Apocalyptic Parenting
So. It's officially the apocalypse. School's closed, which means we're stuck at home. And how is this affecting us?
Honestly? It's great.
Remember how I ranted about not having enough time with Lily? How awful it was to have to leave her every morning and be hooked up to a pump all the time so she could eat and not really even know if she was getting enough food?
With one swift kick of a pandemic, none of this is a concern anymore! We're "stuck" at home with all the Lily time we could want! Seriously. Though I'm usually quite sarcastic, there's none of that here. We get to wake up and take her out of her crib every morning, and she's always smiling and happy. I can nurse her and play with her to make sure she gets plenty of tummy time, back time, time in her Bumbo seat and her jumper to practice sitting and walking. We can play with all of her toys to help her pick things up and show interest in different items. We can read to her. Make sure she's getting her naps. And just spend copious amounts of time looking at her beautiful face.
Look, if I had a school age child and was attempting to teach her while also teaching entire classes, that would be one helluva time. I do not envy those people out there doing this. It's challenging enough to work with your own kids on their school work, but then to manage that along with trying to figure out how to mitigate online teaching and impart knowledge to 50-150 other kids...
Trying. Definitely.
But Lily's development luckily doesn't involve Common Core State Standards yet. And for once, I'm grateful that all my classes are with other teachers, which means I'm not the only pair of eyes monitoring what's going on. It all makes all of it a little easier. Jon's online teaching is a little (re:a shit ton) more intense than mine, so I'm doing most of the Lily care, but sometimes he has a free period and we can switch off. Either way, she makes for a good view when heavily involved in work. Anytime you can look up and see her smiling cheeks, it's a good moment.
We love getting to work with her on her development. It's honestly one of, if not the, most interesting parts of parenting. Last night we had a full conversation about how good her fine motor skills appear to be developing, as evidenced by trying to pick up a toy octopus in the bath. Scintillating before bed talk. And a favorite conversation topic among other friends who are parents and our parents is the consistency of her poop and how much that changes.
I shit you not. Pun intended.
Lily has gone from what I refer to now as a "lump baby," or a baby who isn't much more than a lump, who can't even hold his/her own head up, to a girl with a lot of personality. She smiles whenever she sees our faces, or my mom's face for that matter. We can get her to giggle by "nom"ing on her tummy or by doing some other unknown things that might elicit that sweet sound. (One day she laughed just looking at my face. Thanks, kid. Glad my countenance is so hilarious.) She can roll over both ways, though she prefers going back to front. We think she's not a fan of hitting her head when she goes front to back. She likes to play with her gym (some toys that dangle over her when she lays down) and in her jumper. She loves to have a dance party with me or my mom, whether it's to 90s pop or disco. She adores going out for a walk. Fresh air will get her to quiet down if she's starting to fuss at all. She's still not a huge fan of napping, and it can be a struggle to put her down, but we have a few tricks up our sleeves.
One of these is to cuddle her either on the couch or in the big red gliding chair in her room until she passes out. The doctor cautioned us against rocking her to sleep, but. But. Let's get real for a second. When she goes to actual sleep, we put Lily down in her crib, read her three books, and walk out of the room. And within minutes, she's asleep. No fuss. She sleeps for 12-13 hours without waking up for more than turning over. So if she needs a little coaxing to get into a nap? I'm doing it. Sorry, Ms. Doctor. Aside from the fact that Lily needs a few naps and resists them, she'll only be a baby for so long. In years to come, we won't be able to cuddle her in the same way. So screw it. We'll cuddle her to sleep if we need to.
Other ways to induce nap time? Going for a well timed walk or drive. But you still need to be out of the house for 20+ minutes to get it going.
Listen. At least we know the tricks.
And again, since we've been home and are able to work with her and get her onto a schedule, we've been able to get her to nap in her crib most mornings.
Our daily schedule now looks like this:
7:30-8: Wake up time! Lily wakes up and rolls around in her crib for awhile. We wake up around 7:30 but let her entertain herself for awhile. We think there's some good in letting her have this independent time. She might start fussing by 8, but that's not always the case.
8ish: Go into Lily's room and get her out of her crib. We all greet each other with smiles. We draw the blackout curtains and say good morning to the diner (you can see it from her window) and the backyard. We come into the living room where I nurse Lily while Jon makes coffee and breakfast.
8:30-10:30: A whole lot of playing (while working simultaneously). We usually practice sitting first. Both Lily's doctor and the ortopedist showed some concern that she wasn't sitting up on her own last week. However, with a little bit of practice and finding the right toys to stick in front of her face (mostly a bead roller coaster, probably intended for kids a bit older than six months, but hey, if it works), we've gained this ability in a week. Now she can sit up on her own for at least 10 seconds. Pretty amazing what the right kind of practice can do.
When she's tired of sitting, I put her on her tummy. She plays with toys and rolls around. Eventually she ends up on her back and I'll put her gym over her. This tends to keep her occupied enough in a safe enough position for me to check e-mail and respond to students while she babbles and reaches for her toys. And her feet.
10:30: Nap time. Lily goes to her crib with Mr. Bunn, her favorite stuffed bunny. (Yeah, yeah, you're not supposed to let babies sleep with stuffed animals until they're a year old, but this particular toy is designed with breathing holes all over it, and I supervise her, so I have no issues with it.) I generally read her a book or six. I turn on this sheep she has that plays music and lights up on the side of her crib and let her try to sleep. This falling asleep process can take up to 30 minutes, but it does seem to be consistently working at this point.
11:30-12: Wake up grumpy (how one should always wake up from a nap). Wipe the sleep away from her eyes. Eat lunch, which is now solid food! So far, her favorite is hands down butternut squash, followed by carrots and sweet potato. She enjoys apples (we had them with an accidental lot of cinnamon today, and she liked them even more) and bananas, and plums are agreeable. She took three bits of zucchini before she refused that one. Green beans only took one mouthful to decide they were a no go. And we round three ounces of solid food out with a bottle while I pump.
12-12:30: Adults need to eat lunch, too, so Lily plays in her musical jumper while we do that.
12:30-2:30: More playing on the floor, much a repeat of the morning. Sometimes we have one of those dance parties I talked about earlier.
2:30-3:30: Our work day is over, so we can be further away from our computers than a foot. We've been going for a long walk around town. Lily usually finds her afternoon nap in there somewhere.
3:30-4: Tea time. More solids followed by nursing.
4-5: More playing and usually a Facetime with Nan in Wales. She seems to be recognizing her now, too, which is fantastic. We're not sure we'll be able to get over there to visit the family this summer, so at least Lily can learn about them this way.
5-5:45: Afternoon nap. This is usually done with Jon in her glider, but sometimes it's me, or sometimes it's the couch.
5:45-6: Start to get ready for bed. Put on pajamas.
6-7: Dinner time. Easily Lily's favorite meal. Peanut butter and oatmeal cereal followed by nursing.
7: Bed time!
Somewhere in there, I swear, we're working. And every 2-3 days, she takes a bath. She loves those, too, loves splashing around and having her hair washed.
She is pure joy. I encourage you all to look for the silver linings in this ridiculous world situation. I promise, they're there.
Jon and I keep saying we don't know how to be parents. Lily is such a good baby she makes this too easy!
She'd better keep this up. 😉
Honestly? It's great.
Remember how I ranted about not having enough time with Lily? How awful it was to have to leave her every morning and be hooked up to a pump all the time so she could eat and not really even know if she was getting enough food?
With one swift kick of a pandemic, none of this is a concern anymore! We're "stuck" at home with all the Lily time we could want! Seriously. Though I'm usually quite sarcastic, there's none of that here. We get to wake up and take her out of her crib every morning, and she's always smiling and happy. I can nurse her and play with her to make sure she gets plenty of tummy time, back time, time in her Bumbo seat and her jumper to practice sitting and walking. We can play with all of her toys to help her pick things up and show interest in different items. We can read to her. Make sure she's getting her naps. And just spend copious amounts of time looking at her beautiful face.
Look, if I had a school age child and was attempting to teach her while also teaching entire classes, that would be one helluva time. I do not envy those people out there doing this. It's challenging enough to work with your own kids on their school work, but then to manage that along with trying to figure out how to mitigate online teaching and impart knowledge to 50-150 other kids...
Trying. Definitely.
But Lily's development luckily doesn't involve Common Core State Standards yet. And for once, I'm grateful that all my classes are with other teachers, which means I'm not the only pair of eyes monitoring what's going on. It all makes all of it a little easier. Jon's online teaching is a little (re:a shit ton) more intense than mine, so I'm doing most of the Lily care, but sometimes he has a free period and we can switch off. Either way, she makes for a good view when heavily involved in work. Anytime you can look up and see her smiling cheeks, it's a good moment.
We love getting to work with her on her development. It's honestly one of, if not the, most interesting parts of parenting. Last night we had a full conversation about how good her fine motor skills appear to be developing, as evidenced by trying to pick up a toy octopus in the bath. Scintillating before bed talk. And a favorite conversation topic among other friends who are parents and our parents is the consistency of her poop and how much that changes.
I shit you not. Pun intended.
Lily has gone from what I refer to now as a "lump baby," or a baby who isn't much more than a lump, who can't even hold his/her own head up, to a girl with a lot of personality. She smiles whenever she sees our faces, or my mom's face for that matter. We can get her to giggle by "nom"ing on her tummy or by doing some other unknown things that might elicit that sweet sound. (One day she laughed just looking at my face. Thanks, kid. Glad my countenance is so hilarious.) She can roll over both ways, though she prefers going back to front. We think she's not a fan of hitting her head when she goes front to back. She likes to play with her gym (some toys that dangle over her when she lays down) and in her jumper. She loves to have a dance party with me or my mom, whether it's to 90s pop or disco. She adores going out for a walk. Fresh air will get her to quiet down if she's starting to fuss at all. She's still not a huge fan of napping, and it can be a struggle to put her down, but we have a few tricks up our sleeves.
One of these is to cuddle her either on the couch or in the big red gliding chair in her room until she passes out. The doctor cautioned us against rocking her to sleep, but. But. Let's get real for a second. When she goes to actual sleep, we put Lily down in her crib, read her three books, and walk out of the room. And within minutes, she's asleep. No fuss. She sleeps for 12-13 hours without waking up for more than turning over. So if she needs a little coaxing to get into a nap? I'm doing it. Sorry, Ms. Doctor. Aside from the fact that Lily needs a few naps and resists them, she'll only be a baby for so long. In years to come, we won't be able to cuddle her in the same way. So screw it. We'll cuddle her to sleep if we need to.
Other ways to induce nap time? Going for a well timed walk or drive. But you still need to be out of the house for 20+ minutes to get it going.
Listen. At least we know the tricks.
And again, since we've been home and are able to work with her and get her onto a schedule, we've been able to get her to nap in her crib most mornings.
Our daily schedule now looks like this:
7:30-8: Wake up time! Lily wakes up and rolls around in her crib for awhile. We wake up around 7:30 but let her entertain herself for awhile. We think there's some good in letting her have this independent time. She might start fussing by 8, but that's not always the case.
8ish: Go into Lily's room and get her out of her crib. We all greet each other with smiles. We draw the blackout curtains and say good morning to the diner (you can see it from her window) and the backyard. We come into the living room where I nurse Lily while Jon makes coffee and breakfast.
8:30-10:30: A whole lot of playing (while working simultaneously). We usually practice sitting first. Both Lily's doctor and the ortopedist showed some concern that she wasn't sitting up on her own last week. However, with a little bit of practice and finding the right toys to stick in front of her face (mostly a bead roller coaster, probably intended for kids a bit older than six months, but hey, if it works), we've gained this ability in a week. Now she can sit up on her own for at least 10 seconds. Pretty amazing what the right kind of practice can do.
When she's tired of sitting, I put her on her tummy. She plays with toys and rolls around. Eventually she ends up on her back and I'll put her gym over her. This tends to keep her occupied enough in a safe enough position for me to check e-mail and respond to students while she babbles and reaches for her toys. And her feet.
10:30: Nap time. Lily goes to her crib with Mr. Bunn, her favorite stuffed bunny. (Yeah, yeah, you're not supposed to let babies sleep with stuffed animals until they're a year old, but this particular toy is designed with breathing holes all over it, and I supervise her, so I have no issues with it.) I generally read her a book or six. I turn on this sheep she has that plays music and lights up on the side of her crib and let her try to sleep. This falling asleep process can take up to 30 minutes, but it does seem to be consistently working at this point.
11:30-12: Wake up grumpy (how one should always wake up from a nap). Wipe the sleep away from her eyes. Eat lunch, which is now solid food! So far, her favorite is hands down butternut squash, followed by carrots and sweet potato. She enjoys apples (we had them with an accidental lot of cinnamon today, and she liked them even more) and bananas, and plums are agreeable. She took three bits of zucchini before she refused that one. Green beans only took one mouthful to decide they were a no go. And we round three ounces of solid food out with a bottle while I pump.
12-12:30: Adults need to eat lunch, too, so Lily plays in her musical jumper while we do that.
12:30-2:30: More playing on the floor, much a repeat of the morning. Sometimes we have one of those dance parties I talked about earlier.
2:30-3:30: Our work day is over, so we can be further away from our computers than a foot. We've been going for a long walk around town. Lily usually finds her afternoon nap in there somewhere.
3:30-4: Tea time. More solids followed by nursing.
4-5: More playing and usually a Facetime with Nan in Wales. She seems to be recognizing her now, too, which is fantastic. We're not sure we'll be able to get over there to visit the family this summer, so at least Lily can learn about them this way.
5-5:45: Afternoon nap. This is usually done with Jon in her glider, but sometimes it's me, or sometimes it's the couch.
5:45-6: Start to get ready for bed. Put on pajamas.
6-7: Dinner time. Easily Lily's favorite meal. Peanut butter and oatmeal cereal followed by nursing.
7: Bed time!
Somewhere in there, I swear, we're working. And every 2-3 days, she takes a bath. She loves those, too, loves splashing around and having her hair washed.
She is pure joy. I encourage you all to look for the silver linings in this ridiculous world situation. I promise, they're there.
Jon and I keep saying we don't know how to be parents. Lily is such a good baby she makes this too easy!
She'd better keep this up. 😉
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