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2006-07-24 - 11.55pm previous entry next entry
Nearly 6 weeks... sooo hard :(
Barely time to BREATHE, but had to write a quick entry. Otherwise I'll have no time and never get to update at all! Jemma, I did get your sweet pressie, thank you so much! Debs, I got your email and the lovely package, thank you! I wanted to email you both but I just honestly haven't had a moment. I have only been online this week to check on Julie - so excited about little Ava's arrival!!! Congratulations Julie! :) But I'm sorry that I haven't emailed you guys to say thank you. Debs, replying to your email is going to take a lot of thought and some time, and I can't can't can't do it right now, I'm sorry. I just can't do anything with my head at the moment. I can't do ANYTHING at the moment. But I do mean to, eventually.
Well it's been a while since I updated, though I updated my pregnancy diary more recently. Matthew is nearly 6 weeks old and I know there are going to be good days and bad days, good weeks and bad weeks, but I am REALLY struggling lately (again). I soooooooo desperately just need to spill everything here in huge detail, but I can't :( I haven't got time. It's already late in the evening and I still need to shower (seriously unhygienic of late) as Cameron's mum and his two little brothers are coming round to visit tomorrow afternoon. I need to get ready for bed and get ready everything I'll need for the night with Matthew. Before that I need to eat. I can't seem to eat at the moment. Four or five days ago I woke with a HORRIBLE stomach ache, like I had been kicked right up where my stomach is. I felt really nauseous too. I had no vomiting or diarrhoea, and I could still eat, but the nausea was really bad that day, and the stomach pain made it hard to bend over to change the boys and stuff. I hadn't been out anywhere and everyone is healthy so it's not a bug. I can't think of a food it could be either. It took 2 days for the nausea to wear off but the stomach ache is still lingering. It comes and goes now but it's less severe in general. My appetite is affected because foods just seem too rich for my tummy, like ANY foods other than bread and, well, bread. I am beginning to wonder if it's stress-related? I don't think I've ever felt quite this heavily stressed before, and so maybe that's why?
My diet is so crap. I eat toast for breakfast but no milk of course, and then lunch is hastily grabbed, sometimes not until 4pm if I simply haven't been given a second to myself till then. It's pretty much bread and cheese, as for some reason we are completely incapable of stocking the house with easy foods for me. It bugs me. But when we go shopping we can't think of anything to buy. Dinner is normal but we keep running late - our evenings have been STARTING at 9.30pm as Matthew has been crying a lot till then recently. Then my tummy has restricted what I can eat for evening meals, to really bland stuff. Tonight I attempted to eat lasagne and had to stop after the third mouthful, feeling sick and tummyachy. Now it's 10.45pm and I'm nibbling a bowl of granola cereal with raisins - no milk, of course. I have had zero fruit or veg today. I seem to be RAGINGLY thirsty all the time and still have a "furry" mouth after a glass of water, but I can't get enough time to drink enough anyway. I know how important it is to get a good diet with all the breastfeeding I'm doing (never mind for my own strength to recover properly from pregnancy and birth, and to fuel me for the challenging days and nights), but I just can't do it. I am too demanded of ALL the time and I can't even manage to force the time to eat. Sometimes those boys have to cry and cry while I drink water or shovel something down when I get desperate enough, and sometimes (rarely) I do get a nice little window for eating a quick meal, but mostly I just have to wait or do without.
I'm just finding things very difficult right now (again). Matthew is so hard to settle and cries a lot. I am SO exhausted it's just not funny. I am CRAZY to be on the computer right now instead of grabbing every spare second to sleep, but I just feel desperate to get all this "out there" and maybe get some advice or love or prayers or something. Most of the day, the room just SWINGS about, I am so so so tired and physically exhausted. Today when I had a millisecond to focus on just Arthur because Matthew was down to sleep at last, I felt too tired to make my face smile. It felt really odd and detached to sit with him while he played, respond to him when he talked to me, but just not have any expressions on my face or smiles for him or anything. The flesh on my face just felt too heavy and the muscles too tired to move.
Arthur is being odd, well, maybe just normal given his age and stuff? He is testing us more than ever before and finds it funny to kick us and scrunch us hard with his fingers when we're changing his nappy, etc. He continues doing things with obvious intent when we ask him not to, and any discipline we try doesn't appear to be having any effect. He screeches and shouts ALL the time and it scares Matthew (who appears to be emerging as an anxious little person more and more all the time) and drives me CRAZY like fingernails on a blackboard. If I ask him not to do it in any variety of ways that I can think of, he does it more and you can see he's enjoying the fact that he's defying me. To protect Matthew a bit, I end up taking him upstairs and lately Arthur is spending more and more time on his own downstairs without me while I do something or other with Matthew. I keep hurting Arthur when I'm angry with him and I can't seem to control myself. I am TRYING not to let myself get that way, but something just goes buzz in my head and I lose control and push him or scrunch his hand or something NASTY and unforgiveable and shameful :( If he is reaching to smack me again after I told him NO and that it hurts Mummy, and I'm breastfeeding Matthew so I can't leap up and do some active discipline that very instant, the buzz in my head happens as he reaches to smack me and I just catch his hand and crush it in mine. Today that happened again where Matthew looked likely to get caught by his hand (not purposely on Arthur's part though - he was aiming for me I think), and I caught myself in time to not crush his hand. I made my mind shout NO in my head and that stopped me squishing his hand, but while I was working on that in my head, I pushed him away from me HARD and he fell down. I didn't even seem to be the one doing it, even though obviously I was. He just pushes me right to the edge of my sanity and then beyond it, and I can't seem to get a hold of myself and behave like a nice adult person. I am so ashamed. But at the same time I keep thinking, why won't Arthur give me a break when I am this close to the edge? I know it's just the way little ones tend to be, and I should STILL be the one to take a deep breath and go easy on him, but it's so incredibly hard right now.
It just doesn't appear to be possible at ALL for one person to adequately meet the needs of two children under two. I'm serious. I have really been thinking about it carefully. Anyone I know who is coping okay with two small children seems to have at least a few hours in the week with only their youngest child, as the older one is in nursery, or even just a few hours a week in a playgroup or something. Is it even possible at ALL to manage to cope with meeting the needs of both children and yourself when both children are in the house with you, under your own care (with no other help), Monday to Friday, with no time out for the older child? Has ANYONE done this and survived?! I don't want Arthur to go to a nursery or playgroup without me just yet so that isn't an option for now. But is it possible at all for me to meet his needs as well as Matthew's and a few of my own without falling apart in the process?
If I somehow go all out and miraculously meet each of their needs vaguely adequately in a day, then I am just crying by the end of it (and halfway through it too) because of how completely depleted my OWN needs are. I find that I don't get to wee, drink much or eat at all if I manage to give the boys nearly-ish enough of me. I KNOW I can't meet 100% of their needs any more, and I have to accept that, but I still have to meet each of their needs ADEQUATELY each day, and it seems that I can't even do that for one of them without the other one actually being neglected in the process. Or me. It feels hopeless a lot of the time, although a day that goes smoothly will have me feeling happy and normal and like it's all going to be okay and I can do it. In the last week I have phoned Neil at work again in tears a couple of times. One of the times he could barely hear me for ME crying, and both boys screaming in the background, and I said I was afraid I would hurt one of them and he came home from work again. I feel ashamed to keep bothering him at work and I don't want him to have extra stress on his plate, or to have issues with work if he's coming home to rescue his children from his wife, but I just reach a point where I don't know what else to do or who else to turn to. I have nobody else than Neil.
I'm scared of the possibility of postnatal depression, because of my history of depression and because I just don't want that label (or the illness, more importantly!). I also don't want to go on any anti-depressants EVER again. I just don't. I know there's nothing wrong with doing so, and there's no stigma, etc, but I just don't want to. I have already been on anti-depressants and I don't want to do it again. I just want it to be a bad patch and it will all get better in a few weeks (am I being naiive?) and I'll remember it fondly in the future even! I phoned the church office and put all this on the prayer chain, so that was a weight off, and at least I know that some people at church will know what's going on for me at the moment and that I'm struggling, instead of probably thinking how rosy and sweet it must be for us to have our sweet 6-week-old baby and our lovely 20-month-old son and be settling into family life nicely.
At the weekend, any time Neil was holding Matthew and playing with Arthur, or taking them both out, or if Matthew was sleeping or something, I started to read "Secrets of The Baby Whisperer" which has been on my bookshelf since before I had Arthur. Neil and I decided we needed to have an idea of a good "structure to the day" to introduce for Matthew, so that he would have some obvious points to the day, a clear start and finish, and things like that. We are such highly disorganised people that we actually need to be told how to make a day look organised for our children, haha! We figured if we could show him a bit of routine to his day, it might make him feel more secure knowing what was to come, and it would be easier if he knew it from birth than if we tried to implement it months down the line in desperation or something (like with Arthur!).
I had briefly picked up that book when Arthur was tiny, but got all offended about the anti-co-sleepingness and put it away again quickly. This time I am reading it with a more open mind, and I have learned a lot already about personality types in babies and the kind of things that soothe and settle them. There is a lot about routine in there, but to my relief, nothing about "schedules" for babies. After reading some of the book, we decided to start Matthew on the E.A.S.Y. plan in the book (Eat, Activity, Sleep, and time for You while the baby sleeps, although for me this is more EAST than EASY - Eat, Activity, Sleep, and time for my Toddler rather than me!). It's a loose and flexible 2.5 to 3 hour-ish cycle that gets the little one to expect what comes next and thus to be more settled. Also there's a big emphasis on learning your baby's body language and cries. I NEVER knew Arthur's different cries. I remember the Health Visitor saying one time, "I expect you know what his different cries mean by now" and I felt utterly shocked and stumped by that, because I had no clue that he even HAD different cries! I couldn't tell what he meant at all, he just CRIED. I felt awful that I didn't know when I "should" have by then. I never did know either. I answered every cry with the breast, which I was happy to do, and I am this time too, except that the book tells me that sometimes he isn't going to be crying for milk. I want to learn what he's telling me, because if he's asking me to change him or telling me he's too hot, I don't want to be putting him on the breast as it doesn't answer his pleas at all! I want to be able to tell what he's saying so I can respond the right way every time. That will help him be more settled too. Especially the times he tells me he's tired - then I can put him to bed before he gets overtired or overstimulated and has a huge meltdown (which seems to happen constantly these days).
So yesterday we started Matthew on the E.A.S.Y. plan. After he got up, I fed him, and then his activity was cooing and smiling and getting his nappy changed and so on, but only for about 20 or 30 minutes. I am starting to observe him really carefully to try and learn his body language and what he means by it. He started to turn his head away from faces, and get fussy. I took him right up to his cot and lay him down on his tummy, and whomped on his bum for a little while. He INSTANTLY closed his eyes and went to sleep! He slept an hour, and then I fed him and he looked at bright toys for a while and went on the playmat while Arthur was in the highchair. When he seemed stressed by that, I tried something else and he just cried, so I wondered if he might be tired again already. I took him up to his cot, lay him on his tummy and patted his bottom, and once again - INSTANT sleep! He slept 3 and a half hours!!!! I know that's too long for a daytime sleep but oh well. He went out in the afternoon after his feed to the supermarket with Neil and Arthur, and when they got back, Neil handed Matthew to me from the car and said he was tired, and I walked up the stairs with him, lay him in his cot, patted his little bum and he was out like a light AGAIN!! It worked PERFECTLY yesterday. He didn't have any stressed-out crying sessions and was in his cot asleep at 6.30pm. He slept till nearly midnight and then I was in bed so I just changed him and fed him, put him down on his back in the cot awake but sleepy (in a dark room mind you) and he went back to sleep! Wonderful. He seems to really benefit from the routine and especially me responding to his cues for sleep the moment he gives them.
But today hasn't worked the same. He gave me the cues but then wouldn't settle to sleep, and cried and cried, and I ended up having to take ages upstairs with him while Arthur was alone downstairs. If he slept it was fitful and I kept having to leave Arthur again in the middle of breastfeeding him or playing Duplo after he'd been without my company already for ages, to go back upstairs and try to resettle Matthew. Sometimes I had to bring him downstairs as it was taking too long and I couldn't stay away from Arthur any longer, but that meant he was crying and overstimulated and so on. Arthur was ready for his nap and Matthew woke while I was nursing him in bed, and I had to leave him to try and resettle Matthew, who wouldn't settle, and Arthur was so tired that he just lay in his bed and cried for me :( I ended up running back and forth from one bedroom to the other, unable to anything for either of them, and just went and phoned Neil at work with the two of them SCREAMING upstairs in their beds :( In the end (Neil's suggestion) I lay in Arthur's bed with him, with Matthew on my chest, and they both eventually fell asleep that way. I put Matthew in his cot after 15 minutes and he slept four and a half hours! Again, way too long for a daytime sleep but I don't care. It's so hard when they're both up at once that I couldn't bring myself to wake him. I'd rather pay the consequences at night when there's only one to look after. He was unsettled this afternoon and Arthur was difficult, and I was utterly exhausted and it was just so hard. But they were both asleep by 8pm for the night. It's now 11.35pm (quick entry, yeah right!) and Matthew is still asleep but stirring now, so he'll be awake for a feed soon. It's weird not feeding him before he sleeps any more in the day, but it's lovely to feed him immediately that he wakes and then to have him go to sleep tired from an activity, as it will help him learn to fall asleep by himself. Yesterday it was SO weird to put my 5-week-old baby down and pat him for 30 seconds and watch him fall asleep almost by himself, and then walk across the hall and breastfeed my 20-month-old to sleep, hehe!
I think the rest of this week MIGHT be easier to deal with, despite the heat. We're having quite a heatwave this summer. It's in the high 80s or low 90s all the time, and that is ODD for a town where the average summer temperature is something like 73, let me tell you! It's very humid with it and it keeps storming every now and then. Last week there was a new national record for July in England, as the temperature reached 97F (36.5F)!! Anyway, it's hot. I hate hot because, well, I just hate it, and also because we are stuck in the house all day, all week, with the curtains closed half the day due to the heat. It's too hot to take the little ones out at all. The Health Visitor gave me a leaflet about looking after little ones during a heatwave and everything! I am SO thankful for our new air conditioner. If we didn't have it before, we would definitely have bought one when we saw the forecast for last week! It has been absolutely invaluable. It's still in the main bedroom but it cools so efficiently that the other bedroom is usually 24C in the day and 22C at night, and downstairs is 28C in the day (82F) so that's not bad, especially compared with how it was before we got the unit.
Anyway so we are managing to stay cool but the weather is getting VERY boring as I can't go out with the little ones and Arthur really needs the outings. But this week we have a few things planned, so we'll have to go out a bit. Tomorrow Cam's family are coming to visit, and then the next day I have my 6 week postnatal check (can you believe Matthew is 6 weeks old this week?!) if Neil is able to take part of the morning off to watch the boys while I go, and then in the afternoon Matthew has his newborn hearing screen at the hospital (apparently a new routine thing in this area now, which wasn't there when I had Arthur). So the week might get easier with things to break the days up a bit and stuff to distract Arthur.
Urgh, it's sooooo late and I'm so stupid to NOT be sleeping right now. I still need to shower, but what if Matthew wakes while I shower? Hmmm. Nearly finished my nibbly bowl of cereal. I MISS milk! Other types of milk don't remotely appeal to me, unfortunately. When Matthew is more settled I am definitely going to try the milk again, but not while he's still having random fussy moments, as I want to be sure it's milk and not something else.
Okay I feel a bit better for writing everything, which is a relief! I have a bazillion photos but I'll have to try to catch up with those another time. Matthew is 6 weeks old in 2 days and when we're both "signed off" by the doctor (hopefully me on Wednesday and Matthew next Wednesday at the baby clinic) then I'll put my pregnancy diary to rest again and do all my updating and photos in this diary. I'm sorry not to respond to emails and messages at the moment, or to sign guestbooks and keep up with diaries. I am reading bits here and there if I get the chance, but I just have no time for anything sanity-saving at the moment! Thank you all for the messages lately though! I can thank people here at least, and that's a start! I'll try to update again soon, and hopefully things will get easier soon too.
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