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May. 1st, 2005 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaEvery time Alex nurses, she stimulates the production of oxytocin in my body. Oxytocin has been helping me recover from childbirth, slowing the postpartum bleeding and shrinking my uterus. It also stimulates maternal behavior and pair-bonding. It's one of the many biological mechanisms designed to prevent me from killing or abandoning her.
I've been noticing that a lot, lately - the overwhelming biology of motherhood. The way her cry zeroes right in on the deepest panic buttons in my brain, so that it actually hurts me physically. The way that her scent is one of the most satisfying things I have ever experienced. The way that my love for this tiny, helpless, infuriating thing overpowers me, even when it makes no sense at all. I know that we've both been designed for this. Her features are what my brain finds maximally cute and appealing: the broad forehead, the large, wide-set eyes. She stimulates oxytocin in me, and I feed it back to her in my breast milk, so that we'll both fall deeply into that pair-bonding drive. It's a finely orchestrated system. It's amazing.
The other night, Alex had what we have tentatively identified as an overtired fit. She started crying, interspersed with episodes of frantic, choppy, and unsatisfying nursing, around 8:30pm. She would calm briefly, and then get hysterical again - waving her little arms and legs, stiffening her back, and yelling. (Already, "yelling" is different from her pain-and-distress cry, which is at least helpful.) None of the things that are supposed to calm her down worked for long. She kept indicating that she wanted to eat, and then pulling away or biting or otherwise sabotaging nursing. I finally got her to sleep at 1am, using a combination of methods that hadn't worked earlier in the evening: tight swaddling, further pinning-down by my body, and pacifier sucking. I was a wreck. A complete wreck.
I woke her up at 4am that night to nurse. She snuggled up to me happily, skin against skin. She didn't cry when I changed her diaper, which is usually a big point of outrage. She nursed deeply and efficiently, and when I swaddled her and put her back into bed she took a few sucks on her pacifier and fell peacefully asleep. It was as if the earlier episode had never happened. But here's the thing: not just for her and her limited newborn memory, but for me. I held her close at 4am, breathing in her scent and feeling her warm little body curled into my breast, and I just had not the slightest bit of resentment - or even lingering unhappiness - for the trauma that had me in tears a few hours earlier.
Don't tell me that's not biological.
On the Alex front: she weighed 7 pounds, 15 ounces at the lactation clinic yesterday, so she continues to gain an ounce a day. The lactation specialist told me I could stop setting the alarm to nurse her at night - and so, last night, I got to sleep from midnight to 5am. (Did you ever hear of anything so luxurious?)
Alex is actually - and here I cross my fingers - pretty easy at night, these days. She's caught on to the general idea that nighttime is when we sleep. We nurse, and then I swaddle her, put her into the cosleeper, stick her pacifier in her mouth, drape one hand over her little body for reassurance,[1] and go to sleep. And she lets me. She sucks for a while, and then drifts off herself. Words cannot express how good it is to be able to put her down while she's still awake. That's not something we've mastered during the day, but she really gets it at night. For now.
In other Alex news, she likes riding in the car, is kind of unsure about the sling and the stroller, and hates baths with a fiery passion. She has been to her first committee meeting, at which she was exceptionally well-behaved. She tries to latch on to everything in the world that's either vaguely nipple-shaped, or smells like milk - including my bra, various non-nipple portions of my breast, and her Papa's nose. She looks like a little puffball after we wash her hair.
My hormones tell me that she's perfect.
[1] It reassures both of us. She likes knowing that Mama is right there, and I like knowing that she's still alive even though she's being quiet.
I've been noticing that a lot, lately - the overwhelming biology of motherhood. The way her cry zeroes right in on the deepest panic buttons in my brain, so that it actually hurts me physically. The way that her scent is one of the most satisfying things I have ever experienced. The way that my love for this tiny, helpless, infuriating thing overpowers me, even when it makes no sense at all. I know that we've both been designed for this. Her features are what my brain finds maximally cute and appealing: the broad forehead, the large, wide-set eyes. She stimulates oxytocin in me, and I feed it back to her in my breast milk, so that we'll both fall deeply into that pair-bonding drive. It's a finely orchestrated system. It's amazing.
The other night, Alex had what we have tentatively identified as an overtired fit. She started crying, interspersed with episodes of frantic, choppy, and unsatisfying nursing, around 8:30pm. She would calm briefly, and then get hysterical again - waving her little arms and legs, stiffening her back, and yelling. (Already, "yelling" is different from her pain-and-distress cry, which is at least helpful.) None of the things that are supposed to calm her down worked for long. She kept indicating that she wanted to eat, and then pulling away or biting or otherwise sabotaging nursing. I finally got her to sleep at 1am, using a combination of methods that hadn't worked earlier in the evening: tight swaddling, further pinning-down by my body, and pacifier sucking. I was a wreck. A complete wreck.
I woke her up at 4am that night to nurse. She snuggled up to me happily, skin against skin. She didn't cry when I changed her diaper, which is usually a big point of outrage. She nursed deeply and efficiently, and when I swaddled her and put her back into bed she took a few sucks on her pacifier and fell peacefully asleep. It was as if the earlier episode had never happened. But here's the thing: not just for her and her limited newborn memory, but for me. I held her close at 4am, breathing in her scent and feeling her warm little body curled into my breast, and I just had not the slightest bit of resentment - or even lingering unhappiness - for the trauma that had me in tears a few hours earlier.
Don't tell me that's not biological.
On the Alex front: she weighed 7 pounds, 15 ounces at the lactation clinic yesterday, so she continues to gain an ounce a day. The lactation specialist told me I could stop setting the alarm to nurse her at night - and so, last night, I got to sleep from midnight to 5am. (Did you ever hear of anything so luxurious?)
Alex is actually - and here I cross my fingers - pretty easy at night, these days. She's caught on to the general idea that nighttime is when we sleep. We nurse, and then I swaddle her, put her into the cosleeper, stick her pacifier in her mouth, drape one hand over her little body for reassurance,[1] and go to sleep. And she lets me. She sucks for a while, and then drifts off herself. Words cannot express how good it is to be able to put her down while she's still awake. That's not something we've mastered during the day, but she really gets it at night. For now.
In other Alex news, she likes riding in the car, is kind of unsure about the sling and the stroller, and hates baths with a fiery passion. She has been to her first committee meeting, at which she was exceptionally well-behaved. She tries to latch on to everything in the world that's either vaguely nipple-shaped, or smells like milk - including my bra, various non-nipple portions of my breast, and her Papa's nose. She looks like a little puffball after we wash her hair.
My hormones tell me that she's perfect.
[1] It reassures both of us. She likes knowing that Mama is right there, and I like knowing that she's still alive even though she's being quiet.
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-03 02:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 12:13 am (UTC)You might want to consider an angelcare baby monitor - there's a pad that goes under the mattress - every time she breathes there's a TICK noise and if there's no breath or movement for 10 seconds, it sets off an alarm that'll wake you. We got one when my oldest was three months old and able to roll from back to belly and I was paranoid because I was no longer able to keep him on his back to sleep.
What sling are you using? I just ordered a new one as she doesn't like the one I had for Jon...
no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 09:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 12:42 am (UTC)When she can't be comforted no matter what you do, use earplugs. You'll still hear her, of course, but they do seem to cushion the teeth of that must fix this/can't fix this trap that inconsolable crying creates.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 12:58 am (UTC)And congrats on the sleep. Sleep is good.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 01:27 am (UTC)I have worked in an office where someone brought in her 2? 3?-month old child. And when said child wailed? The entire floor screeched to a halt. I swear the human species is hardwired to respond to that sound.
Very quickly, we all learned the difference between "trouble" and "peevishness", but no matter the cause, that wail would derail anything else we were doing.
One of the neatest things about this workplace was that the whole situation was considered "normal".
no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 01:45 am (UTC)I remember visiting my sister, shortly after her second babe's arrival. Unlike No. 1, this one was a crier. My poor sister was utterly unprepared!
You know the song "Unforgettable"? I spent hours carrying le infant terrible back and forth, across the living room, singing "Inconsolable."
no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 09:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 11:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 02:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 03:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 03:45 am (UTC)A friend of ours was having problems with their little one hating baths, and when they discussed it with another recent set of parents they were told that maybe the water wasn't warm enough for the baby. The next time they used a thermometer to bring the water to the same temperature as her body (which normally feels much warmer to the touch than they were drawing the bath) and she never fussed again.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 04:07 am (UTC)Oh gods, the smell. I love the milky baby smell. How is it that their bodies can produce such stinky excrement, and yet they still remain so sweet? (I gave the EB a bath today, and she smells good after that too. She doesn't mind baths too much - and her hair sticks up in curls after it dries. So cute!)
We swaddled lots in the first month or so - now she doesn't seem to physically *need* that in the same way. Now we just wrap loosely - depending on how cold it is outside.
Even in the hospital when she was born, the nurses and doctors and lactation consultant were joking with us that we seemed to have an exceptionally orally oriented baby. Even now - there are times when she is absolutely inconsolable until a finger is stuck into her mouth (must be the right finger, proper angle, etc.), and then suddenly all's right with the world.... Sometimes a pacifier - but a finger is even better.
For me, I can deal with the general crying pretty well, but when she's really upset and angry, she *screams* until she loses her breath for a second and her face turns all red - and that's the point when I lose it - just can't stand it at all, and must make it stop RIGHTNOW no matter what.
Back reading
Date: 2005-05-02 09:47 am (UTC)Your cosleeper thing sounds fabulous.
Linnea liked her baths a lot warmer than the bath thermometer said they ought to be, and then she loved them. Different babies prefer different times of day. And Linnea adored showers but those involved more parents than baths did.
Linnea had a lot of baths with a parent.
Congratulations on achieving multiple hours of consecutive sleep! Linnea slept through from bedtime to getting up time for the first time last night.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 11:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 01:39 pm (UTC)Sleeping for five hours at that time? Indeed, luxury, I tell you. (I hope it continues.)
no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 01:45 pm (UTC)Biology is a wonderful thing. When you start to think of your rational self, and others', as being a tiny man* sitting on top of a great big lumbering elephant of hormones, it becomes much easier to comprehend, as well as fairly amusing.
*I tried to look up the correct name for those dudes in India that ride elephants to make me look all cultured and shit, and failed miserably. Anyone know what it is so that next time I use this metaphor I can appear cleverer than I really am?
no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 01:56 pm (UTC)Those dudes are called "mahouts", and the sedan chairs they ride in atop the elephants are called "howdahs".
no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 01:57 pm (UTC)Glad all is going well
Date: 2005-05-02 02:03 pm (UTC)Just in case: If you happened to be part of a wedding, and Michael was keeping Alex occupied while your finery was being adjusted, and Alex decided she wanted to latch on to something, and she chose his cheekbone, he should probably redirect her to something that would make him look less like someone who had been punched in the face..... Don't worry, it'll probably never happen ;-)
no subject
Date: 2005-05-05 06:11 pm (UTC)And even without the chemical bonding agents there was a lot of that (and a lot of looks of polite despair when people saw me with her, I recall holding her at a library sale, tucked into the roots of a tree while my mother was collecting books for the store... I got lots of people looking at me with pity... "So young to be a father," in their eyes). The pain of not being able to fix the problem, and then not recalling the frustration later.
I got to sleep from midnight to 5am. (Did you ever hear of anything so luxurious?)
Yeah, but I was in Basic Training. I think I average four hours, total, per day, for about five weeks, and not much more than that for eight. Often interrupted by some middle of the night duty, or personal need (boots to polish, clothes to wash).
When I was sick, well sleep was a transitory thing, until the aches awoke me.
I hope the worst of it is now past.
TK