The 2 nights after the Confinement Lady left were the worse nights in my life. Xuan cried non-stop for more than an hour. This was after I fed her. We tried to calm her down by rocking her, cradling her, walking up and down, standing still in the darkest corner, carrying her this way and that way, everyway, in fact, except upside down. Finally, H managed to put her to sleep by lying down and placing her on his chest. Xuan would only sleep for an hour at a stretch. After I feed her for an hour, I hand her over to H who puts her to sleep on his chest for one hour. Then she would wake up, H would pass her to me to feed and the cycle would repeat until morning. This way, at least H and I could take turns to sleep, an hour at a time. Thankfully, this went on for only 2 nights, after that she settled down and started sleeping 3 to 4 hours at a stretch.
It seems that no matter how many books I read about babies, I am still clueless about a lot of things – babies, crying, babies’ sleep and breastfeeding, just to name a few.
There are endless, and I mean endless books on how to take care of babies. And each of the books claim to have their own philosophy that is best for the baby. Some of the popular baby books are about strict scheduling to the minute (Gina Ford, Babywise), Eat-Play-Sleep routines (Tracey Hogman) or attachment parenting that are more baby friendly (Drs Sears). No wonder I feel so clueless and confused. Which method should I follow?
The first book I read was actually Babywise. This book recommended that babies are fed every 3 hours and no sooner. Apparently, this would help regulate the baby’s metabolic rate so that by 2 months the baby would start sleeping through the night. Sounds fantastic, however, right from the start, this was very difficult to follow as Xuan seemed to want to feed every 1.5 to 2 hours. The book seemed to indicate that if the baby cries before the 3 hours is up, it must be due to other reasons and the mother should comfort the baby in other ways. Well, other ways didn’t work for Xuan, she was genuinely hungry. I couldn’t bear to let her cry and go hungry until the clock said it was time, so we rapidly abandoned this method. Besides, after H did some research on the internet, we found that there are a lot of babies that require 8 to 12 feeds in a 24 hour period, especially in the first 3 months. Furthermore, the Babywise method was discredited by a lot of doctors and apparently caused some babies to suffer from slow growth and development.
What next? Well, logically, I thought that I would chart Xuan’s activities to see if she has a rough routine. So I printed out an excel spreadsheet to track Xuan’s activities in half hour increments for a week. After that one week, I looked at her chart and I could not for the life of me figure out what was her routine. She didn’t seem to have a natural wakeup time, sometimes she woke up at 8am, sometimes she slept until 11am. There was not fixed time she had her naps, she seemed to want to feed almost all the time...after another week of charting, I decided to throw this out of the window and just follow her natural rhythms. Afterall, another book suggested that some babies do not follow a routine until they are older, 6 months or more.
Based on advice from one of the books on babies that I read, babies should follow a sort of routine – eat, play and sleep, eat, play and sleep, repeat throughout the day. I tried to establish this for Xuan too, except the biggest problem I had was putting her to sleep after play. The only way I could put her to sleep was by feeding her. After surfing the internet for a bit, it seems that most babies naturally fell asleep after drinking milk, there is a biological (warm milk, full tummy) and physiological (sucking comforts the baby and lulls them to sleep) reason for this. Soon, I gave up on this too.
Baby sleep is another area with lots of books and lots of advice. I think I have no less than 4 books on baby sleep alone. Each of the books would detail the importance of sleep (gee, really?), how much sleep the baby should be getting at night and during naps at different ages, how many naps the baby should be taking, how to put the baby to sleep, sleep aids like loveys, pacifiers, white noise, relaxing music, rocking, swing, car ride, stroller ride, or just put the baby down and let the baby cry to sleep, eventually the baby would learn to fall asleep by themselves and stay asleep throughout the night. Again, this was easier said than done.
The only way I could get Xuan to fall asleep was by feeding. Sometimes if I carried her long enough, she would fall asleep. But this meant I might need to carry her to 30 to 60 minutes. This didn’t make much sense to me as most of the time she only slept 20 to 30 minutes. The duration it took for me to get her to sleep was longer than the duration she actually slept. Not good news for my arms, as newborn babies need as many as 4 naps a day. Although the number of naps would decrease as she grew older, her weight would only increase. As it was, after carrying her for 20 minutes, my arms felt like falling off and she only weighed 3.6kg.
Some mothers do chores while their babies napped, afterall, when else would they have the time to do housework? With Xuan running for the title of shortest napper in the world, 20 to 30 minutes per nap, I could forget about doing chores while she napped. Her naps were so short, by the time I made my way downstairs and picked up a plate to wash, she would be wailing for me to get her.
Xuan was an extremely light sleeper too. I remember once I put her to sleep in the living room, and just as I clicked on my pen to record down the time she fell asleep, the click of the pen woke her up. Many little sounds from inside and outside the house would wake her up. Car alarms, house alarms going off, the hons of tradesmen selling gas or collecting newspapers, the phone ringing, etc. I was always on high alert for the slightest noise that could wake her. I swear that she would stir if I so much as took a deep breath or moved a finger. The same baby books I read said that mothers should sleep while their babies napped, to help combat exhaustion and sleep deprivation from night duty. Well, by the time Xuan fell asleep and I relaxed enough to just about drop off to sleep, Xuan would wake up. Having to force myself back to being alert after trying so hard to fall asleep, sometimes I felt it was better just to stay awake and read a book. Of course, it was nerve wrecking when I needed to turn the pages, it just added to the drama of reading an exciting page turning thriller! Oh no, what if the murderer kills again? Oh no, the baby woke up!
In conclusion, I think that all babies are different, just like all of us are individuals. Some parenting philosophies may fit certain baby temperaments better than others. Certainly, the parenting philosophy has to fit the family too. Some babies are easier to care for, with happy go lucky temperaments, and other babies are just more sensitive and require a different approach. All new parents will have to determine which is the best way for their baby and their family. The most important thing is that the baby is growing, healthy and happy. And the same for the family too.
Here's a picture of Xuan in a Rainbow romper featuring Little Miss Sunshine and hot pink sunglasses:
Month 2 Milestones:
Weight - 4.8kg
Height - 57cm
1st smile - 6 March 2009
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