Pariah

It is 4:30am and Camille does not want to go back to sleep after her mid-night feeding.

She wants to play.

I told her, "It's the middle of the night and nobody wants to play with you."

She laughed.

I added, "Your neck smells like toe jam."

She stops laughing.

I am adding "insults" to my repertoire of sleep-training techniques.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Camille's fifth month: A review

Fantastically scintillating monotony.  That is how I would describe my life at this point.  Fantastic because it still seems unreal that Camille is ours.  She is amazing!  Scintillating describes how exciting it is to watch her grow and to become even more attached to her.  And yet, life is quite monotonous.  Even though there is never a dull moment, it just seems like, "Gosh, it's time to feed again?"  "Are you serious?  I've been rocking you to sleep for the last 30 minutes and you're still awake?"  "Is this my life?"

Well, this month brings lots of developments for Camille:

• Continuing to teethe.
• Can copy us in sticking out her tongue.  Once she figured out that she has a tongue, she very much enjoys sticking it out.
• Chewing on things (mostly her hands).  A lot.
• Reaching for and grabbing onto toys.
• Gradually losing the asymmetrical tonic neck reflex - getting ready roll over!
• Rolling over - just the one time :-/
• When brought to a standing position, she can lean against me (without grabbing onto my hands) and remain standing for over 10 seconds.
• Vocalizations transition from being coos to sounds that have more consonants (okay, that's just my observation, I have no training in infant linguistics).
• Tracking objects that are further away and making better eye contact.
• LOL!  No, seriously.

"Miiiiiiine!"

The specs
As of December 16, 2010:

• Weight: 12 lb 4 oz - 25%ile 
• Height: 24.5 in - 75%ile 
• Head: 15.5 in - 10%ile 
• Teeth: 1, at the bottom, right of the middle

As of December 20th, 2010: 12 lb - lost 4 ounces due to hunger strikes.

As of January 5th, 2011: 12 lb 13 oz - *phew* gained some back!
 

Milestones & important events
December 15 - Started reaching out for and grabbing toys.  Sticks out tongue to mimic parents.

Intentional grabbing

December 18 - Started a 9-hour hunger strike, lost weight.  We have several theories about why this hunger strike may have taken place:

• Strange environment - she would refuse to feed when we're out and about
• More distracted by her surrounding
• Teething pains
• Refusal to take the bottle is transferred over to refusal of milk-intake in general

December 25 - Camille's first Christmas!

December 27 - She rolled over!  After many days of looking like she might roll over (from laying on her back), she finally did it while we were talking.  And that was the only time she has done it so far!

Celebrating Grandma Ng's 59th birthday!

December 28 - It was a year ago today that we found out we were going to have Camille.  What a year it has been!  Discovered that she has cradle cap - eww.  With one olive oil treatment the next day, it was completely gone.

January 1 - Moved crib from a sidecar position (next to our bed) to the other side of the room.  No more cosleeping at night :(

Camille's new sleeping space in our room

January 2 - Another hunger strike.

January 5 - I found some blood in Camille's stool.  First, I thought like a nurse..."Don't freak out...there's an explanation." And then I thought like a mom..."Oh Lord, what is this?!" And then I started thinking like a crazy woman..."Is it Zellweger Syndrome?!  I just looked it up online and she might have Zellweger?!  She's too young to die!" There's such a fine line between thinking like a mom and thinking like a crazy woman.  Anyhow, we went to the clinic later that day and they discovered the cause as being a very large blow-out poop early that morning caused some abrasions in her anus.  Yes, my daughter has very powerful bowels.

January 11 - Went to the Picasso exhibit!

Favorite part...
Chin's Christmas vacation.  I loved having Chin around for 7 straight days!!  And I think Camille did, too.

Least favorite...
Hunger strikes.  It's insane how an infant's refusal of the breast can affect a mom.  It is so draining...I don't even have the energy to write about it!

Shout outs
...To the Lorex LW2003 baby monitor!  It is freakin' amazing and we love it!

Spying on Camille

...To infant acetaminophen (Tylenol) for relieving teething pain.  Baby Orejel...not so much.

...To the Okkatots baby carrier.  Oh.  My.  Goodness!  The three of us love this carrier so much!!  Camille likes the front-facing option so she can "talk to the baby in the mirror."  Chin loves that there is a separate pouch for the baby.  I love just about everything...especially the fact that Camille naps very well in this carrier.

Just hanging out

...To Alice+Chung+Anna Jane for letting us borrow AJ's Bumbo chair!

...To Chin...still the best dad to Camille and the best partner I can ever ask for!

"Do you like my hair, Daddy?"

Discoveries & reflections
...Camille will poop while she is in the Bumbo chair about 80% of the time.  No joke!

...If Camille had a good day, I'd better brace myself for a gruesome day to follow. (The opposite isn't true, unfortunately).

...You know how we all have that one friend who's just really critical and judgmental?  I know you have at least one.  Me!  I find that I'm so critical and judgmental about this mothering process.  I am sorry, friends!

...Camille nurses much better when she is drowsy and is falling asleep.  (During the day, she will just wake up after nursing.  At night, she stays sleeping.)  If she is fully awake during feeding time, boy, it is always a struggle to keep her focused!

...Breastfeeding in public has become nearly impossible now with Camille being so distracted while being nursed.

...Do we really want to read to Camille at bedtime?  Do we really want to proliferate the connection between reading and sleepiness?

...Starting last month, actually, Camille and I have both been shedding a lot of hair.  I keep finding little Camille hairs everywhere...and her head still looks so full!

...Umm...sometimes, I feel guilty for convincing other people to have kids.

Notice she's trying to peel off the "5 months"
sticker.  Mad fine motor skillz!!

Sleep is for the weak: Childrearing philosophies and...being real

These are general child-rearing and sleep concepts that I believe in:

• Adjustment to extra-uterine life can be rough!  Heck, if I had a choice, I would crawl back inside my mom (provided that I can take along my laptop...and she is around places with good Wifi).
• Sleep is as important, if not more so, for baby's growth as eating.  
• For the first three months, often referred to as "the fourth trimester," care for your infant without worry of spoiling them and help them ease into life outside the womb.  This means feeding on demand, swaddling, not waking them up (but who would be dumb enough to wake up a sleeping baby...*points to self*), and gently teaching them the difference between day and night.
• That being said, I believed that the first three months were important in teaching them when to sleep.  The how part is a secondary priority and could be saved for later when they have gotten the when down.
• After the first three months (actually, I waited to 15 weeks since Camille was born a little early), it is okay to start training them in certain things such as how to sleep and when meal times are.  I started stretching out Camille's feeding time to every 4 hours while she was awake and feed on demand in the middle of the night.
• I try to incorporate small inconsistencies into Camille's routines.  Nothing too drastic.  Maybe a 30-minute shift in feeding time, or singing a different song for nap time, or letting her nap in a different setting, etc.  I hope that by doing this, she will become more adaptable while still having a good routine.
• My relationship priorities are as follows: God, Chin, children, other family, others.
• I believe that parents and children should have good boundaries.  There are times for co-sleeping and baby-wearing, and then there are times to wean children of childish things and to set healthy boundaries.
• A lot of Western childrearing philosophies lead to independence.  Independence for parents (don't have to rock children to sleep, more Mommy and Daddy times) and independence for children (learning to self-soothe, learning to be self-sufficient).  That's cool, I guess.  But that's not really for me.  Chin & I prefer interdependence and would much rather have children who are more relational.

I believe that there are two types of people in the world: Those who live strictly on principles, and childrearing adults.

Before Camille's arrival, I had all these ideals.  There are certain things that parents do that make me question their sanity.  I now realize that all parents are insane.  Here's a list of things that Chin & I have done as new parents that we never thought we would do:

• Breastfeeding for over 1.5 hours long.  A friend of mine told me that she did this with her first baby.  My thought, "Uh, yeah, that's because you are insane!"  True.
• Breastfeeding every meal for five stinkin' months.  Camille doesn't take the bottle, and with her teething, introducing the bottle has been really tough.  In fact, I believe that some of her nursing strikes are due to her rebellion against the bottle.
• Being completely inconsistent with sleep training.  We've let Camille cry it out about 5-6 times...but not with any consistency or method.  Yep, sometimes we just let her cry because we're just pooped out.
• Sometimes spending up to 30 minutes to rock the child to sleep.  As mentioned before, I really thought we would be better at disciplining and sleep-training our baby so that she doesn't need to be rocked to sleep.  But, here we are...
• Having the nerve to raise our voice at a child who is either not sleeping or not feeding.  Okay, that's just mean.
• Staying up until the wee hours of the morning, forfeiting precious sleep hours, just so we can savor some child-free times.  We still do this.  Every night.
• Being willing to spend $1000 for a truly good night's sleep.  Okay, maybe not $1000.  But if Groupon has a deal for $400, we're on it!
• Some days, regretting the decision to embark on this journey of parenthood.  What the heck were we thinking?!?!
  and finally...the best...
• Doing a #2 while child is on breast.  I did this the first time when Camille was 2 weeks old and was nursing in a sling.  I've done this several times since then...just holding her with one arm.  You know, sometimes you just have to do what's necessary to not poop your pants.

Fortunately, there is grace. 

We are still learning.

Finally, I was going to apologize that all my posts are composed of multiple bulleted lists.  But I'm not going to.  Because I only have the capacity to think in short thoughts.  That is the truth.

Rice: The vintage granola

Today is my mom's 68th birthday.

Recently becoming a mom myself, my appreciation for my mother has grown tremendously.  I love and respect her more than ever before.  Those things that we consider nowadays as "granola parenting," my mom did 'em all:

• Natural child birth ... all seven kids!  She was the birthing champion!!
• Breastfeeding ... every single kid.
• Co-sleeping ... in the summer, she would co-sleep with all seven kids.  Haha!  It was the best!
• Valuing baby's cry ... meaning, she never let any of us cry it out.
• Cloth diapering ... she hand-washed and hang-dried them all!
• Elimination communication ... all of us were potty trained very early.
• Making your own baby food ... yeah, like feeding us whatever they were eating :)
• Baby-wearing ... she didn't have slings or carriers.  She was the carrier.

Back in her day, it was not counter-cultural to do what she did.  But still, to go through seven kids having done what she did was amazing.  I need to add, though, that she had help from her family and community.  My aunt (her sister) was absolutely instrumental in parenting all of us.

See?  She was the original granola.  Rice.

I just want to say I LOVE MY MOM!  She's the best!!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Sleep is for the weak: Tug-o-sleepy war

Many of you may already know that I have been struggling with the issue of infant sleep for a long time. The time line for my struggle goes something like this (time ... and the philosophy that I espoused):

• Growing up ... Babies should be rocked to sleep. Babies should sleep with their parents. That's how it goes. I slept with my parents until I was twelve! And I'm totally normal & well-adjusted. *twitch*
• A few years ago ... I was amazingly impressed by those who trained their infants to sleep on their own at ages as early as a few days old. I was convinced that this was the way to go. Cry it out, baby!
• Not so long ago ... I was more educated in the realm of attachment parenting and found many flaws in the cry-it-out method that is made popular by the Babywise series of books. So I set out to look for methods that were more gentle on babies and parents.  
• When Camille was born ... Seeing how she slept most of the time her first few weeks of birth, I thought that God had gifted us with an amazing sleeper! Thus, I further embraced the attachment parenting (no crying it out) method.

At one week old, we had a hard time waking this girl up for meals

• When Camille was about 4 or 5 weeks old ... She started getting her day and night flipped. And life was miserable for a couple of weeks until she figured things out.  Once she figured out that nighttime was for sleeping, it was still very difficult to get her to sleep (staying asleep has not been a problem for her...so far).  When we get tired, it is so tempting to let her cry it out.
• After the first month ... There were several occasions that I just let her cry it out because I was so frustrated.  Not the smartest thing I have done. 
• Now ... Chin & I keep flip-floppin' between cry-it-out and something else.  

Walking around Factoria Mall for nap time

Essentially, this is how we have broken things down:

Cry-it-out ish sleep method

• Pros:
• We know lots of friends (who we respect) who have used this method and I think all of their kids are good sleepers. 
• Those who did it with good consistency yielded great results: children with good sleep hygiene.  We know that by letting children cry it out, it eventually works for the majority.
• Cons:
• We need to endure hearing our child cry for an extended period of time.  (Not so much of a problem for me :P)
• Whenever I've let Camille cry it out (I know, this it not how the proper training works, but please bear with me...), I've always later found out that she was crying because of some other physical discomfort that I neglected to account for.  Like a soiled diaper, or gas, or teething. If I, an educated woman who has motherly instincts like you wouldn't believe, have moments where I have mistaken physical discomfort for a "manipulative" cry, how reliable could this method be? Also, Camille does seem awfully docile after a crying session and the following day.
• We have noticed that some kids whose parents practiced cry-it-out turned out to be not as affectionate as those whose parents chose to do something else.  
• I have this fear that children will lose trust and also associate sleep with abandonment trauma.
• I have a theory that children who are sleep trained this way are more likely to develop ADD when they grow up because sleep-time parenting is inconsistent with wake-time parenting.

Attachment parenting ish sleep method

• Pros:
• Well, my parents practiced attachment parenting and I loved it.  My parents are still sane.  Since I love and respect my parents, I desire the same kind of relationship between my children and me. 
• We have noticed that children whose parents practiced attachment parenting turn out to be kids with better social skills.
• Cons:
• Takes more effort on the part of parents.  Lots of effort.
• We know several people who have claimed to practice attachment parenting and their kids are terrible sleepers even at older ages. (Am I talking about your kids?  Um...maybe.  Please don't hate me.)
• I have a theory that children whose parents practice attachment parenting to the extreme are more likely to develop depressive mood disorders because it is freakin' disappointing to find that the world is not a warm and fuzzy place.

Last November, Chin & I decided that this is the year we were going to get smart phones.  So we set out to research the best phones for our family.  In a way, that process was very similar to our struggle with finding the best-suited sleeping solution for our family.

The Cry-it-out method is like a Windows phone.  It is methodical and straight forward.  You know what to expect.  It is a good product.  It's old school.  And it isn't as expensive as the iPhone.

The Attachment Parenting method, on the other hand, is the costly iPhone.  It is beautiful.  It is great for all us "feelers" in the world.  But it is going to cost you!!

What we're looking for is an Android sleep solution.  Something flexible, user-friendly, and open-source (hey, like y'all giving us free advice!).  Something not too costly...and something that won't crash [our children].  (Sorry, Microsoft.  I had to go there.  I had to.)

I wonder what psychological disorder an Android sleep solution would produce.  Perhaps not a disorder at all.  Maybe a super mutant power!  YES!

...

Welp, tune in next time when I discuss my sleep-time parenting beliefs.  And then tune in next, next time for when I, Bao, review books I've never read.

(Btw, keep the advice coming!  Oh, and don't think "I'm just a new parent myself.  What do I have to contribute?"  Please just say something so that I won't feel like I'm going through this all on my own.  Thank you.)

Sleep is for the weak: A series*

Before Camille's arrival, infant sleep was not the first thing that came to mind when I thought of motherhood.  Yet once reality hits, I now realize that it is the topic that will drive this mother insane.

How the heck do I get my baby to SLEEP?!?!?!

Camille was a good sleeper during the first few weeks.  She would prefer sleeping to eating (I am pretty sure she still does, smart girl).  Then she had a funky week of staying up at night.  After that wrinkle got fixed, it still continues to be a battle to get her to sleep.

Like most inexperienced first-time parents, we would go through the routine of feeding her at night and then gently putting her down on her crib...only to find that the squirmy infant has the mutant ability to wake herself up just as soon as her body leaves your arms.  And then there's the rocking and tapping and walking around and re-feeding until the zombie baby goes back to sleep.  Then she is set down and, miraculously, stays asleep.  At which point, I would emerge from the bedroom with the "Mission Accomplished" banner boldly waving behind me!

I can haz sucksess

Of course, we all know that it's too good to be true.  Yes, zombie baby would wake up and the process starts all over again.

Some time during the third month, I decided to really learn how to master side-lying nursing.  This did the trick!  I now feed her laying down and she would just fall asleep.  Up until a couple of days ago, her crib was sidecarred to our bed so all I had to do was scoot her over a bit to the center of the crib when she is in the "limp limb" stage of sleep.  Nighttime parenting: win (for now).

The thing now is getting her to nap.  I just don't know how to do it.  What I've done is wait until she shows signs of sleepiness (e.g., rubbing eyes, disinterest in toys, etc.) and I walk around with her until she is very calm.  And then I cradle her and rock her.  As I lower her down from my shoulder into a cradle position, she gets very upset and would cry anywhere from 30 seconds to 15 minutes until she falls asleep.  Ugh!  Other things that have worked consistently are putting her in a car seat (and either drive or just walk around with it) or carrying her in a sling/carrier.  The swing no longer works, unfortunately :(

Some of you may wonder, "Why don't you just nurse her to nap?"  I nurse Camille four times a day (10am, 2pm, 6pm, and 10pm) and her nap times are intentionally situated outside of these feeding times.  That is because if I establish this nursing-to-sleep pattern (which I wholeheartedly believe is healthy), it's just not going to work when I go back to school in June.   So for now, it's just nursing to sleep at night.  I still need a nap time solution.

I can already sense that Camille is going to be a high maintenance girl.  I know that we should somehow sleep train her.  But how?  Is it okay to nurse her to sleep at night but train her to sleep on her own for naps?  I know that there are many infant sleep books out there.  But I don't like to read.  So, you know, that's not going to fly.

I'd love to get your input into this whole sleep situation.  What did you do with your kid(s)?  What were some aspects that you wish you had known or done?  What advice do you have for us?

Thanks in advance!  We may not apply your method or read the books you recommend...but that does not mean we don't like or respect you.  If you'd like, you can even post anonymously.

So, yes, please help!

*I'm just anticipating that this is going to be an ongoing thing...