Non-napping piranha
Jul. 18th, 2020 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
halojedhaBedtime tonight is totally out of whack.
E's been doing their Magical Non Napping Child thing lately. They've got very good at resisting being slung when they don't want it. They didn't nap the day before yesterday despite being slung twice, breastfed in bed with rain noise, the whole caboodle. Yesterday we managed to get them into the sling and then they slept for an hour. Today, no naps.
They're going through a bitey phase. I keep having to withhold the boob, both to set boundaries and because I can't deal with the pain. When they get going they will claw and bite any part of me they can reach, not in anger, but with a sort of manic giggling. It makes slinging them impossible - they bite my arms as I'm trying to tie the wrap, banana backwards and lose their seat, and if I do manage to wrestle them in they start clawing and twisting my ears and neck.
I think they're teething, we're giving them calpol more or less every day and constantly offering teething toys, cold cloths, cold apple and cucumber, bits of bonjela, whatever else we can think of. But sometimes they seem particularly obsessed with eating ME.
(I never thought babies would eat MY face, wailed parent who voted for the Babies Eating Your Face Party.)
Tooth pain and biting feels nice, I guess? And I smell good to them, and they're testing boundaries or some such?
We've tried weaning them onto solids during the day - which works until it doesn't - pumping and bottle-feeding them instead, having Leo care for them, and all the distraction techniques we can think of. It's an ongoing negotiation.
The whole thing has jangled my nerves. I've literally involuntarily screamed with pain a couple of times and been left shaking and crying after hard bites on the nipple. It's exhausting trying to stay gentle and calm and soft and open, and not react by shutting them out. I find it extremely stressful to experience the strong impulse to violently get them OFF me, and draining regulating myself so I don't actually hurt them.
Naps help reduce the biteyness. We like naps. But naps don't always happen.
Today we tried the sleepy breastfeed, we tried the sling, we tried the nap routine with the singing and the rain noise and the lavender scent and the dark room and the breastfeed, and then the bottle milk when they were too bitey for boob. But no nap.
Then I had a work thing for a couple of hours. It was urgent and time sensitive - me anddenny, who has very limited availability, deploying new code, which meant breaking a public facing commercial website and fixing it again asap. I wasn't in a great position to stop once we'd started.
I heard lots of squawks and shouts from downstairs, and when I checked in via Signal Leo said they'd been teething and had just had Calpol. Then quiet. We were nearly done. Started to hear screaming again and it was a real effort to concentrate on work. E's getting more and more toddlerish with their sudden intense Big Feels if something is Frustrating or they Want something or feel Thwarted, so outraged shrieks of displeasure are a lot more common than they used to be. I figured if I got a message asking me to come, I'd come, but otherwise I'd press on and get the damn website back online.
So I did, and we did, and then I rushed downstairs to find Leo sitting on the kitchen floor holding a completely distraught child, who had sobbed themself into a state of utter wretchedness. They had been trying to get into the bathroom apparently, perhaps thinking to find me there, and then I wasn't there. Oh darling.
I scooped them up and cuddled them and talked to them softly and fed them, and they latched on and suckled in that heartbreaking pink, hiccupy way of a distraught baby. It was at this point 6.30pm, when we usually have dinner, followed by teeth brushing and books and bedtime routine and into bed by 8.30pm.
Reader, they fed until 8.30pm. I was nursing for two hours without a break for the first time since they had their tongue tie cut. They slept and fed and slept and fed and slept and fed. I read my book. Leo brought me food and beer and I ate and drank one handed. E's hot little head and body in my arms became damp with sweat, although they were only wearing a t-shirt and nappy. Halfway through they woke from a snooze Suddenly Very Sad again, but I got them back on the boob eventually.
They skipped their solid dinner entirely.
We had an hour of awake time, during which I desperately tried to go to the loo and brush my teeth and get both of us ready for bed while dealing with E's separation anxiety. Didn't manage to finish my teeth. But they are now, finally, after another bedtime routine and even more feeding, asleep in bed.
I've been awake since 5am and was hoping for an early night tonight, but it's now half ten and it's going to take me a while to calm down after all that.
E's been doing their Magical Non Napping Child thing lately. They've got very good at resisting being slung when they don't want it. They didn't nap the day before yesterday despite being slung twice, breastfed in bed with rain noise, the whole caboodle. Yesterday we managed to get them into the sling and then they slept for an hour. Today, no naps.
They're going through a bitey phase. I keep having to withhold the boob, both to set boundaries and because I can't deal with the pain. When they get going they will claw and bite any part of me they can reach, not in anger, but with a sort of manic giggling. It makes slinging them impossible - they bite my arms as I'm trying to tie the wrap, banana backwards and lose their seat, and if I do manage to wrestle them in they start clawing and twisting my ears and neck.
I think they're teething, we're giving them calpol more or less every day and constantly offering teething toys, cold cloths, cold apple and cucumber, bits of bonjela, whatever else we can think of. But sometimes they seem particularly obsessed with eating ME.
(I never thought babies would eat MY face, wailed parent who voted for the Babies Eating Your Face Party.)
Tooth pain and biting feels nice, I guess? And I smell good to them, and they're testing boundaries or some such?
We've tried weaning them onto solids during the day - which works until it doesn't - pumping and bottle-feeding them instead, having Leo care for them, and all the distraction techniques we can think of. It's an ongoing negotiation.
The whole thing has jangled my nerves. I've literally involuntarily screamed with pain a couple of times and been left shaking and crying after hard bites on the nipple. It's exhausting trying to stay gentle and calm and soft and open, and not react by shutting them out. I find it extremely stressful to experience the strong impulse to violently get them OFF me, and draining regulating myself so I don't actually hurt them.
Naps help reduce the biteyness. We like naps. But naps don't always happen.
Today we tried the sleepy breastfeed, we tried the sling, we tried the nap routine with the singing and the rain noise and the lavender scent and the dark room and the breastfeed, and then the bottle milk when they were too bitey for boob. But no nap.
Then I had a work thing for a couple of hours. It was urgent and time sensitive - me and
denny, who has very limited availability, deploying new code, which meant breaking a public facing commercial website and fixing it again asap. I wasn't in a great position to stop once we'd started.I heard lots of squawks and shouts from downstairs, and when I checked in via Signal Leo said they'd been teething and had just had Calpol. Then quiet. We were nearly done. Started to hear screaming again and it was a real effort to concentrate on work. E's getting more and more toddlerish with their sudden intense Big Feels if something is Frustrating or they Want something or feel Thwarted, so outraged shrieks of displeasure are a lot more common than they used to be. I figured if I got a message asking me to come, I'd come, but otherwise I'd press on and get the damn website back online.
So I did, and we did, and then I rushed downstairs to find Leo sitting on the kitchen floor holding a completely distraught child, who had sobbed themself into a state of utter wretchedness. They had been trying to get into the bathroom apparently, perhaps thinking to find me there, and then I wasn't there. Oh darling.
I scooped them up and cuddled them and talked to them softly and fed them, and they latched on and suckled in that heartbreaking pink, hiccupy way of a distraught baby. It was at this point 6.30pm, when we usually have dinner, followed by teeth brushing and books and bedtime routine and into bed by 8.30pm.
Reader, they fed until 8.30pm. I was nursing for two hours without a break for the first time since they had their tongue tie cut. They slept and fed and slept and fed and slept and fed. I read my book. Leo brought me food and beer and I ate and drank one handed. E's hot little head and body in my arms became damp with sweat, although they were only wearing a t-shirt and nappy. Halfway through they woke from a snooze Suddenly Very Sad again, but I got them back on the boob eventually.
They skipped their solid dinner entirely.
We had an hour of awake time, during which I desperately tried to go to the loo and brush my teeth and get both of us ready for bed while dealing with E's separation anxiety. Didn't manage to finish my teeth. But they are now, finally, after another bedtime routine and even more feeding, asleep in bed.
I've been awake since 5am and was hoping for an early night tonight, but it's now half ten and it's going to take me a while to calm down after all that.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-18 10:32 pm (UTC)*Hugs you*
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2020-07-19 02:58 am (UTC)It's exhausting trying to stay gentle and calm and soft and open
I don't think you're supposed to stay gentle and calm and soft and open when your kid bites you. Kid is now about 1 yr old, right?
Kid is now at the age to be learning that when they bite someone, that someone cries "OUCH!" and moves away from them or moves to protect their from them in a closing-off way – at least momentarily.
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Date: 2020-07-19 10:43 am (UTC)Often the more boring you can be about something like that, the quicker it dies out (because if the question is "what happens when I do this", the answer "it is boring and always the same" makes the question lose its relevance faster, iyswim? and babies absolutely do stuff more that gets stronger emotional reactions). Which is hard if one is finding it especially physically/emotionally challenging oneself. I found "Parenting from the Inside Out" useful at a couple of points when I found particular behaviour non L's part especially difficult. (Actually I should probably re-read it now he's getting a bit older.)
I definitely found 9-18 months the hardest bit in a lot of ways -- for me the baby-baby bit was physically demanding but pretty straightforward (feed/sling/change nappy/play/redo from start), and once L could talk he started becoming possible to reason with (....uh well sort of....or at least I had more idea what was going on), but in between was this proto-toddler stage with lots of desires but not a matching quantity of communication, despite our best efforts.
I hope you got a decent sleep after all that.
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