Tips for traveling with young kids

Our kids are currently 3 and 6 years old and we are an American family living temporarily in Gothenburg, Sweden.  That means our situation may be a little different than yours, so keep that in mind when you read this.  We haven't always traveled with our kids.  We'd usually leave them to bond with their grandparents. When we moved to Sweden they were 2 and 5 and we were doing just day trips.  Our big trip was to the beach here in Sweden where we stayed in one quiet spot in a familiar country. Come fall our daughter started kindergarten at a school with lots of breaks, and the other child was old enough to not need a nap every day.  This was where our traveling really turned a corner and we were able to venture out to other parts of Europe.  Granted, it hasn't always been rainbows and butterflies, but there are always really fun parts to each trip.

My philosophy in traveling is to go where Steve and I want to go, and do and see what we want to see as long as it is reasonable to expect a kid to have fun.  They usually make their own fun with each other anyway, and I believe that teaches them to be creative and able to cope with potentially boring times in their lives to come.  We don't tend to go to kid-centric places like Legoland or entertain them with screens.  We also don't drag them through huge museums or on walking tours that are more for adults.  (I say "I" and "my" on here a lot because I'm the one planning the trips. Steve is gracious to let me play Cruise Director, and I do keep his likes/dislikes in mind, too.)

1. Make sure their tummies are happy.  I always stock up on filling snacks (roasted almonds, dried apricots, yogurt covered raisins, etc.) before the trip so we are ready even before takeoff.  Happy Tummies also means that we go to dinner places that have a high likelihood of serving food our kids will eat. Sometimes we even ask if the cook is willing to make scrambled eggs and toast for their dinners.  This means we don't always get to enjoy the best food a town has to offer, but it keeps the peace.

2. Keep your itinerary flexible and remember you can always come back.  Also there's a difference between "family trip" and "vacation."  When I plan our trips I have a list of things we can do and places I'd like to see, but we never get to everything.  They're usually short and superficial activities since that's what our kids (and my mom brain) can handle right now.  And after a day of seeing the sights my family is ready for some downtime, so I have to remember to build that in. When the kids are older (or even grown!) we can take vacations and lounge at tapas bars in Spain that start serving dinner at 8pm, take the Uffizi Gallery walking tour, or hear about all the history inside the German castles.

Von Stapele Barkery in Amsterdam

3. Have special treats. Steve keeps a bag of pocket candy which he doles out whenever somebody needs a little cheer-me-up.  We also stop for treats like gelato, stroopwafels, and German pretzels to build in some downtime and reward good behavior.

4. Have checkout coincide with departure.  It's tough to drag suitcases around while holding little hands, or not having a home base when we need a nap.  Hotels will store your luggage after checkout, but when your family has had enough wandering around canals in Venice, don't book your train to Florence at 6pm.  Ahem.  (I've also learned not to book things that don't really need it, so then we can be flexible the day of. Trains in Europe are rarely full, and it costs extra for the ability to change your reservation.)

5. If you are using one city as a home base, make sure travel time for day trips is under two hours.  Otherwise there's not much time to spend in our destination before we "time out."  It was a little ambitious to try to do Cinque Terre in a day from Florence or Seville/Granada/Gibraltar as side trips from Malaga. It's nice to stay in the same hotel each night, but sometimes a circuit-style trip is better if your destinations are 2+ hours apart.

6. If your kids are not used to sleeping near someone else, try to get a subdivided space.  Booking.com is good about letting you know which hotels have quad rooms, but right now we still have to click through and find out if each facility offers a suite with separate bedrooms, bunk beds, or simply two double beds.  Our kids have their own rooms in our Gothenburg apartment, so sleeping in the same room is a novelty that breeds silliness and we don't tend to sleep as well.  We try to get a suite whenever possible.

7.  Splurge a little. After all, our trips are nowhere near the investment that a trip to Disney would be.  You won't remember how much the taxi cost, but you will remember the difficulty of navigating public transit from the airport with suitcases and sleepy kids in tow.  Spriging for the hotel breakfast (if not included) sure beats trying to find more than just a pastry to eat before 10am in many European cities.

8. Direct flights.  So far we have managed to find enough direct flight destinations from Gothenburg to fill many trips.  Ryanair is the low-cost carrier that services our airport, so sometimes the reason we choose places like Malaga or Marseille is not because they rank so high on our bucket list, it's because there's an inexpensive AND direct flight.

9. Realize that when many people say "traveling with kids," they're referring to elementary-school-age.  There's a world of difference between 3 and 9 years old.  So while googling "Amsterdam with kids" you may find out about helpful things like the playgrounds at Vondelpark (!), but there is also a wealth of information that is lost on families of preschoolers.  (Googling "[city name] with kids" is a great idea, by the way.  You'll find blogs as well as city guides with ideas for the little guys).

10. Find fun exercise.  Walking around all day is enough to wear me out, but it's not very fun for our kids. Find a place where they can RUN around (safely) and PLAY, even if it's just for a few minutes.  That's the stuff they remember.  Also the wild kitties.

11. Give your kids some control.  Have your kids participate in decisions, even if you limit the options.  Maybe not like, "What do you want to eat?" but "Do you want chicken or a sandwich?"  We also have our kids pack and wear backpacks so they have access to their own toys.  Letting them make choices gives them a sense of ownership and empowerment in an unfamiliar place.  We also ask periodically if they have any questions in order to alleviate anxiety that can masquerade as crankiness.

12. Plan extra time for everything.  You know your kids, but you might not think about how long it takes them to eat when there are distractions, or how long it takes to find a potty in a new place.  Also the train and bus schedules are merely a suggestion in places like Italy.

13. When packing, less is more.  It's easier for us to put everyone's clothes into one big suitcase rather than trying to navigate with four little wheelies.  I pack a few extra clothes just in case, but in general everyone gets one outfit per day, and it's casual.  We bring a few small toys, but they get the shaft as soon as a waiter brings out colored pencils or there's a happy meal toy.  We do let them watch cartoons (which are usually in a foreign language) in the hotel room.

I don't know if these tips make you feel more encouraged or more apprehensive about traveling with kids, but I encourage you to try it.  Start small, like an overnight trip to a nearby place.  And don't overthink it.  Sometimes our kids are really happy and fun, and other times we just keep repeating, "This is better than staying home, right?"  You just gotta keep trying!

Evening and Morning

Steve is back home after almost a week in Tokyo!  I thought it was really cool that the cherry blossoms were blooming here in Sweden and in Japan.
 

When he got home the kids and I were a little stir crazy, so we went outside to fly paper airplanes.

It was 7pm and many pink, scantily clad Gothenburgers were heading home from laying in the sun.  We could actually see all the patches of grass that had been matted down from sunbathers.  Others were grilling out on hibachis.  This was all on the campus of the university and not at a park, and illustrates the concept of allemansrätten - "every man's right" to recreate wherever he wants as long as he doesn't disturb or destroy.

Hide and seek

I think this is a pear tree based on the smell

We all got our wiggles out and went to sleep early.  And then a wonderful thing happened... Our kids played by themselves in their rooms until I woke up at almost 8 this morning.  !!!  If you have preschoolers you understand what a gift that is.  (And thank you to my friends back home who gave me great advice on how to keep Bowen from waking us up at 5am.)  This was the key factor...  Bowen knows he can't come out of his room until the numbers match, but he can turn on his lamp and play with his trains until 7.

My uncle Ray had a tradition of going out on Sunday morning to get fresh donuts for breakfast, and so my family always had scrambled eggs and sweet rolls of some sort.  Steve was still asleep when I got up, so I turned on cartoons and set out to find a bakery open before 9.  This is very much a night-owl city, so it's deserted and peaceful on Sunday morning.  I took this on my walk home from the store with my kanel fläta.

Big Girl

Steve and I painted the walls in Olivia's new room after I finally decided to put the color on the walls and paint all her furniture antique white.  As much as I loved the old green dresser, I like it even more now.

And I love how the light paint brings out the detailing in her headboard as well.

Furniture?  Check.  Mattress?  Check.  We've been letting Olivia peek in at her room as it progresses, and she was excited, wanting to show everyone who came to the house.  She helped me make the bed, and we sat on it a little and talked about it.  I love that Olivia is a good sleeper and has only climbed out of her crib twice, but I was still ready to move the crib to Olivia's new room and use a bassinett for the baby.  Except the crib doesn't fit through the doorway and so presented a logistical challenge.  Steve was in England last week, so I used that as a procrastination tactic despite the looming deadline since I've heard horror stories about kids adjusting to the Big Kid Bed.  I was expecting her to play and talk really late at night and wander around and get up super early in the morning, which made me want to keep her in the crib as long as possible.  Finally over the weekend we decided to just try it to see how it goes.  In a word: anticlimactic.  Olivia sleeps the same amount in the big girl bed, even at naptime (which shocks me).  She's under strict orders not to get out of bed by herself, and she has a magazine on her bedside table to read when she wakes up.  I fully expect this to change because it seems too good to be true, but we're enjoying it for now!  

Rag curls

My mom came over for lunch recently, on one of the days when it was over 100 outside.  What I normally do with Olivia's hair on a day like that is put it up in two ponytails - one for the bangs and another for the rest.  It's easy, it keeps the hair off her neck, and she leaves it alone.  But there were some little hair clips sitting on the counter, and while I was fixing lunch Mom created this.

Mom said she and her sister (Hi, Ruth!) used to do this with rags because there weren't fun hair accessories back then.  Here's a tutorial (Thanks, Google).  I seem to remember a different story about them ironing their hair, too.  Like, with the clothing iron because there were no flat irons.  And I want to say I remember another story about sleeping with hair wrapped around something like orange juice cans to get a great flip, but that may have been Rosemary and Judy.

After naptime the clips had mysteriously disappeared, and this wasn't the first time.  One day I'm going to find a cache of hair accessories stuffed in Olivia's mattress or in the wall behind the giraffe picture above her bed, Shawshank-style.

Speaking of naps, Olivia is back to her old schedule (whew!).  Of course, that probably just jinxed it but I wanted to give her credit.

More berries

Went to Freight Station Market again this morning.  I get excited about fresh things when it's a misty morn like this one.  A baker was there and I sampled (but resisted buying) her signature sour cream pound cake.  I did get some of her strawberry bread and THE BEST homemade granola I've ever had.  The best compliment I can usually give something (ask Mom about the eggnog) is "It tastes like store-bought."  And this granola was like picking the clusters out of a fresh box of Honey Bunches of Oats (with almonds).  It's $9/bag (1lb?) supposedly because of the maple syrup, and I will probably still come back for more.  Or maybe I should launch a quest to make my own.  It's one of those things I thought had to be done in a professional kitchen with complicated ingredients, but I do know people who have made their own.  I also got a quart of Earliglow strawberries and some milk at the market. 

Then we went to Heather's house for a playgroup with Heather, Trice, and Devon's kids.  Olivia had a blast!  She almost fell asleep on the way home, but I kept the windows down and talked to her.  If Olivia dozes at all before The Afternoon Nap, chances are slim that she'll go down. 

We stopped by the farm with pick-your-own strawberries at Rinker Orchards on Marlboro Road.  Got another quart of berries, this time to bring to Mom & Dad when we go there for dinner tonight.  I hadn't been to Rinker before and definitely want to go back to pick my own (without a toddler in tow).

If you're in NoVa and want to pick strawberries, here's a list.  And if you want to just buy the sweet little things, in addition to my previous strawberry sources, Marker-Miller Orchards' Facebook page says they're open just for strawberries right now and will open for real on June 1.  I can almost taste their cider donuts.  Can't wait to pick blackberries!

Olivia is still asleep, going on 3 1/2 hours.  Playgroups rock.

The care and feeding of a 4.5-month-old

Olivia likes to sleep, and while I'm getting more work done I also feel like a captive in my own home. She doesn't sleep on the go any more; too much to look at! Sometimes when Steve is working from home I escape during naptime, but when he's home I'm pretty productive, so I don't want to stop and run errands.

Her daily routine right now is something like this:
8am - wake up
10am to lunchtime* - nap
3-5ish - nap
evening nap (1-2 hours)
10 - bedtime

*This child has a built-in sensor to wake up when Mama is in the middle of eating lunch. It doesn't matter if it's noon or 2:00.

I give her 4-6 ounces of formula 4-5 times a day depending on how much she's awake, and at one meal I also give her a bowl of rice cereal along with some veggies or fruit. So far she's tried sweet potatoes, green beans, squash, prunes (yeah), peas, and applesauce. She's getting better at opening her mouth for the spoon, but lately her spoon-feeding time is not fun and I'm not sure why. After having a bottle I'll put her in the seat and feed her a couple bites, and then she gets increasingly fussy to the point where the food just runs down her chin because she won't swallow. Today I cleaned her up and put her in the exersaucer, then I tried giving her the last part of her bowl and she ate just fine. Maybe she doesn't like sitting in the highchair. But my dad fed her just fine in the seat on Sunday, although I did just notice he was using a terry bib instead of the Bjorns I normally use (which only say they're soft). Will do further research.

**Update the next morning: This morning I put her in the seat with a terry bib (vinyl/wipable side up) and that worked better.

Foiled

Olivia tends to fall asleep in the swing slumped to the side, which looks pretty uncomfortable. So I thought I'd make her one of those neck pillows you find in SkyMall. I even had some coordinating giraffe print fabric I had originally bought to make a patio tablecloth when Steve was in grad school (c. 2001). I drew out a small Boppy shape, cut the pieces out, sewed them together, turned it, stuffed it, sewed it shut, noted my cleverness...

...and then was met with this reality...

Gargantuan heads are bound by the laws of gravity, and the pillow was way too small to help. This did help...

More swing cuteness...

She won

When we decided to have kids, Steve and I were not looking forward to shopping and eating out. People would tell us, "Oh, you'll just take the baby *with you* and not make it a big deal." And I believed them. But we've been around plenty of screaming kids in restaurants and wondered why Those People don't just get babysitters instead of dragging their kids along to a nice restaurant.

I found an interesting restaurant (online*) in Leesburg, scheduled a date with Steve tonight, and we brought Olivia along because she normally sleeps through dinner. (The other night at Bertucci's it was loud enough to drown her out until she zonked out.) We fed her, drove 45 minutes to the restaurant, sampled their in-house brews, ate our salads, and Olivia played with her toys and charmed the fellow diners with a few squeals in the otherwise-quiet dining room. The chef even sent out an amuse bouche.

But it was time for sleeping and the child would not. She started crying and no amount of rocking would help. We were Those People. Steve and I traded off and the ladies near us and the waiter were all very gracious, but it's hard to enjoy an incredibly delicious meal with a screaming child so we bailed. Next time we'll get a babysitter.

*If you've never checked it out, Restaurant.com has discount gift certificates for local restaurants and you can search by zip code, which is how I found Vintage 50. Sometimes they even give additional discounts, so I paid just $2 for the $25 gift certificate we used tonight. Score! Makes the food taste even better, I promise.

9 years or 4 months

Today is our ninth anniversary! Steve came and gave me a kiss and said he'd be bringing me breakfast in bed, but then I forgot and went downstairs. He had prepared "Swedish breakfast!" on the lap tray, so I opted to eat on the screened porch so we could listen to the rain and smell the lilacs. (Steve was in Sweden last week, so this was still fresh in his mind - cold cuts, cheese, eggs, breakfast meat, and COFFEE). That's how we mark any occasion - good eats. Tonight Steve and I are going out sans bébé to our favorite swanky restaurant, the Dancing Goat. Filet mignon that melts in your mouth, big rectangular plates with interesting combinations of things, coffee served in a fancy pot... And he had me pick out a bouquet of fresh flowers (pink lilies).

Olivia is 4 months old today and Steve got to come along to her checkup and experience watching a round of shots. Our doctor gives the baby the shots personally, then hands her off to us for consolation so he's the one associated with the bad experience. Love him. She turned beet red and got the scrunchy face before SCREAMING during the second shot. Then I picked her up and within a minute she was fine. A champ! I wanted to give her a lollipop, but the rota vaccine will have to do (it's strawberry-banana flavored).

Olivia weighs 15lb. 12 oz. (95th percentile) and Dr. Dameron even said it's like she's a 4-month-old trapped in a 6-month-old body. He also confirmed what a couple of my friends have said: it's unusual for her to start rolling by going from back to front (usually babies roll front to back first because it's easier - she's still working on that). I'm trying to wean her off the swaddler, which means I put her down in a sleep sack and she rolls over before she falls asleep, and then fusses like, "Help! I'm stuck on my tummy and I don't know how to sleep like this." I fold a quilt into a long strip and put that under her with the ends rolled up to keep her from rolling over, but she inch-worms away from it. Hmmm... Dr. Dameron did say if she does fall asleep on her tummy it's okay now because she's strong enough to move her head if she starts suffocating.

Olivia is able to play on her tummy for longer now. Just a couple weeks ago she'd roll onto her tummy, then move her arms to her side (even if you propped her up on her elbows) and fuss, but this week she has started putting her arms underneath herself and even frog-kicking like she wants to crawl.

Why does it always rain the day we go to the doctor? At least April showers are better than January drizzle. And we discovered a Daily Grind in the same building. (Side note for Winchesterians: the walking mall location pictured on the DG home page is opening back up this week!)

When we lived in Delaware and were out and about, we never saw people we knew. Today we saw three other families from our church in the waiting room, and then at Costco we saw our friend Reid. I love this town. Prom was last weekend for my alma mater, and Steve noted that Olivia is almost closer to her prom than he is from his. Sigh.

Eating and sleeping

During our last checkup with Dr. Dameron he said Olivia may be ready for rice cereal at 3 1/2 months. He suggested practicing with formula on a spoon to get the mechanical skills down. The other day I picked up a box of random bottles from Craigslist and in it was a bottle with a spoon attachment; the milk flows from the bottle through the handle to the spoon. So I tried formula with that, but Olivia was hungry so she wasn't having anything to do with a spoon. And then I forgot about it for a few days.

Today I tried again with a bowl and regular spoon, mixing in a little rice cereal for texture. I put Livi in the Johnny Jumper because it had a tray, holding it still with my knees underneath. She opened her mouth just fine, but most of it just soaked right into her bib and she wanted to bounce instead of eat.

So I got the highchair and a bucket bib out of the basement, put Olivia in a slight recline to let gravity help, and fed her some more. This time she wasn't starving but was tired and most of it went into the bib, but at least we got some nom-nom practice.

Olivia has a hard time sleeping while I'm on the go, even when she's tired. She's used to darkness, swaddling, and white noise and sometimes sleeps in the car, but anywhere else it's a challenge (i.e. at the store or in the nursery). We've successfully put her down, swaddled, while at friends' houses, but otherwise she won't sleep on the go. Today it's dreary so I left the shade up and noise off for her nap. Still swaddled, but honestly I think we're going to be swaddling her until kindergarten because if even one arm gets free she cries and won't go back to sleep. Sometimes I put her in a sleep sack just to try it, and it's fitful. But for now she's sleeping which means I need to go take a shower!

More kitchen goodness

Coconut shrimp, made by Steve...






...and bottles for the girls

(except Riley).








Steve is so helpful. Olivia's dinnertime is right before ours, so often one of us will feed her and put her down for a nap while the other fixes dinner. And then we eat in peace and it's the time of day that most reminds me of Before Childbearing (BC).

Talk to me

Olivia has found her voice! A couple weeks ago she would talk to you if you got in her face and talked, but now that's what we hear coming from her crib when she wakes up. OoooowougahhhhoowAHHHeh. Huh. Guhhhowahhhh...

She gets hiccups after she eats, which has been awfully cute on its own but has now reached a new level when she talks through them. Oooooowow gahhhAHHwuh

Her skin is 90% soft and smooth now, with a few scaly places remaining near her ankle folds (that's right, she's part Shar Pei) and no more redness. I had been chuckling when I'd sarcastically say, "Soft as a baby's skin," but now her skin is really soft and buttery and I just want to kiss it. So now my sarcastic chuckles are assigned to, "Sleeps like a baby." Sleep for an hour, fuss for a few minutes, fall back to sleep for a little while, wake up and talk, catnap, OKAY I'M HUNGRY!! Who wants to sleep like a baby?

Houdini

She's getting bigger! Olivia is starting to break out of the small-size swaddler, which means she has started waking up in the middle of the night to say little else than, "Help! My hands are free!" I'll wrap her back up and she'll go back to sleep, and then I am left lying in bed unable to sleep because I start thinking about stuff like my computer virus or sewing dresses or what I want to cook next.

Yes, my recent experiments in cooking have included cherry crisp (with tart cherries we picked last summer from my in-laws' tree), Irish soda bread, another round of meatballs and sauce, and whole wheat bread. I gave away my bread machine last year because I never used it and it took up a lot of cabinet space. When I got a hankerin' to make wheat bread I just used the recipe on the back of the King Arthur flour bag and kneaded it with my mixer's dough hook (which I had never used before). I think my recent urge to cook may be a need for normalcy, to prove to myself that I can still do stuff, that my life is not just about the baby. I never used to shower every day until the baby was born; same reason.

Speaking of the mixer, I saw a show on HGTV where they updated a kitchen, including an area for large appliance storage *outside* of the cabinets. So that got me thinking... We have a "desk" built into the kitchen cabinetry where I will probably never sit, so my dad installed a shelf across the opening to divide up the space for the mixer, crock pot, and my various tote bags.

Back to Olivia... We bought a case of size 1 diapers a while ago as part of a "buy 3" deal, and at the time I debated about how quickly we'd use them up vs. how quickly she'd outgrow them. I'm really not sure how to tell when a child is outgrowing a certain size, but we've had some leakage issues in the last week or two that makes me glad that the other case of diapers we got in that deal was size 2. (The third item was a case of wipes, and for buying all three we got a $15 Toys/Babies R Us gift card. Score!) OJ is also growing out of 0-3 month clothes, which makes me sad because there are some cute spring outfits she never got to wear. Maybe we'll have to crank up the warm-mist humidifier and have a fashion show.

Meatballs

I've been watching a lot of Food Network (I turn it on while feeding Olivia) and lately there's been an influx of comfort food dishes, including several versions of spaghetti and meatballs. I love meatballs and I never get them when we go out because there's always something more interesting on the menu (like short ribs in cabernet sauce). I've purchased frozen meatballs, but have yet to find decent ones.

My friend Lauren and I like to cook together (or for each other), especially when our guys are traveling. She's a fair and supportive critic of new recipes, so I didn't think twice about declaring last night "Meatball Night." Never mind that I have an infant whose witching hour (fussy time) is dinnertime. So I'm trying to squish tomatoes and mix raw meat with my hands, and it's a debate whether to let her cry in the crib (which stresses me out) or have her in the Baby Bjorn (which is, frankly, in my way while cooking). I did a combination of the two, and things were going pretty well until I ran out of bread crumbs and olive oil (I was so focused on finding real San Marzano tomatoes that I forgot to check the meatball ingredients before grocery shopping). The dreaded realization struck that I can't just do things like I used to, but it turned out to be worth the effort and as good as it looked on TV. I used Tyler's recipe for Pomodoro Sauce and the spiky blonde lady's recipe for the meatballs, and next time I'm going to try out my new anchovy paste in the sauce.

And because Lauren was here and the time change is looming, I decided to make Olivia's bedtime early. Lauren gave her a bottle a little before 9 and she was asleep by 9:15 (45 minutes early) so I figured she'd be up early, too. Nope, I finally went in the nursery at 8:30 (an hour later than normal) and found Oivia smiling at the mobile. She inch-worms from one end of the crib to the other during the night. And how did I know she was awake before I went in? I could hear her sneeze; my mom said when I was a baby that's how she'd know I was awake, too.

Schedule - 2 Months

I feel like I'm finally getting into a morning routine...

7:30am - Olivia wakes me up, then I nurse her and get her dressed

8am - I feed her a bottle (breast feeding isn't a full meal any more) and then stick her in the bouncy seat to play while I take a shower. Olivia used to melt down part-way through my shower, then she gradually entertained herself farther through mama's shower, hair & makeup routine. (I'd describe everything I was doing as if I were on a cooking show, just to keep her entertained.) Today she lasted the whole time by herself; I think she's finally interested in the star mobile dangling in front of her, or the bathroom lights. She gets hiccups after she eats, so that seems to keep her entertained and happy as well.

9am - Swaddle her for a nap. Olivia usually cries when left in the crib without the jungle soother or a moving mobile to entertain her (and the wind-up mechanism lasts only a couple minutes - ugh). And once she starts full-on crying she doesn't stop; there is no soothing herself. So, I had been rocking her to sleep, already swaddled for her nap, but as beautiful as that is I don't want her to be dependent on it. I would love to put her down in the crib when she's sleepy, then walk away and have her fall asleep on her own, even in the daylight. Right now we're doing whatever works, so she's in a dark room with white noise, but this morning I didn't have to rock her to sleep. Baby steps!

I'm still figuring out the routine for the rest of the day, but things tend to go in 3-hour cycles of eat-play-sleep, so we'll do it all over again at 11. She naps for at least 45 minutes in the morning and a couple hours in the afternoon, but I still feel like it's hard to cram all my tasks into nap time. It's been tough going from 14+ hours of unstructured time each day BC (before child) down to a few, and I'm still struggling just to get the important stuff done. Welcome to my world! I'm telling you all this not because I want to complain, but so I can look back and see what life was like with a 2-month-old. I'm happy and embracing motherhood, I promise!

Sometimes you just gotta break the rules

Our precious angel is sleeping through the night consistently, like ever since last Friday! Woo hoo! That's especially nice for me because, although I had only been getting up once during the night, getting back to sleep was sometimes a real challenge.

Now this week my new challenge is getting the baby to nap during the day. She loves to be held and will sleep in anyone's arms, but lay her down and she'll wake right up and scream. Once she starts crying she doesn't stop until someone picks her up, so "crying herself to sleep" is a great idea but doesn't work on this kid.

I am realizing how easy it is to buy into one philosophy and follow all the rules instead of my normal goal of gleaning bits and pieces from different ones. Case in point: The aforementioned baby care book that was so helpful for getting Olivia to sleep at night says to swaddle a baby for daytime naps, but not to darken the room or play white noise (so the baby gets used to normal daytime sounds and doesn't sleep too hard during the day). But Olivia wouldn't sleep during the day unless we were running errands or someone was holding her, and housework was starting to pile up. Then yesterday my friend Mary-full-of-baby-wisdom suggested trying the whole swaddle/darkness/white noise combo during the day since OJ wasn't having any trouble sleeping at night. And it worked! Yesterday afternoon Olivia had to be *woken up* from her nap (3 hours), she slept 10-7 last night (the new normal), and this morning she took a two-hour nap, fussing a couple times and then soothing herself back to sleep - another first. Yay! We're still in fluke range, especially when considering she just had shots, but if this becomes the new normal that's a huge improvement to our daytime routine.

Valentine's Day

Steve and I like to eat out. A lot. We like good food and we can't be bothered to make it. And having a baby doesn't seem to dampen our ability to do eat out. We've had people bringing us delicious food for weeks, so after that nice break from fixing dinners I wanted to make Valentine's Day special by cooking together instead of going out. I've been watching a lot of the food network lately and I love how the recipes are available online instead of me having to take notes while feeding the baby. Plus, restaurants are usually packed on V-day.

Olivia and I shopped for the fixings during the week. The thing about grocery carts is that her car seat doesn't fit in the top/front section, so I have to put her in the basket part. Fortunately I go to the store often enough that we don't have to do a "big shopping" day, but yesterday I managed to get enough stuff to make it funny.

Yesterday after meeting my dad for coffee I got dry-aged filet mignon from the butcher, plus sausage for breakfast.

Steve and I woke up this morning and the conversation went like this:
"Did you feed the baby during the night?"
"No. Did you?"
"No. We'd better check on her!"

That's right, Olivia slept from 10 until 7. What a wonderful Valentine gift! Also, Steve saw in the paper that the Lord Fairfax Orchid Society was having a show last weekend, so he took us to pick one out for Valentine's Day. It's an oncidium and seems to like its spot on the edge of our tub.

So our V-day breakfast was buttermilk pancakes from scratch and sausage. Those pancakes melt in your mouth and are just as good as the restaurants without having to get dressed to leave the house. I forgot to make fresh orange juice (our latest indulgence), but we had some from the store.

The rest of the day we did stuff around the house and then for dinner Steve grilled the steaks to perfection and topped them with caramelized onions. We also had iceburg wedges with homemade bleu cheese dressing, roasted potatoes, and Costco dinner rolls. Plus, we found a bottle of champagne in the fridge from who knows when, so we popped that open. Steve even ran out to get ice cream to perfect the Ghirardelli brownies. (Why make brownies from scratch when the box kind is better?) Then we watched a movie and put the baby to bed. That's my idea of a perfect Valentine's Day.

So... how long with the baby sleep tonight?

Getting your baby to sleep

Okay, so I know this is against the rules, but I scanned and uploaded the magical chapter on sleeping (with a teaser at the beginning and end so you'll still want to buy the book). I did this because I wish someone had told me earlier how to get Olivia to stay asleep. Note that this method is intended for babies 2 weeks and older. Also included is a "typical schedule" at different ages so at least rookie moms like me have some idea of what to strive for.

Olivia is 6 weeks old and each week she seems to be pushing the nighttime feeding later and later... 2am, 3am, 4am... Last night she slept for a 7.5 hour stretch (gold star! I've never been so excited to see the clock read 5:15am!) and then went back down for another 3.5 hours. Of course I couldn't sleep because of the gale force winds, but that says a lot for having white noise in the nursery. OJ took a 3-hour nap mid-day (another gold star!), but since then she's been fussy, not wanting to sleep or eat, screaming and clawing at my neck from the Baby Bjorn - ugh. But last night! It was awesome. One in a row.

Week 6

Steve travels for work and his latest trip was to the Baltimore area, so he encouraged me to come along this week. So, Olivia had her first overnight trip and first movie. (New In Town - I got tired of outlet shopping while Steve was in a meeting, so a movie was perfect.) We stayed on the waterfront in Annapolis, which is just beautiful even in winter. Olivia was so good for the whole trip, and we were able to stick to our normal eating and sleeping routine. BUT, sleeping in the same room with an infant made me realize just how much noise she makes during the night. I say she sleeps in 4-hour chunks, but really she "doesn't cry" for that time; she'll breathe loudly or talk to herself during a lot of that. Even now I can hear her making noises. (Yes, it's an hour after the during-the-night feeding and I'm still awake. Yes, I drank a glass of milk.)

Breastfeeding is actually (finally) going better. I don't know if it's the antibiotics or what, but my only pain is during latching/let-down on one side, and on the other side we're still working on getting a good latch. It dawned on me the other day that, although I've been trying harder to make sure we get a good latch, the problem might be Olivia. Anyway, THANK YOU for all the people who have written to encourage me to either hang in there or not feel bad about quitting. For now we're alternating BF and formula, which gives me a break mentally and physically and still allows OJ to get her antibodies and bonding time.

When Olivia was 3 weeks old I was about to schedule some pictures at the studio and practically overnight she got horrible baby acne. (I say horrible, but I think she couldn't have cared less - it was much harder on me. I am so vain.) It was all over her face, scalp, neck, and chest and then her eyebrows and ears and scalp started flaking off and it was all I could do not to help it along while she was nursing. Anyway, her precious face seems to be clearing up now so hopefully soon I'll be posting new pictures and finally sending out announcements to our far-flung friends. (I think this picture is cute, but I'd love to have one that shows her beautiful eyes.)

Seriously, I need to try to get back to sleep now.

Week 5

It's been kind of an up-and-down week for me, and I hesitate to blog about things that are constantly changing. So anyway, now it's Friday and I'm looking back at last week's entry to give you guys an update. Sorry for no pictures, I just don't have my act together what with all the warm, moist compresses. (See below.)

Breastfeeding... My visit with the lactation consultant last week went okay, although I have mixed feeling about LCs. They don't always know what they're talking about; it's like they have plenty of book knowledge but can't tell me what I'm doing wrong. And they tell you that you should not feel pain when breastfeeding, although I have read and heard enough to know that is just not true. We had two different lactation consultants drop by our hospital room after the delivery to make sure feedings were going well (and they were). Both times we were given a wealth of information in a short amount of time, leaving me overwhelmed. It's like they barely took the time to watch Olivia nurse before plunging into their spiel from the beginning, leaving me wondering if I was doing it wrong or not. Plus, they gave me two different ways of doing things ("No, do it this way") which was confusing. Anyway, last Thursday the LC said I should go to my OB because she thought the source of my pain was from yeast. On Friday the OB told me to use athlete's foot spray to treat it, but wash it off before each feeding. The stuff is disgusting because it also applies powder with the antifungal spray, and washing it off every couple of hours made feeding the baby that much less fun. I googled it and didn't really think I had symptoms of a yeast infection and the pain was getting worse, so I quit using the spray and pumped for a few days to give myself a chance to heal. I think my pain is nothing but a bad latch. I googled that as well and have a few more tricks that are helping. So I'm still breastfeeding although I came very close to quitting this week. Not that I will feel like a failure if I do; I just want to do what is best for Olivia. One of my friends pointedly suggested that Mama having pain and stress while nursing *may not* be the best thing for Olivia, antibodies or not. I'm going to try and give it another couple of weeks and reassess.

The other reason I went to the OB last Friday is because I have a lump near my armpit that the LC said was probably a blocked duct but conventional treatment was proving ineffective. (Read: I massaged it to the point of bruising, and no amount of pumping or nursing helped open it up.) So I had a breast ultrasound this week and the radiologist confirmed that it's a blocked duct and not a cyst or galactocele or cancer or anything else. The milk isn't pooling in one specific area so she was unable to drain it with a needle (which I think would have been awesome). So, I'm on antibiotics and am supposed to nurse/pump regularly (thus keeping me from quitting) and keep hot/moist compresses on it. You know, in all my spare time I can either soak whatever I'm wearing with the hot washcloth, or strip down in the middle of winter. Heh.

Anyway, enough about me, let's talk about Olivia and how she sleeps! At night! As soon as we put her down! Bliss! Our old routine was to let her feed and sleep on demand, which worked out okay and she slept for like 4-5 hours at a time at night. BUT, we never knew when the stretch would begin. I would get a knot in my stomach (and cry) at dinnertime each night with the anticipation of the nighttime routine. Starting around 8 or 9pm we'd rock her to sleep, lay her in the crib, and she'd wake herself up a short while later. Rock, lay down, sleep, WAAAAHHH!!! We'd do this for hours until eventually she'd go down for a long stretch sometimes at 10, sometimes at midnight. We never knew whether to check email nearby or head to bed ourselves so we'd take shifts; I'd go to bed at 8 and take over when Steve had enough. We were exhausted.

One day my dad told me someone at church had recommended a baby care book. On one hand I was like, "Not another book," and on the other hand I was so frustrated and ready to try anything. The book is written by two pediatric nurses and covers everything from how to trim nails to when to call the doctor. But the sleeping chapter is the one that caught my attention. Their method is to feed the baby at 6pm and not again until 9pm so she eats well before bed. In the meantime she can sleep or whatever, and give her a bath before the bedtime feeding. Then when you put her down swaddle her tightly so her startle reflex doesn't wake her up, make her room dark, and loudly play white noise. (We use a radio tuned to a non-station frequency and crank it up as loud as a vacuum cleaner.) The authors said to try their method for three nights, but Olivia has gone to sleep *and stayed asleep* consistently from the first night. It's magical and wonderful and I can go to bed at 10 and know that she won't wake up again until 2am.

I have a small window of opportunity to go shoe shopping, so I'm going to sign off. Have a great weekend, enjoy the Super Bowl, and sleep a lot *because you can*.