Yes it is easier, but I feel like when EVERYone says "it gets easier," they mean even easier. At least on some nights he sleeps stretches of 4-5 hours. On Sunday night, he slept six!! That uninterrupted sleep helps tremendously. I felt so much different Monday morning than Tuesday morning after he slept four hours, was awake for two hours, then slept another two. I wouldn't even mind a middle of the night feeding if it followed five hours of sleep.
Unfortunately so far Carsen 1- wants to be held almost all the time and 2- doesn't seem to settle down at night til around 11pm, even if I start at 7pm to create a bedtime routine and try to get him to sleep earlier. He just fights it. Or sleeps for like 30 mins then wakes and fights going back down. It would really be nice at the end of the day to have that time with Matt. At least we've found that he sleeps well in his carseat, vs me having to hold him and worrying about the carefully placed blankets moving and suffocating him or me somehow moving even an inch and crushing him. It's far from ideal to have him sleep in his carseat but in his bassinet, he hasn't slept more than 2hrs at a time. I don't know why. I thought maybe it was too hard, or too cold, or not elevated and maybe he has acid reflux so against guidelines, we put a knit blanket under his bassinet sheet with it folded over more on one end to make it more elevated. That's a no no, even though he can't even roll over yet so I'm not sure how he could get himself into trouble...
I'm figuring out that parenting is a constant experience of trying to figure it out. Once you get through one phase, you're onto another that you have no idea how to handle. I'm reading so much but everyone has different advice.
For example, I started rereading "On Becoming Babywise," about getting babies as early as 8 weeks old to sleep through the night for 8 hours. These authors claim babies can sleep an hour per week old they are plus one. They lay out a pretty regimented sleep/eating cycle that has a lot of criticism for 1- being too strict/some babies won't adapt to it/some babies can't be flexible after adapting, and 2- endorsing having babies cry it out (which I've read that Carsen may be too young for; I certainly feel that way). I understand the premise that babies need sleep, then fed just after waking while they have a lot of energy, then need awake/play time, then should be laid down when drowsy but still awake so they can learn to fall asleep on their own and not use these things are sleeping crutches: 1- nursing, 2- being held, 3- pacifier, 4- being rocked. My question is: if I feel like Carsen is too young to have me let him cry it out (his pediatrician says he won't understand cause/effect e.g. "if I cry, Mommy picks me up" until he's like 3 months), how do I get him to sleep otherwise? Because if I put him down in his bassinet or playpen, he just ends up crying. Sometimes in the carseat too. I can get him to sleep sometimes in the front pack by walking around, but again, that's rocking...
I also read that babies his age should sleep around 16 hours a day and that they usually can't go more than 1 to 2 hours awake at a time. But nursing takes around an hour itself! I don't know how because he only nurses about 15 mins on each side but if you factor in burping a few minutes after each side and diaper changes, etc, it takes awhile.
Our days seem to go like this: 7am wake/diaper change/nurse/I force nap because I'm so tired, 9-9:30am wake/nurse/diaper change/dress/I eat/maybe pump if I get him to hang out in playpen/play, 11am ish try to get him to nap, 12-1pm ish wake him up to diaper change/nurse/play, try to get him to nap again but then it's shortly time to wake him again to nurse if I'm trying to nurse every 2-3 hours so not much sleep there, 3pm ish nursing/a little play/sometimes he naps around 4 or 5pm, 6pm ish nursing/trying to keep him from being fussy while we make and eat dinner/he tries to nap sometimes but it doesn't last long and/or he tried to take a really long nap starting around 3 or 4pm, 7-8pm nursing again and I try to start a bedtime routine with maybe a bath, a story, I try to get him to sleep but he fights it and fights it and fights it, we maybe get him to sleep for 30 mins then he's up again wanting to nurse, nursing again hoping he'll sleep after that, he fights sleep... this usually goes on til about 11pm when he'll finally settle down and sleep, 2-3am wakes up to nurse (a few times he's slept through), 4am doesn't want to go back to sleep, fights it, 6-7am wakes up to nurse. I tried to count it and it's only like 14 hours of sleep. His naps are usually only an hour because by the time he goes to sleep, it's been two hours since he started last nursing, meaning I'll have to wake him in an hour to nurse. Sometimes he'll try to take a much longer nap if I let him. Is 14hrs enough? Should I try to enforce longer naps? Earlier bedtime? I thought babies slept longer. He used to. I thought I'd have more time than a one hour nap every several hours during the day, and maybe some time in the evening. I feel like I'm always questioning if I'm doing things right.
Anyhow...
Carsen got to meet his Grandma Susan, who came to stay with us for a week. She was a big help, holding Carsen, teaching him new lullabies and Celtic songs, helping us with laundry and dishes and cooking. I felt so lazy. She even made batches of casseroles and cookies for us to freeze so we won't have to cook some nights! The weather was pretty crappy and Matt had to work the whole time she was here so we didn't get her out to see the sites but we had a nice visit. Carsen's not very interactive yet, but he's nice to hold.
I joined a Moms group through Meetup.com and I'm going to try to go to some of their events in the next few weeks to meet some other moms. It's hard that my friends who are moms don't live in town, and none of my friends in town have kids yet (except one, though her stepson is seven so not exactly in the same stage). It'd just be nice to meet some other women who have infants who I can chat with once in awhile, and eventually have some play dates. It gets lonely being home, even (especially?) with a baby.
Last week, I tried to start back at work. My original thinking was that instead of taking 12 full weeks off (which luckily I do have enough vacation (which is capped at 6 weeks) and sick pay enough to do), I'd take at least 6 weeks off then go back part-time gradually (like 15hrs for a few wks, then 20...) so that I wouldn't be back to 40hrs until sometime in the summer. My office is really wonderful in that they don't expect anything from me that I'm not willing to do. I can determine when I work, when I'll have a predictable schedule, when I want to take email back, when and which projects I want to take back... But that freedom sometimes makes it challenging because right now, I don't have a ton to do, but then it's also been more challenging to find even 3 hrs during the day to pay attention to work than I thought it would be. We'll see how it goes.
The other challenging part of parenting is, surprisingly, how it challenges Matt and my relationship. I find myself irritated and snippy, and since he's sensitive, that creates issues. It's tough to be on the same page with some basic things, like whether he's hungry or not, and whether I should breastfeed more or we should supplement him with a bottle of breastmilk/formula (since I don't have much expressed milk). Feeding him has been 80% of our issues with each other. And then being tired and not being able to be intimate in the way we want mixed in leads to a rocky road for us. Thank goodness my parents are really encouraging (even prompting) for date nights and wanting to babysit. Our first time out to dinner without Carsen felt like being carefree teenagers again! We felt so... free! Alive! Young! Until 8pm when we felt tired ;) I thought having a baby would bring us closer. Maybe that comes in time too.
