"Well, bless my nippers! Bless them all day long!"
Seven Quick Takes: Still Growin' Up edition
One long one and six actually quick.
1. It's true that I think of all these great things that I could put in seven quick takes, but when it comes time to write the entry I can't think of most of them. Oh well.
2. (Warning: Super long one ahead.)
Pippa is too old to be swaddled. Which is both :C and :D because it's the closing of a sweet chapter but also the opening of a hopefully just as sweet new one.
She was way ahead of the class when she was itty bitty in terms of sleeping for long stretches. She was routinely doing 6, 7 and even 8 hour stretches at only a few weeks old.
Then she started hitting basically continuous growth spurts. And teething.
So for about the last three months, I think the longest stretch we've gotten out of her is about 4 hours, with two and three hours being more typical. And there was one stretch there where she was waking up every hour and needing to NURSE that often. And it was an actual need, I don't doubt, because at the next check-up she had jumped a category in both length and weight percentiles.
Anyway, this has been really hard on me, since I have never been a good sleeper myself, and I found it really hard to get enough sleep for myself. It was also hard not to feel like I must be doing something wrong, especially when she was in that hourly wake-up phase. Plus I was worried that she was going to be a terrible sleeper like I am, so I was worried on her behalf, because my sleep struggles have frequently been a hell. In fact, the one and only thing I prayed for her about when she was in utero was that she be a good sleeper--again, NOT for myself, for HER. People who sleep well do not understand what a wonderful gift they possess to be able to sleep easily.
The big reason we kept with the swaddle for so long was because she not only woke up more often but it was difficult, after soothing her to sleep or near-sleep, to move her into her crib without her limbs flailing about or something which would send her back into fussing or crying mode and usually take longer to soothe back down than the first time.
Anyway, I had to bite the bullet sometime and start getting her used to sleeping without the swaddle. She was starting to rebel against the swaddle, straining, trying to get her arms out or flip herself over, so I knew it was time.
No more three week old baby burrito.
The first night was terrible. She woke every half hour until I went to bed myself, whereupon she slept more normally (a 3 hour and then a 4 hour stretch). She's also had a period every night where she wakes up around midnight and won't go back to sleep for like an hour or two (generally because her dad gets home from work and then she wants to play/snuggle with him). But it's gotten better, little by little, and tonight she's back to where she was when we swaddled her in terms of number of wake-ups.
I am trying to be hopeful about her sleep because she shows many signs of having an overall healthy and not too dependent sleep approach--stuff like ability to fall asleep with just a little patting and shushing, and more often than not now she falls asleep initially in her crib without any help from me aside from standing in the room and singing a lullaby, and sometimes (like tonight) she even falls asleep with me out of the room. (I put her in the crib, sang the lullabies, and she was awake but quiet, so I left, and when I checked back five minutes later she was asleep.)
3. Phew! Did you scroll all that way? Give yourself a pat on the back.
4. The one night when she wouldn't go back to sleep, I was getting too frustrated to stay in the bedroom, so I picked her up and brought her out to the living room and put Wizard People, Dear Reader on.
Warning: strong language and crudeness, so maybe I am a terrible mom for having this play, but it has a lot of really funny lines and running gags, such as Snape being a "horrible woman" named Snake, and Hermione being constantly described as the hideous "Wretched Harmony".
5. I have to decide what I'm making for a crockpot dinner on Saturday and for a dish to bring to a potluck Saturday night. I was thinking beef stew for dinner since I have a chuck roast. I'm stuck for the potluck though. I was thinking meatballs but I don't think the timing will work. Hmm. I need it to be REALLY easy and ideally consist of stuff I already have around. Maybe a cream cheese dip with crackers? Hmm.
6. October was pretty much a wash for liturgical eating. It was just a time-crunched month all around and I think I'm fortunate that I managed nice meals at all as much as I did. I don't think I will try to do a November plan because of my Thanksgiving trip to the States, but Catholic Cuisine has their November idea calendar up.
7. I don't think I like baking anymore. Our oven is weird, and we don't have a food processor or mixer. I wish we had a bread machine. My parents have a dinky one but it makes great bread and is so easy.
I've heard about no-knead bread. Maybe I should try that, but I don't know if I have a suitable pot. Plus, still, the oven weirdness.
Edit: Originally I was going to do my Seven Quick Takes all about elimination communication/infant potty learning, but I thought "Nah, people coming in from 7QT will find it so weird and extreme." And now I see that this edition features a quick take about reusable toilet paper (ie using cloth wipes for adults as well as babies).
EC next week it is!
One long one and six actually quick.
1. It's true that I think of all these great things that I could put in seven quick takes, but when it comes time to write the entry I can't think of most of them. Oh well.
2. (Warning: Super long one ahead.)
Pippa is too old to be swaddled. Which is both :C and :D because it's the closing of a sweet chapter but also the opening of a hopefully just as sweet new one.
She was way ahead of the class when she was itty bitty in terms of sleeping for long stretches. She was routinely doing 6, 7 and even 8 hour stretches at only a few weeks old.
Then she started hitting basically continuous growth spurts. And teething.
So for about the last three months, I think the longest stretch we've gotten out of her is about 4 hours, with two and three hours being more typical. And there was one stretch there where she was waking up every hour and needing to NURSE that often. And it was an actual need, I don't doubt, because at the next check-up she had jumped a category in both length and weight percentiles.
Anyway, this has been really hard on me, since I have never been a good sleeper myself, and I found it really hard to get enough sleep for myself. It was also hard not to feel like I must be doing something wrong, especially when she was in that hourly wake-up phase. Plus I was worried that she was going to be a terrible sleeper like I am, so I was worried on her behalf, because my sleep struggles have frequently been a hell. In fact, the one and only thing I prayed for her about when she was in utero was that she be a good sleeper--again, NOT for myself, for HER. People who sleep well do not understand what a wonderful gift they possess to be able to sleep easily.
The big reason we kept with the swaddle for so long was because she not only woke up more often but it was difficult, after soothing her to sleep or near-sleep, to move her into her crib without her limbs flailing about or something which would send her back into fussing or crying mode and usually take longer to soothe back down than the first time.
Anyway, I had to bite the bullet sometime and start getting her used to sleeping without the swaddle. She was starting to rebel against the swaddle, straining, trying to get her arms out or flip herself over, so I knew it was time.
No more three week old baby burrito.
The first night was terrible. She woke every half hour until I went to bed myself, whereupon she slept more normally (a 3 hour and then a 4 hour stretch). She's also had a period every night where she wakes up around midnight and won't go back to sleep for like an hour or two (generally because her dad gets home from work and then she wants to play/snuggle with him). But it's gotten better, little by little, and tonight she's back to where she was when we swaddled her in terms of number of wake-ups.
I am trying to be hopeful about her sleep because she shows many signs of having an overall healthy and not too dependent sleep approach--stuff like ability to fall asleep with just a little patting and shushing, and more often than not now she falls asleep initially in her crib without any help from me aside from standing in the room and singing a lullaby, and sometimes (like tonight) she even falls asleep with me out of the room. (I put her in the crib, sang the lullabies, and she was awake but quiet, so I left, and when I checked back five minutes later she was asleep.)
3. Phew! Did you scroll all that way? Give yourself a pat on the back.
4. The one night when she wouldn't go back to sleep, I was getting too frustrated to stay in the bedroom, so I picked her up and brought her out to the living room and put Wizard People, Dear Reader on.
Warning: strong language and crudeness, so maybe I am a terrible mom for having this play, but it has a lot of really funny lines and running gags, such as Snape being a "horrible woman" named Snake, and Hermione being constantly described as the hideous "Wretched Harmony".
5. I have to decide what I'm making for a crockpot dinner on Saturday and for a dish to bring to a potluck Saturday night. I was thinking beef stew for dinner since I have a chuck roast. I'm stuck for the potluck though. I was thinking meatballs but I don't think the timing will work. Hmm. I need it to be REALLY easy and ideally consist of stuff I already have around. Maybe a cream cheese dip with crackers? Hmm.
6. October was pretty much a wash for liturgical eating. It was just a time-crunched month all around and I think I'm fortunate that I managed nice meals at all as much as I did. I don't think I will try to do a November plan because of my Thanksgiving trip to the States, but Catholic Cuisine has their November idea calendar up.
7. I don't think I like baking anymore. Our oven is weird, and we don't have a food processor or mixer. I wish we had a bread machine. My parents have a dinky one but it makes great bread and is so easy.
I've heard about no-knead bread. Maybe I should try that, but I don't know if I have a suitable pot. Plus, still, the oven weirdness.
Edit: Originally I was going to do my Seven Quick Takes all about elimination communication/infant potty learning, but I thought "Nah, people coming in from 7QT will find it so weird and extreme." And now I see that this edition features a quick take about reusable toilet paper (ie using cloth wipes for adults as well as babies).
EC next week it is!