Tuesday, January 06, 2004

Checkup Babies pack an amazing amount of learning and development into six months, but we don't always register the speed with which this happens. Then comes the trip to the pediatrician. Charts, measurements. Questions. How well does he sit up? Hold things? Cooing a lot? Next month: crawling. Better finish baby-proofing the house. One striking demonstration of growth: his reaction to getting three shots. Last time around it was this bad thing that came out of nowhere. This time, though, he's aware of the key players and their relationship to the pain. Doesn't just cry -- after Y. picks him up, he turns to give the nurse a blistering gaze. Kind of chews her out, in baby pre-talk; a six month old's two cents' worth. "It's me," the nurse says. "I'm the baddie." Then she leaves. But was that a look of recrimination and betrayal he gave me? I was the one holding him down... Not exactly nostalgia, but awareness of time -- already he's a little more kid than infant, before you know it he'll be after the car keys... I think back to the last checkup, two months ago, and the one before that, and then to the days right after Michael's birth. Back then he had an extra appendage -- a blue lamp meant to get his bilirubin levels down; he had infant jaundice in a bad way. He was tiny, with an outsized head; if he smiled it was fleetingly and just as he floated off to sleep. He alternated between two fairly simple states of being: contentment and whatever you call it when a baby wakes in a hungry panic, reliving the initial shock of being removed from a homeostatic environment. As for us, our lives were radically simplified, pared down to essentials: feed the baby, comfort the baby, wash the baby, baby's asleep get some shuteye, now he's screaming and kicking. These activities still structure our daily routine, of course, but they're no longer all we do -- a sense of normalcy returns, the usual preoccupations and stresses. And I'm not saying I'd rather this didn't happen; only that there was a special, transcendental quality to those first weeks. Well, maybe it is nostalgia. 9:29:36 PM    comment []

Tuesday, December 02, 2003

The Meltdown Yesterday our normally sanguine child turned choleric; after an unusually long late-morning nap, Michael woke up howling and seemingly inconsolable. It was touch-and-go the rest of the day. Put him down -- a diaper change, even -- and he'd become enraged, crying so hard I started to really worry. Activities he typically likes were met with a scrunched-up face and more crying. He'd get so upset that even being carried didn't calm him. His mobile irritated him. His reflection in the mirror irritated him. Being read a story, being placed on his tummy, being stood up and "walked" -- all just made things worse. "Touchy" is the word I kept thinking of. As in supersensitive; things seemed to get on his nerves. The cradle swing helped. A stint in his mega-saucer distracted him for awhile, as did watching cars from the living room window. He's pre-teething, but that's not new. I don't think it was the root cause, though it probably exacerbated his misery (one reason he likes the mega-saucer is the presence of gnawable objects). Separation anxiety? Maybe. This has happened before after holiday weekends. Factor in routine disruption and overstimulation, and then the anomalous morning nap. I'm just guessing here. It went on like that into the evening; he got mad at his bath. Today it's the opposite -- he's almost too smiley. I'm still mystified. 3:41:54 PM    comment []

Thursday, November 27, 2003

Out of Sync Yesterday's outing disrupted his routine; he didn't sleep through the night. Today he was a little off-kilter, napping at odd times and waking groggy and cranky. He usually loves his jungle mobile, but today he yelled at it. We're expecting more along these lines in the next several days, what with Thanksgiving and then my sister's baby shower (she's expecting her second child, a girl, in January) over the weekend. On the bright side, he drank more from the bottle. Also, he's figuring out how to use things as leverage while he attempts to roll over. At one point, he almost had it. It's amazing how motivated babies are to progress -- when he feels he's accomplished something, ("standing up" with parental assistance; raising himself, push-up style, while on his tummy), he gets this delighted, "I'm da man" look on his face. His favorite thing now, not having yet mastered the roll-over, is to flap his arms and legs wildly, like he's swimming -- he's not getting anywhere, but he thinks he is. I can relate to that. 12:22:40 AM    comment []

Tuesday, November 25, 2003

Five Months Old My parents both think Michael's issues with the feeding bottle may be partly due to pre-teething. He sometimes seems to be trying to massage his gums with the bottle, as is also the case when he's eating his toys. Another fairly low-stress day. He surprised me by sitting up in his mini-recliner (or "bouncer," I think it's called). He doesn't especially like being placed in this recliner, but it's good for about five minutes if my arms are getting tired. This time, he moved himself from a lying-back position into a sitting forward position, with a great show of exertion, and listing to one side -- reminded me of the Pope. Napped at 11, twenty minutes. He watched a little Teletubbies in his megasaucer.  At 2 bundled him up for a visit to his grandparents, a half hour down the road. He played with some Fisher Price toys that my sisters and I had when we were kids. Pawed at my mom, apparently hoping she was another milk source.  I'd give this day a B+ -- only because my fatigue level's higher than yesterday.  I should go to bed now, though I probably won't. 9:52:37 PM    comment []

Monday, November 24, 2003

Babylog At the risk of driving away even more readers, I've decided to start posting a nightly wrap-up of each day's baby care experience. I'm going to try to keep it as no-frills as possible -- more logbook than journal. Just a short summary of how it went, although if any insights or ruminations happen to sneak in, that'll be ok. Main problem today was, as usual, bottle-feeding -- Michael doesn't drink enough during the day, saving up (or so it seems) for the grand return of Mama. He napped twice on my watch: 20 mins around 11 am, and then a good long hour-and-a-half around 2:30 pm. It's now 7; he's been breast-fed and is deep into nap #3. A little late, since he'll wake up only to be given his bath about an hour later and tucked into bed. But it's giving us some evening wind-down time (as you can see, since I'm writing in this blog). Especially considering it's a Monday, it was pretty smooth sailing today. He was in a good mood almost the whole nine innings, playful and smiling except right before his naps. I don't expect the rest of the week to go even remotely this well, but it was a nice way to start things off. 7:24:31 PM    comment []

Saturday, November 22, 2003

Three Weeks ...of really being parents; Mom-in-law left on Oct. 31st. Besides doing a lot of child care, she also cooked. Yeah, I know, lucky us. Parenthood with a Chinese grandmother in the house is definitely tennis without the net. Well, now it's just us. We kinda expected a nightmare of disorganization, stress-turning-to-panic, meltdowns and quarrels, leading to a desperate search for daycare. But maybe because our apprehension level was so high, it hasn't actually been that bad. So far. I work 6-10 am, from home, and as many hours as I can manage after Michael's bedtime, making up the rest on weekends. Y. does eight regular hours during the day plus has a commute. Peak stress time for both of us is around 7 pm; by then, we're both nearing burn-out, but still need to make dinner while also taking care of the baby. After around 8:30, we're home free. Michael is learning to roll onto his tummy -- he’s figured out the general concept, but is missing a couple key steps: the arm tuck, the crucial, point-of-gravity-altering leg shift. He’ll be five months old on Nov. 25th. Likes: being held, especially at the window where he can watch the cars. His Tinylove toy -- a kind of mutant chicken with one very long spotted leg and two chewable wings. Songs. "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", with extra verses by Adrian Zoot. "If You're Happy And You Know It." And, of course, "Old McDonald" -- this one I feel especially good about. I used to sing Old McDonald to my niece when she was a baby, and now I get to sing it to my own kid. Dislikes: his feeding bottle, the baby carriage. Naps. Saturday night; he’s had his bath, and is now sleeping -- probably for the rest of the night, though sometimes he’ll wake at 4 am and tug at Y.’s face, or practice his rolling. The week’s over. I've got a couple hours of free time – unbelievable. Just at this moment, it almost feels easy. 11:17:16 PM    comment []

Friday, October 17, 2003

Breastfeed If You're Bavarian Two new studies have found no evidence that breastfeeding helps prevent obesity, contradicting a slew of earlier studies which concluded the opposite. The first of the latest studies examined 2,250 Brazilian 18-year-olds as they prepared to enter military service, and discovered no correlation between their current body mass and how they were fed as infants. The lead researcher, Dr. Cesar G. Victora, speculated that his team's results may have differed from earlier ones because of the respective time periods studied: ...we went for a longer period of time, until the age of 18. The children in the other studies were young adolescents, and maybe the potential benefits disappear with age. And he left the door open for arguments that Brazil-specific or developing-country-specific factors may have played a role. However, the British researchers who conducted the second study also found no correlation, and noted that both breastfeeding and obesity have been on the rise in the US and Britain during the last decade. Earlier research seemed to back up the theory that breastfeeding trains infants to stop eating when full (because of a "satiety element" in breastmilk). For instance, a 1999 study of schoolchildren in Bavaria found a significant difference between bottle-fed and breast-fed kids. In 2001, a study led by a Harvard Medical School team examined 15,000 children and came to similar conclusions. Yet another recent study, this time by Scottish researchers in Glasgow, was even more gargantuan in scope; it examined some 32,000 kids, but only until age three. (However, they are still being tracked, so it will be interesting to see what the Glaswegians come up with in another decade). It also found a link. Speaking as a non-expert, I don't get the sense that the alleged obesity-fighting power of breastfeeding is THE major issue driving parental choice in this area. But it is often mentioned by doctors as an added perk. 8:18:07 PM    comment []

Tuesday, October 07, 2003

Request Dear infant care gurus. Please. Do us a favor. Would your profession kindly reach a consensus on even one major issue of concern to new parents??? We love ya, but you're driving us nuts. Back when I was a rugrat, you were advocating formula over breastfeeding -- the argument, I'm told, was that formula allows for a "consistent, reliable" supply. You've rethought that one. Meanwhile, thirty-some years ago you guys (and, for reasons unclear, most of you continue to be guys) were also pushing circumcision. Now, I'm not unhappy with the, er, sculptured look of my circumcised penis, but it would have been cool if your advice to my parents had actually been based on some solid medical rationale. Which, as many of you now acknowledge, it wasn't. Up until 1995, you were telling moms and dads that babies should sleep on their tummies -- something to do with drool. Then you concluded that the risk of drool death was slim compared to the risk of crib death (SIDS), which is also slim, but still worrisome.  So, as you recommend, our three-month-old son goes to sleep facing those cute sticky-stars on the ceiling. You know where I'm going with this. Co-sleeping. A common practice in most parts of the world outside the West. Dr. William Sears, author of the popular Baby Book, this generation's Dr. Spock, is for it. Says it encourages breastfeeding and builds the mother-child bond; he also believes it reduces the risk of SIDS, because mom acts as a kind of "pacemaker" during the vulnerable zone (1 to 6 months) when a baby's sleep is deepening, but his/her cardiopulminary mechanism hasn't matured. Both members of the sleep-sharing pair develop synchronous sleep stages, perhaps not perfectly in step but close enough to be mutually aware of the other's presence and mutually affecting the other's physiology, but without disturbing each other's sleep. Because of this mutual sensitivity; the presence of the mother raises baby's threshold of arousability; a protective benefit should a stop-breathing episode occur. Makes sense to me. But what about this brand-new study, all over the media yesterday, which concludes that co-sleeping is dangerous? Dr. James Kemp has no doubts about the issue: he thinks sharing a bed is a "terrible idea" and is calling for an awareness campaign to alert the public. He also frames his argument in terms of solid science versus wishful thinking and touchy-feely imprecision. If he's right, then all us Baby Book-users have been gravely misled, and Dr. Sears is guilty of promoting a dangerous practice. Three things occurred to me yesterday while I was looking through the various articles. One is that the headlines were alarmist, almost sadistic. The likely result is that many parents, rather than becoming more informed, suffered panic attacks. "Babies in Bed with Adults Are in Peril" (Globe and Mail). "Deadly Decision: Where Should Baby Sleep?" (Science Daily). Dr. Koop.com tried to lighten the mood with a pun: "Let Sleeping Babies Lie in Their Cribs." Others were more prescriptive: "Study: Adult Bed No Place for Baby." Secondly, most of the articles offered little or no rebuttal, even though this has been an area of controversy for years. As an interested party, I'm open to these new conclusions, but I want to hear from the other side, and that took some digging around. I work in (web) journalism; I thought it was standard practice to include contrasting viewpoints. Thirdly, there seem to be a number of distinct issues here, but they're being blurred, treated as parts of the same bad animal. SIDS, whatever it is (no one seems to know -- it's become this free-floating bogeyman), isn't the same thing as death by suffocation or fall. So the debate, at some level, may be about apples and oranges -- neither side is incorrect, but they're answering different questions. Also, whether bed-sharing is risky or not could depend partly on the parents -- in brief, not a good idea to drink and co-sleep. So, I don't know. Both the pro-co-sleepers and their adversaries aren't above playing dirty. Dr. Sears capitalizes on fears of SIDS -- a rare occurrence -- to promote his theory, which caters to my generation's romantic view of traditional practices (he's also big on "baby-wearing"). Dr. Kemp, meanwhile, claims statistical objectivity, but ignores or minimizes issues which might complicate his findings.  Luckily, there's a compromise: "baby co-sleeper" units which you anchor to the side of the bed, forming a kind of extension -- easy for mom to reach over when baby needs milk, but also providing a distinct space, away from adult blankets and pillows. Only problem is -- babies aren't fooled. They know the difference. Meanwhile, docs, can you get together and work this out? Please? At some baby-guru conference maybe?  11:53:41 AM    comment []

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