Sleep? What's that?

So you've brought home your brand new bundle of joy.  As a father, you probably didn't lose a whole lot of sleep at the hospital.  Especially if you were my husband who I sent home during that first night I was at the hospital.  My sister and mother were in town and so I sent my poor sleep deprived hubby home that first day and my sainted sister stayed to help.  My labor and delivery was 38 hours long and the poor guy was actually awake for most of it!  The adrenaline rush after having my daughter somehow kept me going for another 6 or 7 hours after she was born and I didn't fall 'asleep' until around 10pm.  Naturally the nurses were considerate and allowed me uninterrupted rest for those exhausted hours.  NOT.  Every two hours they were coming in to check my vitals or my daughters.  Granted, they were kind enough to leave the lights off in the room and worked swiftly and quietly but there's no avoiding the obvious. I was being woken up every 2 hours for something.  So by the time I brought my own bundle of joy home it's safe to say I was fairly exhausted but I learned what every new parent learns: You adjust quickly.

Now the fun begins.  See, in the hospital there were all these people that magically made your kid sleep. But now it's up to you and your hubby to make do.  I certainly felt like it was up to me most of the time since my husband was always looking to me for guidance.  After all, I was the one that researched everything so surely I knew what I was doing right?  The number one rule of babies is that they never do what you expect they should.  My sweet little girl was perfectly content if I was holding her.  But the minute I tried to put her down in her crib when she was asleep was the perfect moment for her to wake right back up.  We spent three hour sessions twice a night at least trying to find some method to get her and I both some sleep.  I tried putting her in the bed with me but neither of us slept well when I did.  I tried nursing her to sleep and then laying her in her crib to no avail. She'd just wake right back up again.  Seems like I tried about 15 different things and sometimes they worked but most of the time they didn't.  After a week or two (hard to remember looking back hah) we finally caved and started using the swing. Every night my husband would haul her swing from the downstairs to the upstairs.  And every night the routine became the same.  I would try to get my daughter to sleep in her crib which usually took an hour from start to finish.  The minute she woke up I'd nurse her and change her and try to get her back into her crib again but if it didn't work within the first 45 minutes or so of awake time then I reverted to the swing.  It got her asleep, and it got me some sleep.  After about six weeks I realized we weren't even using the swing at night anymore. Since I was still consistently trying to get her into her crib on the first attempt, it eventually became the one that she accustomed herself to.

One other thing I'll say is to try everything and anything and find what works for you. Wing it! If that means putting the baby in bed with you then do it! Those first 6 weeks are not going to matter to your baby. They don't develop habits that young despite all the people that will tell you having a baby in your bed will make them stay there.  That is true...but not at 6 weeks of age.  At that age they sleep where they'll sleep and god bless em I say and let em.  When they start hitting about 2 months of age you'll want to start developing sleep habits that suit you and your family. Whether that's keeping the baby in your bed or making them go to sleep in theirs, it's up to you.  But even when my daughter finally started going to sleep in her own crib sleepless nights still persisted.  Every time I heard a twitch in the monitor my brain would jump into alert mode and my tension would take a long time to ease before I could sleep.  I have a theory that this is mostly women that suffer this problem.  My husband had no trouble falling asleep once his head hit the pillow and he stayed there until he heard an actual cry.  And although she started sleeping fairly well through the night at two months of age, I was a different story. 

PS She actually completely flipped her sleeping habits at about 4 months of age which from what I understand is fairly normal.  She still slept through the night and took her naps just fine during the day. The only difference was for about 3 or 4 months she was waking up ALL THE TIME at night.  Depending on the night she would wake up every 45 minutes to every hour and a half to every three hours and everything in between. She never stayed awake for long and went right back to sleep within minutes but since she kept waking me up which put my brain right back into alert mode at every twitch. And people actually commented on how cranky I seemed during that time frame. Hmm, wonder why.

Welcome Letter to Parenthood. No there's really not a manual.

So you've decided (or someone decided for you) that it's time to have a baby.  New babies can be exciting and wondrous and have the general capability to turn your world upside down.  So what do you do?  Go crazy naturally.  After all, there's so much information out there about having kids, raising kids, and more importantly, screwing up your kids.  That's the one thing people seem to want to warn you against. What NOT to do.  Don't eat sushi while you're pregnant! Don't exercise too much! Don't eat lunch meat (that one always threw me for a loop)! The problem is, once you become pregnant everyone seems to want to tell you what to do and what not to do.  As if you don't have the brain power to decide for yourself what's right and what's not.  For the most part the advice is well meaning and can be helpful. After all, when I became pregnant with my daughter I had no clue about half the things that I was going to experience. I'd still rather not know to be honest.  But I was one of those moms that was determined to learn everything. I read books, I did research for hours endlessly on the internet, I bugged the heck out of all my friends that had kids. In fact, by the end of it I think I'm pretty sure my 'knowledge' was enough to drive my mother, older sister and doctor all insane!  And after all that research and now personal experience, the best I can tell you was summarized best by Douglas Adams when he spoke of the universe and, I suspect, life in general: Don't Panic.

Seriously, that's it.  Don't Panic and I can guarantee that 98% of pregnancy, labor and delivery will be a breeze.  Take the well meaning advice and either file it away or shove it in the mental garbage but smile and nod while you do it.  People don't like to think you don't care. And honestly, it's easier and less stressful to just smile and nod. Do your own research if that's your thing and be informed about the logistics of what you and your body are going through.  Try not to panic about every little thing and learn to listen and recognize warning signs.  If you're exercising and something hurts, stop.  Use common sense when it comes to things you eat.  Don't eat undercooked foods as they may contain bacteria. But don't freak out and give up your favorite eggnog at the holiday season.  As a huge fan of eggnog I was dismayed when people told me I couldn't have it so (naturally) I looked it up.  Turns out pasteurized eggs don't contain the bacteria that is harmful to pregnant women that unpasteurized eggs do.  So store bought eggnog that is made with pasteurized eggs is perfectly safe.  Sushi can be eaten if the fish is cooked. Which if you're a fan of sushi you already know that it's not all raw fish.  Unfortunately you still can't have your favorite beer or anything less then a completely dead steak.  My husband was so sweet he tried so hard to make flavorful steaks so that I could enjoy them.  But inevitably I reached for the steak sauce which in our house is a deadly sign.

Something that took me a while to understand was that doctors don't in fact know everything. Otherwise they'd all tell you the same thing all the time. So when your doctor tells you something that you're curious about, go and look it up.  Then discuss it with your doctor or, like me, smile and nod. If you don't feel that your doctor is adequately listening to you then request a new one.  Sadly there are a lot of doctors out there that don't look at you as a person but rather an appointment.  And so many of them completely ignore first time mothers because of their notoriety for 'freaking out' over every little thing.

Pregnancy can be both thrilling and scary at the same time. But a running theory that I have is that the calmer you are during pregnancy, the calmer your child will be. The less stress you have, the less high strung of a baby you'll get.  Makes sense to me then that the number one thing to do is Don't Panic.

This blog is intended to be a place for mothers and fathers to take a deep breath and exhale. To realize that pregnancy and parenting are things that so many people have frustrations with and to find people that understand.  I hope to provide a calming atmosphere where you can laugh and say 'yeah that happened to me too!'. I hope to post every Monday with a different topic varying between pregnancy, labor and delivery and child rearing and if anyone has any specific topics they'd like me to cover feel free to leave any comments or questions or send me an email at mischiefmanaged.kelli@gmail.com!