Mom On The Run

Breaking News…..

Sierra, my most wonderful and adorable 37 month old daughter (pictured below) is now completely, and totally potty trained!  Yes!  You read right!  She’s a big girl now and no longer wears diapers…. AT ALL!  Not in the day AND not at night either! 

In March Sierra came home from daycare one Wednesday and announced that she was a big girl and no longer needed to wear diapers.  Following her lead, I removed her diaper and helped her put on a pair of big girl undies.  Since that day she’s had only a few accidents.  She even travelled to Florida with us for a whole week mostly accident free!  (There was a diarrhea accident at Sea World that led to me walking around the theme park in a bikini…).  A few times since then she’s woken up with a dry pull up. Each time we made a big deal out of it, hugging her congratulating her and telling her how proud of her we are.  She has now woken up 11 straight nights dry!  For the first 8 nights she was wearing a pull up.  Then on the ninth night, Rob convinced her to try wearing big girl undies to bed…  She woke up dry again!  So for the past 3 nights she’s been wearing her big girl undies.  Each night she woke up dry including last night when she woke up and began to cry because her "Dora" doll wasn’t in her bed (she was so tired at bed time that she fell asleep without her). 

These "little" milestones always reminds me of how long it’s been since I first held that warm little 5lb bundle of joy and energy in my arms.  It completely blows my mind how "grown up" she’s becoming and how fast time is flying by.  Every day she becomes even more amazing and wonderful – I’m so proud of my little big girl! 

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My best friend religiously reads my blog.  She and her hubby have been married less then 2 yrs and so far have no kids (but not because of lack of desire – oy!  that didn’t come out right).  Anyways…  I was over at her place for her birthday BBQ on Saturday and she said my blog is some seriously good  birth control.  Lately I’ve only been writing the bad crap about parenthood – how the baby won’t sleep, worrying about leaving them at daycare, dealing with sick babies and vaccinations, stressing over a baby that can’t walk etc…  She wanted to know more about the good stuff.

The good stuff?  Hmmmm…  I haven’t given that much thought lately.  But boy oh boy – there are good times!  Like today – without kids fishing would never be so fun:

In the picture on the left, Sierra is trying to lure the fish by doing a dance (I’ve never laughed so hard in my life) and in the picture on the right, she’s imitating daddy.  We got very wet in the rain, and didn’t catch any fish – but we sure had fun!  Even our non-walking little Brookie had fun:

Just look at her precious smile as she butt scoots around through the puddles. 

So what else is great about parenthood?  Nothing, nothing can ever compare to how my heart swells when Sierra wraps her little tiny arms around my neck, squeezes just a little too hard and yells very loudly into my ear – I LOVE YOU MOMMY!  There are about a million other good things – like watching your off-spring play nicely with each other:

Baths will also never be the same – I never get to take one by myself anymore, and I’m not sure I’d want to either – baths without toys and friends sure are boring…  Hubby has just added that one of the best parts of parenthood for him is being called a handsome prince by Sierra.   And tonight?  Sierra helped him shave his "pricklies" by sitting on a step stool on the bathroom counter while wearing his t-shirt (that she absolutely insisted that she had to wear)…..

These examples are all from today, and I could go on and on and on about why kids are the best thing to happen to me.  But what about you?  Maybe you could also help my friend out and share what makes parenthood worth all the hard work for you?

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I think I’ve posted numerous times on this dear ol’ blog o’ mine that Brooke does not sleep well. Falling asleep nursing at bedtime is no problem for her. In fact, if I nurse her at 8:15 pm she can pretty much fall asleep anywhere in the house. Her bedroom, the living room, the basement, the kitchen, even in the bathroom after a bath. She also has no problem falling asleep away from home – we tested that out during our week vacation in Florida and our week "vacation" at my MIL’s in Ottawa. Even daycare has reported that rocking her to sleep for naps is not met with much resistance. She’s the happiest baby I’ve ever met, and rarely ever gets grumpy, so its difficult for me to tell if she’s over-tired or not.
Anyways, here’s the issue: Brooke wakes up several times a night and will only fall asleep after I nurse her. Sometimes she falls asleep nursing, sometimes she falls asleep on her own in her bed after nursing, and sometimes she fusses and needs to be rocked to sleep after nursing.
Here’s an example of a typical night:
8:45 pm – nursed, then fell asleep rocking in rocking chair
10:20 pm – woke up, fell asleep nursing
1 am – may or may not have woken up – I’m so tired I can’t remember
3 am – woke up, fell asleep nursing
5:45 am – woke up, fell asleep nursing, but woke up at 6:05 am when I placed her back in her bed
I have tried having her fall asleep by crying it out. It didn’t go well, as she cried so much at bedtime that she threw up and pooped. I didn’t have the heart to try again during the night, and for several weeks afterwards she cried and shook her head "no" whenever we even entered her room. This led to her co-sleeping with me for several weeks where the two of us repeatedly woke each other up through the night (I occasionally rolled into her and elbowed her in the head). This week she’s been sleeping in a toddler bed next to my bed. Initially this went well. She fell asleep on her own after nursing and only woke up once a night to nurse again. Then she got her menjugate vaccine at her 1 yr check up, and all hell broke loose thanks to the kick butt fever she had as a result. I don’t know if the 3 good nights we had were because of the bed, or because she was catching up on sleep after a bad week of sleeping previously.
Brooke’s naptime behaviour has been erratic. It always has been. I don’t know what came first, the chicken or the egg – as Brooke frequently would fall asleep in her infant carseat for 45 min as I drove home from dropping Sierra off at daycare at 9:30, and would fall asleep again sometime later in the afternoon. Was this because thats when Brooke needed to nap? Or was this because the car was soothing her to sleep even though she wasn’t tired? Before I went back to work, I spent a week at home with the kids and would entertain Brooke past her morning nap, forcing her to nap at noon. She would generally nap well for 2 hrs or more, and would sleep well at night, only waking up once to nurse. She hasn’t quite found her rhythem at daycare yet. Sometimes she naps early in the am for 40 min then again later in the day, and other times she naps after lunch fairly well. I have noticed that if daycare allows her to nap late in the afternoon, then Brooke sleeps poorly at night and goes to bed later.
I’ve spoken to a few of my mommy friends about our sleep issues who have recently returned to work and are continuing to breastfeed (I must say that I’m very impressed that there were so many in my workplace!). Apparently we’re all having the same issue – frequent night wakings!
So, dear internets, with regards to Brooke’s frequent night wakings, is this a form of separation anxiety because I’ve returned to work? Is this because Brooke is falling asleep nursing and waking up with the boobie gone? Is this related to the age of Brooke (just over a year)? Will Brooke outgrow this (and even wean herself) if we do nothing? Or should we resort to leading night-time weaning with the cry-it-out method? What’s your experience? What would you do?
Thanks for your help!

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Dear Menjugate Vaccine,

I hate you! I hate you for making my baby feel so incredibly awful! I hate you for being the reason my sweet wonderful baby spiked a fever of 103 that lasted 36 hours. I hate you for interfering with her sleep AND my sleep! I hate you for making me wrestle and pin my baby down to take her Advil, Tylenol etc…. I hate you for the amount of worrying you caused my husband, my baby’s caregivers at daycare and myself. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

I hate you,
Brooke’s Mommy

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Over this past weekend, hubby and I purchased a toddler bed for Brooke, with the hope that it would solve her sleeping (or lack of sleeping if you will) issue. We weren’t really sure when we would begin using it – whether we’d just put her in it in my room next to my bed, or if we would do the whole cry-it-out thing in her crib, then move her to a toddler bed when she was older. However, Saturday night our A/C decided that it was over-worked and under-paid and went on strike. Brooke’s room doesn’t have a ceiling fan so Rob dusted off the table top fan we stashed into the garage when we moved. After 10 min of dusting, it was finally clean. Rob plugged it in and voila! It had also decided to go on strike (actually, I think this thing has completely resigned). Thankfully we had just bought the toddler bed, so We set it up for Brooke in my room Saturday night so that she could sleep under the fan. She slept on it beautifully both Saturday and Sunday night – waking up only briefly and falling asleep quickly after nursing. I think the trick is that she’s now back in the same room as me, and doesn’t fully wake up. I pick her up with the slightest little peep out of her and slip her some boobie to pacify her back to sleep. With her in a seperate bed beside me I’m now longer rolling into her and waking her up all night – Yay!

OK, so now you’re thinking, how does this relate to the post title, right? Well Monday night we once again placed Brooke in her toddler bed. I slept next to her in my bed. Tuesday morning Rob woke up at 6 am when he heard his bedroom door squeak open. He looked over at the door expecting to see Sierra standing there, but instead saw nothing. Then he heard the tiniest voice cry out: "Daaa Daaa!". He looked down, and there was Brooke on all fours crawling over to him! He picked her up and began playing with her, waiting for me to come in and snuggle too. 5 minutes went by and there was no sign of me. After changing Brooke, Rob brought her to my room to tease me about bringing her to his room, then sneaking off to go back to sleep. The thing is, I was fast asleep, and had NEVER woken up!  Brooke was the one doing the sneaking…. she woke up, slipped out of her bed quietly, then snuck off to Rob’s room!

EDIT: Rob and I have been sleeping in separate rooms for the past 4 years because either I’m a very light sleeper or he snores far too loud…

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Everyone said summer would be the perfect time to have a baby.  You can go out for walks, get some fresh air, being outside settles the baby, blah, blah, blah…  ANd for the most part they were right!  Summer #1 rocked!  Baby slept in the sling while DD#1 and I went to the park, out for walks, to amusement parks, splash pads etc…  DD#1 and I had a blast that first summer.  What they didn’t tell me is that summer #2 (the summer that baby would turn 1) would suck.  Suck, suck, suck!  I hate it – oh how I hate it!  Why? 

BABY CAN’T Walk YET!

Most would think that’s a good thing – no chasing around an insane toddler who doesn’t comprehend that roads and parking lots are dangerous, that running in front of a kid on a swing at the park is also dangerous, etc….  But truth be told, it’s a royal PITA.  Apparently, babies don’t like to crawl (or butt scoot as in our case) on pavement.  Pavement scratches their delicate skin.  Scratches cause crying, not being able to play with older sister causes frustration and crying, being left behind causes frustration and more crying, sitting in a stroller to watch all the other kids have fun also causes frustration and crying, trying to crawl through grass causes frustration and crying. Crying, crying, crying! 

The obvious solution is to just stay inside and play with baby – but it’s summer people!  3 yr old, big sister, Sierra wants to play outside after being held captive indoors most of the day at daycare.  ANd seriously, who can blame her?  I also want to be outside.  Baby Brooke also wants to be outside – she stands at the window, points outside and repeats, "That,that, that…".  So what’s a mommy to do?  Does anyone have any ideas on how I can meet the diverse needs of these two little ones?

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