Strive for Balance – Page 33

Bad Sleepers

There was a time that I really thought I had kids that were bad sleepers. They needed me in order to fall asleep, they needed me in order to stay asleep, and they didn’t have regular nap routines. What else could they be but bad sleepers? Moms around me seemed to have kids that slept on their own, napped regularly and slept the amount of hours needed, per their parenting book’s guideline of baby sleep. It got to a point where I truly was stressing about how to get my kids to be “good sleepers.”

Then one day, a friend of mine gave me some advice that truly changed how I viewed the whole thing. She simply said, ” Stop expecting your kids to sleep how you or some parenting book thinks they should sleep.” She then pointed me an informative website on mother-baby sleep that really opened my eyes. I learned that what we often consider “bad sleep” is really quite normal sleep. Our society has fooled us to expect unrealistic sleep in our children and so in order to achieve that sleep, we find ourselves training our kids to sleep and when we don’t go that route, we still stress about their “bad sleep”. At least….I did.

Once I realized that my expectations for sleep were unrealistic and I changed my own patterns (i.e. went to bed early so that I could catch up on my own sleep and not be so tired myself, did some research and bought a quiet fan to run in the night to keep me from sweating all over the pillow), I was able to more than cope with how my kids slept. It’s amazing how just changing my expectations of sleep made it so much easier for me to parent my kids and even find ways to get rest myself.

Self-Pity and Me.

This past week has been something of a challenge as mini-man and I try to recuperate from our Texas trip; now we have been joined by this lovely long-lasting cold. We are both miserable.

Yesterday was one of those days where I was looking fondly back on the time when I could be sick by myself, where I could take a long shower, sleep until I couldn’t sleep any more, rest, read a book, maybe watch a movie. And I could do all this alone. Instead I am wiping snot off a clingy child while trying to change another blow-out diaper as he sobs hysterically because… I don’t know. Continue reading “Self-Pity and Me.”

Learning How to Share

My son lay sobbing on the sun-room floor between our daybed and coffee table. If I tried to come near him, he kicked his feet and cried harder. His nanny was leaving and he didn’t want her to go. In fact, she had just told me moments before, “Your son won my heart today. He told me he loved me.”

Cavanaugh is nearly three. He has had a nanny six hours a week for the last three months. Besides the time he spends with his dad and the few months my mom lived in town and saw him a couple of afternoons a week, Cavanaugh is with me and has been with me pretty much all of the time for his entire life. So it was hard for me to watch him cry for someone else.

I’m excited he loves playing with her, loves her even. It helped that I’m reading A Secure Base: Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development by John Bowlby. I needed the reassurance that his ability to feel so attached to her comes because our relationship has provided such a secure base from which he can explore. But he didn’t even want me in the same room with him.

So I sat fifteen feet away on the living room couch and tried to figure out if it was better for me to face away from him and just sit there so he knew he wasn’t alone or look at him over the back of the couch so I would know when he was ready for me to hold and console him. Continue reading “Learning How to Share”

Slowing down to smell the stillness, re-energizes

I just used up a bag of flour that I’ve had in my pantry for the past couple of years.

I only had it for the occasional sauce thickening agent, or… uh… why did I have that bag of flour? I guess it’s just one those things that is expected. One must have flour or you cannot consider yourself a member of polite society, or something like that.

The point is, I used almost all of it in the last month.

I actually used the flour — to bake.
Continue reading “Slowing down to smell the stillness, re-energizes”

The Making of Me

After I had my son I felt lost. I was starting to feel like I had a hang of the whole pregnancy thing. I wasn’t comfortable by any means but, after 9 months and being 2 weeks overdue, I really just thought I would be pregnant forever. At least it was familiar.

Then my son was born. I can’t even describe the wonder and the love and the bond that happens when you first grab up that wet screaming baby that you have just birthed – if you have been there you know what I mean. There is a moment. There is nothing else like it.

And then, the next two nights we spent walking our new little one all night long as he cried, we soothed and he cried, we nursed and he cried, we walked and he cried. I didn’t sleep well again for the next 11 months. He was up 4-6 times a night, every night. I was un-made. Continue reading “The Making of Me”

Following The Principles: Ensure Safe Sleep

Part 5 of a series of 8: I did not expect the arrival of my first baby to create so much upheaval in my bedroom. There was no room for a “nursery” so by default we became co-sleepers. The room would have never won any awards for decorating to begin with, but after the baby it became a minefield of clothes, blankets, stuffed animals, toys, wipes, baby nail clippers, bulb syringes, diapers, and little mismatched baby socks.

After firstborn moved into his own room at about two and half years, we spent joyous hours creating HIS space with all of HIS favorite things. It was then that I made a vow to create a special place for me to relax and recharge. I fantasized about my ideal Bedroom Solutions…my haven. I knew one day I would have the resources to make that happen! Continue reading “Following The Principles: Ensure Safe Sleep”

How Do You Relax?

DSCN9845 This past Thursday night, I went to hear music at night for the first time in over three years. It wasn’t just going out, or getting to hear music, but going out by myself. It came about because I received a link to a sample class on The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal recently. It included an exercise in which you are supposed to write down what you would do on a four-hour solo date. There were rules: no errands, movies, or shopping. It really got me thinking. I actually get a three – four hour block of time on a pretty regular basis, but usually I use it to write or clean the house. So I made a list that differentiated between things I might like to get to do alone instead of with a nearly-three year old in tow versus things that would actually restore some sense of myself. Continue reading “How Do You Relax?”

The “I” in AP

I like that I have a constant reminder with API of the “I” in AP. Let me explain.

I have a hard time slowing down. There are so many things that “need” to be done and I am constantly wondering if I am doing the best for my child, if we are spending enough time together (pretty silly for a SAHM don’t you think? But you are getting an inside look at my crazy mind). I have even wondered if I wasn’t doing a good enough job because I don’t have scheduled play times. There always seems to be something that I can beat myself up about or worry that I am not doing well enough or something else that needs to be done. There is a never ending supply of things to clean, organize, pick up. etc. And then since we have made the choice to AP, my son’s needs and even many of his wants come before chores. We have set it up that way.

And where does this leave the “I”? I have noticed that if I do not take the time for the “I” that the AP does not happen very well. If I don’t take time to do some things for me, if I don’t take the time to “take care of myself” then very quickly AP becomes a difficulty instead of a joy.

SO, I have made a short list today of “I” things that need to happen for me to be “OK”, now these don’t have to happen every day, though I do better if some of them happen either every day or every few days. These things vary for every one of us this is just my “I” list, it is in no particular order.

1. I need a date with hubby alone once a month.
2. I need to exercise.
3. I need to write.
4. I need to read.
5. I need to have sex.
6. I need to eat (healthy).
7. I need some me alone time.
8. I need a clean house.

These are some of the more important things that I could come up with. Now these do not involve my mini man, not because he is not important but because these things need to happen so that I can be fully present and enjoy the togetherness that we get to share every day.

Now I know that it might be daunting to try to find time for any of this. But I have found out a few things that work for me to ensure that I get some of this time.

Do not use nap time to run around doing a bunch of different things. Pick a cleaning or organizing or laundry project, get it started or finish it up, make sure it isn’t a huge job, and then spend some time doing on of the “I” items.
Stay up later. My hubby has a very early morning job so he ends up going to bed early, I spend some time with him before he goes to sleep and then I stay up for an hour or to doing the “I” items.
Have hubby put the little one to bed. This works out great for us so that I can make sure and get some exercise time.
We set a date night and stick with it.

These are just a few things, mostly to be able to spark some of your own creativity. I know that it can be difficult, I am sure even more so with more children! But it is essential that as we read the articles at API that we remember that without an “I” there is no AP.