The bitch is back

I got my period back.

You said it, Yeezy.

Seriously??   I read so many blogs from women parenting after infertility, and most of you guys are still going period-free up to a year after having your babies.  Some of you are wondering when it's coming back so that you can start trying for number two.  And here all I wanted was for it to stay away until I stop breastfeeding, which is probably going to be around the one year point when I head back to work. 

Nope.  Asshole uterus.

In hindsight, the signs were obvious.  I briefly had some EWCM, followed by copious amounts of thick creamy CM that should have alerted me that something was up.  But my body had faked me out a few months earlier with similar signs, and nothing actually happened.  This time around though, it was the real deal.  Q has been stuffing his gob with solids lately and has been increasingly disinterested in breastfeeding despite my best efforts, so I suppose it was to be expected.

FOOD IS AWESOME!!!

It wasn't much of a period, mind you.  Some sludgy brown spotting followed by a day of super light flow, none of it requiring much more than some light tampons and panty liners.  And who knows, I might not get it again for a few months.  But it was enough to trigger some weird feelings that threw me for a bit of a loop.

At first I had the inevitable thought: oh maybe this means we should start taking birth control precautions.  This was followed by the equally inevitable HAHAHAHAHA YOU'RE INFERTILE YOU IDIOT YOU NEEDED AN EGG DONOR reminder.  And yeah yeah yeah, I know what you're going to say next.  In case you've been living under a rock, it seems like every infertile in the blogosphere has been finding themselves oopspregnant lately.  (No hate: I'm seriously very happy for you guys.)

I guess theoretically it could happen to me.  I mean, if I wasn't too tired to have sex, that is.  I still have some eggs, and there might be a decent one in the bunch.  Thing is, though...I'm pretty sure I don't want it to.  One of the things that I'm probably hyper-conscious about having an egg donor baby is making sure that he doesn't feel different in any way, or any less part of our family.  I think I'm probably irrationally afraid that if we got oopspregnant, Q would at some point feel like he's somehow less than the new baby.  Less important, less wanted, less my child.  And I never want those thoughts to ever cross his mind.  Plus I kind of like the thought of him having a full sibling from one of our four frozen embryos in the Czech Republic.  In the event he ever does feel different from a non-DE kid, he'd have someone to talk about it with.  And vice versa.  So while part of me would love to join the unicorn club, I'm pretty sure that if/when we do talk about having another baby, I'd rather it be with our totsicles as opposed to my dodgy eggs.

That said, the return of my period also brought that familiar anxiety, disappointment and sadness that I felt every time I saw blood on the toilet paper over the past couple of years.  Which is totally strange, as I don't want to be pregnant right now at all.  We're not ready for another baby for a whole bunch of reasons.  I wonder if it's not a bit of a conditioned response.  Like Pavlov's dog, I've learned that the arrival of my period means yet another failure of my body to make a baby.  Yet another month with promise unfulfilled.  Yet another month that I need to be sad.

Except it doesn't mean that anymore.  At least it shouldn't.  I wonder if I'll ever get to the point where the arrival of my period just means that it's time to go to the drugstore.

3rd Blogiversary: Reflections on being a donor egg mom

Wow.  Another year gone, and yet another huge shift in circumstances.  On my first blogiversary, I wrote about feeling left behind.  Last year, I was the one doing the leaving at six months pregnant.  And this year, I'm firmly out of the trenches with an almost 8 month old baby boy.  A boy who fills me with pride and joy every day, and is doing an exceptional job of keeping me on my toes now that he's crawling around and exploring his world.

A boy who wouldn't be here if not for the gift of a stranger.

Before Q's arrival, I wrote about my worries and fears about being a mom to a donor egg baby.  Would I feel like his mother?  Would we bond?  Or would I feel like a surrogate mom to someone else's baby?  Would the donor issue constantly be at the back of my mind, a nagging reminder that my baby was "not quite mine"?

Admittedly, some of these thoughts lingered for a little while after Q's birth, although not in the negative way that I had feared.  In the first month or two, every so often I would catch myself looking at him and the thought would come unbidden to my mind: he's not mine.  Perhaps some of it was that brand new mother incredulity that everyone experiences; the "how could this tiny perfect human possibly be mine?" moment.  But for me, I knew this was also more than a little bit about the donor.  He's not "mine".  There was no emotion attached to it, no sadness or anger.  It was just a statement, almost as if my brain was testing me by throwing it out there every once in a while to see how I felt about it.  And how I felt about it, as it turned out, was this: So what?  

So what? as I changed another diaper.

So what? as I breastfed Q in the middle of the night.

So what? as I held him close while he napped on my chest.

As time went by, this passing thought occurred less and less.  Like any bully, it came seeking a reaction and when it didn't get one, it stopped bothering to try.  Before long I couldn't even remember the last time it had cropped up.  With each act of mothering, any fear that I wasn't a "real" mom was being washed away.

Now, if someone were to suggest to me that I wasn't Q's "real" mom, my answer would be this: if not me, then who?  The donor, while giving us the single vital cell we needed to bring Q to life, has never held him or nourished him.  She's never played with him, tickled him, or elicited a single smile or giggle.  Never soothed his cries or rocked him to sleep.  Never fretted over his illnesses or milestones, or cheered for him as he achieved a goal.  Never laughed at his shenanigans or been frustrated by his fussiness.  She's never experienced a single minute of this precious, amazing little boy's life while I have been there for almost every single joyful, messy, tearful, hilarious, tender, stinky, irritating, fear-filled, awe-inspiring second of it.

Before I gave birth to Q, any time I expressed doubts about being a donor egg mom M would tell me that I was being ridiculous and remind me that it was my body that was allowing Q to grow and thrive, and that it was my body that would give birth to him.  That through these acts, I was already his mother.  This isn't in any way to minimize the contribution of our donor, of course.  If not for her gift of that one tiny cell, Q wouldn't be here, and I will be forever grateful for that.  But that gift doesn't make her his mother.  It might have taken me a bit longer to get here than for someone giving birth to their own genetic child, but in the end I've realized: being his mother is what makes me his mother.

Obvious to some, yes.  But to this donor egg mom, I guess I needed to get here in my own good time.  And now that I am, it's a beautiful place to be.

Family

Today is the first day I've been alone with Q in nearly a month.  It feels a little weird.

Just over three weeks ago M left on an extended business trip.  I took the opportunity to head east to see my family, giving my parents the ability to spend a nice chunk of time with Q while also sparing myself the challenge of being a single mom for longer than I thought I could handle.  

We had an amazing, busy time.  Pretty much every day we had a visit from aunts or uncles or cousins or friends.  Q showed no signs of shyness and flashed everyone his huge (no longer toothless!) smile, although he saved the biggest ones for my 6-year old niece (his only cousin).  She absolutely doted on him, insisting that she be allowed to help feed and bathe him in addition to spending tons of time just playing with him on the floor or in his exersaucer.  They even went Trick or Treating together on Halloween, and although I told her that any extra candy she got "for the baby" was technically mine, I never laid claim to it in the end.

Explain to me again why I'm wearing this?

As for mama, I thoroughly enjoyed being able to hand Q off to his grandparents and have a little "me" time.  I did crazy things like go to baby-free shopping or to the gym in the middle of the day, or go back to bed after giving Q his breakfast for an extra hour or two of sleep.  Such tiny things, really, but a huge indulgence for someone like me who doesn't have family handy at a few moments' notice.  It made me super envious of my sister, who lives about five minutes from our parents and is able to drop my niece for an hour or two if she needs to get something done or just could use some time for herself.

It also made me sort of wonder if I'm not doing Q an injustice by having him home alone with just me most of the time.  Not that there's really any other option, but he made a couple of huge strides in development while we were out east and I have to wonder if it wasn't the increase in stimulation that pushed him forwards.  For instance, he'd been rocking on all fours since his six month birthday, but hadn't been able to figure out how to coordinate his arms and legs to get moving.  Then, on Halloween night, we returned home from Trick or Treating and my niece dumped out her bag of candy on the floor.  Q (who is apparently food-motivated, much like his parents and their dog) immediately set out across the floor towards the candy pile.  It took us all by such surprise that we cheered super loudly, which terrified poor Q and actually made him cry!  He apparently wasn't too emotionally scarred though, and once I calmed him down he went right back at it.  Within days we were chasing him around the house to stop him from getting into stuff he shouldn't.  On top of the locomotion, his communication skills exploded as well.  He'd started babbling with consonants a couple of days before our departure (easing a lot of my previous worry about his development in this department!), and during our visit he positively became a little chatterbox.  My new favourite thing is listening to him "ba-ba-ba"-ing to himself while he crawls across the floor.

Maybe it was all just a coincidence of timing, since I know there's a huge explosion in development between 6 and 7 months, but I can't help but feel that all the excitement was a huge boost to his little brain.  I've started to notice that my little man is extremely social (i.e. sitting by the airplane bathroom was his favourite, since smiling at all the people coming and going kept him endlessly entertained).  Now that we're home in Toronto and it's just boring old Mom and Buddy all the time again, I really feel like I need to up my game and get him out of the house more regularly since he seems to love being around other people so much.

Anyway, here we are back at home, where at least Q's sleep is a little bit better and I don't have to deal with the temptation of my dad constantly bringing home sweets and dessert "because you're a guest".  Lucky for me breastfeeding is keeping most of the weight gain at bay, but Q loves his solids so much I'm starting to think that won't last a whole lot longer.  

I don't think you need that piece of pie, Mom.

Half birthday

It's mind-bending for me to acknowledge that today is Q's six month birthday.  As our whole little family (mom, dad, baby and dog) took a stroll yesterday afternoon, I couldn't help but reflect back to April 4th when I was walking those exact same streets trying fiercely to dislodge the baby who seemed to have set up permanent shop in my uterus.  While I haven't done regular monthly update posts, now seems a fitting time to have a look at how far we've come!

Stats: Weighs somewhere just north of 17 pounds (we'll find out for sure at his 6 month doctor's appointment next week), length around 27 inches at last check.

Nicknames:  Nothing super consistent, but some of the more interesting things I've heard come out of my own mouth are "Sweet Thang" and "Mr. Chub O'Cheeks".  Usually it's just more generic stuff like honey, sweetie, baby, or mister.

Eating:  Up until very recently, Q was exclusively breastfed.  Then, at his five month checkup, his doctor noted that he had slipped down a few percentiles in weight since his last visit.  His length was still on track, so she suggested that he was probably needing some more calories in the form of solids.  This made sense to me, since around that time he'd mastered rolling and was spending tons of time on the floor practicing that as well as bouncing around in his Jolly Jumper and exersaucer.  We had a brief scare when he broke out in a rash after only trying oatmeal and sweet potatoes, but it turned out to be a virus instead (bonus: first puke!) and after a brief hiatus from solids is now back at it.  So far he loves oatmeal (especially mixed with applesauce), sweet potato, pears and bananas, has a so-so relationship with peas and green beans, and wants avocado to go die in a fire.

WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO MEEEEEE

Sleeping:  Oh boy.  This will probably be the subject of its own post in a little while, but suffice it to say that things got pretty bad with night waking after I wrote this post, and we ended up revisiting sleep training.  Only this time there was no fucking around, we got serious about it and really stuck to it and...it worked!  Q now goes down generally without fussing around 7pm and sleeps until about 6:30am, with one or two wakings to feed.  I'm trying to get him down to just one night feeding (and hopefully soon none!) but if he does wake twice, the first one is usually around 10 or 11pm and I often haven't even gone to bed yet, so I consider it a sort of dreamfeed and don't mind getting up around 4am for another one.  Naps have remained pretty shitty, and in the last week or two went even further downhill as they dropped from his usual 30 minutes to often less than 20.  Which meant I was trying to put him down sometimes 4 times a day, and he was still barely getting 1.5 hours of daytime sleep.  So...we're in the midst of nap training as I write this.  Stay tuned.

Clothes:  Q just recently started fitting into his 6 month stuff, and can still do some of his 3-6 month things as well.  He's long and lean, so I often find pants or outfits with feet and legs are too big in the body or waist but too short in the length.  I know some moms get really sad and nostalgic about it, but I get a weird sense of satisfaction out of retiring smaller clothes and busting out the new stuff in a bigger size.  Like I've somehow accomplished something by helping this tiny human to grow.  Yeah I know, I'm odd.

Diapers:  Pampers size 3.  We've rotated between Swaddlers and Baby Dry depending on what's on sale.  I generally find them to be good although we've had a fair number of poop blowouts lately, probably due to some epic solid food craps.

Likes:  Q loves spending time in his Jolly Jumper and has just recently come around to the concept of bathtime.  He's also fascinated by his own penis, grabbing it every chance he gets (regardless of whether it happens to be covered in poop at the time).  He's spent entire baths with one hand on it like someone's coming to take it away from him.  Q also absolutely adores Buddy, laughing with glee whenever he watches one of us play fetch or tug-of-war with the dog.  For his part, Buddy seems to be coming around and will now give Q little licks and will even let him do some gentle exploratory petting (with close parental supervision, of course).

You taste like avocado.

Dislikes: Naps, avocado, being in the car too long, being left alone by mom for any period of time longer than 3.27 seconds.

Milestones:  Q has been hitting most of his physical milestones a bit ahead of schedule.  His head and neck strength was always good (we barely had to support his head at all apart from the early infant days) and he's been pretty chill about tummy time.  He started sitting unsupported a couple of weeks ago, although we still have to watch out for the occasional topple.  He's now working towards crawling, which freaks me the hell out as our house is not babyproofed.  He's really good at pushing up on his hands and moving from side to side or around in a circle to get at toys he wants, but whenever he tries to move forward he actually ends up pushing himself backwards instead, which leads to no end of frustrated crying.  He's gotten himself up on all fours and rocked a few times, but hasn't figured out coordinated limb movement yet and this generally ends in a faceplant.

Pride goeth before a fall

Communication-wise is where I think he may be a bit more behind.  He started cooing right on schedule, but still hasn't really graduated to babbling or consonant sounds.  He's a pretty quiet baby all around and doesn't make much noise at all, unless he's upset about something and even then his cry is pretty low-key.  I try to talk to him a lot and get some back and forth conversation going, but he just smiles at me and blows raspberries.  Surprisingly, I find if I leave him alone to be quiet is when he might start experimenting with sounds.  I'm trying not to stress about this too much, and he's quite social with people (always offering up big smiles), but obviously I'd love to her a random string of babble come out of his mouth sooner rather than later.  M's mom has reminded me more than once that daddy didn't really say much at all until age 2, so it's possible that the apple didn't fall far from the tree in the speech department.  Time will tell.

Illnesses:  So far in his short life, Q has had two head colds (the second was much worse than the first), and one mysterious virus resulting in a rash and a bout of vomiting.

Looking forward to:  Hallowe'en!  I have no idea what I'm going to dress Q up as but I can't wait.  M is away for three weeks in October/November, so rather than attempting life as a single mom Q and I are flying out east to stay with my family.  It'll be great for my parents to have a bit more extended time with him, and my niece is already looking forward to trick or treating with him.  She wants him to be Olaf to her Elsa.

Or I could just wear this giraffe hat.

The Great Baldening

When I was pregnant, I got a spectacularly backhanded compliment from a woman at my office that went something like this:  "You look so good pregnant!  You have such a healthy glow, and your hair is so thick and full.  You're so much prettier pregnant!"

Um, yeah, thanks.  I think.  

But she was right.  I had awesome pregnancy hair.  While I don't have thick hair, stylists have always commented that I have a lot of it and during pregnancy it just grew and grew.  It felt thick for the first time ever.  It was long and lush and shiny.  I even loved the way it made my face look; it somehow seemed to balance me out better and looked fantastic in pictures. 

I don't know why this GIF exists, but it's awesome.

God, I miss my pregnancy hair.

I always knew that it wouldn't last, and that it would go back to normal somewhere around 3 to 6 months after Q was born.  I even knew that it would fall out in pretty noticeable amounts, and I thought I was prepared for that.

I was SO not prepared for this.  Holy shit, you guys.  Holy shit.  It is falling out like WHOA.  

Every time I shampoo, I pull out handfuls.  I have to be careful to pile it on the side of the tub when I shower lest I clog the drain.  Then, just when I think I'm done and there can't possibly be more, I get out of the shower and dry my hair, following which my bathroom floor looks like the floor of a hair salon and I need to sweep.  Our bathroom garbage can is 87% hair at this point (fact: the other 13% is tissues with spit up and used breast pads).  While I wear my hair in a ponytail most of the time, on the few occasions I've tried to wear it down I just can't make it look right.  It looks thin and flat, and I have giant gaps in my bangs on both sides of my forehead.

Most annoying is the fact that now there is simply hair everywhere.  If I so much as scratch my head or run my fingers through my hair, at least a few strands fall out.  There is constantly one hair that is tickling me somewhere.  I pull it off my husband's shirt before he leaves for work.  I pick it off my child when he plays on the carpet.  I pull it out my vacuum cleaner's brush bristles and wonder if Locks for Love would accept the contents of my vacuum bag as a donation, for they could surely make several childrens' wigs out of it.  And the other day while walking the dog, I pulled it out of my dog's asshole when one turd stubbornly refused to drop, dangling like a pendulum from his butt by a single long brown hair.

Yes, this is a dental floss dispenser shaped like a dog butt.

The day I pull it out of my baby's ass is the day I just shave my fucking head.

Planes, trains and automobiles

Over the past month or so, our little Q has become quite the experienced traveller.  M and I have (bravely?  foolishly?) taken him on a number of adventures to see family and friends, and things have generally gone pretty well.  Here's what we've been up to lately:

Plane:  Just this past weekend we returned from a week-long visit to see my family out east.  Q finally got to meet my niece, who was also crazy excited to meet her baby cousin.  It's a three hour direct flight, which meant we got about an hour's worth of down time while Q napped and then had to entertain him for the other two hours, which wasn't too bad.  The worst part of the entire thing had nothing to do with travelling with a baby, and everything to do with the fact that Air Canada sucks donkey balls.  They've started charging for a checked bag, which is stupid but fine, whatever.  But for some reason, when we checked in online it wouldn't let us pay for the bag we were bringing and kept insisting that we had to go to "check-in assistance" at the airport.  Again, fine, whatever.  We got to the airport in plenty of time on the morning of our departure, only to sit in an unmoving line up for almost an hour until it was getting too close to flight time for our comfort, and we managed to flag someone down to get us through and onto security.  Where we waited in another unmoving line up.  My stress levels over travel are pretty bad at the best of times, but they were off the charts here.  We finally managed to board as the very last passengers on the flight, and I've made a personal commitment never to fly Air Canada again if I can help it.  My next trip home in October (Q and I will be going solo as M has a three-week business trip) I've already booked with another airline.  As M is fond of repeating, Air Canada should really just change its slogan to the following:

Train:  The week before our trip out east, I had the opportunity to meet up with the lovely Daryl, her husband and daughter as they travelled to Ottawa for some visa processing prior to their move overseas.  Q and I rode the rails since Ottawa is about 5 hours from Toronto and I knew from previous experience (see Automobiles, below) that Q wouldn't be able to manage a stretch that long in the car without someone in the backseat to entertain him and M, like a sucker, had to work and couldn't tag along.  I was a bit nervous going it alone with a baby, but needn't have been thanks to the fact that I took M's advice and booked a business class ticket.  It gave me loads of extra room and there was no one sitting next to me, so I was able to put Q in his carseat either on the floor or the seat beside me to play with him or when I needed some hands free time.  Also, business class = free booze so you can bet mama took advantage of that on the ride home later that evening.  

No, YOU'VE got a drinking problem!!*

Meeting Daryl was awesome.  We hooked up for lunch at a small Italian restaurant after her family's visa appointment and between the two of us flashed more boob than I think that establishment has seen in forever.  It was my first in-person bloggy friend meeting and I can attest to the fact that not only is she NOT a crazy serial killer, but she is in fact a warm and wonderful person whose baby girl has the most gorgeous eyes on the planet.  I'm so glad I braved the trip there to meet her and wish her and her family all the best in their new life across the pond!

Automobile:  This one was the most ambitious and definitely the most challenging.  Ever since we've been together M and I have joined his parents as often as possible on their annual beach trip to Maine at the end of July.  We missed it last year due to our trip to Prague and a friend's wedding in Vancouver, plus this year we were eager to bring Q along for his first ever ocean vacation.  The drive from Toronto to Maine is just over 12 hours, depending on how long you get stuck at the border, so we knew we'd have to cut the drive into two days (we usually just take shifts driving and power through) if any of us were going to survive it with our sanity intact.  The going was pretty slow.  One of us had to be in the back seat with Q at all times to keep him entertained.  Unfortunately he was on a half-hour napping kick, so we were pretty much only able to drive in 1.5 hour stretches as follows:  first half hour pleasant but growing increasingly tired and grumpy until he dropped off to sleep, second half hour napping (seriously, you could set your watch by this kid), third half hour awake and pleasant at first but increasingly cranky and impatient to be out of his carseat.  Then we'd find somewhere to stop for a coffee or lunch and give him about a half hour to stretch his legs and look at some new scenery, before getting back into the car and doing it all over again.  I wish I could say it was worth it, but as I mentioned in a previous post Q wasn't sleeping great while we were there so it ended up being a tougher week than anticipated.  He didn't even really like the beach or the water; he seemed afraid of the waves and howled when his toes were dipped for the first time, which was pretty disappointing for his beach-loving grandparents.  I'm sure next year will be a different story as we frantically try to chase him down and stop him from eating sand, but this year was a bit of a wash.

I will wear your lobster onesie, but I will not like it.

Anyway, that's all the doings and happenings around here lately.  All the travelling and the lack of nap-taking has made me a terrible commenter, but rest assured I'm still reading along.  I just usually have to do it on the go on my phone, which is horrible for commenting.  I promise to do better!  

*Glass was empty and previously held only water.  I am not an incompetent parent, just one who gets creative with her iPhone camera when bored.

Sleep: You're doing it wrong

STTN.  EASY.  PU/PD.  NAPS.  CIO.  A whole bunch of letters that all spell the same thing: your baby is sleeping wrong and it's your fault.

After Q was born, I actually felt a whole lot of guilt whenever other moms would ask me how things were going.  They had that knowing looking in their eye that said they were expecting me to tell them how exhausted I was, and the last thing they wanted to hear was that Q was sleeping so much we had to wake him to feed.  Even as he got a little older, he'd sleep pretty much anywhere: in his carseat at a restaurant, while being passed around at a family reunion, and even in the audience at my dance recital (complete with blaring music).  At night, his favourite place to fall asleep was on M's chest after I gave him his last nursing session.  While I joked that this was probably a bad habit to get into and that we were creating a monster who would never be able to sleep anywhere else, I couldn't begrudge M the cuddle time with his baby after he'd been away from him all day at work.

Well, those chickens have come home to roost.

You rang?

Things started to go sideways somewhere around the 3.5 month mark.  Instead of falling asleep on the boob and being easily put down in his crib for naps, Q started waking the second his head hit the mattress and then requiring long sessions of rocking/walking/bouncing/patting to go to sleep.  Other sure-fire sleep inducers like the swing and stroller lost their efficacy as well.  Rather than falling asleep the second we started moving, I began having to take longer and longer walks to get Q to drop off.  And no matter what, he pretty much always woke up within half an hour.  Finally, my worst fear was realized when his nighttime sleep started to suffer too.  No more waking only once or twice to feed.  Now he was up at seemingly random intervals, as many as four or five times a night.  I was forced to admit that the dreaded four month sleep regression was likely upon us.

Then we went on vacation to Maine, although the word "vacation" doesn't really apply when you're stuck with a chronically overtired and overstimulated baby who is thrown into unfamiliar surroundings and is missing half of his usual sleep props.  Only once or twice did we achieve peaceful-baby-napping-under-the-beach-shade status, and more often than not we spent large amounts of time pacing the floor in our tiny beach rental trying to soothe Q for a nap in his Pack 'n Play.   I decided that when we got home, one thing was called for: sleep training.

Of course, because I spent all my money buying a baby because I'm a cheap bastard I wasn't about to actually buy any books on the topic.  All of that shit is on the internet now anyway.  I soon discovered what all of my experienced mom readers probably already know, which is that there are a bunch of techniques and pretty much no one agrees with anyone else except on a few key points.  Namely, that a baby Q's age should only be awake for a maximum of two hours at a time, and that I should be aiming to put him down "drowsy but awake" so that he could learn to fall asleep independently.  Here's what else I learned.

Things I'm doing wrong

• Letting him stay awake too long
• Nursing him to sleep
• Rocking/walking/bouncing him to sleep
• Getting him to sleep using his swing
• Getting him to sleep using his stroller
• Getting him to sleep using any kind of movement whatsoever
• Taking him into our bed when he wakes at 6am so I can snag an extra hour of sleep

Things I'm doing right

•  Nothing, basically

YOU'RE SLEEPING WRONG

In a fit of panic that I'd already screwed Q out of having any kind of normal sleep schedule, I spent the next week trying to fix things.  I established a daytime schedule of feedings, awake time and naps.  I tried to anticipate Q's sleepy times and dashed him upstairs to his nursery at the slightest yawn or eye rub, and often even before then as the magical two hour window of awake time closed.  I refused to nurse before naptime, instead trying to create the elusive "drowsy but awake" state through other soothing techniques like songs and quiet time.  I laid Q down in his crib awake.  I let him fuss a little to see if he'd put himself to sleep, and when he didn't I'd pick him up and soothe him a little and put him back down.  

And my happy little boy, who barely cries at all, started crying with an intensity I'd never seen before.  Not just a few times or for a little while, but essentially any time I walked him into his room and closed his blinds.  It felt like whatever I was doing had basically made him afraid of being put into his crib to sleep, which had never been a problem before.  On top of which, none of it was working anyway!  Forcing him into his crib (instead of his swing or stroller) meant that he was getting maybe 30 minutes of naptime, if he would fall asleep at all.  By the end of one particularly horrible 90-minute nap attempt, M came home to find both of us in tears.  I was frustrated beyond belief and felt like a huge failure as a mother, since I was supposed to be making things better but obviously I was only making them so much worse.

Out of total coincidence, later that same week a local infant program that we attend was having a public health nurse in to speak about baby sleep and routines.  I steeled myself for a huge debate on sleep training techniques, and then asked my question about how to get Q on a better routine and make sure he was getting the sleep he needed.  And do you know what surprised me?  Almost every mom there (many of whom are parents of older babies and hence have been going through this a lot longer than me) said the same thing: just do what works.  If that was the swing, swing away.  If it was the stroller, lace up your sneakers.  The nurse chimed in as well with a comment that struck a chord.  She said to keep in mind that "baby sleep" has become an industry unto itself, so there's a lot of effort put into making parents feel like they need to buy into a specific program to help their child sleep.  And yet no one can agree on exactly how to do it.

It struck me then that for the better part of a couple of weeks I'd been stressing myself out about how Q was getting to sleep rather than focusing on just making sure that he was getting to sleep.  I was so pig-headedly sticking to my schedule that I'd totally stopped watching his cues and just listening to what he needed.  So I quit.  I took Q for a two hour long walk in his stroller the next day, and what do you know...he slept 1.5 hours of it.  We were both a million times happier.  That night, he only woke up once to feed.  It felt like he was thanking me.

I won't say that I won't try sleep training again at some point in the future.  And I've taken some tidbits to heart, including trying to make sure that I get Q down for a nap before he gets overtired, and attempting to put him down drowsy but awake.  If it's not working, I'll switch it up, and just do what works.