You know what I would love? I want a parent hotline to be answered by an extremely experienced, well-respected person who could answer all my on-the-spot questions about raising a child and not totally fucking them up before the age of five. But instead we have a pediatrician for sickness (Most of the time their answer is, “It will pass. there’s nothing we can do.”), a sleep doula for sleep questions (But they charge by the hour, and who can afford to have an on-call doula for the rest of their child’s years?), a pediatric neurologist for any brain related questions (Like “Do left-handed kids have trouble reading from right to left more than right-handed children?” I personally like asking this doctor questions that I’m just wondering about for fun), a pediatric eye doctor (If you’re lucky you don’t have to have one of these because your child sees perfectly, but unfortunately ours does not.), and in the past we have had lactation consultants as well (These people are awesome, by the way!). (more…)
Archive for the ‘Sleep’ Category
911 for Parents
August 2, 2012The Nap Transition
July 2, 2012I’m very sad to report that we’ve apparently hit what the sleep doulas call “the nap transition”. This is the time during which a toddler is transitioning out of needing a nap, and into the sad napless world we adults live in. I don’t understand why anyone would want to transition out of a nap. I’ve tried to reason with August by telling him that he’s really not missing anything by sleeping from 1pm to 3pm every day. I’ve told him that the world stops spinning, the tides neither go in nor go out, and the whole world is silent while he naps. But he doesn’t believe me and would like to instead join us adults in our napless lives. (more…)
Does anyone sleep anymore?
April 26, 2012I may be totally kidding myself, but I feel like I used to sleep – A LOT! Before August came around, I remember sleeping through the night, falling asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, and sleeping until at least 10am. If someone wanted to do brunch with me on the weekends, I couldn’t make it anywhere until 11am at least. (more…)
And the answer is “Not funny”!
March 12, 2012You’re not going to believe this, but after not knowing what was going to happen on our first red-eye trip with our two-year-old, pulling an all nighter was not one of the outcomes we were expecting. That’s right folks, our two-year-old literally did not sleep one freaking wink on our flight out to New York. Pretty amazing, actually. He wasn’t even really in a bad mood either. He did, however, fall asleep in the cab ride from the airport to the hotel. He also fell asleep for thirty minutes on our airplane ride home. (more…)
Funny or Not?
March 1, 2012A Mom walks into a bar and says, “I’m taking a red-eye with my two-year-old son…”. Funny or not? I’ll let you know next week, cause guess what folks, we’re doing it. Brent is going on another business trip, so instead of letting him live it up like a bachelor, we found these incredible prices, and now August and I are going too. But the catch is we have to take the red-eye. (more…)
“90 minute sleep program”
January 22, 2012If you’re a parent, and if you have had issues with your child sleeping, then GET THIS BOOK! Or at the very least, check it out of the library. It’s the most amazing, and one of the more interesting books I have read about sleep as it refers to kids. I have read several books about getting children to sleep through the night and getting them to nap, but this one actually works. Better yet, it still works today two years later on August. (more…)
Holiday Parties
December 18, 2011We did it. For the first time, I think, in two plus years Brent and I went out on Friday AND Saturday night. In preparation for this weekend, August and I held interviews for a new babysit that was up for the task. (Our favorite babysit has raised her prices and we just felt like we should have a backup babysitter as well) We interviewed four girls, excuse me, ladies in six days. I’ll tell you interviewing babysitters is quite interesting. It’s also different what you need as a mom of a toddler vs. a mom of a six-month old. Although we’re mostly looking for someone to just sit in our house while August sleeps, ideally I wanted to find someone who could come over and play with August during the day as well. Tough to find as it turns out. (more…)
Careful what you wish for!
December 9, 2011Yep, that’s exactly what I was thinking this morning as I lay in bed at 6:47am wondering when August was going to wake up, and then whether he would not nap for the third day in a row. Here I was just a few short four weeks ago complaining about August waking us up at 5am, then 5:30am, then he stuck to 6am for a while. But on each one of those days he had one hell of a nap. His naps sometimes lasted so long that I felt guilty about how simple my day had been. After I did some quick calculations, he was only my sole responsibility for about 4 – 5 hours each day. He was napping for at least two hours, sometimes even three. (more…)
Lucky you – a double post…
November 17, 2011She’s here not even ten minutes and for the last two hours I’ve been freaking out about what she said, “Well, of course he’s waking up at 5:30 am when you put him to bed before 7 pm”. What if she’s right? But the doula said we should be putting him to bed before 7:30 pm (our previous bedtime), but maybe she was wrong and my mother-in-law is right. Maybe it WAS a daylight savings problem, but now it’s a too early to bed problem?
The reason why I’m second guessing the bedtime is because before daylight savings he slept for ten and half to eleven hours of sleep every night with a one and a half to two-hour nap. So we would put him to bed at 7:30pm and he would wake up between 6:30 am and 7 am. Now for the past few nights we’ve been putting him to bed between 6:30 pm and 7 pm and he’s waking up at 5:30 am to 5:45 am.
Fuck, maybe she’s right. Not ten minutes and I’m already over thinking things she’s said to me.
