Mad skillz

The rate of development we're seeing in Poppy is mind-blowing, and I'm sure every other new parent finds the same thing. She's learning cause and effect at the moment, and is enjoying dropping a plastic ball on the floor when she is in her Exersaucer. She has discovered that when the cause is the ball going on the floor, the effect is that Dad comes over to give it back to her. Not because he's a sucker, but because this is the point in her development that she needs to start understanding how one event connects to another...

She's pretty close to being able to sit, and often does baby crunches in an attempt to sit up. The strength isn't there yet but it will come. In the meantime, when we put her in a sitting position she can almost stay there without topping forward, backward or to either side.

The big thing we're seeing (hearing in fact) is how very vocal she is. The nanny commented too that she is very talky. She is constantly making noises and has started singing to herself when she's in the car. She has learned a new squeel which she seems to enjoy practicing a lot, and often makes sounds that sound like "hiiiiii" or "heeeeeeeey". It's pretty fun.

She also seems to be obsessed with our parrot, Ozzie. It's common knowledge that babies love animals so we're not surprised but it's really cool to watch her gaze constantly follow him as he scavenges around the kitchen or plays in his cage.

Humble pie

We were discussing the other day how being a new parent is a totally humbling experience. Prior to Poppy's arrival, we had lots of lofty ideals about how we would do things, and what we wouldn't do and what we thought of particular approaches other parents had used and so on and so on.

One such ideal was how ridiculous it was that some parents brought in sleep consultants. "What a bunch of yuppies" we had said. Why would people pay so much money just to tell them how to get their kid to sleep?

We were wrong. Our deepest, humblest apologies to anyone who has brought in a sleep consultant before us.

We've had an ongoing battle trying to get Poppy to nap during the day. At night she goes down pretty well after a bedtime feed, and after middle-of-the-night feeds she will now soothe herself to sleep (she chats away and practices new noises for about 20 minutes). Daytime is another issue. The only way we could get her to sleep was by bouncing with her on the yoga ball until she was out cold, then putting her in the crib. This meant that when she woke she was disoriented and would get upset instead of going straight back to sleep. A typical day involved a lot of time on the ball and lots of short unhappy naps for Poppy. The situation was untenable, and despite trying some techniques we found in some articles, nothing helped.

Our friends C&C had just brought in a sleep consultant to help their 10-month sleep through the night, and professed an immediate benefit. They said it was like flicking a switch. So we followed suit and booked some time with Sleepy Family.

Sara Cohen came over on Sunday, and she outlined a plan. Instead of putting Poppy down for a nap every two hours, she would be on a set schedule. We were under the false impression (thanks to The Baby Whisperer) that routine is important, not schedule, but Sara told us that by four months babies have a Circadian biorhythm, meaning that they know what time of day it is. So she told us what times to put Poppy down. The first nap is the one where she learns to fall asleep without being on the yoga ball. Even if that means she cries for 90 minutes, we just have to perservere, comfort her with our voices and with patting her back. The second nap is back to the old technique with the ball, the idea with this one is to have a nice long nap. Finally, the third nap of the day is the bonus nap, where whatever happens, happens.

Yesterday we started the process. It took K 45 minutes, but eventually Poppy fell asleep by herself. Although she was only down for 25 minutes, Sara considered it a success, and said that if it took less time the next day, we were on the right path. Poppy's middle nap was a fabulous two hours! And the third nap (which is usually a disaster) was a solid 45 minutes. She was happy all day when she was awake, and lasted a good two and a half hours of being awake at the end of the day, whereas normally she can't go more than an hour. We were delighted.

Today, I put her down, and it took all of 11 minutes!!!! What's more, she stayed down for 100 minutes (which turned out to be too long according to Sara - we should have woken her after an hour, ooops!) For nap two K only needed 7 minutes on the ball before Poppy went to sleep. Another great result.

So we are humbled. If this continues, our lives will have made a huge change for the better, and I am sorry that we felt in the past that anyone who wanted that for them and their child was being overly fussy or dramatic.

Today's bonus track: a couple of pictures of Poppy in her beloved Exersaucer:

The nanny situation

The time has come. We need a nanny. This isn't a permanent thing, but K has a short-term consulting gig, 2-3 days per week, so we need to find someone to look after Poppy.

We thought we had someone lined up, but it turned out that she had just found a full-time gig. The next step was to join the Yahoo group for parents in our neighborhood. There were a few posts looking for someone to share a nanny, or for someone to use a nanny on days when they didn't theirs.

I got close to finding someone, only for her to say that she had found work. Now we started to worry. I sent emails to other people on the parents list, got a referral list from the Children's Council of SF and even sent some emails to nannies who had posted on Craigslist. Finally I posted on the parents list myself.

We found one family who wanted to share their nanny on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and they were happy with a short-term situation since it gave them some time to find a permanent solution. We went over to their house last night, met them and their nanny, and it looks like this will be the way we end up going.

The takeaway from all this is that finding a nanny is a tough, cutthroat business.

We have one additional thing to stress about with having Poppy be looked after by someone other than us, and that is that she has decided that she won't feed from a bottle anymore. We can trick her, by putting her on the breast and then sneaking the bottle into her mouth, and she'll happily feed from that, even if I take over holding the bottle, but the moment she takes a break we have to start the process over again. Luckily a bottle-striking baby didn't seem to worry the nanny, since she's seen it all before. At times in the past she's even resorted to using a spoon to get the milk into the baby. That seemed like a creative solution to me and instantly made me feel like she is a pro.

Wonder Weeks Part 2

I dare not predict that we're done with the 19-week mental spurt, but the last two days have been much happier for everyone. After a really tough Friday, in which the poor little thing only managed two 20-minute naps, and was beside herself with grumpiness and tiredness, she went on to sleep for TEN hours straight, a new record. To make things even better, we got a pretty early night and ended up getting 7 1/2 hours in one block ourselves. To tell the truth, this was the longest either K or I had slept without waking since halfway through her pregnancy!

Poppy went on to have three naps for a total of 2 1/4 hours, a massive improvement, and she was happy and engaged all day. She went to bed at 7:30, about 45 minutes earlier than we had been doing, and had a good night's sleep again. Today, we managed three more naps, once again clocking in at more than two hours. Even when we were out shopping this afternoon and Poppy was clearly tired, she didn't get grumpy. In fact, she was a sheer delight to be around all weekend.

Adding to our satisfaction with the weekend is the fact that it looks like our attempts to get her to learn to go to sleep more easily and also take a bottle are both showing small signs of success.

Fingers crossed that things continue to improve.

The Wonder Weeks

Crying. Crying, crying, crying. Why is this happening?

It's been perhaps four days of progressively more difficult parenting. What had been a baby that stayed on her routine pretty well and slept well (only up once during the night for a feed) was turning into a fussy, clingy, unhappy little thing.

Last night she woke four times in the three hours after going to bed. This was unheard of since she was much younger. We could only guess that she perhaps had an upset belly.

In desperation, K posted about it on Facebook. There were LOADS of responses as our friends sought to find answers for us, from a crazy swinging hammock to driving around in the car to whiskey on the gums. However, one post unlocked the vital piece of information we were missing. It pointed us to a blog posting on Ask Moxie that talked about a book called the Wonder Weeks. Based upon extensive research by Dutch academics, it describes how virtually all babies go through a similar pattern of mental development spurts, independent of the widely-discussed growth spurts. These spurts manifest themselves as an increase in crying, clinginess, crankiness and unsettled sleep. And unlike physical spurts, which tend to vary in timing somewhat, these mental spurts are pretty universal. There's even a chart to show you when the spurts happen and when your baby is going to be at their most unhappy. Poppy is just over 17 weeks old. We looked at the chart and BOO-YAH, there's a rainy cloud symbol right above 17 weeks!

This explains so much. To understand the phenomenon is to be able to accept it, and instead of looking for magic remedies we can just sit tight and wait a few days for her to come through this phase. It won't be pleasant or easy, but at least it won't be scary or mysterious.

The good news is that in between these spurts, babies are at their happiest and do their best sleeping, so we have plenty to look forward to!

Size DOES matter

Poppy had her four-month appointment with our ace pediatrician Dr. C at SF Bay Pediatrics on Thursday, and it confirmed what we thought: she's long, lean and has a big brain.

She's in the 75th percentile of height and only 50th of weight, so right now she's skinny and tall like me. She's also in the 75th percentile of head size. According to the Nova documentary that K and I watched last week, the human head grows based upon the brain growth within. Humans with stunted brain growth end up with small heads. Since she's got a big head, there's probably a big ole brain in there, which might be why she is so curious and seemingly switched on all the time. Everyone who meets her says the same. This is a good thing!


In other news, she has truly discovered her tongue and has really enjoyed playing with her new toy. Exhibit A:

Back to the blog

We've been very poor at keeping the blog updated. Initially this blog was just a place to talk about the pregnancy, but once Poppy arrived it seemed to be a good place to post about our experiences as new parents and updates about Poppy's progress in the world.

I'm going to try to be better about that from now on.

To be honest, she changes on a daily basis, so there's plenty to talk about. Whether it's the fact that she slept for nine hours in a row last night, her unusual feeding habits lately, her newfound rolling abilities or just some new photos, posts should be coming thick and fast.

So, how about those nine hours of sleep she got last night? Pretty crazy. We didn't do our best to capitalize on it because we went to bed later than we should (we try to make it 10:30 but somehow last night it was 11:30, whilst Poppy hit the hay around 8:30).

Here's a couple of cellphone pictures of her before and after her trip outside today. Don't worry, she didn't go in the laundry, but it is a pretty funny shot...

The highs and lows

Being parents of a new baby is an occupation filled with high points and low points, and as Poppy's grandma noted on Saturday, the younger the child is, the more extreme those points are.

Friday was a low - perhaps one of the lowest yet. K was trying to work on finishing her thesis which is due this Wednesday. I was at work. Poppy, who had been very fussy on Thursday, took things to a new level. She wasn't feeding well. She wasn't napping well. She couldn't be put down anywhere without crying. So instead of working on her paper, K spent all day pacing around the house with Poppy in her arms - about the only thing that would stop her from crying. At one point we were instant-messaging and she was telling me what was going on - under normal circumstances I would have left work to come home and take over. However I was going through a major crisis at work, the loss of a bunch of shared data on a server I was configuring. This was not something I could simply leave, and that made my day much worse. Back at the homestead, K was conscious of the time that was being lost, and with nerves made raw by the incessant crying, she was pretty much done by the time I got home - tired, upset, frustrated and genuinely worried about missing out on getting important studying done.

Now it was my turn. It didn't take long for me to experience the same situation. I started to get genuinely concerned. What could be making her this upset? At one point she cried with such intensity that she stopped breathing for a couple of seconds, that weird moment where babies need to pause before letting out the next scream. I measured her temperature, which was fine, and continued to try to soothe her. None of the tricks worked - changing her diaper, feeding her, rocking her - she was just pissed off with the world. Finally we attempted to do the going-to-bed routine, and amazingly she went to sleep. We were left with ringing ears, raw nerves and some lukewarm pizza, looking at each other with wide eyes wondering "what the f**k just happened?"

The next day, she was perfect. She smiled plenty in the morning, fed well, took long, deep naps and was alert and engaged in her playtime.

On Sunday she was also pretty good, but went through a fussy period in the afternoon and early evening. It was now we decided to check on something suggested by both my mother and one of K's friends: teething. After feeling around inside her mouth, we think there's noticeable bumps on her upper gums. This may be nothing, or it may be an indication that her periods of irritability might be down to sore gums.

The other theory is that she is picking up on the stress level in the household. As K ticks down the final days of her 27-month masters degree program, and works feverishly to finish a 70-page group thesis, the pressure has been building, as has her stress level. Our friends C&C noted that their 8-month-old is always at her worst when either of them is stressed about something.

Finally, the high point. As I was getting ready to leave for work this morning I looked in on Poppy in her bassinet. I could see that she was awake and just chilling out in her swaddle. As I approached her she suddenly noticed me and immediately gave me the biggest full-body smile ever! Smiles are nothing new for her - she's generally a pretty smiley and happy baby - but they are usually pretty random. This was the first time she has ever smiled in direct response to seeing me. WOW! And she's started doing this thing where her whole body convulses like she's trying to laugh when she has the biggest smiles. It's amazing.

So yeah, a high high and low low in the past three days.

Bubbles and sleep

Poppy changes on a daily basis. The latest development is the ability blow bubbles with her saliva. Okay, not exactly crawling, smiling or talking, but makes a nice change from her usual routine of feeding, sleeping and crying.

On Sunday she will be four weeks old and on Tuesday it will be one whole month. What a crazy time it has been so far! It was most interesting to visit friends yesterday who have an 8-week-old. He seems MASSIVE in comparison to her and he has a cry that sounds like an Aprilia 250cc racing motorcycle. Funny to think that she'll be roughly that size in four weeks. What was encouraging to learn is that she gained one whole pound in the last two weeks as she went from 8 to 9 pounds. That would be like an average 160lb adult gaining 20lbs in two weeks!

Finally, since the most common question we get asked is "are you getting any sleep" here's the current answer: yes. She generally has two feeds each night, sometimes one, each taking about one hour from the moment we wake up to the moment we're back to sleep. Since we go to bed around 10 or 11 and wake around 9 that means in theory we're getting something like 7 or 8 hours a night. Many nights it doesn't work out quite so well, either because we go to bed too late, get up to early, she feeds more often or takes longer to get back to sleep. Those are the nights that suck, and we had two in a row this week. The good news is that the pediatrician says we no longer have to wake her for feedings - we can go until she wakes. This is great, since she is capable of sometimes going five hours from the start of one feed to the start of the next which can mean a four-hour block of sleep for us. Two of those in one night would be amazing, and might be just around the corner....

Feed me Seymour

Poppy is now only 2oz shy of her birth weight, and should hit it before her two-week birthday, the standard for making sure babies are getting enough sustinance. Glad those 3am feeds are working!

Photos

We're posting photos to Facebook and also to a public Picasa album. Check it out.

The labor

We found ourselves down at Fisherman's Wharf around 11am. We got a call from our doula as we walked through the Aquatic Park and she gave us a great pep-talk. After that, we stopped at the Hyde Street Pier, somewhere neither of us had been before. As we walked up the pier K said that she was feeling rather damp. A quick dash into the bathroom confirmed not very much. Sometimes when water breaks it happens high up on the bag of water, so the fluid escapes very slowly. Only one thing to do in that case, which is wait.

After seeing the sea lions at Pier 39 we had lunch, a tourist-tastic bread bowl filled with clam chowder. It was now that K was able to confirm that her water had broken and was leaking gradually. We dashed home to wait for contractions to begin. Helped along by the laughter from a Peter Sellers Pink Panther movie, the did just that at around 5pm. Initially they were just 25 minutes apart, but with two at 9 minutes followed by some at 4 minutes we started to move into golden period: waiting for one hour of strong contractions at least 5 minutes apart. Pretty soon though they were at 2-3 minutes apart and were very strong.

I called our doula who was enroute and told her we were thinking of going to the hospital and she should meet us there, but by then she was just a couple of minutes away. Once she arrived she helped K through another few contractions, all very intense, and then we decided to go to the hospital. I was starting to worry that we'd waited too long - this was all going very, very fast.

We left the house at 7:58, with contractions coming so fast that we couldn't get out to the car without another contraction coming. The key was to drive smoothly and safely without going slowly. The grab handle proved to be K's best friend all the way, as she experienced about another 7 contractions in the car.

I dropped K and our doula off at 8:14 and parked in the adjacent lot. When I got back into the OB triage K was starting to get on a monitor. The nurse was rather brusque and too slow for my taste. She was also annoyed that we hadn't called ahead (like we had time....) When she finally got around to checking dilation she discovered it was an amazing 9cm!!! WAAAAHHHH! The nurses kicked into action, calling ahead to find out what delivery room was closest to the elevators. It was clear that we were now very short of time. Mere moments after K's gurney was rolled into the delivery room, our OB Dr. U showed up. In addition to being on call, she was also on-site and we were delighted that she'd be the one to do the delivery. Dr. U was also really excited. K was now starting to get the urge to push which we'd learned that you have to try to not do. However Dr. U surprisingly said that it was okay. Once on the bed, the staff scrambled to get the room prepped and as soon as they were ready they said that it was time. K had hoped to deliver in a squat position but there was no time to get squat bars. She certainly didn't want to be on her back, so she got on her hands and knees to take the pressure off her spine. Turns out that this would be how she stayed. Finally the pushing began, but since the monitors weren't working properly, Dr. U told K that she had to keep going - we didn't know what the baby's heartbeat was doing. We reached a point where normally a woman could stop pushing for a mo, but not this time. With our doula's support, K kept going, and for the first time I left her side to see what was going on. I could see the head! I quickly moved back to K and told her we were close and that she should dig deep. Summoning all her courage and effort, she made one huge push. I stepped around and watched as the baby's head emerged in entirety. One last push and out came the baby's body. "It's a girl" exclaimed Dr. U. The doc suctioned out some fluid whilst K got off her hands and knees. I got to cut the cord and then little Poppy was free to meet her Mum.

It was 8:53pm.

Laying the foundations for labor

We're home, and doing our best to keep friends and family in the loop, so it's been an afternoon of uploading, tagging and updating. Meanwhile Poppy eats and sleeps.

To tell the labor story properly, it is worth considering how things had gone in the previous few days. On Friday there had been 13 hours of irregular and light contractions that turned out to be false labor. Saturday turned into a bit of a bummer since we had to accept that fact, and face up to the idea that we could be waiting until 12 days past the due date and end up with an induction.

On Sunday morning we gave ourselves a little pep-talk. We looked at some posts on the Berkeley Parents Network which seemed to indicate that an induction doesn't equal a c-section, and then we talked about the positives of an induction (scheduling a time when our OB would be on-call, doing it during the day as opposed to late at night etc.) Finally we started making plans to DO STUFF. First up, a day playing tourist at Fisherman's Wharf. Then on Tuesday, the Australian Pink Floyd show in Oakland. I would plan on working with my band on our album and K would start working with her team on their final project in their Masters program.

With all this in mind we headed to Fishermans Wharf, determined to make the best of things. It was there that things took a rather interesting turn...

She's here!

The Raspberry is now Poppy. Born tonight at 8:53pm, 20 minutes after arriving at the hospital, 20", 7lbs 14oz of healthy girl with a 9 and a 10 on her APGAR tests.

Her full name is Poppiano McRae Nelson-Smith.

Pics to follow...

Welcome to labor, now go away

From 9am yesterday, it was contraction after contraction. This is it, we thought! Nothing too strong, and nothing too regular, but anything from 2 to 25 minutes apart, and from 10 to 40 seconds in duration. We packed our bags, made sure to eat plain, soft foods and waited for things to ramp up.

As we approached 10pm, it was clear that nothing dramatic would happen anytime soon. Following our doula's advice, we decided to try to slow things down a little so that we could get a good night's sleep. Hopefully things would get more intense in the morning. A small glass of dark beer and an early night seemed like a good idea.

What happened instead is that the moment K's head hit the pillow, the contractions stopped, and here we are in the middle of the next day waiting for them to start up again.

This is seriously frustrating. For two weeks we've been told that "it could happen at any moment". And then when it does, it actually doesn't.

Looking for clues

The latest news is that there is no real news. The last visit to the doc on Thursday showed 2.5-3cm dilation, so a slight change over the previous week. Our OB is the on-call doc today, Friday and Sunday, so we were hoping it would happen on one of those three days because she is such a lovely person and we'd be delighted to have her run the show. With that in mind we began to deploy some natural induction methods yesterday (if you don't know what this means, Google it, you'll figure it out...)

Today we woke to find ourselves still waiting, so natural induction continues, with K going for another vigorous walk around the hill and eating licorice. Of note is that she thinks she's feeling that natural burst of energy that is very often a sign that labor is just around the corner. Her friend told her that that is how things went for her: itchy feet (figuratively), a walk, then weariness. Then BAM, labor.

As if the waiting isn't frutrating enough, our friend E mentioned that her friend who has a due date one day after ours had her baby yesterday, with virtually no warning signs to indicate it was gonna happen. Damn! They totally beat us to the punch. C'mon Raspberry, pack your bags, time to move to your new room....

Package tracking

Well this is an interesting situation. We've been told that "it can happen anytime now". Suddenly, the birth isn't a future thing, it's a "now" thing.

Pretend you've bought something really cool from Amazon.com. You've received the UPS tracking number. You've waited a few days, and now the tracking says the package is "out for delivery". You know that by the end of the day, you'll have the package. But it doesn't make it any easier waiting for the man or woman in brown to show up at your door with the really cool thing you've been desperately waiting for.

Although K & I both have major projects that need completion prior to the birth, I'm still chomping at the bit. Patience grasshopper....

Dilation

16 days before the due date.

Dilation: 2cm

75% effaced.

Like father like son or daughter: would rather be early and wait around than be late and stressed out about being late.

Pack the bags!

School friends

K was back in class for her masters program on Wednesday evening. During their break her cohort-mates, the 12 or so people she is going through the program with, surprised her with a shower. The results were astonishing. The theme they came up with "Your Favorite Books From Childhood", and as a result we now have this:

Pretty cool, don't you think? Each one of these books means something to one of her classmates. Talk about crowdsourcing!

There was also the ubiquitous "diaper cake". This one wasn't one of those off-the-shelf jobs - this was made from scratch. Not only were there an awful lot of diapers, there were some onesies, some toys and hidden in the middle, a sippy-cup!

I've never seen anything like this. It was quite astounding. They're a terrific bunch of people, and anytime that K has a study group or a get-together with them at our place I always enjoy their company - but it's clear that the tight relationship they all have with each other, after over two years working together in the same program, is pretty special.

Anyway, I look forward to being able to express my gratitude to them in person, but if any come across this posting, MANY, MANY THANKS!

Picture

Our good friend Maite, in addition to being one of the nicest people in the world, is an amazing photographer, and she did a photo shoot with K a couple of months ago to try to capture her fabulous and temporary pregnant state. Every pregnant woman needs at least one superb belly shot, and here's K's:


If anyone else is looking for a superb photographer we highly recommend Maite. She's at maitex@yahoo.com or 415.637.5995