"Absence makes the heart grow fonder", or "How can I miss you if you won't go away"
Words to live by.
Yes! I remember this from when my son was eight months old. I had more energy to play with him, and he quit giving me that quizzical look: are you all I get? Where are the other people?
In other news I've been attempting to email your blog & di k's to get passwords, and no luck. Gmail is either down or hates my server.
My unfogged address doesn't work and is confusing even when it does work. If you're using it, try heebie dot geebie at gmail.
2: Gmail's hating me right now, too.
As for the OP, I can well imagine. Babies and little kids can be really, really boring. (And I say that as someone who moved halfway across the country to be near my nieces and nephew.)
4: Yeah, I keep getting a message that connecting to the SMTP server has failed. I'm clueless. Sado-masochistic toilet paper?
I get the "can't connect" and "this is taking longer than usual" messages pretty often with gmail, google docs, etc. but I just keep hitting refresh, as I have been conditioned so well by Unfogged to do, and it usually loads after two or three tries.
Are the reported gmail problems that you can't get in at all despite repeated lever-pressing?
So that's what happened to the e-mails I sent heebie.
9: Did you really? Yeah, use my gmail account.
Diane -- I've given it up for now, having discovered that I have surprisingly little to say.
I'm sorry to hear it, though it's understandable. I liked the "voice" very much, and feel sure that others with similar life circumstances (raises hand) also appreciated your slant.
11: Di, I think you're missing the entire point of the internet.
13: You know, I think I'm missing it too. Could you tell us, please?
The entire point of the internet is pictures of spiders.
Surely it's the stool of your relationship that's more stable with three legs?
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Just found out that my friend/neighbor's GF is going to be cooking for Obama tonight. Very cool.
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Gmail kept asking for my password and failing. I was using Apple Mail. I didn't try to use the web version. It just worked for me.
19: That is very cool! Can you give us more details about the circumstances, menu, etc?
I'm happy for you, Heebie! And happy that things are capable of working out in this kind of nice way.
The change in attitudes described in the post seems to be a pretty universal truth - variety is the spice of life, for instance - that a lot of people have been fooled into forgetting. I say this because so many of the people I knew growing up who tried to maintain incredibly cramped psychological quarters with their families - both as parents and as children - engendered resentment more than anything else and inexplicably seemed to think that the solution to being bored with someone was to spend more time with them, not more time with other interests. I think it subconsciously led me to seek a life where I could have lots of different kinds of friendships/relationships so that I could rotate between them without getting tired of any of them and, I hope, never causing them to tire of me.
At any rate, I ask this as a completely sincere ignoramus: is the undoubtedly exhausting boredom and/or isolation part of what leads to postpartum depression? I've never personally been around that, though in retrospect I suspect my sister was fairly badly affected by it.
Is this an argument for extended families being more involved in child care? When someone in my family had a baby and every cousin descended with offers of assistance I always blithely assumed it was an attempt to horn in, not a real help. (Remember: total ignoramus here.)
19: I hear he likes fancy stuff like Dijon mustard. You might want to let her know that.
18 raises a good point. Triangles don't have legs. Stools and spiders do, though. Just ask little Miss Muffet.
21: Circumstances are dinner here. Further details will be coming next week (as soon as dinner's over, she's heading to Chicago for a few days).
is the undoubtedly exhausting boredom and/or isolation part of what leads to postpartum depression?
While I don't have firsthand experience, I think the underlying cause is hormones jerking your brain around. But boredom and isolation certainly don't help.
When someone in my family had a baby and every cousin descended with offers of assistance I always blithely assumed it was an attempt to horn in, not a real help.
Well, depends on the cousins. If it's the kind of family where they don't mind if you're wandering around with spitup on your shoulder and the baby gnawing on the phone cord, having people show up breaks the monotony and can be really helpful. People for whom there's pressure to keep a front up, though, are difficult when you've got a baby.
It seems to me that parents of a newborn really don't need additional discussion of stools.
11: Di, I love your blog, especially when you talk about your job. As a fledgling female lawyer, I find the stories about your work environment absolutely riveting.
At any rate, I ask this as a completely sincere ignoramus: is the undoubtedly exhausting boredom and/or isolation part of what leads to postpartum depression?
I'm positive that it's an exacerbating factor, even if hormones are probably the main culprit. The boredom, stress, and isolation would be enough to make anybody susceptible depressed.
Is this an argument for extended families being more involved in child care? When someone in my family had a baby and every cousin descended with offers of assistance I always blithely assumed it was an attempt to horn in, not a real help. (Remember: total ignoramus here.)
Some kind of help is the kind of help that helping's all about, and some kind of help is the kind of help we all can do without.
If I get this comment up quickly enough, I'll have the current comment in all 3 active threads. A rare feat at 2:28 pm EDT!
Oh, except the new one, which I hadn't seen. Rats.
I'm proctoring an exam, so I can't watch at the moment.
Oh, sorry. It's from Free to Be You and Me.
Huh. I didn't think I had childhood associations with that, but I must, because the helping line rang a giant bell.
it's a Shel Silverstein poem/song, so it might be in a book somewhere.
http://www.guntheranderson.com/v/data/somekind.htm
Also they played on the local public radio children's show all the time when I was little, so I would have known it even without the Free To Be connection.
Oh yes. I know it from Shel Silverstein. Thank you.
Now 42 is the kind of help that helping's all about!
Now Breezy Jr is crawling (and almost walking) he has a much greater ability to cause mischief amuse himself. All in the Breeze household agree this is a substantial improvement.
Speaking about babies getting older, and what point did you close down the milk bar at night? Or did you let the baby make that decision?
Speaking about babies getting older, and what point did you close down the milk bar at night? Or did you let the baby make that decision?
We let the baby make that call. We did find (if this is the major concern?) that if she got a good meal of solid food into her in the evening she was much less likely to wake in the middle of the night wanting to nurse.
We let the baby make that call.
Same here, but I probably started intentionally doing more not-running-to-the-first-sound and seeing if she'd go back to sleep, and trying a little non-nursing soothing first, around four months or so. Not a hard line closing of the bar, but coming across with the goods a little slower. It either worked, or matched up with what she wanted anyway, pretty well.
LB's approach sounds like what we did. If I remember correctly, they say that by about 4 months or so a baby doesn't need to eat overnight, but it took some effort to convince one of ours. By 5 or 6 months, we'd eliminated overnight feedings entirely, to everyone's relief.
Wow, I need to start laying down the law with old thirst Hawaiian Punch. I really just haven't paid much attention. My fear is that it would require ending co-sleeping, and I'm not ready to do that.
Eh, if it's not bothering you, there's probably no need to rush it. I think it probably takes the same amount of effort to transition to no night feedings no matter when you do it (within the first year).
Yeah, I think my desire to be close at night is currently outweighing my desire for continuous sleep. We'll probably start introducing solids soon, so maybe that will help on its own.
What m-dash said about there being no pressure. The "come on, you don't really need to nurse, do you?" approach came naturally to me because I'm really, really lazy and protective of my sleep, so it was the path of least resistance. But if it's not bothering you to nurse at night, there's no need to give it up before she does it spontaneously.
Our first baby weaned at night at about 15 months, by force because mama gotpregnant with number 2 and suddenly really needed more sleep. Our second is 14 months old and still nurses practically all night. I think it makes a world of difference whether you're talking about nursing a baby who's sleeping next to you, vs. getting up to go feed them. (But I have no firsthand experience, so.)
23: See, I don't work that way, re allegedly cramped psychological quarters with their families. I grew up lower-middle class in a UMC-rich neighborhood, and neither my parents nor I had any kind of social network. I have two close friends and that's it; my parents are much the same way. It's always been a kind of us-against-the-world dynamic, but I never felt resentment over it (and when I was thirteen I resented everything I could think of). I understand what you're describing, but I don't think you could call it a universal.
53: So you guys keep the babies in bed with you? How did the transition go when you introduced the second? Did you move the first out a few months ahead of time?
I sometimes wonder if we would have co-slept (in bed) if we'd only had the one, and then I think, no way, because the few times we've brought one in to sleep with us for a few hours I've slept terribly. Do you co-sleepers have king-sized beds?
55: the first still sleeps with us.
56: I don't think the room in bed is the difference. I'm like you -- older than the age where they really had to be nursing all night, I wanted them out of the bed so I could sleep. I figure people who co-sleep for a long time, happily, just have an easier time sleeping next to a baby.
Do you co-sleepers have king-sized beds?
My observation is that after the boys get up and get in bed with my sister, they sleep tight beside her and the other half of the kingsized bed goes unused. I think she'd get about the same amount of space no matter the size of the actual bed.
To elaborate on 57: part of the problem is that we don't have room for two kids in our current apartment. So there's no place else for him to sleep. If we had another bedroom he'd probably be sleeping on his own by now. (Or so I hope. And we're planning to move relatively soon, so we'll see.)
#1 slept genuinely with us with us for the first few months of #2's life, because we figured he was having enough life-transitions and didn't want him to feel stressed or like he was being replaced or whatever else a two-year-old might feel if he was booted out of bed to make room for a baby. But as they both grew a little bigger that became somewhat less feasible, so we sidecarred his crib to our bed, and generally try to keep him in the crib space. (Note: that's not us, just a link I pulled off google.) So that's where he goes to sleep, but he still crawls over into the bed space in the middle of the night just about every night to snuggle. So it's really generally the four of sharing on a queen bed. Luckily we'll all relatively trim.
We sleep like very very awake things when young Gusty joins us. We had an almighty struggle moving him out, though. He was sleeping ok on his own. Then he co-slept for a week with us when he had a cold, and WAS NOT HAPPY about going to sleep alone. It took some strictness from us to effect the change, and some sleepless night for all.
He still wakes every night to feed at 1 yr old. I guess he really likes them b00bies. I can see his point.
By 5 or 6 months, we'd eliminated overnight feedings entirely, to everyone's relief.
Not fair! All parents of multiples should be as miserable as we were.
Also, to address 49 explcitly (which I've already done implicitly): nightweaning #1 didn't require ending co-sleeping. In fact, I'm not really sure it was in any way a more difficult process than it would have been had we not been co-sleeping. There were 3 or 4 tiring nights, then he got the picture--which seems roughly consistent with most other nightweaning stories, even from non-cosleepers.
(63 cont.: But maybe that's partially a function of the age he was? It's possible a younger baby would have more trouble understanding "no more milk, here's water if you're thirsty", and might have more trouble learning to sleep peacefully next to the boob all night.)
Yeah, I think the non-cosleeping night-weaning connection has something to do with the four-to-six month age bracket. At that age, a baby is probably a little hungry if they wake up, but might not wake up all the way without the source of milk being right there. Older, the interplay of being able to sleep and being hungry is probably a little different, and less dependent on the immediate availability of nursing factor.
Although everything I've said about this should be corrected for the fact that I'm working from memories of the winter of 99-00, or 01-02. Which is a while back by now.
I haven't read the thread, but I was reading the WebMD magazine the other day, because there was nothing else in the doctor's office, and there was a piece on postpartum mood disorders. They mostly affect women, and postpartum psychosis is definitely the result of hormones, but some men who become the primary caregivers experience it too, so garden variety postpartum depression (and anxiety and OCD) aren't necessarily hormonal.
Do you co-sleepers have king-sized beds?
59 describes the way it worked for me.
I figure people who co-sleep for a long time, happily, just have an easier time sleeping next to a baby.
This makes sense to me. My three youngest slept with us for a year or more each (it's all a haze now and I think it was longer for the oldest of the three) but it was never much of a problem for us in terms of sleeping. You (well, I) just get used to them.
I definitely don't sleep quite as well next to Hawaiian Punch. Quite possibly there will come a day when the trade-offs tip the scales and we decide to end co-sleeping.