We are not slaves to Emily's schedule, but days like today are rough when she gets so far off schedule. She typically gets up around 8am and goes down for a nap around 11am. I put her down today for her nap, but my aunt and dad were here, installing our new ceramic tile in the kitchen. She can sleep though noise pretty well, but grandpa was here, she cannot sleep when grandpa is here to play with her.
Not long after that, my stepmom came and me, her and Emily went shopping. She dozed in the car each way, but I doubt it was much longer than 5 minutes each way. I was hoping she would at least go down for her afternoon nap around 4 but no, grandpa was still here. Her bedtime is around 7:30, so around 6:30 I put her in her pj's and laid her in my snoogle in the living room. One minute she was fussing and screeching, the next minute she was fast asleep. Whew....but now I am trying to figure out how long to let her sleep there before moving her to her crib, and whether or not I should try to get another bottle in her.
Tomorrow will likely be much of the same since they will be back to finish the job. Maybe I can somehow get her down for a nap before they get here so that she will already be asleep once grandpa gets here. But they're coming at 10, so I am not too hopeful of getting her down before then. It would be especially great if I can get her to nap so I can go run some errands without her. I am trying not to be overly paranoid about the measles outbreak, but as there is a confirmed case just one county over and Emily has not had her MMR vaccine yet, I'll leave her at home if I absolutely don't have to take her out to stores. Plus, it is so much easier to run errands by myself.
So naptime and bedtime has been going better lately, but it will likely be short lived. I had been putting her down with a bottle, she happily drank it and went to sleep with almost no crying (some nights she did still cry, but nothing like before). But, I decided to do the research as to why you shouldn't put them down with a bottle. I know every parent has to decide what works best for them, but I don't want to risk messing up her teeth or giving her earaches from drinking laying down. She finishes her bottle before going to sleep so I wasn't worried about all night snacking, but the other stuff isn't worth a tear-free bedtime.
But she isn't waking up in the middle of the night as often anymore, so maybe she'll do better at bedtime even without the bottle. But if not, she thankfully doesn't cry for very long before she falls asleep, so we'll see how it goes. She has actually since woken from her nap while I was writing this, and I put her to bed not long after, once she had her bottle and I brushed her teeth. I read her a bedtime story and said goodnight, and no tears. That's not to say other nights will go the same, but it was promising nonetheless.
I swear she is sooooo close to crawling. I know I know, I've been saying that for months now. But she's started initiating her own tummy time when she is on the floor playing, and she often sleeps on her belly now too. The other day she got about halfway up on her knees twice, and once she got on her hands and toes, like she was going to do a push up. I'm hoping she'll finally do it any day now. But, that means baby proofing. Once our floor is done and the house is back together I will be putting the gate up regardless if she is crawling or not. The opening it is going in does not have equally angled walls, so I need to make sure it will work before we really need it. Despite not crawling or even doing a belly crawl, she somehow flops herself around enough to get to where she wants to go, and lately it's been to completely annihilate the picture frame display on the bottom shelf of the TV stand.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I look around our house and we have a LOT of baby proofing to do. Maybe I should rethink this "teaching her to crawl thing".
So, being that this is a baby/parenting/loss blog, I feel the need to comment on the Nationwide commercial that aired during the Superbowl. I 100% agree with the message, I just don't like who delivered it. There are many things that can take our precious ones from us, some of them are out of our control, but since many of them have a chance at being prevented, why wouldn't someone want to learn what they can do? Many of us know the basics....sharp objects, poisonous cleaning products, falling hazards, things that can fall on them, etc. But what about the things you don't think of?
A while back I read about a little boy that grabbed a container of citronella oil off the patio table while him and his family was enjoying a bbq. The oil splashed on his face and he ingested some of it, resulting in citronella fuel poisoning. Apparently the color and the packaging it comes in can resemble apple juice, or just plain prompts curiosity in kids. I would of course be leary of a lit candle around a child, but I doubt I would have given much thought to a container, or a decorative bottle of citronella oil on a picnic table.
Thankfully the little boy made a full recovery, but only after several agonizing days in the ICU, his parents at his bedside, seeing their tiny boy intubated, sedated and getting round the click chest x-rays, all the while having no idea if their stay in the hospital would end with good news, or their worst nightmare. Thanks to this article, this will be yet another thing I will either avoid completely, or be much more aware and diligent of if we are someplace that does have these torches and lamps.
Even things I am aware of....for years before we had children, my husband would constantly remind me to turn the pot handles in when cooking, in preparation for little ones someday. I know this, even now with a little one, granted a non-mobile little one, I am still guilty of not always doing it. Reminders here and there are NEVER a bad thing. I even personally know a woman whose daughter was severely burned by a pot of boiling water on the stove top. Thankfully, she did not sustain lasting injuries, but that does not erase the pain and trauma she experienced, nor the horror her parents went through at the time, and no doubt, since then....aware of how close they came to tragedy.
For the people that said it was a "buzz kill", or they "didn't want to hear about child mortality", well no, of course nobody wants to. But that is the point of the message, to try to educate and raise awareness so hopefully some families can avoid it. As a bereaved parent, I know first hand that even when it is 100% not your fault or preventible, the guilt is still there, the shame and the what if is still there because I couldn't protect my child. Not to say the parents of these children were at fault, but I cannot even fathom how overwhelming the guilt must be when your child dies as a result of something that could have been prevented. I cannot imagine, and I hope I never ever have to.
People don't want to think about children dying, but it is unfortunately, a very sad fact of life. Sometimes children die, and sometimes it could have been preventable. With all of the ways our precious children could be taken from us, why wouldn't we want to lessen those odds some by learning about and being reminded of ways we can make our home and our children safer?
I am very sorry though for the parents who were punched in the gut with the commercial. The parents who have lost a child, and were blindsided by this commercial. Honestly for me, the commercial was not a trigger because it really had nothing to do with stillbirth, but I feel very much for the parents who were unexpectedly upset by it. As I said, I am not thrilled with who delivered the message. I don't see how an insurance company can help keep your kids safe, and despite partnering with safekids.org, I still think it came off, and was more for the benefit of their company being seen, and talked about. Had the commercial came directly from safekids.org, I, and I think many others would have had less of a problem with it.
However, in some cases, the ends justifies the means. No matter how the message was delivered, it was delivered and people are talking about it, and I for one will be visiting the site safekids.org, especially as we prepare to baby proof our house for our soon to be mobile little one. I think if the commercial prevents even one fatal accident, then it was completely worth any upset, surprise and "buzz kill".
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