, before I received a smile or any affirmation that Oliver even liked me, when I felt like I just gave, gave, gave and my son only took, took, took - it was love that sustained me. I loved my son, but I wasn't in love with him, yet.
Love at first sight makes a better story, but I ask you, how long did it take to fall in love with your partner? Although I knew I was crazy about Chris ever since our first date, it took three weeks to fall in love with him. And I thought that was quick. I didn't even know what being in love was, but trusted that I'd recognize it when I felt it. A few weeks passed and I realized I didn't want to live without this guy. And I knew I had finally fallen in love, even if it had only been three weeks.
And eventually I fell in love with my son too, and my love for him suddenly reached an intensity I didn't know was possible for someone I still barely knew. Where my expressions of love had previously been rote, I soon couldn't stop hugging and kissing him and telling him how much I loved him. I could hold him and cuddle him and never want to let him go. Women talk about bonding with their babies in utero, but I couldn't bond with someone I couldn't see, couldn't hold, but I finally felt that bond. Like I had with Chris, I recognized love when I saw it and I relished in the transformation.
After a 20-hour labor that ended at 1:15 a.m. in a c-section, I was too exhausted to think or feel much of anything. As I lay immobilized on the operating room table, a nurse held Oliver above me and I craned my neck to take a look at him for the first time, and all I remember thinking was that he didn't have a striking resemblance to either Chris or me. I felt guilty that if he had been put in a newborn lineup, I might not have been able to identify him as my son. The reality of the minutes after Oliver's birth were in contrast to the images I had filed away in my mind of the woman giving a final push, the baby being pulled out and immediately put on mom's bare chest where they meet each other for the first time in an ultra-emotional moment.
Instead, I waited to hear him cry to know he was okay, shed a few tears, felt relieved the pregnancy, the long labor, the will it end in a c-section, will it not, if it's gonna be a c-section, can we please just get a move-on,(oh, sorry, you gotta go wake the anesthesiologist up, right) and the anticipation of the birth were all over with, and then reportedly said, "I can't believe that used to be inside of me." That was it. Oh, and I felt really thirsty. I was begging for a glass of water.
In the days and weeks that followed, had you asked me if I loved my son, the answer would have been an honest, "yes." But it was a love out of obligation and void of emotional attachment. I loved him because he was my son, but I'd never had a child before and the concept of me having a son was still foreign. It felt like I had been handed a baby, a stranger, really, and told he was mine and told I was to be in love with him. I thought he was adorable, for sure, and I was curious about him and alternated between feelings of excitement that he was here and disbelief that I was finally meeting him.
In the weeks that followed, when the days blended into nights and nights that blended into days, when I didn't know if the meal I was eating should be called breakfast or a second dinner, when I was physically tired and emotionally spent, before I received a smile or any affirmation that Oliver even liked me, when I felt like I just gave, gave, gave and my son only took, took, took - it was love that sustained me. I loved my son, but I wasn't in love with him, yet.
Love at first sight makes a better story, but I ask you, how long did it take to fall in love with your partner? Although I knew I was crazy about Chris ever since our first date, it took three weeks to fall in love with him. And I thought that was quick. I didn't even know what being in love was, but trusted that I'd recognize it when I felt it. A few weeks passed and I realized I didn't want to live without this guy. And I knew I had finally fallen in love, even if it had only been three weeks.
And eventually I fell in love with my son too, and my love for him suddenly reached an intensity I didn't know was possible for someone I still barely knew. Where my expressions of love had previously been rote, I soon couldn't stop hugging and kissing him and telling him how much I loved him. I could hold him and cuddle him and never want to let him go. Women talk about bonding with their babies in utero, but I couldn't bond with someone I couldn't see, couldn't hold, but I finally felt that bond. Like I had with Chris, I recognized love when I saw it and I relished in the transformation.
Monday, April 12, 2010
What I Do All Day
When Oliver was four weeks old, someone asked me, "When Chris goes to work tomorrow, what do you do?" From the tone of voice it was implied, "so what in the world do you do all day?" As in, if you don't go to work, how do you fill your days? How do not die of boredom with nothing to do? The short answer is, I take care of Oliver.
But that doesn't do justice to the situation, because I think there's still this misconception that I take care of Oliver and in between, sit around relaxing, sleeping in, being bored, doing nothing with my time, or whatever people want to believe. I'm not the first to realize that motherhood is a thankless job, or that you never get a vacation from it, or retire, or have the opportunity to leave it at the office. And I'm not the first to realize that those who stay home with their kids get less respect than if they earned a paycheck. And finally, I realize I'm probably not the first to document my time to prove to the world the "work" I do. But here you go. I thought it would be interesting to document for a 24-hour period what I actually do all day. (And I happened to pick a day when Chris had a random day off work, which meant I got a shower and made dinner.) Because my day doesn't start when Chris's does, when his alarm goes off and he gets ready for work and leaves for the day. Mine starts just after midnight and ends shortly before midnight 24 hours later, and then the cycle repeats itself.
Oct. 26, 2009
12:35 a.m. - Rise and shine for diaper change and a round of nursing.
1:23 a.m. - Oliver's fallen asleep, so I lay him in his crib and hope I can go back to sleep too.
1:24 a.m. - Oliver's eyes are now wide open.
1:25 a.m. - Since he's clearly not happy about being in his crib, I take him out and feed him some more.
1:33 a.m. - I put him back in his crib and cover his hands with socks because I'm afraid they're cold and I have a theory that if he's toasty warm, he'll sleep longer and that the icy hands he usually has when I pick him up out of his crib are what must have woken him up. Besides, I keep forgetting to buy a mini emery board to smooth out his jagged fingernails, because I'm tired of him scratching me and my big hands aren't steady enough to clip his teeny tiny nails without creating even more jagged edges.
1:39 a.m. - I give him a pacifier. I've discovered these are controversial, but also discovered that when I'm desperate to get a fussy baby to calm down and sleep, I'll try anything and any parenting theories I had pre-baby go out the window.
1:45 a.m. - I wait a few minutes to see if his settling down is for real before going to bed.
2:00 a.m. - I can't sleep, because I can't keep from listening for any peeps coming from his crib, which would be a sign that he really isn't asleep and that I may need to get out of bed again. Waiting for what I feel like is going to be the inevitable fills me with dread. If I'm lucky, I'll fall asleep quickly and get two hours of sleep. Otherwise, I could be out of bed again in 45 minutes...or 30 minutes...or 10.
3:45 a.m. - Up for another feeding.
4:13 a.m. - Change his diaper again.
4:41 a.m. - I put Oliver back in his crib and he immediately wakes up.
4:48 a.m. - Again, I wait to see if he's really fallen asleep before trying to go back to bed. While I wait, I make a grocery list and add emery boards to list.
6:35 a.m. - I'm up for the third time since midnight to feed Oliver.
7:17 a.m.- I'm wide awake with a misleading feeling of refreshment, despite the fact that I've slept around 5 and a half hours, interrupted, since going to bed around 10:00 or 10:30 p.m. the night before. But I go back to bed hoping for another hour, or maybe even two, of sleep.
7:26 a.m. - Sure enough, he starts fussing, and I get out of bed to give him a pacifier and hope that'll be enough to settle him down with the least effort on my part so I can salvage some sleep.
7:54 a.m. - I haven't fallen asleep yet, because I've been lying in bed listening to him continue to fuss. He had appeared to be gassy, which wasn't something I could really do anything for, and since he never broke out into crying, I had put earplugs in and tried to go back to sleep, with no success. But I finally get up and change his diaper.
8:00 a.m. - I decide there's no use in going back to sleep, so I make myself breakfast.
8:45 a.m. - Chris had gotten up while I was eating and tried to feed Oliver a bottle of formula, but he didn't seem to be interested, even though he was acting like he was hungry. So when I was finished eating and cleaning whatever I could in the kitchen before Oliver had a complete meltdown, I nursed him.
9:43 a.m. - I take Oliver with me to run errands at Menard's and Target so that Chris can study. It's more cumbersome to bring him along, but it doesn't slow me down as much anymore, as I've refined the routine of loading and unloading his car seat in the car and shopping carts. Proof that he enjoys the outings: he sleeps. Not a peep from him the the entire time, even when I accidentally ram into another cart at Target while making a beeline for the checkout line.
11:47 a.m. - I decide against more errands because I don't want to push my luck and have Oliver wake up and demand to be fed asap. And I'm hungry. At home I leave him in his car seat to keep sleeping so that I can eat lunch and eat it in peace. I feel guilty about how much he naps in his car seat, but I know that placing him in his crib will.
12:22 p.m. I feed Oliver a bottle while Chris puts together his stroller. Feeding him from the bottle is usually quicker process and I had been noticing that it sometimes knocks him out sooner and for longer than breast milk (or so I was imagining at least) and honestly, sometimes I just need a break from having Oliver attached to my breasts.
12:40 p.m. - Unfortunately, bottle feeding is also a messy process and he usually lets a good portion of it spill down his face. His bib and his clothes are wet, so I change him into dry clothes and a fresh diaper. We take a look at his new ride his father has assembled and put out on the porch.
12:47 pm. - Seemingly unimpressed with the new stroller, I try to interest Oliver in a second round of formula.
2:00 p.m. - I clean up after Oliver after he vomits all over himself, his fresh clothes and the mattress sheet that had been laundered the day before.
2:09 p.m. - I make a call to have our retirement account beneficiary updated with Oliver's new social security number.
2:22 p.m. - I put warm clothes on Oliver and strap him into the Baby Bjorn to walk down the street to the Early Childhood and Family Education Center at Monroe Community School to pick up an application to enroll the two of us in an early childhood education class. I'm ecstatic when I meet the friendly staff and find out there's room in the 3-5 p.m. Wednesday class. I'm really, really looking forward to meeting other local parents.
3:12 p.m. - I let Oliver continue sleeping while I have a snack and make pizza dough for tonight's dinner.
3:33 p.m. - I go to nurse Oliver and discover he's had a "blow out" and has soiled his clothes. I take him upstairs to put the third set of clothes on him that day.
3:44 p.m. - I sit down to feed him and try multi-tasking by reading a book on breastfeeding a friend lent me. It would have been a good book to read before week four of my kid's life, but since Oliver's being a fussy eater, I'm not able to do more than skim a couple paragraphs here and there.
4:29 p.m. - Since the temperature is mild for late October, I load Oliver in the new stroller and go for a much sought after walk. I walked a couple of miles a day up to the day before I gave birth, but I barely have the time or energy for even this simple form of exercise any more.
5:37 p.m. - Oliver slept the entire 42-minute walk, but started crying within minutes of being placed in his crib. Chris runs interference so I can get the pizzas in the oven.
5:58 p.m. - Chris takes over the other half of dinner prep so I can feed Oliver.
6:30 p.m. - Oliver remains fussy, so Chris holds him while I eat. After I'm finished, I bring Chris a few slices of pizza, which he eats with one hand while he holds a now sleeping Oliver with the other.
7:00 p.m. - I watch some TV and nurse Oliver some more.
7:38 p.m. - Hoping that Oliver stays asleep, I go take a shower, which I haven't had a chance to do since Saturday morning.
8:00 p.m. - Oliver is screaming by the time I've gotten out of the shower, so Chris changed his diaper and Oliver peed all over himself, the back wall and the floor. He's changed into his fourth outfit of the day. I feed Oliver while Chris cleans up.
8:30 p.m. - I watch TV while Oliver sleeps in my arms. Despite my concern about screen time for young children, I need something to do to ease the boredom - and keep me awake during the late/early hours - during all those hours I spend breastfeedin. Watching TV is the easiest, because accept for the occasional channel change, it doesn't require use of either hand.
9:13 p.m. - Since Oliver is sleeping peacefully and has clean clothes and diaper on, I put him to bed in his crib so I can go to sleep. As usual, I haven't had a nap today and I'm really, really tired.
9:38 p.m. - He's crying again, so I try feeding him a little bit more.
10:05 p.m. - Back to bed for both of us.
So that's what I do all day. And again the next day. And the next.
****
While the demands of a baby are unrelenting, the first few weeks and even months are particularly brutal. Oliver gradually became a more efficient eater and started sleeping in longer stretches and eventually through the night. I also learned how to better read his tired and hungry cues and help him learn to put himself to sleep, and together, we brought some sanity and order to our days. Though my days still feel like they'll never end, at least they're more manageable than they were when Oliver was only four weeks old.
But that doesn't do justice to the situation, because I think there's still this misconception that I take care of Oliver and in between, sit around relaxing, sleeping in, being bored, doing nothing with my time, or whatever people want to believe. I'm not the first to realize that motherhood is a thankless job, or that you never get a vacation from it, or retire, or have the opportunity to leave it at the office. And I'm not the first to realize that those who stay home with their kids get less respect than if they earned a paycheck. And finally, I realize I'm probably not the first to document my time to prove to the world the "work" I do. But here you go. I thought it would be interesting to document for a 24-hour period what I actually do all day. (And I happened to pick a day when Chris had a random day off work, which meant I got a shower and made dinner.) Because my day doesn't start when Chris's does, when his alarm goes off and he gets ready for work and leaves for the day. Mine starts just after midnight and ends shortly before midnight 24 hours later, and then the cycle repeats itself.
Oct. 26, 2009
12:35 a.m. - Rise and shine for diaper change and a round of nursing.
1:23 a.m. - Oliver's fallen asleep, so I lay him in his crib and hope I can go back to sleep too.
1:24 a.m. - Oliver's eyes are now wide open.
1:25 a.m. - Since he's clearly not happy about being in his crib, I take him out and feed him some more.
1:33 a.m. - I put him back in his crib and cover his hands with socks because I'm afraid they're cold and I have a theory that if he's toasty warm, he'll sleep longer and that the icy hands he usually has when I pick him up out of his crib are what must have woken him up. Besides, I keep forgetting to buy a mini emery board to smooth out his jagged fingernails, because I'm tired of him scratching me and my big hands aren't steady enough to clip his teeny tiny nails without creating even more jagged edges.
1:39 a.m. - I give him a pacifier. I've discovered these are controversial, but also discovered that when I'm desperate to get a fussy baby to calm down and sleep, I'll try anything and any parenting theories I had pre-baby go out the window.
1:45 a.m. - I wait a few minutes to see if his settling down is for real before going to bed.
2:00 a.m. - I can't sleep, because I can't keep from listening for any peeps coming from his crib, which would be a sign that he really isn't asleep and that I may need to get out of bed again. Waiting for what I feel like is going to be the inevitable fills me with dread. If I'm lucky, I'll fall asleep quickly and get two hours of sleep. Otherwise, I could be out of bed again in 45 minutes...or 30 minutes...or 10.
3:45 a.m. - Up for another feeding.
4:13 a.m. - Change his diaper again.
4:41 a.m. - I put Oliver back in his crib and he immediately wakes up.
4:48 a.m. - Again, I wait to see if he's really fallen asleep before trying to go back to bed. While I wait, I make a grocery list and add emery boards to list.
6:35 a.m. - I'm up for the third time since midnight to feed Oliver.
7:17 a.m.- I'm wide awake with a misleading feeling of refreshment, despite the fact that I've slept around 5 and a half hours, interrupted, since going to bed around 10:00 or 10:30 p.m. the night before. But I go back to bed hoping for another hour, or maybe even two, of sleep.
7:26 a.m. - Sure enough, he starts fussing, and I get out of bed to give him a pacifier and hope that'll be enough to settle him down with the least effort on my part so I can salvage some sleep.
7:54 a.m. - I haven't fallen asleep yet, because I've been lying in bed listening to him continue to fuss. He had appeared to be gassy, which wasn't something I could really do anything for, and since he never broke out into crying, I had put earplugs in and tried to go back to sleep, with no success. But I finally get up and change his diaper.
8:00 a.m. - I decide there's no use in going back to sleep, so I make myself breakfast.
8:45 a.m. - Chris had gotten up while I was eating and tried to feed Oliver a bottle of formula, but he didn't seem to be interested, even though he was acting like he was hungry. So when I was finished eating and cleaning whatever I could in the kitchen before Oliver had a complete meltdown, I nursed him.
9:43 a.m. - I take Oliver with me to run errands at Menard's and Target so that Chris can study. It's more cumbersome to bring him along, but it doesn't slow me down as much anymore, as I've refined the routine of loading and unloading his car seat in the car and shopping carts. Proof that he enjoys the outings: he sleeps. Not a peep from him the the entire time, even when I accidentally ram into another cart at Target while making a beeline for the checkout line.
11:47 a.m. - I decide against more errands because I don't want to push my luck and have Oliver wake up and demand to be fed asap. And I'm hungry. At home I leave him in his car seat to keep sleeping so that I can eat lunch and eat it in peace. I feel guilty about how much he naps in his car seat, but I know that placing him in his crib will.
12:22 p.m. I feed Oliver a bottle while Chris puts together his stroller. Feeding him from the bottle is usually quicker process and I had been noticing that it sometimes knocks him out sooner and for longer than breast milk (or so I was imagining at least) and honestly, sometimes I just need a break from having Oliver attached to my breasts.
12:40 p.m. - Unfortunately, bottle feeding is also a messy process and he usually lets a good portion of it spill down his face. His bib and his clothes are wet, so I change him into dry clothes and a fresh diaper. We take a look at his new ride his father has assembled and put out on the porch.
12:47 pm. - Seemingly unimpressed with the new stroller, I try to interest Oliver in a second round of formula.
2:00 p.m. - I clean up after Oliver after he vomits all over himself, his fresh clothes and the mattress sheet that had been laundered the day before.
2:09 p.m. - I make a call to have our retirement account beneficiary updated with Oliver's new social security number.
2:22 p.m. - I put warm clothes on Oliver and strap him into the Baby Bjorn to walk down the street to the Early Childhood and Family Education Center at Monroe Community School to pick up an application to enroll the two of us in an early childhood education class. I'm ecstatic when I meet the friendly staff and find out there's room in the 3-5 p.m. Wednesday class. I'm really, really looking forward to meeting other local parents.
3:12 p.m. - I let Oliver continue sleeping while I have a snack and make pizza dough for tonight's dinner.
3:33 p.m. - I go to nurse Oliver and discover he's had a "blow out" and has soiled his clothes. I take him upstairs to put the third set of clothes on him that day.
3:44 p.m. - I sit down to feed him and try multi-tasking by reading a book on breastfeeding a friend lent me. It would have been a good book to read before week four of my kid's life, but since Oliver's being a fussy eater, I'm not able to do more than skim a couple paragraphs here and there.
4:29 p.m. - Since the temperature is mild for late October, I load Oliver in the new stroller and go for a much sought after walk. I walked a couple of miles a day up to the day before I gave birth, but I barely have the time or energy for even this simple form of exercise any more.
5:37 p.m. - Oliver slept the entire 42-minute walk, but started crying within minutes of being placed in his crib. Chris runs interference so I can get the pizzas in the oven.
5:58 p.m. - Chris takes over the other half of dinner prep so I can feed Oliver.
6:30 p.m. - Oliver remains fussy, so Chris holds him while I eat. After I'm finished, I bring Chris a few slices of pizza, which he eats with one hand while he holds a now sleeping Oliver with the other.
7:00 p.m. - I watch some TV and nurse Oliver some more.
7:38 p.m. - Hoping that Oliver stays asleep, I go take a shower, which I haven't had a chance to do since Saturday morning.
8:00 p.m. - Oliver is screaming by the time I've gotten out of the shower, so Chris changed his diaper and Oliver peed all over himself, the back wall and the floor. He's changed into his fourth outfit of the day. I feed Oliver while Chris cleans up.
8:30 p.m. - I watch TV while Oliver sleeps in my arms. Despite my concern about screen time for young children, I need something to do to ease the boredom - and keep me awake during the late/early hours - during all those hours I spend breastfeedin. Watching TV is the easiest, because accept for the occasional channel change, it doesn't require use of either hand.
9:13 p.m. - Since Oliver is sleeping peacefully and has clean clothes and diaper on, I put him to bed in his crib so I can go to sleep. As usual, I haven't had a nap today and I'm really, really tired.
9:38 p.m. - He's crying again, so I try feeding him a little bit more.
10:05 p.m. - Back to bed for both of us.
So that's what I do all day. And again the next day. And the next.
****
While the demands of a baby are unrelenting, the first few weeks and even months are particularly brutal. Oliver gradually became a more efficient eater and started sleeping in longer stretches and eventually through the night. I also learned how to better read his tired and hungry cues and help him learn to put himself to sleep, and together, we brought some sanity and order to our days. Though my days still feel like they'll never end, at least they're more manageable than they were when Oliver was only four weeks old.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Seasonal Amnesia
With a warmer (and drier than average) spring, seasonal amnesia has afflicted me earlier than usual this year. Someone explained this term to me during my first year in Minnesota and declared it's the real reason non-native Minnesotans decide to stick around. (And this was from a Wisconsite - is the weather really that much better there?) Even if you love winter like I do, the hassles do eventually wear you down. Snow is pretty, but when it comes down March, or even April, it's too slushy and heavy to do anything other than make driving a mess. Nothing's uglier than old snow, dirty and trampled. By February, I'm tired of salt stains on my shoes, streets narrowed by snowbanks, cars caked in white dust and poorly shoveled sidewalks. The melting process is messy, but gradually the snow disappears, the grass turns greener, the trees bud, the days turn noticeably longer each day, people are out and about on the sidewalks and in the parks, cafes put tables and chair out on the sidewalks and you see your neighbors for the first time in months. The weather is beautiful, you can more easily enjoy being outside and everyone just seems happier. And then you think, how could I live anywhere else?
Seasonal amnesia is hitting me harder this year after living through my first winter with a baby. It must be the body's survival instinct going into overdrive. Instead of spending the warm-weather months recovering from a winter-induced post-traumatic stress disorder, I can actually enjoy the months ahead - and pretend that winter will never come again. Again, I will state that I like winter. Minnesota wouldn't be Minnesota without hard winters. I went to school in Maine, so I get bad winters and wasn't fazed by that prospect when I moved here. But then I had a baby and tried pushing a stroller on a sidewalk with snow (FYI - doesn't work) and had to carry a baby in a car seat over a snowbank daily and I thought I didn't care if it ever snowed again. I was jealous of the moms on my New Moms, New Babies podcast, (a spinoff of my favorite podcast, Pregtastic) which is produced in San Diego, who were adjusting to motherhood without figuring out how they were going to dress their baby for an outing in subzero temperatures, where the baby blues wasn't being compounded by lack of sunlight or how they were going to get exercise with a baby in toe when the sidewalks and roads were covered in snow. Snow used to be fun, but it just became a nuisance when it made everything I did with Oliver that much more difficult.
I adapted though. Staying home wasn't an option for my own sanity. I started driving to a city park where the paths were plowed and my stroller could get through and took a very bundled up Oliver on walks in everything but the coldest of weather. I never thought I'd be a mall walker, but I found myself at the Mall of American more times than I would like to admit to even myself to walk with other moms. With every snowfall, I was outside shoveling out my car and meticulously clearing the sidewalk and front walkway during Oliver's naptimes, so that I lessened my chances of being snowed in.
And then one Thursday in the middle of March we flew to Philadelphia. There was still a foot of snow of on the ground and treacherous snowbanks, but when we arrived home the following Sunday afternoon, even the snowbanks had disappeared and it was 60 degrees and sunny. Instead of the memories of the inconveniences of enduring winter with a newborn, I looked forward to summer when I could dress Oliver in just a onesie, go for walks right from my front door instead of having to drive somewhere or set up his playpen on the back deck and enjoy the warmth of the sun and fresh air. I know winter will be back, but until then, I'm allowing myself to fall victim to seasonal amnesia.
Seasonal amnesia is hitting me harder this year after living through my first winter with a baby. It must be the body's survival instinct going into overdrive. Instead of spending the warm-weather months recovering from a winter-induced post-traumatic stress disorder, I can actually enjoy the months ahead - and pretend that winter will never come again. Again, I will state that I like winter. Minnesota wouldn't be Minnesota without hard winters. I went to school in Maine, so I get bad winters and wasn't fazed by that prospect when I moved here. But then I had a baby and tried pushing a stroller on a sidewalk with snow (FYI - doesn't work) and had to carry a baby in a car seat over a snowbank daily and I thought I didn't care if it ever snowed again. I was jealous of the moms on my New Moms, New Babies podcast, (a spinoff of my favorite podcast, Pregtastic) which is produced in San Diego, who were adjusting to motherhood without figuring out how they were going to dress their baby for an outing in subzero temperatures, where the baby blues wasn't being compounded by lack of sunlight or how they were going to get exercise with a baby in toe when the sidewalks and roads were covered in snow. Snow used to be fun, but it just became a nuisance when it made everything I did with Oliver that much more difficult.
I adapted though. Staying home wasn't an option for my own sanity. I started driving to a city park where the paths were plowed and my stroller could get through and took a very bundled up Oliver on walks in everything but the coldest of weather. I never thought I'd be a mall walker, but I found myself at the Mall of American more times than I would like to admit to even myself to walk with other moms. With every snowfall, I was outside shoveling out my car and meticulously clearing the sidewalk and front walkway during Oliver's naptimes, so that I lessened my chances of being snowed in.
And then one Thursday in the middle of March we flew to Philadelphia. There was still a foot of snow of on the ground and treacherous snowbanks, but when we arrived home the following Sunday afternoon, even the snowbanks had disappeared and it was 60 degrees and sunny. Instead of the memories of the inconveniences of enduring winter with a newborn, I looked forward to summer when I could dress Oliver in just a onesie, go for walks right from my front door instead of having to drive somewhere or set up his playpen on the back deck and enjoy the warmth of the sun and fresh air. I know winter will be back, but until then, I'm allowing myself to fall victim to seasonal amnesia.
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