first of all
thanks to all of you who chimed in with your diaper bag suggestions yesterday! i feel like i’m cheating or something — the truth is that learning from so many of you veterans out there [via your blogs + comments] has been immensely helpful with our adventure thus far. there are so many great ideas, and i love the dissenting opinions [when they happen] as well — makes me realize that there is no ONE.RIGHT.WAY to be a mom.
just a lot of different styles and beautiful happy babies out there.
speaking of which . . .
while it’s DEFINITELY too soon to draw any conclusions about what kind of sleeper we have, so far we have been really lucky. annabel continues to do fairly well at night [last night: a 4 hour stretch, then 2.5 hours x 2!] and her daytime naps are still 2-3 hours. it has given me time to do lots of things: blog, work out, write thank you notes, etc — and i feel like i’m getting spoiled because chances are it won’t last.
the important thing for me to remember is to not start to EXPECT her to be a certain way, or to get caught in some trap that i ‘have’ to do certain things each day.
i’m still loving my lists:
but i need to keep in mind that they are NOT hard and fast, and that not getting to everything is absolutely and 100% okay. no reason to pretend i have control over my time when it’s very much seat-of-the-pants these days! and no need to beat myself up if in 3 days annabel has given up napping altogether and i have to spend the day on the couch allowing her to cluster feed every hour.
that said, yesterday was pretty fantastic! i was able to complete my first ‘real’ workout postpartum during an ample afternoon nap. thinking of my friend denise who swore by jillian’s short at-home workouts after her first baby, i brought back the ol’ 30 day shred.
level 1 using wimpy weights was MORE than enough to make me feel like i got in an actual workout, and i am totally sore today! i was a little shocked to realize that i can barely do any real pushups anymore, and had to do almost all of them on my knees [and even those were hard]. i guess most of my upper body muscle went to annabel — and that’s probably what i deserve for giving up on strength training by week 20 or so. ahh well!
the routine
i’ll write more about this later, because we don’t totally have one yet! but one part of the day that seems to be shaping up is the morning. i’ve been determined to GET OUT of the house for walks and we’ve been enjoying quiet sunny strolls around downtown.
one more question for the veterans
okay, probably not really the last one. but i’m curious:
annabel often will make a lot of . . . sounds while she’s sort of half asleep in her bassinet, especially towards the beginning and end of a nap. these include grunts, little sighs, whimpers, even hiccups — she’s definitely not crying, but doesn’t always sound comfortable. initially, i had been picking her up when she did this, but then figured out that often if i leave her alone she’ll sleep a LOT more — even another hour or so. i’m not a negligent mother for letting her self-soothe back to deep sleep, am i? [again, NOT crying — if she cries i will always pick her up + figure out what’s going on!]. i had heard babies were noisy sleepers but i didn’t realize how HYPERAWARE i would be of every little peep.
thoughts? suggestions?
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