The Light at the End of the Tunnel

Sadie had a bad week last week.

It's funny because I didn't actually realize it until it was over; it doesn't really work that way. She'll often have an off day, where she's especially fussy or sleepy or otherwise bad-tempered, and it's usually followed by a better day. When I think back on last week, though, it was a progression of really tough days.

She cried a lot. They say babies are too young at this age to experience separation anxiety, but try explaining that to a baby who screams every time you leave her line of vision. (After all, as far as she knows, once she can't see me anymore I have ceased to exist entirely.) She managed to completely wear out our otherwise saintly babysitter with nonstop fussing. She'd cry when you put her on her back to play. She'd cry before naps. She'd cry upon waking up from naps.

It all culminated in a day that was worse than all the rest -- Super Bowl Sunday. She fussed pretty much all day, refused to go to sleep, then got overtired and fussed even harder. She just seemed miserable. She wanted to nurse constantly, and eventually I ran out of milk and that REALLY pissed her off.

That's the other thing about this past week -- her stomach, like, doubled in size. Quite literally, she went from taking 4 or 5 ounces of milk at an average feeding to taking 7 or 8. That's a big enough jump that my body can't adjust right away, which means I'm just nursing steadily trying to up my milk supply, while supplementing with frozen milk. I try to pump an extra feeding's worth of milk every morning, but most mornings last week I would just wind up feeding it right back to her in order to satiate her, and was starting to panic about running out of milk entirely.

This week, fortunately, things have finally leveled out. I'm producing enough milk (the key is drinking an assload of water and never letting yourself get dehydrated), so that helps, but more to the point, I think Sadie's just come out the far end of a wicked growth spurt.

And what is our reward for having toughed it out? Oh, it's pretty awesome. She emerged from her growth spurt a brand new baby. Instead of a laugh here and there, she now belly-laughs for minutes at a end, amused by surprising little things like the way we pronounce a word or a toy being bounced across her line of vision. She utterly adores her Jumparoo, and instead of melting into the seat and bobbling like she did last week, she now holds herself up and jumps up and down so enthusiastically that she has, on occasion, freaked herself out. And until you have witnessed a baby who's shrieking with joy and crying with terror at the same time, my friend, you have not LIVED.

Shadowboxing

Ever since we got home from Washington, Sadie has decided that falling asleep is the thing she hates most in the world. Not actually sleeping -- just getting there.

I live by the 90 Minute Sleep Solution, which suggests putting the baby down for a nap after she's been awake for 90 minutes. It's this book that has enabled me to work out a daytime napping schedule for Sadie, and the consistency has been great to see. She stirs around 7, wakes up for real around 9, then goes back down at 10:30 for about half an hour. Around noon is when I take my long daily walk, and she'll usually snooze in the stroller. Then she goes down next around 2:30, which is when she takes her long afternoon nap until 5ish, and on an ideal day she'll take one final catnap from 6:30 to 7, then is awake until her bedtime at 9.

Great schedule, right? As long as she keeps to it, Sadie is a happy girl. She's generally good-natured anyway, and her meltdowns tend to be few and far between. That's why this new shift in behavior has me so baffled.

It first happened the day after we got back in town. As I wrapped her up in her miracle blanket, she began crying. Nothing unusual, but when I picked her up and started to rock her, instead of calming down instantly as she usually does, she only cried harder. I was convinced that something was wrong and went through the whole cycle: checking her diaper, massaging her belly in case she had gas, offering her something to eat in case she was hungry. But she just wanted to cry -- a lot.

Now, this seems to be her new routine, and it breaks my heart. She doesn't want to go down for a nap without sobbing for several minutes first, as if she's afraid of what will happen when she gets to dreamland. Even on her walk in the stroller yesterday, she wailed -- and she NEVER does that. The moving stroller is like her little zen world where nothing bad ever happens. And again this morning, as I wrapped her up for her 10:30 catnap, she utterly freaked out. I can't tell you how much it hurts my heart to see tears running down her cheeks, an expression on her face as she looks at me that says, "Mom, why won't you make this better?" She sucks her hands, she roots at my shirt but isn't interested in eating. She chokes, she's crying so hard. If I put her down, she cries harder. And finally, after she's worn herself out, she gives a few little hiccups and sobs and her eyes close.

I hope this is temporary. I hope this isn't the way things stay. We've been so lucky to have a happy baby who rarely cries and is easily comforted. Could it be the beginning of teething already, even though she's only three and a half months old?

Monsters in the Bathroom

For the first three months Sadie was a bubbly, gurgling angel in the mornings and slowly developed into a fussy, angry demon as the day wore on. This is normal for a newborn, apparently, for reasons not fully understood. Whatever the reason, ever since she began approaching the 3 month point that routine has begun to flip (along with sleeping schedules, feeding schedules and every other kind of schedule I've managed to successfully establish, but that's a topic for another post). Last night the kid was Miss Congeniality, and this morning she rapidly devolved into a ball of angry yelly-ness.

When she gets this way she wants to be held and comforted, which is new. Before, it was motion and constant noise that soothed her and it didn't matter too much whether she was being rocked in my arms or in her mechanical swing. Now when she's fussy, putting her down anywhere makes it considerably worse. While I kind of dig knowing that I'm now the source of ultimate comfort for her, it makes doing anything requiring the use of my hands...well...difficult.

Her entirely new perspective on the world has led to other changes I hadn't expected. Typically, for example, I bring her into the bathroom with me while I shower. She plays in her bouncy seat, knocking a little purple hippo back and forth with her fist, and is cool as long as I've got some kind of loud noise going on -- the shower, the hairdryer, whatever. The hairdryer, in fact, as always been a source of comfort for Sadie, putting her into a kind of dream-like trance.

But this morning when I fired it up, she got a look of utter terror on her face and burst into sobs. You'd have thought I'd left her alone on the African savanna in the middle of lion territory, that's how upset she was.

I picked her up and she immediately quieted. I tried turning on the dryer while holding her. No problem. Put her back down in her bouncy seat and turned it on again.

"WAAAAAAAAHHHHHH."

Now, here's the thing. I get to look decent maybe one day out of every month, and this month I would like that day to be Christmas Eve when I get to have dinner with my 80-something grandparents, so DAMN IT I was going to dry my hair and nothing was going to stop me.

So picture this: I wind up drying my hair with Sadie in the Moby wrap curled up against my chest, while trying to hold the hairdryer angled away from her so that I won't fry her head. (This activity is probably not recommended by the APA.) Meanwhile, copious amounts of drool are getting all over both of us because her saliva glands just kicked into overdrive this past week. Also, there are boogers.

But my hair is now shiny and dry, the baby is not screaming, and I can chalk up one more tiny victory in this crazy parenting process.