I've been trying to fill D up on milk before we go to bed so that Luca and I can get 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep right after we go to bed. The problem is I'm not sure it really matters since my night sweats have been drenching the sheets multiple times per night.
Take last night for instance:
9:00 - Start final feed before bed
9:20 - Finish draining boob #1, Luca changes D
9:30 - D gets started on boob #2
9:50 - Turn off lights, go to bed
10:50 - Wake up in pool of own sweat. Change sheets + clothes
11:50 - Wake up in pool of own sweat again. Change sheets + clothes, feed + change D. Luca starts acting pissy because he has to get up to change the sheets.
1:00 - I finally finish feeding D, go back to bed
3:00 - D wakes up again to eat, eats for 45 min
5:00 - D wakes up again to eat, eats for 40 min
6:00 - D wakes up again to eat, eats for 20 min
7:00 - D wakes up again to eat, I feed her / pass out while feeding her. I have no idea how long she stayed latched for.
8:00 - Luca gets up, does God knows what
8:50 - I wake up, pee (with D screaming the whole time -- poor girl!!), feed D for 50 min (and actually has to do right boob, left boob, and then right boob again, sitting on the floor of the bathroom waiting for the shower to heat up so that she will stop crying long enough for me to bathe)
10:00 - Luca finally appears. Says, "Wow! She slept from 5 this morning until now? That's amazing!" Informs me that since he didn't want to wake me up, he held off on doing laundry (Screw you, honey).
10:00 - I come downstairs, pass D to Luca so I can eat my first food since 6PM last night. Luca skypes his parents for the 10th time in 10 days (I am not exaggerating), while they coo at her and cry while watching her on camera. I reflect that my own parents would never dream of showing any sort of emotion towards me or their granddaughter.
10:30 - I point out to Luca that dog has not eaten or been out to pee since 8 last night. Luca continues to skype parents. Gives me list of things to add to our baby registry on Amazon since his parents want to buy us stuff. (Not sure why he can't do this himself.)
11:00 - I go upstairs to use the bathroom. Luca decides that he too, must use the bathroom now. Ignores me when I ask him what he did with the baby. Repeatedly. Dog is going berserk. I emerge from the bathroom with my pants around my ankles, am relieved to find that he has her in the basket in the other bathroom with him.
11:20 - Luca has shit fit because D poops on his hand while he's changing her. I want to strangle him and burst into tears. It feels so unfair to me that he's allowed to lose his shit over something like that when he's had 3 more (at least) hours of sleep than I have, and hasn't even taken the dog out yet.
Meanwhile, I've found out that (as per my previous predictions) there is no computer for me to skype into for our team afternoon meeting at school. It's not *that* important that I attend, but I kind of wanted to so that I can remain somewhat in the loop over the next several weeks. It pisses me off, because it took a great deal of effort for me to get my PI's secretary to even consider bringing a computer to the meeting, and she of course did the absolute minimum, and now -- as I told her might happen -- both computers that she could use are being used by other people. I could teleconference, but my PI doesn't want to have to pay for it.
It just makes me feel like shit that nobody is willing to work WITH me here. At this point I don't think today is a great day to start doing this, but I still feel screwed over, and that if I don't insist, it's going to get even harder for me to get anyone to do anything for me while I'm out on maternity leave.
And I want to kick my husband's ass for abandoning me in the BR for 2 hours this morning, and completely neglecting the dog so that he could have a friendly chat with his parents for the 5,000,000th time this week. Of course I feel like I can't say anything at all because I feel like he thinks he's already he's already done so much to help, and besides, I'm going to have to manage all of this stuff myself when he's gone at work 14 hours per day starting next Monday.
And I know that if I say anything at all to ANYONE (in particular my parents), they will just say that I'm "hormonal" or "too demanding" and that I am really lucky to have such a wonderful helpful husband, and that I should try to suck less myself. At least that's what my internal monologue tells me. Come to think of it, that's what my father ACTUALLY told me the other day. Twice.
22 Pearls of Wisdom:
Maybe hormonal, maybe not - but new motherhood is a much more significant change than new fatherhood...The Bearded One was much more lacadaisical with Stubble than I was...it was a source of much "discussion" that I couldn't even take a shower without Stubble being left unattended...
It doesn't matter why you need to vent ("hormonal" or "demanding"). The fact is that you are tired, and that small tasks that should have been accomplished to help you, weren't. There's nothing wrong with screaming a little bit about that! (Goodness knows that the rest of us throw fits about far less.) You are doing a fabulous job and not sucking at all! You deserve a hug, nap, and someone to walk the dog today. Hang in there!
Yeah, the first words out of Luca's mouth when I came downstairs this morning (after the comment on her sleeping for 5 hours) were, "Can I take more pictures of her? The light is really good in the kitchen now!" Nevermind that I hadn't eaten. He has been a great help, but sometimes I feel like his paternity leave is exclusively an opportunity for him to spend fun time with his new daughter more than it is for him to help me get shit done.
regardiing paternity leave as an opportunity for fun time with offspring vs helping mom - you are very probably right. Certainly was true for us 20 years ago...
I barely survived, and I had an unemployed husband helping me out full time. It's not you being hormonal or sucking, it's just fucking HARD!
If your finances allow, maybe a postpartum doula or other domestic helper might be able to help out a little bit for the next month or two. Someone I know at work hired some woman to come in a few evenings a week to just cook or do laundry or walk the dog, or whatever needed doing. She pays her $10/hr (this is in L.A.), 3 hours at a time, 4 days a week. She found her on care.com.
On a minor point - the sweats are more horrible than people tell you, but there are tricks to help. You can sleep on beach towels & change them instead of the bed. You can make the bed with two bottom sheets with a beach towel between them & then just yank off the wet one & toss it in a laundry basket until morning. (This is handy later for crib sheets when your daughter has a stomach bug.) You can wear thicker clothes & try to keep the sheets dry. You can wear fewer clothes & have less laundry & fewer clothes. You can wipe down with baby wipes to feel cleaner. It is very tough to be creative when you are tired. Hang on & remember you are also burning calories by producing all that milk.
On a minor point - the sweats are more horrible than people tell you, but there are tricks to help. You can sleep on beach towels & change them instead of the bed. You can make the bed with two bottom sheets with a beach towel between them & then just yank off the wet one & toss it in a laundry basket until morning. (This is handy later for crib sheets when your daughter has a stomach bug.) You can wear thicker clothes & try to keep the sheets dry. You can wear fewer clothes & have less laundry & fewer clothes. You can wipe down with baby wipes to feel cleaner. It is very tough to be creative when you are tired. Hang on & remember you are also burning calories by producing all that milk.
So, ummm... possibly reproducing here. Except you convinced me not to, since this is the EXACT sort of distracted and unaware and neglectful (all the while meaning the best) shit my boyfriend would pull. And then I would not only feel pissed, but also guilty for making my needs and wishes VERY clear, repeatedly.
Big hugs! :)
Did your night "suck" literally? ;)
Susanne -- The sweats have given me a whole new perspective on what some menopausal women must go through. Horrible! I think I'll try the beach towel trick tonight.
Snarky Scalpel -- Look, I love my husband. He is great to me, and has been a big help this week. He even read this post and said he was sorry and would try to do better. If you want to reproduce, reproduce. D is wonderful, and I can't describe how happy I am to have her, despite my hormonal, sleep deprived haze.
Oh, I know D is wonderful and I'm sure Luca is a great help. Let's just say this... sounds just like we would, right down to Luca being sorry after he read this. And I don't think I want to go there, mostly for his sake.
First babies are super rough on a marriage. I guess it's just a matter of getting used to there being a helpless person you are both responsible for. I always tell people that I used to never understand how couples ever got divorced, and then after we had a baby, I sort of understood. But once you get past that transition period, it's fine. And having a second baby hasn't been nearly as rough.
One thing I will tell you is that when he offers to help, SAY YES. Because if you say no, you'll feel resentful anyway, and he'll feel good about getting to help you. When Mel was born, we slept in shifts and he gave her bottles for the first half of the night so I got to sleep 4 *guaranteed* glorious hours in a row. Saved my life. I swear to you, your milk supply will not dry up forever if you do this.
Snarky: I think this is entirely typical "man getting used to first baby" behavior :)
Sorry it sucks so much today. I've heard that babies don't really "pay off" as far as being interactive and cute and loving and such until 3-4 months.
My baby is due in 5 weeks (!!!) so I'm saving this post so I can commiserate!
As long as D is EBF it doesn't really matter since you have to get up to feed her anyway, but one policy I implemented was that once H was old enough to sleep longer between feedings, and could have a bottle (we started giving him a pumped bottle once a week when he was 6 weeks old or so) MM and I traded nights. I still got up for the 2 AM feeding every night, but on my "off" nights I would sleep through the entire night except for that feeding -- and on those nights I would also hand H to MM after feeding him, and MM would do the burping (which often took longer than feeding! He took FOREVER to burp!!!) and changing and settling back down to sleep.
Because I KNEW that otherwise MM would have . . . . . a hearing deficit, and "not hear" H fussing in the middle of the night; or would end up arguing that the last time *I* got up with him didn't really count because it was only 10 minutes, or whatever. And we'd end up arguing, which I hate, and then I'd be too stressed to sleep anyway, so I'd end up getting up with him 80% of the time. So the trading nights thing really saved my butt, since when it was his night he couldn't argue that the last time I got up "didn't really count" or whatever. If it was his night, he got up. It was totally unambiguous. And it got him to do his share without me ever having to nag him, which was huge.
It was also of ENORMOUS psychological value to know that, no matter how tired I was and how long I'd been awake, my next full night's sleep (by post-partum standards, which really means about 6 hours, but whatever -- it's better than 2 hours!) was only one day away. That got me through a LOT of long, exhausting nights.
Oh, and I totally feel you on the family issue -- my family all thinks MM is a freaking SAINT (I swear, if we divorced, they would keep HIM!!!) and that I should kiss his feet with gratitude for doing 25% of the childcare. While working a 40 hour week to my 80. It's infuriating.
Maren -- She's interactive enough. And so completely adorable that it doesn't matter that she's not very social yet. You'll see. My dad took a video of her at the hospital getting her first bath, and I can't even be in the same room while it plays because she is screaming so loud, and all I can imagine is that she is being whisked away by a terradactyl.
LIVS -- Everyone says it will get better. Right now I'm relying on naps. I think once I get my pump we will probably implement yours and Fizzy's suggestion of trading off nights. Any suggestion about making the Boo less interested in her? She's not aggressive, but it makes me uncomfortable how interested she seems in D when she's squirming and vocalizing in the bassinet. I don't want to have to lock her out of our BR when I take naps, but I might decide to if she can't chill out.
Fizzy -- Aside from this morning we haven't really fought since the baby came home. I wouldn't even classify this morning as a "fight" since I said I was upset and he said I was right. I suspect things will get more interesting when he goes back to work next week. I already feel guilty about his heinous commute.
Short version: 1) leash her to the bed in such a way that she can't jump down and strangle herself, can't reach D, and can still sleep in bed with you. 2) I think she just has to get used to her.
I had 2 sobbing breakdowns the first week H was home, because the dogs were SO WEIRD about him and I was CONVINCED one of them was going to try to eat him, and I love them but I had to protect HIM of course, and I didn't know what to do. None of them were ever aggressive at all, but they were SO interested I was afraid they thought he was either a squeaky toy or a small animal. Red Panda used to jump up and put her front feet on the edge of his Pack & Play to look in at him, and I would go into cardiac arrest as I dragged her away.
It took weeks for them to calm down, but now they're just casually interested in him (except for Bug, who's a loon anyway and is always kept separate from him). I couldn't lock Red Panda out of the room we were in because she'd whine until I was ready to murder her, so I let her lay on the couch next to me when I was awake, and that was fine. If she got too close to H, I would tell her to lay down and then praise her, and she would look at him and kind of sniff the air around him, but she'd back off when she got too close and I told her to lay down. When I took a nap, I would loop her leash around my waist and then clip it to her collar, so she had enough slack to either lay next to me on the couch, or on the floor, but not enough to get the 2 feet away to the Pack & Play.
We did the same thing with Bug in the bedroom, for awhile. I would tether her leash to the footboard, in the far corner of the bed (against the wall, so she couldn't jump off and strangle herself). That way she could sleep with us, and I didn't have to keep watch all night to make sure she wasn't trying to get into H's crib.
Other than that, I think it's just time. She just has to get used to D. She might not realize D is a tiny human yet; I'm not sure what my dogs really thought H was when he was first born. But they didn't react the same way they do to people, even small children. But they eventually figured it out. Probably letting her hang out with you as much as possible, being in the same room with D without having actual access to her, and just having time to acclimate, is the best you can do.
Aside from the names being different, I felt very much the same about the level of help I got when we got home with Hunter. He kind of assumed I had EVERYTHING under control, when really I had no frigging clue what I was doing and was exhausted, and needed help with seemingly inane tasks.
And I did all the overnight stuff, because he had to work in the morning. But he'd take the time right when I finally HAD to eat something to call a friend, or decide it was time to go.. shovel the driveway or whatnot. Often. It seemed too often to be coincidence, but I finally had to be stupidly vocal about what I needed and expected.
And once I got more sleep than in one to two hour spurts, life got a LOT better.
It WILL get better. I promise.
A thought about eating, if you are not doing so already, you may want to keep some prepared snacks or even some shelf-stable fortified milk drinks (like the carnation cans) next to the bed so that you can eat/drink something in the overnight hours while feeding D so you aren't going so long without food/fluids.
As for "hormonal" and "demanding," you're not even a month post-partum in a culture where new parents are expected to magically 'get it' without any 'it takes a village' sort of assistance. You're absolutely not sucking, it's the situation that sucks!
Also, I wish I could bring you lunch, give you a hug, and hang out with D while you take a nap.
You are getting lots of great advice so I'll just send you my sympathies for a hard day and hopes that tomorrow improves. What you are doing is very hard. Hang in there.
***hugs*** I am pretty sure I would have wacked my husband in the back of the head at that point. I could totally feel your frustration, I was frustrated for you...you had every right to be frustrated!!! Your father had no right to say that to you. Even if he felt like it was true at some point, you def didnt need to hear that this week! Hope things get better!!!
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