Stay the f**k asleep!

Have you all seen this book?

It's become the story of my life this week, except I've renamed it Stay the F**k Asleep since Rose hasn't been having problems falling asleep, she's been having trouble staying asleep. I am so tired!!!! I know it's such a cliche for new parents to complain about sleep, but this is getting a bit ridiculous. I complained earlier this week about Rose basically not sleeping at all on Sunday night. Monday and Tuesday nights were better, but the last 2 nights have been awful again. Wednesday night / Thursday morning she was awake from 3:30am until about 5am...and my alarm clock goes off at 5:20 so I can spend time with my stupid pump.  Last night she was awake from 11pm until about 2am - we tried everything to soothe her: rocking, cuddling, diaper changes, a steam bath (she's a little congested), feeding, etc. Finally, at 2am we decided to just turn off the monitor and let her cry because there was absolutely nothing left that we could try! It was one of the most terrible, agonizing parenting decisions that we've had to make. How do you just let your child cry??? I felt like the worst parent ever even coming to the "cry it out" conclusion. But, of course, in the middle of this discussion she stopped crying and didn't start up again. After about 10 minutes we turned off the monitor just in case, but we didn't hear another peep out of her. I guess it's a good thing, but I have no idea what we're going to do tonight if the same thing happens again. The only thing I do know is that I am unbelievably tired and completely unable to be productive at work this week, which means I'm falling behind again. Thankfully my parents are coming to town this weekend (since Mike will be at a conference all next week - great, a change to Rose's routine. Ugh.) so at least I'll be able to take some naps and work late if I need to next week. Double ugh.

In other news, Rose is finally able to sit in the high chair that my friend Helene gave us. Here she is eating squash last night:

thanks, Mom

As I'm sitting here spending some quality time with Bertha (my pump), I thought I'd provide you all with an update.

My mom always knows the best thing to say. After reading my blog post from yesterday, she responded via email with:

It's exhausting to be weighing the pros and cons over and over.  Stop thinking for a minute.  Take some deep breaths and let the answer come to you very slowly.  And if the answer doesn't come, then just continue to be relaxed and know you don't need to make any decisions yet.  Take time to check in occasionally until you know.  Meanwhile relax your mind and tell yourself that perfect timing is at work in your life.

Love ya,

Mom

Isn't she the best?

I also talked with Mike last night, and I'm happy to say that I now have a plan. Right now I'm shooting to breastfeed and pump through the end of the year, weaning off the pump by Jan 1 so I don't have to keep this up at work anymore once my new schedule is in place for 2013. That's the plan for now, but I'll keep checking in with myself to see if it needs to be revised at all in the upcoming weeks/months. Whew. Such a relief to not have to agonize any more - learning to be flexible with my planning is hard work! (And it's made that much harder when I'm sleep deprived and not thinking clearly!)


And now, your moment(s) of zen:

 (Miss Rose was basically awake from 3:30am to 5:00am straight! Booooo!!!)

weaning from the pump?

How do you know when it's time to stop breastfeeding, or at least to stop pumping??? I have been agonizing over this for weeks! Here are some of the thoughts that run through my head:

* I hate my pump. Every time I use it, I curse it in my head because I hate it so much.

* But we worked so hard to be able to nurse (remember those first six weeks of "discomfort," and those near-daily meetings with Marta the lactation consultant?), do I really want to quit so easily now?

* Besides, WHO and AAP recommend exclusive breastfeeding for six months, following by (human) milk and solids until at least one year. Don't I want to follow the recommendations if I can?

* But six more months is a *really* long time, and it takes SO. MUCH. TIME. every day to breastfeed: three pumpings per day at 30 minutes each plus time washing all the parts in the evening and time reassembling everything each morning means at least two full hours every single day that's devoted just to pumping. Have I mentioned how much I'm starting to hate my pump?

* But I don't mind feeding Rose "directly from the source." In fact, I (usually) really enjoy our snuggle time on the weekends and in the evenings. Do I really want to give that up?

* But I really want more time to myself, especially at work! I originally thought I could get work done while I'm pumping, but I quickly discovered that's impossible. Now that I'm up to full (full!) speed with clients and with leadership responsibilities at work, it's getting harder and harder to take a full hour out of every day in order to pump.

* But isn't it selfish to want to stop pumping, just for my own convenience?

* But if I didn't pump I could sleep in an extra 30 minutes every morning, and maybe being more rested would make me a better mommy?

Gah! Hearing this dialogue running through my head all day long is just exhausting! So I'm curious, for any fellow moms who are reading this blog, how you decided to wean? When do you decide that you just can't take the pump any more and that you've done enough for your baby but your own happiness has to factor into the equation as well? Is there any middle ground so both Rose and I can be happy???

updates

Things are definitely looking up again. Rose woke up twice last night, but both times she was able to get herself back to sleep again! So even though Mike and I were woken up twice, neither of us had to get out of bed which is HUGE for us! Yay, Rose! 

In other news, Mike got our car window fixed today - he had quotes ranging from $170 to $330! Needless to say, we picked the place that did it for $170. :)

Finally, Rose is suddenly able to sit up basically unassisted! She's been working on this for awhile, but usually (as recently as this morning) she would only last a few seconds before tilting and falling to one side or the other. But tonight she sat for several minutes all by herself - long enough for me to take her picture, of course!

She still has a tendency to keel over when she gets distracted, tries to look up, or reaches to the side, but I can't believe that she made such a leap in this area just in the last 12 hours! Yay, Rose!

please allow me to vent

I am so tired!!!! Rose woke up every 60-90 minutes last night. Twice Mike got up to rock her, and once I got up to feed her - the other times she got herself back to sleep after about 10 minutes of 1/2 talking and 1/2 crying. Then she woke up around 5:15 (right before my alarm went off) and I knew I wouldn't have time before work to feed her and then to pump, so I had to feed her while simultaneously pumping. It was miserable and exhausting. I don't know what's going on with her. My google searches suggest that she is either (a) teething (yep), (b) going through a growth spurt (wouldn't surprise me), (c) frustrated that she can't practice a new skill all the time (sitting up?), (d) not wanting to miss out on any fun time with her parents (ha! we were no fun in the middle of the night!), or (e) about to reach a developmental milestone (finally rolling over?). I'm just praying that this ends soon. I am reminded anew that when I am sleep deprived I get grumpy and have hugely impaired attention/concentration. My processing speed is also slowed, so I perpetually feel like I have "the stupids" in that my brain is just not clicking like it should. I'm miserable!

And to top that all off, we still don't know how much it will cost to repair my car window. And I need to come up with my 2013 work template, but I'm having a hard time because three major meetings haven't been pinned down yet and I don't know if I'm still going to be breastfeeding and thus having to fit in pumping breaks! I am just paralyzed by indecision and avoidance right now. I'm pretty sure this would all be easier if I could just take a quick nap, just as Rose is probably (hopefully?) doing right now. I think this is the first time I've ever (half) seriously wished that I were a SAHM.  Sigh.

But to end on a happy note, here is a picture of Rose in a grocery cart for the first time, in case anyone missed it on facebook this weekend.

24 weeks!

Things have been pretty quiet on this blog for the last few weeks. I've missed blogging, but I've been trying to keep my head above water at home and at work. As of yesterday, things were really looking up - I was getting some longer stretches of sleep (what a huge difference that makes!), Grammy had stopped by a few extra times to help with Rose, and I successfully worked with Mike to implement some flexibility to my daily schedule, thus helping me to get more done at work and allowing me to feel less rushed between leaving work and picking up Rose. As a result, I've been much happier, more rested, and more calm in the past week or so. My friend Amanda remarked at lunch yesterday that I seemed to be in a completely different mental place than I was when we had last gotten together about a month ago, and I think that's true! Granted, Rose had her worst night of sleep in months last night (waking almost every hour!), but I'm choosing to be optimistic that we'll take two steps forward after last night's giant step backward.

Here are her 24-week portraits. As you can see, this is the week that she fell in love with her toes! She's known she's had them for quite some time, but suddenly this week she has become infatuated with them and doesn't ever want to let them go.

Rose is also increasingly in love with Lucy and Mac. She loves that Lucy sits by her and lets Rose "pet" her (aka yank out fistfuls of her fur - Lucy is so patient with her!). She can't understand why Mac won't do the same, but it doesn't stop her from getting SO excited and reaching out whenever she sees him!

After our photo shoot this morning, we had our "Sunday morning family time."  Last Sunday we went to Westwood Hills Nature Center. Today we went to the Quaking Bog at Wirth Park, and we got to try out Rose's new backpack carrier for the first time! It was a beautiful fall day in the park.

Unfortunately, when we got back to the car, this is what we found.

Yep, someone had broken into our car to steal our TRASH BAG. Yes, that was the only thing missing. Seriously?!? I think that deserves a pretty big WTF (even though I don't normally swear). So frustrating! Thankfully Jack and Marsha let us borrow their shop vac to clean up all the glass on the seats, and thankfully Anne is letting us borrow her car for the time being. Mike is going to get some window replacement quotes tomorrow (we don't think we have glass coverage since we just have liability insurance on our old car), so I'll keep you all posted. Sigh. So with that, I'm off to bed. Hopefully Rose and I both have better sleep tonight!

Have a great week, everyone!

23 weeks (and more solids!)

Can you believe our little munchkin is already 23 weeks old? We stopped by our neighborhood's fall social this afternoon (after my ~monthly mahjong game with friends) and met a little boy who is only 2 days older than Rose! Crazy to think that they'll be schoolmates one day.

Here are Rose's weekly portraits! As you can see, she is loving her Kitty Tails book (a great gift form my friend Jaimi). Books are fun - especially the "edible" ones! :)

"I'm so content with life that I have no need to roll over!"

"Wait a minute - are those toes mine?!?"

In other news, Rose is also enjoying more solids! So far she seems to enjoy avocado, banana, pumpkin, and sweet potato. But her favorite is still smoothie! We've also discovered that she'd really much prefer to drink her purees from a glass rather than get them off a spoon. Silly girl :)

Time for a mid-feeding thumb-sucking break!

Have a great week, everyone!