So I have an MBA and work in a corporate environment in probably one of the most businessy functions with businessy language that relies on businessy theories imaginable, Marketing.
My group recently transitioned to a new leader. This week, in one of his first major communications, he took time to expound upon why it is important to focus on the details. What prompted the post is the need to highlight one of his pet peeves since taking on the position, which is that, throughout the organization, our group name is sometimes correct and sometimes incorrect. Apparently our group name has an "s" at the end of it, which I legitimately did not know and does not seem like proper grammar to me. None-the-less it does but not everyone in the organization employs the "s" consistently and this really bothers the new group head. I will point out, that this is not a customer facing name, but an internal one only.
He the blog post, the leader goes on to point out that in order to standout in this competitive environment, we must be excellent in the details. He cites the "no broken window" NYC Police example that I have seen in HBR articles and I believe was in a Malcolm Gladwell book. I also went on to read convincing exmaples in HBR articles about how if there is a broken vending machine that management doesn't fix, it sends the message to employees that they aren't important who in turn treat clients like they aren't important as well. The leader points out that small mistakes in power points ultimately reflects on our own professionalism and brand. He cites that coming up through the corporate world, he would not only spend hours working through the substantive ideas but then additional hours going over the painstaking details of his presentation.
*Now I will take the time to explain my caveat. This post made me very defensive. First of all, I have recently had a few interactions with this leader and I am now worried I had a typo or said something inappropriate. I also saw that in a presentation I posted to our company's internal social media site, I had a typo using "Srategy" instead of "Strategy." So to some extent, I feel like this post was a comment on my own presentation. I know stupid grammar and spelling mistakes are a weakness of mine in general and so this post had made me very defensive.*
Personally- I have had managers in the past who had been very nit picky in this regard. What I found is that this nit pickyness only exacerbated my tendency to make these mistakes. Since working under managers who have not had this tendency, I am more relaxed and confident and while these mistakes still happen, they are less frequent. I would add that working under nit picky managers like also made my job much more stressful and less pleasant and I found that my capacity was taken up with paranoia rather than good thoughtful work.
Corporate Social Media- I will say that I was one of the early adopters of our corporate social media site. I think it is a great way to facilitate communication across the organization and learn what is going on. I will say that in our group in particular, folks have been slow to adopt and share ideas here. I have encouraged folks to not be fully buttoned up here and to just post half baked ideas as a result. I know I myself have posted questions with weird subject lines that by most would not be considered professional. By the way my personal view on internal communications is that the subject line should be funny and engaging so that folks will actually read them b/c most things, I would argue, do not get read. Therefore, I consider non-boring emails and blog posts to be extremely professional, though I think there may be a generational divide here.
I also want to point out that I do believe there is a different in client facing v. internal facing work. I would argue that both, however, due to time and resources, require a balance b/t focusing on the details versus delivering against the big picture quickly.
Client Facing- What does focusing on the details when client facing really mean? Proper grammar and spelling? Of course, those are givens. My question is where do you draw the line. For every comment we receive from a client, do we spend the time and money to investigate what exactly went wrong in that instance? Do we then spend the money to fix whatever that problem is because it was an issue for the one client? As a strategic marketer, I would say no. I would say we place our bets and try to best meet the needs of our target clients. Even then, we cannot address every need these clients face. We have to look at our business and the resources available to best determine which need. So I do agree that for where we are deciding to place our bets, those experiences need to be perfect especially around the details. That however, does not mean for the places we are not placing our bets we let them just devolve into chaos. We have to decide for those what is good enough. My husband is a patent examiner. Everything he does is client facing. When I spoke to him about this, he gave me an example of when he first started his job. He was asking his manager how is he supposed to do a thorough and good job of determining weather something is completely patent-able or not in the time he is given? Especially when his clients at times are multimillion dollar corporations with fleets of lawyers and potentially significantly more time working on the other side of this? How can the resources he can bring to bare complete? His boss told him he was looking at it all wrong. His boss said, you are given 31 hrs to do the best job you can in determining if the idea is patent-able. Basically, these are the resources at your disposal and you must do the best job possible.
Internal Facing- I think we as a business, as I imagine most businesses do, struggle with deciding where to place our bets. It is rarely the case that those bets have clear boundaries so we struggle with deciding which experiences need to be perfect versus those which need to be good enough. Unlike my husband, we rarely have set resources, Deadlines are suggestions and if work is in flight we can always find the money by robbing peter to pay paul. You know what I think would help with this? Getting faster and messier. Allowing ourselves sketch fazes where we can be sloppy but the goal is to communicate, analyze and place our bets. I agree, in the execution of things, we need to be precise and buttoned up but in the initial stages of work, I want folks to be fast and loose and comfortable. I want them to speak up without fear of being reprimanded for not being perfect. Let's get our stupid mistakes out now so they aren't there later. That said I don't know how to balance this idea with what I think is right about the leaders original sentiment. Perfection is like a muscle, you must work it out over and over again so that is becomes and habit.
Friday, March 11, 2016
Thursday, April 2, 2015
2nd Best
I am fairly certain that during the week George either prefers Rob to me or has seriously got her punishment/ manipulative game on, in which case, Bravo, she got that from me.
Sure, when I walk in the door, I get this HUGE smile. However, once I wash my hands and come over to pick her up, she's pretty much over it. I may be projecting, but it is as if she remembers that I was not home all day and just for that, she is going to be withholding now. Whereas with Daddy, who did not abandon her, she has nothing but smiles and giggles, for mommy it is more of a "meh, sure you can sit next to me," kinda deal.
This causes me to spend all weekend trying to make it up to her. I get all up in her face and try to give her all my attention and love and good vibes. This works. By Sunday she is pretty much "I want mommy," putty in my hands, but come Monday, I am out the door again.
I was just reading a friends post about the COMPLETE HORSESHIT maternity leave at her work and it made me want to cry. I remember being so grateful to the very generous (by U.S. standards) maternity leave policy at my work. I remember talking to a couple other mom managers at my work who said they were so ready to come back after the allotted paid 12 weeks. When my twelve weeks were up, I was certainly not ready to come back, but I felt this incredible guilt that I was not. I felt like I was being a slacker. Not because anyone at work was overtly pressuring me to go back. I certainly could have used vacation time to extend my leave. But there is definitely this culture at work, this tone of conversation, that is not necessarily as open as we say we are to family flexibility. That said I am ridiculously fortunate to work where I work. I flex my schedule to go in and leave early and I am able to work from home most Fridays.
Being a working mom is so ridiculously hard. Not only for the logistics of everything (which, to toot my own horn, I think I am handling pretty adeptly, b/c I am a bad ass project manager) but for all the emotional turmoil that you are working through.
1. Guilt over abandoning your child at home and not being there for them every second
2. Guilt over being glad that you can pass over responsibility of your baby for a while and do your own thing.
3. Guilt over being happy to not have to feed and clean up after her.
4. Confusion and guilt over the "what do I want to do with my career now?" conundrum. I have been getting encouragement to move up in the organization now and I think pre-baby i would have been all over it. Now I find myself wondering
- if this would be more hours working and thusly away from my child.
- am I being a bad feminist for not jumping on this opportunity? I mean I know I am not b/c that is not my kind of feminism, but am I?
Sure, when I walk in the door, I get this HUGE smile. However, once I wash my hands and come over to pick her up, she's pretty much over it. I may be projecting, but it is as if she remembers that I was not home all day and just for that, she is going to be withholding now. Whereas with Daddy, who did not abandon her, she has nothing but smiles and giggles, for mommy it is more of a "meh, sure you can sit next to me," kinda deal.
This causes me to spend all weekend trying to make it up to her. I get all up in her face and try to give her all my attention and love and good vibes. This works. By Sunday she is pretty much "I want mommy," putty in my hands, but come Monday, I am out the door again.
I was just reading a friends post about the COMPLETE HORSESHIT maternity leave at her work and it made me want to cry. I remember being so grateful to the very generous (by U.S. standards) maternity leave policy at my work. I remember talking to a couple other mom managers at my work who said they were so ready to come back after the allotted paid 12 weeks. When my twelve weeks were up, I was certainly not ready to come back, but I felt this incredible guilt that I was not. I felt like I was being a slacker. Not because anyone at work was overtly pressuring me to go back. I certainly could have used vacation time to extend my leave. But there is definitely this culture at work, this tone of conversation, that is not necessarily as open as we say we are to family flexibility. That said I am ridiculously fortunate to work where I work. I flex my schedule to go in and leave early and I am able to work from home most Fridays.
Being a working mom is so ridiculously hard. Not only for the logistics of everything (which, to toot my own horn, I think I am handling pretty adeptly, b/c I am a bad ass project manager) but for all the emotional turmoil that you are working through.
1. Guilt over abandoning your child at home and not being there for them every second
2. Guilt over being glad that you can pass over responsibility of your baby for a while and do your own thing.
3. Guilt over being happy to not have to feed and clean up after her.
4. Confusion and guilt over the "what do I want to do with my career now?" conundrum. I have been getting encouragement to move up in the organization now and I think pre-baby i would have been all over it. Now I find myself wondering
- if this would be more hours working and thusly away from my child.
- am I being a bad feminist for not jumping on this opportunity? I mean I know I am not b/c that is not my kind of feminism, but am I?
Friday, December 5, 2014
There are things I haven't told you about my healing process
I think I mentioned that I did indeed have a tear giving birth. Apparently, it was not severe but in a weird "y" shape. I was never able to see it, so I'll just have to take the midwife's word for it. I also, strangely, never really asked Rob to investigate it.
So, they say that you are supposed to be fully healed after 6 week right? Well six weeks came and I had my check up. The midwife reported that the tear had not yet fully healed. Of course I knew this already for a few reasons: 1. I still seemed to bleed a little, 2. pooping still hurt in certain areas and 3. when cleaning myself, I was generally pretty sensitive still. However, the midwife told me to wait another week and it should be all cleared up.
So I ended up waiting until about ten weeks before deciding I was really not ok. I remember mentioning to a friend at eight weeks that I was still having pain and she had had two kids already and said that was not "ok" and I needed to get it checked out. Of course, I waited until ten weeks.
At this point, I did start to investigate with a mirror and let Rob take a look. I'll warn you know, that from here on out this post will get pretty graphic. Basically I had a tear at the base of my oval shaped opening. Now this is embarrassing, I don't really know what anything is specifically called down there from an anatomy point of view, so I will do my best to describe. The tear was basically right above the taint at the bottom of my vagina? Do women have taints? So when Rob and I investigated, it looked, to me, like I had a blood blister growing in this general vicinity. I couldn't tell if there was still an open tear there. It kinda looked like it , but we are not medical doctors.
So I could not get a follow up appointment with the midwife and ended up going to the nurse practitioner associated with the obgyn side of the practice to get things checked out. Let me take a moment here to say if given the option, I am pretty much always happy to see a nurse practitioner or physicians assistant instead of a doctor. I find them to be more laid back and just easier to talk to.
So I went in, undressed and the lady took a look and started commenting that the tear had not healed and that I might need to go in for stitches, which was not a procedure they could take care of in the office. I'm all like "WTF? Whose got time to go do an outpatient procedure. I am hoping to not see the inside of a hospital again for some time." She says that she is going to get the doctor though to come and take a look and whisks out of the room. She did not tell me that a) the doctor was a man or that b) he and another nurse would be coming in to take a look at my hoo haw. Now generally, this wouldn't have bothered me. Especially since giving birth, I have gotten a lot less concerned about my nakedness in front of strangers. I was just a little annoyed that she didn't talk through this with me. This is the first difference I noted between the midwife approach vs. obgyn approach.
The doctor came in, got down there and said I had Granulation Tissue that had grown over the wound. He got up, went to the cabinet and came back with something in his hand. He told me he was going to use silver nitrate to burn off the tissue. This was difference number two compared to the midwives. He just assumed he could do this to me without really any consultation or allowing me to ask any questions. At the time, I was more concerned from hearing I might have to get surgery so if he could take care of it now, fine by me.
So I let him burn off the skin and boy howdy it was painful. Not as rough as giving birth, but it stung... alot. I left the office with an appointment to come back in a week to check on things. I was sore/ in pain for the following three days.
I went back the following week and he said everything looked good. To be honest it all feels a lot better, but I think there might be some lingering issues even now. I'm just too lazy to go back and get it looked at and clearly they are not bothersome enough to motivate me or prevent me from any of my regularly scheduled activities.
So, they say that you are supposed to be fully healed after 6 week right? Well six weeks came and I had my check up. The midwife reported that the tear had not yet fully healed. Of course I knew this already for a few reasons: 1. I still seemed to bleed a little, 2. pooping still hurt in certain areas and 3. when cleaning myself, I was generally pretty sensitive still. However, the midwife told me to wait another week and it should be all cleared up.
So I ended up waiting until about ten weeks before deciding I was really not ok. I remember mentioning to a friend at eight weeks that I was still having pain and she had had two kids already and said that was not "ok" and I needed to get it checked out. Of course, I waited until ten weeks.
At this point, I did start to investigate with a mirror and let Rob take a look. I'll warn you know, that from here on out this post will get pretty graphic. Basically I had a tear at the base of my oval shaped opening. Now this is embarrassing, I don't really know what anything is specifically called down there from an anatomy point of view, so I will do my best to describe. The tear was basically right above the taint at the bottom of my vagina? Do women have taints? So when Rob and I investigated, it looked, to me, like I had a blood blister growing in this general vicinity. I couldn't tell if there was still an open tear there. It kinda looked like it , but we are not medical doctors.
So I could not get a follow up appointment with the midwife and ended up going to the nurse practitioner associated with the obgyn side of the practice to get things checked out. Let me take a moment here to say if given the option, I am pretty much always happy to see a nurse practitioner or physicians assistant instead of a doctor. I find them to be more laid back and just easier to talk to.
So I went in, undressed and the lady took a look and started commenting that the tear had not healed and that I might need to go in for stitches, which was not a procedure they could take care of in the office. I'm all like "WTF? Whose got time to go do an outpatient procedure. I am hoping to not see the inside of a hospital again for some time." She says that she is going to get the doctor though to come and take a look and whisks out of the room. She did not tell me that a) the doctor was a man or that b) he and another nurse would be coming in to take a look at my hoo haw. Now generally, this wouldn't have bothered me. Especially since giving birth, I have gotten a lot less concerned about my nakedness in front of strangers. I was just a little annoyed that she didn't talk through this with me. This is the first difference I noted between the midwife approach vs. obgyn approach.
The doctor came in, got down there and said I had Granulation Tissue that had grown over the wound. He got up, went to the cabinet and came back with something in his hand. He told me he was going to use silver nitrate to burn off the tissue. This was difference number two compared to the midwives. He just assumed he could do this to me without really any consultation or allowing me to ask any questions. At the time, I was more concerned from hearing I might have to get surgery so if he could take care of it now, fine by me.
So I let him burn off the skin and boy howdy it was painful. Not as rough as giving birth, but it stung... alot. I left the office with an appointment to come back in a week to check on things. I was sore/ in pain for the following three days.
I went back the following week and he said everything looked good. To be honest it all feels a lot better, but I think there might be some lingering issues even now. I'm just too lazy to go back and get it looked at and clearly they are not bothersome enough to motivate me or prevent me from any of my regularly scheduled activities.
Monday, November 17, 2014
Blood Tears and Breastmilk
Returning to work was predictably hard. I spent the first mornings hour long commute plotting to become a real estate agent trying not to cry and the afternoons screaming at cars to get out of my way. My road rage has increased notably since becoming a working mom. Why are all these jag offs on the road keeping me from my baby? I am no longer apologetic about using the lane that I know is ending to jump to the front of a line of traffic. Suck it, my baby is only awake for a couple more hours.
Things have mellowed out a bit emotionally. That is not to say that Monday mornings aren't just a torture dreamed up by the devil himself, having to leave your baby after spending a blissful, albeit exhausting, weekend with her. It is just that I am getting more used to it. That said, I did have a surprise one of the first weeks I was back that threw me for a loop.
Let me preface this story by letting you know that I, and I have since learned most other pumping working moms, live in constant fear of my milk running out. I have yet to try any of the natural remedies, ie- fenugreek, but I do try to pump as often as possible at work. I have scheduled for three times a day, and when I am lucky, I can get in a fourth. I also pump once before going to bed. G is eating almost 5 oz at each feeding, so trying to produce this is certainly stressful. It felt like as soon as I started working, her appetite jumped up dramatically. Hence all the extra pumping.
Well, you breasfeeding moms may be aware that you can squeeze your boob in order to get more out. Truth be told, the pump works, but nothing is as efficient as breast to mouth contact. So I find myself trying to squeeze every last drop out pretty often.
One day, I am squeezing away, and when I detach, I find that there is blood mixed in the milk on the pump. W...T...F..? I was shocked and concerned. Obviously, my first thought is tumor because while I think my emotional roller coaster has improved, it has certainly not gone extinct. I immediately start texting and emailing Rob. I look at the milk and note a pinkish hue to what my right brest has recently expelled. I don't know what to do. Is it safe for the baby to drink? Should I be icing my boob? What is going on.
I put the milk in the fridge still uncertain. I got back to my desk and after googling, learn that it is a not too uncommon experience. That I have likely popped a capillary in my boob and that baby can drink this milk. It should heal in a couple days if not sooner.
So I got home that night and gave G the bloody milk and hoped she would not turn into a vampire. Well in Africa it is common to drink cow's blood as your daily sustenance. I assume my boob blood is better than cow's blood so I'm not going to worry about it. I'm also not going to squeeze with as much gusto going forward.
Pumping Woes
Last Monday...
This morning, I could not find my badge once I got here.
Normally in my cup holder, I changed purses this weekend and assumed I left it
in the other one.
This is not an issue until I realize, at my desk, when I am
ready to go down to pump b/c I am about to explode, you need to badge into the
mother’s room.
I go ask Alex at the front desk. She calls security, they
say it is facilities’ job. Facilities doesn’t open until 8 am. I wait until 8 and call. They say it is security’s job. I call
security. The guys is like, nooooo
that’s not our thing, so I will check with my manager.
8:20, I need to pump for a damn 9 am meeting. I call security again and they explain they
are no longer allowed to let people into the Mother’s room. Why b/c security is not trustworthy? But they
are still trying to figure out what they can do.
So I go out to my car to TCOB. So I get harnessed up almost fully and Rob
calls and is like, are you sure you don’t have your badge? So with a car seat in the way, I start
searching under the seats and lo and behold I find my badge.
I pull my shirt down over the harness and wrap a scarf
around myself and run inside to the mother’s room to pump. And now I am heading to a meeting and I am
not going to let security know that I found my badge b/c HELLO, why is there
not a contingency plan for this?
Have a good Monday! I
have averted having a minor breakdown so things can only look up from here.
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Dry Skin
As the title above suggests, Georgie has dry skin. I noticed it ages ago but then it quickly got a lot worse once the weather changed and we started using soap to bathe her. I probably should have realized this might be coming as babies obviously have very delicate skin and on top of that her dad has dermotographia and her mom has keratosis (which by the way has gotten dramatically worse on my legs since giving birth... wtf?).
I also get notoriously dry skin and am terrrrriiibbbllle about moisturizing. Now is my chance to turn around Georgie's skin fortune though! Teach her the good grooming habits that her gross mother never adopted. I first noticed the dry skin on G when we went to brunch and I met another baby with THE SOFTEST SKIN EVER! I asked about it and his dad said that his mom rubbed him down iwht olive oil after every bath. It made the baby's skin soft and fattened him up when he would suck on his hands. Double win!
I started combating the dry skin with coconut oil. This treatment was recommended to me by our nanny. I happened to have some on hand thanks to one of my sister's best friend who claims to use and believe in the power of coconut oil in the same fashion that the dad in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," uses Windex. Rash? Coconut oil! Cracked nipple? Coconut oil! Gaping wound? Coconut oil! Actually, maybe I should try it on my keratosis.
I started to rub our little girl down daily with the coconut oil on her arms and legs. It seemed to keep the patches on her arms from getting worse but her legs seemed to be getting even scalier. I decided to supplement with olive oil. Again, this seems to have had no impact on her poor little legs.
Yesterday, we pulled out the big guns. We have started using my Windex cure all, Aquaphor Baby. I say we because I am asking the nanny to do one coat in the morning and then I give her a good rub down in the afternoon.We still put just coconut oil and olive oil on her arms still. That way when she is sucking on those flying sausage monsters, she is only consuming some all natural fatty goodness. But her legs get a good dose of that miracle ointment. This morning, it seems to have somewhat of an impact, so we will keep this up for a while.
All that said, I have to say, giving Georgie her rub down is awesome. She gets so cute and really seems to enjoy the massage. I normally rub her arms and legs down for about half an hour and she is all squirmy and cooing. While she does not talk, I feel like we are having a conversation and she is saying how good she feels. It does worry me that the dry sking might be bothering her since the rub down does appear to provide "relife." but maybe I am misinterpreting this and she just really likes the massage. Anyway, I will let you know how it goes and if we ever reach success. In the meantime, I am inclined to stop using the soap and limit how much we are bathing her to help with this.
I also get notoriously dry skin and am terrrrriiibbbllle about moisturizing. Now is my chance to turn around Georgie's skin fortune though! Teach her the good grooming habits that her gross mother never adopted. I first noticed the dry skin on G when we went to brunch and I met another baby with THE SOFTEST SKIN EVER! I asked about it and his dad said that his mom rubbed him down iwht olive oil after every bath. It made the baby's skin soft and fattened him up when he would suck on his hands. Double win!
I started combating the dry skin with coconut oil. This treatment was recommended to me by our nanny. I happened to have some on hand thanks to one of my sister's best friend who claims to use and believe in the power of coconut oil in the same fashion that the dad in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," uses Windex. Rash? Coconut oil! Cracked nipple? Coconut oil! Gaping wound? Coconut oil! Actually, maybe I should try it on my keratosis.
I started to rub our little girl down daily with the coconut oil on her arms and legs. It seemed to keep the patches on her arms from getting worse but her legs seemed to be getting even scalier. I decided to supplement with olive oil. Again, this seems to have had no impact on her poor little legs.
Yesterday, we pulled out the big guns. We have started using my Windex cure all, Aquaphor Baby. I say we because I am asking the nanny to do one coat in the morning and then I give her a good rub down in the afternoon.We still put just coconut oil and olive oil on her arms still. That way when she is sucking on those flying sausage monsters, she is only consuming some all natural fatty goodness. But her legs get a good dose of that miracle ointment. This morning, it seems to have somewhat of an impact, so we will keep this up for a while.
All that said, I have to say, giving Georgie her rub down is awesome. She gets so cute and really seems to enjoy the massage. I normally rub her arms and legs down for about half an hour and she is all squirmy and cooing. While she does not talk, I feel like we are having a conversation and she is saying how good she feels. It does worry me that the dry sking might be bothering her since the rub down does appear to provide "relife." but maybe I am misinterpreting this and she just really likes the massage. Anyway, I will let you know how it goes and if we ever reach success. In the meantime, I am inclined to stop using the soap and limit how much we are bathing her to help with this.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Transitioning
Before Georgie was born, we decided we would go the route of Co-sleeping. Our reasoning behind this was mostly logistical. It seemed like it would be much more convenient for night time feedings and diaper changes if she was already in the room with us. Upon execution this proved to be true, but there were other benefits as well.
We got a co-sleeper, which is like a bassinet that attaches to the bed and set it up partially before Georgie even came home. All that remained was to attach it to the bed. This proved to be more of a trial than I had anticipated. First Rob set it up on my side of the bed, but due to spacing issues it had to be set up at my feet, not ideal. Next we decided to switch it to Rob's side of the bed and that I would sleep on that side going forward. Apologies to Rob for not figuring all this out in advance.
Having Georgie in the room with us was amazing. It allowed me to monitor her, which really put my mind at ease. Beyond that, it added to our bonding time.
During this time, I also allowed Georgie to sleep in the bed with us on occasion. We mostly did this when either a) she was having trouble falling back asleep or b) it was morning time and we just wanted another hour or so in bed. Something about putting her in between us and laying on my side drifting off looking at her drift off is just magic. Also knowing that she was able to fall asleep so easily in between her parents made me feel just amazing. There is some innate sense in her that is comforted by being so close to us. That this happens, at a time when your baby is hardly acknowledging you in her waking moments, is really fulfilling. It is just hard to describe all the feels from having the baby in bed with you.
For the first month and a half or so, I kept the My Breast Friend in bed with us. Each time I woke up to feed (every two hours). I would prop a mess of pillows up behind me and strap in. This was a lot to go through, but I really did not feel capable of feeding any other way. At about 5 or 6 weeks I think, I tried just feeding laying down, where she would sidle up next to me and I would pop a nipple in her mouth while lying down on my side. You may not know this folks, but no two bobs are exactly alike. The shape and nipple placement on one of my boobs is slightly different from the other, thus requiring me to finagle Georgie and my boob into different positions depending on the side we were on. None-the-less, feeding in bed without the pillow barrage is still infinitely easier. Though, I will note, feeding in bed like this does introduce a lot more fluids on to your sheets, but I can discuss that in the breast feeding post.
Anyway, all of this is to say, we kept her in the room with us at the beginning. At about 4 weeks, I did start asking folks when they transitioned to having baby sleep in another room. Their answers were varied in terms of timing from one month to three up to six but they all expressed the same sentiment that once they moved the baby out of the room they all started sleeping better. So I had it in my mind that at 6 weeks we would try putting her in her own room.
Once that date was upon us, I found I just could not do it. I did not want to separate from her. I was not ready. So I told myself, next week. We can try next week. I think it was on the Thursday when she actually turned 7 weeks, she slept 7 hours that night. Which was shocking and worrying to me, when I woke up at 4 am and she had not yet gotten me up to feed. I pretty much thought she was dead. In fact she had rolled to the mesh side of the sleeper and was pressed up against it. Again, causing me to think she had some how suffocated on mesh...? Once you have a kid, you will spend half your worrying time sure that they cannot breathe and are chocking on something. Trust me.
Anyway, next night same thing happened and that was what put me over the edge. No more mesh, time to try the crib.
So Saturday night, we get everything all set up in her room and do our bottle, changing diaper, changing clothes, swaddling routine and put her down in her own room in her crib. Easy right? No, the entire time leading up to and going through her night time routine I have this feeling welling in my chest. This painful anxiety, remorse and misery overload. My thoughts were going something like this: "What if she thinks we are abandoning her? Will she resent us? How will she sleep without my smell right by her side? What if she stops breathing? What if she asphixiates on her spit up and I am not there to hear it? What if there is an intruder in our house? What if i look up in the middle of the night and see these hands reaching into her crib to grab her? Worse yet, what if I don't se ethe hands? What if monsters in the closet/ under the bed are real? What is a zombie apocalyse happens tonight?"
So as we were getting ready to put her down, I started crying. Crying crying crying. I did manage to separate myself from her and then spend practically the entire night staring at the monitor to make sure she was ok. We also had the monitor on full blast, so every hiccup and every fart came through loud and clear. I am comforted to know that if she does start choking I will be able to hear it. And you know what happened that first night? Nothing. she slept 7 hours again and couldn't have given a damn if she was in the room with us or not. INGRATE! Just kidding, I could not be happier that she seems to have dodged a bullet when it comes to inheriting her mother's rather ridiculous overactive imagination.
I still find myself staring at the monitor in the middle of the night to be sure I see her chest rising and falling, but I feel a lot less guilty about abandoning her to her own room. I am hoping to get five to six hours of sleep some night soon.
We got a co-sleeper, which is like a bassinet that attaches to the bed and set it up partially before Georgie even came home. All that remained was to attach it to the bed. This proved to be more of a trial than I had anticipated. First Rob set it up on my side of the bed, but due to spacing issues it had to be set up at my feet, not ideal. Next we decided to switch it to Rob's side of the bed and that I would sleep on that side going forward. Apologies to Rob for not figuring all this out in advance.
Having Georgie in the room with us was amazing. It allowed me to monitor her, which really put my mind at ease. Beyond that, it added to our bonding time.
During this time, I also allowed Georgie to sleep in the bed with us on occasion. We mostly did this when either a) she was having trouble falling back asleep or b) it was morning time and we just wanted another hour or so in bed. Something about putting her in between us and laying on my side drifting off looking at her drift off is just magic. Also knowing that she was able to fall asleep so easily in between her parents made me feel just amazing. There is some innate sense in her that is comforted by being so close to us. That this happens, at a time when your baby is hardly acknowledging you in her waking moments, is really fulfilling. It is just hard to describe all the feels from having the baby in bed with you.
For the first month and a half or so, I kept the My Breast Friend in bed with us. Each time I woke up to feed (every two hours). I would prop a mess of pillows up behind me and strap in. This was a lot to go through, but I really did not feel capable of feeding any other way. At about 5 or 6 weeks I think, I tried just feeding laying down, where she would sidle up next to me and I would pop a nipple in her mouth while lying down on my side. You may not know this folks, but no two bobs are exactly alike. The shape and nipple placement on one of my boobs is slightly different from the other, thus requiring me to finagle Georgie and my boob into different positions depending on the side we were on. None-the-less, feeding in bed without the pillow barrage is still infinitely easier. Though, I will note, feeding in bed like this does introduce a lot more fluids on to your sheets, but I can discuss that in the breast feeding post.
Anyway, all of this is to say, we kept her in the room with us at the beginning. At about 4 weeks, I did start asking folks when they transitioned to having baby sleep in another room. Their answers were varied in terms of timing from one month to three up to six but they all expressed the same sentiment that once they moved the baby out of the room they all started sleeping better. So I had it in my mind that at 6 weeks we would try putting her in her own room.
Once that date was upon us, I found I just could not do it. I did not want to separate from her. I was not ready. So I told myself, next week. We can try next week. I think it was on the Thursday when she actually turned 7 weeks, she slept 7 hours that night. Which was shocking and worrying to me, when I woke up at 4 am and she had not yet gotten me up to feed. I pretty much thought she was dead. In fact she had rolled to the mesh side of the sleeper and was pressed up against it. Again, causing me to think she had some how suffocated on mesh...? Once you have a kid, you will spend half your worrying time sure that they cannot breathe and are chocking on something. Trust me.
Anyway, next night same thing happened and that was what put me over the edge. No more mesh, time to try the crib.
So Saturday night, we get everything all set up in her room and do our bottle, changing diaper, changing clothes, swaddling routine and put her down in her own room in her crib. Easy right? No, the entire time leading up to and going through her night time routine I have this feeling welling in my chest. This painful anxiety, remorse and misery overload. My thoughts were going something like this: "What if she thinks we are abandoning her? Will she resent us? How will she sleep without my smell right by her side? What if she stops breathing? What if she asphixiates on her spit up and I am not there to hear it? What if there is an intruder in our house? What if i look up in the middle of the night and see these hands reaching into her crib to grab her? Worse yet, what if I don't se ethe hands? What if monsters in the closet/ under the bed are real? What is a zombie apocalyse happens tonight?"
So as we were getting ready to put her down, I started crying. Crying crying crying. I did manage to separate myself from her and then spend practically the entire night staring at the monitor to make sure she was ok. We also had the monitor on full blast, so every hiccup and every fart came through loud and clear. I am comforted to know that if she does start choking I will be able to hear it. And you know what happened that first night? Nothing. she slept 7 hours again and couldn't have given a damn if she was in the room with us or not. INGRATE! Just kidding, I could not be happier that she seems to have dodged a bullet when it comes to inheriting her mother's rather ridiculous overactive imagination.
I still find myself staring at the monitor in the middle of the night to be sure I see her chest rising and falling, but I feel a lot less guilty about abandoning her to her own room. I am hoping to get five to six hours of sleep some night soon.
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