So, yes, I have been slacking. But wait, here are my excuses!! With work as crazy as it’s been, and with two writing classes, I really haven’t found a lot of free time to keep up. It’s my bad. At least school is almost done! I take full responsibility. It’s just really hard to find the motivation to keep up with a personal project when so much other time is dedicated to writing projects I paid money (tuition) for.
So first up, let’s talk about last week. It was a great, but busy week for baby related things! We started our Childbirth prep class. It seems like it will be a good class for the next few weeks. Nothing really major so far there though, just some good pointers about what to expect. Most we’ve heard about or read about, but there was enough other information to make it worthwhile also. I look forward to attending this week.
On Saturday, we attended a Newborn/infant sleep class. This class was highly informative. It mainly dealt with three stages for infants in sleeping related issues. First was 0-3 months. Basically, it came down to anything goes. Whatever it takes to get the child to sleep, whether that be constantly holding them, driving them around, white noise, etc etc etc. The instructor let us know that there are no bad habits at this point, and nothing that will really need to be corrected in terms of any habits that arise. The baby for this first period really has no way to self sooth, so it’s all acceptable (as long as it’s safe!) The second stage was 3-6 months, and they talked about starting to create good habits around the child sleeping ; Schedules, the use of some of the techniques in “The Happiest Baby on the Block” (swaddling, shushing, etc). The most interesting thing I think this covered is that baby sleep patterns are completely different than adults. Instead of going into a deep sleep first, and then cycling into a lighter sleep, babies run opposite. They go light, then deep. They also taught us how to spot the “Golden Moments” of sleepiness and when to put a child down to sleep. There are signs that happen before the yawning starts, and sometimes by then it will be too late to get them down for good quality restful sleep. The 3rd grouping was from 6 months on, where it was basically stated that if you have reinforced any of the “bad habits”, you need to stop immediately, and in fact may have to do some more heavy duty sleep training to get those habits corrected. I can go into some of it in more detail, but my wife has our notes. The instructor, who was a lactation consultant, RN, and midwife was also very enthusiastic about swaddling (if not leaving the child alone) and things like sleep sacks and woombies. It was a very good class. I feel like it gave us a number of tools to approach the issue, even though it is different for every child. And, knowing at what point we need to stop any “bad” sleeping habits to ensure the child sleeps well later on was most important. It was nice to see that even people with children already were taking the class too.
So this week we go back for Childbirth Prep. Should be interesting again I hope. Even though we’re getting closer and closer, I’m not getting any more nervous. I expect that will change as we get even closer, and definitely when we get to the hospital when my wife goes into labor. It will be down to 10 weeks tomorrow, and I have a feeling that time will fly by. The instructor at Childbirth Prep stated there was a high likelihood that since my wife is a first time mother that she’ll go past her due date. We both have a feeling though that since we were both early, that our child will be early. I think my wife is hoping for it anyway. Not really early, but maybe a week or two. I think she’s kind of over the pregnancy thing. Morning (all the time, past the first trimester) sickness, and now borderline gestational diabetes. Luckily, that’s not too bad (although, don’t tell her that). She has to watch carbs, but it could be worse.
Anyway, I’ll report back next week!
