A Day in the Life.

Someone asked me a while ago what our daily routine was like since Adelyn (thank God) sleeps from eight until six. I've also gotten a few e-mails asking similar questions.
And to that I say, "Ha! What's a daily routine?"
I'm all for giving and getting advice, but let me be clear, whatever Adelyn does or does not do during the day has nothing to do with me. I think Jason and I might have had a little to do with her nighttime sleeping habits. Thanks to great advice I received in the beginning, we always, always, kept it bright and loud during the day. From the first day home from the hospital. We put her in her own room when she was about a month old and started a pretty strict bedtime routine from there (bath every other day, baby massage with lavender lotion, Jason plays guitar or we sing, put her down and feed her the last ounce of her last bottle). Her angelic nighttime sleeping could have everything to do with our actions or it could just be the kind of baby she is. Whatever. I'm not second guessing it.
But during the day, that's an entirely different story.
I'm not really the kind of person or mother to buy books about parenting techniques and to structure my entire life around an intended "schedule" for an infant. And this might make my life a lot harder, because for all I know buying and using The Baby Whisperer or Baby Wise could change everything. But I don't have the energy or the patience for any of that, so I'm stuck with figuring it out on my own.
I did read a lot about Baby Wise in the beginning, and though I don't think I'll ever buy the book I think some of its tenets make a lot of sense. From what I understand it suggests a stringent bottle, play, nap schedule throughout the day, in three-hour intervals. And if that's all it is I guess the rest of the hundred-odd pages are filled with various ways of saying this, and again it reiterates the fact that mothers will buy anything and buy into anything if they think it will make their lives easier, myself usually included.
That's always been the idea I have for Adelyn's daytime routine. When she wakes up between six or seven, she eats her biggest bottle of the day (five, sometimes six, ounces). Then we play for an hour or so. Around eight she's usually tired again, so I put her in the swing. She'll then sleep for anywhere from an hour to two hours. Then it's another bottle.
And then the rest of the day is a jumble of spit-up, poop explosions, trying to get her to laugh and me trying to squeeze in brushing my teeth, writing, working, eating and being a human.
The only constants are in the morning and right before bed. The rest changes daily. The past week she's been in a funk of only eating an ounce or two at a time, and then begging for more an hour later. I called her doctor about this yesterday and she suggested putting rice cereal in her bottles to satiate her for longer periods of time. And I am, of course, nervous about this because I google and go on Baby Center way too often.
The picture above sort of says it all. The trash desperately needs to be taken out in the background, which is a perfect depiction of our daily lives. I took that this morning, after her first big bottle and before her first nap. And now that she's napping, I'm writing. This is the only consistency I can look forward to during the day. This beginning.
And it's not so much of an issue right now since she is my sole responsibility, but soon I will be--hopefully--working from home full-time, and if that job doesn't work out I will be going back to school for my master's full-time or finding another compatible job. At the moment her infrequent napping is only a nuisance as far as my ability to clean myself up and spend an hour doing freelance work or writing. When I start working, it will become an actual issue. One that will need a solution.
So for those that asked about the daily routine, this is your answer. Adelyn eats, sleeps, poops, and plays, and I just try desperately to keep up.

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Newborn Time-Management.

I'm sort of obsessive compulsive when it comes to managing my time. I've known this about myself since high school, when I realized I was really the only one of my friends who worried about every little thing when it came to what we were doing. And I don't just try to plan everything out--I stress and obsess and over-analyze every part of it--where we're meeting, where we're going, who's driving, who's drinking, who's gonna be late, how much sleep am I gonna get.

When I was working in broadcast news every single one of my coworkers made a comment about how fast I did everything. I worked overnight the majority of my time there, writing scripts for the morning news (the show started at four a.m. and ran until seven). And I never took a moment to breathe the second I sat down. I got in around midnight and didn't stop writing until the task was finished. Everyone always seemed impressed that I was so efficient, and I guess I could just pat myself on the back and say I was good at my job, but mostly it was that I was completely terrified of not finishing in time. Terror really fuels your work ethic.

Add a baby into the mix, one who has no concept of time or work, and the whole scheduling obsession becomes infinitely more complicated. I find myself borderline-manically planning out the most boring activities. While I'm holding Adelyn in one hand and getting her bottle ready with the other, I'm trying to decide if it would be better to put the laundry in the dryer while the bottle heats up or if I should instead devote that thirty seconds to peeing. It's exhausting, and it's no one's fault but my own.

It sounds pathetic even writing it out but you have to work your ass off to maintain any sort of a structure with a newborn around. I have to fight for it.

I'm now the girl who's always late. And, god, I used to loathe constant lateness. I can't tell you how many arguments Jason and I have gotten in over being on time. And now, I'm the one my friends have to work around to schedule lunch, I'm the one struggling to get a project turned in on time.

I used to drive myself crazy with this stuff, pre-Adelyn. I'd always wonder why I couldn't just go with the flow, why I couldn't just do something instead of planning out every detail of it beforehand. Post-Adelyn, now that her needs come first, I want even more to learn to chill out.

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Sleeping Through the Night.

Last night was the first night in weeks that Adelyn woke up before six a.m. We've all become accustomed to our little bedtime and morning routine, so much so that when it's thrown for a loop my body definitely notices. (Waking up at three a.m. felt almost impossible, even though I've done it more times than I can count the past three and a half months--well, really eleven if you count the non-stop nocturnal bathroom trips during pregnancy.)

At three a.m. on the dot I heard her on the monitor. But it wasn't the usual crying. All I heard was "Ehh." And then nothing. I tried to close my eyes again. Two minutes later, "Ehhhh. Eh."

So begrudgingly I dragged myself out of bed and into her nursery, where she was laying wide-awake. She took one look at me standing over her crib and the biggest smile I've seen yet spread across her face. I was tired, so so tired, but you can't resist that smile. I smiled too, broken sleep aside.

But the episode made me realize just how lucky we are that Adelyn is sleeping so well at night. I sort of had an inkling from the beginning that we'd be blessed with a baby who liked to sleep. And I've read that the patterns they show in the beginning, although they can vary from week to week, stay pretty consistent throughout childhood. And even with that fact under my belt I'm almost scared to write about how well she sleeps because then the baby gods will come down and screw it all up.

I don't know if what Jason and I do has anything to do with Adelyn's nighttime routine or if it's completely random. I do know, however, that I'm not about to go messing with what works.

Around eight every night, the ritual starts. Every other night she gets a bath. After that, I give her a pseudo-baby massage (I say pseudo because I have no idea what I'm doing, I just slather on some Johnson & Johnson Nighttime Lavender Lotion and say job-well-done). We then change her into a comfy onesie and get ready to feed her the last bottle of the night, usually about 4 ounces. A lot of the time we sing to her during this last feeding, usually we just talk. In the beginning I read to her every night and I vow to do this more, starting tonight, in fact. Once she's almost finished, we lay her down in the crib on her Nap Nanny. Our doctor recommended this ridiculously-expensive product after I told her Adelyn liked to sleep propped up. My mom graciously got it for us otherwise I never could have justified spending so much on a contoured foam sleep thing, but Adelyn loves it. And, as it turns out, the thing is huge and she'll be able to use it for a long time to come.

(We don't strap her in because I'm evil and because I have no idea where she's gonna go all swaddled up inside of there.)

Then we turn on her noise machine. We have the Cloud B Sleep Sheep and love it--it clips right on to her crib. At first we used the heartbeat sound, but that started to sound sort of creepy to me night after night, so now we've switched to the sounds of the ocean.

We lay her on top of her swaddling blanket, already in the crib on top of the Nap Nanny, because she used to hate the act of being swaddled and this minimizes the disruption. We started out with the Miracle Blanket. That thing started to become more of a hassle than it was worth, though. The whole process of getting her in it took too long and upset her too much. And once we switched to the Halo Sleep Sack with swaddle, she started sleeping longer than ever. It's so much easier to get her in, it's so, so much softer, and I feel like it keeps her a little bit more cozy. Again, I have no idea if her improved sleep is by chance or because it's a great product, but I'm not gonna second guess it.

Finally, we feed her the rest of the bottle. Adelyn hates pacifiers and looks at me like a crazy person when I try to give her one. But she usually polishes off another half an ounce in her crib, and then once her eyes are good and heavy Jason and I leave the room and shut the door.

Because Adelyn is going to bed earlier (between eight and nine), Jason and I get a few hours of alone time to, you know, watch and discuss Lost without screeching in the background.

I've said it before and I'll say it again--sleeping through the night is the newborn-parenting holy grail. That first time you get it, when suddenly your eyes shoot open and you realize you've been sleeping for hours uninterrupted, once you get over the initial paralyzing fear that your baby has not woken up, it's like winning the lottery.

A while ago some woman on Baby Center went on a rant about how she annoyed she is with all this "sleeping through the night" talk.

"Why is everyone so obsessed with their babies sleeping all night?" she asked us. "Didn't you know you were signing up for no sleep when you got pregnant?" And I say to her, and anyone else thinking something similar, we are obsessed with it because we are human and like to sleep.

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The Patience Game.

There's a key to this whole beginning part that I think I've been missing. Or at least lacking.

Patience.

I don't have a lot of it. I never have. I'm an instant gratification sort of girl.

The hardest parts of my parenting day come at the very beginning and the very end of the day, when my patience is at its thinnest. In between, there's very little crying or mommy breakdowns. I feed her when she's hungry, play with her when she's awake, change her when she's wet, and put her down when she's sleepy. It's really not much more complicated than that.

First thing in the morning, though, I'm usually half-asleep. And since I've been sleeping until I hear her crying to eat, she's already hungry. So I have to listen to her crying for a good five to ten minutes while I make a bottle, warm the bottle, change her diaper, and try to slap myself out of exhaustion. (I know, especially by now, that crying is all she can do. I still haven't gotten used to the sound, though. I'm still not inured to it. It still makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong. I thought that would've gone away by now.) By the time the bottle gets to her mouth she's frustrated and gulps it down. Which means she usually spits up midway through, and an hour later, once she's been fed and burped and calmed, I invariably have formula all over my shirt, my hair.

The hardest part is at night, right before bed. I always get nervous around eight, anticipating what this bedtime ritual will include. And the harder I try to figure out a solution, the more we struggle.

At night, I'm tired. I'm ready for a break. So I probably don't burp her long enough; I'm anxious to get her quiet and in the crib. And rushing makes it worse--if you put her down too soon, before all the air is out of her little, confused tummy or before she's had a chance to really get sleepy, she's crying again in five minutes. That's when Jason and I start to scramble, trying to figure out what's missing. Is she still hungry? Does she need to burp again? Are you going to go warm another bottle or should I? Can I go lie down? Are you sure you don't mind if I go lie down?

Every night, it's the same struggle.

On the nights that I go to bed early and Jason finishes the last feeding by himself, everything seems to run more smoothly. I've said it to Jason and to myself countless times but I feel like he's just so much more patient than me. He always take a lot longer at nighttime, feeding her, rocking her, comforting her. When we do it together, I get stressed because I'm tired. I try to follow a routine I've concocted in my head rather than what she's demanding because I'm so anxious for it to work.

I don't know how it is that you learn patience. I listen to Adelyn wailing for a bottle, and I want to teach her that the bottle is coming, to just hold on. But I'm smart enough to know that I'm the one that has to teach it to her--every survival mechanism she was born with is telling her to wail for that food and to wail louder the longer it takes to get there.

In most ways it's getting so much easier by the day, this whole parenting thing. As she stays awake longer during the day, though, there's more pressure to move beyond the eat, sleep, poop equation, to start teaching her things when her eyes are open. To establish rituals that let her know the bottle is coming, that it's time to play and time to sleep.

The more I try to follow advice (from my doctor, from stupid books and parents who have been there before), the more stressed I get. When Jason puts her to bed, he just does it.

I'm impatient. Anxious for the day I can rationalize with her, to tell her that a warm bottle takes just a little longer than a cold one.

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Forgiveness and Stuff.

Adelyn and I made it through our first fight, and we're now getting along perfectly. I forgave her for her non-stop screeching the night before, the screeching that had me pulling out my hair and pleading, and she forgave me for not being able to figure out what was wrong.

Jason and I had some trouble getting her to sleep last night, too. We started the bedtime ritual at nine, and at midnight we were taking turns trying to solve the puzzle and stop the cries. Once she fell asleep, though, she slept for six and a half hours.

I still can't figure it out. There's no rhyme or reason to her night time ritual yet; the same thing that works one night infuriates her the next.

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A One-Month Old's Itinerary.

I've come to understand that getting a one-month old on a schedule is a lot like trying to train Louie to talk. A fun idea, but next to impossible. Before Adelyn arrived I said funny things like, "I'll let her nap in her crib and sleep at night in the Pack 'N Play," and "We'll feed her every night at 10 and then read her a book before bed," or "I'll get work done while she sleeps."

Funny, funny things.

It turns out that Adelyn will sleep where she wants, when she wants. I can try to get work done while she sleeps, but as soon as her eyelids start to droop I'm confronted with a 10-page list of things I want to do--sleep? shower? write? read? clean?--and inevitably she'll wake up before I've barely had a chance to tackle the first task. I can bathe her 'til my fingers turn into raisins at night but it doesn't mean she'll sleep any better than if she was covered in her own filth.

(Keep in mind I'm talking about my daughter here, she who is perfectly content sitting in her own soiled diaper. I have to play the guessing game on the whole diaper-changing front.)

In another month or so I think I'll jump back on the schedule-train, mostly because I'm the sort of person that doesn't do so well without structure. I'd like to say I'm a free-spirit--it's certainly what I've always marketed myself as--but truthfully I'm happiest when I wake up at the same early time every morning, when I have certain landmarks throughout my day.

Adelyn's created her own sort-of schedule for the time being, and Jason and I have done a pretty good job, I think, at finding a compromise within it.

When Jason gets home from work, we eat dinner and spend a little while hanging out with each other while Adelyn naps. Sometimes we give her a bath (usually every two days or so) or we sing and play guitar for her. Then, around 10 or so, I go to sleep. Jason stays up with her until 1-ish (it's his only time throughout the day to really get one-on-one time with her), feeds her one more time, and then swaddles her and brings her up to our room, where she sleeps in a Pack 'N Play next to our bed. She--usually--will sleep until 5:30ish (today it was 6:30, but I don't want to jinx it), and I get up and feed her. Jason sleeps until 7:30 or 8 and goes to work. It's not perfect, but it's working. For now. I feel almost bad saying that we're both getting survivable rest with a newborn at home.

I thought it was supposed to be the night-time that made new parents want to rethink the whole procreating thing. Jason and I have found a pretty good rhythm, though, when the sun goes down. It's during the day that I feel so frazzled and constantly on-call.

The mornings are the only sort-of predictable thing. Adelyn's been staying awake for a good two or three hours after her first feeding, and this is the time I get the most interaction with her.

From this morning, for example:

And did you have any idea that when babies sneeze, you can actually hear a teeny, tiny, audible "achoo?" I can't get enough of her little achoos.

Adelyn had fallen asleep right before I started writing this. Writing took first place among my list of to-dos for the morning. And now that I'm done, she's awake and hungry. So the rest--like washing my face or finishing the laundry from yesterday--are forced onto the back-burner. Until the next nap.

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Three weeks.

It's been a rough week, and it's had nothing to do with being a new parent. Just like I was warned, I've spent the past five days in what I can only assume is a fairly major flare-up of Crohn's. I've barely been able to eat (which makes breastfeeding sort of tricky) and barely able to perform the simplest of tasks (like getting off the couch, for example) without feeling instantly ill. Needless to say it's made taking care of a newborn even more of a challenge.

I've never been a religious girl or one to turn to spiritual ideals for guidance. But I can't help being reminded of the oft-heard around the Bible Belt saying that God doesn't give you more than you can handle at one time.

Because I think I can now definitively say that I've been gifted with a good baby. She's straightforward and calm. Increasingly predictable and always adorable. Her worst habit so far is a tendency to stay awake for a couple of hours at a time during the night. And I can't fault her for it, since the time is spent, usually, in her quiet-alert state. No matter how tired I might be, it's that quiet-alert time I cherish the most, when I can see her eyes reading my face, figuring me out, memorizing the smells and sights around her.

Let's hope it keeps up. At least until my health is in order. Then God can deal me another hand, and I'll have the energy to put up a fight.

I got some hopefully good news today at a meeting with my gastroenterologist. Jason's mom watched Adelyn so I could go. (It's funny how a doctor's appointment, after being stuck at home for three weeks, can seem exhilarating.) Turns out the IV-antibiotics I was given during labor since I tested positive for GBS can cause a postpartum infection in some women, and this is made exponentially worse for women with Crohn's or Colitis. I have to wait two days to know for sure if I have it, but every single symptom described how I've been feeling to a T. So I've been given a medicine to combat it and scheduled a colonoscopy and stricture dilation for this coming Monday.

Just figuring out the logistics for Monday have already been a headache (the solution: Jason will be home Sunday while I do the prep for the procedure--if you've ever had a colonoscopy you understand why I need help taking care of a baby that day--and my mom has taken off work on Monday to watch her while Jason and I go to the doctor.

Sometimes having Crohn's makes life feel so needlessly complicated. Add a baby into the mix and it's easy to fall prey to a mindset of worry, worry, worry. So even though it's been a tough week, I think I'm starting to find my place within the chaos. I'm finding a rhythm to taking care of her. A new philosophy to meeting her needs. Feeling so sick has forced me to kind of chill out, to take each cry one step at a time, meet each need without anticipating the next one. When she's hungry, she'll be fed. When she's gassy, she'll be held. When she's fussy, she'll be shushed and rocked. And if I guess the cause of her cries incorrectly, I'll take a moment to myself to calm my mind. It sounds like common sense, but I'm just starting to figure it out.

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