Postpartum

Last week, the tragic death of Miriam Carey briefly put postpartum depression in the news. We still don't know what led to the events that culminated in Carey's death, and I will not speculate on that here. But it made me think again about my own experiences postpartum, and perhaps now enough time has passed that I want to write about them in more detail. Already, the details are fading into the haze of early motherhood, and I would like to be able to remember my experiences more clearly.

I did not experience anything that I would characterize as postpartum depression, although I did have a hard time making the transition to motherhood. Looking back, it is impossible to separate the effects of chronic and severe sleep deprivation, hormonal changes, and the unexpected difficulties I had navigating societal expectations about mothers. There is no denying that I was a bit of a mess, but there was a lot of joy in the day to day. I chose to write mostly about the joy here, because I (mistakenly) thought that is what I'd most want to remember. It turns out, though, that the joy has stayed sharp in my memory much more than the difficult bits have. I did post occasionally about specific problems, and I also sometimes acknowledged the fact that I found the transition to motherhood harder than many other women do. Looking back through my earlier posts, I don't find that many details about the difficult bits, though. It wasn't so much that I didn't want to write about the details of why I found that transition hard as that I didn't know how to write about it. I still don't, really.

I know enough about depression to know that whatever was going on with me in my first year of motherhood, it wasn't that. I wish we had a better way to talk about how hard the first year (or two) of motherhood can be beyond discussion of postpartum depression. PPD is too important a topic to clutter with experiences like mine, but experiences like mine should be discussed, too.

The times postpartum I came closest to depression (and perhaps was indeed experiencing depression) were during weaning. I experienced quite strong effects on my mood anytime I dropped a nursing session. For this reason, I weaned very slowly. If dropping one session made me feel depressed, I didn't want to find out what going cold turkey would do.

Pumpkin, a few months post-weaning.

Even with the gradual approach, weaning was one of the hardest parts of motherhood for me, which always felt strange, since breastfeeding was one of my favorite parts of motherhood, once the early difficulties were past. It seemed strange to be suffering so much to end something I liked, but both times, I knew it was time to wean. With Pumpkin, I weaned because I was pregnant again and nursing was making my morning sickness worse. Also, I thought it would be best to be well and truly past nursing Pumpkin before the new baby arrived. With Petunia, I weaned in part because I was afraid that if I didn't take advantage of the window of opportunity that presented itself, we'd be that outlier mother-child pair that was still nursing when the kid was 7 and in part because I needed to introduce a little more space between me and her. She always was, and continues to be, a child who prefers snuggling mommy to anyone else. Usually, that is wonderful. Sometimes, though, it feels smothering.

Anyway, for a few weeks after each dropped nursing session, I felt lethargic and ineffectual, as if I couldn't do anything "right." Little setbacks at work or at home loomed unnaturally large. I was prone to crying jags over minor things, like forgetting to buy the kids' favorite flavor of yogurt. The heightened sense of anxiety that I remembered from pregnancy returned, and I was once again playing out detailed responses to ridiculous scenarios in my head at night, like "what would I do if a car crashed through the front of my house?"

I'm not sure how I was able to have the detachment needed to diagnose the problem. I can't remember how I figured it out. I think I might have read an off-hand comment about the possibility that weaning could cause depression. It was probably in a comment on AskMoxie, but I can't remember the post. Anyway, something made me recognize what was going on, and that helped quite a bit. I felt less crazy and out of control, because I had a reason for the weird things going on in my head, and, most importantly, a reason to think that the weirdness would end.

Petunia, a few months post-weaning, with Pumpkin.
Petunia is wearing that polka dot dress now.

Even once I knew what was going on, I didn't talk about it much. I left a few comments on blog posts mentioning the problems I had, and I mentioned it here a few times. But for the most part, I didn't talk about it. Friends in real life joshed me good-naturedly about how attached to breastfeeding I was, and how I was going to have to "give it up" eventually. Those comments hurt, but I never told them so. The thought of needing to explain what was going on with me was too exhausting, so I just smiled and pretended everything was fine.

And in the end, everything was fine. My kids are weaned. My moods went back to normal. All is well.

Still, I think we would be better off as a society if we found a way to acknowledge the varied realities of new motherhood, to talk about how becoming a mother can mess with your mind in a myriad of ways, and to get all new mothers support as they work through the changes that baby brings. We need to let mothers talk about what has been hard for them without trying to convince them that it shouldn't be hard. I have no idea how to make that happen, but I am pretty sure that it would help if more people talked openly about what early motherhood was like for them. This post is my attempt to start doing that. Feel free to join in, either in the comments or in a post of your own.

Tying Up Loose Ends

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! This year, Pumpkin was supposed to write her own valentines. She has eleven classmates, plus she wanted to give cards to two of her teachers. We started off strong, completing nine of the valentines over the weekend, most of them in one sitting on Saturday. The last four were quite a trial, though. Pumpkin wanted them to be perfect, and would erase anything that didn't meet her standards. There were many rest breaks with her head on the table. I exhausted my patience, and went off to get Petunia to bed. Hubby managed to convince her to finish up, but the experience clearly took quite a bit out of him. After Pumpkin was in bed, he decided to relive the highlight of last year and replay the New Zealand-Australia semi-final from the rugby world cup.

The holiday was rescued, though, by how excited Pumpkin was to give us all our valentines this morning. She had made one for Daddy (with my help), written one for Petunia, and dictated one for me (clearly, she'd run out of steam). Petunia was really excited, too, when she saw the little Cinderella card inside her envelope. She kept it next to her all through breakfast.

This evening, Pumpkin was most excited by the candy, pencils, and stickers that had come with her valentines at day care. Petunia, though, just wanted to go through her cards, repeating who each one was from. Very cute. I'm not sure if this was worth all the hassle with getting Pumpkin's valentines done, but at least it ended the holiday on a high note.

--------------------------------------

The song from which I lifted the title of my last post was an obscure 80s song- Having It All, by Eighth Wonder.



It was on the Absolute Beginners soundtrack, which my sister had- on cassette. For some reason, it has stuck in my head all of these years.

-------------------------------------

I did finally draw another winner for the Jeanne Baret giveaway. I've notified the winner and she's sent her contact details, so I guess that's that.

--------------------------------------

Remember back in November/December when I was trying to wean Petunia and she wasn't cooperating? Well, I gave up, and now she's weaned. OK, technically, she's almost completely weaned. She still sometimes asks to nurse, but when she does she rarely nurses for more than a second or two. I think the last "real" nursing was last Tuesday (Feb. 7), and the last time before that was probably around January 24th. I've decided that she's weaned enough for me, and I'll let her decide when to stop asking to nurse. Unless she's still asking when she's in kindergarten or something- which seems unlikely.

I knew that I just needed to chill out on that one and wait, but my god, that was hard to do.

------------------------------------------

Petunia's sleep is also improving. She's sleeping through until 4 or 5 in the morning most nights now. I like it best when she wakes up at about 4, comes padding down the hall, climbs into bed with us, and then snuggles in and sleeps well until we get up at about 6:30. This doesn't happen that often, but I'll also take her sitting up at 5 a.m., screaming for me, and then snuggling and kicking me in her bed until 6:30. It is a vast improvement over the status quo at the end of the year (which saw me spending half of my night getting aggressively snuggled/kicked).

Of course, last night she woke up at about 2 a.m. and I ended up spending the rest of the night in her room because every time I woke up and thought I might move back to my own bed, she was restless. We're not to sleep nirvana yet, but we're getting closer. (Sleep nirvana = both kids sleeping through the night most nights.)

-------------------------------------------

My boss is still a bit freaked out over my outburst in that meeting- which is funny, because, really all I did was raise my voice a little bit and then leave the room, and as one of my team members pointed out, he yells more than that in roughly half of the meetings he comes to.  He's stopped trying to deflect work from me, so I think things are going back to normal. We'll see how all of this plays out at review time. I suspect that if I can bring my projects in roughly on time, all will be forgotten. If I don't bring in my projects on time, I guess we'll see how much he really blames himself for the situation. But I have every intention of bringing my projects in on time.

--------------------------------------------

Pumpkin has discovered that the hair on the LEGO Friends figurine comes off, and has swapped hair/hats among Olivia, the dude that came with the house, and the castle guard.

So, I continue to feel absolutely no angst about the fact that we bought one of the LEGO Friends sets.

--------------------------------------------

We won't hear about our school choice until April or May, but it is still nice to have the choice part done. We were at a birthday party on Sunday, and everyone was talking about schools. It was interesting to hear what other people chose. A lot of Pumpkin's day care classmates will be heading to private school in the fall- but there are a few others who chose public school, including the two sets of parents with whom we get along the best. It will be interesting to see if we manage to stay in touch once the kids go on to kindergarten- we all chose different schools, mostly because we live and work in different areas.

-------------------------------------------

Anything else I've left dangling? Ask in the comments.

Updates on Things You Probably Haven't Been Wondering About

I have a long list of "real" posts lined up, waiting for me to write them. Among other things, I want to talk about ambition and my goals in life. I've promised Fishscientist that I will write a post about project management and becoming a project manager. And I want to write about how to keep pervasive sexism in your chosen line of work from getting you down.

But I can't find the time or the head space to write any of those things right now. It is all I can do to stay sort of caught up at work and semi on top of Christmas preparations at home. The month of December: brought to you by the letter C, the number 25, and the feeling of doing everything half-assed. It doesn't help that Petunia has brought several colds home to me since mid-November- I feel like I am constantly a little bit under the weather. Still, this is a huge improvement over last year, when Petunia and I spent most of December feeling really miserable.

So, I'll give you some updates on things I've written about recently, in no particular order. But don't worry- I'll have a "real" weekend reading post this week. In fact, I think I have three possible themes to choose between.

------------------------------------------------

The ornaments on our tree are far more clustered than you can tell from the picture I posted. Maybe these two photos will give a better flavor for our ornament distribution:

Some have been moved since they were originally hung, but we're discouraging that, for the sake of my sanity.

-----------------------------------------------

The giveaway on my post about the Secret Agent Jo books is still open. I'll choose the winner on Saturday. I actually may have another giveaway post soon. I've been sent a copy of The Discovery of Jeanne Baret, by Glynis Ridley to review, and I think I get a second copy to give away. (Incidentally, I've started the book and like it so far- so, if you're stuck for a gift idea for someone who likes biographies of obscure but interesting historical figures, this would be a good gamble. However, I'm only about one chapter in, so I can't promise it doesn't suck in the end. And yes, if you're wondering, that description does fit me pretty well- which is why I agreed to do the review.)

Long time readers know that I don't do this sort of thing often- it is just random luck that I'll have two giveaways so close together. I've never done a giveaway before, and as far as I can recall, there are only two other freebies that I've reviewed on this blog- Baby Signing Time volumes 3 and 4 and 168 Hours, which I didn't so much review as use as a starting point for a series of posts. So never fear- this isn't turning into a blog where I'll write about anything someone will send me for free! I only accept things that I'm interested in, and I'll never sell my opinion. Still, if the occasional giveaway and/or review bothers you, feel free to tell me why in the comments. I don't promise to change my mind about doing them, though.

I also find it interesting to look at the readership stats. That Secret Agent Jo post has more hits than either my recent rant about women and negotiation or the post about being a feminist mother- two of my more popular recent posts. Clearly, Brenda's book tour is sending a lot of new people my way. I wonder if any of them are sticking around? (Any new readers out there who want to say hi?)

However, because Blogger isn't smart enough to filter out hits from crawlers, none of these are as popular as a random post I wrote about Petunia starting day care, which Blogger thinks 50,903 people have read. I am quite confident that there aren't that many people on this planet who are interested in Petunia's first days at day care.

-------------------------------------------------

I called the schools we're considering for Pumpkin to arrange tours, and discovered that the two magnet schools will have tours on Monday, January 9. My husband and I decided to take the day off work and do both tours on one day. When I called our neighborhood school, they said that they would probably have tours sometime in January, and I should call back then. At first I was a little bit annoyed with this answer, but then I figured that we don't have to decide whether or not we're going to our neighborhood school by February 15- just whether or not we want to try to get into one of the magnets. So I've calmed down on that front. If you have any additional questions I should ask, there is still time to tell me about them!

------------------------------------------------

Pumpkin's reading skills continue to improve, and she's still enjoying learning to read. I am fascinated by the learning process. Watching my kid learn to read is one of the cooler aspects of parenthood so far. But I have to admit, I sometimes have a hard time sitting still and listening to her slow progress through a book. Our most recent book was Harry and the Lady Next Door, by Gene Zion, and Pumpkin was sooo proud when she finished it. I was just glad it was done- and that is not an indictment of the book, which is actually a good story.

-------------------------------------------------

Progress on weaning Petunia continues, albeit slowly. We're down to nursing before bed, mostly. Some nights, she forgets. And sometimes she really, really wants to nurse at some other random time. I decided to ease off on my self-imposed deadline of the end of the year. It didn't seem smart to add forced weaning into our mix this month. We'll be done when we're done, I suppose.

She is also still as clingy and mommy-centered as ever. I'm beginning to think that the approach I used to get through these phases with Pumpkin- namely, give her all the mommy she wants and just wait it out- might not be the right approach with Petunia. But I don't really have any other bright ideas that seem consistent with our parenting philosophy, so I continue to spend half of each night snuggling with Petunia in her bed. We definitely should have bought her a nicer mattress.

Her language skills continue to improve, though. She is now very clear when she tells her Daddy to go away if he tries to come to her when she wakes up in the middle of the night. "No, Daddy! 'Way!"

-------------------------------------------------

I think that'll do it for tonight. But if I've forgotten to update you on something that you've been curious about, ask in the comments.

Weaning, Exercise, and Other Updates on Things That Aren't Going As Well As I'd Like

Thanks for all the sympathy and ideas on my last post, everyone. The cold is receding, albeit slowly, so things don't look quite so grim. But I still don't feel up to writing any of the "real" posts I have queued up, so I'll give you some updates on a few things.

First- weaning. As you probably guessed, I am too adverse to being screamed at to go hard core at this. I also have noticed pronounced effects on my mood as I drop feedings, so I go very, very slowly for my sanity, too. You'd think this would be easier the second time around, but I weaned Pumpkin when I was about three months pregnant with Petunia, and I was probably helped by the changes in milk supply and composition that brought on. Certainly, my resolve to wean was helped along by the fact that nursing exacerbated the queasiness I felt almost constantly in the first trimester. Even so, I remember having to back off for awhile and then try again. When I did try again, weaning was very easy.

I have no real reason to wean Petunia right now, other than that I'm ready to do it. I've set myself an arbitrary goal of being done by the end of the year. We'll see how it goes. I started following the "don't offer, don't refuse" method about four months ago, and now I'm in the actively distracting/trying to substitute method- but I'll usually go ahead nurse her if she won't be distracted, except when I physically can't do it, such as when I'm trying to cook dinner. I've substituted a bowl of her favorite cereal (Oatmeal Squares) for the after day care nursing, and mostly that is working out OK, particularly if I start a DVD or TV show ("Doh!" in Peunia-speak) right as she finishes her cereal.

The first thing in the morning nursing looks likely to be the next one to go. I am intrigued by the fact that she's following the same pattern Pumpkin did as far as dropping nursing sessions. I'm hoping that means she'll drop the middle of the night one soon, too....

----------------------------------------------

Next- exercise. A couple of weeks back, I realized that even if I succeeded in convincing Petunia to let me go for a decent run on Thursday nights, it was soon going to be dark by the time we got home, and the thought of running in the dark just didn't appeal to me. So I needed another plan.

I've never been a big fan of exercise DVDs (or videos- this aversion goes way back, although I do remember doing Jane Fonda's workout with my Mom and liking it). But I was out of other ideas, so I went looking for a likely DVD on Amazon. Petunia likes to dance in her cute toddler way, so I searched for a dance workout. I settled on 10 Minute Solution: Fat Blasting Dance Mix. It came over the weekend, and I was planning to try it out tonight.

I stuck with that plan, even though I'm still not 100% over the cold and even though I got home late thanks to the extra traffic that the Chargers-Raiders game provided. I started with the simplest workout. It wasn't what I was expecting- I thought there would be actual songs and we would dance/exercise to those. Instead, there was just a techno/dance beat. Still, Petunia was intrigued- but then decided that she wanted me to hold her while I did the routines (we often dance with her in our arms). So that didn't go so well. Then she decided she wanted more cereal, and I decided I wanted a chance to get some exercise more than I wanted her to wait for her dinner, and let her have the cereal, which allowed me to do the second half of the 10 minute routine unencumbered. It wasn't bad.

When the first 10 minute routine finished, Petunia decided she wanted to watch another routine, even though I thought I would turn it off and get our dinner heated up (hooray for leftover night), so I put on the abs routine, and even tried a little bit of it while I shuffled dishes in and out of the microwave. Also not bad.

So the jury is out on this one. I like the 10 minute workout idea- I'm already scheming about how I could maybe squeeze one in on one of the nights when Hubby is giving the girls their bath- and the workouts I tried weren't bad. But it is still an exercise DVD.

---------------------------------------------------

Next- big girl bed. Remember way back in August, when I said that I thought we should get Petunia a big girl bed? Well, we finally did it. The one we'd bought for Pumpkin was no longer available (both the store we bought it from and the manufacturer are now out of business), so we had to shop for a new one. This was a major undertaking- Hubby doesn't make furniture decisions lightly. Unfortunately, we couldn't find many beds like what we wanted: with a bookcase headboard and under-bed drawers, but not a tall captain's bed, since Petunia is not that big. We finally ended up ordering the bed and headboard on Amazon. (Why not? We buy everything else from them...)

They arrived last week, and we set the bed up over the weekend. When I say "we," I really mean Hubby. I took the crib down and eventually put the sheets and duvet on the bed, but he did all the hard work. Petunia LOVES her new bed, which is no surprise, since (1) she likes to get on everyone else's bed and (2) she likes anything that her big sister has. I had hoped that the bed would make bedtimes easier, and maybe it will. So far, though, it hasn't. My plan was to continue to rock her to sleep in her rocking chair, and then lay down with her and thereby do away with that annoying thing where she's asleep, but then wakes up when we put her down. She won't have anything to do with her rocking chair, anymore, though. She insists on climbing into her bed- by herself, thank you very much- and going to sleep that way. The first couple of nights were disasters. But then I thought to tell her that Pumpkin goes to sleep by getting her back patted. I asked Petunia if she wanted to try that, and she said yes- and amazingly, that is working. Our bedtimes are back down to 30 minutes, which is a big improvement.

The bed is definitely making it easier to get her back to sleep when she wakes up in the middle of the night (I just lay down next to her), but has yet to work the magic that Pumpkin's big girl bed worked, and do away with those night wakings altogether. Its still early days, though, so I continue to hold out hope.

-----------------------------------------------------

Finally, an update on something that IS going as well as I would like- Pumpkin's reading. My Mom came over when Petunia got sick last week and stayed for the weekend. She took Pumpkin to the library to pick out some new books to try reading. Our library didn't have most of the things that you all recommended, but they still found some good books. Pumpkin really likes reading Hop on Pop right now. I'll probably order some of your recommendations soon, either from Amazon (of course) or via interlibrary loan, but for right now she's happy with what she has. She definitely prefers to read one book over and over until she basically memorizes it, which is fine with me- it gives me more time to get my act together and get some more early readers on hand.

That's all the updates I have right now. Is there anything I missed that you're wondering about? Ask away in the comments.

I'm Not Dead

... I just feel like maybe I should be.

I exaggerate. I have a head cold, courtesy of Petunia. I am sitting here drinking a pathetic virgin hot whiskey (i.e., honey and lemon in hot water- virgin because once it is done, I'm having a Benadryl), feeling sorry for myself. I wanted to sit and watch TV with my husband while I drank my pathetic drink, but he doesn't have anything not annoying recorded. Our DVR died a while back, and he never set up the Daily Show and Colbert Report again. Boo.

Even so, I don't think I have a real blog post in me tonight. So I'll just give this helpful advice to fathers and other people who have never breastfed: weaning is harder than it looks. Saying "just say no" is no more helpful in this context than it was in the context of convincing teenagers not to take drugs. And the next person who suggests this to me may be required to come to my house after work and attempt to cook dinner while the addict toddler screams at your feet, alternating between frantically signing "more" (which also for some reason only known to her, means "I want to nurse") and trying to physically push you away from the counter.

I defy anyone to withstand that and not cave and just go ahead and nurse already when the phone rings and the person on the other end tells you he's going to be 20 minutes late for dinner because there is an accident on the freeway.

And then you look at the sweet little happy face nursing and wonder why you're weaning in the first place.

And then you blow your nose for the 7000th time since walking through the door, and you remember that once you wean, you'll be able to take something stronger than Benadryl for a cold.

So you suck it up, balance the still traumatized little addict toddler on your knee while you eat your now cold dinner (which no one else is eating, anyway), and tell yourself that you'll do better tomorrow.

Less and More

Today is the first day that Petunia is away from me and I am not pumping for her.  I had intended to do this earlier, but she kept getting sick- we have had an incredible run of upper respiratory infections here at Chez Cloud, starting in early December. So I kept pumping once a day, always planning to stop when Petunia was over her latest illness.

To be honest, I have not been in as big of a hurry to drop this last pumping as I thought I would be. As it was with Pumpkin, the decision to stop pumping is bittersweet. In fact, I would probably have kept going, but I have a job interview on Thursday, and it runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.  Since I know one of the people who set this up, I'm sure they already know I have kids. Besides, I've never really gone in for the "don't let them know you have kids" advice for job interviews- I can see that it might apply in some situations, but I've never found the environment in biotech to be that unwelcoming. If any one company is bothered by my status as a mother, then frankly, I'd rather work elsewhere. Of course, I've never been in the situation where I absolutely have to get a particular job.

So, if I weren't ready to stop pumping, I'd ask for the time to do so. But, deep down, I know it is time to stop. It is just that I needed something to set the date. With Pumpkin, my stop date was set by the fact that she was going to move up to a room at day care that didn't use sippy cups. With Petunia, it is the fact that I have a job interview.

My baby is growing up. She's walking more now. She's talking and signing more, too. She sees birds and points at them and says "buh" while waving her hand by her face, in a very cute approximation of the sign for bird. She was slow to take to cow's milk when we first introduced it, but she's drinking it without complaint now. In fact she asks for it- "muh", accompanied by a cute approximation of the sign for milk. It is time to let her be more toddler, and less baby.

--------------------------------------------

In other news, I went to the doctor today and discovered that I've lost about 5 pounds since I was laid off, which explains why all of my jeans seem too big.  Given that this time period included Christmas, with all of its yummy cookies, I'm more than a little surprised. Now, I intended to get more exercise now I that I have a bit more time on my hands. But in actuality, I've gone for a run three times. I'm up to a whopping 14 minutes running (surrounded by about 30 minutes of walking). I doubt this minimal exercise is the reason I've lost weight. And as I mentioned above, I've decreased my milk output, so I don't think I can credit the calorie burning effect of breastfeeding. I'm left with the conclusion that I was eating more of those little miniature candy bars that were scattered around the offices at my job than I thought I was.

I hope wherever I land next just has a vending machine.

The Beginning of the End, Round Two

I'm slowly tapering off pumping for Petunia. I've been down to twice a day for a while now, and next week, I will probably drop down to once a day. I suspect that by the new year, I'll be done pumping altogether. Just like with Pumpkin, I have mixed feelings about this. I certainly don't love pumping, but it also is an indication that my little baby isn't so little anymore.

With Pumpkin, I pumped past the one year mark because she was not very good at eating solid foods. Petunia is a different story. She hasn't really taken to dairy, but she eats a lot of other things really well. I made my carrot cake pancakes last week and they were a huge hit with Petunia- she polished off her first one and then pointed to the plate for more. She eats strawberries, pasta, bread, and tonight she tried chicken nuggets and liked them. (Why is it easier to get toddlers to eat chicken if it is breaded? We've had no luck with "regular" chicken yet.) I'm fairly confident that she'll start drinking more cow's milk as the amount of breastmilk available to her during the day is decreased, and if she doesn't, we'll probably be able to find her another source of calcium. So I'm not sure why I've kept pumping. The initial delay in introducing cow's milk and tapering off breastmilk during the day was due to the antibiotics that cleared up the mystery illness- I didn't want to miss any tummy problems from the cow's milk because of the inevitable tummy problems from the antibiotic. But now... I think I'm just having a hard time admitting that my little Petunia, my last baby is getting bigger.

Strangely, the lay off may actually move things along faster than they would have otherwise. I find pumping at home to be a pain- unlike at work, where I had a little room where my pump was out of the way (for obvious reasons...), at home the best place is on the sofa in the living room. This inevitably leads me to turn the TV on while I pump and then BAM! I've lost two hours to some stupid cop show.  (Sneaky move, cable channels, putting the same show back to back to back....) If I do that twice a day, my day is pretty much over, and I haven't accomplished much at all. Also, I'm trying to meet up with people for networking lunches and coffee breaks and the like, and my pumping schedule is getting in the way. Suddenly, I'm ready to be done.

Tonight, I watched Petunia playing after dinner. She was happily stacking her Little People Blocks and looking more like a toddler than a baby, really. They'll be moving her up to the "older baby" room at day care soon- she visited that class today, and apparently had a great time. It is time that I face it- Petunia's babyhood is almost over. It seems to have gone faster than Pumpkin's did, somehow, despite the fact that I was sure that I would stop and appreciate things more this time around!

A Dilemma

I'm doing milk math again. At one point, Petunia seemed to be decreasing her milk intake, and I thought that I'd be able to drop a pumping session. That didn't happen. Instead, she ramped her milk intake back up. During the week, Petunia gets four bottles of a day- three at day care and one in the middle of the night, from Hubby. The bottles have between 4 and 6 ounces of milk. She also nurses approximately four times a day- once first thing in the morning, twice in the evening before bed, and once in the middle of the night. I can't really say how much milk she's getting when she nurses, but I'd guess that it is between 3 and 6 ounces each time.

I'm pumping four times a day, three times at work and once before bed. This weekend, I tried to add in an a pumping session each day, but that is hard to do, and I didn't really get that much. I certainly won't be able to make up the difference over the weekends. I've already started taking fenugreek again, and smell faintly of maple syrup- so I know I'm taking enough. Still, I've been slowly depleting my frozen milk supplies. At one point, our freezer seemed to overflow with little plastic bags of milk, frozen in 3 ounce aliquots. Now, I'm down to 6 bags. How did that happen? At the rate I'm using them, I'll be out by next week.

So, I have a decision to make. The way I see it, I have three options:

1. Keep going as we're going, and just replace one bottle each week day with formula. I have no problem with this option in theory, but in practice it would be the first time I've used formula since the first few days of nursing Pumpkin, when we had latch problems and had to supplement. Perhaps because I associate formula use with those difficult times, I'm strangely resistant to this option. I'm usually a fairly rational person, though, so I suspect I can overcome this irrational resistance. But Petunia's never had formula, and may refuse it. Or it may upset her tummy.

2. Stop having Hubby give a bottle in the middle of the night. I'd do all the night time feedings, and would probably therefore need to sleep in on the weekends. Even with that, I'd be really tired, because I wouldn't be able to get my minimum sleep requirement of 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Pumpkin's bedtime is too late to make this possible. Now, I could go to bed before she does, but that would probably create more problems than it would solve.

3. Accelerate our plans to introduce dairy and hope that this causes Petunia to get more of her calories from solid foods. According to the latest opinion from the AAP, we could introduce soft cheeses and yogurt now. (When Pumpkin was this age, we were told to hold off on all dairy until she was a year old. So I think these guidelines are really just someone's wild guess.) We may do this anyway, but there is a good chance that it won't work. So I'm not sure I want to bank on it.

I vaguely remember hitting a similar problem at about this time with Pumpkin. I think I was able to add a morning pumping session and some extra weekend sessions and managed to make it through. Adding more pumping sessions is not an option this time- and that realization makes me a bit sad for poor Petunia. (Which is silly, I know, particularly when I look at the wonderful chub on her little thighs and arms. The girl is clearly not starving.)

What do you think? Am I missing any options? What would you do?

Maybe My Next Post Should Be About How Much I Want to Win a Million Dollars

Petunia hasn't even touched her third bottle for the past couple of days. (I usually send four bottles, of which she usually drinks three.)

She has been eating solid foods for about a month, and she has recently really ramped up her intake. So maybe she will drop down to drinking less milk consistently, and I won't have anything to worry about.

Or maybe the last couple of days were just a fluke, and next week she'll be back to sucking down three or four bottles a day.

So thanks for all the great tips in the comments to the last post, but maybe I won't be needing them, after all.

Time in a Bottle

Someday, in the not too distant future, I won't spend any time getting anyone else to sleep. And I suspect that this will make me sad.

In the meantime, my evenings are punctuated by seemingly non-negotiable sleep needs and chores (oh, the never-ending chores), leaving little time for anything else. I am stealing a few minutes between Petunia's bedtime and Pumpkin's bathtime to write this post.

Given the paucity of free time in my life, I am loathe to add another non-negotiable task to my evenings. So I am trying very hard to avoid adding an evening pumping session back into my schedule.

However, I am not keeping up with what Petunia is drinking at day care, and I am watching my frozen supplies dwindle. We haven't reached a critical point yet, but it is looming on the horizon.

I have nothing against formula, but I stubbornly don't want to use it. I am blessed with an abundant milk supply- really, you almost need an over-supply to keep up with a baby by pumping- and since I went to great lengths to provide Pumpkin with nothing but breastmilk, I feel like I should do the same for Petunia. For fairness, you know. (Yes, I know this is silly.)

Regardless, I view the little bottles of milk as liquid time, because they are not irreplaceable- I can make more (see above about the abundant supply), but to do so requires time, and of that I do not have an abundant supply.

All of this is to explain why it drives me absolutely bonkers that I can't figure out how to explain how I want the day care teachers to handle the last two bottles I send for Petunia, to maximize the amount of milk that I can reuse the next day. (I send extra because she refuses to settle into a schedule, so some days she needs it. Anything that has not yet touched her lips can be reused the next day. Anything that she has had a crack at has to be tossed if it is not used that day. Believe me, it hurts to pour milk down the drain. I usually make Hubby do it.)

I remember having a similar problem when Pumpkin was a baby, and I don't remember ever solving it. I don't think it can be solved, because the milk in the bottle represents time to the day care teachers, too- a more complicated routine would add to the time it takes to give Petunia her bottle, and with four babies to each adult, they don't really have an abundant supply of time, either. So I watch my frozen supplies dwindle and wonder if Petunia's solid food intake will increase enough to reduce her milk intake before my frozen stocks shrink to that critical point at which I decide that yes, I really do have to add the evening pumping session back to my schedule.

And will Petunia be sleeping well enough by that point to make those extra 20 minutes in my evening routine acceptable?

A Miscellany of Updates

A while ago, I wrote up my conclusions from some lunchtime literature reading on high fructose corn syrup. At the time, I could not find any studies that demonstrated an actual difference between the effects of eating HFCS and sucrose. Earlier this week, a paper came out that found some differences in the effects of HFCS and sucrose- in rats. Unfortunately, I do not have access to the journal in which it was published. Derek Lowe has a write up of the paper, and one of the comments on that post led me to Marion Nestle's take on it.

All in all, I don't find this convincing/alarming enough to make me go out of my way to get the original paper, let alone change my eating habits. But then, I don't drink soda, I only occasionally indulge in other sweetened beverages such as Vitamin Water (which should probably just be called "sugar water"), and I don't have a huge amount of other sources of refined sugar in my diet. However, this is the first study I've seen that indicates that there might be any metabolic difference at all between a soda sweetened with HFCS and one sweetened with sucrose, so I thought I'd mention it. It will take much more convincing correlative data and/or some data pointing to an actual mechanism for how HFCS acts differently than sucrose to change my basic opinion (that it is refined sugar in general, not HFCS in particular, about which we should worry).

------------------------------------------

The Binky Fairy's visit was reasonably successful. It took over an hour to get Pumpkin to sleep Monday night, and she spent at least 30 minutes of that time repeating how she wanted her binkies, and didn't want the Binky Fairy to come. I was beginning to think that I was going to have to drug either her or me, but then she just dropped off to sleep and I was able to escape from her room. Last night, we were back down to the more usual 30-45 minute weekday bedtime, and there were only a few minutes of whining about the binkies. Tonight, she just stated once that she wanted her binkies, and then dropped the subject and asked me to tell her one of her favorite stories.

Her lip is already much better.

-----------------------------------------

When I was listing the many reasons why this was a particularly silly time to be inviting the Binky Fairy to visit our house, I left off the fact that Petunia has hit her 6 month growth spurt. Monday night, I had barely gotten Pumpkin to sleep and Petunia's bottles ready for the next day before Petunia woke up for the first time wanting to eat. Last night, I lost track of how many times I nursed her. Maybe 4 or 5? Prior to this, Petunia was waking only once to eat, and had shown signs that she might be convinced to drop that, so this is quite a set back. It reminds me of the "bad old days" of sleep (or lack thereof) during Pumpkin's infanthood. I am much more sanguine about it this time around, though, perhaps because I know that it is just a phase, and that I will survive it. Perhaps because I have already figured out how to function on so little sleep.

Still, the combination of Petunia's growth spurt (and concomitant all night nursing), Pumpkin's continuing potty regression, and Pumpkin's recent decision that Daddy is not allowed to help her with anything (because apparently only Mommy knows how to properly help her wash hands) have left me feeling drained- literally and figuratively.

------------------------

Speaking of Pumpkin's potty regression.... it is not due to a urinary tract infection, and gee, it was a lot of fun finding that out. (Being an hour late to work because you were trying- and failing- to convince a three year old to pee into a cup is downright demoralizing.) Everything I've read indicates that this is pretty normal, and that all we can do is just grin and bear it. And do a lot of laundry. I have a load in the dryer right now.

------------------------

And on happier, but even more mundane, topics.... we still love our dishwasher. And the Scanpan has worked out great. Due to a poor shopping decision, we ended up with a large "standard" Calphalon non-stick skillet and a smaller Scanpan. The Calphalon one is already discoloring and clearly won't last all that long. When it goes, I'll replace it with a Scanpan, because the small one has been awesome.

------------------------

Did I miss anything? I often find myself wondering about dropped threads in the blogs I read. If I've dropped any myself, mention it in the comments, and I'll fill you in. I'm all about the oversharing!

Pumping Logistics

I was about to type a long comment in answer to Paola's comment on my last post. Instead, I'll make a new post:

Paola's questions weren't inane at all. Figuring out pumping was one of the more stressful things about going back to work the first time. This time, at least I have a baseline idea of what to do.

So... I pump 3x a day at work. Under California law, my company is required to provide me with a room that isn't a bathroom for the purpose. I am also guaranteed two 15 minute unpaid breaks to pump. Since I am salaried, that is not so much of an issue. Also, since I am in charge of IT at my company, I make sure there is a computer with a network connection in the room. I can, and do, work while pumping. I pump from 15-30 minutes at a time, depending on my schedule and on how the milk is flowing. With Pumpkin, I was able to cut down to pumping 2x a day when she was about 10 months old. I went down to pumping 1x a day when she was about 13 months old (I think- I'd have to go back through my blog archives to be sure), and dropped pumping altogether when she was about 17 months old. We continued to nurse until she was 23 months old.

With Pumpkin, who was basically on a 24 hour eating schedule, the three pumping sessions were enough to replace what she ate during the day. This is only day 3 back to work with Petunia (I'm part time for the month of January), but she is eating more during the day than I pump out. I suspected this might happen, because Petunia was basically sleeping through the night and is therefore eating roughly every hour that she is awake. On Wednesday, I pumped out 18 ounces of milk while I was at work, but Petunia ate 22 ounces. I am handling this by keeping a before bed pumping session but not having Hubby give any bottles in the middle of the night/early morning. This isn't too bad, since Petunia is sleeping through until about 4 a.m. most days.

We have had a change in sleeping patterns this week, but I'm not sure if this is due to me going back to work or the three-month growth spurt. For the last two nights, Petunia has woken up at about 2 a.m. to eat. She never really settles back into her co-sleeper at that point. She nurses, poops, nurses, poops, nurses, and then will sleep another couple of hours if someone holds her. I've been dozing on the sofa with her sleeping on my chest. Even with this latest change, Petunia is a better sleeper than Pumpkin was, so although I am incredibly grumpy and tired when I first get up in the morning, I'm actually feeling pretty good during the day.

I'll keep my before bed pumping session over the weekend, too. This will help keep my supply up and also help build up some extra milk to make up any shortfall during the week. I should be fine as long as I'm only working three days a week. However, I go back to work full time in February. If I find that I can't keep up with Petunia's milk consumption at that point, I'll probably start taking fenugreek and also try to add one day time pumping session on Saturdays and Sundays. As a last resort, I'll supplement with formula. I want to try to avoid that because of my concerns about Petunia's digestive system- I'm still not eating much dairy. If dairy in my diet is suspect, then formula based on cow's milk is probably not a good idea. However, Petunia seems to be handling it OK when I eat cheese, so this may not be a concern. Also, babies tend to handle dairy better once they are 6 months old, and I suspect I'll have enough frozen supplies to allow me to make it to that point before I have to consider formula supplementation.

I have more mundane details about pumping in an earlier post, from my days of pumping milk for Pumpkin.

Anyone else want to share how they handle all of this?

Bottle Woes

I have a friend in real life who stopped giving her baby a nightly bottle when she started sleeping through the night a few weeks ago, and now the baby (who is about 3 months old) is refusing to take a bottle. My friend is going back to work in about a month, so needs to get her baby back on the bottle. Does anyone have any suggestions? Pumpkin never slept through the night until she was weaned (although she did start refusing bottles at some point- but it was well past the point where it mattered, since day care had already transitioned to cups). Petunia has recently started sleeping through some nights (YES!!!!! I'm extremely happy about this, but it is too soon to say she "sleeps through the night"), but we've kept up the bottles to avoid just this sort of problem. So I have no personal experience of any help to my friend.

I will take this opportunity to issue a public service announcement: if you are going back to work (or just want the option of giving your baby a bottle now and then), you really need to get the baby used to switching between breast and bottle early. The breastfeeding support group I go to now (the same one I went to with Pumpkin) recommends giving a bottle at about 3 weeks old. Petunia and Pumpkin both got their first bottle at about that time. Once you get your baby to take a bottle, you should keep giving a bottle every day or two, even if you don't really need to. I have never actually met anyone whose baby refused the breast after being given a single bottle a day (although I'm sure those people are out there), but I personally know many women who have struggled to get their baby to take a bottle because they waited until the baby was older or because they didn't give the bottle frequently enough. This only adds to the stress about returning to work... so don't let it happen to you!

Updated to add: Laura makes an EXCELLENT point in the comments- you can do everything "right" and still have a baby refuse to take the bottle. All you can really do is try to increase your chances of success by starting early and not stopping.

Also, here are some of the suggestions about how to try to coax a baby to take a bottle that I've heard from people in real life:

• Try a "dream feed"- i.e., wake the baby up an hour or so after she falls asleep and try giving the bottle. Or, if the baby is still waking up in the middle of the night, try on that feeding, when the baby is really sleepy.
  
• Try giving the bottle when the baby is likely to be very hungry, like at the first feeding of the day.
• Try giving the bottle after nursing for a little while.

In general, the recommendation is to have someone other than the mom give the bottle, on the theory that the baby won't eat from the bottle if she smells mom around. However, given my counter-intuitive night weaning experience, I'd say try both ways. Maybe the baby is freaking out because she thinks she can't have Mommy anymore, and if she gets Mommy she'll take the bottle.

Another recommendation I've heard is not to be too persistent- don't try to force the bottle on the baby, or the baby may develop an aversion to the bottle, making things even harder.

And now, I'm going to count my blessings that Petunia seems happy to eat from the bottle or from me!

Another update: my friend reports success- achieved on the day before she had to go back to work! The bottle that finally did it for her baby was the Nuby Softflex Silicone Nurser. Apparently the magic trick was squeezing that nipple to show the baby that milk came out. Her baby sucked on it a bit the first time they tried it, and then after a few days, was back to taking a bottle without complaint.

Well, That Was Fun

Hubby, Petunia, and I spent 6 hours in the emergency room on Saturday night. Thankfully, my Mom was still here, so Pumpkin stayed home with her (and got some sleep).

We ended up at the ER because I had a headache. Yes, a headache. It was a very bad headache, and didn't respond to ibuprofen or Vicodin. It was bearable when I was sitting up, better if I got up and walked around, but unbearable if I tried to lay down- I essentially, couldn't lay down. It came on at about noon, and finally, after dinner, I called the nurse line to see if (1) this was something I should worry about and (2) if there was anything else I could do for the headache. The paged the doctor on call, who sent me to the ER.

Once I got to the ER and was seen by the triage nurses, it was obvious to me that we'd be waiting a while. I clearly wasn't having a true emergency- i.e., I wasn't having a stroke or an aneurysm. Everyone nodded knowingly when I told them I'd had an epidural.

When I finally saw a doctor, she confirmed that this was one of the infamous "epidural headaches". I was given an IV with sugar water, an NSAID that is a little stronger than ibuprofen, and caffeine. Within minutes, my headache was gone. We had to sit there for another hour until the IV was done and the doctor had a chance to come back and check me out. We finally got home a little after 2:30 in the morning. Petunia, bless her heart, was nice and woke up to feed almost as soon as we got home and slept the rest of the night through. We were tired, but not absolutely exhausted, the next morning.

I am trying not too be too annoyed about paying $100 (my ER copay) and wasting 6 hours to get the equivalent of a can of Coke pumped into me. Surely, someone could have just suggested I try drinking a can of Coke?

------------------------------------------------

In other news....

Pumpkin has a new cute phrase: Petunia, like most babies, gets frequent bouts of the hiccups. Pumpkin says she is "hiccing up".

Pumpkin is still loving having a baby sister. We know this can't possibly last, but it is super cute. Pumpkin likes to stroke Petunia's head, give her kisses on top of her head, and give her hugs (supervised carefully, of course).

My general recovery from the C-section is going pretty well. I'm still a bit sore, but am feeling much better. Last night, I even got to lay on my side from time to time! (I've been going crazy because I couldn't really change positions to try to get comfortable at night.) I have to put in a plug (unsolicited, of course) for Benefiber. I've been adding it to my oatmeal in the morning and my, er, system is finally getting back to normal. Yeah, I know- I should just eat more fruits and vegetables. But I'm a picky eater, and I don't feel up to forcing myself to eat things I don't really like right now.

Breastfeeding is still going well. Not surprisingly, given the antibiotics I got during and after the C-section, we developed a case of thrush. Culturelle has cured it beautifully (this is another unsolicited plug- I love this stuff). Once a day, after Petunia has eaten, I break open a capsule and empty the contents into a little bowl. I mix in a very little bit of water, and smear it inside Petunia's mouth and also on me. I put fresh breast pads on and let the little bacteria do their stuff. I also treat myself with some antifungal cream after my shower, and change my breast pads frequently. The thrush seems to be gone, and the damage it caused is healing. I'm hoping that nursing will be pain-free soon!

Another Breastfeeding Post

Alanna, who is setting up a blog to help share women's breastfeeding experiences, asked me to write a post about my experience. She wanted me to talk in particular about my experience as a breastfeeding mother who went back to work relatively early (when Pumpkin was 3 months old), and therefore, my experiences with pumping. As I mentioned not long ago, my experience with pumping was apparently much better than that of some prominent journalists... but anyway, you can go read my breastfeeding story on the blog.

The Breastfeeding Experience blog is still a beta site right now. Alanna plans to go live with the final site on Mother's Day (which is, wow, this Sunday). I'll come back and update the links as appropriate.

Call to Action on Breastfeeding

The Department of Health and Human Services is asking for ideas about how to better support breastfeeding in this country.

How did I not hear about this earlier? Go, visit the site, and leave comments with ideas from the women who have first hand experience of what does and does not support breastfeeding in our society.

Who's Judgemental Now?

I have been meaning to write a post about Hanna Rosin's and Judith Warner's recent articles blasting breastfeeding and pumping, respectively. It was going to be called "A Memo to Hanna Rosin and Judith Warner" and was going to start off with the true statement that I genuinely do not care how they feed their babies. Then I was going to point out that Hanna Rosin's review of the scientific literature on breastfeeding was casual at best, and that the scientific reviews of the literature on breastfeeding that I have seen come to a different conclusion, based not on any single large benefit but on the accumulation of many smaller benefits.

I was going to hope that no one read her article and decided that since breastfeeding isn't really that important they didn't need to give the nursing mothers at their company time and space to pump. I was going to end with a good rant about her statement that breastfeeding "pretty much guarantees that you will not work in any meaningful way". I was a working, nursing mother for 20 months. I think I did quite a bit of meaningful work during that time. I got a raise and a bonus this year, so I assume my employer agrees. Furthermore, women have been doing "meaningful work" (i.e., raising children) and breastfeeding since the human race first showed up on earth. Her suggestion that breastfeeding precludes working in a meaningful way was therefore deeply offensive.

I was going to tell Judith Warner that she'd have to physically fight to take my breast pump away from me, because it was an instrument of liberation, not subjugation to me. It allowed me to go back to work without weaning my baby. Going back to work helped me rediscover both my sense of competence and my pre-baby identity. The pump allowed me to take nights away from my daughter and go and get a good night's sleep without having to first wean, thereby saving my sanity. I don't care if other people don't want to pump, but how dare Ms. Warner imply that anyone who does pump is somehow subjugating herself? How dare she judge how I have chosen to achieve balance in my life?

But so many people have posted so many good, intelligent things about this already, and I've exhausted my indignation in comments on other people's blogs.

I do not discount the people who have felt judged when formula feeding. This is a deeply personal decision that is by necessity made in public. It impacts the thing that new parents have suddenly realized matters more than anything else in their life- their child's well-being. It is easy for people to get defensive and judgmental in this situation. I would not have been bothered had Ms. Rosin or Ms. Warner written an article explaining the reasons for their personal decisions. They could even have decried the judgmental attitudes they have encountered. But both moved beyond that, to judging the people who make the opposite decisions. We are apparently anti-feminists, setting the cause of women's equality back in a misguided belief that we are doing what is best for our families. To which I can only say: "excuse me?"

I think I would be considered a successful professional woman by most standards. I work at the intersection of two fields (science and IT) that have long been dominated by men. I have seen the salary surveys, and I know I am not underpaid relative to the men in my field. I enjoy an extremely egalitarian home life with a husband who truly does half (maybe more) of the household chores, is a fully involved co-parent and clearly views me as his equal.

How exactly does the decision to breastfeed and pump negate all of this and make me a subjugated woman?

I think that Ms. Rosin and Ms. Warner are missing the point. Yes, there are still inequalities in our society. Yes, the burden of early parenthood falls unevenly in a couple. This is pure biology- women get pregnant. Women breastfeed. But a fair society would not be one that ignores the biological differences between men and women. A fair society would be one that accepted, even celebrated, those differences and found a way to accommodate them while still providing equal opportunities for members of either sex to pursue their dreams and aspirations. We aren't there yet, but setting up a false "war" between breastfeeders and formula-feeders isn't going to get us any closer to that goal.

An End and a Beginning

So... Pumpkin is weaned. She last nursed Saturday, March 7, before going to sleep. She next asked to nurse on the following Monday, also during the bedtime routine. She said "boppy?" I took a deep breath, snuggled her closer, and said "no, honey, lets just snuggle." And unbelievably, she did. She's asked once more, and I said the same thing, and she didn't complain.

I've written quite a bit about my ambivalence toward weaning. That remains. I am so glad that Pumpkin and I had such a long and good nursing relationship. I'm glad that it ended with so little fuss (at least from her- some might argue that all my posting and talking about it is a lot of fuss indeed). Recently, someone wrote an article in the Atlantic about what a hassle breastfeeding is, and parts of it made me spitting mad. I would like to come back and write up my feelings about that at some point. For now, One Tired Ema does a good job of explaining some of my objections. I do not have anything against formula, and certainly wouldn't presume to judge mothers who decide to use it. But I have to say, breastfeeding Pumpkin was one of my favorite things, and I am glad I persisted through the (really common) early difficulties and got to do it.

And for the record, I had no significant problems pumping at work, no one ever so much as looked at me cross-eyed for doing it, and I find the idea that it has somehow hindered my career progress laughable. (Of course, I am very lucky in the type of job I have, which made it possible to work while pumping, and the enlightened state in which I live, which mandates lactation rooms and lactation breaks.)

deep cleansing breaths

So if I loved nursing so much and found it to be so wonderful, why did I wean? Because I'm pregnant. That's right- I'm just about 12 weeks pregnant now. Nursing was becoming less comfortable, and I wanted to wean Pumpkin before there was any chance that she'd associate the event with my pregnancy. Now that's done- on to the transition to the big girl bed!

------------------

I think most people I know in real life who read this blog already know my news. If you don't- I'm sorry that you're reading it here instead of hearing it from me. What can I say? I've been tired lately. Which also explains why I'm posting about once a week, if I'm lucky.

What if I Miss It?

Pumpkin didn't nurse before bed tonight. She did last night, and she probably will tomorrow night. She's been dropping the occasional before bed nursing, and not just on nights when I'm not home.

On the one hand, this is great. I'm all for self-weaning- it will save me from figuring out a plan for weaning her. Pumpkin is almost 23 months old now, and I'm ready to wean.

On the other hand, I'm a little freaked out. What if it is the last time she nurses, and I don't pay any attention? For the most part, I've really enjoyed nursing Pumpkin. Early on, it was a bit draining, both emotionally and physically. But now, as we are winding down, the demands are few. I love the contented look she gets when she latches on and nurses. I love the way her little hand still absentmindedly reaches up to twirl my hair (something she has done since she was first able to grab my hair). Part of me wants to know when the last time comes, so that I can really savor it.

The other part of me, which rationally points out that it would be soooo nice if Pumpkin just stopped wanting to nurse (no fuss! no whining!), ensures that I stick to my "don't offer, don't refuse" plan. This is the part of me that is winning the internal argument. But I'm paying more attention to each session now.

Confessions of an Accidental Co-Sleeper

We never co-slept with Pumpkin much when she was a little baby. Hubby is a sound sleeper, and I always worried a bit about whether he would roll over on her. But more important was the fact that I couldn't sleep well next to her- she was too active, and I am a light sleeper.

But these days, Pumpkin spends several hours every night in our bed. We've stumbled on an unorthodox method of nightweaning. I have decided that I want to start weaning a bit more actively than I have been to date, and since Pumpkin wasn't giving up any nursing session easily, I decided to start with the one that bothers me the most- the middle of the night.

We decided, as we had before, to start moving the time of the first nursing back. We said I wouldn't nurse her before 3 a.m. For the first three nights, she slept past 3, so we didn't have much trouble. On the fourth night, she woke up at 12:30, and as we'd agreed, Hubby went in. She screamed, then settled, then screamed, the settled, then screamed... for twenty minutes. Finally, so tired that I felt sick to my stomach, I stumbled in, thinking I'd nurse her or whatever else was needed to just get to sleep. But when I picked her up, she snuggled in. She whimpered "boppy" (her word for nursing) a couple of times, and then went to sleep. I brought her in to bed with us, and we all slept until morning.

The next three nights, when she woke up at 12:30, I just went in, picked her up, and brought her in to bed with us, and we all slept until morning. Last night, she didn't even wake up until after 4. I was so disoriented from being jolted awake ("Mommy! Mommm-MEEE!") that I was nursing her before I thought about whether it would have been better to try to get her back to sleep without nursing. Oh well, Hubby and I can debate that later.

We won't be debating it tonight, because Pumpkin has come down with the cold Hubby had this weekend, had a very rough day at day care, and wouldn't eat anything for dinner tonight. I think I'll nurse her when she asks for it tonight.

However, when it is time to return to our nightweaning plans, I think we'll stick with our new method. I never would have thought that the easiest way to nightwean our toddler would be to start co-sleeping, but the evidence indicates that this is indeed what we should do. I guess she wants company more than food in the middle of the night these days.

And what about the mismatch between Pumpkin's active sleep style and my light sleeping? I have also stumbled on two tricks to help with that:

1. I settle Pumpkin before I bring her to bed. This sometimes means that I have to sit up rocking her for 5-10 minutes when my brain is screaming for me to just go back to bed, but I have found that if she is pretty much asleep when she comes into bed with us, she will settle into bed peacefully and we'll all sleep. If she is not, she'll spend about 20 minutes fidgeting and playing with my hair before she settles. By this time, I'm quite awake, and I don't get much sleep.

2. I turn my back on her in bed. I did this out of desperation one night (before I'd discovered trick #1), because I just wanted a break from having her little hands grabbing at my face and hair. But the trick makes sense- she wants to play with my hair, and there is far more hair within reach if I have my back to her.

Hubby and I realize that we're probably starting a habit that will be hard for Pumpkin to break. But we've decided that as long as she starts the night in her bed, we're OK with her joining us in our bed for part of the night. After all, it is finally the method that gets everyone the most sleep. And that is what matters the most to us.

-------------------
I clearly have started taking sleep for granted, because I just updated Pumpkin's book list rather than go to bed. The new books may all eventually make it to the sidebar, but they may not- it depends on how fickle Pumpkin is!