Where do toddlers nap?

Yesterday, I put Hannah down for her nap in her new bed.  I read her a story, tucked her in, turned on her sleepy music, turned off the light and shut the door.  I didn’t actually expect her to sleep after her performance the day before.

I could hear her playing in her room for over an hour.  She was happy as larry.

“Oh! Minnie Mouse!”

“Hannah run around!”

Then I heard her say ‘gina (which means vagina in Hannah speak), and a little later she possibly said poop.

Images of a naked Hannah, poo and pee all over the floor, herself, and all of her stuff, Hannah poking the poop, bewildered at what it was, filled my mind.

I voiced my concerns on facebook.  I wrote it before the possible poop comment:

I debated going in there because usually when she says poop when she is supposed to be sleeping, she really did poop.  Then she can’t sleep, or if she does, it’s only for 20 minutes or so because she has this irritating sticky log stuck to her bottom, making it all red, and preventing any real rest.  But, I wasn’t sure if she really did say poop.  So, I left it for a little bit.

And all went quiet.  I waited some more.  Still quiet.  She’d gone to sleep.

I changed my facebook status:

She slept for quite a while (I wrote that update after she’d been asleep for a long time. I had to be sure before facebooking it…).  3:30 rolled around so I figured I’d get her up.  I probably would have let her sleep longer, but I was really curious as to where she was actually sleeping.  If I waited for her to wake up on her own, I’d never know!

I grabbed the video camera.  There was no telling what I’d find in that room.

.

UPDATE:

Sound asleep IN her bed

Today Hannah played in her room for a while during nap time and then started banging on the door and calling “Mommy!”  I put her back in her bed, read her a story, and she fell right asleep.  When I went in to get her at 3:30, I found a peacefully sleeping little cutie right where I left her.

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Operation: Move and Tuck

Every night, I read Hannah a story, give her a cuddle, lay her down, put her blankets on, turn on the sleepy music (thanks to the baby monitor), say good night, and turn out the light.  No problem.  At least it didn’t used to be.  Recently though, Hannah has been ditching her blankets and moving about her cot before going to sleep.  Sometimes her feet will be where her head usually is.   Other times, and apart from losing her blankets, this is the issue, she will fall asleep sideways.  I don’t mean on her side, I mean her head and her feet are both against opposite sides of the cot.  The problem is she is too big to fit that way without having to make like a sardine and bunch herself up in an awkward, uncomfortable position.  Then she wakes up in the middle of the night and instead of resettling herself like usual, she has to move to a more comfortable position, and then is quite awake, and has trouble going back to sleep.  Not to mention she is cold, since she ditched her blankets.

I got brave one night before I went to bed.  Holding my breath, heart beating a mile a minute (because if you wake a sleeping baby, it’s pretty much the end of the world), I slowly turned the knob on the door that leads to her bedroom.  The bedroom with the sleeping baby.  I could hear every spring compressing as I turned the handle.  I shut my eyes, paused, listened, scrunched up my face in anticipation.  No stirring, she was still asleep.  Phew….  I opened the door and crept in.  Operation tuck had begun.  I snuck in Hannah’s room every night for a week and put her blanket on.  She didn’t stir at all.  Then I got even braver, I decided it was time to move her.  Maybe she wouldn’t wake during the night if she didn’t have to remove herself from her sardine can.

How do you move a sleeping baby?  Easy, this is how I do it, step by step:

1) Open door.  Don’t just open it, open it quietly.  Turn handle, then push door open.  You don’t want to find out what happens if you don’t get the contraption all the way inside the door before pushing.  Sleeping babies probably don’t enjoy the loud clicking noise it makes.

2) Enter room.  Hold breath and stay still after not so gracefully colliding with the dresser on entry.

3) Somehow navigate the minefield of toys and clothes and make your way over to cot in the dark.

4) Determine where in the cot baby is laying.

5) Find out which end is head, which is feet, preferably without taking out an eye.

6) Once shoulders are located, place hands under baby’s armpits and slightly lift baby while dragging to desired position.  Hannah prefers her head to be right up to the end of the cot, belly down.

7) Put blanket on baby.  Don’t cover her head, she won’t like that and you don’t want to smother her.  If your feeling really adventurous, you could tuck the blanket in at the sides.

8) this should be an 8, but it seems WordPress thinks it should be a smug looking emoticon man.  Stifle giggles and try to exit quickly without running into anything as baby does a long, loud fart which rivals grown mens.

9) Close door in manner discussed in step 1 (because we know what happens if you don’t turn the knob first).

10) Enjoy not having to get up in the middle of the night to recover or reposition baby.  Sigh in relief.

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Waking your baby up by camera flash is not a good idea

Dust storm

Time since birth: 12 weeks
Weight loss this week: 0, nada, zip, zilch:( (well, I gained weight last week and lost it this week bringing me back to exactly what I was last time I actually wrote the weight loss in the blog. I have started lifting weights again, so I’m going to tell myself that I gained some muscle then lost some fat…).
Total weight loss: 11.1kg

I looked at the clock. 5:56am. The baby monitor next to the bed was broadcasting Hannah’s “I’m waking up now” grunts/cries. Time to get up, baby’s hungry. There was a red glow coming from beyond the blinds. “What’s that saying? Red sky at night, sailors delight, red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. We’re in for a real storm today,” I thought to myself. I put on my pajama pants and bathrobe and went to Hannah’s room. “Mommy’s here Sweetie Pie,” I said, patting her belly. She gave me a huge good morning smile. I put her on her change mat to check her nappy. “What have you got in there this morning Bubba? Have you done a poo poo?” Cheeky grin. She has recently started doing a GIANT poo in the morning, and then either a couple of little poos through the day, or none at all (she used to do about 8 poos every day). I let her kick on her mat with her nappy off for about half an hour. She loves having her nappy off. “Ok Bubba, are you ready for your breakfast?”

7am. The eerie red glow from beyond the blinds was still there. I stuck my finger in the blinds and pulled down one of the slats (or whatever you call them). Red. Everything was red. It looked like Armageddon. Maybe there was a bushfire? No, not much bush in this area. Crazy intense sunrise? No, the sun should be up already. Cylons invasion? Probably not. End of the world? Possibly. The photographer came out in me and I grabbed my camera and went outside without a second thought. Not enough light. Better get the tripod. The smell of dirt filled the air. Even though I’d never been in a dust storm before, I knew that’s what it was as soon as I stepped outside.

After I took a few photos (not too many as I didn’t want to be breathing in all that dirt for very long), I went inside to watch the news. Turns out the dust travelled for something ridiculous like 1600km from the outback, turning Sydney into the twilight zone. By the end of the day, it had travelled all the way to far North Queensland. They said it is the worst dust storm in Sydney’s history. Aaron didn’t want to walk from the bus stop to work inhaling all that dust, so he was allowed to work from home that day.

After being cooped up inside all day, I decided I would get out and about the next day. I messaged the girls, and some of us met up for our very first Mum’s and Bub’s movie session. The cinema only charges $9 instead of $16 (or whatever ridiculous price movies are these days) for you to take your baby in a movie and disturb all the other patrons. No, the babies were all really good for the first 2 hours of the movie, they just got a bit restless for the last half hour.

I am happy to report that I have succeeded in my quest to get Hannah to drink a bottle. Well, I haven’t tried again since that fateful day, but I’m hoping it wasn’t just a one off. My boobs were so sore they woke me up at 6am, and Hannah had been asleep for nearly 11 hours. I pumped some milk, and decided this would be the perfect opportunity to get her to drink the bottle. She woke up after an 11 hour sleep (no, she doesn’t usually sleep for 11 hours straight. It’s usually 7-7.75, feed, then another 2-3) so ravenous, I don’t think she would have minded drinking milk out of toilet bowl.

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baby poo, vomiting, and sleepless nights

Time since birth: 3 weeks 1 day
Total weight loss: don’t know, keep forgetting to weigh myself before eating
Weight loss this week: see above

I’m starting to get used to middle of the night feeds, posseting (spit up/baby vomit), crying, etc. You’re in the hospital for 2 nights (some people are there for only one, or none!), then you go home, and really have no idea what you’re doing. I have to admit, I called the midwives at the hospital at night more then once when I was still “under their care” (which was until Hannah was a week old) to ask questions. The charts all say baby poo is yellow, what if it’s green? I call and ask. I think I’m just a paranoid mom. Is it ok that she only sleeps for 12 hours in a 24 hour period (it is for now, call back if it doesn’t improve)? Is that going to affect her development (no, the average 16-18 hours sleep per day is an average, some babies sleep for 10 hours, others 20, depends on the baby)? Is it ok that she poops about 10 times a day, a lot of the really small little poops (yes, some babies poop after every feed, some do just a couple of big poops, everybody poops!)? She gets the hiccups a lot, is that normal (yes, and it doesn’t bother infants apparently, although Hannah doesn’t seem to like them much)? She gets a lot of wind, is it ok to use infacol (wind drops for babies that bind all their wind together so they can easily get it up in one big burp/fart. And yes, it’s fine to use it does not harm them one little bit)? How do I know when one boob is empty (still not really 100% sure on that one…)? The lump in my boob has exploded to about 5 times the size that was, is that due to hormones (probably, but I will have an ultrasound on it again just to be sure. Then if it looks dodgy, I will have another biopsy. I had one a year ago, and it was just a fibroadenoma, which is benign. I think my body just likes to make lumps and tumours to scare me)? They probably think I’m a pest calling so often. But you know what? We just want the best for our baby, and want to make sure we are doing everything right.

Grandma gave me a book a number of months ago called “What to Expect When The First Year.” I just started reading it, and found that I’m normal. I’m not the only one that goes into baby’s bedroom to look at baby while she is sleeping just to make sure she is breathing. I’m not the only one who worries that I’m not making enough milk, or that she is not getting enough milk. Apparently pretty much every mother on the face of the earth does these things, which probably means that a lot of mothers call the midwives at the hospital to annoy them with questions like I did. The book answers a lot of questions, and has a month by month what to expect. I highly recommend it.

The other night, I woke up to the sound of crying on the baby monitor. I wasn’t feeling particularly hot, but I thought I must have been, as I was sweating between my boobs. It took me a bit to realise that it wasn’t sweat at all, my let down (when the milk starts flowing) has decided to not wait until Hannah starts sucking, but instead starts when she cries. I had milk all over my chest. Lucky I bought a few boxes of breast pads before Hannah was born.

I have a special chair in Hannah’s room that I feed her in (except sometimes during the day I feed her on the couch now that I’m skilled enough to do so). It’s a gliding rocking chair, with a boomerang pillow that I put on my lap to lay Hannah on so I don’t have to actually hold all of her weight. I lay her on her side on the pillow, across me, with her mouth on the chosen boob. One day, after feeding her, I noticed she had a wet patch on the front of her onesie, off to one side. How in the world did she wet herself there?? I could understand it a bit if she were a boy, maybe it was pointing there when laying on his side or something, but a girl? At the next night feed, it happened again. How in the world are you doing this, little one? That is when I realised that when feeding on one side, the other side leaks. She didn’t wet herself at all, I wet her! I don’t particularly like wearing a bra to bed, so now I just put a breast pad between me and Hannah during the night feeds. Problem solved, no more wet Hannah Banana.

Friday I met with some of the girls from my antenatal class (and a couple of the husbands were there too as they had not yet gone back to work). We (girls) decided that we want to meet up regularly and go for pram walks (a walk while pushing babies in prams) and lunch. I decided (ok, Hannah’s tummy decided) that would be the perfect time to try feeding in public. I don’t really want to be one of those “hi, here’s my boob” people, so how do you do it discreetly? We all went to the local cafe, but they seemed none to happy to accommodate us and didn’t even try to help us move tables so we could all sit together and have room for our prams (even though they didn’t have any customers at the time, and would have gotten a nice chunk of change since there were quite a few of us), so instead we went to the pub. Hannah decided before we arrived that it was meal time, so I had to do it. It was quite awkward at first. I got one of the girls to hold up a cloth while I attached Hannah, but when you have to do it a few times (she likes to be burped a few times during each feed), that is just not practical. On the other hand, I didn’t really want everyone to see my boob and nipple, so what do you do? I tried to do the cloth thing myself (throw it over your shoulder, try to attach baby), but how do you see what you are doing? That didn’t work. I finally decided the best way is to bring baby to boob, then when baby’s head is blocking view of boob, that is when you pull up your shirt. Before you bring baby’s head to boob, unhook feeding bra so all you need to do when baby is blocking view of boob is pull up shirt, and bam, baby is on nipple, and unless someone was really trying to see and at the right angle (like sitting right next to you), no one will see your goodies. At least I don’t think they will. I feel a lot more comfortable with the whole thing now. The build up was nerve wracking, you just have to do it.

We still haven’t taken Hannah to very populated places (like shopping centres) (she has only been for walkies around where we live, to the pub for lunch, bible study, and church). Maybe we are being over protective, but we are afraid of taking her where lots of people are because we don’t want her to get their germs. Swine flu is on the prowl, we don’t want our little Hannah Banana to get swine flu! We decided that when she is 6 weeks old, then we will start taking her out. Her little immune system is just not ready for the world yet (or our silly brains, one or the other).

The linea nigra (line going down the centre of my belly) is supposed to go away after birth, but I wonder how long it takes. Mine is still there, loud and proud. It does look rather odd, with no big pregnant belly to accompany it. It hasn’t even remotely faded. I still can’t fit my butt into my pre pregnancy jeans (which fit me with the belly belt until the last couple of months of pregnancy when my butt seemed to expand), yet I am quite small, so I must have been really small before. And I always thought I had a big bum. I suppose I’ve just gotten bigger all over, so you don’t really notice that I’m bigger then before I was pregnant (it’s in proportion is what I’m trying to get at. I don’t make a lot of sense, must be lack of continuous sleep).

One night, I awoke to something touching me. As I woke up more, I realised I was being patted. Aaron was patting me like you pat a baby. Rhythmically, gently, patting my hip (I was on my side). He must have been dreaming about holding Hannah because he was fast asleep. I grabbed his hand and held it against my hip. I got some nonsense, not actual words asleep garbledy goop in response.

Everyone tells us how cute little Hannah is. People even say she looks like a doll. I may be biased, but she certainly is cute! I may be weird, but I often just look at her while she is feeding, or sleeping on my shoulder, and marvel at how absolutely cute she is. Her little face is just perfect. When she gets an upset tummy (wind), I wish I could just take away her pain so she never has to feel it. I want to protect her from everything. I guess that’s just being a Mom.