Gear Changes for 2013...

Cori and Everett (8m)

1.  Baby Swing - Baby holding receptacles were once a hot commodity in our household, but now that E is fairly mobile and much more independent, they are much less in demand.  The swing was a space-saver, portable version that I could put on the kitchen island as I cooked, or in the living room while I pumped.  I would never have done without and he did enjoy his time in it.  Now, onwards and upwards!

2.  Bottle Warmer - As soon as I got home from the hospital and realized that at least some amount of pumping was a necessity for us, we invested in a decent bottle warmer.  However, once Everett was around 4 months, we started taking the breast milk straight from the fridge and little dude never seemed to mind.  We are lazy.  Now, we have officially retired the bottle warmer and my kitchen counter is inflicted with one less eyesore.

3.  Infant Seat -  E never did love the infant seat.  Now that he is 20+ lbs, lugging around this bucket seat is hard on my back, plus he's pushing the height maximum.  We are very happy to have moved on to using our Stokke stroller seat and Diono carseat in place of our infant seat.

4.  The Bumbo - It's easy to retire something that you never really used.  We found the bumbo to be uncomfortable and ill fitting.  We attempted to do some meals in it, but it never really worked for us.  SAYONARA! 

5.  Mobile - This is the hardest one for me.  The mobile represents newborn-dom, and while I'm happy to move on from this stage and love to watch him grow every day, it's just such a sweet reminder of little, helpless newborn Everett.  He has already tried to take this down, so it was definitely time to retire it, but it will forever be a keepsake of a time that was so sweet and so special.

Natty & Georgia (7 months)

1. The bouncy seat.

It made it possible for me to work while Georgia was awake in the early days and served us well for about four months but after that, her limbs dripped over the edges of the thing and she could headbutt the toy bar, so it went into storage.

2. The boppy.

Look at my itty bitty! I never used the boppy for breastfeeding. Pillows around my middle never made any sense to me. The boppy is a fantastic baby-holder though. Even that had a time limit, however, and Georgia was done with the boppy at around 5 months. I know some kids like it in the early days of sitting but she never has.

3. The swing.

I've been reluctant to take the swing apart, even though Georgia hasn't been in about two months, because when you need it YOU NEED IT. The only way I was able to eat dinner with both hands from months 2 through 4 was because of the swing.

4. The snap-and-go.

I loved this stroller in the days before Georgia could ride in a shopping cart or sit in an umbrella stroller but now I hate how much room it takes up in the back of our car and how hard it is to get things in and out of the basket underneath. She's still comfy in her bucket car seat but it's time to move on from this stroller. See you in hell, snap and go! Or at least until we have another little baby.

5. Bye-bye, play mat. This is where Georgia happily spent part of every day for the first six months of her life. I knew it was time to take it down when Georgia started to pull herself up on the soft, not-for-pulling-up soft bars.

Putting this one away made me cry.

How We're Living: November

Everett & Cori

6 months

Rawr

Time flies.  It has been a little rockier in terms of sleep for our household this month, but Everett is still a joyful bebe. We seem to be going through more phases than we used to, but we're still doing pretty well. Some days it's great, others it's OK.  It's never terrible, but we certainly go through periods where it kinda blows.  We thought it might be teething, then maybe not, then probably not, then just baby being baby.  Did you hear I had a baby and he's all babylike and stuff?  I sound wishy washy because I am.  Every day is different, but this is a typical one:

5:30am- Everett wakes up to nurse.  Oh wait.  He doesn't nurse AT ALL anymore!  FML!  I get up and grab him a pumped bottle.  He drifts back to sleep.  I wake up for the day.  Maybe.  I pump and then spend a little time to myself before everyone wakes up.

7:30 - Household awakens.  Bran feeds Everett a bottle while I tool around or we all cuddle in bed.  He then hands the baby off to me while he gets ready for the day.

9:00-  Everett goes down for a nap.  He sleeps for an hour.  This is when I get ready, shower, clean, start laundry... try to get the annoying crap out the way.  Or I fart around on the Internet depending on how I'm feeling.

10:00 - He wakes up and eats SOLIDS (after baba)!  Bananas, and yams, and winter squash.... OH MY!  We hang and play or run errands or ...? 

12:30- He probably is napping at this point, but his schedule is in the midst of a change.  Usually he'll nap for 45-1 hour minutes midday, but has been known to steal a 3 hour nap if the mood strikes.  He's pretty regimented usually, though.

1:30 - We walk and talk and play and hang.

4:30 - Usually, another 45 minutes to an hour nap.  Sometimes we'll walk at this time, before the sun sets, and he'll nap in the stroller.

5:30 - Wake up before daddy gets home.  I will usually feed him MORE SOLIDS.  My kid loves to eat.  More activity after he gets a food.

6:30 - Bran walks in and he gets babby!  Play time and change the clothes/diaper.  We hang out in the kitchen while I cook.  Everett will want to go to sleep around 7:30ish.  I will finish up dinner while Bran does the nighttime routine - bottle, rock, songs, sleep.

8pm- Hubby and wifey eat dinner, watch TV, hang out.

9:30 - My last pump of the day (other pumps are 6am, 11am, 4pm, roughly).  Everett is really changing things up for us, but usually the earliest he'll wake up is 3:30am (after 11pm dream feed - crosses fingers and toes).   He doesn't even want to eat, he'll just be disgruntled.  This is part of a phase, I think.  I just shhhh him back to sleep, or give him Mylicon, or sometimes rock if he's particularly upset.  He usually wakes again at 5:30ish to eat a little something.  But it changes daily and you never know what to expect. I expect the worst and go to bed thinking I'll get 5 hours of sleep in a row with several other pieced together, so then everything good after that is the cherry on top. 

Georgia & Natty

We're almost to the five month mark and life has become a bit more predicable than it was just a month ago.

7 a.m. - Everybody wakes up. I nurse the baby in bed, then Georgia plays between us while Patrick and I have our morning coffee. It's easily my favorite part of the day. Reluctantly, we get up and start our days-- Patrick gets ready for work, I fire up the laptop and start emailing with students, and Georgia plays with her toys.

8:30/9 a.m. - Georgia takes her first nap. This tends to be her big nap of the day, so I use the time to have breakfast, shower, and get as much work as possible done. Sometimes she nurses before she lays down, but she's often more sleepy than hungry at this point.

11 a.m. - Georgia wakes up and she nurses. Generally, I've left her in her jammies from then night before, so now is the time for a bath and getting dressed. If it's nice out, we'll often go for a walk but the air has been awful lately, so she's more likely to play on her play mat until she's ready to nurse and nap again.

12:30/1 p.m - Nap #2. I grab some lunch and get back to work.

2:30/3 p.m. - Georgia wakes up and lots of times, we nurse, then head out and do some errands. She's sitting in the seat of the shopping cart now, so errands are a LOT more fun for her and I can get out with more than a little handbasket of food. Winners, all around!

4:30/5 p.m. - Usually, she takes one final, quick nap around this time but it's a tough one. It seems like lots of things come up at this time, or she only sleep for 10-15 minutes and doesn't really rest and the rest of the evening gets very tough. I never realized how much time and energy I would put towards protecting my child's naps! If all goes well, she sleep for 45 minute to an hour and she's fresh and happy when Patrick comes home.

5:30/6 p.m. - Georgia is up and once daddy is home, she's his best friend. I volley between wrapping up my work and getting some dinner together. We bounce between eating dinner, nursing, getting little miss ready for bed, relaxing and reconnecting.

7:30/8 p.m. - I take Georgia into her bedroom for a final nurse before bed. Putting her to bed used to be the most stressful part of our day but it is slowly getting better. It takes about 30 minutes of rocking and nursing to help her drift off but after that, I can usually lay her down and she'll sleep until 1 or 2 in the morning. Sometimes, she wakes up again at 5 or so, but there have been a few times where she hasn't gotten up until 7 the next morning, which you can imagine feels AMAZING.

How We're Living: October

Living with a baby is like serving a tiny little foreign dictator, an itty-bitty Kim Jong-Il, if you will. There's a language barrier, unreasonable demands, tantrums, and you sometimes move through the night wondering if you will live to see another day. In an effort to have something close to sanity, most parents try and follow their kids to a schedule that works for both of them. This is the first of a series where once a month we'll be posting how we're living these days. Sometimes we'll have questions, sometimes we'll have triumphs, and we'd love you to chime in too.

Cori & Everett

October is Everett's fourth to fifth month here on Earth.  It's a good one for both of us.  Since about month three, he has put himself on a fairly predictable schedule.  His schedule generally looks something like this:

6:30am: rouse to nurse, then cuddle back to sleep

6:40-8: sleep for Everett and DH, I pump then take the dog for a jog then shower if I can

8-9: awake for the day, drink bottle*, smile, giggle, coo, settle down I put him in his crib at first tired signs

9-10: nap

10-12: awake, nurse, drink bottle, giggle, coo, bathe, read, smile, laugh inappropriately at my burps, play, flail, startle, catch glimpses of RHWONY much to my chagrin, kick, smile some more, stare at Henry the dog, then settle

12-2: nap

2-5: same as 10-12

5-6: nap while mommy drinks a beer

6-8: DADDY'S HOME!  more activity, more eating, more smiles, more screams, more guffaws, start to settle, dim the lights, offer baba, story time, change diaper, put on Snuza, put on SleepSack, rock the baby, cuddles and lullabies

8pm: Daddy puts Everett to bed

8:01:  Parentals eat dinner and watch Homeland

10:00:  My bedtime

12:00:  DH does a dream feed then goes to bed

Admittedly, my baby is a good sleeper.  Natty says that you either get a good sleeper or a good eater, and I got the good sleeper*.  I put him down to nap any time he starts to seem cranky, look glazed over, or seems the slightest bit tired.  He generally goes down without a fight, but if he does fight it, I pick him up and soothe him, because that's the way I roll.

This schedule is a loose generalization of a day.  I try to be as flexible as I can within his parameters - if I go out to lunch with a friend, he'll usually take a shorter midday nap and take a longer afternoon nap. This works for both of us.  Times of naps may change, but there are always 3 or 4 amounting to 5ish hours of napping.  Bed time may be a little early or late, but he usually sleeps 12 hours.  We have yet to experience teething, though!

*more on all this (PITA) pumping/bottle feeding later

Natty & Georgia 

Georgia is three months old and just settling into a reliable schedule. I wasted a lot of time and energy by trying to get her into a rhythm before then. Three months is a long time to live at the whim of a person who weighs less than your average Thanksgiving turkey, but it felt even longer because I was trying to hard to make things predictable too early.

6:45/7:30 a.m. - Georgia wakes up and wants to nurse (pretty much all of her naps are flanked by a nursing session on either side.) The family hangs out in our bedroom while she starts her day and we drink coffee. She usually has lots of smiles and giggles for Patrick before he leaves for work for the day around 8.

8:30/9 a.m. - Time for her first nap of the day. I nurse her then plonk her in her crib while I eat some breakfast and start my work day. In a perfect world, she naps for about two hours, but too often, she wakes up after 45 minutes and wants out. I don't rush in at the first signs of consciousness - she sometimes rolls around for a bit, talking to herself and chewing on her blankie, then passes back out.

10:30/11 a/m. to 12:30/1 p.m.. - She's up and wants to nurse, then play. It used to be I could put her on her playmat or in her bouncy seat and work while she stared and swiped at her toys but no longer. She'll still play independently but not for very long and she really wants to be Doing Stuff. So, we go for walks or I carry her around while I tidy up around the house or we read books and play with Captain Calamari. It's also a good time to go for a quick errand or visit because then she can do the all important Looking at New Stuff.

12:30/1 p.m.- Nurse and a nap. I never know if this will be a long nap (2-1/2 hour) or a shortie (45 minutes), so I scramble to get some lunch and work done while I can. Once she is up from her nap, she's ready to nurse, then is usually more amenable to some independent play than she is in the morning, so I can get a few work things done while she plays, but she wants me in her line of sight.

4:30 p.m.- This is her most dependable nap and it usually lasts an hour. I think we both need this break towards the end of the day. If I forget to lay her down and she's been playing, it will suddenly get quiet and there she is, passed out in a heap of her toys.

6/6:30 p.m. - Patrick comes home just after she wakes up. She nurses, then he plays with her while I finish up my work for the day (hopefully). We put something together for dinner and Georgia usually starts to grump a bit just as we're finishing up.

7/7:30 p.m. - Georgia gets a bath, lotioned up, pajamaed, read a story, then nursed. This is when things kind of start to degrade and I'm often left nursing and rocking the girl until she's in a light coma, ala Buster Bluth. I don't want to have her dependent on nursing in order to sleep and during the day, I can lay her down in her crib awake and she'll babble a bit and pass out in 5-10 minutes, but if we try it at night, she screams bloody murder and gets so worked up, so quickly, it takes about 30 minutes just to calm her down.  Plus, it makes us feel terrible. (Even if she is asleep when we lay her down, she rouses almost immediately and is pissed.) Sometimes we lay her down and think we're in the clear but she wakes up 45 minutes later, screaming in a way she never does at other times.

So for now, I rock and rock and nurse and nurse and pat and pat and all the while, in my head I cycle through all the things that it could be and all the ways I'm making mistakes and in general, it's a hard way to end otherwise good days. When I think about it in the cool light of day, I realize she's just a little baby who is still learning to self-soothe.

Once she's asleep, I'm usually so exhausted myself, I head to bed before 10. She generally gets a good stretch of sleep, then wakes any time between 1 and 3 in the morning to be nursed. We get another few hours of sleep until sometime between 4 and 5:30 in the morning when she wants to nurse again. Then it all starts again around 6:45/7:30 the next day. It's really hard to live on so much broken sleep but I keep reminding myself that this won't last forever. Even if she sleeps this way for the next two years (please, Lord, have mercy) it isn't forever.