Sustainable Life
with Bibi
In general, I'm a crunchy granola mom (sometimes read: hippie) with no specific philosophy on life. Our family makes it from month to month with my husband working full time as a teacher, and me staying home full time with our daughter, while taking in paid jobs as they come my way. The family budget is tight, but we try to do our part to clean up our lifestyle and our planet.
To learn more about Bibi, check out her profile on Work It, Mom! and her personal blog, Mamasense.
Sleeplessness…
It should be on the top of the list when people tell you about parenthood. Everyone seems to talk about the sleeplessness that comes with a newborn, but the stuff that happens later on…nobody mentions that. Okay maybe it isn’t true that no one mentions it. Maybe it’s one of those things that we think won’t happen to us. I’ve been sympathetic to many a friend who has been up at night with projectile vomiting, or croup, or whatever, and maybe I just didn’t think my turn would come. Maybe I was like those teenagers who don’t listen about how drag racing, or drunk driving, or unprotected sex is dangerous, because OBVIOUSLY that stuff can’t happen to ME.
Sorry if this is TMI, but our daughter has developed a food related rash, and despite following doctor’s orders, it hasn’t gotten better in the last three days (or nights). For some reason, this rash itches starting at 4 AM and keeps her (and me) up with it.
Add to that little scenario that we had a visit from grandpa this weekend, who wanted nothing more than to treat us to days and nights out on the town. We gallivanted all weekend long (and endured a few toddler tantrums due to the schedule). There is definitely a reason that they use sleep deprivation as a torture tactic…I bet it’s pretty darn effective. I’m so glad that we had the quality time, and we had an absolute blast.
On the other hand, the beginning of our week is shot. We are all tired, and we didn’t have those two days of recuperation and preparation that we usually have on the weekends. I’m wondering to myself if we should just expect to have weekends like this every once in a while, and just be grateful for the fun activities, or if (with my control freak horns showing) I should take the reigns a bit more when we have company and try and keep it to a more tot-friendly pace?
How do you decide if something is out of balance? Do you push for moderation or do you figure you even need moderation in moderation (i.e. every once in a while it doesn’t hurt to go crazy)?
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I have never kept much of a schedule for my daughter. When she was an infant, and I was a stay home mom, I never rushed home from shopping for her nap time, if she was hungry, I fed her, if she was tired, I put her to bed,etc etc etc. It didn’t matter what the clock said. I think for us, it has paid off. Sometimes on the weekends, she gets no nap at all and is just fine, yet at daycare during the week, she takes a good 2 1/2 hour nap. She adapts very easily to whatever situation we are in, so I don’t worry about activity overload or being thrown off schedule with her. As for my husband and I, we just deal with it. We visit my family once a month (4 hour drive each way) We leave after work Friday and drive back on Sunday. It makes Monday a little tough, but I wouldn’t skip those trips for anything!
But, I will have to say that my daughter is VERY easy going, and has been extremely easy to raise. Me, I just go with the flow. Hubby does get a bit grumpy if we don’t head home before noon on those weekend trips. hee hee hee hee
Erica | April 14th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
I know this isn’t what you asked about, but…my toddler has trouble with foods making her eczema flare up, especially at night. Her allergist suggested Benadryl every night at bedtime to calm it down. Obviously, you should go with what your doctor said to do, but it worked well in our case.
I’m pretty strict with my daughter’s schedule, but contributing to that decision is the fact that she spends every other weekend at her dad’s, where she eats whenever she says she’s hungry and sleeps whenever she says she’s tired. I feel like I owe it to her to try to interject some routine in her life so that she can feel stable. In your case, where stability is more of a given, I think you’ve got more leeway.
Just me | April 15th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
I try to keep things as stable as possible in general, but on special occasions, I go with the flow. The girls do pretty well because of our stable norm, even when this is disrupted. Yes, the 16 stops we had to make the day before Easter were a bit much for us, but it doesn’t take us long to get back to normal. The girls do get a bit clingy after several days of being off schedule / traveling around / entertaining houseguests. They want their mama more than usual then.
SKL | April 16th, 2009 at 9:51 am