breebop.com

This morning I poured coffee into my cereal bowl. It took me a moment to notice, and when I did, my first thought was, ‘Why is the milk brown?’

Wesley has declared 6 a.m. to be the most fitting time for a gentleman to arise. I wheedle and plead, but he spurns all my efforts to sleep until 7 a.m. It doesn’t sound like much, that humble little hour, but believe me - oh yes, it makes a difference.

I have tried putting him in the crib with some toys for a bit while I sleep nearby. He indulges me for about eight minutes, but as far as Wes is concerned, waking up doesn’t count unless he does it with me. I’ve tried distracting him with morning cuddles. They are fine, he says, thank you very much, but I think I’d rather try crawling off the bed now.

Then an hour later he starts yawning. My little master of torture may look tired, but just try putting him to bed then. Go on, I dare you. But only if you’ll be babysitting tonight. One mistimed nap, and Wes is yawning and cranky all day, and bedtime is a marathon rocking session, like a finger in the dike to keep the screaming at bay.

He is not best pleased with sleep, my little man. No, he is not entirely convinced of the need for it.

Will and I favour all things non-battery-powered when it comes to Wesley’s and Solomon’s toys. We’re not nazis about it, but we try to buy toys with more imaginative value than lights and sounds. I’ve had many a daydream about the day when Wes will build (and knock down) big towers of blocks. Like feeding him sweet potatoes and banging on pot lids, it’s just one of those simple baby things I have looked forward to. What’s more, a recent study showed block play may actually make kids smarter.

Children who played with blocks scored on average 15 percent higher on language tests — an early indicator of cognitive development — than their peers who didn’t get a chance to stack and pile, according to research released Monday by the Seattle Children’s Hospital Research Institute.”Many toys make claims they are actually educational for kids,” said Dr. Dimitri Christakis, who led the study. “The interesting thing is that things like blocks never made such claims.”

- Old-school blocks prove best for brains (Seattle PI)

Wes is getting his first set of blocks (lovely soft ones to crush and mouth) for Christmas, and maybe for his first birthday he’ll get a nice set of classic wooden ones to stack and build with. I’m partial to the vintage-y kind carved with letters and either carved or painted pictures.

Blogged with Flock

Last night was a long one.  My poor little babe is struggling with THREE baby teeth popping through his gums all at once, and he woke screaming every hour or less until 7:30 when he decided sleep was overrated and rolled over on his tummy to play, smacking me on the face, pinching my arms and cooing.

So I had teething on the mind this morning when I sat down at my computer. I Googled it, just to see what came up, and discovered a line of chewable jewelry for moms called Chewable Jewels, made out of the same stuff as teething rings. I can’t really wear jewelry anymore since Wes just wants to pull it off and eat it, so it sounded like a great idea. I was picturing jewel-toned beaded necklaces, funky colourful stuff that could actually be wearable. It’s not. In the photos on the website it just looks like a chew toy on a cord. It’s about as stylish as my main accessory these days, a pacifier on a string.

Hey there’s an idea - stylish pacifier keepers, channeling our pre-baby fashion sense. It could look like a pretty, modern metal pin with a satiny cord instead of a big plastic button with a grinning cartoon animal. Or maybe that’s just the sleep deprivation talking.

So with the idea of chewable jewelry in mind, I did some more Googling and found tons of sites selling amber necklaces for babies that are purported to be an ‘ancient’ teething aid with analgesic properties when worn next to the skin.

Natural pain relief provided by Amber has many therapeutic remedies. Amber works by placing the necklace on your body, this allows your skin to warm the amber beads which releases healing oils which are then absorbed into the blood stream.

The active ingredient is succinic acid which is fossilised resin produced by plants 40 – 50 million years ago. In nature the resin would have been used by the tree as a nautral antibiotic against infection, viruses and physical attack.  The tree would use the resin like a plaster or wound dressing. Now the resin has been fossilised, its healing properties have been captured in the resin which are release once the amber has been warmed. Nobel-prize winner Robert Koch (1886) was the pioneer of modern bacteriology proved that succinic acid has a very positive influence on the human body.

In the 1930’s and 40’s, European biochemists discovered that succinic acid is an amino acid created naturally in every cell of the body capable of aerobic respiration, participating in the citric acid, or Krebs cycle . This is how carbohydrates, fats, and proteins are metabolized into energy. Wearing amber may also protect us against the negative influences of electrical equipment like computers, televisions, mobile phone and microwave ovens. Part of what’s amazing about amber is that the chemical properties of the resin which when formed acted as a natural embalming agent, with both drying and anti-microbial properties. Ancient Egyptians actually used pine resin as an embalming agent, and doctors in the Civil War, lacking anything else, would sometimes slap tree resin on a wound as a disinfectant and saved lives that way.

- Amberbebe.com

I don’t know enough about this stuff to refute the claims made here, but I find it hard to believe.

It just seems like a bad idea to me. I know the amber necklaces aren’t for chewing, but if the baby can chew it, he will. Also, what if the strand breaks and the baby chokes? Amberbebe says its necklaces are knotted after each bead to prevent them all scattering if the necklace breaks, but what about the bead at the breaking point? What if the necklace wraps around his neck and makes it hard to breathe? Amberbebe also sells soothers made of amber. What about the effects on baby teeth? Is amber soft enough not to hurt it? Is it orthodontically correct?

Opinions?

Nobody told me that sleep training would make my baby sleep worse than when I started …

I am back to ‘whateverworksville’ after learning that when Wesley goes to sleep on his own in the crib (without rocking or breastfeeding to sleep), he actually sleeps worse than when I soothe him to the edge of slumber. After almost an hour spent trying to fall asleep, Wesley wakes after a half hour or less of sleep mad as hell and incapable of soothing (let alone self-soothing). After a week of no sleep at night and no rest during the day, I’m done with that experiment.

Sleep experts, I deny thee!

As soon as I went back to my old habits, Wes returned to his 40-minute nap schedule and hour- to two-hour sleep cycle. It’s not great, but it’s a lot better than 20-minute catnaps day and night. We’re even getting the occasional nap that’s almost two hours long. Amazing!

The good news is that it’s generally taking much less time to put Wes down for naps and even bedtime - now 5-20 minutes from 40-60 minutes.

The bad news is that he’s added a banshee wail to his arsenal of nighttime vocalizations. The second he wakes up he shrieks. And shrieks. And shrieks. Sometimes a soother or nursing will calm him, and sometimes rocking, and sometimes none of the above. It’s a horrible, horrible sound to wake up to, let alone to stay awake to.

Maybe it’s teething? Or a growth spurt? Or a developmental leap? Or just vocal chord practice. Or whatever.

Wesley loves his new exersaucer. Today he discovered it’s just as much fun to crawl under it as to play inside it.

Silly monkey.

As you can see, his new favourite toy is an empty plastic water bottle. It beats the pants off most of his store-bought toys.

Yes, it’s true: Wesley has learned to crawl. Our poor schnauzer Wagner isn’t so happy about having to share HIS floor with this furless upstart.

For most of the day, I repeat the following lines:

• Wagner, no lick!
• Wesley, no pull!
• No, Wagner, that’s Wesley’s toy
• No, Wesley’, that’s Wagner’s toy
• No, [Wesley/Wagner], that’s mama’s. It’s not for [babies/puppies]

Wesley and Wagner both like to steal each other’s toy’s. They both adore things that roll and crinkle, and especially things that squeak or rattle. They both teethe on them, and cuddle them, and roll on them. And they both especially love getting into things they shouldn’t.

Wesley is determined to splash around in Wagner’s water bowl.

Wagner thinks diapers are deeee-licious.

Yes, it’s been a loooong while since I have posted. For this, I blame baby.

I know there are zillions of mommybloggers who manage to post (daily!) despite the intense demands of their babies. I don’t know how they do it.

Wesley is now taking regular naps, but for only 40 minutes at a time. As for sleeping through the night … ha … from when he goes to bed until I go to bed, he wakes every 40 minutes or less.

We cope through unintentional co-sleeping. Try as I might to stay awake, I am so tired I fall asleep nursing when he wakes in the night. Once curled up with me, we usually get at least one three-hour stretch of sleep in the deep dark of the night. At least it doesn’t usually take long to get Wes back to sleep - it’s staying asleep that’s the problem.

Meanwhile, the baby development newsletters and the books mock me with reminders that most babies are sleeping through the night and even night-weaning now. I am comforted by regular visits to Ask Moxie, where I re-read the posts on sleep problems, filled with hundreds of comments from other moms and dads with babies who sleep as poorly (or worse!).

The hardest part of baby-parenting, I think, is the sleep deprivation. It makes everything more difficult. I am pretty good at coping with it in the day to day, but I notice it makes it harder to be patient, to remain calm when Wesley is crying, and most of all, to set and stick to priorities. I find myself flitting from task to task. There’s so much to do, and when I’m tired I find it hard to focus. I start picking up the accumulated detritus in the living room and then I get distracted by something or remember I still haven’t had breakfast and then I just get the cereal poured into the bowl … and the baby wakes up. Meanwhile, the computer is a giant time-sink. I go to quickly check email and wind up on Facebook or Google Reader.

I think about blogging, but I just haven’t had the energy, let alone the time. And anyway, what would I write? ‘My baby had a giant green poop today!’? I’m no Finslippy with the gift of making even baby poo seem hilarious.

I’m a big bucket-o-complaints today. Other days it’s all rainbows and sunshine, but right now this tired mama just wants baby to go to bed and stay there!

There are some signs of improvement: Wes is now taking regular naps in the crib (as a newborn he just wouldn’t sleep, and then would only sleep on top of me) and he’s going to bed much more easily (it used to take hours to get him to bed, then he’d be awake again 40 minutes later for another hour of rocking).

When I can step away from the big ball of frustration that he won’t sleep how I want him to, I can see that there are probably a number of likely causes for the waking:

1. Wesley is learning to crawl. He just started actually moving forward in a coordinated way two days ago (as opposed to vain squirming on the floor). He has been turning over in his sleep and waking up on hands and knees in a total panic; I think he’s been trying to crawl in his sleep too.
2. Wesley is readjusting his daytime nap schedule. He can stay awake for more than two hours at a stretch now, and also seems to want to take longer naps … but he hasn’t learned how to put himself back to sleep on his own. He has been waking at the 40-minute mark and crying, but fusses if I get him up. He keeps rubbing his eyes and showing other signs of wanting to go back to sleep. If I put him back to bed, he will often nap for another 20-40 minutes. I think he’s aiming for fewer, longer naps (he had been on a regular schedule of napping 20 to 40 minutes every 1 1/2 to 2 hours throughout the day).
3. And the biggie: Wesley hasn’t learned how to fall asleep on his own. I try to put him down awake, but if he’s not sleepy enough he wakes up all the way when he hits the mattress and then has an even harder time going to sleep. I try to rock or nurse him until he’s just falling asleep and then transition him to crib. It works during the day, but sometimes at night he panics and wakes even when I start to move towards the crib, no matter how sleepy he seems. It doesn’t seem to make a difference to the frequency of waking if he falls asleep in the crib with minimal help from me or if I rock or nurse him until he’s unconscious.
4. He may also be teething.

We are trying to stay away from a cry-it-out solution, and we’ve tried following all the usual advice (regular naps, early bedtimes, regular bedtime routine, nurse or rock only until sleepy but not asleep, making sure he’s got a full tummy, even co-sleeping) but Wesley just seems to be one of those kids who has a really hard time sleeping ‘normally’ no matter what we do.