Friday, October 5, 2007

Just Like Having A Newborn In The House...

Only, with more frosting. And it's the frosting that motivated me to get out of bed this morning. Thinking about eating a spoonful, right from the container...

That's the beauty of being an adult. No matter how much our children keep us up at night, or how nighttime feels like a game of musical beds, we can still choose to eat frosting for breakfast.

I have a new theory about Marin's night time trouble- it's milk. She LURVES her some dairy- especially cheese. And I love giving it to her, because it's full of calories. And if she's consuming lots of calories during the day, she won't want to nurse all night, right? Now I'm wondering if she is possible irritated by the dairy and therefore cries at night because of tummy aches. Ok, let's back up. She CLEARLY has tummy aches- she wouldn't be a genetic Green baby if she did not consume her weight in Mylicon by age 1- but I'm not sure if it's just her anatomy or if it has more to do with her diet. So I think I'll cut out ALL dairy for awhile and see if it helps. On the one hand, I'm hoping it doesn't. Because what am I going to feed her if she can't have cheese/yogurt/milk? But on the other- sleep sounds so inviting.

Which leads me to my new invention idea. Which also leads me to a "Hill to Die On" topic (Swistle's words)- sleep sharing. But! I have such a cozy and nice (and also: small) readership that I am confident that we can all be nice.

The Green Family Nighttime Plan is as follows: We sleep wherever it is that we all get the most sleep. Ideally, this means in our own beds, but sometimes it means the kids are in bed with us or we are in their bed or whatever. For the twins, we always put them to bed in their own beds, but often would let them come and join us, in the name of getting more sleep, during the night. We've had "rules" like- if it's before 4am they have to nurse and go back to their own beds, if it's after 4am they can stay. We went through a time when we would each take one twin and sleep with her in separate beds. We've had times when we lay with them at night until they are asleep, and other times when they go to bed on their own, no problems.

Our sleep situation has gone through many phases, but always resulted in us getting a satisfactory amount of sleep. Also: a minimum of crying on the twins' part. We are not in the "cry it out camp". Instead, we follow the "meet a need and the need goes away" camp.

Then Marin came along. She slept with us, in my arms, exclusively for her first 6 months. I had lots and lots of icky complications after her birth, so this was purely for my own convenience. I had an extremely slow recovery- complete with a handful of extra surgeries and TONS of doctors visits and stupid, stupid tests, so I NEEDED to sleep. I needed to not get up at night. I slept very well with her there. Around six months, I started putting her to sleep in her crib, and she was completely fine with it. She still loves her crib.

But. She has nights where she cries a lot. And then she toots. Then sleeps some, cries some more, toots some more. We massage her tummy, give her gas drops, help her find a comfortable position etc. We do not sleep much on these nights.

So! My invention is: a full or queen or king sized crib, sturdy enough for an adult. That way you could lay with your baby as needed, them hop out and go back to your own bed too.

That would be handy, right? I could make a fortune on this, right? Because, the way I see it, the co-sleeping issue revolves around wanting one's OWN space for sleeping. I want that too. But I also want to sleep, and I don't want to keep jumping out of bed on nights when Marin is having gas attacks. So, it would be perfect to be able to crawl in with her once in awhile, and if I got uncomfortable, sneak back to my own bed without disturbing her. When she's in MY bed, the only way to get more space for myself is to move her back to her crib. Sometimes this works fine; other times it wakes her up.

So! A Queen-sized crib. With silent rails for quick and easy REMOVING OF THYSELF. One can dream....

(That is, if one can get enough sleep to dream...)

12 comments:

Tess said...

I have often seriously considered trying to get in the crib. Ours is from Ikea though so probably not the best idea.

AD has a bed in her room and we have definitely slept with her there before. Whatever works, I'm so with you there.

Erin said...

AH! You have come to the dark side and begun to eat frosting with no cake! ha HA! Our empire is growing!

I secretly (ok, not so secretly, since I'm openly admitting it on the internet) eat frosting all the time from a spoon. I only add cake to the mix on birthdays or some other special occasion. Frosting and me, we go way back.

Anonymous said...

GREAT CRIB IDEA!

I'm in agreement with you on the sleeping policy: we sleep wherever we can SLEEP. Or wherever the most number of us can sleep.

I'm also in agreement with you on the joys of adulthood. I had chocolate chip cookies for breakfast WHILE TELLING THE CHILDREN HOW IMPORTANT A HEALTHY BREAKFAST WAS.

Anonymous said...

I think the frosting and cookies fall under the category of "hazard pay."

Marie Green said...

Tessie- we've thought of putting a bed in her room, but there's the issue of wanting more room for myself, but not wanting to leave her and have her fall out... Also, our mutual friend, Me Today- SHE slept with her babies in their cribs. Ask her about it! She's got pictures!

Erin- I love the idea of you buying frosting and being all nervous but trying to act all "I've got the cake mix at home." Funny!

Swistle- eating cookies while talking about healthy eating! Classic! Also, we DO derserve hazard pay. You are so right...

Anonymous said...

Mmm, frosting...

I like the "by any means necessary" way of operating and I think your idea is fabulous! It is essential that the adult-able crib comes with a magic button that will transport you from the crib to the door without sound or without jostling the bed so as not to wake the sleeping child. Sort of like a magic pixie dust button you can push to have it sprinkled on you, then transported to the doorway. Is that too much to ask?

Katie said...

You are a total genius. A queen sized crib. That is PERFECT.

I also agree--whatever gets the most sleep wins. They will be going off to college soon enough and it won't matter how they slept as toddlers/babies. Really. It won't matter. So, I am all for frosting eating and co-sleeping in the meantime!

Anonymous said...

I am so all about the queen-sized crib. Heck, I'd take a twin-size......

Marie Green said...

shelley- YES. a way to exit the room w/o making noise is ESSENTIAL. Our old-house floors are usually great- and I love that they are creeky when we walk. EXCEPT for when Marin is having a Night. Then I want the floors to SHUT IT ALREADY.

Jess said...

I don't know why junk is so much more tasty in the morning (oh don't get me wrong here it's tasty ALL the time, but just a little more tasty before 8am). And I think that whatever works for the parents in terms of sleep habits, works. Period. My babes adapt a lot easier than I do, and if mamma is sleeping everybody's happier.

Each child is so different you really just have to gauge the babe you're working with I think.

And good call on the dairy experiment. I've cut out all dairy while breastfeeding for my youngest and it has improved our lives dramatically.

Tracy said...

My kids do pretty well at sleeping through the night, but where were you when they didn't? Also, maybe if I had more frosting, I would have been able to stay up more?? Just a thought.
And on the sleep thing,my girls are 4 and 2 and they both still take naps. I am all for sleeping. A lot of people I know have kids who are giving up naps.. I think I would go INSANE and quickly. If left to me, I think the girls will take naps and sleep 12 hrs a night until they leave for college!

Bananas said...

Invent that crib and you'll be a multi-millionaire. That's my prediction!