Pool Time
Friday, December 31, 2010
New Year's Eve...maybe I'll still be awake at midnight
I tried a new swaddling technique last night. Instead of the Miracle Blanket, I used a Halo SleepSack, which we inherited from a friend. It was fleece, which probably was a little warm for Brendan since he had footed jammies on, and it was the newborn size, which was short enough in length that his feet pressed against the bottom of the sack. He definitely wasn't happy when I put him in it, and he woke up crying at 2:15 (usually he wakes up gradually with a lot of squirming and squeaking, which I hear over the monitor). Usually I catch him before he actually starts crying, to prevent him from waking my husband. Not this time; he was pretty unhappy. However, after he went back to sleep following that feeding, he slept until almost 8:30. Five whole hours. He did start squirming at about 7:30, and I did hear him. But I left him alone to see if he'd go back to sleep. He did, which is great (although I lay there for the hour, listening for any sounds that I needed to respond to). I know I need to let him self-soothe, but it's hard. I need to start small, like I did this morning. Maybe eventually he'll sleep through the night...
Monday, December 27, 2010
You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger
Pretty much every night I thank God for His gift to us: the swaddling blanket.
Swaddling is a practice that has been used for thousands of years by pretty much every culture on the planet. Babies are wrapped in fabric or blankets, securing their arms and legs and making them into a cute little loaf. Some cultures secure babies to boards or baskets as well, making them exceptionally portable (take that, car seat!).
In the 18th century, swaddling started falling out of favor in western Europe. Apparently, it was associated with neglect, thanks to wet nurses who would leave children swaddled all day long (which meant they didn't clean them, change them, or have to worry about them crawling around on the floor). In the US, since we value our freedom so much, swaddling lost favor because it meant parents were restricting their children's movements when they had just escaped the oppression of the confining womb. Or something like that. People argued that children would be behind in their physical development because they hadn't had the chance to work on their coordination and strength since they were all wrapped up.
But in the last 20 years or so there has been a resurgence in western cultures with swaddling. Studies have shown that it helps keep young babies asleep longer, since they don't startle themselves awake with sudden reflex movements. Also, it seems to help reduce the occurrence of SIDS, because babies who sleep better on their backs when swaddled don't get placed on their stomachs and so don't end up rebreathing their exhalations with their faces pressed into the bedding. And studies are showing that the resistance swaddling affords to a child actually helps develop muscle strength.
Swaddling certainly has helped Brendan. The nurses swaddled him in receiving blankets at the hospital, and we continued that practice at home. However, blankets offer a bit of a challenge--if you do it wrong, the baby can get loose, which defeats the purpose, and of course the baby will eventually outgrow a blanket and need a bigger one. We received a gift after a few weeks of a Miracle Blanket from a family friend. This blanket is a contraption with a bunch of flaps and a pouch. Two small flaps hold the baby's arms down by his sides, the legs go in the pouch, and the two big flaps wrap around the baby several times. If you use the Miracle Blanket correctly the baby cannot get his arms loose and won't throw them up over his head (the "falling reflex", which tends to startle the baby awake) or rub them into his eyes. This blanket has been so great, we bought another one, so we'd have a back-up when the first one went into the wash.
However, the Miracle Blanket does have a drawback we've discovered: Brendan has figured out that he can "climb" his feet up the inside front of the pouch. Sometimes he can get a whole leg out; other times he gets his knee out and then gets stuck. Regardless, it bothers him enough to wake him up. Also, he's getting taller every day, and so we have to keep moving the blanket down farther and farther, with more and more of his chest and shoulders sticking out of the top of the blanket. Eventually he's going to be able to get his arms loose. So I'm starting to wonder how much longer to keep swaddling him, and how to wean him off of it. I've read in a few places that 4 months or so is about the right age. Brendan is only two months now. Also, they say to start out with an arm out while the other is swaddled. Not sure how to do that one with the Miracle Blanket. Be I'll have to start figuring it out, because I definitely think the time is coming...
Swaddling is a practice that has been used for thousands of years by pretty much every culture on the planet. Babies are wrapped in fabric or blankets, securing their arms and legs and making them into a cute little loaf. Some cultures secure babies to boards or baskets as well, making them exceptionally portable (take that, car seat!).
In the 18th century, swaddling started falling out of favor in western Europe. Apparently, it was associated with neglect, thanks to wet nurses who would leave children swaddled all day long (which meant they didn't clean them, change them, or have to worry about them crawling around on the floor). In the US, since we value our freedom so much, swaddling lost favor because it meant parents were restricting their children's movements when they had just escaped the oppression of the confining womb. Or something like that. People argued that children would be behind in their physical development because they hadn't had the chance to work on their coordination and strength since they were all wrapped up.
But in the last 20 years or so there has been a resurgence in western cultures with swaddling. Studies have shown that it helps keep young babies asleep longer, since they don't startle themselves awake with sudden reflex movements. Also, it seems to help reduce the occurrence of SIDS, because babies who sleep better on their backs when swaddled don't get placed on their stomachs and so don't end up rebreathing their exhalations with their faces pressed into the bedding. And studies are showing that the resistance swaddling affords to a child actually helps develop muscle strength.
Swaddling certainly has helped Brendan. The nurses swaddled him in receiving blankets at the hospital, and we continued that practice at home. However, blankets offer a bit of a challenge--if you do it wrong, the baby can get loose, which defeats the purpose, and of course the baby will eventually outgrow a blanket and need a bigger one. We received a gift after a few weeks of a Miracle Blanket from a family friend. This blanket is a contraption with a bunch of flaps and a pouch. Two small flaps hold the baby's arms down by his sides, the legs go in the pouch, and the two big flaps wrap around the baby several times. If you use the Miracle Blanket correctly the baby cannot get his arms loose and won't throw them up over his head (the "falling reflex", which tends to startle the baby awake) or rub them into his eyes. This blanket has been so great, we bought another one, so we'd have a back-up when the first one went into the wash.
However, the Miracle Blanket does have a drawback we've discovered: Brendan has figured out that he can "climb" his feet up the inside front of the pouch. Sometimes he can get a whole leg out; other times he gets his knee out and then gets stuck. Regardless, it bothers him enough to wake him up. Also, he's getting taller every day, and so we have to keep moving the blanket down farther and farther, with more and more of his chest and shoulders sticking out of the top of the blanket. Eventually he's going to be able to get his arms loose. So I'm starting to wonder how much longer to keep swaddling him, and how to wean him off of it. I've read in a few places that 4 months or so is about the right age. Brendan is only two months now. Also, they say to start out with an arm out while the other is swaddled. Not sure how to do that one with the Miracle Blanket. Be I'll have to start figuring it out, because I definitely think the time is coming...
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Hello, again, hello
OK, so it's been a little while since my last post. I had this naive idea that I would be posting regularly about my experiences as a new parent, but I've discovered that I'm too busy being a new parent to blog about it much!
Brendan is a pretty good baby. He's 8 1/2 weeks old now, almost 12 lbs and 23.5 inches long (up from 8 lbs and 22 inches at birth). While he doesn't sleep straight through the night yet, he usually wakes up just once, for about an hour and a half, generally around 2 am. Not too bad, really. Also, the feeding woes have eased up quite a bit, although I have found that I do need to keep pumping pretty regularly, if not pretty often, to help keep my supply up. Brendan's almost completely off formula, but he does get a bottle from time to time if it seems like he's still hungry after I've fed him. He's making more vocalizations, starting to smile when he sees us, and sticking his tongue out (which is really cute). So he's developing his personality, and so far it seems like he's going to be a pretty good kid. Stay tuned on that score.
He got his first vaccinations last week. Three shots and an oral medication. They were to cover something like nine different diseases. I know there's a huge debate these days on whether or not vaccinations contribute to the increase in autism, but I just don't see enough evidence to suggest a strong link. My husband and I (and our siblings) were vaccinated as kids, and we're all fine. So we'll see what happens. He's due for the next round of shots in a couple months.
But the real reason I felt an urge to post has nothing to do with my own parenting experiences, but with something horrible that happened to a former schoolmate of mine. The guy in question wasn't really a close friend or anything, more like we hung around with some of the same people. He was a year ahead of me in school. Anyway, through the magic of social networking we've become friends on Facebook, which means an occasional comment on a status or picture, and a "happy birthday" on the corresponding day. You know. So, back during the summer, as I was in the first half of my own pregnancy, I noticed posts from him about his own impending offspring. He and his wife were having a boy, fairly soon from what I could gather from his posts. I congratulated him, mentioned my own pregnancy, and didn't really think much else about it. But I noticed that he was posting things like, "No baby yet" and "Due date moved again" in his statuses. When people asked about it, he said the baby's lungs were not developed enough yet. I took note of a few of those posts, and then didn't really pay attention to anything else. I've got a lot of Facebook friends, after all (I'm a game whore, the kind of person who accepts friend requests from people I don't know for the purpose of increasing my game armies. Now I'm more of a game skank, since I only play four games instead of twelve), and my news feed is full of tons of status updates, game posts, pictures, videos, and general crap that wastes my time pretty effectively. I probably noticed an occasional status update from this guy but didn't really think anything about it. But yesterday I did catch his status, and it shocked me.
His status said something about his mother-in-law coming over and taking some of his dead son's stuff, and how it had only been a week and she was never going to come over again if he could help it. It was laced with profanity and poorly spelled (which could have been either from being posted from a mobile phone or from stress), which is probably what caught my attention. In any case, I went back and looked at previous statuses he had posted, along with other people's comments, and discovered that they had finally gotten around to inducing his wife last week, and that they had lost the baby (and discovered a tumor, which they were going to operate on). I was saddened to read such news, but a number of people were also commenting on how long she had been pregnant, and I was thinking myself that surely she had been due before me, so I went back and looked at his previous posts.
His wife's original due date was JULY 17! She was induced in DECEMBER! That means she was pregnant for 14 MONTHS! I know there was obviously some kind of drastic birth defect, for his lungs to not have developed correctly even given that much extra time. But seriously, how could her doctors have let her go that long? I would have thought that they would have either done a c-section to get the kid in the NICU as soon as possible or realized that the pregnancy was probably going to end in stillbirth and gone ahead and delivered the baby sooner to at least make it somewhat easier on the mother. I know how stressed my body was after nine months; I cannot imagine carrying a baby five months longer than that, to say nothing of being under the stress of knowing the pregnancy was going horribly wrong.
When I think of all the things that could have gone wrong in my pregnancy and delivery (and those are just the things I know about), I realized how blessed we really are. And my heart just aches for this guy and his wife, and for everyone who has lost a child or been unable to have a child.
Whew. Anyway, I will try to get a little bit better about posting updates. Also, expect some weight-loss-related posts in the new year (I've lost all but ten pounds of my baby weight, but then there's that pesky 50 lbs or so extra that I've been carrying around).
Brendan is a pretty good baby. He's 8 1/2 weeks old now, almost 12 lbs and 23.5 inches long (up from 8 lbs and 22 inches at birth). While he doesn't sleep straight through the night yet, he usually wakes up just once, for about an hour and a half, generally around 2 am. Not too bad, really. Also, the feeding woes have eased up quite a bit, although I have found that I do need to keep pumping pretty regularly, if not pretty often, to help keep my supply up. Brendan's almost completely off formula, but he does get a bottle from time to time if it seems like he's still hungry after I've fed him. He's making more vocalizations, starting to smile when he sees us, and sticking his tongue out (which is really cute). So he's developing his personality, and so far it seems like he's going to be a pretty good kid. Stay tuned on that score.
He got his first vaccinations last week. Three shots and an oral medication. They were to cover something like nine different diseases. I know there's a huge debate these days on whether or not vaccinations contribute to the increase in autism, but I just don't see enough evidence to suggest a strong link. My husband and I (and our siblings) were vaccinated as kids, and we're all fine. So we'll see what happens. He's due for the next round of shots in a couple months.
But the real reason I felt an urge to post has nothing to do with my own parenting experiences, but with something horrible that happened to a former schoolmate of mine. The guy in question wasn't really a close friend or anything, more like we hung around with some of the same people. He was a year ahead of me in school. Anyway, through the magic of social networking we've become friends on Facebook, which means an occasional comment on a status or picture, and a "happy birthday" on the corresponding day. You know. So, back during the summer, as I was in the first half of my own pregnancy, I noticed posts from him about his own impending offspring. He and his wife were having a boy, fairly soon from what I could gather from his posts. I congratulated him, mentioned my own pregnancy, and didn't really think much else about it. But I noticed that he was posting things like, "No baby yet" and "Due date moved again" in his statuses. When people asked about it, he said the baby's lungs were not developed enough yet. I took note of a few of those posts, and then didn't really pay attention to anything else. I've got a lot of Facebook friends, after all (I'm a game whore, the kind of person who accepts friend requests from people I don't know for the purpose of increasing my game armies. Now I'm more of a game skank, since I only play four games instead of twelve), and my news feed is full of tons of status updates, game posts, pictures, videos, and general crap that wastes my time pretty effectively. I probably noticed an occasional status update from this guy but didn't really think anything about it. But yesterday I did catch his status, and it shocked me.
His status said something about his mother-in-law coming over and taking some of his dead son's stuff, and how it had only been a week and she was never going to come over again if he could help it. It was laced with profanity and poorly spelled (which could have been either from being posted from a mobile phone or from stress), which is probably what caught my attention. In any case, I went back and looked at previous statuses he had posted, along with other people's comments, and discovered that they had finally gotten around to inducing his wife last week, and that they had lost the baby (and discovered a tumor, which they were going to operate on). I was saddened to read such news, but a number of people were also commenting on how long she had been pregnant, and I was thinking myself that surely she had been due before me, so I went back and looked at his previous posts.
His wife's original due date was JULY 17! She was induced in DECEMBER! That means she was pregnant for 14 MONTHS! I know there was obviously some kind of drastic birth defect, for his lungs to not have developed correctly even given that much extra time. But seriously, how could her doctors have let her go that long? I would have thought that they would have either done a c-section to get the kid in the NICU as soon as possible or realized that the pregnancy was probably going to end in stillbirth and gone ahead and delivered the baby sooner to at least make it somewhat easier on the mother. I know how stressed my body was after nine months; I cannot imagine carrying a baby five months longer than that, to say nothing of being under the stress of knowing the pregnancy was going horribly wrong.
When I think of all the things that could have gone wrong in my pregnancy and delivery (and those are just the things I know about), I realized how blessed we really are. And my heart just aches for this guy and his wife, and for everyone who has lost a child or been unable to have a child.
Whew. Anyway, I will try to get a little bit better about posting updates. Also, expect some weight-loss-related posts in the new year (I've lost all but ten pounds of my baby weight, but then there's that pesky 50 lbs or so extra that I've been carrying around).
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