Parenthood

Goodness! I am not sure what I expected, but this is pretty difficult.

Right after S was born, we had family in town. Our families stair stepped but we had company constantly for more than 2 weeks, save a couple of hours between outgoing and incoming flights. With all the company, we had some difficulty establishing a routine; well that and the fact that we have a newborn and she is resistant to routines. With all of this it took me almost two weeks to finish her birth story. Needless to say, I haven't really had time to write blog entries, heck I haven't hardly had time to shower!

The little angel is sleeping at the moment, so I wanted to take a minute to write.

First, as a first time mom, I had quite a few "rules" that I absolutely-positively would not break. Surprise, surprise. I broke them.

A lot of people buy Rock-n-Plays with the intention of their newborn sleeping overnight in their room. I didn't because RnPs are only approved for "supervised sleep" (aka naps) and are not recommended for overnight sleep. So when the Pack N Play bassinet didn't work out for S, we moved her directly to her crib. We were able to keep her in her crib for about a week or so, but then she would wake up immediately as soon as we would lay her in it.

Every night, I've continued to try to put her down in her crib, but she won't stay asleep in it longer than 30 minutes to an hour. So every night, Mr.A will bring her swing upstairs, put it next to my side of the bed and S will sleep there. Talk about a device that is not approved for overnight sleep. Sigh. Oh well, it works and allows us all to get at least a few hours of sleep during the night.

Another rule I made was that I would never nurse S in the side laying position in bed and absolutely would not bring S into our bed. Broken x2 and simultaneously. I did this out of desperation and surprise, surprise, I feel asleep while she was nursing. Thankfully Mr.A was awake and put her back into her swing, but then panic ensued when I awoke and couldn't find her. Double sigh.

This whole being a mom thing is not easy, and anyone who says it is, is a lying liar who lies. S is a pretty good baby. She isn't incredibly fussy, but does often turn into a werewolf at night and usually has one or two meltdowns before finally falling asleep. We've really had to adjust our schedule around her this last month changing our bedtime from around 9:30 every night to around 11:30 or midnight. I am just hoping that in the next month or two we can establish a better nighttime routine so that I am able to function when I return to work.