Time - the long and the short of it

When you become a parent, it dawns on you that sooner or later you will no longer be around. Perhaps it dawned on you before becoming a parent, but something about becoming a parent makes it starkly real, slightly horrifying.  Time speeds up.  One day, you're at home with a newborn, all bewilderment, exhausted love and never ending piles of laundry, and then boom, he's about to start school, all backchat, skinned knees and running for the sheer joy of it.  This is the type of time that goes too fast.

Are we there yet?

Time also slows down.  Some days it drags like the long hungry walk home from school in the baking hot sun with your kid sister.  You. Are. Never. Going. To. Get. There.  This type of time is known as are-we-there-yet? time.

Nights

Then there are the nights.  The nights stretch out before you like a black abyss.  You are unsure whether this is the seventh or the fifteenth time you've gotten up, You are pretty sure you spend more time in pjs than day clothes, and you smell, just faintly, of sour milk.  This is night time.

The five stages of baby bedtime

Then there's bed time.  Sometimes it closely resembles are-we-there-yet time.  You enter the five stages of baby bedtime.  The first is denial.  You book a time in the evening to leave the house.  You tell yourself that your baby reliably goes to bed at 6.30-7, so you should be able to leave the house at 7.15.  In technical terms, the parent is trying to shut out the reality of their situation, and begins to develop a false, preferable reality.  This is denial.

The second is anger.  Once in this stage, the parent realises that denial cannot continue.  Surely this can't be happening to me tonight.  It's the only night in the last year that I need to get somewhere by 8pm and the baby is babbling and wriggling like he's snorted coke.  Perhaps I shouldn't have had that third cup of coffee today...

The third is bargaining.  This stage involves the hope that the parent can somehow bargain their baby to sleep.  If I do this bum-patting routine one hundred times, the baby will be asleep by then.  Just start counting.  You may or may not get there.

The fourth is depression.  During the fourth stage, the parent begins to understand the certainty of never getting the baby to sleep.  It is, like, NEVER going to happen.  You have possibly been patting the baby's bum for at least three hundred pats, your arm is about to drop off from the effort, and you have no idea how long you've been in that hell-hole of a bedroom.

The fifth is acceptance.  That is, the baby accepts the inevitability of sleep and finally, finally drops off, or you accept that it's never going to happen, bring the baby back downstairs to play some more, and cancel your plans.  He will sleep when he sleeps.

That is the fives stages of baby bedtime.

The time warp
Then there's the time warp.  This can happen at any time, day or night.  It commonly occurs at bedtime.  You might think you've been in that room doing that bum patting routine for three hours.  Turns out it was 15 minutes tops.  Or you might say "I'm just popping out to the supermarket to grab some milk."  Slightly giddy with freedom, you get a little distracted in the supermarket and surrounding stores.  You get home three hours later.

Travel time
Then there's travel time.  Each journey is carefully planned and timed to coincide with nap-time.  You know you need to leave THIS INSTANT or there is going to be HELL to pay.  Or you should have left two hours ago.  You're screwed.  The car journey is going to be a white-knuckle scream-fest.  You wish you could time travel.  Preferably back in time to that moment when you had a perfect body, very few responsibilities, and a bit of disposable income.

It may only have been a brief moment, but it's one you'd like to savour again.  Much like many other moments.

So, white-knuckle scream-fest or not, savour this moment, as it'll be over before you know it.  The lifetime equivalent of fifty more bum-pats.

How did you get here?

Not in the metaphysical sense.  If you can operate a computer, you probably have at least a basic understanding of the chain of events that led to your arrival on this planet.

More in the google sense.  How did you find this blog?

I get the stats.  I know the google chain of events that led you here.  And let's just say some of you weren't looking for a mummy blog.

Some of you were looking for information on co-sleeping.  Or a picture of co-sleeping.  Here's another, taken for posterity as the last co-nap of maternity leave.  As you can see, the baby's nose is dangerously close to my armpit.  Lucky for him, we live in the 21st century, where personal hygiene is not a matter to be taken lightly.  Nor is co-sleeping for that matter.  I wasn't really sleeping anyway.

In cinéma vérité fashion, the camera focuses on
the armpit of doom.

Some of you googled Miss Lily White.  My deceased cat, creme de la creme of burlesque dancers, or vintage fashionista extraordinaire.

Some of you googled Santa Claus.  Sorry about that.  Instead of mistletoe and snowflakes you got this post on Santa Claus and other lies.

Some of you googled "poker" and "boobs".  Or "hot poker pain in breast".

Not sure everyone was after the same thing there, but hey, you learnt something about mastitis right?

Some of you googled "Elisabeth Badinter".  What can I say?  I can see the appeal.  Badinter = Badfeminist.

Some of you googled "breastfeeding positions".  I hope my drawings were enlightening.

Yesterday I added a new one to the mix.  I call it "the dancing Grumet".  Picture one wriggly baby, dancing and feeding.  Oh the unmitigated joy.  And today I witnessed "the calf".  This is the one where the baby, behaving rather like a milking calf, pulls at the nipple, then nuzzles and nose-butts the udder with impatience.  Moo.

Some of you might have found a link to my blog on Kiwi Mummy Blogs.  A very large number of you found your way here via Rhonwyn Newson's article in the New Zealand Herald.

Some of you googled no mum is an island.  

And some of you googled "centraltorontoproperties.com".  This one is beyond explanation.  

However you found your way here, come, stay a while, sit by the fire.  Leave a comment or a suggestion.  Enjoy, or travel onwards through the big wide web until you reach your destination.  Watch out for hot poker boobs on your way... they're worth steering clear of.

Please, my child, just stay in bed and go to sleep. Please?

Milkbaby was a baby when the Go the F*&% to Sleep viral sensation happened.  If you somehow missed it, here's Samuel L. Jackson reading it.  Seriously.  How much cooler does it get than the dulcet tones of Samuel L. Jackson reading your book?

Being a new parent, I thought I could relate.  Like, totally.  Little did I know.

I'm now the parent of a willful 3 year old (what 3 year old isn't willful, right?).  The nightly bedtime battle is becoming something of a routine in this house, with Captain Boringvoice and I tearing our hair out in frustration at the repeated post-goodnight requests.

I turned to Google for help, and after a bit of digging, came across this great post.  Its suggestions include:

• giving tickets that can be redeemed for a certain number of post-goodnight errands
• a "bedtime box"of special items that can be played with while getting ready for bed
• extra love under the pillow
• getting your kid to suggest solutions

And finally, talk about it, role play it, deconstruct it the next day, and talk about it again.  One of the article's pearls of wisdom: "sometimes, saying yes to a behaviour will make it go away."  And so it is this philosophy we are trying (we decided the bedtime tickets sent the wrong message), along with a "keep calm and carry on" stoicism.  I won't claim that it's "working", but pushing the reset button on our approach to bedtime has so far resulted in no tears and no yelling (from anyone).

And it has meant I can actually see the funny side of the more unusual requests.  The best one yet?

My monkey needs a huggle.  "Okay" I yell, "just leave him in my room and I'll come and give him a hug soon!".

I go upstairs to find this:

No wonder Monkey needs a huggle.  He might also need a neck brace and some physio.

Captain Boringvoice to the rescue

In the days when there was the time and energy to read and be read to in bed, the DH used to read the occasional page or two of philosophy to me (romantic eh?).  Just whatever he was reading.  A page or two is probably hyperbole.  It only took a paragraph or two before I was off in the land of nod, snoring happily.  I always thought it was the subject matter - to me, reading philosophy is about as fun as watching paint dry.

But the other day we discovered it's not the subject matter at all - it's the DH's sonorous and extremely boring voice!

So I am re-monikering him Captain Boringvoice, or CB for short.  If Milkbaby's having trouble getting to sleep, they just settle in for some light reading, a little Nietzche or a few pages of Emily Carr's autobiography.  "I'm quite enjoying it", says CB.  A few pages is all it takes, and Milkbaby is fast asleep.

Nietzche says go the fuck to sleep.  Seriously.

Thinking the other day that perhaps it was the subject matter, I picked up the book and tried to read it - to no avail.  I put on my most boring monotone.  No luck.  CB walks in, and Milkbaby, realising the game is up, turns to me and says "bye bye", before flopping down on the bed, ready for Captain Boringvoice's melifluous tones.

CLUNK

That's the sound of a useful tool dropping into a moderately empty get-the-baby-to-sleep toolbox.

A not-so-sleepy New Years

Well, unlike last New Year's eve (when I barely made it to midnight), this New Year's we did the unthinkable... we left Milkbaby with his doting grandparents, and drove over 3 hours across the countryside to have a few quiet beers with some friends.  His first night alone without either of us.  And for us, there was no coming back in the event of some unforeseen disaster ("he won't sleep!").

We tried to warn them: "he probably won't sleep that well".  And, well, they'd seen his atrocious eating habits over the previous week.  But the doting grandparents insisted that we should leave Milkbaby with them and take their convertible on a jaunt across the South Island.  "A second honeymoon" said Grandad.  I smiled gratefully, thinking about the potential for 8 hours uninterrupted sleep.

But that's the irony... all that potential was wasted.  We were going to be drinking, watching fireworks, socialising, and then sleeping in a tent on the front lawn, with the waves crashing on the beach 30 metres away.  So I was about as likely to get 8 squares as I was if I'd stayed with Milkbaby.  But hey, what you haven't had in 18 months you don't miss.

And Milkbaby?  He ate well and slept well (of course), and hardly noticed we were gone.

Co-sleeping - NOT!

Co-sleeping, rather like breastfeeding, is another one of those controversial, damned if you do, damned if you don't-type topics.  There are a number of perspectives:

• The government "lowest common denominator" advice says no co-sleeping. Fullstop.
• Attachment parenting advocates say it's a great idea.
• Some experts say it's ok as long as you're not fat, drunk or on drugs, or a heavy sleeper, you only cover yourself with a sheet and your mattress is firm (ie, no roll-together!)
• Dr Sears says "yes, no, sometimes?". 

I've got a tendency to follow the rules.  With a fair degree of rigidity.  My Myers-Briggs profile says so.  So in the time Before Child, I thought there would be no question about where Milkbaby would sleep.  In his cot of course!  I know you're all smiling smugly at my naivety.  The very night he was born, he woke up after only an hour or two and a nurse came into my room and popped him into bed with me.  You can imagine my consternation at this blatant breach of government and probably hospital policy.  But I couldn't sleep anyway so it didn't really matter.

Once home I quickly discovered that Milkbaby slept much better when I was nearby.  And when I say "nearby", I mean right next to him, and he would say ideally with a nipple stuck in his little gob.  Nearly 18 months on, he's still the same.  I don't hesitate to bring him into our bed if I think it means we might all get some sleep.  And it usually does result in a couple of people getting some quality sleep - namely the DH and Milkbaby.

But me?  I'm the sucker stuck on the last 10cms of bed, with my arm stuck in a weird position and without a sheet, let alone a duvet, to cover me.  If I do get some sleep, it's certainly not quality, and I'm almost guaranteed to wake up with a krick in my neck or a dead arm.

So instead of running ad campaigns that are designed to fill you with fear - like this one from Milwaukee...


The government should just run a few public service ads which warn people of the most likely outcomes of co-sleeping (pah! what a misnomer).  Like this...

The cry it out equation

I've decided that whether or not you get to the cry-it-out point depends on a number of factors.  These factors can be expressed in an equation, as follows:

NN + TLD X MF + (10/NA) > 5000 = CIO
                    LOT    

Or in words:

Where (Number of consecutive nights without unbroken sleep plus total number of times you've said 'lie down please, it's time to sleep' multiplied by minutes of fussing you've already put up with plus (10 divided by the number of adults in the house at bedtime)) all divided by Length of tether (where short = 2; medium = 5; long = 10) is greater than or equal to 5000, it's more likely than not that you will resort to crying it out to get your baby to sleep.

For me, last Wednesday, that equation looked like this:

425 + ~826 X 120 + (10/1) = 30026
           5

In other words, I was pretty much off the charts in terms of likelihood of resorting to crying it out.

Which is what I did.

The cry-it-out theory has its origins in a book
published in 1894 by the guy in the  middle, Dr Luther Holt.

I am hesitant to claim that it "worked", but for that night, I think we ended up on the positive side of the equation in terms of the ratio of total baby sleep (TBS) to total mama sleep (TMS), even with a little Reading Time (RT), a random OMG-he's-still-sleeping wakeup, and a sleepwalking interruption from the DH (DHS) - and once I actually went to sleep - after counting the Minutes Crying (MC).

That equation is represented as:

TBS - (MC + RT + OMGHSS + DHS) = TMS

or

420 - (40 + 15 + 15 + 20) = 330 (5.5 hours)

That's right folks, read it and weep. I'm rejoicing over a single stint of five and a half hours sleep. And it was still interrupted. But hey, if we follow the equation above, there's hope for even longer, uninterrupted stints.

So... I know you're wondering... Has she, overnight, become a cry-it-out convert?

The answer? Not really, no. BUT... having tried it once, and a few times since last Wednesday, I'll admit to having added 'cry-it-out' to my list of parenting theories that I may or may not put to the test... if I'm tested enough. Just consult the equation above to determine the likelihood of it being employed.

A new emotion

Let me introduce you to my new, least favourite, emotion:

[drum roll] da da da daaah!

RESENTMENT n. Indignation or ill will felt as a result of a real or imagined grievance.

Not such a common emotion in my repertoire - until having a baby.  It's one of those ones that creeps up on you, and you find yourself cursing into your decaf (yes furking decaf) about almost any little thing that just happens to set you off.

You resent having to get up AGAIN in the night.  You resent the fact that weekends now closely resemble weekdays, complete with 5.30am starts.  You resent your body for having betrayed you into thinking that you really, really wanted one of these crying, pooping, hungry things (WTF were we thinking?).  You resent the fact that you're stuck at home while the DH gets to go to work, and the DH resents the fact that you get to lounge around at home (haha) while he has to work.  You resent it if the DH gets home late from work, or wants to go out in the evening.  You resent the fact that you're the ONLY one (at the moment) who can satisfy this baby's needs (if he would just god damn well eat something it wouldn't be such a problem).  You resent the fact that you can't take hour-long showers like you used to, or if you spend longer than 5 minutes with the bathroom door shut Milkbaby screams like he's being abducted by aliens (if only!).

Then you get The Guilt for resenting the defenceless little bugger (he's just a baby after all).  Don't get me wrong, it's not all hell in a moses basket.  But if I could just have a 20 minute shower without interruption I would be eternally grateful.

More on sleep (or the lack thereof)

We all want what we can't have.  It makes life truly unfair sometimes.

My DH asked what I wanted for my birthday.  I said one full night's sleep.  Just one. He smiled and said, "anything else?"

I settled for asking for a new hoodie.

Despite boldly proclaiming that "when Milkbaby is ready to sleep through the night, he will", I have to confess to continuing my search for the holy grail of motherhood.  From cry-it-out to co-sleeping, I feel like I've read just about every expert perspective or opinion.

Sleep (chiefly the lack of it) is still the most talked-about topic at my coffee/play groups.  We swap tips on what might have worked (but who really knows), groan in sympathy at someone's story of an extremely bad night (or succession of bad nights), brag (just a little) and celebrate when someone's baby is regularly "sleeping through", and discuss the latest guidebooks we're reading.

In desperation a few weeks ago, I borrowed The No-Cry Sleep Solution from the library.  The premise is nice, but some nights, preventing tears at bedtime in either mama or baby is very very difficult.  And it has some nice ideas in it too, nice in the way you might use the phrase "nice for some".  I'm not going to claim to have truly followed "The Solution" to the letter ... it's more that I have incorporated some of the techniques into my evening/nightly routines.

Mostly to no avail.  And even if we have a "good" night, I am left wondering what I did that worked, when in reality I probably had nothing to do with it.  So the same routine is repeated the following night, with (of course) wildly different results.

As Einstein said, the definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".

That makes sense.  Parenthood is a special type of madness.

Best advice so far?

Daylight savings (or, teaching a baby to tell the time)

Ugh, this morning's 5am wake-up call reminded me how much I dislike daylight savings.  Even if the waker-upper cutely showed no sign of fatigue and was certainly not fazed by the fact that it was still dark.
 
In principle, daylight savings is probably a good idea.  It means that we get an extra hour of daylight in the evenings in the summer months.  BUT ... the time change wreaks havoc in every household with small children and dairy cows.  A bedtime that was a reasonable 7pm becomes 6pm, and suddenly bathtime is no longer so much fun.  A wake-up time that was an unreasonable 6am becomes a downright rude 5am.  
 
Just as dairy cows can't wear wristwatches, babies can't tell the time.

 
Strangely, parents don't feature much in debates on the introduction or extension of daylight savings.  The Opposition did, however, express some sympathy for women when daylight savings was introduced in 1927:
 
It will bring no happiness to the women of New Zealand who live in the backblocks. [the Bill] does not make the case for now requiring the wife of the working-man to get up an hour earlier in order to get her husband away to his work.
 
Luckily for us women, in the last century or so, men seem to have developed the skills necessary to get ready for work all by themselves.  

That just leaves the babies.  If anyone has any tips on teaching a 9-month-old the time, let me know.

Separation anxiety

Every night for the last week I've been having what I'm calling 'separation anxiety' dreams.  I dream, vividly, that Milkbaby is asleep in bed with me (even though we've only ever really been daytime co-nappers), but then as I come to the surface of the dream I can't find him, frantically searching the bed and patting down the duvet.  Last night when I couldn't find him, in some kind of daze, I went to his room to check he was in his cot.  Of course he was there, sleeping happily until I burst in.

The night before I must have been feeling a bit more blasé about not finding him.  I recall conducting my routine duvet-patting, but then instead of getting up, I assumed that he would be in the bed somewhere, and wanting a feed.  So I assumed the normal position for a lying down feed, boob out ready.  My husband, coming to bed a little while later, said, shaking me gently awake, "dear, why are your boobs hanging out?"  I mumbled something about Milkbaby being in bed but not, then did a few more duvet pats before getting out of bed to check that he was in his cot.

Even after seeing him in his cot I still had to do a few duvet pats upon returning to bed, just to be sure.  It's like obsessive-compulsive sleepwalking.

And if I’m not duvet-patting and sleepwalking, I’m dreaming that I’ve left Milkbaby in the car or somewhere else, happily asleep while I run a few errands – but the dreams all go awry when I am prevented from getting back to the car – a giant motorway springs up between me and the parked car, or, even more strangely, a crowded swimming pool and swimming carnival conspire to prevent me from getting back to him.

I am pretty sure that our old friend Sigmund Freud would have something to say about these dreams.  By strange coincidence I am currently reading The White Hotel, by D.M. Thomas, a novel based on a fictional patient of Freud’s – and a veritable cornucopia of weird dream imagery.

Since Freud is no longer around to provide an interpretation of my missing and neglected baby dreams, I’ve consulted Google and come up with the following possible explanations: 

·        Aunty Flo says: To dream of neglecting your baby (or a baby which is neglected) then this dream indicates that you need to pay yourself more attention. On the other hand, this dream can also signify that you need to protect your children much better.

·        The Dream Doctor says: Common dream among young mothers, reflecting literal anxieties about the responsibilities of motherhood. In more experienced mothers dreams of neglected babies may symbolize neglect of relationship with one's partner, (the fruit of the relationship). Also can symbolize neglect of oneself: Dreamer is not caring for one's inner child.

·        Dream Moods says: forgetting about a baby represents an aspect of yourself that you have abandoned or put aside due to life's changing circumstances. The dream may serve as a reminder that it is time for you to pick up that old interest, hobby, or project again. 

This has led me to the conclusion that consulting the internet for interpretations of your dreams is probably not a good idea.  I did find, however, that if a Beanie Baby appears in your dream this suggests “that you are able to adapt to most situations. Consider the animal or the name of the beanie baby. The dream may have an underlying message or a pun.”

I’m thinking that the underlying message might be “you need to get out more and spend less time with your collection of Beanie Babies”.

Baby brain - myth or truth?

A typical evening conversation in our house:

Me: "hey I was thinking... this weekend we need to..."

(30 seconds elapse)

DH: "we need to what?"

Me: "what?"

DH: "you were saying we needed to do something this weekend"

Me: "was I?  Umm, nope it's gone, sorry."

Baby brain.  That universal phrase useful for excusing almost all forgetful/vacant behaviour both during and after pregnancy.  Some say myth, some say unfortunate reality.

As demonstrated, I continue to suffer from its common symptoms, namely:

(a)   returning items to places where they're not commonly found (muesli in fridge, yoghurt in the cupboard)

(b)  continually losing my keys

(c)   buying, but forgetting to display, a parking coupon (that was a $40 ticket!)

(d)  not keeping appointments and coffee dates

(e)   repeating the same boring story, to the same people

(f)    saying “did I tell you this already?” (this prevents (e) above)

(g)   using words and phrases like "you know", "um", "that thing over there" instead of common words

(h)  trailing off mid-sentence, with no recollection that I was even saying anything upon prompting

(i)     and saying “what were we talking about again?”

Two recent studies have looked at this so-called phenomenon.  A 2008 review concluded that pregnant women are "significantly impaired on some, but not all, measures of memory" and that these effects are also observed post-partum.  But apparently it's a modest deficit, kind of like comparing 20-year-olds with 60-year-olds.  So baby brain is just one of the little insights we get into what it's like to be old, along with a long list of other ailments that we won't go into here.

Another study, carried out in 2010, noted that the literature on animal-model studies had shown pregnancy and motherhood to have the opposite effect - with rats showing better spatial learning and memory during pregnancy and beyond, and rat mothers performing better than their baby-less counterparts at navigating mazes.  Strangely, no-one's reported seeing rat mothers cursing into their handbags looking for their car keys.

This study found that pregnancy had no effect on cognitive ability, concluding that the "results challenge the view that mothers are anything other than the intellectual peers of their contemporaries."  Phew.  

So perhaps I was this forgetful before.

What were we talking about again?

You can't call in sick

"hi, it's me, is the boss there?"

"hi boss, it's me.  Yeah look, I'm not coming in to work today... yeah I've got a cold, I think I'll just stay in bed and sleep it off.  I'll try and come in tomorrow."

"No, nothing due today, you'll barely miss me."

[source]

NOT!

As I groggily climbed back into bed after a midnight feed, I thought momentarily, "I'll have to call in sick tomorrow."  I then realised that I had no one to call in to - and that I certainly could not call in sick or take a rest from the relentlessness of motherhood.

Nothing that Vitamin C and a couple of panadols won't fix.

Swimming lessons here we come!

Sleepy New Year

How did you celebrate your new year?

Ours was a subdued affair - a few mediocre DVDs with the fam, waiting for midnight to roll around.  Yet another reminder of the way our life has changed, at least in the short term.  Not that we were huge party animals before baby, but I did wonder what had happened to my old self when I found myself looking at the clock through half closed eyes, and groaning upon the realisation that I still had to last another 20 minutes before midnight.  At five to midnight I managed to drag myself into the bathroom to brush my teeth, in preparation for bed (and a midnight kiss).

Oh well, perhaps next year will be more of a convivial affair.

Zzzzzzzz

Sleep.  As I've said before, it's the Holy Grail of motherhood.  The characteristics of the Holy Grail (as described by Wikipedia) and sleep during early parenthood are remarkably similar:

• a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions
• said to possess miraculous powers
• something of a myth or legend
• those in its presence must prove themselves worthy
• ownership has been attributed to various groups
• has had many books written about it, and movies based on it
• still something of a mystery even to experts, though belief in it and interest in its whereabouts have never ceased.

Whether your baby falls asleep the moment you put him down may or may not depend on:

• all those obvious things like whether he's been recently fed, changed or burped (and is satisfied with your performance in these things)
• his mood and state of tiredness (has he crossed that invisible line into overtiredness?) 
• where you're putting him down
• how you hold your mouth
• the background music and lighting
• the feng shui of the nursery
• whether you put baby down on his back, front or side
• the moon
• the alignment of the stars.

However you finally manage it, getting your baby to sleep will probably be your greatest daily achievement.  

It is also on the top five list of things discussed at mothers' coffee mornings, and probably topping the list of conversation topics most likely to make you want to do some harm to the gloating mother sitting next to you.

A little Tui ad I put together: