Diaper Time
Hey! Still alive and hanging in there. As you can imagine, my time is a bit more compromised these days. Under any other circumstances, major abdominal surgery would mean you'd be ordered to sleep a lot, stay in bed, and do nothing but eat ice cream and watch Tyra interview teens who are embarrassed their mothers dress like 15-year-olds. Except of course if the surgery is a c-section, in which case you're expected to carry around a crying baby and feed/change him every two hours around the clock. This makes recovery a bit difficult. I mean, thank god for J and my family or I would have lost my mind by this point. This gives me a whole new respect for anyone who has to take on a newborn by themselves.
I'm only exaggerating my exhaustion a little, and I'm only able to do that because Henry had a very good day full of naps and sleepy feedings that allowed me to take a 20-minute nap and read a little of my book. If you had checked in with me on Wednesday, we had a whole different story on our hands with the screaming for no reason and extreme fatigue. Henry crying for apparently no reason for long stretches of time makes me cry and then we're in a bad place. I don't know who invented this breastfeeding cycle, but it's a bit out of hand: baby feeds every two hours for 30-40 minutes at a time. Which leaves you about an hour and a half between feedings to frantically get done anything you might want to get done, including personal hygiene, eating, and sleeping. Of course, you only get that hour and a half if the baby wants to snooze for a bit or be docile after eating. Otherwise, you get stuck in an eating/crying cycle that slowly kills you. We're figuring it out slowly, though. A little pumping, a little bottle, a little timing--we might be getting the hang of it.
Sometimes I just wake up and can't believe we have this little baby and he's all ours and we made him!
That's pretty cool.
I can relate my dear. The only thing I can tell you is that it does get better. Soon you will miss the snuggling little baby who will soon be big enough to be putting his own underwear in the toilet and trying to flush them. :) Just hang in there, it sounds like you're doing great!
It gets better. IT GETS BETTER. Better hit us right around six weeks, what with the "sleeping for seven hours" (which totally was a fluke) and "being content in the bassinet smiling at the mobile" and "falling asleep in the sling."
Cuteness, I've come to realize, is the baby's survival strategy.
What they said. The first 2 weeks are BRUTAL. It's like some sort of weird endurance test combined with sleep-deprivation torture. The next few weeks it gradually get better, and you hit a groove somewhere around the 6-8 week point and it suddenly gets a lot easier.
But seriously, my main fear of having another baby is that I know I'd have to go through those first few weeks again, and I still have a bit of post-traumatic stress from the first time. Ugh. Hang in there, you'll get through it, and it sounds like you're doing great so far.
Everyone is right. Cute is his survival. I like that... and it is true! Eventually, Henry will get a routine and you will be amazed. I really think that the end of a pregnancy... the tired, achey, can't sleep right... happens to prepare you for still being tired, achey, and not sleeping right.
Please... if you need any help at all just call! I know how that goes :)
PS I hope the lasgna was edible.
As the mother of a 4-month old, I can certainly relate to those hazy first couple of weeks. The fact that you are even able to post on the blog means you are doing a heroic job! I certainly didn't believe it at the time, but it really does get better. 8 weeks seemed to be a turning point. Yes--breastfeeding schedule is crazy. Mine is finally getting faster and sometimes goes 3 whole hours between feedings! As for sleeping, I have one word--swaddle!! The first time we used the Miracle Blanket, he slept 4 hours in a row. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Good luck!