Tag Archives: sleep

Outdated Pieces of Baby Assvice

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A friend of mine sent me a link last week to a list of the “Most Outdated Pieces of Baby Advice”. A couple of the myths I hadn’t heard of, but most, for anyone who has taken a recent caring for baby class are very obviously myths. No real shockers here. What I find amusing are the comments that follow the article.

1. Myth: Infants need to be bathed every day.
I know a few people that bathed their babies every day, but I had never heard it as a piece of handed down advice. Unless my baby has a blowout, was slathered in sunscreen, or just needs to be cooled down after a hot day, I only bath the kids once a week. In the cases where the baby just needs to be cooled down I just use water.

I love the comment thread for this one though. One person said, “a person that poops and pees on themselves all day needs a bath”. Another reminds them that there are these things called wipes and it’s not like the baby is sitting in the same filth all day. Then there was a comment about wipes leaving a film. I’ve never seen this “film”. Another comment referring to the people that don’t bathe their kids or themselves daily, said what she was learning on the thread was that some have “dubious hygiene”. I think dubious hygiene would be not washing hands not refraining from daily bathing.

I actually think this is a non-issue. The kids I know/knew that were bathed daily are just fine and hove no skin issues that I know of. I simply prefer not to bathe my kids so frequently, and Lukas has sensitive skin, so bathing him more often would cause his baby eczema to be worse.

2. Myth: Babies sleep best in a room that’s silent and dark.
In my experience that is true, or should I say, for my two kids that is true. I’ve tried to get Lukas used to sleeping with noise. It just won’t happen. If his sister is home and awake. That boy won’t sleep. At. All. A lot of people say kids will get used to anything. I believe that’s true for the kids of a lot of people. Not mine.

3. Myth: When infants are running a high temperature, rub them down with alcohol to lower their fever.
I’ve never heard this one, but I imagine doing that would dry out the baby skin worse than bathing every day.

4. Myth: Letting your little one stand or bounce in your lap can cause bowlegs later on.
I have heard this one and when I did it was hard to not laugh in the face of the person that told me this and sincerely believed it. I honestly can’t understand how anyone could believe it.

Me causing my two-month old daughter to become bowlegged *scoff*

Picture taken 11/24/2007. Me causing my two-month old daughter to become bowlegged *scoff*

5. Myth: Listening to classical music will raise your baby’s IQ.
One comment on this one had me cracking up. “What I’d like to say is that while classical music may not increase anyone’s IQ, it IS scientifically proven that it does in fact access and grow higher function parts of the brain. They use it for something called musical therapy, with other types of music, but generally classical music is used because of what it does neurologically. We had to go through this with our child because of some significant learning issues – and I’ll say, it really, really works well!”

Any boost classical music gives is temporary, and the study was only done on adults, not children. “Rauscher et. al. show that the enhancing effect of the music condition is only temporary: no student had effects extending beyond the 15-minute period in which they were tested. The study makes no statement of an increase in IQ in general, but in participants’ spatial intelligence scores.” Marketers just took the results and ran with it.

6. Myth: Let your baby cry it out; if you pick her up whenever she’s wailing, you’ll spoil her.
I like the answer given, “Babies under 4 months of age have few self-soothing strategies; they know how to suck to soothe and like being swaddled, but that’s about it. Picking infants up when they cry helps them learn that parents will always be there to take care of them.”

Of course, the myth and the answer invoked a lot of back and forth about the “cry it out” method, which is a method for sleep, not daytime pick-up-the-baby “spoiling”. I used the “cry it out” sleep method on Sophia when she was four months and it worked beautify. I’ve tried it several times with Lukas and it has failed miserably.

There was one commented that said, “fact actually, I have seen babies older then the age you list, constantly cry when someone wasn’t holding him/her. The mother would basically have the kid on her hip all the time, so that trained the child.” Really? I think it depends on the kid. I think believe are born with their basic personality already installed, but the way some of these people comment it seems they think babies are born as blank slates.

Sophia has been clingy from the very beginning. Whereas Lukas I could leave to amuse himself for long periods, also from the beginning. When he cries I still go get him just as I did for Sophia. I don’t believe an infant can be spoiled especially not one under four months. I just don’t. Also somewhere between six months and nine months infants go through a clingy phase because they recognize some people as strangers, so they’ll want to be held by their caregivers more. Maybe that’s what the commenter saw. Because not every baby is looks at new people simply as, friends they just haven’t met yet. My first child sure as hell didn’t.

7. Myth: Babies should be woken up in the night to have a wet diaper changed.
I have never in my life heard anyone ever recommend waking up a baby for any reason. Ever. When the little shit finally passes out you just don’t wake them up. Don’t do it.

Actually, that’s not true, in the hospital I was told to wake the newborn up to feed them every two to three hours. I never woke up either kid to do that after coming home from the hospital. I figure that if the baby is hungry, their little tummy will tell them to wake up. I want my damn sleep. Changing a poor sleep pattern might be another reason to wake baby. Emergencies aside, I can’t think of another valid reason to wake up a baby.

8. Myth: It’s dangerous to immunize your infant if he has a cold or a low-grade fever.
I don’t think I’ve ever asked or gone in for a baby wellness check while either baby was sick so I don’t know what our doctor says about it, but whatever his response is, I’ll just go with that over the assvice from some random Yahoo parenting blog. I’m just sayin’.

9. Myth: Never apply sunscreen to an infant under 6 months of age.
In the article, it says that the risk of skin damage from the sun is worse than risk from chemicals in sunscreen. I don’t know about that. I’m thinking it just better to keep the baby out of the sun especially during the more sun intense hours of the day. Personally, I think if you’re going to be out in the sun with a baby under six months a baby hat and umbrella should be added to the baby baggage instead of sunscreen. If needed sunscreen used sparingly as the second line of defense, not the first.

10. Myth: During the first month of a baby’s life, it’s critical that all baby bottles and nipples be sterilized.
I don’t know about this one either. I wasn’t bottle feeding the first month so it wasn’t something I concerned myself with. I’d ask a doctor or take a baby feeding class through the hospital prior to having the baby. Really, I don’t see anything wrong with playing it safe. I don’t understand why this made the list.

11. Myth: The safest way to put an infant to sleep is on her stomach.
I’ve seen the statistics. It’s much safer for a baby to sleep on their back. The comments against the back-to-sleep campaign sort of boggle the mind. One commenter believes it’s “baloney” and that the major cause of SIDS was from parents using puffy blanks, pillows, and inappropriate sleep surfaces. It’s true that the majority of crib-death incidents were more likely to been found with the nose or mouth completely covered by bedding, and those of us born before the 90’s were most likely put to sleep on our stomachs and lived to tell about it. So no, it’s not an absolute guaranteed death trap to place a baby on their stomach, but why take the chance when studies show that the rate of SIDS dropped more than 50% since the back-to-sleep campaign started? I haven’t seen any stats showing the rate of SIDS cases with babies sleeping on their backs verses stomach without cushy bedding, So I can’t say without doubt that putting a baby on their back to sleep is overkill.

The same commenter said, “Another thing about back to sleep- it gets taken too far. After a while, when even the most paranoid mother thinks it’s “safe” to let their baby nap on their tummy the baby is used to sleeping on their back and prefers it. Take a look around the next time you’re around a group of toddlers and babies…. there’s a lot of kids with flat and misshapen heads nowadays. I even know a woman who had to get a helmet to reshape the baby’s head b/c of this. It’s ridiculous.”

First I’d like to say that I’d rather have a baby with a misshapen head than risk having a dead one, but that’s just me. I’m odd that way. I’ll agree that in reading the comments of others, some people appear to take it too far. I was told that once a baby rolls from back to front at night it’s fine to leave them that way. I’ve never woken my child for sleeping in a different position than the one I laid them down in (see my comments on Myth 7).

Many people keep their kids in strollers and car seats in addition to sleeping on their back and *maybe* don’t allow enough daytime “tummy-time”. That can cause the flat heads. For the helmet child, I believe that is from a genetic trait highlighted by following the back-to-sleep program and it doesn’t mean that the parents took the back-to-sleep too far or kept the baby in car seats or strollers all the time. The child would probably have a perfectly round head if he or she had slept on his/her tummy, however, again, I personally would rather risk a misshapen head than risk having a dead baby. Odd, I know.

Other information on SIDS:
Study: Babies’ low serotonin levels cause SIDS

12. Myth: Putting rice cereal in your infant’s bottle will help him sleep.
In the article they say not to do that for babies under four months because they’re more likely to be worse sleepers. I don’t know how any of that can even be measured. Both of my kids were breastfed only for the first four months. From birth, Sophia only ever woke up once or twice at night. Lukas wakes up anywhere from three to seven times a night even now at ten months. At my son’s four-month baby wellness checkup the doctor suggested we give him some rice cereal before bedtime. It didn’t help him sleep, but his sleep pattern isn’t any worse than it was before.

They also say in the article that feeding before four months has been linked to increased obesity later in life. Seriously? Tell that to the older and thinner generation that, as babies, were fed solids much sooner than we’re doing for the current generation. I’m guessing it has a lot more to do with how the whole family deals with eating and if food and eating are a constant topic at home, as in everything revolves around food. I swear they make child rearing seem like an exact science. If it were, and each misstep had lasting affects into adulthood we’d all be fucked. Each. And. Everyone. Of. Us.

13. Myth: It’s critical to keep your baby on a strict feeding schedule.
Seriously? Wow. You know, if someone were to hand me assvice like this I like this one I’d ask…and how do you think people kept such a schedule prior to the invention of the clock? I mean if it’s “critical” to regiment the schedule of an infant it would have had to be done even in times prior to everyone having a wristwatch or wall clock. I’ll just feed by the demand of the baby, thanks.

A commenter to the article that said babies with jaundice need a strict feeding schedule. I’d like to call bullshit to that one as well. I’ve had two babies with jaundice. They were both fed by their own demand. If a baby has jaundice it’s important to make sure they’re eating well so that the liver can do it’s job and process the bilirubin, but not necessary to set a timer. (Assuming the baby’s doctor hasn’t prescribed lights or given other instruction)

14. Myth: Infants need hard-soled shoes to protect their delicate toes and keep their feet properly aligned.
Much like the previous myth (number 13)…What do you think humans do prior to the invention of the shoe? If we needed hard-soled shoes to keep our feet properly aligned, I don’t think we would all be born with bendy feet and monkey toes.

nablopomo

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Sunshine and Lollipops Camping

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We went camping at our property with some friends this weekend. Some other friends came by on Saturday just to visit. We even had a visit from the mayor of the town. I friended the mayor on Facebook as someone I knew from way back in my days in the navy. It blows me away that he’s actually the mayor of a town…even a tiny town far beyond Bum Fuck, Egypt.

It was one of our first hot sunny days of the year so we spent a much of Saturday at the sand bar by the river watching the kids cake sand all over their sand monster selves. That night we were serenaded with illegal fireworks, which reminded Kurt and I of our old house in the hood. The sounds bounced and echoed off the mountains.

Lukas slept through all the noise but woke up cold in the wee hours of the morning. Adding blankets to him wasn’t working because he would just kick them up and they would wind up around his neck. He cried for an hour before Kurt decided he should just sleep with us. Then Lukas cried for about another hour before I took him and he instantly quieted down and fell asleep. Then I just couldn’t sleep. I had to pee, and Lukas was sound asleep. On. My. Arm. Damn kids. I pretty much just watched him sleep with his mouth open and head cocked to one side the rest of the night. How do babies not wake up with stiff necks?

We woke up to a rainy gloomy morning. I couldn’t tell when I friends woke up but by eight I knew I had heard voices from their pop-up camper so I went over and invited them into our mini cabin (it’s a shed on stilts). We shared breakfast foods and waited for the rain to let up.

When it was merely a grey day we all went outside so the kids could unleash their energy. We went for a walk while Kurt and Sophia stayed back to chain the ginormous picnic table the engineer over engineered to a concrete plug in the ground. I’m going to have to make the picnic table a whole other post, seriously.

Lunchtime arrived and so did another family of friends. They brought the rain back with them. We were overjoyed. Really. After lunch, which for Sophia consisted of a whole bag of tortilla chips, we went to the beach. At the end of the trail that leads to the river sand bar we call the beach the grey sky ended. No discernible wind that blew the clouds away, they were just gone. In place of the grey was sunshine and lollipops. Ok maybe it was chocolate cake sand castles.

making a birthday cake

Sophia actually playing with another child. I heard that she had started interacting with children at preschool, but this is one of the first times I actually witnessed interaction. They’re making “chocolate cake”. Sophia is obsessed with chocolate cake and birthdays. She kept singing happy birthday to me and Lukas.

watching Kurt make the cake into a sand castle

The kids were watching Kurt turn their “chocolate cake” over and make it a sand castle. Shortly after the photos were taken Sophia decided to make sand angels and her partner in crime there followed her lead.

nablopomo

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Animated Chatty Baby

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Lukas is very talkative. He’s also constantly moving. Even while I was pregnant, the boy wasn’t lulled by movement as I’ve heard is the case for most babies. He moved during the day, at night, it didn’t matter if I was walking, trying to sleep, or just sitting. That boy was moving.

Last month (5/23/11) after giving him a bath, he was really chatting up a storm. I believe he received Kurt’s lecturing gene. I pulled out the camera and snapped two pictures back-to-back, as quick as my camera would shoot.

animated chatty baby

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Sleep, My Elusive Old Friend

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I’ll start with a preemptive apology for and worse than normal grammatical errors and any worse than normal rambling and overall incoherence. I haven’t had a whole lot of sleep in the last few months. It began in the middle of pregnancy, though in those days I could still catch the occasional nap. Lukas started out as a very strong sleeper at birth, but the majority of his sleep took place during the day. It took us about two to two and a half months to switch him from sleeping those nice four hour stretches during the day to night time and even then there were a few nights where he quite literally woke up every thirty minutes needing the pacifier to plug the screaming hole in his face.

After two particularly crappy weeks of sleepless nights, I threw in the towel. After one midnight feeding, the next time he cried out, I simply closed the door to his room and then ours and I crashed for four hours. Kurt remarked how well I slept through the crying. I thought Lukas had eventually given in and that I had woken up to the sound of him starting up again. I had no idea the baby cried the entire time. This surely must be a sign of the stubbornness to come.

In the days leading up to Lukas’ four month birthday we were on a routine of him falling asleep at about ten at night, waking up three to four times a night, waking up for the day at about eight to eight thirty in the morning, and then only taking about three naps which lasted fifteen to thirty minutes. I didn’t feed him every time he woke up during the night, but still at four months old he should be able to sleep “through the night” without a feeding at all.

Lukas’ four-month baby wellness appointment was on Friday. The Boy weighs in at sixteen pounds. He is twenty-five and half inches tall/long, and his head circumference is sixteen and a half inches. He’s in the seventy fifth percentile across the board. He is currently wearing nine-month clothes because I can’t fit his melon head in six month clothes. He has reached all the milestones except the ability to roll over. He can recognize Kurt and I, which he has been able to do since he was two and half months old, he coos, smiles and laughs, and reaches for things. He can also self soothe. We can and do put him down for naps while he’s still awake. The boy just doesn’t sleep for very long, and will sometimes simply refuse to take a nap.

The doctor said it was absolutely fine to add some rice cereal to The Boy’s diet and that giving it to him just before bedtime should help reduce the number of times he interrupts my sleep with his nagging. That night we did just that and we put The Boy to bed at the same time Sophia goes to bed, eight. He didn’t like the cereal much and liked the bedtime even less. He only cried for half an hour but then started up again at nine or nine thirty. That lasted another hour before he finally got the hint. The next night he was quiet until nine but only cried for about fifteen minutes. Both nights he still woke three to four times. On the third night he went to bed without a fuss and only woke once. I wasn’t so lucky the fourth night. Putting him to bed isn’t an issue. Keeping him asleep for more than two hours is. I’m going to need tea that is a lot more caffeinated if this continues.

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New Green House

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We took possession of our new house at the end of October but because we wanted to replace the flooring prior to moving in we continued to live in the old house until the Monday after Christmas. Yep, we waited until after the baby was born and after opening a bunch of Christmas presents. Part of packing up the house included taking down a Christmas tree. It’s like we enjoy causing ourselves more work and pain.

I worried a lot about Sophia and the transition to a new house. Kurt and I talked about what we would do if she had a hard time sleeping in her new room. He suggested letting her sleep with us, but I didn’t want to start on that slippery slope. We never really came to a solid consensus. I guess it’s a good thing there was no need.

We brought Sophia with us every time we went to the new house to do things like tear up the old carpet and clean the bathrooms of the house that stood vacant for about a year. We kept a few toys for her at the new house and she quickly became comfortable enough there that Kurt and I could be upstairs working while she played downstairs. We told her often that this would be our new house and showed her which room would be hers. At first we planned on hers being the smaller of the two kid’s rooms so that a spare bed could be set up in the nursery. When Kurt showed her the small room she looked in the other room and said, “No, this one,” pointing at the larger one. We revised our plans since even the smallest room could easily accommodate a crib and queen sized bed. We planned that the big room would be hers in two years anyway. The first-born always gets the bigger room.

On Sunday December 26th we had a couple friends come over and help us pack the entire house up before the movers came on Monday morning. We explained to her that we would be taking all of our things, everything, to the new house. Sophia was fine with all the packing until was bedtime and she saw that someone had snuck in and packed her stuff while she played in the living room. You could see the shock on her face. The part that really upset her was that her bed was taken apart and she had to sleep on her mattress on the floor. “No take apart! Fix it bed,” she cried.

The movers showed up bright and early and Little Miss Meltdown didn’t want to get dressed. I knew seeing strangers take our stuff and put it in a vehicle that wasn’t ours would be tough for Sophia so we packed up the kids as quickly as possible and I sat in the new house with them for the few hours it took the guys to load. It went fast and I think once Sophia saw our things arrive and placed in the new house she relaxed. Kurt put her bed together first. The first night went without a hitch.

I still use the same grocery store that I did while living at the old house and a couple weeks ago I went shopping with Sophia. On the way home I took a route that lead us right past the entrance of the old neighborhood and from the back seat I heard, “No old house! New Green House!”

New Green House

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Evolving Sleep Patterns

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Sophia was sent to bed at eight…
*Thump* *padda padda padda* *Click* I heard her get out of bed, run across the room, and turn on the light. For a short time she played with toys, and then she went a step further…I heard the door open. I waited and could hear her just standing there for minutes, then she leaned forward and saw me. She smiled until I told her “back to bed”. I’ve never seen a smile disappear so fast. I made her so sad. I tend to do that A LOT!

That was ten days ago. Now she seems to fall asleep quickly but then wake up just before five thirty every morning in anticipation of Kurt’s alarm clock. She goes back to sleep around seven and will sleep until ten thirty if I let her. Sometimes I do just that. It’s nice to get a few things done in the morning without having to dance around her, or I’ll just sleep in myself.

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My little Mellow Yellow

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No, Sophia doesn’t have jaundice nor has she been smoking dried banana skins. Not that I know of anyway. She has been incredibly mellow for the past couple days though. Mellow, even for her.

The day before yesterday I spent the morning running errands. Sophia became frustrated with getting in and out of the car so I took her to the park to burn off some energy before doing some grocery shopping. She went to the play equipment excitedly but once on it she just stood there like a bump as kids made their way around her. She would wander around the park a bit, then climb on the equipment again, and just stand. I chalked it up to not being fully recovered from her cold. We didn’t stay very long.

Yesterday morning she woke up crying as she did everyday that she was sick. After about five minutes, she went back to sleep for an hour then cried again. I got her up at eight, gave her milk, and made breakfast as usual. She didn’t touch her breakfast.

It was supposed to be my cleaning day so I zoomed up and down the stairs gathering stuff together. Sophia got upset because she could keep up with me so I sat with her and read one of the books she always carries with her. After the third time through the book I told her I had to go clean the house. She wasn’t happy.

It was only 10am and she looked tired. Her tantrum seemed to me like a cry for a nap. I picked her up and put her in her crib with her book. She protested for about five minutes and then either sat quietly plotting my demise or fell asleep. It was completely silent until about three, but even then, I only heard a couple tiny sounds that didn’t seem like a fully awakened toddler.

I had left her there all day with the assumption that she must have needed the sleep, but at Kurt’s urging I got her up at four thirty so that she would still sleep at night. I opened the door to a fully awake toddler, laying on her back, and reading her book. She cuddled with us the rest of the evening. She wasn’t interested in playing at all.

mellow baby snuggling with dad

mellow baby snuggling with dad

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I need another break!

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Kurtie gave me most of yesterday off. It was nice, but today the light sleeping princess woke up too early because of Kurt opening a frozen shut front door followed by pounding on the doors of the truck outside. I’ve had nothing but screaming for an hour. At first, I tried to put her back to bed but that wasn’t working out so I decided that it would be time to get up. That didn’t work either. She kicked and screamed up a storm while I tried to get pants on her. I decided to let her go pants-less and I had her follow me around the house while I got dress and she screamed. I put her back to bed. I don’t want to jinx things and say that she may have gone back to sleep, but it is quiet in her room at this moment. This is me keeping my fingers and toes crossed that the rest of the day isn’t filled with screaming.

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Sleep Deprevation

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Before the whole ER and 911 fiasco Sophia had a pretty regular bedtime and wake time. She was doing well with naps and typically only woke up once during the night. That’s all gone to shit now. I’m not actually sure if it’s the hospital visits that did it or if it’s the teething. It could be the combo. Anyway since Kurt’s been home this whole week he has told be a number of times to go to bed earlier since I wasn’t getting much sleep since Sophia had got into the new habit of waking twice during the night and remaining awake precisely at the butt-crack of pre-dawn (5:30 am), which has forced me to take a nap sometime during the day.

Last night, knowing that I would be getting up to drive Kurt to work (no use disrupting a disrupted sleep schedule to visit daddy in jail for a DUI since he’s still taking painkillers) I went to bed at nine. The darling angel had gone to bed at 6 since she was dead set against a late afternoon nap. She woke up at 11:30, then again at 2:30, and a third time at three in which she decided it was morning time. I of course stayed up – I have no choice. I rocked her, nursed her, then finally I just placed her in the spare bed and laid down beside her. I think she went back to sleep around four. I put pillows around her and went back to my own bed. At 4:50 the cat thought it would be a good idea to tell us it was almost time to get up – he was gingerly placed in the garage by yours truly. 5:30 Kurt’s alarm went off and at 6:20-ish I got to wake the baby so that we could drive Kurt to work.

We are a grumpy bunch. Kurt went to warm up the car and I followed him putting his lunch in the car so he didn’t forget. “Now the light won’t go out,” he complained. “What light?”

“The light, the light,” he says pointing to the light that comes on when we open the car door. I reached in and flipped the switch from the middle setting to the “off” position and it went off. I put it back to the middle and it was back on since I had a door open. I slammed the door and the light magically went off. It was a little like the time a few years ago when he complained that I had too many red sweaters on the drying rack I use for things I don’t want damaged in the drier. Well, my red sweaters took all the space on the rack and there was no room to hang his motorcycle T-shirts. I told him to stop buying so many red sweaters for me.

There was another incident at Christmas time when his mom wanted to go to the mall to exchange the sweater I get her for the next size up. We arrived and Kurt announced that we only had fifteen minutes to spend there because he had to go pay a bill before the office closed for the day. His niece and sister wanted to shop around a bit so I suggested Kurt just leave us all at the mall while he runs his errand. “What? Do you want to spend all day here?” Umm no. He was insistent that there was only one way to do things, his way, the way that was stuck in his mighty melon head. We must all stay together and therefore we can only spend fifteen minutes in the mall. Ugg! I finally convinced him that he could go run his errand and meet us at the food court in an hour.

More recently I’ve been driving Miss Daisy eerr Mr. Kurt around and he insists I must take the route he would drive. I admit his routes are probably shorter and *maybe* faster (one can never tell in this area), but I’m the one driving and I do know where I’m going! So shut the hell up already!

Hhhhmm I think I got off on a bit of a tangent. I need a nap.

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