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Seanna Sofia- my love, my little piece of heaven. God has been graceful to us and given you to us as a blessing. So here we are now, 7 days from when we left the hospital (which have felt like weeks already). We have been truly blessed with the support of our family and friends. We really mean that. I’m about to put a revolving door in our home because we constantly having visitors come over and bless us with their presence, well wishes and gifts. Since we got home from the hospital, the grandmas have been very busy. They have come to help us clean, cook us their secret homemade “post partum” soups and their traditions from Latin America of what to do or not to do the baby or Monica. We have been blessed with gifts from our friends. You have made us feel very blessed and very special and we really appreciate it.
I have said this before on Facebook, and I’ll say it again. When people told us that there would be no sleep, they really meant NO SLEEP! For the first few days, we were on a time warp. This is what a typical cycle looks, assuming that we put her to sleep at 11PM:
1:00 AM – Seanna wakes up
1:05 AM – Feeding begins, which can last 20-30 minutes at a time.
1:35-40 – Baby needs to be burped, which this too can last 10-15 minutes even though she burps herself, yes she burps herself. When she’s done feeding, I lift her up and while she’s on her way to my shoulder, she burps. Cool huh? Well, she doesn’t fully burp everything out, so I have to continue pounding her back until all that gas is out.
1:40 AM — We start the diapers changing process. This is tricky. Sometimes I think that this little angel of ours is going to be an astronaut because she comes equipped with her own propulsion system. Let me just say that loud noises can be heard echoing throughout the room while she’s been changed. Then the bombardment starts. Apparently, she likes to wait until we have changed her to user her propulsion system again, and again. We have actually had to change diapers 3 times in a row and it has taken us up to 30 minutes. In fact, one night Monica was changing her diaper and I fell asleep. About 40 minutes later I woke and Monica was still in the same spot, still changing Seanna’s diaper because she had decided to poop in stages. Oh man, and she fights. We have to hold her legs in the air because she’s going to get it all over herself. This is always an adventure, especially when Mari changes her. Mari was “squirted” with some smelly and wet projectiles twice while changing her (good job my little angel! Score one for daddy!). We have blown a big box of wipes already.
1:50 AM – We start putting her to sleep. This could take an hour or two! Tough on sleep! Most time she’s back asleep within minutes, but there is that one time each night that she takes 2 hours of making us play Sherlock Holmes trying to figure out why she’s crying?!? Is she cold? Is she dry? Was she properly burped? Did she feed enough? Check, check, check, check! So what else could it be? Sometime in the middle of the night, she decides to go to sleep even though we didn’t do anything different than the beginning of her crying episode.
So, once she falls asleep, about an hour later, the cycle starts again! Yeah, fun, but we love it. Although our bodies and minds are now on autopilot in the middle of the night we love 90% of this adventure of parenthood we are going through. The other night, in my sleep, I got up, walked over to her crib, picked her up and burped her even though she was asleep and didn’t need to be burped; then I put her down went back to bed and fell asleep. I don’t remember doing it, I just have blur of a memory holding her. Monica saw what I was doing but didn’t realize I was asleep until the next day that she asked me about it and I couldn’t recall. I was on autopilot.
Now we are with the dilemma of whether or not to give her a pacifier. Do we want to risk her being addicted to it? Will it be impossible for her to sleep without it? Will she be one of those 3 year olds that still use? Will she start sucking her thumb? We read somewhere that it stuns growth, that it ruins their teeth, that it delays speech. Others say, it’s fine, useful to calm them down because it helps them release a certain chemical in the brain. That they’ll be able to let go. I need to send a letter to Mythbusters so we can make up our minds.
Now the question we have is, do we let her cry after we have checked that everything is fine (fed, burped, diaper changed, etc)? If so, how long should we before we pick her back up? Is crying to much bad for them? How much is too much?
Yeah, lots of questions. So parents out there, your suggestions, advice or 2 cents are appreciated.
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Alex and Monica – I’m soo glad everything is working out great for you guys. You have truly been blessed in every sense. From having a beautiful little girl to having all of the support you can get to help you get through the first week and get adjusted to your new life.
I’m getting ready to head off from work but before I just wanted to provide whatever advice I can since we are fairly new parents ourselves. As far as the pacifier is concerned, my little one was never big on that and till this day she doesn’t care for it. However, there were times that I needed it as my lifesaver. Since I also nursed, it got to the point that she was using me as her pacifier. So I had to replace myself w/ one. It helped here and there, but again, she’s not big on that. They say its soothing and it helps them fall asleep. I guess it’s one of those situations where you would have to give it a try and see if it works. At the end of the day whatever you two are able to do to get that 5, 10, 15 min extra of sleep, I say go for it!
As far as letting her cry… The nurses taught us a checklist to look out for before we became sitting ducks wondering what to do next. 1. Feeding, 2. Burp, 3. Diapers, 4. Swaddle and last but not least 5. Skin to skin connection. We were told the best thing we can do for our little one is to sometimes have her fall asleep on our chest so that she can feel our heat, comfort and listen to our heart beat while she falls asleep. At first I didn’t approve b/c I was afraid she would get use to it, but eventually I saw how much it worked, but not only that, I was also able to feel that comfort, heat and connection my baby had w/ us. Now I look back and I’m grateful I allowed myself to do that.
Gotta go. I hope this somewhat helps the both of you. God bless!
Alex and Monica, good luck with your new human life.
Here’s what I posted months after I gave birth on the subject of becoming a new mom/parent.
http://therealteamholt.blogspot.com/2008/06/why-didnt-anyone-tell-me.html
Hey guys, this is the time that will make you crazy but I promise you will miss it when she gets older! For me, the Paci is a lifesaver, still to this day, Juliana uses it and it helps, a lot. It wont stunt her growth and when she gets teeth, and I mean a lot of teeth, you can start the replacement process, giving her something else, a blanky a toy, that will become her comforter. Juliana did the same sort of thing, would cry even after she was fed, burped, changed, swaddled, and so I would just hold her and rock her in my arms. At this very EARLY stage, they are 100% trusting that you will be there for her. So hold her all night if you have too, she wont start to develop bad habits until she is much older, she is far too little to become independent just yet. You will know when she is ready to cry a little longer and can soothe herself, right now, she needs you both, so hold and craddle that darling baby and dont feel bad. Parenting books are great, but at the end of the day, do what works best for you. Monica you gut instict will tell you. Doesnt matter what anyone thinks or what the books say, do what feels natural and everything will be fine. good luck guys!!