Hello Mudduh Hello Fadduh: ILX Rolling Parenting Thread

and thanks alison for that post, not to open a can of worms but going through pregnancy and childbirth and motherhood has made me a lot more pro-choice than I used to be but also a lot more mooshy about babies and fetuses and stuff. I think it's said so often that babies change your life that it's lost its meaning. Making the decision to have a kid means that my body will never be the same, my brain will never be the same, I've lost a good portion of my economic independence that I've worked so hard to get. And I'm a healthy, married, college-educated, white American 30-year old, I have everything going for me.

happy b-day to sterling. a year is quite an accomplishment, when it's the only one you've had.

Me with my late grandfather.

http://static.flickr.com/34/95772448_37fadad1e9.jpg?v=0

Ophelia

Ophelia's been wonderful. She doesn't sleep through the night like Teeny's baby did. Teeny, didn't he sleep through the night when he was seven weeks old? Well, Ophelia wakes up about two or three times a night now. I think it's GR34T. I now go to sleep at around nine-ish to catch up on sleep because my body's a wreck. Either my iron is too low or my blood pressure, cause I'm floating on clouds at the moment.

Ophelia has laughed a lot lately. I remember when she turned her head, looked at me and cracked a big smile... and then a bigger one. I nearly started crying, I was so happy. :-)))

Breastfeeding is great by the way. I have to say, few women I know did breastfeeding. Really strange... Well, not really, I can understand cause the first three weeks were painful and, heck, when you need to go back to work... I have given her a few bottles of formula (one time cause I was away for a perm and haircut and the second time for a photosession).

The other week we went for a photosession. hahaha What an experience. She cried of course but the photographer was great.

Teeny, are you back at work yet or will you remain at home for a longer time? It's been quite hard combining work with taking care of Ophelia. Thank god, I have a fantastic husband who will sometimes take care of her while I work.

I was always pro-choice but having Ophelia I now fully understand the implications of becoming a mother and thus understand even better that pro-choice is necessary. That said, I would never ever have an abortion. But that's because I have the luxury of making that choice. Not everyone is up for it. (Is that well put? My English has gone down the loo. heh)

Sorry for the long post.

A little light drooling on battery-powered devices never did any harm... (Oh, hang on, this is how Pam's mobile died...)

http://static.flickr.com/38/111448504_b5dd3cb23a.jpg

13 months tomorrow. Much sleep disruption with teething pains this last week and now she's having to endure our gas central heating installation (drilling and sawing = no naps & great need for reassuring cuddles from Mum). MMR jab next week.

sleeping through the night--I read somewhere that this is defined as going more than five hours without waking? I dunno. Funny you bring it up because I say we just last night had our first official sleeping through the night--10p to 6:30a without waking up or eating. That seems like way too long to go without eating though! However I know it was because very early on he rolled over from his back to his belly and I left him there, he sleeps so much more soundly on his belly. I don't know if they're as hard-core about it outside the US, but they really yell at you to always always put the baby on its back to sleep, it's reduced the rate of crib death by like half since they started doing this in 1992. So I feel a little guilty about leaving him on his belly but oh well.

Louis has always been good about letting me get enough sleep--probably starting around 4 weeks he settled into a good pattern of nighttime sleeping where he would wake up once or twice a night for a feeding and then go right back to sleep. However this only worked if he slept with me in my bed because he would wake up at other times too, and if he fussed enough to wake me up, I could just give him a little pat and he'd go right back to sleep, whereas if he was in the crib he'd work himself into a state by the time I could get to him. Babies are always going to wake up lots during the night, it's just about how they react to waking up and if they can get themselves back to sleep. And I'm sure you've read like I have that breastfed babies often need a middle of the night feeding into the sixth month.

I am working just a little bit--less than I did before the baby. My mom comes and watches the baby when I'm scheduled to work at the radio station, and then I have a couple of freelance web design jobs that I can work on in my spare moments at home. But it's more for my ego than any actual money I'm bringing in (although that's nice too).

Yesterday I decided to discourage Edith from eating the remote control. It was very difficult to prise it out of her iron grasp, and when I finally managed it she kicked up quite a fuss. All very traumatic. Then what should appear on Flickr but multiple portraits of Ava doing exactly what I'd just told Edith wasn't allowed because "that's Daddy's"! These older children can be a terrible influence sometimes.

Oh yes, breast milk tends to digest much quicker. I have been giving her a bit of formula milk and might do this once a day from now on so I can work more in the afternoon. I realize the books/midwives scream bloody murder about this, but, hey, this is the real world and it's not always manageable to breastfeed every time. :-) I know my milk supply is for more than enough. Urgh, too much actually. :-)

Michael, I know that ear is folded! My mother in law did not like the picture because the ear was folded, so we had to pick another one to include with the thank you notes we sent to family and friends. :-)

Do you practice/play with him a lot, Teeny? My husband and I do this every day. We put her on the table and let her play. We also put her on her belly so she has the opportunity to raise her head. It's not really necessary to do this, but, damn it, we'd miss out on the fun of seeing her raise her head. :-)

Anyhow, I wuv my baby as you can see. :-)

When we took S. in for his two-month checkup, the doctor flipped him onto his belly to check something, and we said "wow, he's basically never been on his belly before, we're very careful about only having him on his back"... She said "no no no--babies _love_ being on their bellies, and that's how they learn to push up and lift their heads. You just don't want to put him on his belly to _sleep_. Plus once he can flip over easily you don't need to worry about it any more."

Put the baby ONE TO TWO hours on their belly? Fuck me, I'm pretty sure that we only put her half an hour max on her belly. Not that it's so important. I have read that if ytou don't, they'll just learn to raise their head later.

We didn't give Cyrus or Rufus much belly time until they were 6 months old. I think that may have delayed their crawling some. Concern about SIDS also made us wait 6 months until "Ferberizing" Rufus so he'd sleep through the night. Worked like a charm. Some people call it "controlled crying." We still haven't got Cyrus sleeping through the night. We've started giving him water at night instead of formula in the hopes he'll stop wanting to snack at night. It does seem easier to get him back to sleep now, but he still wakes up about 3 times a night. He hasn't taken to his crib, and still likes to sleep next to one of our warm bodies (which means one of us usually sleeps on the couch as our bed isn't very big). We're going to have to bite the bullet and let him cry in his crib, I think. Problem is, when he cries loud and long, he wakes up Rufus, and then we have 2 crying kids to deal with in the night.

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We went for a photosession:

http://static.flickr.com/27/112424433_c6ed2eb2f4.jpg?v=0

Not really for us, more for the fact she'll probably appear in an article on antique lace. Does she look GR34T in this 19th century gown or WHAT?

Anyway, yeah, we'll probably go again when she'll celebrate her "100 days". It's a Japanese tradition. We got a kimono for her from a friend and my mom's practically Japanese so... Yeah, we'll have a party and then take professional pics. :-)
(http://www.mtu.ne.jp/~hirofumi/ourbaby001.htm)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=GY3-kjdbacI

"Don't let it ruin your weekend." Christ...

Consider your hand electronically held by all of us, Nathalie.

also, big heads make kids really cute.

Likewise I'm fairly socially awkward/enjoy being alone but am not as pathological about it as I used to be. Right now my baby doesn't seem to count as a person in that way, I really dig being alone with him. So maybe this will change as he starts to be his own person more. Having inlaws over more often (haha like once a month) is more of a pain than always being within boob's reach of a baby.

in somewhat related news, this week marks the beginning of the great sleep crackdown. my wife (who, because of our schedules, is mostly responsible for bedtime) has finally been persuaded that little dude needs to learn to go to sleep on his own, in his crib, instead of falling asleep next to her in bed. so we've had the predictable bouts of furious crying (accompanied twice by vomiting, because he got himself so worked up), but he seems to be grudgingly accepting his fate.

we've had the predictable bouts of furious crying (accompanied twice by vomiting, because he got himself so worked up), but he seems to be grudgingly accepting his fate.

CLASSIC, CLASSIC, CLASSIC!