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October 21, 2003
Shortly after I became a mother, I began noticing the basics of new parent conversation: nursing, sleeping, milestones and eating—everyone asks about these important elements of parenting, and they all seem SO important. The hardest part about having friends with babies, particularly with two of them being two weeks older and younger than Ella, was trying to avoid the parental death trap of comparison. Fortunately, I quickly recognized my tendency to compare Ella to the ‘better,” “easier,” “less noisy” baby and constantly set about reminding myself that Ella is Ella, all babies are different and there will always be something you wish would work differently. But most importantly, my baby is perfect and beautiful and has the most heartwarming personality I could ever imagine—who cares what those other babies do...
I want to devote this entry to describing how Ella (and I) handled all the things that make up the basics of “mom talk.”
NURSING
My breastfeeding relationship with Ella began several minutes after her birth, and it was clear from the very beginning that she would become a master in the art of lingering. All in all, I think nursing was much easier than I anticipated, but I was probably a bit more apprehensive than most expectant moms about how difficult it might be. I don’t remember when my fascination with breastfeeding began, but it seems like for many, many years before I actually did it, I tried to imagine what nursing would be like. I always pictured a peaceful scene: a roly-poly babe at my breast, drowsy and smiley and growing strong. I do remember, however, the first time I learned that all women did not intuitively know how to breastfeed, that it might be difficult, that blood and cracking could be involved. I was 22 years old, and I was absolutely shocked! It was the television show Party of Five that killed my lifelong misconception, the episode when the oldest brother’s girlfriend has their baby and can’t get the hang of nursing and doesn’t bond with her baby. I was literally traumatized by that episode.
So, after learning that I was pregnant, one of the main things I obsessed about was breastfeeding. I read way too many books, had countless conversations with other mothers about it and just generally fixated on it all the time (I had a tendency to do that when I was pregnant). I found it disheartening that very few women in my family had breastfed, not because I think it’s awful to formula-feed, but more because it’s a practice that seems to require heritage. I felt mentor-less and hated that I was reading books instead of sitting with my mother or grandmother learning how to feed the next generation. But read I did. And read and read and read. I can honestly say I was more concerned about breastfeeding than I was about childbirth (and I was planning an out-of-hospital birth!).
Ultimately my doula convinced me that I was more than adequately prepared, in both the how-tos and the what-ifs, and as such was bound to succeed. Well, that coupled with the fact that I was so determined to do it that not much could deter me. Just as she predicted, all my reading and obsessing helped make those first few weeks fairly smooth sailing. When my milk came in, I remember looking at my gigantic, rocky breasts in the mirror and then sterilizing my Isis breast pump at one in the morning to relieve engorgement before finally getting Ella latched on. Considering I only pumped half an ounce, I probably could have forgone the pump boiling process, but hey, I wasn’t thinking clearly.
Speaking of pumping, my main source of frustration with breastfeeding for the first six months was milk management and a ridiculously unfounded sense of needing to get Ella to take a bottle. Considering that, except for one two-day period, I’ve never been away from her for more than three hours during the day, taking a bottle was not the priority I made it out to be. I felt like I never had enough milk to spare in order to pump and store. I also felt like Ella nursed incessantly for two reasons: she wanted to nurse every other hour or so, and she would often nurse for 30 minutes to an hour on each side. By her four-month check up, Ella was still nursing every hour, and I asked her doctor if she had any advice. She asked if I was nursing on both sides every time, and it was like a flash bulb going off in my head, one of those ah-hah, DUH moments. After I started tanking her up on both sides with every feeding, many issues resolved themselves. Ella would go for three hours during the day between feedings, and I began to recognize a real pattern in her naps. Staying awake for about two to two and a half hours at a stretch, Ella began napping twice a day on a very leisurely schedule, which allowed me to “go” back to work—from my home office, that is.
SLEEPING
Although she woke up three or four times a night for the first six months, I still thought Ella was a good sleeper, mainly because she seemed to understand that nighttime was sleep time. Unlike many parents, I was absolutely thrilled that Ella was sleeping in our bed and hoped that I would wake up to her kissable, sweet smell for years to come. Unfortunately (in my book), she only slept with us until she was about three and a half months old, but I loved every minute of it; the sound and smell of her breath, her warm body tucked up next to me, her little feet kicking my belly. I know if I had laid her down anywhere but right next to me at first, neither one of us would have gotten any sleep. It was so easy to hear her stir and just roll over and feed her.
At about four months, it became clear that Ella was a light sleeper and we were one noisy bedroom bunch; with Ernest the dog’s whiny nightmares, Matt’s snoring and Ricker the cat’s constant prowling and jumping up and down off the bed. She was constantly waking up, and because I’d grown accustomed to feeding her whenever I heard a peep, she slept in perma-latch-land and would encourage letdown after letdown until we all woke up soaked in baby vomit. At first, I mistakenly assumed it was all the movement on our bed that was waking her, and I decided to put her in our Amby hammock next to our bed. For about a month, I brought her into our bed for each night nursing and kept her with us after the last one before rising in the morning. However, I would often fall asleep while she nursed in the middle of the night, and I soon began getting up, sitting in our uncomfortable bedroom chair and trying to stay awake for her monstrously long feedings. I think I already mentioned her tendency to linger endlessly…
Eventually, I realized that it wasn’t the movement but rather the noise factor that was waking her again and again throughout the night, and I reluctantly bought a baby monitor and moved the hammock to her bedroom at night. Sure enough, Ella only woke three times and even surprised me by sleeping through until her 3 or 4am feeding on several occasions. When I met with her pediatrician for her six-month well-baby checkup, Ella’s weight had jumped from the 70th percentile to the 97th in two short months, and the doctor asked me if she was still nursing throughout the night. When I said yes, she very gently told me that it wasn’t necessary to feed her all night long anymore. She put it like this: your baby will be happier when she's sleeping through the night, and it's good for her development on all levels.
Naturally, this led to a conversation about how to encourage Ella to sleep through the night, and before I knew it we were talking about something I thought I would never in a million years consider: crying it out. When I expressed my disdain for this method with what I'm sure was a look of horror, she told me that she had done it with her son at nine months. For some reason when she said that she'd done it, the door opened in my mind to the idea an inch or two mainly because she's such a gentle, sensible woman who you can tell loves her children more than anything and doesn’t make decisions such as this one lightly. She went on to say that it took two nights of crying. A lot of crying. She said she went in every few minutes to make sure he knew she was still alive and loved him, etc., but that she didn't pick him up. Two nights later, it was done. I asked her, "What about the trauma of something like that? Isn't cold turkey pretty traumatic for a baby? I’ve even heard some babies will throw up from crying." She reasoned that having it over in two nights means less trauma, and said that she didn’t believe in allowing it to continue to a level that would induce vomiting, which, she pointed out, means it doesn’t work for everyone. As our conversation came to a close, she encouraged me to do whatever I felt in my heart was right and to look to Ella for the answer.
After lots of agonizing, I decided to give it a shot, and I let Ella cry. It was awful, and we all hated every minute of it. Does every mom get excessively hot and sweaty listening to her children cry? My heart immediately starts racing, and, even though I’m not a person who sweats easily (ever), I almost always break a sweat after only a minute. That night she cried for almost two solid hours, but I went to check on her frequently and noticed she was not particularly worked up and certainly nowhere near her full-throttle capacity. When I went to get her in the morning, she was sunny and happy. She didn't look at me like I had betrayed her. She didn't refuse to hug me and cuddle with me and nurse. She was as happy as my sparkly little girl always was. The next night, she cried for one hour. And the next night, she slept straight through. And the next and the next.
Looking back on it now, I feel confident that going through those two painful nights was the right decision for our family. This kid is a big fan of her sleep, just like her mommy, and I noticed a dramatic improvement in her demeanor from the first day she slept through the night. Now, Ella goes to bed every night between seven and eight, sleeps until about 5:30, has a big milky snack, and goes back to sleep until about eight. Before she switched to one nap a day at about 13 months, which lasts from noon until three or 3:30, she’d take two two-hour naps at 10 in the morning and 3:30 in the afternoon. Since I work from home while Ella’s napping, I’ve probably been more scheduled than other mothers about naptimes, but doing so has enabled me to avoid needing to work when Ella’s awake and in need of my full and undivided attention.
MILESTONES
Aren’t milestones amazing? I think it’s so fascinating that every human accomplishes virtually the exact same sequence of feats in such a similar timeframe. Before Ella was born, I never understood why people insist on saying that their kid is 16 months old instead of just saying “almost a year and half.” I vowed to never refer to my child’s age in months. But… Now I get it. Every week and month brings so many new developments, and, well, if you’ve had kids you know how different a 9-month and a 12-month old can be!
Ella’s physical development was practically textbook, perhaps even slightly advanced, until mobility became a factor (although even that wasn’t THAT out of the ordinary). When she began learning how to sit up and get on her hands and knees, a very strong aspect of her personality (that keeps popping up again and again) became apparent: Ella works on her own schedule no matter her aptitude nor how much encouragement and opportunity she is given. I suppose this is true of any child, right? By early October 2002 (at four months), Ella could sit up but absolutely refused to do it. Has anyone else ever experienced what we affectionately called rigid baby syndrome? Ella could keep her body perfectly erect and wouldn’t bend at the hips or the waist for love or chew toys. I’d pick up other babies and be shocked by their floppiness because my child was so incredibly straight and solid. She didn’t really sit up unassisted until mid-December, 2002 (6 months), which, by the way, I recognize is completely normal.
By January 2003, Ella could get up on her hands and knees and rock back and forth, but again it wasn’t until almost five months later on April 26, 2003 (at almost 11 months) that she crawled in pursuit of something. She could stand up holding on to something as early as December 2002, but it wasn’t until the 17th of April that she would cruise around of her own accord. And then just one week after her first birthday, on June 18th, 2003, Ella took her first steps. As with many children, the first steps freaked her out and she became clingy and generally kind of nervous for about two weeks. Then we took our first long sailing cruise since she was born, and Ella literally went through about a month of walking development in a matter of one week, being forced to get her sea-legs and learn to walk at the same time. It was wild to watch her trip and fall all day long on the boat, and then get on land and see her take off like a bolt.
Having a baby who could sit but not go anywhere for five months was absolutely blissful. If I can offer any advice to a mother who is impatient for her child to crawl and walk, it is to be utterly grateful for every immobile minute! Personally, I vacillated between being thankful and being a tad envious of all the fun my friend Jessica was having when Hana started walking. I remember hearing that Hana had moved a stack of Easter eggs from the table and piled them under a chair, determinately moving them from one pile to the other, and it hit me how much their personalities begin to emerge when they can express their will.
Words, labels, talking—they also begin to illuminate the spark in a child. Ella said her first word, “kitty,” at 8 1/2 months. In a matter of a week, she was saying “doggie”, “duckie”, “daddy,” “kitty,” and “hi.” For the first few weeks, she seemed to truly distinguish between these “D” words, but slowly they began to blur and she went through a long period of calling everything a “dugie.” I noticed that she seemed to refer to all of her toys as dugies, and it made sense to think she would associate the word duckie (as in her beloved rubber duck) with all toys. Then (and even now) we noticed that she uses dugie as her word for “look at this,” “what’s this?” “I can’t say it, but I want to label it.” My brother, Ella’s Uncle Rob, seems perpetually frustrated that she refuses to say Rob and still calls him dugie. The other day, I made him feel a little better when I pointed out that she also calls herself dugie!
Ella had that initial word boom at 8 1/2 to 9 months, and then began focusing on mobility for a while. It wasn’t until she started calling her binky a “kikie” at about 11 months that she branched out from the world where all things are dugies. The realization that her binky wasn’t a dugie seemed to lead to lots of new words, and by her first birthday she was having a word explosion. I wish I would have written down exactly what she could say at the one-year mark… As of the 16-month mark, Ella says about 100 words with some of her favorites being kitty, doggie, duckie, dada, mama, hi, up, ball, book, bath, sock, jeans, tree, waffle, apple, hat, hot, yeah, bag, bear, bucket, baba (synonymous for water/bottle/cup), cheek, boot, more, gaga (glasses), night-night, pool, pee-pee, bye-bye, baby, boobie and many, many more. People frequently remark that not only is her vocabulary quite large, but she also has excellent comprehension and will answer “yeah” when appropriate or go and carry out a complicated demand when one is made. Ella can combine words in mini-phrases quite well as in, “Night-night Dada.” or “Mama pee-pee.” But then there’s “no.” We may be completely mental, but we think it’s unfortunate that Ella has yet to tell us “no.” The problem is that she really, really wants to say it, but I think she feels like it’s off limits to her, or something. We’ve gone through several phases of acting out, such as hitting and kicking, when I’m sure she just wants to say, “No Mama!” Soon coming…
EATING
Due to Matt’s health issues, which I detailed in a previous entry, we have been hesitant to feed Ella things that are tough on her daddy’s system. The thing I find most overwhelming about ulcerative colitis is the lack of understanding in the medical community about what causes it: heredity, environment, food, vaccinations, etc. They really don’t know, but WE know that diet is extremely important. If Matt has even one bite of a brownie or some other high-sugar item, he’s sick for days. Painfully sick. Considering that his sister suffered from this disease as a very young child and Matt didn’t develop symptoms until he was in his late thirties, we’re stuck never really knowing if our children will be afflicted unless they get sick. So, we’ve decided to limit sugar as much as possible. I’m not unrealistic in thinking that Ella’s never going to eat sugar, but we don’t plan to knowingly give it to her except, perhaps, on special occasions. I know she eats foods with sugar at restaurants and when other people offer her things, but for the most part we’ve been successful in limiting it.
Having been forced to read labels and find alternatives for Matt, I’ve found it second-nature to continue doing this for Ella. It means I make a lot of things from scratch and constantly scan labels for all forms of “bad” sugar and seek out alternative sweeteners such as honey, maple syrup, and fruit juice concentrates (those are “fairly” benign to Matt). Until Ella was about 13 months old, we also limited wheat and milk, and that was seriously challenging. Practically everything you buy at a store contains wheat, milk or sugar—even Cheerios.
I find that when I’m around people who don’t know my reasons for these limitations, I come across looking like a total freak. So, I make a concerted effort to be relaxed about it. I feel that being restrictive often implies judgment, and I try to make it clear to anyone who encounters our limitations that our reasons are medical and not judgmental. But, I’m sure there are plenty of people who think we’re just being overly protective. I want to feel like I’ve done everything I know of to prevent Ella (and my future children) from developing this illness, and if that means I come across as a weirdo sometimes, so be it. I’m often confronted with the argument that I may be creating allergies for Ella by limiting her diet, particularly with milk (since she’s still nursing four times daily, I haven’t felt it necessary to give her cow’s milk in a cup), and I waver between believing there may be some truth to it and thinking that it’s a silly argument. Certainly, Ella may never develop a liking for cow’s milk if we don’t give it to her for a while still, but I don’t think that by not offering I’m going to cause an allergy. It just doesn’t work that way. And, if she does decide she doesn’t like milk (or sugar for that matter), I think she’ll live. There are alternatives, and considering how diligent I already am about her diet I don’t think it would be a huge hassle to ensure that the foods she eats contain the vitamins and minerals that may be lacking. She’s already a HUGE cheese, yogurt and broccoli fan—sometimes she even likes her broccoli in her yogurt.
Anyway… We began feeding Ella solids at six months, and it took her about a month and a half to get the hang of it. She didn’t seem to hate the foods I tried giving her (rice cereal, bananas, sweet potatoes), but she would only take a bite or two before making it clear that she’d had enough. It wasn’t until I offered Ella peas that she flew off the handle and expressed intense delight in the green stuff on the spoon. After her introduction to peas, Ella opened up to everything else (except rice cereal, which she always refused) and began displaying a very sophisticated palate. My kid, L.O.V.E, loves strong flavors: stinky cheeses, spicy beans, garlic, and vegetables of any variety. She’s only so-so about meat and poultry, but she seems to be very fond of sausage. All in all, Ella is a terrific eater and rarely displays any of the typical toddler pickiness. She now eats from her own bowl or plate with a spoon or fork and manages to successfully manipulate most things into her mouth. I feel very fortunate that she’s so agreeable about food because, hell, my job with her meals is hard enough!
Well, that concludes my take on the four pillars of new parenthood. I’m planning to write one more history-style entry to include some of my favorite highlights of Ella’s life to date, and then I’ll finally feel caught up and justified in talking about present day happenings.
Until then,
Melissa
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