Ferberizing

To those non parents reading this blog, Ferber is known as the "cry it out" approach to parenting. Only that's not entirely what he teaches. His approach is a 3-5 day sort of deal. You start out on day one putting your child in the room and giving them the opportunity to put themselves to sleep. After so many minutes, you go back in and soothe the baby, not removing him from the crib. You can talk to him, pat his back, etc. After two minutes (tops) you leave and leave your baby and brace for the tears.

Since Tucker's room is right beside the laundry room, I did a lot of laundry so I wouldn't have to grit my teeth through the tears. Why did I Ferberize my kid, if I didn't like hearing him cry? Up until this point, he has been in a swing beside my usual spot in the living room. He slept great until June 3rd, when David and I got back from our sealing (temple marriage) and baby blessing weekend.

Something just...changed. According to the book "The Sleep Lady", by Kim West, once babies get from 10-12 weeks old, they simply can't sleep in a swing anymore. The constant motion doesn't allow them to go any further than REM sleep. It was true. Every time I adjusted my posture and our leather couch made even the slightest sound, Tucker would snap back awake. If I wanted the TV on, it had to be quiet and on all day. As soon as I would turn it off, he woke up. As soon as I turned it up, he woke up. It was a mess. If I had to get up to get a drink, he woke up. If his binky fell out of his mouth, he woke up. If the dog moved...you get the picture.

June 6th was when I began. I started him at 2:30 pm. That's when I had enough. He cried straight up until 3:35. I switched him to lay on his stomach and he was asleep at 3:45. He woke up at 4:20 and I decided that was a decent start. I kept going in every ten minutes to soothe him, but he didn't care I was there. So I just wiped the tears from his little eyes. It gradually got better and better from there.

On June 8th, the third day, Ferber says that babies should be sleeping very well. Not so, my man! Some naps he'd be fine and go to sleep within forty five minutes. One time, he cried for two hours straight. I begin the naps with a feeding and end the naps with a diaper change then another feeding. He was so tired that we'd put him to bed every night at 8:30 pm and he wouldn't wake up until 8 am. He normally only ate two to three times during these nights too! Day four was no better.

Finally, day five, (June 10th) Tucker put himself to sleep within twenty minutes, during every nap! It's still a work in progress, but at least we've made definitive progress. The next step is to get Tucker out of our bedroom. He naps in his crib, but spends the nights cuddled up in a sleep sack in a bassinet within reach of the bedroom. At night, he also gets his pacifier. During naps, I don't even take his pacifier to the crib.

In other news, we bought Tucker a baby bouncer/jumper! One of those toys where he can stand up and bounce to work on his leg muscles. We're a bit early, since he can't sit up on his own yet, but it's nice to have. For now, he sits in his super seat. David or I will sit with him and try to put his hands on all the toys. He smiles, then tries to shove his entire fist in his mouth.

So here's the update in a nut shell. Tucker can put himself to sleep for nap time without a binky, he's trying to suck his fingers and he stays awake for two to three hours at a time now.

It Finally Happened

For the past few weeks, Tucker wakes me up at 6:30 in the morning. If he tries waking up earlier, I don't let him out of his bassinet until the previously mentioned time. I'm trying to set his internal clock so it gets easier when we (potentially) put him in the nursery. In three weeks and two days, Tucker will be three months and could ready to go to the crib. I like having him close so that I can put his pacifier back in his mouth when he's a bit fussy and so I can feed him. I can't comprehend the idea of sending Tucker to his own room even at three months. Some parents have the babies in a separate room from the very start. Tucker spits out his binky ever five seconds and wants somebody to put it back in...so I don't even know how that'd be possible with him.

Anyway, we're up with the sun. Tucker gives me lots of smiles and coos at anything that looks fascinating. Our first stop is to the nursery, where he gets his nighttime diaper changed and we dress him in his outfit for the day. After that, we go out to the living room (where his swing and blanket are) and feed him. Then it's tummy time! After he's had his fill of tummy time, I'll put him on his back and we'll smile together for about fifteen minutes. Sometimes I luck out and he's awake for half an hour. Once he gets fussy or his eyelids start turning red (yeah, my baby's color coded), I wrap him up in a warm blanket and put him down for a nap. Altogether, he is awake for about an hour.

By 7:30 he's down for his first nap of the day and stays asleep most of the morning, only waking up to feed every two to four hours. During the short duration of feeding, he's often irritable and wants nothing more than to drink his fill then go back to sleep, which he does.

My kid loves the afternoons. He truly wakes up at 2:00 and gives me smiles and attention again. This is when I plan our outings. Whether it's sitting on the grass outside our apartment, going to the library or (in most cases) going to the park with David and Zeeke, I try to give Tucker as much fresh air and stimulation as possible. (Yes I put on sunscreen. No my child hasn't had a burn yet...or even a tan.)

We get home around five or six and he's ready for another nap. For the past week, Tucker's always fussy for his second afternoon nap, but eventually goes down. He'll wake up around seven or eight, but not for too long. His eyelids will change to red again and we'll give him bath time. He hardly ever has a problem in the bath water. Tucker probably loves it so much because I jump in the tub with him. After I bathe him, David (if he's home) will take Tucker from the tub and dry him off, lotion and clothe him in the nursery. If I haven't showered for the day (which is most likely the case) I'll take a quick bath then go to the bedroom.

At 7:30 or 8:30, Tucker's brought to the room. I'll stuff him in a swaddle me (basically a blanket with Velcro so he can't wriggle out), then feed him until he's done. Sometimes he goes a full twenty minutes because he's so drowsy. I was told not to suckle him to sleep, so I cheat. When he starts getting drowsy, I stick his binky into his mouth and let him use that. It's probably just as bad and habit forming, but the binky is portable and goes with him in his bassinet. I'll have Tucker lay in feeding position for ten to twenty minutes after we're done and let him suck his binky until he's asleep. Once he's 100% knocked out, I gently transfer him to his bassinet and go to sleep. He's ALWAYS out by 9:30 at night. After that, I wake up every 2-6 hours at night to feed him, then he falls back to sleep within ten minutes after every feeding.

All of my feedings are on demand, so I can only offer a rough sketch of my day..since eating is a huge part of his life. I left out diaper changes because those are also pretty on demand.

Today is special enough to write about because of what happened at the end of today. Normally, I put Tucker in his swing and turn it on so he can nap. Around 7:50, without the swing even on, Tucker put himself to sleep. While I was doing homework he just conked out and stayed asleep for ten full minutes. I'm incredibly happy that we've reached that stage.

Here are some of the outings.

Zeeke, Tucker and I went for a stroll through BYU Idaho's gardens while David was in class. It's a good thing we did it, because it got windy after that and storm clouds blew in. 

Here's Tucker 'sun bathing' on the grass right outside our apartment. He stayed awake for half an hour just to be outside. David put a lawn chair on our patio (since it's bordered by the grass) and sipped some soda in his PJs at 4 pm. I was also in my PJs...and I'm pretty sure we're the trailer trash of our apartment complex. I mean come on, our kid is laying under an umbrella in footie pajamas.

We also visited Tucker's best friend in the making, Joshua! Berhane and Joseph Kaluba are the proud parents of this little sucker. They're both marvelously big boys and will know each other for at least the first four years of life, since David and Joseph still have to get their degrees from here before they can escape.

The Point of Predictability

During the first few days I begged people to know when anything got better. I wanted to know when breast feeding wouldn't hurt, when my mastitis would cure up, when my kid would sleep more and when I wouldn't feel so hassled by life.

My answer is at six weeks. After 1,008 hours is when the groove finally clicked for me. It's week seven. I wanted to make sure I wasn't talking too early about everything falling into place, but it has. I was told that my baby can't make associations before two to three months old. People assured me I would have to walk around and carry a screaming infant for several hours before he calmed down. My biggest worry was that Tucker would cry for no reason.

There's always been a reason.

Clearly, all kids are individuals. Here's the truths that work for Tucker. He has never cried for no reason. It's always been because of discomfort. My baby doesn't like being unhappy, he doesn't thrive on chaos like other hellish newborns. Like his father, Tucker is a complacent baby that wants his needs tended to. He'll only utter an ear-splitting cry once a week, if that. I've only ever heard it right before bedtime.

Here's how I've adapted to control Tucker's chaos.

A friend of mine pointed out that everything I do with Tucker is a pattern. I play a game where I touch parts of Tucker's body and say, "I got your..." ears, hair, knees, feet, hands...I do three body parts. Then to finish I excitedly exclaim, "I got your nooooose!" To which he knows it's time to giggle and throw out his biggest, happiest smile. Another way to make him smile is to make fart noises - which is far easier and less complex to explain to people that want to make him smile.

Even Tucker's days are a pattern. He will wake up from seven to nine. Regardless, I'll feed him, keep him awake for half an hour to an hour, then allow him to fall asleep for his first nap. This repeats for two more naps before the day is through. For weeks five and six, David and I gave Tucker a nightly bath and big feeding before bed. The bath started at 8:30 so he was in bed at 9:00. At week seven he's demanding bath time at 7:00 so he can be in bed at 7:30.

Being in bed was a LOT of trial and error. I would give him a big feeding and place him in a bassinet beside the bed. Tucker would be asleep for a moment, then just switch to drowsy. For half an hour after, he would demand I put the pacifier in his mouth and let him suck on it. The job was tedious...because Tucker couldn't hold the pacifier for more than thirty seconds for the first three weeks of his life. At week four it dropped to twenty five minutes; week five was twenty; then week six dropped to ten.

David had the idea of introducing white noise. I brought in the floor fan and turned it on. The ten minutes after a feeding where I had to keep putting the pacifier in Tucker's mouth dropped to five. In fact, I haven't had to put the binky in his mouth every time. Sometimes I put him in the bassinet and he stays asleep.

So for Tucker - here's what works. White noise and a bassinet for sleep. Play time and naps during the day. Keep them awake as often as possible.

Eleven Days In

I've been asked a bunch of funny questions since giving birth. David asked me if I missed feeling Tucker in my stomach, kicking from time to time. I laughed and said that I didn't miss the internal beating this kid gave me. Even as a fetus, he was mobile and never left me wondering where he was.

Here's how I'm holding up. For the first few days, I sobbed at every little thing. I would walk out of the room, see David....and cry as if I saw the Messiah risen from the dead. The entire first week was me trying to get used to such a sudden change. I had a brand new, incredibly selfish roommate that demanded I live by his hours, feed him according to his desire and cuddle him for long periods of time. It took some adjustment. Now that Tucker and I have had almost a dozen days to get to know each other, he's a good kid. I lucked out.

Tucker will stay awake anywhere from two to four hours at a time. On any given day he's awake seven to eight hours, calmly staring at whatever catches his fancy. He is able to focus on things visually. We had a minute long staring contest where he just tilted his head, baffled at how weird his mommy looked. The biggest bonus of this kid is that he doesn't have to be rocked. If he's awake, he just wants to be beside somebody's warm body and have something in his mouth. He'll lay on his blanket while David plays video games, or share a blanket with me while I try to catch up on sleep. My biggest complaint is that he is a noisy sleeper. He grunts while he poops, which is about half his life. On the plus side, he can nurse while asleep.

I've developed an internal alarm. Every two hours I wake up to feed him, whether or not he's acting hungry. He always drinks for the full amount of time and hardly ever spits up, so I'm convinced I'm doing something  right.

My last bit of news is that I developed mastitis last night. Basically, Tucker wasn't draining all my milk during his feedings, so I get to feel like I have the flu for the next few days, while the antibiotics take their sweet time working.

The Birthing Segment

As promised, here are the details on how my labor went.

7:30 I come in, already dilated to a four, and am administered pitocin.

12:05 My water was broken by a crochet hook.

12:12 Contractions started.

1:00 Epidural received.

2:57 Dilated to an eight.

3:24 Fully dilated.

4:23 David Tucker McKay is born at 8 pounds 3 ounces, 21 inches long.

That's the short version. I'm not sparing many details on my account below.

David and I arrived at the hospital at 6:50, just in time for the 7 am shift change. By the time 7:15 rolled around they had me in a room with a lovely hospital gown. They checked, told me I was dilated to a four and promptly told me how lucky I was, since most women that are administered pitocin spend the longest time dilating to a four. Things progress and I talked with David and the nurses, making them laugh and keeping an overall light atmosphere. I felt confident that my healthy baby boy will be born by 7 pm. That was my goal, since I heard being induced can take twelve to eighteen hours.

They strapped some monitors to my stomach so we could measure my contractions and Tucker's heart rate. David and I played with the machine a bit. We saw what a real contraction looked like (a nice, steady incline with a peak then a nice, steady decline) and what me pushing by myself looked like (basically a straight line up then a straight line down). I had to keep readjusting to get comfortable, which kept tugging at the hospital gown. Eventually I just had it removed and gave birth in nothing but a bra.

Then the crochet hook broke my water. The fun stopped pretty promptly. I went into the birth convinced I was tough stuff, and that naturally birthing my child would be a cinch. I didn't even take a birthing class, since I had kidney stones in the past, a shattered collarbone and broken foot - among many other injuries along the road of life. Well, a kidney stone feels like somebody shoving a fiery dagger along your lower-back-hip area. The pain goes down, like I suspected contractions would.

Sadly, contractions encompass your entire body, not just your kidneys. Here's how mine felt. It was like somebody had set my bones on fire. Every time a contraction came, it was like somebody threw a tsunami of gasoline over my already smoldering flesh.

I didn't know what to do with myself. At first I held David's hand. That wasn't enough. Then I looked for something to put in my mouth so I could bite down. A contraction came. Without really thinking about it, I yanked David's arm toward my mouth, to which he promptly yanked away, both amused and repulsed at the idea of having his arm bit off. He then threw a towel at my face and said, "BITE THIS!!" The nurse at the monitors (named Heather) laughed pretty hard.

A few more contractions in I couldn't control myself. I was trembling, clapping my knees together and literally throwing my arms in the air. I had no idea what to do. I turned toward Heather and timidly asked for an epidural. She assured me I was making the right choice for me, but I was going to have to wait an hour and a half, since four other women had ordered an epidural before me and they only had one anesthesiologist on rounds that morning.

Since we had an hour to kill and the pain wasn't getting any better, I asked for a painkiller to be administered through an IV. It wasn't morphine, but it was something like it. That did the trick. At once, my head and body loosened up. It was like I was resting on the softest, solid cloud to ever exist. An hour flew on by and my contractions were now like hushed birds in the distance. I was aware of them, but they were far away. By the time the epidural came, the birds (contractions) had flown closer and were getting a bit harder to tune out.

The anesthesiologist came in the room, looking like a saint at first. Then he started reading. He listed all the potential, disastrous effects an epidural could administer to the body, all with a "you better take this seriously' face. I even considered sending him out of the room and taking my luck with the fiery contractions again. I timidly asked, "How often do these symptoms occur?" He broke a smile, promised "They're few and far between", and had me sign away any chance of me suing him. They put a numbing agent over my back and had me lean forward into Nurse Heather. I got three shots. For the first one, it caused me to involuntarily jump, as if someone had hit my knee just the right way...but in my back. I don't know what the next two were for, but at least one of them worked.

I felt all kinds of comfortable after that. The only part I had a problem with was the complete lack of mobility. The nausea hit and I casually asked for a puke bag. "It worked!" I said. "Thank you!" Then I puked. Nurse Heather laughed at the fact that I was thanking the anesthesiologist for making me puke. I laid back and they left the room, giving David and me some time to talk.

They came back and checked my cervix. When I heard the number eight I was confused and asked to hear the number again. They assured me that I was really that much closer to giving birth. Half an hour later I was fully dilated! We had to wait for my doctor, Margaret Huggins, to finish up another delivery. Twenty minutes passed, then Dr. Huggins came to the room and took a look. "I see hair!" She sang excitedly. "Do you want to know the color?" I said I'd wait until he was born to know. With the help of the monitor, Dr. Huggins and Nurse Heather coached me on when to push, if I couldn't feel the contraction myself. More often than not, I knew when I was having a contraction. I pushed two to four times per contraction, since I wanted my boy out as soon as possible.

Another nurse came to the room and said, "Aubrey, your mom's here." I was baffled, but half jokingly said, "Tell her she can come on in," not thinking that my mom would actually want to see her last born child having a first born son. Boy was I wrong. A few minutes later my mom slipped into the room and quietly sat in a chair on the far side of the room. That was the only time I noticed her for the next hour, since I was a bit preoccupied with birthing.

The top half of Tucker's head was the hardest. I would push an inch out, then half an inch would slip backwards. Nurse Heather and Dr. Huggins kept up the constant chant of "push-push-push-push" per contraction, with lots of praises while I was recovering. "You did so great!" They assured me. I'm pretty sure they said that to everyone, but it still encouraged me. Finally, I felt a warm gush of fluid and saw Nurse Heather towel off some strange creature. I didn't register that it was mine. The next thing I knew, they had put this baby on my stomach! They would have put him on my chest, but my umbilical cord was too short. I had to distract myself, so I didn't panic.

"That's a baby...." I said. Then I looked to Dr. Huggins. "They say the placenta is hard to deliver..." I had started to say, but she held up a pillow case sized sack coated in blood. "Nope!" Dr. Huggins said, smiling. My eyes got the widest as they had ever gone in my life. "I don't want to eat that," I had said, not really even thinking of how offensive that may have been to say. Dr. Huggins and Nurse Heather laughed and got the placenta out of the way. Nurse Heather had clamps on the umbilical cord. "If I have to cut the cord, I charge double," Dr. Huggins said as Nurse Heather put some scissors in David's hand. David was nervous as separated the physical bond between me and our son.

The Stork Visited

We have a kid! His name is not Nickolas. What decided this change? Everyone and their dog is named Nickolas (not to mention half the family on my mom's side). He has dark, gingery hair that matches David's perfectly. Oh, the name? He is called David Tucker McKay. If you care to know the details as to how we reached his name, here it is.

I was laying in bed a few weeks before and snapped abruptly awake. "DAVID??" I smashed his shoulder with my hand to get him to awaken. "How about the name Tucker??" Groggy, he rubbed sleep from his eyes. "Tucker David....that sounds terrible..." He wasn't yet sold. "How about David Tucker McKay? So he has the same initials as you?" David is David Terry McKay. He nodded, promised he'd think about it, then flopped back to sleep. 

We had three contenders. Nickolas David McKay, Quinton David McKay and David Tucker McKay. 

I had fully intended on picking the name Tucker, leaving David no say in the matter. As soon as I saw that our first born was a ginger...I knew it was David's right as the father and the provider of the hair color to pick between the three contenders. Both of our mothers agreed that Tucker was a dog's name. Since we're such devout dog lovers, we decided Tucker was the way to go. 

Here are some pictures! I'll be making another blog on my experience with pregnancy and delivery. I figured I'd save everyone the headache of an extra long post. 

Born 8.3 pounds and 21 inches, bigger than the nurses and my doctor had estimated (they were saying low 7 pounds). Everyone was astonished. Born at 4:23 pm.

That's Tucker's "grump" face. Whenever he's not feeding, it falls back to this. 

 

Engaged Again

January something of 2013, I turned to David and said, "Dude, wanna get married?" It lacked preparation, any level of romance and the general idea that David was the man of the relationship. Our engagement story was one of the top three unromantic ones I'd ever heard, only topped by a certain aunt and uncle's story and my parents' story. Early on in the marriage, I asked David if he would be interested in proposing to me for our sealing, to which he happily agreed.

Knowing my Snickerdoodle, I had to set terms. "It has to be done before Nickolas is born, so you have until March 1st to have a ring on my finger." We chose to do this in September of 2013. By the time February of 2014 came around, I started getting naggy. "Are you ever going to propose?" "My ring is RIGHT THERE!" I would tell him, in the subtlest of ways. 

Last night, February 28th, he finally proposed. 

We hit our favorite spot in Rexburg to play Zeeke's favorite game - Frisbee. I was so freezing cold that my teeth were chattering and I had to use David as my own personal windbreaker. Finally I said I had enough and we could only do one more throw. David nodded and nervously started playing with something in his inner pocket. 

Zeeke came back with his Frisbee and David gave the command "all done", to which the dog promptly dropped his toy and jumped on us enthusiastically, enticing us for more play. David said, "Zeekey, is there something you want to ask the Mommy?" (We have our dog taught that David's the Daddy and I'm the Mommy.) Confused, I looked at his collar to see a new tag. On it, it said, "Will you marry "The Daddy"?

Either my man is a romantic stud or my pregnancy hormones are terribly sharp, but I started crying immediately and started to fling his arms around him, failing to notice he was already on one knee. 

"Honey, will you spend Eternity with me? YAY! Did I make you cry???" Were the exact words he said as I hugged him tight. Since it was still freezing cold we shuffled back into the car and loaded the dog up.

"You still never said yes," David pointed out as we drove away.