Calm before the Storm

So far, our little family has been thoroughly enjoying summer holidays together.  Time has flown by with flurries of houseguests, a few landscaping projects, and an upcoming camping trip in the Rockies.  I’ve gotten so used to having Ivan’s help with housework and taking care of Mariah, that I’m starting to get nervous about re-adjusting to the real world in a few short weeks.  At first, the shift from my once dreaded mommy routine was a bit unsettling, but I must admit I’m getting used to vacation mode with lots of late nights and many excuses to miss the gym! 

Baby bootcamp has been going reasonably well.  Mariah has been sleeping in her crib for the majority of most nights – with Ivan & I taking turns settling her every few hours.  She’s definitely more comfortable on her own these days, even singing herself to sleep sometimes as a self-soothing strategy.  I’m hoping to somehow try and maintain this when Ivan returns to work, but am a bit concerned that sleep deprivation may tempt me to ‘give up’ and bring her back to our bed.  Transitioning her to solids has been more fun than I expected.  Ivan made a hobby of making Mariah a variety of home-made babyfoods.  She loved most things, but has been realizing that it’s far more fun and delicious to eat off of our plates so we’re trying to allow her table and finger foods as much as we can (she even loves the taste of curry!)  As for diapering – we sat on the fence for a couple of weeks and both finally agreed to give up on cloth diapers (at least for now) and switch to disposables.  It was a tough decision, but the huge reduction in laundry is definitely helping me feel less overwhelmed.

Mariah’s mobility is truly blooming this summer.  Her crawling is improving and her frequent attempts at standing tell me that she will likely walk early.  In a way, her mobility has made parenting much more manageable since she’s independent enough to entertain herself with toys for a few minutes at a time, rather than needing to be carried.  However, as everyone keeps warning me … apparently I’ll be chasing after her in no-time.  I like to think that if I baby proof our house enough, maybe I can just let her roam free and eliminate the need for chasing.  But somehow, I think that rationale may be a bit naïve.  For now, I’ll just continue to enjoy the respite of summer holidays and the calm before the storm of excitement to come!

Baby Bootcamp

This long weekend marked the beginning of Ivan’s summer holidays from teaching.  I’m not sure who’s more excited: Ivan for having a well-deserved break from work; or me for getting an extra pair of hands to help with baby at home!  In fact, since the start of my maternity leave, I’ve been telling myself ‘just survive until summer and life will get easier’…and so it has.  Well mostly.  Ivan and I spent the first couple of days getting on each other’s nerves since that’s easy to do when you spend too much time together.  But the sunshine and summer vibes are starting to set in, so we’re trying to relax a bit more and daydream about the weeks to come.

Little does Mariah know, that mommy and daddy’s vacation time will coincide with her ‘baby bootcamp’.  You see…there are a few parenting hurdles I’ve found too hard to manage on my own, so I put them off until Ivan could help:

Step 1 – Sleep Training

Up until now, Mariah has had the luxury of co-sleeping in mommy and daddy’s bed.  Ivan and I both have very mixed feelings about this since it can be a great bonding experience, yet can perpetuate sleep deprivation and be a relationship challenge since something – or rather someone – is literally right in between us at night.  I’ll dedicate a full blog to this topic at a later time.  For now, the summary is that we have attempted transitioning Mariah to her crib several times with little success since it ideally requires a persistent effort from both parents.  There are various theories and strategies ranging from ‘Ferberizing’ (letting baby cry themselves to sleep) vs. a more attachment based approach of comforting baby each time she cries – each with the goal of gradually decreasing their need for mommy or daddy.  Last night was the first time that Ivan and I did not ‘give up’ – we took turns getting up every hour or two and did our best trying to reassure Mariah that she is safe in her crib.  It wasn’t easy.  We were both exhausted and frustrated.  We got mad with each other’s differing techniques but tried our best to stay calm (a good friend of mine advised that anything said to each other after 2am should not ‘count’!).  My hope is that if we can keep it up for a few more nights, Mariah might realize her crib isn’t so bad and we can all start sleeping a bit better. 

Step 2 – Starting Solids

Mariah has been showing signs of being ready for solids starting around 4 months.  At that point we experimented by giving her ‘tastes’ of fruits and progressing up to some baby cereal and cookies.  The general recommendation used to be to start solids from 4-6 months beginning with certain vegetables, then fruits, and later to meats, etc.  However, the current trend is to wait until 6 months and then start introducing baby to a variety of pureed foods full force and then quickly progressing to minced and finger foods.  In fact, you’re encouraged to start with iron-rich foods like pureed meats, fish, and beans.  Since we’ve decided to make our own baby food…and since you’re encouraged to introduce a new food every 2 days to prevent fussiness, I decided to wait until Ivan was home to help me deal with the mealplanning and blending – just a couple of weeks after Mariah turned 6 months.  So far so good – she’s tried nectarines (loved), peas (spat at us), and today she’s going to try pureed grilled salmon!  All this food leads us to the final step of bootcamp – the part that’s more of a challenge for daddy and I:

Step 3 – Dealing with ‘real’ poop

Mariah wore disposable diapers for her first 2 months until I felt ready to switch to cloth diapers.  We launder them ourselves and the process has actually been much easier than I expected since breastmilk is water soluble, so even poopy diapers could go straight into the washing machine.  However, once solid foods are introduced, so too are bigger, messier poops!  This means either spraying or wiping the mess into the toilet before laundering so, again, something I wanted ‘back-up’ for before committing to myself.  So far it’s tolerable, but I’ve decided that if it begins to feel too overwhelming we’ll switch back to disposables guilt-free.

All in all, bootcamp is off to a good start and I’m hopeful that once the three of us get into a good routine, the rest of the summer might get easier and more exciting.  Who would have thought that our summer plans would literally revolve around baby's eating, sleeping, and pooping!