Still here
I’m here. I won’t stop writing. Where else would I do all my complaining? Why, to my husband of course. Poor guy.
I’ve got lots of things to say and no time to say them. I remember the ol’ “okay I have a sleeping baby, do I have one minute to work with or three hours, what should I do first?” Things are different this time around because when I achieve that sleeping baby state I am likely to walk out of the sleeping baby room and run smack into a little boy that needs me to find the sword that his playmobil guy dropped when his sister bumped into him in the driveway. Okayyy, that doesn’t seem important to me, wouldn’t have made my list of the top 500 things I’d like to do with one minute or three hours.
Suddenly I am #4 on the list of people whose needs need to be met. Poor rocket man. He comes in last and he’s got all FOUR of us on his list before him. But he does get to get into his car everyday and drive the hell away from us for many, many hours. Thank god or otherwise he might try to leave all of us in the wilderness. Or he might pull a cartoon-action move where he flees the house, leaving a rocket man shaped hole in the door.
The baby is doing great. I marvel over her very existence constantly. I can hardly believe that she is here. Her brother and sister LOVE her. She is just starting to notice us. I imagine that she is thinking something like, "Okay, you people again, I get it." She is still sleeping most of the time, double-swaddled, looking like a tiny sarcophagus.
MOST IMPORTANT THING TO LEARN ABOUT NEWBORNS, BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE HOSPITAL: a good swaddle, scratch that. An EXCELLENT swaddle. If your swaddle sucks, despite your best efforts, then get the Kiddopotamus. It’s a little fleecy, Velcro contraption that goes over the blanket swaddle. All three of our kids have really dug the swaddle. And the swaddled combined with the little foam positioners that keep them from rolling over? Even better. And put the baby’s head up against the bumper or whatver. I have a burp rag making a bumper in my moses basket. She loves it.
Ooh my new favorite thing I have discovered: wearing a bra in the shower so my nipples, which feel like hamburger meat by the way, are protected from the piercing-feeling of the water. Otherwise I have to cover them with my hands which is both difficult and impractical. A tank bra works great. It is a little disorienting though and I often feel like there is a good chance that I have forgotten to take off my underwear.
I bought a tube top (the belly tube) at mimi maternity and wondered why the hell I spent my money on that? I thought I might use it to girdle my belly a little but I am using it in the shower for a bra and, even better, at night so I just have to pull it down to access a boob and the rest of the night it collects the milk that leaks out.
What else? I’m giving the baby, when I remember, lactobacillus to help her digestion and avoid the dreaded “3-5 a.m. grunting, squeaking, longest attempt to crap in recorded history.” I don’t know if it helps. Three a.m. was also a bad time for my other two. More on that later when i can complete a thought.
One of my kids has just returned from his last outing with my dad, who leaves TOMORROW AFTER SLAVING AWAY ON MY BEHALF FOR THE LAST SIX MONTHS. The other has just gotten up from her nap and is about to tell me that she is hungry. Gotta run.
I’ve got lots of things to say and no time to say them. I remember the ol’ “okay I have a sleeping baby, do I have one minute to work with or three hours, what should I do first?” Things are different this time around because when I achieve that sleeping baby state I am likely to walk out of the sleeping baby room and run smack into a little boy that needs me to find the sword that his playmobil guy dropped when his sister bumped into him in the driveway. Okayyy, that doesn’t seem important to me, wouldn’t have made my list of the top 500 things I’d like to do with one minute or three hours.
Suddenly I am #4 on the list of people whose needs need to be met. Poor rocket man. He comes in last and he’s got all FOUR of us on his list before him. But he does get to get into his car everyday and drive the hell away from us for many, many hours. Thank god or otherwise he might try to leave all of us in the wilderness. Or he might pull a cartoon-action move where he flees the house, leaving a rocket man shaped hole in the door.
The baby is doing great. I marvel over her very existence constantly. I can hardly believe that she is here. Her brother and sister LOVE her. She is just starting to notice us. I imagine that she is thinking something like, "Okay, you people again, I get it." She is still sleeping most of the time, double-swaddled, looking like a tiny sarcophagus.
MOST IMPORTANT THING TO LEARN ABOUT NEWBORNS, BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE HOSPITAL: a good swaddle, scratch that. An EXCELLENT swaddle. If your swaddle sucks, despite your best efforts, then get the Kiddopotamus. It’s a little fleecy, Velcro contraption that goes over the blanket swaddle. All three of our kids have really dug the swaddle. And the swaddled combined with the little foam positioners that keep them from rolling over? Even better. And put the baby’s head up against the bumper or whatver. I have a burp rag making a bumper in my moses basket. She loves it.
Ooh my new favorite thing I have discovered: wearing a bra in the shower so my nipples, which feel like hamburger meat by the way, are protected from the piercing-feeling of the water. Otherwise I have to cover them with my hands which is both difficult and impractical. A tank bra works great. It is a little disorienting though and I often feel like there is a good chance that I have forgotten to take off my underwear.
I bought a tube top (the belly tube) at mimi maternity and wondered why the hell I spent my money on that? I thought I might use it to girdle my belly a little but I am using it in the shower for a bra and, even better, at night so I just have to pull it down to access a boob and the rest of the night it collects the milk that leaks out.
What else? I’m giving the baby, when I remember, lactobacillus to help her digestion and avoid the dreaded “3-5 a.m. grunting, squeaking, longest attempt to crap in recorded history.” I don’t know if it helps. Three a.m. was also a bad time for my other two. More on that later when i can complete a thought.
One of my kids has just returned from his last outing with my dad, who leaves TOMORROW AFTER SLAVING AWAY ON MY BEHALF FOR THE LAST SIX MONTHS. The other has just gotten up from her nap and is about to tell me that she is hungry. Gotta run.
posted by whatthef*ck at 4:44 PM
2 Comments:
I am still swaddling BB to sleep. He is 5.5 months old. He is really strong and he busts out of it in his sleep - which scares the crap out of me when the blanket covers his face. But I think I have figured out a way to do it that eliminates that problem. He wakes EVERY. TIME. I. LAY. HIM. DOWN!!! when he isn't swaddled. Yes, I nurse him to sleep. That is another thing that I won't be stopping soon, thanks anyways, sleep gurus.
Glad to see that you are using your valuable time to get us up to date. ;) I have about the same approach, you know!
Sorry about your nipples. I can relate. Turns out that I have a condition that causes the capilaries in my nipples to constrict and cut off bloodflow when BB nurses. At first, it was hellish. But we worked out that snag after about 3 months (!!!).
Happy to read your news!
That swaddle was the first thing I learned when I started working NICU and boy was it a life saver. Now I'm working with adults again and sort of miss being able to swaddle my patients and know they would go to sleep and not ask for anything.
Post a Comment
<< Home