Maggie was The Dream Baby for the first six months of her life. She did this crazy insane thing that we thought existed only in fantasy (or could exist in reality but was induced by drugs) and that thing is sleep through the night. (For those of you sans children, that means sleep for FIVE uninterrupted hours, and NOT until 10 am the following day, or anything else civilized). She was this phenomenal sleeper, such a good sleeper that I stopped answering that classic stupid baby question “So is she a GOOD BABY?” with “HELL YES!” instead of “There is no such thing as a BAD BABY” you horrible baby hating monster. Meeps’ delightful penchant for sleep was only made more enjoyable due to the fact that Bob refused to sleep for the first 9 months of his life without a breast in his mouth. Captain Colic had worn us OUT. And Bob did not sleep through the night until he cut his two year molars. (Childless friends, I could only WISH to be exaggerating).
SO. At six months Meeps started cutting teeth. And our heaven sent good sleeper started nursing a LOT at night. And then she decided to eschew ALL solid food until she was nearly a year old, and even now at 18 months of age she survives primarily on breastmilk and sunshine. And the occasional mango lassi. Sustaining a human life that walks, talks and tries to kill plays with her brother is TIRING. About a week ago, I counted. I counted how many times she latched on to my breast between the hours of 11pm and 6am. That number exceeded 20. TWEN-TEE.
An exhausted Mama is not a good Mama. We decided it was time to start night weaning. (I am not interested in “full weaning”: the benefits of breastmilk are outstanding and it is flu season after all). Maggie has fallen TO sleep (her first sleep stretch) without booby since she was 12 months old. So the first feed is already crossed off the battle list (or so I had thought).
Now instead of being woken 20+ times a night by a gaping little mouth, it now takes me upwards of an hour to cajole her into unconsciousness and when she wakes (and experiences the sheer torture of rolling over and not being received by a breast) she shreiks hysterically for a good ten minutes before passing out. Only to do it again of course. Let me tell you how much fun being woken up by PIERCING SCREAMS is.
We are aiming for no booby between the hours of midnight and 5 am. So help me, DOG.
* * *
In other news, I joined Facebook. I blame cabin fever. I used to be a member of the SuicideGirls community and I used to be a member of the BME community. It felt inappropriate updating about my children on a porn site, and I left BME when the proper owner left. These were two groups of people to which “too much information” really did not apply, in any way, at any time. I lost touch with a lot of friends, I thought maybe it would be a nice way get back in touch. I missed the straight up HONESTY of those interactions.
And poof! There they all are on Facebook. My porno friends and my bodmod friends…. and then there’s also all the people who I see at playgroup. And that, well, as convenient as FB seems… it’s just kinda, well, WEIRD.
I try to be fairly family friendly here. And by family I mean MY family. I try not to gloat too much about the (awesome) pot cookies I bake or bemoan the total and utter lack of strip clubs in my life since having children (though in all honesty I do prefer “burlesque” dancers for their sense of humor: if you’re going to peel down to glow in the dark pasties, I should bloody hope you’re not taking yourself seriously). Because you know, my DAD reads this and everything. (Hi Dad, SORRY about the strippers bit).
So I don’t know. I’d rather figure out how to properly use my sewing machine this winter so I can justify asking for a serger by Mother’s Day 2010 than babysit a social network that I am not really going to USE. I may well “unfriend” Facebook.
Y’all know where I am, anyway.
woah. 20 is baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. ash wakes up 3-4 times per night on average to nurse, sometimes i’m lucky to get a 4am wakeup and 6am wakeup, and THAT feels tiring, let alone 20x. OMGGGG.
facebook takes a bit to get used to. my whole family is on it now and we all keep in touch much better now, so i like it for that aspect. i’m glad you’re on it now, can’t say i haven’t missed you on the porno site
I find Facebook is best used once a month. It’s just enough to keep up with long-ago friends without being intrusive. If that’s too little, stopping in once a week is helpful. But like you say, you have better things to do with your time.
Facebook has been great for social networking – I even did some of my casting for the movie through it!
I try not to use a lot of the apps – petty silly although a good distraction when I am bored.
Pot cookies?! Awesome! How much does the pot affect your breastmilk? I’ve always wondered about that.
we were only able night wean esmee when dan took over the bedtime routine. which in effect meant him sleeping in her twin for a month+. i wish you all good luck!
Yikes, night-shrieking. I don’t have much to add other than whew, that sounds exhausting. I hope it all works out for the better!
Welcome to the world of facebook–at the very least, it makes staying in touch with loads of people much easier.
Hope you and the fam had a Merry Christmas–Bobby looks so much like Scott, and Maggie looks so much like you! As difficult as it may be at times, they are so so adorable. The new tattoos look great too!
whoa. Mateo was waking to nurse for 3 seconds every 2 hours at night when I nightweaned him. I have to get up for work at 5am, so that’s a pretty rough night. He cried for 5 nights, and then, thankfully and blissfully, began sleeping from 7pm to 5am. After such a long period of not sleeping, and god KNOWS it wasn’t nearly as long as you’ve gone, it was like a re-birth.
I wish you luck, and sleep, mama. You deserve it!
I’ve no advice to give, except to say hang in there. This, too, will pass. Try to think of the very cute things she does in more amiable moments.
oh thank goodness someone else that understands about sleepless nights/weening/teeth. Adelaide was a terrible baby for sleeping. Initially it was colic, but that actually sorted itself out after a few months, but then she cut her 2 first teeth at 4 months and hasn’t stopped since then. She actually got pretty used to it (as well as you can being a baby!) and started to sleep through the night once I had her on solids. Although that has now gone right out of the chuffin’ window since she has run out of molars to cut and is now trying to push through some kind of canine fangs and needs some comfort through the night to get her back to sleep. WHEN WILL IT END
ps, facebook is great although I wish it would stop trying to get me to add people from school that I didn’t like and certainly don’t like now!
Lynzy – I hardly ever imbibe, if I do I eat it and while it does transfer, it’s at “subclinical levels”, and in infants over 1 year, there are no long term effects documented. There was actually a study done showing the contrary: the babies of heavy marijuana using Rasta mamas scored HIGHER on developmental tests than the babies of non smokers. So who knows!
Here is a great article on pot & pregnancy here:
http://www.mothering.com/pregnancy-birth/use-marijuana-during-pregnancy
Alex – I hear you on ALL counts!!
Wow! That is insane. My little one is 3 months old and if he sleep 4 hours straight through the night at a time I feel blessed. There was only one time he went to bed and slept the whole night–that was the night I didn’t sleep much because I went out shopping the day after Thanksgiving to a store for early bird sales (which I will NEVER do again. WTF was I thinking?!?!?!).
I’d love to learn to sew too. My mother got me a nice sewing machine that I have yet to use. I feel guilty leaving it in the closet unused. But I have a feeling it’s going to be in there a while yet still.
My mother-in-law just got a serger for herself. She is going crazy with it–sewing all kinds of things for my son, and her future grand-daughter that my brother-in-law’s girlfriend is birthing come March.
I also agree with what others said about Facebook. People from high school requesting friendships–that is why I blocked myself so no one can search for me. If I never talked to these people in high school, why the heck would I want to talk to them now?!?! What do we have in common, aside from the same graduation date? :-p
I guess I’ve been VERY lucky! My first child (now 7-1/2yrs) started sleeping through the night at 2 months, and my second still only gets up once at 15 months…but only when she’s teething badly. I couldn’t even imagine 20 times! You’re a credit to the parenting world.
Wow, that sounds intense.
Please never stop blogging. You have no idea how much reading your words means to me. I have two AMAZING daughters, one of who happens to be autistic (no, I didn’t vaccinate, the verdict appears to be ‘genetics’). I would have loved to be able to do the hands-on, breastfeeding, co sleeping thing with my daughter, but its a case of her having to be restrained to stop her hurting herself, whenever she’s not in what amounts to a padded room. Anyways, I have my hands FULL with those two and reading your blog brings me so much inspiration. I have tried natural therapies with my eldest and I have seen a definite improvement in so many areas.
Ohhhhh night weaning! I dread it! Baby + cold+teething = latched on ALL night for the last week. I think I need rubber nipples. Do you think they make them BPA free? haha!
hey ashley, I can give you all the sewing machine advice (and serger) info you may need. (You may remember me as Sewpunk on SG) …
I will try to spot you on FB!
Also, we may need to swap recipes!
I never night weaned my older two…it just never came up.
but with Freya? well even though she is the baby, my last…I find I need to nightwean her because she nurses with such high frequency and such intensity, that I need the break and rest at night. (when you describe maggie’s eating habits, it sounds just like freya-who still has days where she subsists over 80% on breastmilk-and she is two and half!) Here is what I do now:
naps? I always nurse her to nap, and let her nurse as often as she wants during the nap. always.
bedtime? we nurse to sleep-or to almost asleep. I keep a camelback water bottle in the bed, so she has something if she wakes up. She got a special teddy bear for xmas which is really helping, she asks for him at night when she wakes up. when she wakes up i tell her its time to go back to sleep, and rub her back and offer her a cuddle. If she still asks for milky, then I offer her a drink of water. often she will say she wants juice instead-but i stand firm with her that if she wants something in the middle of the night, it has to be water. I would say that most nights, it goes really well. She goes back to sleep within 2 minutes, and is fine until morning. Last night? well it was not as easy…she was pissed off when I offered her water, and spent a lot of time fussing about it. She finally got back to sleep-but refused the water the whole time. I like dr jay gordons night weaning tips for older nurslings-its quite helpful.
you know how to find me on facebook right? (arkay adkisson)
i’m sort of sad to admit it but i’m a huge addict of FB. mostly because otherwise i’d never be in touch with friends/family that i don’t cross paths with on a daily basis. it’s a great tool and if you’re saavy (which you are) you can filter out all the nonsense and not be “found” if you don’t wish to be. since i hate telephones when home and busy with neeks… Facebook keeps me from turning into a completel anti-social hermit.
Hi Ashley,
I’m not sure what compelled me to write. I was a member over at BME for years (I was “Moon-fairy.” I left when I started teaching middle school and got paranoid a student might stumble onto my not-kid-friendly page) and I occasionally peeked in at your page there. For whatever reason you popped into my head today, so I googled and found your page. And as a fellow Cding, Bfing, modded mom, I thought I would just give an official hello, as i don’t think I ever did over at IAM. peace.
Shannon