Sleeping Beauty . . .

. . . or "No Rest for the Wicked"

Piper Blue - 7 Months

Sleeping is one of the things all babies do naturally. They don't need to be taught, helped or convinced to sleep, or so I thought. I remember when Piper was just a newborn and she slept more of the time than not. We would be so excited when she was awake and had her eyes open. It seemed like a rare and wonderful occasion when she would look around and at us directly. It was thrilling.

The time Piper spent with her eyes closed she was either sleeping, just waking up or about to drift back off. She took long naps: three or fours hours at a clip. Everyone eagerly awaited her short windows of consciousness except, of course, at night.

When Piper was less than a month old I was happy when she would sleep three hours at night, delighted if she slept four and frightened if she slept five. We used a Moses basket next to our bed as her cradle for the first three months of her life. At first she looked so tiny in it. It didn't seem cozy at all, but I supposed, it was cozier than a big, open crib. Piper slept happily in her basket, once we could get her to sleep that is.

During the day Piper refused to be put down in the basket and so she napped on whichever warm body was holding her. It was usually me, but sometimes Griffin and, especially in the beginning, often Jan or Claire. She could curl up on Griffin or Jan's chest in a position we dubbed "The Tree Frog". If you have ever seen a tree frog sleeping while stuck to the glass of a terrarium, I don't need to describe Piper's sleeping pose.

During the night, Piper would wake up and nurse and often go right back to sleep, but on occasion she would wake up and start hollering and almost nothing we could do would make her stop. We resorted to the old stand-by for generations of new parents - the car seat. Looking back, I don't know if it was truly the car seat that got Piper back to sleep during those middle-of-the-night desperation drives, or if it was the fact that we bundled her up a bit and didn't have the air conditioning blasting, and therefore, she was finally warm again. The world may never know.

At around two months Piper began sleeping through the night. It was, at first, frightening and after a few nights miraculous. The first morning I woke up and realized that Piper had not awakened at all during the night I quickly looked into her basket, my heart filled with dread. Little Piper was fast asleep cozy in her basket. By this time we had realized babies need to wear more clothes than a cloth diaper and a blanket, so Piper was finally warm enough to sleep for longer periods. I began bragging about her too soon.

The night before I was returning to work, Piper woke up several times. I had thought that she somehow knew that things were going to drastically change for her. Perhaps she did and I was left longing for those summer nights when we all slept soundly.

The change in schedule, not only to feeding, but to sleeping was hard on Piper. She no longer slept through the night and began waking up from one to five times during the night. As the weeks dragged on, I began dragging. I was suffering severely from sleep deprivation. My body became twitchy as did my eyes, I couldn't think straight and I found myself becoming drowsy at the wheel of my car, both coming and going to work. I snapped at students and snapped at Griffin. I was like a starving dog and sleep was the bone I was taunted with, but could never get a hold of.

The times that I did get to sleep at night were not peaceful either. I was so tired that I was cold most of the time and would go to bed with two blankets; actually one was a goose down comforter and the other was a quilted synthetic comforter. I would wake up during the night in a puddle of sweat. Sometimes, when Piper would sleep for several hours, I would wake up in a puddle of sweat and breast milk as my breasts would become full and start to leak. Sleeping with a nursing bra on made me develop clogged milk ducts, so I gave up on that. I would wake up, put a folded fresh sheet on top of my soggy side of the bed and go back to sleep.

Many times when I was nursing her at night in bed I would fall asleep for a moment and twitch awake. When Piper was ready to go back to her bed I would carefully carry her back and try to get her down without waking her. Sometimes I was so exhausted that I was half asleep while I did this. I would go back to bed and fall asleep almost instantly. On occasion during the worst nights, I would half wake up and begin to look for Piper fearing that I had fallen asleep while nursing her. There were even times that I would wake with a start and sit up and look all over for her in a panic. Then I would look over at my darling baby sound asleep where she was supposed to be and I felt a huge rush of relief. As luck would have it, Piper would often wake up shortly after this and I would spring out of bed like a crazy person. It's amazing how you can go from peacefully asleep to wide awake and standing up in two seconds!

Slowly, but slowly Piper adjusted to the new routine. She began sleeping longer at night until one week she slept through the night every night for a week. The next week Jan went in for his knee surgery and our schedules changed again. That was the last time Piper has slept through.

These days I am not the only one suffering from lack of sleep. Many early mornings when Piper did not want to be returned to her basket, or later, her swing, Griffin would sit up and hold her in bed. As she became too big for the tree frog pose, they found another way for her to sleep: more or less stretched out across his chest - belly to belly. This position makes Griffin snore; this position makes Piper snore. I don't sleep well if at all when they are both snoring, but I don't dare wake either of them. At least someone gets to sleep.

When Piper became too big for the Moses basket, and while she still refused to sleep in her crib on her back, we started using a baby swing as her bed. She slept quite well in it during the night although when I had the swing swinging the wind chill factor would make her face feel like a Popsicle. And when she would wake up at night where did she want to put that Popsicle face? Right on my warm and sensitive breast. Hello!!

When Piper turned six months she had out grown her swing. Her feet hung off the edge making her look like a giant. Since the threat of SIDS was mostly passed, we decided to try to get her to sleep in her crib on her belly. We had previously been trying to get her to sleep in the crib on her back which only resulted in her crying hysterically and me becoming a basket case listening to her. We didn't let her cry for more than a couple of minutes because it was clear she was not going to sleep this way. I do not believe in letting a baby 'cry it out' and so we didn't force the crib issue.

Now that she was far too big for the swing, the crib was the only option. From the first time we put her down on her belly we could see the difference. Even if she did wake a bit or even cry, within a minute or two she would fall fast asleep. She now naps in her crib in her bedroom during the day at home or at Grandma and Grandpa's house when I am working. She sleeps at night in the crib in our bedroom. There is no point right now in trying to make her sleep in her own bedroom since she is still waking up two to five times a night. I won't just let her cry herself back to sleep, so it is just easier having her close to me. And Zombie Mommy carries on for another day!

Let's Take a Ride

Piper Blue - 6 months, 3 weeks, 3 days.

The Car Seat - What a torrid love affair.


The day we brought Piper home from the hospital she had her first car seat experience. It was not even in our car. Griffin's vehicle, a Ford Ranger pick-up truck, couldn't comfortably fit a car seat and two adults. He had been looking for a family friendly vehicle that wasn't a minivan and it wasn't an easy choice. So, Griffin ended up having to quickly install one into Jan's car for the trip home.

I had done a lot of research on the best car seats. Turns out Britax was highly rated all around and there was even a model that could fit into my Mini Cooper. We got one for my car, one for Griffin's future vehicle and one for Jan and Claire's car (I figured her grandparents would be driving her around on their own sometimes and wanted the best seat for Piper.) So, the day we were to go home, Griffin was out in the hospital parking lot installing the seat. Nothing like doing things last minute, I guess we were all preoccupied and didn't think about how we going to get her home.

Earlier, I had briefly looked at the instructions for installation and I knew they were complex and confusing. I am sure Griffin was in a tizzy trying to get that thing into the car properly. Turns out there are several positions for the seat: reclined, upright and somewhere in between. The excited Daddy, put the seat into the upright, rear-facing position. Rear-facing, of course, is correct for a newborn, but upright is downright incorrect.

Once we managed to escape from the hospital with our wee one in tow, Griffin buckled her into the seat. I had no idea how to even do that! (Oh, how quickly I would learn!) Piper was sitting almost totally upright hunched over like a little old man. She was blotchy, bald and toothless, and that just added to her 'old-manness'. I decided to sit next to her in the back seat as Griffin drove home. As Piper dozed in the warm sunlight, her head lolled forward. I spent the entire ride home with my hand on her forehead holding her back.

I had thought at the time how nice it was that she liked her car seat - all we would have to do was get it to fully recline. She fell asleep in just minutes, so she must be so comfy and snug. And that was true, for a while. For the next many, many weeks the car seat became the last resort to get Piper to stop crying, just as it is for so many other bleary-eyed parents. There were lots nights that Piper just wouldn't sleep where we found ourselves riding around the lake in desperation. It worked like a charm every time; until it didn't.

One night, when Piper was around two months old, the car seat failed us. It didn't lull her to sleep and she just continued to scream. When we got home from our failed attempt to calm her, she promptly fell asleep. "Strange", I thought. I didn't know the half of it.

From that point on, virtually every time we put Piper in the car seat she screamed. And screamed, and screamed. No longer the place of comfort and relaxation, the car seat became a horrid torture device for Piper and consequently, her parents too. I always sat in the backseat with Piper anyhow, and now it was a requirement. Every time we put her in the car she would scream, so I sat next to her with my head resting on her seat shushing loudly into her ear until she calmed down and usually slept.

Things continued on this way until I returned back to work. I felt so sorry for Jan when he started driving Piper to meet me for lunch each day. Jan's solution was to blast opera at Piper. I had read that loud music or even loud radio static can calm a baby in the car and, by jove, it works! When we were out Griffin would crank up the music too (only we weren't playing opera for her). Slowly, Piper's crabby car seat attitude started to turn around.

After a couple of weeks she didn't need the loud music in the car for Jan. He installed a mirror so he could see her and apparently she could see him too, and they began to have 'conversations' in the car. Piper became a chatterbox. Every day during 'lunch' Jan would report on Piper's progress. I was amazed at how her attitude was improving towards the car seat. Along with the mirror entertainment, Claire got some toys for her to fiddle with and Piper was almost always happily occupied in the car.

Griffin and I clipped some toys to the car seat in our car and she seemed happier in there too. I even ventured into the front seat on a rare occasion, but most of the time I sat in the back with Piper, just in case. Most of the time she was pretty happy and only had the occasional meltdown that forced me to make googly faces and wacko noises at her. She ate it up and would snap out of her crying pretty quickly.

As winter approached, we started dressing Piper in warmer clothing until we resorted to putting her into a full winter coat. Claire had bought the beautiful sky blue, faux fur trimmed coat for Piper and she looked gorgeous in it. Piper, however, hated it . She seemed not unlike the little brother from "A Christmas Story" who cried that he couldn't "put his arms down". Piper was so fluffy in this coat that she couldn't move her arms to play with her toys. The hood was so big that it drooped over her face and we dubbed her "Nanook of the North". She would swivel her head around trying to see. If she could speak, surely she would be shouting, "Where'd everybody go?" So, she went back to screaming in the car and no amount of shushing would calm her. It got to the point where if we had her in the coat and brought her near the car, she would scream. Joy.

We gave up on the coat. It wasn't worth the battle.

One of the things we inherited from Griffin's Aunt Ann's son and daughter-in-law was a car seat snuggily thing. It fits inside the car seat, the belts go through it and it zips up on either side sort of like a sleeping bag. The inside is a faux sheepskin and the outside is fleecy. Piper thinks it's the cat's pajamas. I put her in it and she smiles and wiggles and coos. It is the best thing ever! I now carry Piper outside in a blanket or with a jacket over her shoulders and pop her into the car seat. Piper is so warm and cozy in it that the car seat is once again a wonderful place for her to nap. She no longer needs entertainment, just a little rumbley car ride and she is out like a light.

I can only wonder what spring will bring when it is too warm for the comfy car seat sleepy sack. Perhaps we can get a real, live monkey to leash to the back seat to entertain Piper. Anything to keep the peace.

Eat Your Heart Out

Piper Blue, 6 months, 3 weeks, 2 days

Adventures in Eating

I have been busy, very, very busy. Being Piper's mother is a full time job and I also have another full time job - high school art teacher. I have been back to work since September and it is now December 27th. I had a lot of fears and concerns about returning to work, some of them we had to work through and some problems that arose I never even considered until it was too late. One of the issues turned out to be eating.

Piper loves to eat. Her dense layer of "protection" is a good indicator of that fact. She is also at the 90th percentile for weight for her age, when she was born she was under the 20th percentile. Our pediatricians are very happy with how she looks and have told us not to be concerned about the pounds she has packed on. In fact, she is very healthy and looks like a happy, breastfed baby and she is all-to-happy to breastfeed anytime, anywhere, but don't give her no stinkin' bottle!

When Piper was about 4 weeks old, Griffin and I started giving her a bottle of breast milk once a day. We had been warned by a lactation consultant that if we didn't get this started soon she may reject the bottle altogether. Many breastfeeding mothers have been caught by surprise when they try to return to work and find out that their baby won't take a bottle. I was a little alarmed when I heard this, so we got to work on it.

The first bottle Griffin gave her I had prepared. I warmed the expressed milk and put the nipple on the bottle, however, I neglected to put the extra device in the bottle that makes the milk come out slower, so Piper sucked down that bottle in about one minute. It was pretty amazing! We thought there was no way she would have any trouble accepting a bottle.

At this time, Piper was pretty cranky on and off. We were still so new at the parenting thing that we were making lots of mistakes. We were mistaking her crankiness for colic and were giving her a herbal remedy called "Colic Calm". It has fennel and ginger in it and it supposed to help with digestion for crabby babies. It did seem to help her, so we gave it to her every time we couldn't get her to stop crying. We found that just pouring the dose into a rubber nipple was the easiest way to get her to take it. Pour the liquid in the nipple, pop the nipple in her mouth, she sucks it down quick as a wink. We could have put anything into her mouth and she would have sucked on it. She would have sucked the stripes off a Bengal tiger, but all that was going to change.

It turns out that sucking is a reflex for babies. Newborns have all sorts of reflexes that help them survive the first months of their lives. Some of them are throwbacks to when we all lived in trees and some are important instincts like sucking. This particular reflex, sucking, disappears at around two months of age. Sucking is then no longer a reflex, but a choice. Stripes on tigers are once again safe!

From months two to three we saw the change in Piper's eating habits. She became less willing to take a bottle and started freaking out when anyone would try to give her one. She would scream, cry, thrash and generally meltdown. This was heartbreaking for me to hear and my 'faucets' would turn on and leak pitifully in response.

Since my return to work was coming up very quickly, we all knew we needed to get Piper to cooperate. Jan, my father-in-law, was going to act as our 'manny', not Piper's wet nurse, so she needed to accept a bottle again, right? Well, maybe not.

The first week back to work was hell for everyone involved. Piper refused to take a bottle for the 9 hours I was out of the house. All sorts of people said, "Babies won't starve themselves. She will take the bottle eventually. Let her get hungry enough." Yeah, right! Piper clearly inherited a double dose of stubbornness from both me and Griffin.

No matter how hungry she was she wouldn't drink more than a fraction of an ounce of milk from a bottle that first week. When I would get home from work she was crazed with hunger. Her face was puffy and red from crying and her nursing was intense and frantic. I felt horrible for her, I can't imagine how Jan and Griffin dealt with her all day like that at our house.

We all decided we needed to take another approach. If the 'mountains' can't come to Piper, Piper would go to the 'mountains'. The second week of school Jan started bringing Piper in for lunch. My lunch period is 44 minutes long at 10:15 in the morning. An ungodly hour for me to eat lunch, but apparently, just right for Piper.

Everyday I would meet Jan and Piper in the main office and we would all go down to the nurses' office for me to feed her. During the first couple of weeks, nearly every time I got to the office Piper was crying. She would be so relieved to see me and would start trying to rip my shirt off the second she was in my arms. When I got to feed her she would look at me with a mixture of love and something like worry or confusion. "Where have you been? I am so hungry!"

This arrangement became great for Piper. She loved seeing the teenagers in the office everyday. She loved the secretaries that made a big fuss over her and she began to accept her new feeding schedule. Of course, this wasn't an ideal situation for the rest of us. Jan had to drive her 35 minutes each way on Route 80 which is filled with texting drivers doing 90 miles an hour. I was missing lunch everyday and eating whatever I could whenever I could. Griffin was taking care of her from 6:30 to 9am and then 12 noon until I got home at 2pm instead of working at his home office. We were all making sacrifices for Piper.

Many people suggested that I liked having Piper come in for lunch a little too much and that I should be working on the bottle thing again. Believe me, as much as I loved seeing that chubby face light up when I walked into the office each day, it was putting a major strain on me. Not only was I loosing the time I had to eat lunch, but also I lost the time I had to get other work done. Lunchtime is often used by teachers for prep and planning. I did some planning in my head, but Piper was a real distraction. In addition, I wasn't particularly thrilled to have her schlepped back and fourth to school on a major highway everyday. Not to mention winter would be coming soon and driving Piper in snow and sleet was out of the question. We all knew this couldn't last forever.

Piper loves to eat; I said it before and I'll say it again, and again, and again. Piper loves to eat! When she was around five months old, or even a little younger, she started grabbing food off my plate when I was holding her during dinner. I would wrestle the food out of her pudgy little hand before she could get whatever it was into her open mouth. That was straight where she was going to put it, right into her mouth!

Griffin and I had decided to do "baby led weaning" with Piper. The concept is quite simple: from birth to six months only breast milk, from six months on, she can eat almost anything she can get into her mouth by herself plus all the breastfeeding she wants. At five months and three weeks, we gave her some baby yogurt from a spoon. Piper was intrigued and delighted with this new taste sensation. She kept telling us she was ready to eat 'real' food. Soon after we sat Piper in her highchair and put some of our dinner in front of her, she quickly grabbed a piece of whatever it was and began gnawing on it. She knew just what to do!

Now, more than four weeks later, Piper is eating everything we eat, just the way we eat it. No mashing, no mushing, no spooning it into her mouth. We put all of her food onto her tray and she chooses what to eat and when. At first she would just chew and eventually spit it all out, but now she swallows most everything her little gums have mashed up. More is going in than coming out of her mouth. It is so easy to do and now that I have gotten used to seeing her occasionally gag out pieces of food that are too big to swallow, I can actually enjoy eating dinner! (It's easy to panic when your baby is cough, cough, coughing out a hunk of cheese, but this is how they learn how much to put into their mouths at once.)

All of this eating couldn't have come at a better time. Jan's knee had begun bothering him more and more. This was the knee he had replaced three years ago. After a while, he starting having so much pain that he could hardly carry the little chubster into the school. It was awful for me to watch and yet, at that time Piper still needed to come in to lunch. Words cannot express how much I appreciated Jan's tremendous effort for Piper. Jan finally had to have an operation on his knee and his days of bringing Piper to school were over.

Piper is now being babysat by two of Griffin's aunts. Griffin brings Piper over to his parents' house in the morning and on Mondays Aunt Joan watches her and the rest of the week Aunt Ann watches her. Piper happily eats anything they offer her, except of course, a bottle which occasionally someone still tries with her. She looks at the bottle and back at the person offering it to her with an expression that clearly says, "Me suck? No, you suck. Get me some cheese!"