Progress

Salt Lick is a very tiny person (maybe five feet tall and less
than a hundred pounds), so Calliope looks bigger here
than she really is.

Last night my friend Sat Lick came over. She was the one that was with me through castor oil, two rounds of Cervadil, and labor. Oh yeah, I haven't shared my birth story with you yet.

Duh.

I really need to finish it.

So okay, she was the friend that I wasn't sure about having in the delivery room, because I sometimes wonder if we will still be friends in ten years.

But then decided that, you know, she was really committed to being there, and that was enough.

And she was a rock star.

So we haven't seen her since then. After five days straight of nearly constant togetherness. And Calliope is now six weeks old.

I had asked her last week if she would come over and stay the night to do a late night feeding, back when I was desperate (well, more desperate) for sleep. She agreed.

So last night she came early from work, a rare achievement for her, and we had a lovely time catching up, and even took Calliope for a walk to the health food store (my first and last time wearing the Baby Bjorn... luckily it was a hand me down... a really old one, without any back support). And then about 8 pm I started to yawn. And when my friend asked if I wanted to go to bed, I realized I did.

Of course, Calliope was resisting sleep in her swing, so it took a while... I didn't want to go to bed until she was down. But I finally gave up and went to bed anyway.

(As a side note: have I mentioned that Calliope has become a BRILLIANT sleeper??? As long as I am organized about getting her to bed once she yawns and fusses... she sleeps two hours fairly reliably, after one hour awake. It may even be getting to be a longer time between feedings. I don't trust it yet, and wake her after three and a half. But would be thrilled if we got to four hour intervals... or longer at night.)

Well, my little Super Baby finally went to sleep and didn't wake up again to eat until four hours after the previous one, then went back to sleep... for five and a half hours!

Could this be the light at the end of the tunnel???

In any case, my friend brought her to me shortly before 6 am. At that point I had been asleep more than nine hours! Of course, I had woken up multiple times to look at the clock and notice my engorged breasts and wonder how things were going... with gratitude in my heart.

After the 6 am feeding, Calliope went to sleep in bed with me (thus reassuring my worried self that she was still capable of sleeping on a horizontal, non-moving surface, and not just the swing) and slept another three and a half hours! I slept three of them, then got up to have a little time with my friend.

So not counting that one feeding, and the little wake-ups here and there, I slept twelve hours!!!

Beautiful!

In other news, I have "caught" a number of poops and pees in the Baby.Bjorn.Little.Potty.

I am, frankly, shocked by these successes, because I did not feel particularly aware of her elimination before.

But now I know that when she pulls off the boob and mouths and bobs at it without latching... she needs to go. And other times she pulls off for no reason, she either needs to "go potty" or else be burped. And the potty position works pretty well with burps.

I have the potty sitting on a towel on the ottoman of my glider, so it's comfortable to move her from my lap to there quite easily.

And it's funny, because sometimes she fusses when I move her, but as soon as she's on the potty (designed for infants and STILL her bum is too skinny to land on the seat yet... it hovers over the whole in the middle) in "that position" (the universal sitting-on-the-pot position) she quiets down and looks intent. Even when she doesn't go.

The only thing I don't love about it is that I might put her on the pot three times during one ten minute feeding.

So our feedings feel a bit choppy right now.

I'm hoping that as we both get more used to this, she might consolidate to one elimination per feeding.

The cool thing, though, is that while she might "go" three times during one feeding... she has also, at least once, gone two-three hours after that, until the next feeding to "go" again. It's pretty wild to realize your newborn has stayed dry that long!

Of course, that makes me feel like I should be EC'ing her all the time, including at night. And that sounds like a lot of work with having to undo and redo her swaddle. So I'm not sure what I want to do about that. But I hate to teach her that I will offer the potty, and then not offer it all the time.