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!
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