Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

  • Breasts and bras and weaning

    Last night I woke up at 3am. Evelyn was pressed into my chest, snuggled tight. One cat was asleep in front of my knees, another cat was sprawled out behind my knees. Nathan snored next to us all. Briefly I wondered where the other 50% of the cats were, before deciding not to think about it in case I summoned them accidentally.

    Needless to say, night weaning Evelyn, and keeping her in her cot all night is not going so well.

    In fact, I think I’ve given up. She’s a pretty snuggly sleeping companion.

    I tried, believe me, I tried. But after two hours of screaming (from 1am-3am) she wore me down and I gave in. Really, I am not at my best in the wee hours of the morning, and turns out, Evelyn is as stubborn as I am. She’s just more high pitched about it all.

    School goes back in just under a fortnight, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t counting down the days. Not because my children have been difficult – exactly the opposite if anything. They’ve played together well, hardly fought, and they’re pretty awesome.

    But I have work piling up, lots of it. Things I put on hold for the school holidays are starting to nag at the edges of my attention, and I am desperate for a little bit of alone time without someone needing me immediately and loudly.

    Anyway. Not long now.

    Unrelated: I need a new bra. Bonds very kindly sent me through some bras to trial a few months ago (whoops, hey, sorry Bonds), and I was hoping they would be great for when my milk supply dropped.

    Little did I know my breasts were going to expand in size again, leaving me exploding out the edges of the DD bras they sent. Yeah, it’s not going to work for me, which is a shame.

    I’ve made tentative plans to go and buy a new bra next week, but our car has been at the mechanic now for more days than I care to count and I’m loathe to even think of the bill when it arrives.

    Sadly I think my breast supports may have to wait.

    In the meantime, Eve thinks my non-fitting bras make a great hat.

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  • And then the tins threatened to explode in my face

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    I wandered into the kitchen this morning and found my toddler studiously pulling out all the tinned food in my bottom cupboard. Cans of tomatoes warred with tuna and she was perilously close to breaking open a jar of jam as she happily tapped the lid with a tin of corn.

    I went to put them away, but first I glanced at the best before date on the tin of tomatoes. I knew it had been a while since we’d bought them – they were the cheapest supermarket label, and we hadn’t had to buy that brand for a while.

    I didn’t expect the use by date to be all the way back in March 2011 though.

    Read The Rest at Money Circle.

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  • PCOS and weaning a toddler

    A little while ago I went through the process of night weaning Evelyn, teaching her how to fall asleep with a bottle and without me. It was going well – swimmingly in fact, until Evelyn realised I am at my weakest at 4am.

    Beating her little fists on the side of the cot, she refused to lay back down and sleep at 4am, demanding a breastfeed and spitting angrily if I tried to give her a bottle.

    We added back in a 4am breastfeed, at which point I would usually bring Eve back to bed with me, because it was easy.

    But, she’s like most toddlers. You give an inch, they take a mile. And then they take the mile and run even further with it, until no one has any miles left and they’re all tangled up and unable to walk because of the mile wrapped around their legs.

    Needless to say, it’s not working anymore.

    Last night Eve woke up at midnight, and screaming, demanded to be taken to my bed for a breastfeed. I refused. She screamed, fussed, wailed, complained, slept, screamed, repeat. At 2am I breastfed her and put her back in her cot. At 3am she was screaming again.

    I gave up and brought her back in to bed with me.

    The thing is though, it isn’t working for me anymore. She’s not interested in breastfeeding during the day at all anymore, and I am too tired to keep nursing overnight.

    I think this means we’re weaning entirely.

    I’m ready for it. I’m ready to wear proper bras that fit me decently, I’m ready.

    Mostly I’m ready to have some sort of hormonal cycle back. And I know, I’ll be bitching about it before the month is out, but you see, I’ve got PCOS and I can FEEL that it’s flared up. I should have had a period back 6-8 months ago. If I concentrate, I can feel my stupid ovaries doing stupid things in my stupid reproductive system.

    Fertility is a tricky thing, and I’m glad to not be having to think about it anymore. For those wondering, my husband had a vasectomy when Eve was four months old and it has been the best decision we made.

    I’m glad to be done with babies. I’m glad to almost be done with breastfeeding.

    I want my body back to myself. Is that too much to ask?

  • Evelyn the Tyrant

    Evelyn is 17.5 months old now and OH, don’t we know about it. She has WANTS and NEEDS and LOUD OPINIONS that frequently see her throwing herself to the floor to screech about the unfairness of it all.

    Last night, Amy curled up on my lap for a snuggle while I read a book. Evelyn noticed, and looking determined, she climbed on top of her sister. Using feet and elbows, she wedged herself between us, screeching at Amy the whole time.

    WOE to anyone who dares touch me. Evelyn will be there, pushing them away.

    It’s both cute, and frustrating. Usually we just pull her into the middle of whatever cuddle we’re having until she fights free.

    This morning Isaac was playing Minecraft on the computer. Evelyn climbed up onto the chair with him, and carefully, using her feet, began pushing him off the chair. Isaac, being a decent big brother, went and got a second chair for himself. Eve crawled onto that one as well and kicked him off.

    At which point I intervened and took her away, but OPINIONS and NEEDS and WANTS.

    She’s full on, exhausting. If I sit down at my computer, she pouts. If I keep working, she turns the computer off. I moved to a new desk to make the computer tower higher, out of reach. She gets a step stool. If I switch to the laptop, she shouts and pushes the lid closed.

    Needless to say, I haven’t been on the computer much at all.

    Eve’s eating has picked up a little bit. I’m hesitant to hope too much, as her eating has always been peaks and troughs, but for now she’s eating. I mostly weaned her too. She’s having a breastfeed at 4am, but isn’t interested during the day. And HALLELUJAH she’s taking a bottle of pediasure before sleep now.

    We’re working on finding new things that she’ll happily eat. She likes well seasoned food, preferring curry to plainer foods, which is nice. It’s nice to have one child who likes curry – the older two mostly just eat the rice.

    But she isn’t talking yet.

    I hesitate to say she isn’t talking “at all”, because when pressured, she will say Mumum, Da-da and something that sounds close to “MeeMee” which I assume is Amy. But she’s mostly a silent child, using various inflections of screech to communicate. She wasn’t a babbly baby, and she still isn’t now. It’s strange for me, even at the peak of Isaac’s ASD regression, he still had around 10 words.

    Our speech pathologist is a bit concerned, because it’s clear Eve understands well.

    But it’s another wait and see thing. In the meantime, I think I’d best start learning some simple sign language to teach her. It might curb the angry frustration we’re seeing a lot of.

    And that’s it from me. School holidays have left me with hardly any free time. Three children mean it’s rare that someone isn’t speaking to me, climbing on me, or needing me immediately for something. School is back in another three weeks. Isaac turns five on Saturday.

    Life is good. Busy, chaotic, exhausting – but good.

  • Why is fresh food so expensive?

    If I tally up my budget, food is our biggest expense. And I’m starting to get despondant about the fact I can buy a weeks worth of processed crap for less than the price of three days of fruit and veg.

    It’s ridiculous.

    And expensive.

    Is it the same where you live? Or is fresh produce cheap?

    Read the entire article at Money Circle.

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