Becoming A Dad

I forgot to add – the little monster has developed a new bad habit. When I was changing her this afternoon, Juliette leaned forward as if to hug me. She planted her mouth on my right shoulder, then chomped down hard.

Becoming-A-Dad was the none-too-happy recipient of Juliette’s teeth marks on his shoulder. Little red welts to remind me that she’s getting more teeth, that she absolutely hates getting dressed, and that she has a personality.

Becoming-A-Mom mentioned that Juliette did that to her a day or two ago as well – we’re not sure if it’s a sign she’s hungry (most likely not), that she’s teething and needs something to chew on (probably not), or that she’s just pissed off that she’s being dressed again.

I am pretty sure the last reason is the right one. Baby Juliette is developing an attitude that I don’t think I like.

While I was feeding Juliette today – a yummy mix of home-made applesauce and organic oats – I noticed something strange on her lower jaw.

When Juliette opened up to for the next spoonful (kind of like the way the porpoises wait for fish from their trainers at the Vancouver Aquarium) I pulled down her lower lip and took a look. This did not go over very well, and I had to deal with head twisting, shark-like chomping and an incensed glare from my sweet little poop-maker. My finger took some punishment from her sharp teeth but the effort was worth it.

There they were – two little white teeth poking from her gums on either side of her lower incisors. So now she’s got a total of 8 teeth!

These last two teeth came through quickly with little signs or warning. She’s not been drooling excessively and apart from wanting to chew the handles of her sippy-cup neither Becoming-A-Mom nor I had any indication they were cutting through.

Juliette didn’t seem especially excited about this. She just opened her mouth and demanded more applesauce. Quickly. Faced with a wide-open mouth and the potential for loud protests about the speed of service, Becoming-A-Dad quickly complied.

Wow, what a difference a few days makes!

Juliette is now going to sleep in her crib around 7-8 pm each night, and sleeping pretty much straight through until 7 am in the morning. A couple of wakings and squawks during the night, but certainly not the wailing and nursings all night long. She doesn’t need us to sit beside her and read her to sleep either – Woo Hoo!

Oh, the attempt to give Juliette a baby bottle filled with water didn’t work at all. She knew it wasn’t a breast and she absolutely refused to take it in her mouth. But in the end it wasn’t necessary anyway.

So the Lull-a-Baby Sleep Plan by Dr. Cathryn Tobin is well worth the money. It’s pretty much saved our sanity and put Juliette on a more “normal” sleeping pattern.

Thanks Dr. Tobin!

So it’s now been 3 days of the Sleep Training, and by gosh it seems to work! We’re taking it in stages right now, getting Juliette used to falling asleep on her own before we remove the night-time feedings.

The first night Juliette woke up as before at around 11 pm when Becoming-A-Mom went into the bedroom, then at about 2 am, then 4:30 am, then about 6 am. Each time Juliette woke up Becoming-A-Mom picked her up and let her nurse but not fall asleep. She put her back in her crib and talked to her until she fell asleep on her own.

The first time it took about 15 minutes, then the next time about 10 minutes and the last time less than 5 minutes. It’s working!

The second day things got better – she fell asleep after less than 20 minutes of crying, and at night after each nursing she fell asleep after only a few minutes. Both Becoming-A-Mom and I are astounded how quickly she’s learned to change.

Now the next step is to eliminate the feedings at night. We’re not as confident about this as the falling asleep on her own, but are planning to try giving her a bottle with water when she wants to nurse. The theory is that if she knows she’s only going to get water she won’t bother. We’ll see how that works.

Nap times in the day are a bit difficult but improving. Today I sat with her to get her to sleep for her morning nap. That was a bit of a trial, as she kept sitting up and pulling herself up to stand in the crib. I sat there reading the newspaper out loud, but she seemed to think it was a game and would not lie down to sleep.

Finally, after about 10 minutes of her standing and sitting up I started to lie her back down every time she sat up. Then every time I saw her attempt to sit up, I’d gently push her back into a lying position. No, this did not go over well and I was treated to howls of displeasure. But I persevered and after about 10 minutes of this Juliette finally understood that I wasn’t going to let her sit or stand any more.

Her crying dimished to the “you’re so mean!” grumbly stage, then she rolled on her side and with one last “Wah!” she suddenly fell asleep.

Not quite believing it wasn’t a trick, I stayed in the room for another 5 minutes reading the paper out loud. When she didn’t stir, I carefully folded up my paper and tip-toed out of the bedroom feeling like someone who just survived a plane crash.

It was only 1 pm. Darn, too early for a scotch!

Okay, step #1 of Sleep Training has begun. Tonight Becoming-A-Mom did not let Juliette fall asleep at her breast before putting her in the crib.

This resulted in what we expected – loud complaints and crying. But Becoming-A-Mom stuck to her guns and sat beside the crib, talking to Juliette and reading aloud. The cries died down from the “come on, pick me up!” level down to “you’re so mean!” to “I can’t believe this” to “grumble-grumble-grumble”. And after one last cry that seemed to say “Meanie!” she went silent and fell asleep on her own.

Becoming-A-Mom stayed in the room for another 5 minutes to make sure she really was asleep, then walked out of the bedroom with a big smile on her face. Only 45 minutes!

Now the test will be how well it works through the night…

We finally got our copy of “The Lull-a-Baby Sleep Plan” by Cathryn Tobin. We ordered it over 4 weeks ago from Chapters and though we got an email saying it was delivered to the store after a week, it took over 3 weeks for the store to unpack it and tell us it was available. This book promises to end the little sleep deprivation war we’ve been having with Juliette for the past while.

The problem with putting Juliette to sleep has been growing. Every time it’s time to put her down, she demands to suckle and will not go to sleep without the breast in her mouth. Breaking the seal before she’s asleep results in Juliette having major tantrums, crying and thrashing about. If she doesn’t get the breast back, she works herself into a righteous fury and all hope of sleep is lost.

During the night she’s still waking up at least 3 times – 1 am, 3 am and 6 am – wanting to suckle. But it doesn’t seem that she’s especially hungry as she doesn’t drink strongly. And again, she wants to fall asleep at the breast. Due to the frequency of wakings and feedings, Becoming-A-Mom has taken to letting Juliette sleep beside her in bed.

Poor Becoming-A-Mom is finding this a burden as she’s not able to get a fully night’s rest. As well having Juliette in the bed means that she doesn’t sleep deeply as Juliette pokes or kicks her and Becoming-A-Mom is worried about disturbing Juliette’s sleep.

When we hear the stories of other babies sleeping 10-12 hours straight through the night we wonder why Juliette won’t. We’ve even considered hiring a Sleep Consultant, but those people are very expensive ($200 and up, much more if you want them to help you in person overnight). So after a bit of using our digital parenting advisor Google, Becoming-A-Mom ordered this book.

Since getting it she’s been reading it intently. It’s a bit too early to start using the techniques tonight, but already we’ve identified 3 major things that we’ve been doing wrong which has encouraged Juliette’s bad sleep habits.

The list?

1. Allowing Juliette to fall asleep at the breast, so she’s developed the association of falling asleep with nursing.
2. Putting Juliette into her crib already asleep, so she doesn’t know how to fall asleep on her own.
3. Misunderstanding her sleep cycle, so when she wakes and cries out every couple of hours we immediately pick her up and comfort/feed her. This feeds back into mistakes #1 and #2.

Now that we know what we’re doing wrong, it should be easy to fix the whole thing, right?

Yeah, I’m not that optimistic either. Both Becoming-A-Mom and Becoming-A-Dad are preparing ourselves for some inevitable screaming and unhappy nights.

(sung to the tune “Dreamer” by SuperTramp)

Well, it’s 10:30 pm on a Monday night. What should have been a nice quiet Monday night.

We put baby Juliette to sleep around 7:30 – she seemed tired and happy to go to bed. This is usually a joyful moment for Becoming-A-Mom and Becoming-A-Dad as it means we get a bit of quiet time to ourselves before bedtime.

She’s not the best sleeper around. Sure, she goes to bed relatively early and reasonably easily, but she still gets up 3-5 times per night and will not go back to sleep on her own. She still insists on her night-time snacks from Becoming-A-Mom’s milk dispensers.

The worst part is that she hears the creak of the floor as we walk down the hallway and enter the bedroom, waking on cue demanding her milk ration. No matter how quietly and slowly we try to walk, she’s got one ear cocked to pick up this sound and Bingo! she’s awake and wanting to be addressed.

Tonight. Tonight is a different story. As I type this she’s just been carried into the bedroom by a rather tired Frustrated-Becoming-A-Mom. On cue she just let out a couple of cries of displeasure knowing that she’s been put back to bed. Note that it’s after 10:30 pm.

Becoming-A-Mom took her to bed around 7:30, so about 8 pm the little monkey was asleep. *aaahhhh* some nice quiet time to ourselves. This fleeting state of bliss lasted until about 9:15 pm (side note: more whimpers coming from the bedroom. I’m hiding.) when I heard faint cries of Juliette waking up. When this happens she will normally fall back to sleep within a few minutes of crying.

Not tonight. She heard me walking back and forth down the hallway, those blasted creaks the floor makes giving up my position and betraying the fact that I was nearby and ignoring her. The cries increased in intensity and frequency.

An eternal optimist, I ignored the crying hoping she’d fall back asleep. Fifteen minutes later the soft cries had turned to angry shrieks and wails of outrage. How DARE you ignore the QUEEN! Working herself into a grand lather, she was now well beyond any hope of falling asleep on her own.

A quick consultation with the wiser portion of this couple and Becoming-A-Dad walked into the bedroom and spoke softly to baby Juliette, telling her that we knew she was awake and that she needed to calm down and go to sleep. I stood near the crib but didn’t touch her (as instructed). After 2 minutes of this I quickly ran away. Score: Juliette 1, Parents 0.

Another quick consultation, and this time I took a chair into the room with me. By this point Juliette was on all fours raising her head up and letting loose thunderous yells. Seeing me enter the room she ramped up her volume and anger level 14 notches higher. I set the chair down beside the crib and in my most soothing and reasonable voice talked to her and asked her to please calm down and go to sleep. Explaining that I was there to watch over her and keep her safe but she needed to go back to sleep. The yelling continued. Juliette now started rolling and thrashing about in pure violent anger, her face a bright red and her mouth a cavernous chamber putting forth over 180 decibels of sonic power. Faced with an overwhelming force, I ran away again. Score: Juliette 2, Parents 0.

I consulted with The Master once again, telling her that I was going to pick up the screamin’ demon and see if I couldn’t settle her down. Gathering all the courage I could, I headed back into the bedroom and picked Juliette up and held her close to my chest. I am now deaf in both ears. At least 3 minutes of intense high-volume and furious screaming continued before Becoming-A-Mom came by to for a situation report. The crying stopped instantly. For about 5 seconds. Before resuming. At the same high volume. Luckily I was deaf by this point but could see the air recoiling around Juliette’s mouth from the force of the screaming.

What followed was a stunning display of parental concern and naiveté. Because she was so upset and wouldn’t stop crying, we of course thought that something else was wrong. Teething. Gas. Indigestion. Constipation. Allergic reaction to the broccoli we just fed her. Gas. Must be Gas.

So I pumped her legs and massaged her belly while Becoming-A-Mom looked on. This did not improve anything. Several minutes passed. My deafness increased. The silence did not come.

Finally I picked her up and took her out of the bedroom. Voila! A quiet baby. A quiet baby who broke out into broad smiles. Little brat! Becoming-A-Mom gave her a Baby Mum Mum rice cracker and all was well. Baby Juliette got exactly what she wanted – out of the bedroom and a nice snack. So we let her sit and watch TV (we know, we know. But you try to deal with a SCREAMING baby for over 40 minutes) with Becoming-A-Mom. I ran away once again and started writing this.

It’s now 10:55 pm. It’s been quiet for at least 10 minutes, so I dare not enter the bedroom or walk down the halls or seek any Ibuprofen for the monsterous headache I have.

Instead I will finish typing this, wipe away some of the blood pouring from my ears and go sleep on the couch. And grab a bottle of cognac on the way.

Nope, still not crawling. But her bum swing locomotion is improving in speed and accuracy, so she doesn’t end up on her face at all now.

The latest trick I witnessed today is her desperately trying to move forward – so still sitting with her feet soles together in front of her, she leans forward on her hands and rocks back and forth.

The difference now is her legs are getting stronger and more coordinated, so she gets up on one foot and one knee, then pushes up until she’s bent in half with her hands supporting her front while her bum is up in the air, completely supported on her feet with straight legs! In the Downward Dog yoga pose.

She holds that with grace and aplomb for about 5 seconds before one or both legs give out and she ends up on her butt, sitting down. The first time I saw her do that she immediately looked up at me as if to say “I did that on purpose you know!”

I have this song going through my head right now, “come on baby, do the locomotion!” And it’s all because Juliette is, well, locomoting.

No, she’s still not crawling and still having the same issues trying to get from the sitting position to the crawling position. But what she has discovered is that she can move around indirectly by leaning either left or right and getting herself almost onto her belly, then sitting herself back up.

This means she can’t approach things directly. Instead, it’s kind of like watching the Knight in a chess game move around – back to the left 1/2 metre, same back left 1/2 metre (so she’s now about 3/4 metre behind and to the side of where she wants to go, facing away). Then she does another left then right lean-and-sit manoever which brings her more or less where she wants to be. A strong dive/pounce throwing herself forward on her hands usually gets what she wants.

Of course she heads directly to where she knows she’s not supposed to go… such as to the TV where she can grab the DVD cases off the shelf. Or to underneath her swinging chair, which she grabs the supports of and tries to stand up – which usually results in her either banging her head on the pole or tumbling face-first to the mat when she slips. (yes, I’m just Becoming-A-Dad and becoming an inadequate one at that).

I can hardly wait until she starts crawling. NOT!

Well, little Juliette still is not crawling (this is a good thing in our lives – we don’t relish the thought of having to child-proof everything and chase her around the place). But she’s getting there. She’s been slowly (SLOWLY!) learning how to lean forward and almost get on her hands and knees… but she hasn’t learned that she needs to stop putting her feet soles together before attempting this.

She sits with her feet in front, soles against each other, then leans forward on her hands and walks her hands forward a bit. She tries really really really hard to get up on her feet and knees – rocking back and forth quite strongly – but because her ankles are turned sideways, it blocks her from getting into the right position. This causes her no end of frustration and anger which she lets us know about loudly!

However, the times I’ve been the bloody Becoming-A-Dad know-it-all and lifted her so she ends up on her hands and knees, she doesn’t appreciate it at all. More screaming and yelling, and she doesn’t have the strength in her abs to hold the position so her legs go shooting out and she ends up on her belly doing a half push-up. And complains loudly at my interference.

The thing she just learned today though is how to sit up after getting in the belly push-up position! She did this almost by accident early this morning when I took her out of bed and put her with me in the living room so Becoming-A-Mom could get a little more sleep (7:00-7:30 am every morning is a bit of a trial that we’re not getting used to).

She had been rolling back and forth travelling across her play area when she got herself on her belly lying parallel to the couch. I vowed not to interfer in her development by sitting her up or such any more so I left her there, vocalizing her displeasure. Then, as I was half-watching half-reading a book, she slowly pushed herself backwards until her legs butted up against a cushion and folded up under her butt. She kept pushing herself backwards with her hands and the next thing she knew, she was sitting up again with a bit of a surprised look on her face.

The next thing she did, she got on her belly and rolled around a bit, then out in the middle of her play area she started pushing herself backwards with her hands again. This time she knew how to fold her legs up under her bum, and in about a body length and 30 seconds later, she was proudly sitting up on her bum. She was smiling broadly and waving her hands in the air excitedly as she looked at me with the expression, “look what I just did!”

Over the course of the rest of the day she did this a few more times, getting faster and better each time.

I’m amazed how quickly she went from the first accidental sit-up to being able to do it on demand. Wow!