Thank you all for the commiseration on my last post. It means so much to know this is all normal and I am not alone. Dh tried a little harder this morning. Granted he then left for work in the afternoon and won't come home until after we are all in bed, but baby steps are better than nothing.
Yesterday we went to check out the early child development center at our university to see if we want to enroll M. I had submitted an application a couple of weeks ago assuming we'd never get in because they take so few children and so many people want in. Unbelievably we got offered a spot.
It was amazing. M won't ever want to come home. All the teachers are trained in child development, all the furniture and toys are kid-size and cool, it is a really environmentally friendly building, the teachers/care takers in the infant & toddler rooms even hang out on their knees so as to be at kid level (we are all equals...) M will be able to stay in the program through preschool, so I basically have full time childcare set up for the next five years. And the cincher? It is three blocks away from my office.
But for some reason I was incredibly saddened by it all. I just know that August will roll around here very soon and I'll be confronted with taking M to this place and, oh my, leaving her there. I hope I am more ready for it when the time comes than I am right now.
I got home in the late afternoon and chit-chatted with the nanny who watched M today (as she does every wedesnday and friday). I really enjoy talking so much about the minutia of M with her as she is all into it too, unlike anyone else I know. I sat down to nurse M as the nanny straightened up M's room before leaving. She then started talking about one of the baby books she was reading to M and how M really liked this one page... I have read to M some but not those little baby books. I instantly felt terrible. I have tried to have an evening routine that includes a bath, baby massage, nursing & some bedtime reading. But I figured more grown up books would be ok for now since she doesn't know what I am saying.
To add insult to the injury of my guilt, wed and thur night M was pretty stressed out so all I did was hold her and calm her down. Wednesday night I even skipped PJ's because she was so upset when I changed her diaper, so I skipped the clothes and just swaddled her.
The nanny then left and I nursed and held M for a couple of hours. And I cried. Bawled, actually. I love this little girl so much but I am afraid that isn't enough. I am afriad that I am a terrible mother. M deserves the best. She is perfect right now and I hate that I will screw her up.
Today I feel a little better. My house doesn't need to be romper room. M needs to see regular life too, how adults interact and how big furniture really is. I guess it is ok if some of M's world isn't tailor made for her. Maybe my love will be enough to fulfill my role as the navigator, and I am not suposed to be her everything.
I don't know. I really don't. I just hope my best is good enough.
Showing posts with label childcare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label childcare. Show all posts
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Friday, May 6, 2011
Watching M
My husband had to watch little M on his own twice this week for the first time. There were two things that happened at school that I absolutely couldn't miss. It meant that I needed to be out for out 4 hours each time, and M would need a bottle.
The first one didn't go well but Dh was sort of able to laugh about it. He was able to feed M from a bottle despite some serious issues and was overall satisfied with himself.
The second time was terrible. I got home tonight to a naked baby laying in her crib happy to see me, the changing table pad off, baby clothes all over the place, a half-drunk bottle nearby, and Dh frazzed in the dining room. At first I started joking about the scene of the frat party, but Dh was nowhere near a laughing mood.
I am not entirely sure what happened but M clearly lost it. To me this is obviously because she was exhausted and overstimulated. She had been up for an hour by the time we did the switch over between parents. I had fed and changed her, so of course she'd been up a while. I strongly advised that he get her to take a nap. I have a feeling that he assumed she would put herself to sleep when she was tired despite my telling him that he'd have to lull her to sleep.
As you all know, babies don't always know that they need to sleep. They just know that something isn't right so they start to get fussy. M is like this especially in the afternoons. You have to coax her to sleep for her afternoon nap(s).
By the time I got home she'd been awake for 5.5 hours and crying hysterically for the last 4 of those.
Dh gets pissed off and frustrated pretty easily. And the bad mood can last quite a while. He just went to bed in a really bad mood.
I feel terrible. Most of the reasons I feel terrible are irrational.
1) I feel guilty like I was somehow supposed to teach him how to feed her from a bottle. But, for one, I don't actually know. I've never fed her from a bottle. And two, he never asked me how. I intentionally didn't tell him because I didn't want him to think I didn't trust his ability to figure it out. He is sensitive to when it seems like I don't trust him or if I am being "bossy" and won't let him do things his own way. But then it sounded like he thought I was a bad mother to leave my baby in the hands of her father without explicit instructions.
Was I supposed to lecture him on how to not stimulate M? I have repeatedly but gently mentioned that he needs to be able to not always play with her, that she gets overstimulated and needs to sleep. How hard is it to sit quietly holding a baby in the rocking chair and not play with her? Do I need to give instructions on this? Seems self-explanatory to me, and it isn't like he hasn't seen me sitting in the green glider we got on Craig's list for hours and hours quietly holding a sleeping M. Get a clue.
2) I feel like the IF experience and all the shit we went through to get out of IF Land was me pushing really hard for something I want and not necessarily something that he really wanted. I worry that he is mad at me for pushing him into something he now thinks is awful. He says this is not the case at all, but I can't help but feel this way, to worry.
3) I don't understand why he doesn't see that M and I get along so well because we have been essentially inseparable since she was born. She cries and freaks out with me, but I was forced pretty early on to figure out ways to console her, what she needs and when. She still cries with me, but I am usually pretty good at eventually calming her down and solving her issue. Dh, he doesn't have anywhere near that kind of level of experience. He and M have to work it out and find a way to communicate. Or rather, Dh needs to figure this out. M's only job is to eat, poop and grow. After this afternoon he said that babies only like their mothers, that M just doesn't like him. I don't quite get why he doesn't see that this isn't true. She's just much more used to me. It actually has nothing to do with my being her mother, other than that it is usually the mother who spends so much time with the baby and does so very early on. We figure it out -- sink or swim. Dads don't often end up in this same situation. But if they do, they find a rhythm that works too. The only unfair advantage I have is that I make milk. But I do leave lots of bottles of the stuff for him.
I guess they will work it out eventually, but I wish that he would try harder. I wish that he'd ask for help and advice, and I really wish he'd listen to me. It's almost as if he thinks that if baby harmony doesn't come immediately and easily then it isn't meant to be. He has been like this with our relationship too. I have spent an inordinate amount of time and emotional energy convincing him that marriages are work and require maintenance. Once you fall in love you have to work to stay in love. You can't just ignore each other for 10 years and assume that if it is meant to be that you'll still be crazy about each other.
The first one didn't go well but Dh was sort of able to laugh about it. He was able to feed M from a bottle despite some serious issues and was overall satisfied with himself.
The second time was terrible. I got home tonight to a naked baby laying in her crib happy to see me, the changing table pad off, baby clothes all over the place, a half-drunk bottle nearby, and Dh frazzed in the dining room. At first I started joking about the scene of the frat party, but Dh was nowhere near a laughing mood.
I am not entirely sure what happened but M clearly lost it. To me this is obviously because she was exhausted and overstimulated. She had been up for an hour by the time we did the switch over between parents. I had fed and changed her, so of course she'd been up a while. I strongly advised that he get her to take a nap. I have a feeling that he assumed she would put herself to sleep when she was tired despite my telling him that he'd have to lull her to sleep.
As you all know, babies don't always know that they need to sleep. They just know that something isn't right so they start to get fussy. M is like this especially in the afternoons. You have to coax her to sleep for her afternoon nap(s).
By the time I got home she'd been awake for 5.5 hours and crying hysterically for the last 4 of those.
Dh gets pissed off and frustrated pretty easily. And the bad mood can last quite a while. He just went to bed in a really bad mood.
I feel terrible. Most of the reasons I feel terrible are irrational.
1) I feel guilty like I was somehow supposed to teach him how to feed her from a bottle. But, for one, I don't actually know. I've never fed her from a bottle. And two, he never asked me how. I intentionally didn't tell him because I didn't want him to think I didn't trust his ability to figure it out. He is sensitive to when it seems like I don't trust him or if I am being "bossy" and won't let him do things his own way. But then it sounded like he thought I was a bad mother to leave my baby in the hands of her father without explicit instructions.
Was I supposed to lecture him on how to not stimulate M? I have repeatedly but gently mentioned that he needs to be able to not always play with her, that she gets overstimulated and needs to sleep. How hard is it to sit quietly holding a baby in the rocking chair and not play with her? Do I need to give instructions on this? Seems self-explanatory to me, and it isn't like he hasn't seen me sitting in the green glider we got on Craig's list for hours and hours quietly holding a sleeping M. Get a clue.
2) I feel like the IF experience and all the shit we went through to get out of IF Land was me pushing really hard for something I want and not necessarily something that he really wanted. I worry that he is mad at me for pushing him into something he now thinks is awful. He says this is not the case at all, but I can't help but feel this way, to worry.
3) I don't understand why he doesn't see that M and I get along so well because we have been essentially inseparable since she was born. She cries and freaks out with me, but I was forced pretty early on to figure out ways to console her, what she needs and when. She still cries with me, but I am usually pretty good at eventually calming her down and solving her issue. Dh, he doesn't have anywhere near that kind of level of experience. He and M have to work it out and find a way to communicate. Or rather, Dh needs to figure this out. M's only job is to eat, poop and grow. After this afternoon he said that babies only like their mothers, that M just doesn't like him. I don't quite get why he doesn't see that this isn't true. She's just much more used to me. It actually has nothing to do with my being her mother, other than that it is usually the mother who spends so much time with the baby and does so very early on. We figure it out -- sink or swim. Dads don't often end up in this same situation. But if they do, they find a rhythm that works too. The only unfair advantage I have is that I make milk. But I do leave lots of bottles of the stuff for him.
I guess they will work it out eventually, but I wish that he would try harder. I wish that he'd ask for help and advice, and I really wish he'd listen to me. It's almost as if he thinks that if baby harmony doesn't come immediately and easily then it isn't meant to be. He has been like this with our relationship too. I have spent an inordinate amount of time and emotional energy convincing him that marriages are work and require maintenance. Once you fall in love you have to work to stay in love. You can't just ignore each other for 10 years and assume that if it is meant to be that you'll still be crazy about each other.
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