Sleepless adventures

It's been two weeks since I quit caffeine. Coffee and tea joined the list of things I really wish I could have, along with hot dog bread, hamburger bread, pizza, enchiladas, creamy pasta, smoothies, yogurt, and all dairy. Quitting dairy was hard at first, but I am mostly used to it by now, it's just eating out and craving desserts that get tough. Caffeine, on the other hand... at first it wasn't hard to quit, I expected some withdrawal and super sleepiness but I felt fine. But I've been craving it kind of bad on and off since then, and I've had a couple of slips during the Holy Week break.

Anyway, it seems to me that quitting caffeine has had no effect on Baby Peanut's sleep(less) nights. He had one good night last week where he slept four hours (angels singing!) and another night where he slept two 3 hour-long chunks and... that's it. I know it takes a while for my body to get rid of all traces of caffeine and a while for his little body to clean up too, and I know the process has been impeded by the occasional slip, but.. I had hoped to see more improvement than this.

I will do my best to keep at it for at least two full weeks with no slips, and if I see no improvement I'm just going to allow myself to have it again. He had excellent naps during this long weekend and still had terrible nights, so I don't know what else to do. The good news, though, is that he hasn't fall asleep on the breast three nights in a row, he eats until he pushes me away and then just chats and babbles for 10-15 minutes while he drifts of, which is great! I have hope!

Cookie took two weeks off work and had a staycation, which was nice. I still had to work but I tried to take it easier, though I definitely felt frustrated by the lack of productivity. Today is his first day back at work and I'm feeling closer to normal.

I've been battling anxiety for a couple of weeks. I had a bad experience in the decoration project, where a mason worker took the opportunity to go inside the apartment when I was alone and closed the door behind him, and started to chat me up. It raised all the flags in my head and scared the shit out of me, and I ended up literally running after my friend's car. When I mentioned the incident to the client he was concerned, but also made me feel like I had provoked him, asking me if I had previously chatted with the guy. Which I had! As normal people do! what normal people don't do is wait until a woman is alone to go and lock themselves with her. Just.  Ugh.

Our decorative pillows business is selling head rests and bed stands made to order, and we had a run in with a client that ordered a model and a day after we delivered them to her place, she called to say her husband hadn't liked them and they wanted their money back. Which might be a possibility if we were a furniture store, which we aren't. There's a reason they are made to order, so we don't have stock, and because people want pretty specific things when they come to us. Anyway, the husband had a bad vibe around him, like the problem was that she had done the ordering and purchasing while he was away from home or something, along with problems like the bed stand didn't fit through their stairs (it was a regular double bed) and that the landlord didn't want them to remove a window to take it upstairs. She then said she had though it was a pull apart bed stand, which she never mentioned. And that it was too small for their double. I got very suspicious, because these are not small and mattresses have standard sizes, and I think the problem is that they have a queen size and ordered a double. All of which is not my problem! He did seem extremely macho and patronizing and she was super subdued and quiet around him, which is making me dread dealing with them. I don't really want to face him, and I hate having these thoughts about not being "alone". But.. better safe than sorry, I guess.

So.. work is making me a big anxious, specially because I'm behind and there's weird people out there, but everything is going mostly well. Baby Peanut is 11 months today! He's crawling around, cruising around furniture, making signs ("all done" and "dog" this weekend!) and being awesome. He's so bigggg, crazy little man.

Cloth diapering, or how to be way too excited about diapering solutions

Before Peanut was born,  I didn't really stock up much.  We didn't buy a crib,  since we got a pack and play and a bassinet as hand me downs.  I borrowed a car seat and stroller system from Pam,  and bottles and pumps and clothes and a changing table/tube combo and basically everything we  could need from my friends and sisters in law.  I bought a box of wet wipes,  a doctor brown's starter package of bottles,  a bunch of cute clothes and blankets.

And then I went crazy with the cloth diapers.  They are soooo cute,  and my mom was very encouraging,  since she cloth diapered all of her children.  I felt like maybe it wouldn't be that hard,  and I owed it to our carbon footprint,  and it would be cheaper on the long run (while I was pregnant I was obsessed with child rearing on a budget,  in a pregnant lady obsessive way,  probably because I feared being unemployed).  I initially bought 12 pocket covers with microfiber inserts,  and 6 diaper covers and two packs of snappi fasteners,  despite not having any prefolds because it was all very confusing at the start.  When Eli was born I got 12 more pocket covers with their inserts,  and we have been using the covers ever since.

So,  my experience so far:
It is really easy.  Cookie got it on the first try with everything, I do an extra load of laundry each week now,  two when Peanut was a newborn.  That's it.  No scrubbing,  no pain, we just spray the poop off the diapers,  put them in a pail,  wait until laundry day. Wash with hot water and neutral soap and vinegar,  then sundry. Living in a desert helps with the sundrying in any season.

We did not marry cloth diapers.  Which means we use disposables as well and it's okay!  No one will take my mom card for it.  We buy BioBaby,  which are supposed to biodegrade in 4 years,  and which have excellent absorbency.  We use them for nighttime and sometimes when we go out (and we used them all the time when Peanut got a yeast rash after the antibiotics last month).

They are a great investment.  When I crunched numbers,  we got our money's worth at 5 months on our initial investment the way we use them (mixed use,  not exclusive). Exclusive use would pay itself in around three months.  Eli is 10 months old and still using his one size fits all pocket covers,  and because he was born chubby and grew really fast,  these are the only ones we have ever needed.  They are also in great shape.  The lining is a bit worn in the second batch we bought (they are of a lower quality,  though) but still holding on great.

The microfiber inserts are not holding on so well,  though.  They started to leak around the 4 month mark,  and I think I need to strip them but I have tried it a couple of times with just not a lot of improvement.  I read that they aren't exactly great,  and thus I made other purchases: two packs of osocozy prefolds first,  three packs of flour sack towels later.

The preforms are amazing.  We went from changing his microfiber insert every hour or hour and a half to every three or four hours. The leaking accidents were due putting on the cover wrong,  not because of the diaper,  unlike with the microfiber ones.  Baby Peanut doesn't rash easily,  so I admit to not changing his pee diapers super often.  We learned how to put them on with a YouTube video,  and I got it after two tries and Cookie saw me do it and did it perfectly at once.  My mom never quite got it,  though,  so she prefers the inserts.  We finally got use out of our snappis with these.  Never ever had a blowout,  while poonamis were the norm with disposables for a long time.

Then I read about flour sack towels when I was going to get more preforms so we could stop using the microfiber inserts all together.  We bought three four-packs,  and we fold them to make inserts for the pocket covers.  These.  Are.  Amazing.  The preforms don't fit as inserts,  and I have to say,  nothing beats the ease of putting the insert in the cover and then putting it on,  so the flour sack towels are just much easier.  They are also very thin,  so his but doesn't look quite so comical.  We can probably double line the diapers and get a night time solution,  though I haven't tried it.  These are my new to-go liners and I only use the prefolds when they are all dirty (by the end of the week,  usually,  so I know it's laundry time).

My diaper covers are all Chinese  and on the very cheap side.  Each six pack cost around 35-45 dollars,  and the cheapest ones even came with two inserts for every cover.  The only thing I didn't use pretty much at all were the six newborn diaper covers with velcro that I bought with the snappis initially.  One,  because Eli didn't use newborn sized anything for more than two weeks.  Two,  because they were for prefolds,  I think,  but I didn't buy anything and they didn't quite work with the microfiber inserts.  Anyway,  the Chinese diaper covers (one was LBB brand,  the other doesn't even have a brand name)  are holding great,  and because I didn't know what to expect I'm glad I didn't go for a brand name and much more expensive ones (also cuter but mine are still very cute).  The exchange rate of dollars is also kind of a hurdle to get past,  now that the dollar is so expensive.

Next time around I have quite a stash to start with,  so here is what I plan to do,  and what I would recommend anyone just starting.  One size fits all covers will last a long time.  If they don't fit your newborn (Eli was 3.560 kg and always had chubby legs) buy some newborn pocket covers (I would get 6 and prepare to do laundry 3-4 times a week). I used disposables until Eli's umbilical cord fell off by doctor's instructions so by the time we got into the cloth diapers we was okay with the one size fits all.  I would still use the microfiber inserts as babies poop a lot at first so I put the insert outside the pocket so that gets soiled instead of the cover.  Once my microfiber inserts all die,  I wouldn't buy more,  instead would get small prefolds to contain all the watery baby poops and the blow outs to come.  Past 4 months,  when baby poops space out more I think I would get more flour sack towels and just switch to that for pee diapers.  Eli was very predictable for a long while,  so planning for his daily poop was possible.  Nowadays,  not so much (he poops every other day or so,  at different times). I still think prefolds are great for poop diapers until their poop stops beings so liquid, so up to 8 months for us,  pretty much.

So: pocket covers.  Prefolds small and large for diapering from 3-4 to 8 months (also,  snappis)  and flour sack towels.

We have spent around $280 so far.  At the beginning,  when he was using around 8-9 diapers a day,  we used 5 or 6 cloth and 2-3 disposables.  Now we're down to 1-2 cloth and 2 disposables.  I think they have already paid themselves,  and we still have diapers for a long while.  If you can fork the initial payments,  they are definitely worth it.

Also?  So,  so cute.

2 months old

10 months old

10 months!

Baby Peanut is now crawling!  No more army crawling with his face,  but honest to God crawling.  He also cruises around furniture and is fearless standing up,  often trying to walk on his own (and failing quite spectacularly still,  but he tries!) I love hearing his laugh as we run after the dogs or towards his grandma,  or just walking around the house,  laughing because he is so proud of himself.  He has the best laugh.

He weights 10 kilos fully clothed,  so probably more like 9.800. We are up to date with his vaccines and he is chubby but leaner and has a big big head.

Such a big head.  

Sleep is still a crazy endeavor.  He still wakes about every hour and a half/two hours.  I don't know how to improve on that,  though we got through the worst of the growth spurt/sleep regression (hard to call it a regression when he hasn't sleep more than 3 hours in a row since in months)  by going back to his reflux medication.  After all the meds from The Cold From Hell his stomach just wasn't the same.  I'm back on a strict no dairy products diet and he's back on Nexium. I think part of the problem was that he got 5 teeth in a month, so maybe... Sleep might improve?  Someday! 

He has 7 teeth now,  and swollen gums on the top premolars canines.  Gah.  I thought we might have to wean soon when he got all the teeth because he was chaffing my nipples when he sucked,  but things have improved and we're back on track.  I would like to meet my one year goal,  then we'll see how we feel about it.  He loves to breastfeed and shows no signs of self weaning,  but I'm starting to feel more ready to stop...  I don't want to quit cold turkey or anything,  and it wasn't even on my kind for a long time, so lately when I eye my non-breastfeeding friendly clothes I just think to myself that soon he'll be done with this part of his life,  and it's bittersweet.  I will miss this connection a lot.  

Work is really busy right now,  though I'm still struggling financially.  Teaching was my only steady income so I'm fully freelancing right now. Construction on C&D's house is going well,  but I'm not taking any money from there yet.  I am working with an old client on the design for her new home's bathrooms and fixing some issues the house has, but that's only just starting.  Our side business of decorative pillows has been doing really well thanks to Pam's hard work,  so I'm doing what I can to help and keep up.  We're decorating and apartment for rent for a client,  which has been a lot of scavenging for good design for cheap.  I hope we'll be done with that next week.  The MBA program is kicking my ass, finding time to do homework is proving really difficult.  The classes are really off my area of knowledge and the teachers aren't doing much explaining,  which is a problem I have ran into a lot with the online program.  But we're halfway done with this trimester!  I can do it!  I have one mandatory credit left and three optional ones,  so mayyyybe the optional ones can be less ass kicking?  I am just realizing this,  I am almost done with the core classes!

After a lot of working  around hurdles it seems like we might get him baptized this month.  I want to do a little get together but it's a bit daunting.  So much family!  Such unruly nephews! I fear it might be a disaster! But I will be glad to get that done and all the possible drama out of the way (there has been a lot of drama with my in laws about our choice of godparents,  but as it often plays out,  it's mostly passive aggressive drama).   

I welcome March feeling better.  February was better than January,  mood wise if not sleep wise, and I think March is going to be better.  I am hopeful.  I am thankful.  It's all going to be okay. 

About sleep

I've been reading a lot about sleep and "self soothing" given the madness that is our nightlife.  I have natural leaned towards attachment/evolutionary parenting f as a parenting style,  feeling good about the way it fits our family.   I decided to breastfeed,  which led to co-sleeping and then bedsharing,  and my biggest problem has been how other people react when they find out,  not the act itself.  I babywear when possible and try to keep the baby from crying by being responsive.  We did try (and failed spectacularly)  to Ferberize at 5 months,  when I was not sleeping and going crazy.  Now I see that it was too soon to even try (sleep training before six months isn't even recommended,  no matter what my in laws say)  and I have realized that Baby Peanut is probably  not even a candidate for sleep training.

Ask Moxie has excellent posts about tension increasers and decreasers. A tension increaser gets more and more worked up as he cries,  and a decreaser calms down after a good cry.  I have a hard time with even the idea of CIO because I am a tension increaser myself: crying leads to feeling exhausted,  sick,  like the world is an awful place,  blerg.  It doesn't really help me process and feel better,  it's just an explosion of energy and them an awful long period of recovery.  If I have a good cry,  it usually takes me all day and all night to feel back to normal.  Crying is just not my cup of tea.

I think Cookie is also an increaser since he marinades in gloom and doesn't bounce back easily from anger or sadness,  but I am not as sure with him as I am with myself.  He just doesn't cry.  What I do know,  is that he is a terrible sleeper.  He fights sleep all day and all night,  wants to stay up playing,  gets in awful moods because he is tired and eventually he crashes.

So I don't think it's hard to guess that we have a tension increaser baby as well. Knowing that not responding to crying alters a baby's cortisol levels (cortisol being the stress hormone) up to 4 times the normal level,  I can't really justify to myself to let Eli cry in hopes he'll fall asleep alone and that he'll learn to "self soothe",  when I can't at 30 years old.  Some babies don't signal when they wake (so,  no crying)  but some babies do.  When do they *have* to stop signaling when they wake?  Like all things babies,  each baby is different,  and the neurological maturity each has will dictate when he reaches his milestone.

Last week I was talking with my friend Pam,  and she told me her grandma,  a 94 year old,  asked her if her toddler was sleeping through the night.  Her boy is 26 months old,  and she said yes,  of course he was,  and her grandma was surprised because he was very young and kids take a long time to sleep through the night.  So.  I guess,  somewhere between the time she raised her babies and now,  we decided babies had to be "independent sleepers" once they hit 6 months old.

I also found really interesting research about the vagal nerve, that might correlate with the tension increaser and decreaser concepts (I made this correlation myself,  so obviously might be wrong).  Some babies (specially preemies,  but many full term)  are born with an immature vagal system.  The vagal nerve controls the heart,  stomach,  breathing,  sucking and the facial muscles.  It's the nerve that controls our heartbeat when we need to fight or fly,  allowing it to speed up by releasing a "break",  letting us use more resources in time of need.  Immature vagal nerves don't put the break back on when the demanding activity (breastfeeding,  for example,  or crying)  ends,  making the baby feel like the danger,  so to speak,  hasn't passed.  So they are more difficult to calm.  Breastfeeding apparently helps the vagal nerve to mature,  but I think it can probably explain why some babies just don't calm easily after the crying starts, so CIO is just not going to work for them since it's physiologically impossible for them to calm down unaided.
Cookie asked how this can help us with our crazy nights and I guess it can't!  Except to teach me patience and let me be there for baby Peanut,  reassuring him that he is safe,  he is loved,  mama is right here.

Things my doctor said

You look sad.

I think you have post partum depression and we didn't catch it earlier.

How long has it been,  10 months?  Why didn't you come sooner?

We could give you some antidepressants,  though if you are still breastfeeding...

If you continue to feel bad and you decide to wean the baby,  we can get you on some meds.

----

Soooo. I am not on meds. I don't plan to wean Baby Peanut for a while.  My breastfeeding goal was one year,  and I feel like the worst of the PPD and PPA is mostly over.

I ended up going to the doctor because an unrelated problem.  It seems I might have some sort of allergy and irritation on the lady parts.  Funnnn. If the treatment doesn't work I'm in for some testing,  since it's making our love life pretty much non existent.  Meh. We have had some arguments and lots of guilt and unhappiness in that department.  The doctor says part of the problem is the PPD,  but there is definitely something else going on.  So.

Peanut continues to not sleep,  even worse than before.  Wakes every hour,  every hour and a half.  It's difficult.  Very,  very difficult.  I had stopped the reflux medication but I think we're going to go back to it, and hopefully the sleep will improve.  He's getting better at crawling though!  Still not quite there,  but getting there!

I've been reading a lot about sleep.  It's not helping to improve his sleep,  but it's very interesting and I think it's helping me to cope,  at least.  He'll sleep when he sleeps,  I guess!

9 months

So finally little Peanut has lived in the outside world as long as he lived in my womb.  That is some really crazy perspective.

He's currently fighting a throat infection, and though he has been better yesterday and today,  he's still on antibiotics (or,  more like back on antibiotics,  since he finished the prescribed period but the symptoms persist so the doctor said to continue a few more days).  It has been a very difficult week,  though in general I feel like January was a bit better.  This week was marked by bouts of vomiting,  fever,  screaming and crying while we gave him dose after dose of medicines and a really exhausted household.

This week also marks my return to the MBA.  I am terrified because I have very little free time for homework,  so even though it's all virtual,  or maybe because it is,  it is really hard to dedicate six or eight hours a week to it.  I am struggling because when I'm home with the husband and the baby there is really not a way to disengage from them.

I made a resolution this week to talk people around me up,  instead of complaining about them (this week was heavy on the complaining side), but I struggle with the level of shared responsibility for the baby with Cookie.  Doing homework (or more like,  trying and failing)  for the master is just one symptom of the problem.  I don't know how to breach the subject without having an open war,  but I think I'm reaching the point that if it takes a full blown ugly argument  to touch the subject,  I'll have a full blown ugly argument.  I know I tend to blame other people and be angry with them when things don't go as I planned them,  when in reality I am also to blame and most things cannot be planned or expected to go as one wishes,  so I reaaaally need to work on that because it's a very ugly trait of mine.

So.  Talking up.  Not blaming (even if it's done 90% just in my head).  Add those to my 2016 list,  along with having a meatless dinner a week (this week is was fried rice with veggies,  last week it was veggie chow mein! I am looking for more suggestions/ideas!) and cooking more.  Since I got pregnant and most of last year I really pushed the envelope on eating out because no time,  cooking making me nauseous,  etc,  but it's hurting our budget.  I am trying to get back on track on the budgeting and better financial organization as well.  So far...  Uhh. Well,  as soon as I finish paying my car insurance I'll be debt free,  and ready to start saving again.  Last year I didn't meet my savings mark because I went crazy on December.  Between Christmas presents and impulse buys and paying bonuses for my eventual employees (some of them,  like our cleaning lady and my first mason at work not really eventual at all)  it got really out of hand.

We also had a few things to pay for that hit me this month,  one of them our water pump breaking and needing to be entirely replaced (waaah!)  and the yearly house taxes and the car yearly service.  On the good news,  I finished Ms.  T's house renovation and I am mostly done with a facade project. The project that was stressing me out the most kind of fell through the cracks and the client never contacted me again.  I think we are even?  The first payment does cover what I did, pretty much,  so.   I am not worrying about it anymore.

On the work department there are some new projects on the horizon.  Tomorrow me and Pam are meeting a client for whom we made an interior design proposal and budget last week.  Cris and David's house addition,  which I started on December,  is going a bit slowly,  but it's going well,  so I'm hoping February shows some mayor advances there.  Currently we have all the columns and the iron structure for the major beams of the first floor,  which I hope we can pour  next weekend.  So by the end of next month I hope we'll be working on the second floor's roof.

Eli's achievements are many!  I haven't weighted or measured him this month,  but he can cruise around the playpen,  stand up supporting himself, and kinda scoot backwards when he tries to crawl.  Crawling is his bane!  He can't get his head around it.  But he claps and says 'mama' and 'apa'  and feeds himself and signs milk and more,  he waves bye bye,  gives many hugs and kisses,  and loves pandas so much.  He points where the panda is on one of his books and loves to touch and look at the box of Takenoko. I am currently trying to teach him the signs for mom,  dad,  grandma,  grandpa, sleep,  cookie,  bath,  all done,  diaper change,  eat and thirsty.  He..  Doesn't seem to give a damn! But maybe soon?

On the sleep front,  we're still bedsharing and he's still waking up multiple times a night to feed.  It's hard,  but this week while he was sick he would only take the breast,  and then for a day and a half he wouldn't even breastfeed much,  he felt so sick,  that I am very grateful that he's feeling better enough to wake up to eat.  I know he will eventually demand less milk,  even if right now it feels like he's the only 9 month old that doesn't sleep a long stretch at night.  I have been trying to coach my sister in law,  who had a failed breastfeeding relationship with her son 7 years ago,  with her new baby.  Her pediatrician  is not supportive at all and this causes her plenty of confusion and anxiety.  My other sister in law's sister also gave birth this month  and I gave some more successful advice to her,  so that makes me happy!  I am still halfway through the breastfeeding online certification class I started months ago,  but a lot of the initial problems with breastfeeding come from un supportive pediatricians or family.  My brother's wife also had a baby girl this month  (so many babies!) but her previous experience was mostly successful,  so we talk about it a lot,   and it's nice to have that to bond over,  since we aren't super close. I am currently That Crazy Breastfeeding Lady, I know.

The baby is asleep to I will return to homework for as long as it lasts!  I can do this!  12 more weeks to go!

High hopes

I'm feeling much better than at the end of 2015 these days.  Though I'm really tired I feel like I'm coping a bit better with my anxiety.

This week I signed back on the MBA.  I have six credits left (out of sixteen!) SO I really think my if I can stick to it I can finish it this year.  It's been six years since I started it,  I feel pretty embarrassed!  When I first started I only did two classes,  then started a four year hiatus as I started freelancing,  then met Cookie,  then married.  Two year ago I returned, and was progressing well,  then took another break when baby Peanut was born and I returned to school.  I didn't feel like I could manage the MBA on top of that,  but now that I'm not teaching anymore...  I am very nervous out,  I hope I can manage.  It's all online,  so in theory I have a chance of doing in it my "own" time.  I don't feel like a own a lot of time right now,  though! Hopefully Cookie will step up and help me more with the baby on weekends so I can do homework.

I don't particularly need the MBA for my work,  so mostly this is a time investment  for when I return to teach,  in what
Cookie and I estimate will be five to ten years.  A lot will obviously change in that time!  But I need the grade for teaching in most schools,  and right now I had managed that by being on the program and having an estimated date to finishing it.  So having the grade will be an asset,  come what may.

I also really want to finish it because my father is retiring this year.  Because he works at the University this is probably the last year I can get a scholarship.  Another reason to be embarrassed for not finishing sooner!  Without the scholarship it would be a bit difficult for me to pay for it.  I suppose I just kept letting life get in the way and being complacent,  but I have a serious deadline now.