My kid hates sleep: Notes from Month 2
April 8, 2015
Sleep: the old saw “sleep when the baby sleeps” rarely applies here. Either I couldn’t fall asleep or the sleep cycles were so short I only had time to drop into sleep before being shaken awake by the need to change a diaper or feed hir. Naps felt amazing though, and for a few weeks, every 30 mins of sleep felt like half a night’s rest. After that, it just felt like punishment.
There are moments when ze has been nursing for more than an hour and I haven’t slept in weeks, and my body is beyond the point of crying out in fatigue because it’s too tired to do that even. I look down at hir and ze is just … cute. This is what keeps infants alive, I’m convinced of it.
Babywearing is great. Not for my back but definitely for morale when a distraught LB just needs to be held and my arms simply cannot anymore or I desperately need arms free to do things. It’s strangely comforting and I like being the Kanga to my now detachable Roo. Name change? LB–> Roo?
My first moments of despair thanks to pain and fatigue preventing me from picking up Little Bean struck in week 3, but the second month is when it really came home. I dodged the expected baby blues, but fear of a crippled future just around the corner instead of on the horizon was cause for some serious introspection and a few frustrated tears. PiC and I stayed up a few late nights talking through my worries and his reassurances meant the world to me. It also made me wish even harder that I’d figured out a way we could afford for him to stay home with us on just my earnings because he’s an amazing hands-on dad and genuinely enjoys taking care of LB morning, noon and night.
Ze started smiling at us this month. Ze wasn’t interested in making eye contact with anyone except PiC before. Now, ze will look around, see me, and grin. It’s awesome. Also ze smirks in hir sleep and I love it. It’s like there are good dreams going on in that bitty human brain. Sometimes it’s just because ze just had a great poo though.
Also awesome: baby babble. Ze isn’t forming sounds that are remotely like words but ze is making sounds on purpose and the range has increased to include a variety of tones, volume and interest. We started doing call and response. I leave hir laying on a playmat and holler random noises as I dash around the house trying to wash a bottle or get the laundry going or grab some food. The ones that please hir best get a delighted squeal, the OK sounds get a chirp. After a week of this, ze moved on to just babbling away on hir own at the ceiling, the window or the TV. We do lots of wide range vocabulary talking to hir regularly but when ze is participating, ze is most responsive to fun combinations of sounds so we go with it. Plenty of time to learn words and languages and all that.
Just adorable. I wish I could see the little one!!!! Awesome that you are able to do so much with LB like babywearing. I love hearing baby stories. Hopefully hir sleeping starts gaining some normalcy in the next couple months.
I do think ze is absolutely adorable but it is also true that I’m biased. And biologically inclined to think so for hir survival š I wish I could share pictures of hir and Seamus together!
Yay babies!
Bouncing babies!
I think nature makes them cute AND sweet-smelling as a defense mechanism. Otherwise the species might have died out by now.
There’s nothing like that new-baby smell….
I need to do a smell test and figure out what I’m doing wrong… LB smells like old socks half the time! Still cute, though š
Cuteness and the sweetish smell (when their diapers aren’t dirty) when you snuggle them. It’s the only reason humans survive to the toddler stage.
Glad to hear the second month went better.
That’s a long time nursing. Does ze fall asleep? Mom says I’d doze off, and she’d have to wake me up or be there all night.
Yeah, those first smiles save their skins. Ze does fall asleep nursing, actually, but is still determined to stay attached for the first … half hour or so? I try to sneak away without waking hir, of course, because any sleep time is to be cherished.
Enjoy!
It doesn’t take long to figure out that the reason humans keep on procreating is that during certain phases a baby is SOOOOOOO cute and wonderful that you think, awww that’s just THE best and we MUST have one more! As soon as you get pregnant the second time, the second one segues into the next phase… š
It’s a pretty good survival technique.