volume control

[jrtom]

It took us a month, but we finally caved and got out The Pacifier.

Corwin's at that awkward point where he no longer just eats and sleeps; he now has a considerable period after he eats where he wants to hang out and be entertained . . . except that he hasn't yet acquired a sense of humor (or, really, of play), and he seems somewhat frustrated by this.

As a result, for the last few days (and last night/today in particular), he's been generally dissatisfied. Not really in a big way--he reserves that for when he hasn't yet been fed--but enough so that we can't really sleep while he does this for a couple of hours starting at 2:30 AM. What's worse is that neither attention or cuddling, per se, seems to be enough; he wants variety. On top of this, he's not sleeping as long at a stretch as he had been.

Up to this point, we'd been giving him a finger to suck on in lieu of a pacifier; this worked particularly well when we were "finger-feeding" him (i.e., giving him a finger to suck on while squirting milk into his mouth via a syringe). However, a few days ago we moved over to the bottle (in part because our syringes are experiencing increasing levels of Technical Difficulties), and he seems to slowly be figuring out that fingers don't actually have milk in them; he'll still suck on one for a while, but not for long.

So we're trying him out on a pacifier. For me, it's hard not to think of this as some kind of failure; a Real Dad (TM), no doubt, would do without sleep as necessary in order to keep his child entertained (and never mind this pesky Ph.D. that I'm supposedly pursuing), and not resort to sticking a rubber plug in his kid's mouth in a bid to get a couple of hours of sleep. *sigh*

Comments

oh gawd, do not stress.

[dailyada.livejournal.com]

pacifiers are hardly a sign of failure. my midwife told me to get one, in my case because ada was such an aggresive nurser. "give that child a pacifier before she kills you!" she told me. and if you are totally upset about it, just wean him off of it sometime in the first year, while it's still (relatively) easy to do such thing. but anything that gets you through the first six months is good. i mean, short of heroin.

Re: oh gawd, do not stress.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

Well, Corwin's not exactly aggressive (at least as I understand the term). In fact, left to his own devices, he'd be perfectly happy nursing more or less continuously, taking occasional 5-15 minute naps all the while.

I wouldn't say that we're totally upset about it; I just wish that it didn't seem necessary. As I said to mrlogic, it feels, emotionally, a bit like this is the first step on the road that will eventually lead to putting him in a cage with an exercise wheel, a drip bottle for milk, and a TV (tuned to PBS, of course--what do you take us for? :> ).

Re: oh gawd, do not stress.

[dailyada.livejournal.com]

for me the point of clarity was realising that the line between tying your child down in a horrible case of restraint abuse and securing your child for safe fun was whether you used a knot or those little clip thingies that everything has. children are a) amazingly resilient and b) going to blame you for everything anyway, so you might as well have as much fun as possible.

Re: oh gawd, do not stress.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

:)

Re: oh gawd, do not stress.

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

this is the first step on the road that will eventually lead to putting him in a cage with an exercise wheel, a drip bottle for milk, and a TV

By the time he's twelve this may seem like a really good idea. ;)

I think I understand. In your shoes, I'd also rather be able to do this without accessories (I don't know quite why) and, well, you're having to deal with the fact that you can't. You guys are/will be good parents, though: I have no doubts.