Sleep Training

Parents are split over the issue of training their infants to sleep. Some are gungho about letting the child cry it out. Others are all about attending to their every cry and making sure the infant is asleep before laying them down in their cribs.

Before I had a child I was like, "Of course let her cry it out!" Ch. And then Abby was born. How could I, her mother, her protector, let her cry for more than five minutes?? I understand that line of reasoning. For the past four months, we've been doing a combination approach where we would put her down drowsy, sometimes with a pacifier, sometimes swaddled in a miracle blanket, sometimes dead asleep, sometimes this and sometimes that. Even if she was able to go through the night without food, she still would wake up a couple of times due to gas, noise, or whatever. Combine that with the fact that I don't actually go to bed until around 2am (I'm a night owl), and the result is that I haven't really slept for more than five hours at one time for the past four months. But I'm not complaining. I'm just telling it like it is. I usually make up for the sleep debt during the day by taking multiple naps.

Anyways, at Abby's 4 month appointment, the doctor declared that Abby was a very healthy baby. She's got rolls of fat, she's reached plenty of milestones (like rolling over), and she makes all kinds of new noises (including a shriek that resembles what one would imagine a velociraptor sounded like). Sooooo, Danny and I decided that Abby shall now cry herself to sleep. That sounds so harsh to me when I say it, but there's no reason why she shouldn't be able to soothe herself now.

Problem: But what if she rolls over and gets her arm stuck and can't breathe?
Solution: We put these wedges next to her body on both sides so that she can't roll over. Bought them at Target. I figure when she has mastered rolling over on both sides she won't need them anymore. Plus, it is good to put your infant to sleep on her back (I put her on her tummy for naps only now).

Problem: But what if she's going through a growth spurt and crying because she's hungry?
Solution: This is a big question for me because as the sole giver of nutrition for my child, I'm always worrying about if I'm doing an OK job. But let's face the facts. She's pretty huge. The doctor says she's in the 75th percentile for her weight. In addition, people at church have referred to her as "fatso," "chubby," "gargantuan," "sumo wrestler," and the like. You can't deny that she's getting enough to eat. So if she's hungry, I'm sure it's not going to be a big deal. As for growth spurts, someone told me that even if babies go through growth spurts, they can still sleep through the night. They can just eat more frequently during the day.

Problem: What if she's afraid of the dark and she's crying out of fear?
Solution: We thought of getting a nightlight, but haven't quite gotten it yet. Perhaps it's true, but it's not likely.

Problem: What if she doesn't know how to soothe herself?
Solution: Before Abby discovered that she can suck her fingers to soothe herself, I did not believe in letting her "cry it out." It would have just been literally tiring yourself out by crying, and not knowing how to soothe yourself. But now, she knows how to suck her fingers, and when she stops crying or fussing long enough to remember that she knows how to soothe herself, she'll do it and she'll fall asleep. The only way we would've known this is to just try it out one day. We did, and eventually she found her fingers, and she was able to calm down. Although it took her one hour of crying. Of course, we would check on her every five minutes or so to make sure that she was OK.

Problem: What if she needs to burp and can't do it on her own?
Solution: We try to make sure that we burp her before she goes to sleep. And if she's still uncomfortable due to gas, then eventually she'll spit up and it'll be fine. It might a little bit messy, but it's not the end of the world.

So anyways, even if there are solutions to the many problems I worry about, I STILL worry. We started this "cry it out" approach this week, and every time I put her down, my heart breaks. Did I feed her enough? Is it too early to put her down? Does she want to stay up just a little longer? Is she in pain and I just don't know it? Is a bug biting her? Is she bleeding and screaming her head off to warn me? Did I change her diaper? Is the tag on her clothes bothering her? Will her vocal cords be ruined? Am I a BAD mother? Is this really necessary? Can't I just hold her all night? Why can't she just sleep with me? Does she feel abandoned? These are just examples of some of the questions I ask myself.

On the plus side, she seems to sleep better if she's left to soothe herself to sleep. So I know that our little method is helping her, but I am holding my breath every night until she's sound asleep. It takes anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour of crying. Will it get better? Should we try a different approach? Will the madness of questions end?

Hot, Doctor's Appointment, Hair

OK, why is it so freaking hot? The Bay Area is not prepared for such weather. At least in Houston or LA everyone is equipped with a working central air conditioner. Here, it's like, people are sleeping over at other peoples' homes, fixing their AC, or moving into the one room of the house that has AC. The last kind of people are us. Danny and I and Abby have been sleeping in the living room/kitchen area. You can close the door so that the cold air stays in. I feel like we've been quarantined or something.

I went to the doctor's today for Abby's 4 month appointment. I knew she was long, but she's a Whoppin' 27 inches, which puts her in the 100th percentile. My immediate thought was, "Oh no, what if she's that girl in school who's the tallest in her class?" I say oh no because I read somewhere that tallness is socially a good thing for boys in school, but not so much for a girl. Usually tallness is closely associated with developing earlier. If you have a girl in a sixth grade classroom that's already matured, and a boy who's already tall and matured, the boy is more likely to have social success than the girl. So I've read. Anyways, after thinking this initially, I was glad that we have such a healthy little girl. Our pediatrician is a Christian, so we pray after every visit, thanking the Lord for Abby's health.

And then she got her shots. Poor girl, didn't know the needles were coming. She was just waking up from her nice nap. And then Wham! Zap! Pow! I know they're necessary and good, but it's so heartbreaking!!!! But she was good. She only cried a little bit.

So my hair is really nice, .... when I have time to make it look nice!!! Which is never. I have these bangs which are great if you spend time blow-drying it and styling. If not, they're just annoying and in your face all the time. What was I thinking???

I Got Bangs!!!

I get my hair cut once a year. For women, maintaining hair is expensive. Danny goes to a place called Lisa's Perfect Cuts and get his hair cut for 8 dollars. Apparently, several men from our smallgroup go there as well. They all bonded over how cheap it is - there were smiles all around.

So anyways, I went to get my hair cut at Mission 6 and I decided to get bangs. I chose the most non-ahjoomma cut I could imagine. Ever wonder why ahjoommas tend to have short boycut hair? It's because kids grab onto their mommies' hair when they're held! So now I have a long layered cut, complete with bangs. Totally non-ahjooma, but completely accessible for hair-grabbing by Abby. In fact, because it's layered, Abby has multiple access points; if she doesn't grab the top layer, then she still has like three more chances until the length of hair ends. Oh well. Another sacrifice for beauty. Ah. What women will do for the sake of beauty. And it's not like because I got this haircut, I'm automatically beautiful. Achieving the intended look requires about an hour of blow-drying, training new bangs to be independent of the rest of the hair, hair-spraying, and gelling. I don't have that kind of time every day.

The last time I had bangs was when I was four years old.

OK, now I'm boring myself to death. Got to stop.

I Don't Get Poetry

I've been meaning to write about this for awhile. I just don't get poetry. I guess I'm not wired that way, or I'm just hopelessly uncultured. Whenever I come across a poem that is written by someone I know, I'm amazed. It's like, wow, how did they come up with such beautiful sounding language, of which I know not the meaning?

I can relate to Monica on Friends. There was one episode when she was dating this dude who wrote a poem about an empty vase. Monica thought it was great, took it literally, and decided to give her guy an empty vase for a present. But Phoebe comes up and says, "Hello! This poem is about you! You're an empty vase. Pretty to look at, but nothing inside." Something like that. Monica gets mad and confronts him. It turns out that he was referring to all American women. ANYWAYS, I feel like Monica sometimes.

The reason why I was thinking about this recently is because my mom and older brother both have blogs, and they sometimes write poetry on their blogs. My mom especially is a prolific poet. When she was here for the first three weeks of Abby's life, she was constantly getting inspired by Abby and posting poems online like crazy. I read some of them, and I just don't get how you put words together like that. Is anyone with me? It must be partly genetic because my older brother enjoys writing and reading poems as well. What happened to me and Jibin?

I can name a few of my friends who are very poetic and writes poetry all the time. I say great for you and poo for me. I'm not jealous necessarily. I guess it's just a world that I don't get, and I'm fine with not getting it. I just have to accept that the fact that I'm not good at EVERYTHING. haha. In fact, I remember on the AP English exam there was a poem we had to read and then analyze it. That was the hardest thing ever. My friend turned to me after the exam and asked something like, "Wasn't that poem about the garden really hard?" I looked at my friend blankly and said, "What garden? There was a garden?" Whoops. Needless to say, I think I got a 2 or a 3 on that exam.