Fed, nappy changed, normal temperature, seems healthy
September 1st 2010 -
Yes, everything is well with monkey. It sure is. She’s very healthy, and has been expressing her good health for the last 40 minutes.
There’s a fairly large school of thought that reckons I should pick her up and comfort her when she’s unsettled like this. Any number of websites containing the phrase “baby won’t stop crying”, to pick a random search topic.
But there is an equally large school of thought that picking her up and comforting her will simply mean that every time she wakes up we will need to repeat the process, and that she will wake up every 90 minutes for the next… OK, let’s not think about that bit. There’s a bit that talks about baby sleep cycles, and that they start their sleep patterns in light sleep (rather than deep sleep, as adults do). Also, the crying will do her no harm whatsoever, and if you pick her up after half an hour of crying, you have just trained her to cry for half an hour or more if she wants to be picked up.
So, we’ve been trying to be firm, but, y’know, it’s hard. I’m downstairs. Von just joined me, and Jade is totally awake and alert and happily sucking on her dummy. The moment she spits the dummy, she’ll be back to crying. Hard. Did I mention that bit? It’s hard.
And now she’s asleep. Time for round… three. Could it be the diet? Von’s been eating the special ginger egg thingy, and other special Chinese dishes for pregnant women. Surely that’s not it. We’re seeing the lactation specialist tomorrow afternoon. Maybe… maybe it’s time for bed.
Jen Says:
September 1st, 2010 at 4:31 am
welcome to guilt/ parenthood! they go hand in hand.. no-one can ever really prepare you for that.. the sleep thing is, like, totally hard- I’m with you.. it gets better, like, eventually :)
marco parigi Says:
September 1st, 2010 at 8:15 pm
I found the trick with the crying thing is to learn what all the different types of cries mean and certainly, the younger the child the more you should lean towards the “comfort her when she’s unsettled” and move gradually to the “controlled crying” mode later on, when you have learnt the different cries of “want” and “need”. The diet/lactation thing varies greatly from person to person, but after controlled experimentation with our particular cases, Kylie was sworn off virtually all herbs and spices as very many of them caused discomfort to our infants. Some of our children (no. 1 and 3) pretty much refused to stay asleep on their backs. I was amazed when Kylie demonstrated to me how they woke up after a few minutes on their back, and stayed asleep the whole night on their fronts. I know what they recommend in terms of SIDS and everything, but I and they needed their sleep, so I went along with it.
admin Says:
September 1st, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Definitely don’t have the hang of the cries yet, though her body language is a lot easier to interpret. We found out today from a lactation consultant that Jade hadn’t been sucking properly, so she was probably just super hungry last night.
Jade can’t sleep fully on her back at the moment, as she has some big cephalhematomas, and the one spot her head rests on has a bit of a scab on it. So we’re propping her up on one side so it doesn’t get worse, and so she doesn’t get a flat head. Good grief. We were a bit worried the cephalhematoma might have been getting larger, but if it has it’s been subtle. Certainly isn’t reducing. Apparently that takes a good long time.
Marco Parigi Says:
September 1st, 2010 at 10:51 pm
That’s a little unfortunate with the cephalhematomas. One other thing I thought of was that it probably is a little early to rely on the pacifier. Firstly, she is too young to put it back in if it falls out making it unreliable as a sleep aid, and secondly there is some schools of thought that it may interfere with the development of lactation this early on. We do rely on a pacifier for our number 5, and we are not really against dummies in general, but there is not too much indication that early use will make it more likely that a baby will take to it later as a more boisterous screaming infant/toddler. The pacifying effect of having something in the mouth to suck varies from child to child but persists usually through to an age where it can start to be an embarrassment. We usually try our children on one when they are regularly drinking from a bottle anyway. We are already starting to wean our no. 5 off it during the day (she’s 18 months old)
admin Says:
September 1st, 2010 at 11:15 pm
We tried the dummy because she was sucking on her fingers a lot. But she’s off it at the moment on the advice of the lactation consultant.
Jen Says:
September 2nd, 2010 at 4:43 am
glad you were able to get some help from the lactation expert- the breast-feeding lark is a lot more difficult than the rosy view that is portayed in the wider arena (certainly that’s what i felt anyway)- hope it’s going better- my girls never really managed it- but they were earlybirds! hope Von is managing to sleep when Jade sleeeps- gotta take what you can get!
Jen Says:
September 2nd, 2010 at 4:47 am
oh.. have you tried the swaddling thing? i tried one guys approach when sara was particularly unsettled/ colicy- the five s’s i think- swaddle, swing, side.. etc I just looked it up on web I think his name is harvey karp- sensible advice- not too out there or too hard….
marco parigi Says:
September 2nd, 2010 at 9:09 am
This is actually Kylie. The best thing to do is not expect everything to go the way books or other people tell you it should. Breast feeding is not particularly easy and takes about 6 weeks to get both mother and baby into a good rhythm, and if there are any other issues involved like blocked ducts, mastitis or thrush, even longer. So give yourselves a break and just go with the flow and work out what works best for you. Everything takes time, and remember you’re getting to know a whole new person, with all of her own character traits and foibles, and until you get a firm grasp of them you really just need to wing it. Also you can’t really spoil tiny babies so cuddle her and comfort her as much as you want. They’re only little for a very little while, and soon enough you’ll be wishing that time back again, so love her and enjoy her as much as you can. Or you may just end up like us, with 6 kids just so that you can keep reliving that wonderful time when you were they’re whole world, and not just that daggy old person who embarrasses them in front of their friends.
Jen Says:
September 3rd, 2010 at 4:11 am
marco here…….my view is that babies aren’t machines but people, the ‘training’ model of rearing is too mechanistic. if a baby cries you hold him, because he wants comforting. crying is crying, not just a form of communication.