To put it very simply, we need to give Javi stability, new experiences, and fun (his definition, not just ours). The second and third are only positive if the first is in place.

Here’s a nerd diagram I keep in my head when I’m deciding what happens when:

So, things like eating food he’s already tried and practicing skills he already knows happen at daycare. They offer the most structure and consistency and give him the independence to figure things out on his own (read: they ignore him better than I do). They also do fun things, like games and songs and silliness.

Trying new things on a small scale, like new foods and new schedules and new toys happens in the mornings and evenings at home. This is also fun! Once we have a handle on those things, we can transition them to daycare. Two days ago we played in the rain on the way to the car to go to daycare; Javi opened his mouth to drink the rain drops and I about died of the cuteness. Yesterday evening we lounged in the yard and ate grass and leaves and stuck our toes in the soil. We try all new foods at home first before deciding whether to send them to school with him. Because even little new things can be scary, I prefer to be around for them. Last night, the wind was a new experience and Javi whined until he was firmly ensconced in my lap, then went back to exploring.

Fun also includes the things he finds fun even if we think they’re a little boring. Eating the remote is fun. Petting the cat is fun. Hanging out in the kitchen is fun. Drinking water out of a glass cup or (egads!) even sometimes a coffee cup is fun. Jumping in the doorway jumper is fun. Playing Daddy Monster and Mama’s Gonna Eat Your Face is fun. Drinking water out of the shower spray is fun.  Trying to eat another baby’s hand is fun. Playing peekaboo with the daycare ladies is fun. Waking up from a nap at daycare and seeing mama (surprise!) is fun.

The big new fun happens on weekends. We call them ADVENTURES*. Woo, hoo! Last weekend we went to the zoo where my kid was far more interested in the people-animal watching than the actual-animal watching. This weekend we think we’ll hit the aquarium since the weather will be too yucky for bike riding.

The best part about this thought process is that it removes the guilt from the equation. Just because my child isn’t with me doesn’t mean he isn’t getting something useful and necessary in his life; just because my child is with me doesn’t mean I have to do things just like they do in daycare.

Since he gets a lot of consistency at daycare, I can switch things up for fun and not worry too much about the impact. Worst case, he’ll get back in the rhythm of things on Monday. Some days I’ll pick him up early because the weather’s beautiful and he skips a nap. Other days (like today) he goes in early because mama’s got an eye infection and needs some meds. Weekend adventures often over stimulate him and his sleep schedule goes to hell, but we get through until Monday arrives.

Looking at his life this way gives everyone more freedom to do what they do best… and I’ve never looked forward to Mondays like I do now.

~~~

*When my husband was a child, his dad got home from work and spotted him trudging up the driveway with a little sack of “important stuff” and his dog at his side.

“Where ya going?” his dad asked.

“We’re going on an adVENture!” he replied.

“Where to?” his dad asked.

“Don’t know! Got any ideas?”

In keeping with that tradition, we call almost anything new an adventure, which has the lovely side effect of making even the most arduous and exhausting of experiences more fun, somehow.

So, along the lines of yesterday’s post about following my kid’s lead (as long as it doesn’t seem detrimental), I thought I’d do an update on what sleep looks like around here lately.

First, some background: in December, we were pretty consistently getting through the night with, at most, a single wake-up around 4 in the morning. If Javi told us he was hungry, we’d feed him, else we’d try to soothe him by giving him back his pacifier or fix whatever seemed to be wrong – room too cold, too hot, etc.

Then he hit the awesome four month sleep regression and everything went to shit. Since it was a mess anyway, I took the opportunity to move him out of the rocking swing and swaddle into his crib. Not unrelated, I started sleeping in the guest room because it was fewer steps to stumble on an hourly basis. Ugh.

Note: I totally would have started cosleeping at this point if my little sweet pea had gone for it, but he would not. He likes his own sleep space, thankyouverymuchMOM.

We traveled for Christmas and he slept better there, then we got home and over time, we went back to one-ish wake-up a night.

Short version: two morning naps, one afternoon nap, bedtime between 6 and 7, wake once (or not at all) until 6 am. *Lovely*

Over the past few weeks, he’s made it clear that he is effingTIREDMOM around 5 when we pick him up from day care. We used to try to keep him awake until 7, but it got harder and harder. Apparently sitting and almost-crawling and whining are tiring for a kid, ya know? Lately we’ve been letting him take one last (late) nap from 4:30ish to 7:00ish, then wake up, hang out for a bit, and start the bedtime routine.

Bonus: this gives him a chance to eat dinner with us.

Around the same time, though, I insisted that my hubby and I split the overnight shifts more equally again, and the side effect of that is that Javi quickly trained Joey to make a bottle in the middle of the night. Before I knew it, Javi went from not eating overnight to eating at 5, then 4, then 3, then 2, then EFFING MIDNIGHT. Over the course of like 7 days, my kid had successfully added an entire feeding (or two!) to the night and was lollygagging around about eating during the day.

Score one for the kiddo.

So, now we’re undoing that, plus retreating from having to rock him to sleep.

WHAT? He was sick! But yes, my fault, and I would do it again. As long as you’re willing to change things when they aren’t working, I don’t see any reason you shouldn’t do things that are working, and rocking him to sleep in my arms worked for both of us while he was sick and recovering from it.

My former self would have wanted details about how to retreat from not one or two but THREE big changes to the sleep strategy, so here is my TMI.

On the late nap: I’m leaving it alone for now. As long as he gets the right total amount of sleep, an hour of wakefulness at 7 or 8 doesn’t seem to be doing any harm, plus he gets his last bottle later in the evening which should help with the next thing.

On the overnight eating: not eating as much during the day tells me the overnight bottle is behavioral, not a necessity. So, we’re addressing that by being more focused on him eating every three hours and getting enough ounces during the day. If he has 24+ ounces, he shouldn’t need to eat overnight. Plus, we were throwing away more formula than he was eating, which drives me nuts. Since “real food” is for fun at this point, I’ve stopped feeding him purees (and asked day care to stop as well) so he can get calories from formula. He gets to eat a fun dinner with us at night to practice chewing in preparation for needing those calories in a few months.

Note, though, that I’m not going to NOT feed him at night if he cries for food. It’s too hard. Experience from before tells me that getting enough formula during the day and ensuring he’s comfortable at night (room is the right temp, pj’s are comfy, etc) should decrease the night wakings. If it doesn’t work, I’ll adjust, but for now, I’m not up for listening to him cry at night.

On the rocking to sleep: This will remain part of our bedtime routine because I like it, but for naps here at home, he gets only standing rocking in my arms and only for the length of three ABC songs, then down in his crib. I leave him for five minutes and sometimes he works it out. Other times, I’ve misjudged whether he’s sleepy so he gets to come back out until he really is sleepy. On the rare occasions he’s obviously tired but can’t wind down, he either gets ten minutes in the jumper or I just leave him to work it out on his own. I don’t know how to explain how I know which he needs, but I know… and if I don’t, it’s clear pretty quickly that I’ve misjudged so I try the other thing.

I just realized my process is not unlike the crazy trial-and-error employed by Dr. House.

Oh, and naps. He gets two or three hour-ish naps here at home before I drop him off at day care (remember, I work west-coast time). We’re pretty close to the 1-2-3 thing someone mentioned here on my blog last summer: he’s awake one hour, goes down for a nap, then two hours, down for a nap, then three hours and down for a nap. The three (or four) hour interval is usually at day care.

• On my mommy group, we had a really interesting conversation about breastfeeding and personal choice.
• On my post about training and babies, Grace made a good point about teaching the “why” behind the “what.”
• I started feeding my kid “real food.”
• My baby started making his opinions clear. (He’s always been a good communicator, but lately he’s telling us what he wants or thinks, not just what he needs.)

I have a hang-up about us “bigger people” making other creatures do things they don’t want to. I can’t stand it when my husband pushes the dogs outside if they don’t want to go. I have a really hard time if I have to force something up on my son, good for him though it may be. I abhor “telling” my work peeps what to do; anytime I do, I feel like a jerk.

All of this sounds normal and balanced, but it really is a hang up probably caused by being a nine-year old without any control over a really emotional (they all are) divorce situation. Even when I have no choice, I will choose to do the thing that seems to be the only option, because there are always other options, even silly ones. Not choosing the silly ones is a choice, after all.

So, back to the parenting piece: I do little things automatically that reinforce my son’s option to choose. Sure, he really can’t avoid being lifted up by his feet so I can shove a diaper under his booty, but I warn him (“Up!”) and give him a chance to brace himself before I do it. And shower time requires that his head go under the shower spray, but again, he is warned and allowed to react however he chooses.

This, I think, is why I don’t consider it odd or limiting to “train” my kid like I train my dogs. The dogs are always given a choice. They can comply and get something in return (usually a treat while they’re learning) or not and miss out on the treat. To me, this is the essence of “positive training,” that if you choose something, you know what you get in return, and that informs your (their) decision.

For the same reason, I never ask the dogs to do something they don’t want to do without a “fair trade.” No doing so forces them to choose between their own desires and compliance and that sucks. If they need a bath and don’t wanna go, I walk over to them and lead them rather than asking, and when they get there, they get something. If they won’t walk next to me, they get some form of treat until they make it there, but each step is a choice.

I know this makes me sound like a sucker, but I’m not. I just offer options and they choose which way they want to go. And if they choose the “wrong” option, they get the expected response from me… which sounds really bad, but really isn’t. If they choose not to go outside when I ask, they a) lose out on the treat and b) get body-blocked into going.

So, back to the baby: we’re experimenting with non-formula food, and, true to form, I’m pretty firm about the little things I do and don’t want in the experience. I do not want to be the one pushing food into his mouth while he learns to deal. It’s his mouth so it’s his choice. With mushy food, then, I put it on the spoon, make a brrrrr sound (this is his warning), and when he opens his mouth – if he opens his mouth – I touch the food to his lips. He decides if he wants to lean in and eat it.

We’re also experimenting with baby-led weaning to pretty good success. He is surprisingly good at eating apple slices and sticks of sweet potatoes and we have a blast watching him. He’s so proud when he succeeds and so purposeful while he tries.

Have I always been perfectly consistent? No. I’m sure if I go look at the video of the first time I fed him, I was shoveling food in his mouth and letting him react. (I cringe.) But as much as I can, I want to reinforce that the choices are his and that every choice has a consequence (good or bad).

Implicit in all of this is the fact that I trust my kid to know what he wants and do a decent job at doing what he needs. Is he right about what he needs all the time? No, but I do think that most of the time, his choices aren’t so bad.

People, I think I am working my way toward a parenting personality!

Who was trying to eat the cat? Not me, Mom! Who told you that? It was a LIE. (The cat apparently agrees, also faking the innocent look.)

My son gets frustrated, then pissed. He can’t get his arms to move correctly so he can crawl, causing him to move backward or thump his head, and he fusses, then cries, then blows up and looks to us for help.

Admittedly, we too often rescue him. We cheat by pushing the toy a bit closer, giving his feet something to push against, or lifting him out of the frustrating situation for a snuggle. This is where day care’s periodic ignoring of him balances us.

But I want to start teaching him that frustration is totally okay but giving up isn’t. I suspect I do this by ignoring him a bit more when he’s learning something new, a strategy that is anathema but probably necessary.

Any other ideas? How do you teach your kids (or pets!) to deal with frustration?

Six months into his life, I had already forgotten. After surviving through newborn-ness to get here – this glorious, fun-filled place where bounces bring giggles and he reaches for me when he misses me – the funny sound he makes while he sleeps had fallen from my brain.

I was in the other room tonight, piecing together a quilt for my kid and trying to forget work puzzles when I heard him cry. Actually, it was more of a little tiny mew. Had he cried, I probably would have patted his back a few times and left him to work it out on his own, but the mew? I couldn’t resist lifting him right out of his comfy slumber into my arms for a snuggle.

“I shouldn’t do this,” I thought.

Then I remembered my resolution not to “should,” only to do or not do. My life, my kid, my prerogative.

Because I’m the mama.

In a few moments I’ll lay him back down so he can get some real sleep. Really, any moment. In the meantime, I’m sniffing and rocking and snuggling because we can. We earned this, my son and I, and if we don’t choose to snuggle because we can, who will?

I love being this kid’s mama. Despite all my anxiousness before he arrived, in being responsible for him – to him – I’ve found peace deep down where the anxiousness used to live.

And if somehow, this is all because of the meds, I’ll take it.

But I don’t think it is.

So, part II.

What baby should wear when headed to the ER… (This is assuming, of course, that you have time to deal with this before going. If you don’t, pack this stuff in the bag.)

• Button-up jammies without feet. You’ll likely be asked to strip your baby down, but it can get cold and it’s hard to keep a kid wrapped in a blanket when that kid is pissed. So, if you can, put button up jammies on and leave buttons open as necessary. They must be footless because your baby will probably have an IV running into their foot (this is good, better than arm or head).
• Second pair of button-up jammies without feet. I actually borrowed scissors and cut the feet off some pj’s because I wanted so badly to give my dude some semblance of normalness amongst the chaos. Anyway, stuff spills, meds gets spit out, and clothes get yucky.
• Socks. Socks, socks, socks. Can also be used as hand warmers or (if you’re willing to cut a hole in one) to hide the blinky awesomeness that is a pulse ox monitor on a baby’s foot. Those things are like beacons in the night.
• A couple of blankets. Again with the normalcy, but also because hospital blankets smell like a hospital, I was glad to have one of my ever-present flannel blankies with us. He was able to cuddle up to it to sleep like at home, and we periodically used it as a shade from the ugly lights, burp cloth when spit-ups happened, and lap-protector/ cord-wrangler.

Bonus stuff to have in your hospital bag:

• Grown-up soap of some sort. I washed my hair (soooo nice to shower) with hand soap. Imagine, for a moment, the Lion King crossed with Medusa – that was me.
• Extra toothbrushes. Nobody plans to stay overnight, but quickly your teeth will feel icky. I had a bunch of new toothbrushes in my bag, one of which my mom used when she flew in to hang out with us in the hospital.
• A wet bag/ dirty stuff bag. Self-explanatory.
• Sleep sheep. My son sleeps with a white noise machine, and although no white noise on the planet can hide the incessant beeping that happens in hospitals, it helped us all.

Okay, next time, tips and tricks.

“Missy, what are you DOING?” boomed the door man as I shuffled pathetically across the building’s lobby in my pajamas.

“Need soup… Convenience store…” I mumbled.

He sent me back to bed, grabbed a couple of cans of soup from the store conveniently located on the ground floor of my building, and dropped them off at my apartment, where I’d been laying on the floor just inside the door so I wouldn’t have to summon the energy to get up to answer it when he arrived.

Lessons learned: even when you think you are utterly alone, you are not. Also: be prepared, for heaven’s sake.

So, let’s talk about an Emergency Room bag.

Oh, you don’t have one? Neither did I, and then my infant’s normal respiratory virus turned into too-fast breathing and a trip to the UT Children’s Hospital ER… which turned into a four day inpatient stay.

[Update: my kiddo is completely fine, save for a daily breathing treatment that is probably quite optional at this point, and a newfound ability to whine like it’s his job. He is a star at that job. Way to go, child o’ mine. If you’re going to do it, do it really well!]

So to turn this experience into something of a lesson learned for the future, I thought I’d share what I will now be packing in our “just in case” bag.

First, stuff for mama (because when the time comes, you’ll not be thinking about yourself, then you’ll find yourself about to eat your own hand because you’ve been there for five hours longer than you thought and haven’t eaten anything all day):

• Protein bars. They last forever and will give you what you need in a pinch: something that will keep you functioning and can be eaten with one hand while trying valiantly to soothe your crying, miserable baby with the rest of your body.
• Extra clothes (specifically, tank tops and clean undies). I was thoughtful enough to change clothes when I decided to head to the ER and chose a great outfit: two tank tops (take the top one off if you get puked on or find yourself on day two in the same clothes) with a mama sweater (long, comfy, with extra flaps to double as a blanket or puke cloth in a pinch) and jeans. Next time, I’d probably go straight for the gray yoga pants.
• A notebook and pen. I recommend this to family members of hospitalized people all the time: write everything down. Note the date at the top of the page, time for each entry, and to whom you were speaking. It will come in handy when you insist that if your baby’s IV has to be redone, you NEED LOIS THE PHLEBOTOMIST WHO STARTS HER NEXT SHIFT IN ONE HOUR. (After three very horrible and nightmare-inducing attempts to get an IV into my little dude’s pudgy arms, legs and head, the nurses got one in the top of a foot but couldn’t pull enough blood for labs. Lois from Lab came in, did one poke and was all done before we had time to brace ourselves. This is the stuff you write down: Lois from Lab is a bad ass.)
• Hair ties.
• Extra socks.
• A travel blanket/ pillow thing.
• Kleenex. The good kind.
• Chapstick.
• Face lotion. You can wash makeup and tears and germs off with regular soap but then you have to walk around with too-tight skin.
• A spare phone charger.
• Change. You can survive a surprising number of days on vending machine replenishments.
• Coffee packets (yes, like Starbucks Via) and pain killer for the grown-ups. You might be surprised at how you react to having your kid all monitored up and in a hospital bed while crying miserably and in pain. I am a champ in an emergency, but once things were under control, I just felt so bad. Nothing like a crying jag to give you a head ache, ya know?

Next, for baby. We live about 15 minutes from the hospital – and there were two of us available – so we made multiple trips home for stuff, but I’d rather prepare for a situation when one of us has to get through it all alone.

• My own brand (and flavor) of pain killer. After too many hours of having things shoved in him against his will, my kid rebelled against the bright pink too-sweet Tylenol, just the thing he needed to help him with the aches and pains of ER testing and traumatizing. After a quick run home, we confirmed that he was willing to take the grape stuff we usually use, a big win when everything else was so horrible for him. I know, yes, we could have forced the pink stuff down him (and did, once), but if we can avoid that, we will.
• A day’s worth of diapers. We ultimately used the hospital-provided Huggies after we were admitted (they know what they weigh so measuring his urine output is easier) but it was nice to have him in his usual stuff as much as possible in the ER.
• Our own wipes. Some wipes make his face and hands break out in hives (luckily, never his booty) so it’s just better to have our own around.
• Yeast infection cream. Our ped recommends Lotrimin, and while I did finally get it through the hospital, it took a call to the on-call doc and some waiting time when I could have just pulled it out of my diaper bag (if I’d thought to pack it). Good gawd, yeast grows fast when a six-month old is given a bomb-sized dose of antibiotics. Yuck.
• OUR OWN FORMULA. They had our brand of formula but it came premixed and Jav was totally against it. Yes, we could have forced him, but why?
• A wash cloth and mini bottle of baby wash. By day two, I convinced a nice (night-shift – they’re always the ones willing to fudge the rules a little) nurse to let him off the pulse ox monitor for 15 minutes so I could bathe the stinker.
• Dish soap. After just a day in the hospital, all of the toys we brought and every single bottle just felt yucky. I ended up soaking them all in the tub with super hot water and some of Javi’s body soap, but a tiny bottle of dish soap would have been better.
• Disinfectable toys. Lots of them. If you are against toys that use batteries, this is the time to drop that goal and buy one or two to throw in the bad. After a few hours with a miserable kid, you will be willing to throw out every principle you’ve ever held to make things a little better for him.

Okay, that’s long enough for now. I’ll do another post with tips and tricks gleaned from years working in hospitals (I’m IT, not clinical, but you learn things) and an ER nurse oldest best friend.

This is my sweet, good, awesomest toughest baby after hours of misery, finding a break to smile just for his mama:

I think a lot about what I’m teaching my son when it comes to money and opportunities and “stuff.” Correction: I think a lot about what I will be teaching my son. He’s young enough still that what he learns from  us is more along the lines of drinking from a coffee cup than that whether we drink premium coffee, thank goodness. We still have time to think.

Side note: I used to read blog posts by parents that sounded like this one and wonder where they learned what to think about? Did they get some sort of class I missed that gave them a list of things to keep in mind while parenting? Then I had a child (and got past the first four months where there’s little time for thought) and suddenly I was thinking the same way. If you’re wondering where this comes from, it just pops up one day and then you think about it every hour of every day.

My husband and I talk about how to raise our son so that he isn’t a douche like many of our childhood friends whose parents had more money than ours. For both of us, from lack came focus, from hardship came a sense of responsibility.

Should we be causing some sort of lack, then, so that our son gets the same kind of focus? Barring an unforeseen hardship, how do we instill that sense of responsibility? Having come from a different kind of childhood than he’ll have, financially at least (knock on wood), we will have to teach ourselves rather than follow the example of our upbringing.

We have so many ideas, most of which I’ll share in various blog posts as we figure them out a little better, but the quote from Jennifer Lopez this morning was one I’ll be thinking about.