Living in Harmony » dads

Baby Moon

AttachedMama — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 05:58:46 +0000

I have been very much enjoying having a newborn around again. I forgot just how precious a tiny, squishy baby really is. We’re nearing the end of Kris being off of work and I am sad to think we won’t have him around all the time soon. It’s nice just because we like having him around, but also because it gives Meredith a chance to get both of us one-on-one a lot. It also means I can nap in the afternoons if I need to.

Meredith still seems to really enjoy Fiona, though for this past week or so she’s been quite clingy to me. I feel like she’s going through a bit of a mourning period for the relationship we had (where she basically had me all to herself), and it makes me sad sometimes to think that we never will have quite that same relationship again. The last day or two though she seems to be back to more normal and she hasn’t ever seemed to hold any resentment towards Fiona at all, thankfully. She loves to tandem nurse, still likes to hold her, and will come and stroke Fiona’s head or hold her hand while Fiona is nursing or just lying and looking around. She likes to hold her hand in the car seat too. Luckily Fiona seems to be a pretty relaxed baby for the most part, and I’ve been trying to give Meredith lots of time with me to herself. We cuddle and nurse and play games while Fiona sleeps on Kris, and when Fiona wakes up she is quite happy to sit on the potty for a few minutes and then just relax and look around before she starts rooting. So we can give Meredith lots of warning that Fiona will need to nurse soon, and except for once or twice she’s been quite happy to stop whatever she’s doing with me when Fiona needs me. She often will stop and tell me “baby’s turn now, Mama” or “Mimi wait for baby to nurse”.

EC is going amazingly well. I don’t know if it’s because we started earlier (we started with Meredith at 3 weeks old), because Fiona has more clear signals, or because we’ve done it once before (or likely, a combination of all of the above), but we definitely have more “catches” than misses. She’s often in the same diaper all night long and there have been quite a few days where we’ve had her diaperless/coverless most of the day or she’s in the same diaper all day. Actually, the only thing really keeping us from having her diaperless more often are the little tiny squirts that babies do. We put a little piece of terry in her diapers so we don’t have to change the whole diaper each time, but that doesn’t work so well when diaperless. Those are getting less and less already though. She definitely seems to have some control already, and will often go as soon as we hold her over her little potty or the sink and signal.

She is still a great nurser, and was able to nurse side-lying from day one. Kris’ mom, who was out visiting for four days, told me she has one of the strongest sucks of any baby she’s ever known. (And she’s a foster parent, so she’s had a lot of babies in and out of her house.) I have to say though, that I love having a toddler around to nurse. It’s made things so much easier, since I have an overactive let down and oversupply. Meredith was constantly spitting up as a newborn (literally after every nurse in the beginning) and would choke and gag frequently while nursing. Now if I’m overly engorged or feel like my let down is too much, I can have Meredith nurse and take some pressure off. For an idea of how strong my letdown can be though, there have been times that Meredith has had to stop nursing or the letdown has caused her to choke a bit. Most of the time I am still really enjoying nursing Meredith too, though I have to be honest that there are times I wish I could sit down and relax for a minute without having someone attached to my breasts lol.

One unexpected thing is that Meredith seems to have night weaned, literally over night. The night I went into labour she didn’t wake up wanting to nurse even once. Not entirely unheard of, but definitely unusual. Since then, she’s been quite happy to fall asleep in Kris’ bed and normally if she wakes up in the night Kris will cuddle her into him and she’ll fall right back to sleep. Some nights she has asked to nurse, though so far if Fiona is nursing at the time she hasn’t had any problem waiting for Fiona to be done before having a turn herself. We haven’t ever told her she has to sleep on Kris’ side, or that she can’t nurse at night, or anything like that. I’m very careful that I don’t want her to feel like she’s been replaced by Fiona. I have been nursing her to sleep on Kris’ side, or if she falls asleep downstairs I’ll put her to bed on his side, but if she asked to come on my side I would certainly not tell her no. She is pretty flaily in her sleep so I wouldn’t want her next to Fiona, but prior to Fiona her and I often slept back to back anyway since I was so big and pregnant, so I would have no problem doing that. She’s only come into my side with me once since Fiona was born though. Maybe she likes having someone to really cuddle with, rather than being back to back? When I nurse her to sleep at night, if she comes off awake and wants to cuddle to sleep I have been lying with her longer than I did prior to Fiona being born and really trying to get lots of snuggling in before I sneak away.

The other night she asked to nurse to sleep in her bed in her room. It’s the second time she’s asked that. The first time was a few months ago and she still woke frequently in the night to nurse. If she had actually fallen asleep that time, I would have moved her into our bedroom once she was asleep. This time, I’m not entirely sure what I would have done. I think, considering she asked to lie there to nurse with no coercion on our part, that I would probably have left her there, with the monitor on, and if she had woken up in the night gone to her and brought her back to our room. It’s a bit bittersweet to think about though, she’s never not slept with one of us. She didn’t end up actually falling asleep in there either time though. There are no drapes in the room right now and a street light right outside the window so it’s very light in there even when it’s dark out. Not sure if that has something to do with it or not but I do need to get drapes in there.

Anyway, this has gotten long but I wanted to post somewhat of an update. I’ll try and post some pictures sometime in the next few days. Bed time for me now, both kids are sleeping and I should take advantage.

Sleeping through the night

AttachedMama — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:36:31 +0000

A while ago, I posted an article about the Natural Age of Weaning by Dr. Katherine Dettwyler. I recently found another article by the same person about childhood sleep patterns that I feel is very well written and worth a read. Meredith still doesn’t “sleep through the night” by most people’s definitions. Though most nights she will fall asleep for the night around 10 and often doesn’t wake up to nurse again until 5 or 6, which is more than good enough for me. After that, she tends to wake every hour or two until she actually gets up. I doze through most feedings and barely wake up. Some nights, she still wakes up several times at night to nurse though. She’s showing signs of starting to be able to fall asleep on her own without nursing, but the majority of the time still needs to nurse to sleep. There have been a few nights that I’m really tired and go to bed before her and Kris, and she will cuddle with Kris and they’ll read or watch a movie and she falls asleep doing that with him, but it’s only really happened when she’s been really tired.

This has been something that has been on my mind quite a bit the past couple of weeks, since I found out I am pregnant. She still nurses a lot, more than she eats. I’m okay with that. I trust that she will eat when she needs to eat, and that she is getting the nutrition she needs from my breastmilk. She’s growing well, healthy, and happy. She’s not a picky eater, she just doesn’t eat much. I’ve noticed she is starting to eat a lot more recently too. So far, nursing and being pregnant hasn’t bothered me at all. I’m hoping I’ll be one of those people who it never does. I’ve always had problems with oversupply, not undersupply, and last pregnancy I started having to wear breast pads around 22 weeks or I’d leak. (Apparently that’s really early for a first pregnancy.) So I don’t think my milk will dry up, or if it does hopefully it will only be for a short time. One of the reasons we waited to get pregnant (besides my cycles not coming back, ha!) was that I didn’t want her to be forced to wean if I am one of those women whose milk does dry up in pregnancy, especially since she still relies on it so much.

My concern (and even that is far too strong a word at this point; I’m not concerned, just thoughtful) is the night nursing. Meredith is a very light sleeper. When I’m in late pregnancy and tossing and turning, am I going to be waking her up each time? And if so, will I have to nurse her back to sleep every time, making it harder for me to get back to sleep? Trouble sleeping was one of my most annoying symptoms last time and has already started this time. What about after the baby comes? Will the baby wake Meredith up each time he or she wakes up in the night? I can’t side lie and nurse two kids, so that means I’d either have to sit up and nurse them both, or make one wait while I nurse the other. Meredith will be over two and a half, so I’m sure she would be okay waiting while I nurse the baby, but I don’t want to nurse them both every single time the baby wakes up.

Really it’s all conjecture at this point. In 8 months, it’s quite possible Meredith will be falling back to sleep on her own without nursing, or that she will be a heavier sleeper and wouldn’t wake up. But again, I don’t want to count on that, and I don’t want to night wean her. If she sticks to her current sleeping pattern of sleeping until 5 or 6 in the morning, or even waking more when she’s sick/teething, I’d be fine with that with a baby. My concern is having to nurse them both every time the baby wakes up.

Thinking about it, and talking it over with Kris, I think we may try and have her start the night on Kris’ side. We have two queen beds in our bedroom pushed up against each other. (Which is heaven by the way, I love having so much space!) Meredith and I sleep on one, and Kris sleeps in the other. But really it’s like one huge bed because obviously we can move around from one to the other at will. Occasionally Meredith does crawl over to his side for a cuddle. Our thought was that I could nurse her to sleep for the night on Kris’ mattress, and the first time she wakes up at night I’ll bring her back over to my side and she’ll stay there the rest of the night. Which means on the nights she sleeps until 5 or 6 I have space the whole night, and the nights that she is waking up more frequently I would bring her over earlier and be right there for when she needs to nurse. That gives me space to toss and turn when heavily pregnant without risk of waking her up, and when there’s a baby in the equation he or she would be less likely to wake her up too. And of course, if we try it and for some reason she is really unhappy about it, we’d drop it for now. I can’t see that happening though, she does love to snuggle with daddy.

Father Anxiety…

AttachedPapa — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:13:34 +0000

Last night Lindsay went to a scrapbooking thing to make christmas cards, which was scheduled from around 6:30-9:30. Immediately I started feeling anxious, which to be honest is how I always feel when Lindsay is leaving me alone with Meredith. Each time I tell myself that it’ll get better when she’s older but it hasn’t yet (the anxiety that is). It seems pretty stupid when you think about it since I’ve been doing this for as long as she has and its not like I only take care of Meredith when Lindsay is out of the house. After spending all day with mommy, Meredith often wants me in the evenings.

But when it gets right down to it, Lindsay spends more time alone with Meredith than I do…about 40 hours a week more on average. On top of that, she has built in pacifiers and food sources and most likely there’s some mommy magic mixed in there too.

I’ve never had a problem when she goes out. She was gone for most of that 3 hours and Meredith didn’t spend the entire time screaming. In fact, we had a good time playing with some stuffed animals, in the bath and having a walk together. But for whatever reason, no matter how many times I look after her alone, I still feel anxious about it beforehand and even during. What if she hurts herself and I can’t make her feel better. What if she gets hungry and wants milk and won’t try anything else, etc…

I don’t think my feelings are all that unusual. I’d guess that most fathers feel the same way, especially fathers that are employed full time while the mother stays at home. It got me wondering about why I feel this way. To be honest, I have more experience with kids and young babies than Lindsay does. I grew up in a foster home (No, i wasn’t in foster care) and we had young kids and babies in and out of my house all the time. I have two (well almost two) adopted brothers that came into my life when I was already an adult. Obviously I wasn’t the primary care giver, but I babysat reasonably frequently and I was involved in their care at least part of the time.

So what about other fathers? If I feel this insecure and anxious about being alone with my daughter after all the experience I’ve had in my life, how much worse must it be for guys who’ve never done this before. So to all the fathersout there, try not to worry too much, it’ll get better…

A different perspective…

AttachedPapa — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:41:58 +0000

Just so that nobody is confused, I’d like to introduce myself. I am Kris or Kristofor, depending on who’s asking. As i’m sure you can gather I’m Lindsay’s Husband and Meredith’s father. I decided to provide an alternate perspective to this blog about our lives, something that might be lacking if all you ever got was how Lindsay was feeling or what she was thinking.

I’m not positive how often I’ll be posting, not because of a lack in interest, but because I have lots of other things on the go and my memory is like a sieve. But hopefully I can round out this discussion about how we live and how we parent.

Another note, if you comment please don’t expect an answer. I’m not very good at keeping track of what I do and likely anything I post will be passing in nature. I may look at comments, but I’m just as likely to forget I ever posted.

In any case, you’ll probably find me interjecting my own little bits whenever I can. Starting with this:

Probably one of my biggest pet peeves is the fact that society in general has a very low opinion of guys and their skills at things like parenting and household chores. Commercials are a perfect example. A food commercial where the guy is cooking is probably an advertisment for KFC or microwavable dinners or maybe two college guys cooking KD on a heater vent while staring at the half naked chicks walking by. Commercials about cleaning the house? The only guy you’ll see is Mr Clean who looks more like the Genie from Aladdin (only not blue) than anybody you’d find walking down the street. Apparently we all just floated from Mom’s cooking and cleaning to getting married and having a wife to cook and clean with nothing in between.

There may be some men that are just cruising along doing nothing (shame on them) but there are just as many of us putting in our time and effort to make the house run as smoothly as possible and getting marginalized anyway. If I hear one more person say something like “Oh, its so nice to see a father holding the baby”, I might snap and do something unfortunate…