This week, I sat down to write a letter to Belle. When I looked at the postcard to which I had been replying, I realized it had been sent a month ago.
Many days, we stay home while Bug screams, Tatoe nurses, and I do laundry (not all at the same time). Today was more useful... and yet, this is what I do all day.
6:15 Feed baby.
6:30 Breakfast, clothes, tooth brushing. Mix up the bread.
7:00 Feed baby. Read Bug books.
7:45 Spouse leaves.
8:00 Bug watches Sesame Street. Tatoe screams. I shower.
8:05 Putz around on the Internet for ten minutes.
8:15 Tatoe falls asleep nursing.
9:15 I decide I MUST get up. Tatoe wakes up and screams.
9:30 Leave for morning playdate.
11:45 Back from morning playdate. Loaf out bread, fix lunch.
12:00 Nurse baby while eating
12:15 Get chicken stock started. Eat the rest of lunch.
12:30 Bug to bathroom, stories, nap.
12:45 Lay down with Tatoe. He nurses. And nurses. And nurses.
2:45 Cannot take it any more. Get up. Tatoe wakes up and screams. Bake bread.
3:00 Garden with Tatoe.
3:15 Type away madly while Tatoe escapes from carrier/ eats computer/ wails.
3:30 Bug wakes up.
4:00 Laundry. Walk with children.
4:30 More laundry.
5:00 Leave for evening minyan and dinner potluck.
7:30 Get home. Bathe children. Nurse Tatoe for two hours while spouse does dishes and sweeping.
9:30 More laundry.
And.... lather, rinse, repeat in ten-minute intervals.
Oh, dear. It gets better, I promise. I was Child #2's pacifier as well, and it is extremely challenging to have so much of your day taken up by lying with baby. I admit I enjoyed the first 15 minutes of snuggling, but two hours gets old. It's all a little fuzzy at this point, but I think I succeeded in breaking little man of the habit around 6 months old. I'd only let him nurse until I was empty, about 30 minutes for my fairly efficient eater. If he was awake and still hungry, he would eat solid food at that point. If he was asleep, I could sometimes carefully detach him and sneak away. More often, I stopped nursing and he started screaming. I couldn't stand being his pacifier any longer, and if he was tired he did go back to sleep on his own. (Sometimes helped by the swing, which he didn't love but tolerated.) Or he kept screaming, and I put in earplugs. After not too long, he learned nursing was for food and got less "attached" to needing me while sleeping.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I sympathize. Days with babies are long, you are a very good mother and getting through the day is an accomplishment in itself. Not to mention, doing laundry, baking bread, and making lunch!
I actually wrote this a few weeks ago, since which he's been sleeping more on his own (i.e. I'd had it, so I started popping him off and stuffing him in his crib and hoping his screaming didn't wake Bug up). Babies! SO inconvenient!
DeleteI like the Tatoe screams/wails, as that's going to be a big part of my day shortly. I beg and pray that all that nursing will not be a big part of my day.
ReplyDeleteHa! Well, there are worse things than a lot of nursing. And Tatoe isn't a particularly screamy baby, I'm just less... sensitive? to it than I was with Bug. Like, I need a shower, kid, so tough it out for five minutes. Maybe even ten.
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