Sorry for my brief hiatus from this space. As you may already know or might have guessed, life with a newborn is no joke. While we're actually getting along quite well as a new family of five, it's still hard. Zoë sleeps well once she finally settles into a good sleep but only if I stay with her. And while I certainly don't mind/desperately need the naps, that also means that I don't get any time away from her. And helping her settle into that good sleep is not an exercise for the faint of heart, even if I lie down with her. Which means that my moments away from children, when I can do as I will, are measured in minutes—if I'm lucky enough to get them at all.
In those minutes I attempt to cram in everything: shower, eat, pay bills, pump breastmilk, respond to emails/texts/various well-wishes, write a micro-journal (actually, I don't even try anymore), do back exercises to relieve the pain, and write this blog. As you can guess, this means that after eating and showering, I have time to do possibly one thing, but more likely, absolutely nothing at all. I'm not pumping as much as I'd hoped, I'm pretty much never stretching my back, forget about maintaining any communication with anyone via any medium, and I'm not able to blog at all.
The funny thing is that I've come to this baby with more calm and confidence than I brought to the other two—especially vis-a-vis sleep. I'd learned at least something from our sleep experiences with the other two and felt more confident in giving her more time and space to learn to sleep on her own, or so I'd thought. Ha! Despite my trust in her ability to learn to sleep, and my ability to foster that learning, so far it's just not happening. Rather, almost every minute of my waking day is somehow involved in her sleep, except in the moments when she's awake and happily playing on a blanket on the floor.
I don't want it to sound like things are terrible here! When she's awake she's usually happy, she's starting to smile a ton, and she's getting soooo big! The boys continue to be sweet with her and we enjoy being a big(ger), noisy, messy family. I just want you to know why I haven't been posting, and that I miss doing so. I'm eager to get this settled and into a calmer rhythm so that I can have some time to keep writing and thinking.
Anyone have any newborn sleep tips? She's almost seven weeks, so this isn't totally unusual, but it's still frustrating and we could use some help!
Photos by me and James.
For more on the early postpartum days, read this. And for something completely unrelated, do you write in books?
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