Parenting Ups and Downs

It has been an up and down run of days on the parenting front.

Last night, I lost my temper with Pumpkin, who was being oh so difficult at every stage of our evening routine. She wouldn't sit on her potty or get ready for her bath at all, so I picked her up and whisked her into her room for a time out. All I succeeded in doing was making my abdomen hurt (and it had been healing so nicely after the C-section!) and making Pumpkin scream. In the end, she skipped her bath and I felt like a terrible mother.

But tonight, we got her into her Halloween costume, to check that it will work. She wanted to be a horsey, so we bought the Get-Up Clippity Clop Horse from Amazon, and some brown clothes. My Mom made a tail out of some white fleece. We put it all together tonight, and Pumpkin LOVES it. She was so happy, galloping up and down our hall in her horsey outfit. I felt like a much better mother.

Now, I'm sitting here watching Petunia sleep, wondering when babies start to settle into something like a predictable schedule. I can't remember, and I suspect I knew this when Pumpkin was a baby. I think I have forgotten a lot of the "what most babies do" facts I knew, probably because Pumpkin didn't behave at all like "most babies". Poor Petunia, not only am I not doing much research now, she doesn't even get the benefit of the research I did the first time around!

I really want Petunia to wake up and nurse one more time before going down for the night. Unfortunately, I think she is in the midst of her first (and longest) snooze of the night, which does not bode well for me and my hopes of getting a good four hour stretch of sleep. (We've started Petunia on one bottle of pumped milk per night. Hubby does the first nighttime feeding, which means that if Pumpkin goes to sleep reasonably close to on time I can get four- or even five!- hours of sleep before Petunia wakes up for her second feeding.)

We are apparently not fated to have babies who sleep "well". I knew that this was likely, but still, I had hoped for better luck this time around. I'm not ready to give up that hope yet, but the signs are so-so. Petunia does nap better than Pumpkin did. But our nights are interrupted by three feedings, and she is usually quite difficult to settle back down after her last feeding, which is usually around 5 a.m. I can't really remember what Pumpkin did- although I do remember that her days started at 4:30 a.m. for the first month or so. I guess I should consider myself lucky that Petunia will consent to sleep in until 7 many days, albeit with some parental effort required!