A day in the life.
May. 3rd, 2005 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaA big part of my strategy for surviving the first insane weeks of parenthood involves narrowing my focus. When I wake up in the morning, I don't think about whether I'm going to get any more sleep during the coming night than I did during the previous night. I don't think about how we'll cope when I go back to work. I don't think about whether it will be easier next month than it is right now. I mostly think about the time between right now and the next feeding. Occasionally, I branch out and think things like, "she needs a bath today," or "I'm going to need to pump sometime before Michael gets home." But that's the very limit.
Yesterday it occurred to me that it would be a good thing to get a larger picture of my day. Partly because I think it will be different in a month or so, and I want to preserve the memory, and partly because keeping my focus as narrow as I do means that I don't see my days as a whole. So yesterday I took notes. I don't expect this to interest anyone else, but here it is:
2:00am: The alarm goes off, and I wake Alex to eat. This wasn't supposed to be necessary anymore, but she was so soundly asleep at bedtime that neither Michael nor I could wake her to eat, and it made me nervous. I change her diaper. We nurse both sides, sleepily, and I give her a supplemental bottle - one ounce of expressed breast milk.
3:00am: She spits up about half the supplemental bottle, probably because I didn't burp her vigorously enough. And then she is hungry again. I try to fight it for a while, and then give up and nurse both sides again. When she continues to make tragically hungry faces, I give her a second supplemental bottle.
4:00: She sleeps. I sleep. Mmm, sleep.
7:30: Alex is stirring and making little conversational noises. I get up and change her diaper, and we nurse one side. She never wakes up fully, and drifts off to sleep on the breast.
8:00: I put her back in bed so that I can go to the bathroom and check my e-mail.
8:10: Alex is howling with outrage at having been callously abandoned when she is STARVING. I pick her up and put her to the other breast.
8:12: She falls asleep with her mouth on my nipple.
8:20: I take advantage of her sleep to shower and dress.
8:40: She wakes up and cries. We nurse the other side.
9:00: We move downstairs for the day. I pack up the diaper bag with everything we might want from the bedroom (nipple shield, used bottles, clean outfit for Alex), sling it over my shoulder, throw the nursing pillow over the railing, and carry Alex downstairs. She's sleeping. I hook myself up to the breast pump while she slumbers on the couch next to me.
9:15: Finished pumping - 2.75 ounces, a noble haul. I wash the pump parts and last night's bottles.
9:20: Alex continues to sleep. Mmmm, sleeping baby. I have breakfast (Cheerios and grapes). When she continues to sleep, I throw caution to the winds and have a cup of tea. I assemble the playmat we got as a shower gift. I write three thank-you notes. She continues to sleep! This is awesome. I read a little.
10:40: Alex wakes up and cries a little. I change her diaper and nurse one side.
11:00: She falls asleep while I'm burping her, so I put her in her bouncy seat to see if she'll wake up.
11:07: Alex is awake and mildly entertained by the toys dangling from the bouncy seat.
11:12: Entertained no longer, she fusses. I nurse the other side and give her a supplemental bottle.
11:40: She falls asleep on my shoulder, scrunched up in the fetal position. I bury my face in her hair and give it little kisses - God, she smells good. She smiles in her sleep.
12:05: I'm hungry, so I slide Alex into her sling and make myself some lunch. Smoked turkey and cheddar sandwich on seven-grain bread, Kettle chips, carrot sticks and red pepper strips with ranch dressing, lemonade-and-seltzer. I read through lunch - Georgette Heyer's The Convenient Marriage. It bothers me a little that I can instantly pick out the hero and heroine from the crowd, because they're the ones with grey eyes.
12:45: I go upstairs and surf the net for a while, Alex still asleep in the sling.
2:00: Whoa! How could it be two o'clock? Shouldn't this baby be awake by now?
2:05: I try puting her on her new playmat. She is unimpressed and starts to yell. I change her diaper and then put in a movie (Love! Valour! Compassion!) while we nurse.
2:50: I worry that she hasn't been eating enough today, and that she's been sleeping too much.
3:05: She wakes up and screams. I change her diaper - more screaming. She nurses like a starving thing.
3:20: She's finished one side, and I'm delaying the other one because she's got a nasty case of the hiccups. She sniffles and fusses. And fills her diaper again, so I change her again.
3:35: We nurse the other side. Alex is kind of desultory about it, and continues to be a fussy baby who doesn't really want to settle down to anything in particular.
4:05: Walking around the room with Alex. I put on a Glenn Miller CD, and we dance our way through "Moonlight Serenade," "In the Mood," and "Pennsylvania 6-5000." Sadly, Mama is still out of shape from pregnancy and childbirth, and we have to stop dancing after just three songs. Alex enjoyed it.
4:20: I give up and accept that we've entered the "nurse every hour" portion of the day. We nurse one side.
4:35: She falls asleep with one hand protectively clutching my breast. I drift off, as well.
5:00: Alex wakes up and we nurse the other side. Then we both fall asleep again.
5:45: Michael comes home. We chat briefly and he admires the adorableness of his baby. I more-or-less wake up, although Alex doesn't, and I read for a while.
6:30: I hand Alex off to her Papa so that I can pump (2.25oz) and start dinner. We're having one of our Let's Dish entrees - "pork chops with Italian stuffing," which means bread stuffing that has roasted red peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, and Italian spices in it. The dish itself doesn't seem particularly Italian.
7:05: Michael puts Alex in her bouncy seat, in hopes that she will wake up and nurse so that by the time our dinner is ready she will be full and happy. Ha.
7:30: She finally wakes up, and Michael changes her. I start to nurse, but she's not going about it in a particularly dedicated fashion.
8:00: I help Michael decide whether the pork chops are done. (Yes.) He serves up dinner. We put on Monday Night Baseball - because of a rain delay, they're showing the O's-Blue Jays game, yay! Except that the O's are trailing, alas.
8:15: Just as Michael brings in my plate, Alex starts crying to nurse. Damn it. We nurse one side.
8:25: I put her down for a few bites. She's not particularly happy about it.
8:35: I give up and nurse the other side. Michael cuts my food into bites in hopes that I'll be able to snatch a little here and there.
8:45: Finish nursing and hand the baby off to Papa. Dinner is surprisingly good, even lukewarm.
8:55: Cranky baby is nursing again. When she's irritable like this, her style of nursing involves a great deal of razor-sharp-fingernails-to-the-breast, which - combined with the incessant nursing - really hurts quite a bit. Which makes Mama just as irritable as Alex.
9:15: Now she's screaming. I ask Michael to make up a supplemental bottle.
9:25: I feed her the supplemental bottle. She falls asleep briefly, and then claws her way awake again. Because god forbid she sleep when she's this tired and unhappy, apparently. I try the pacifier, which sort of works. She's not screaming, but there's a certain volatility to the situation.
9:50: I hand her off to Michael so that I can pump. He sings to her in the lowest part of his register, which she seems to like. She doesn't fall asleep, though.
10:10: As is our usual routine, I ask Michael to give me ten minutes or so to get situated upstairs before he brings me the baby. I take the diaper bag and nursing pillow upstairs, take my meds, brush my teeth, sit down to check my e-mail, and hear "I think she's about to lose it." I ask him to change her diaper and then bring her up to nurse.
10:25: We nurse one last time. I'm honestly not sure there's anything left in my breasts, after all that cluster nursing and then the pumping, so because she still seems unsatisfied I give her one last supplemental bottle. She drifts off to sleep, and I can finally clip her razor-sharp nails. Michael takes the empty bottle downstairs to wash and refill it, so that I'll still have two ounces available for overnight.
11:00: Alex and I go to bed. We won't wake up until 4:00, so there's another fine five hours of sleep, yay.
There. Doesn't that sound like fun?
Yesterday it occurred to me that it would be a good thing to get a larger picture of my day. Partly because I think it will be different in a month or so, and I want to preserve the memory, and partly because keeping my focus as narrow as I do means that I don't see my days as a whole. So yesterday I took notes. I don't expect this to interest anyone else, but here it is:
2:00am: The alarm goes off, and I wake Alex to eat. This wasn't supposed to be necessary anymore, but she was so soundly asleep at bedtime that neither Michael nor I could wake her to eat, and it made me nervous. I change her diaper. We nurse both sides, sleepily, and I give her a supplemental bottle - one ounce of expressed breast milk.
3:00am: She spits up about half the supplemental bottle, probably because I didn't burp her vigorously enough. And then she is hungry again. I try to fight it for a while, and then give up and nurse both sides again. When she continues to make tragically hungry faces, I give her a second supplemental bottle.
4:00: She sleeps. I sleep. Mmm, sleep.
7:30: Alex is stirring and making little conversational noises. I get up and change her diaper, and we nurse one side. She never wakes up fully, and drifts off to sleep on the breast.
8:00: I put her back in bed so that I can go to the bathroom and check my e-mail.
8:10: Alex is howling with outrage at having been callously abandoned when she is STARVING. I pick her up and put her to the other breast.
8:12: She falls asleep with her mouth on my nipple.
8:20: I take advantage of her sleep to shower and dress.
8:40: She wakes up and cries. We nurse the other side.
9:00: We move downstairs for the day. I pack up the diaper bag with everything we might want from the bedroom (nipple shield, used bottles, clean outfit for Alex), sling it over my shoulder, throw the nursing pillow over the railing, and carry Alex downstairs. She's sleeping. I hook myself up to the breast pump while she slumbers on the couch next to me.
9:15: Finished pumping - 2.75 ounces, a noble haul. I wash the pump parts and last night's bottles.
9:20: Alex continues to sleep. Mmmm, sleeping baby. I have breakfast (Cheerios and grapes). When she continues to sleep, I throw caution to the winds and have a cup of tea. I assemble the playmat we got as a shower gift. I write three thank-you notes. She continues to sleep! This is awesome. I read a little.
10:40: Alex wakes up and cries a little. I change her diaper and nurse one side.
11:00: She falls asleep while I'm burping her, so I put her in her bouncy seat to see if she'll wake up.
11:07: Alex is awake and mildly entertained by the toys dangling from the bouncy seat.
11:12: Entertained no longer, she fusses. I nurse the other side and give her a supplemental bottle.
11:40: She falls asleep on my shoulder, scrunched up in the fetal position. I bury my face in her hair and give it little kisses - God, she smells good. She smiles in her sleep.
12:05: I'm hungry, so I slide Alex into her sling and make myself some lunch. Smoked turkey and cheddar sandwich on seven-grain bread, Kettle chips, carrot sticks and red pepper strips with ranch dressing, lemonade-and-seltzer. I read through lunch - Georgette Heyer's The Convenient Marriage. It bothers me a little that I can instantly pick out the hero and heroine from the crowd, because they're the ones with grey eyes.
12:45: I go upstairs and surf the net for a while, Alex still asleep in the sling.
2:00: Whoa! How could it be two o'clock? Shouldn't this baby be awake by now?
2:05: I try puting her on her new playmat. She is unimpressed and starts to yell. I change her diaper and then put in a movie (Love! Valour! Compassion!) while we nurse.
2:50: I worry that she hasn't been eating enough today, and that she's been sleeping too much.
3:05: She wakes up and screams. I change her diaper - more screaming. She nurses like a starving thing.
3:20: She's finished one side, and I'm delaying the other one because she's got a nasty case of the hiccups. She sniffles and fusses. And fills her diaper again, so I change her again.
3:35: We nurse the other side. Alex is kind of desultory about it, and continues to be a fussy baby who doesn't really want to settle down to anything in particular.
4:05: Walking around the room with Alex. I put on a Glenn Miller CD, and we dance our way through "Moonlight Serenade," "In the Mood," and "Pennsylvania 6-5000." Sadly, Mama is still out of shape from pregnancy and childbirth, and we have to stop dancing after just three songs. Alex enjoyed it.
4:20: I give up and accept that we've entered the "nurse every hour" portion of the day. We nurse one side.
4:35: She falls asleep with one hand protectively clutching my breast. I drift off, as well.
5:00: Alex wakes up and we nurse the other side. Then we both fall asleep again.
5:45: Michael comes home. We chat briefly and he admires the adorableness of his baby. I more-or-less wake up, although Alex doesn't, and I read for a while.
6:30: I hand Alex off to her Papa so that I can pump (2.25oz) and start dinner. We're having one of our Let's Dish entrees - "pork chops with Italian stuffing," which means bread stuffing that has roasted red peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, and Italian spices in it. The dish itself doesn't seem particularly Italian.
7:05: Michael puts Alex in her bouncy seat, in hopes that she will wake up and nurse so that by the time our dinner is ready she will be full and happy. Ha.
7:30: She finally wakes up, and Michael changes her. I start to nurse, but she's not going about it in a particularly dedicated fashion.
8:00: I help Michael decide whether the pork chops are done. (Yes.) He serves up dinner. We put on Monday Night Baseball - because of a rain delay, they're showing the O's-Blue Jays game, yay! Except that the O's are trailing, alas.
8:15: Just as Michael brings in my plate, Alex starts crying to nurse. Damn it. We nurse one side.
8:25: I put her down for a few bites. She's not particularly happy about it.
8:35: I give up and nurse the other side. Michael cuts my food into bites in hopes that I'll be able to snatch a little here and there.
8:45: Finish nursing and hand the baby off to Papa. Dinner is surprisingly good, even lukewarm.
8:55: Cranky baby is nursing again. When she's irritable like this, her style of nursing involves a great deal of razor-sharp-fingernails-to-the-breast, which - combined with the incessant nursing - really hurts quite a bit. Which makes Mama just as irritable as Alex.
9:15: Now she's screaming. I ask Michael to make up a supplemental bottle.
9:25: I feed her the supplemental bottle. She falls asleep briefly, and then claws her way awake again. Because god forbid she sleep when she's this tired and unhappy, apparently. I try the pacifier, which sort of works. She's not screaming, but there's a certain volatility to the situation.
9:50: I hand her off to Michael so that I can pump. He sings to her in the lowest part of his register, which she seems to like. She doesn't fall asleep, though.
10:10: As is our usual routine, I ask Michael to give me ten minutes or so to get situated upstairs before he brings me the baby. I take the diaper bag and nursing pillow upstairs, take my meds, brush my teeth, sit down to check my e-mail, and hear "I think she's about to lose it." I ask him to change her diaper and then bring her up to nurse.
10:25: We nurse one last time. I'm honestly not sure there's anything left in my breasts, after all that cluster nursing and then the pumping, so because she still seems unsatisfied I give her one last supplemental bottle. She drifts off to sleep, and I can finally clip her razor-sharp nails. Michael takes the empty bottle downstairs to wash and refill it, so that I'll still have two ounces available for overnight.
11:00: Alex and I go to bed. We won't wake up until 4:00, so there's another fine five hours of sleep, yay.
There. Doesn't that sound like fun?
