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I start work at 6:30 am, from home, and Juliana usually sleeps until around 7 or 7:30. I used to have one or two meetings per week in the morning and recently I started having one every single day at either 6:30 or 7:00. When Juliana wakes up, she wants to nurse immediately and will scream if I'm not there. Usually I will end up going in there with my phone on mute, picking her up, and taking her to my office to nurse her while on the call. It's stressful because I can't completely concentrate. This morning, she nursed throughout my entire half hour meeting and most of it was for comfort. I really don't want to let her "cry it out" and just not go get her, but she's 2 now and I've been dealing with this for almost 2 years. It just doesn't seem to get any better, and it makes my mornings so much more stressful.
Does anyone have any ideas that I could try to get her to wait for her milk in the morning? I have tried a sippy of milk and she throws it.
Can your nanny or whatever other caregiver is helping you, distract her somehow? A good morning song and dance routine, a favorite book or toy? M sometimes wakes up cranky and wants to nurse right away but usually she's fine if DH takes her. Our morning ritual is that she sits on the potty right away and reads board books while holding one of her stuffed animals. Sometimes we take her to the big potty and sing her songs if she's too cranky for that. I don't know if that helps but I hope you can figure something out. As long as someone is with her trying to comfort her, I don't consider it CIO.
Can your nanny or whatever other caregiver is helping you, distract her somehow? A good morning song and dance routine, a favorite book or toy? M sometimes wakes up cranky and wants to nurse right away but usually she's fine if DH takes her. Our morning ritual is that she sits on the potty right away and reads board books while holding one of her stuffed animals. Sometimes we take her to the big potty and sing her songs if she's too cranky for that. I don't know if that helps but I hope you can figure something out. As long as someone is with her trying to comfort her, I don't consider it CIO.
I should mention that DH takes care of her in the mornings. I start work at 6:30 and he leaves at 8:15 am, so he is "nanny" at this time. He either gets woken up by her or his alarm at 7:15. He's a little grumpy himself at first, but he rolls over and tries to snuggle with her. He says she won't snuggle with him and just immediately screams for Mama milk.
I guess I could suggest that he try singing songs with her, but I don't know if he's up for that even when he isn't waking up.
We've thought about having the nanny come early, but that would be expensive and awkward, since we never know when she will wake up, so would we have the nanny sit there outside of the room while she and DH are sleeping and jump in when she hears them wake up? I just can't think of a good solution.
You know, the more I think about it, the more I think having a "special" routine with songs might really help distract her. I will bring this up to DH to see if he will do something like that.
What I would do, is just have DH take care of her during that time. She might cry, that's ok. She wouldn't be crying alone in a dark room. Sometimes you have to wait for things, and that is an ok thing to have to learn. If she has to wait an hour to nurse, and has been offered milk and water and has hugs from daddy, well I'd be fine with that.
I have a feeling, though, that you won't do that You've never really seemed receptive to not allowing her to nurse at will.
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I'm not trying to compare BFing to a paci, but when we got rid of Claire's paci during the day, we gave her a replacement item. We sat her down and explained that pacis were for babies, and now that she is a Big Girl, she doesn't need one anymore. Then we gave her a stuffed bunny (she LOVES bunnies) and told her that she could snuggle with her bunny instead of using her paci. When she would ask for the paci, we'd just tell her to go get her bunny. She shed a few tears the first day, but after that it went really well.
I think a new comfort item or new routine to replace her Mama Milk might be a really great idea.
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What I would do, is just have DH take care of her during that time. She might cry, that's ok. She wouldn't be crying alone in a dark room. Sometimes you have to wait for things, and that is an ok thing to have to learn. If she has to wait an hour to nurse, and has been offered milk and water and has hugs from daddy, well I'd be fine with that.
I have a feeling, though, that you won't do that You've never really seemed receptive to not allowing her to nurse at will.
Well, I'm not completely opposed to the idea but I think she'll end up crying longer than I can really tolerate. Sometimes if I'm in the middle of a meeting and she starts crying, I do have to let her cry for a while if I'm in the middle of talking about something important. I typically wait for a break when someone else is probably going to be talking for a while before I mute my phone and go get her. A few times it's been a while and she was still screaming, harder than in the beginning. I can't really define "a while" because I wasn't looking at the clock. It seems like a long time but in reality it was probably only 5 minutes. I suppose I could try it once and just not go get her at all and see how long it takes. If it's 6 or 7 minutes, maybe that's ok, but I would still feel terrible.
I guess part of the issue is that I've always had the mentality I may be a working mom but I'll make sure my DD doesn't suffer because of it, so if I have to put her first even on "company time", then so be it. Maybe I need to get over this.
I think your DH needs some extra tools, techniques, and/or motivation too. Honestly I have always felt it is very important to let DH comfort her when she's crying. I know I could waltz in and whip out the boob and it would be over instantly, but I usually "give it a few/5/10/15 minutes" (depending) and 95% of the time, DH gets her consoled and settled. 5% of the time I hear a certain desperate edge to her cry and I have to go BF her, but it is rare. I believe this is a big factor in why DH is such a confident and involved dad. He has lots of tricks, songs, books, just talking to her, rubbing her back, stuffed animals, water bottle, whatever, he generally manages. But he had to learn through experience the same way I did. If you always make yourself the only possible comforter than she has fewer options and less of a bond with daddy. At least that is what I tell myself when I leave the room and she is crying for me but DH is trying to console her. For us this all happens at night most nights, I BF her until she comes off the breast and starts crashing around the room acting crazy, then DH takes over (she rarely conks out on the breast anymore). DH does her morning routine only on weekends because he is out the door at 6:15 weekday mornings.
But by "not go get her", do you mean at all, or you mean your husband will and she'll be with him? I think it would probably be great for her to learn to be comforted with just your husband. And if he doesn't hear her, put the monitor right beside his head and crank the volume.
My perception of you is that you have set extremely high expectations of yourself as a mom. It's ok to not be perfect. In fact, nobody IS perfect. It's ok if your child has to cry with her father (or another loving adult) because you are doing something that can't be interrupted. I think you need to cut yourself some slack. But what do I know, I only know what you post on here! Take from this what you will!!
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Thanks to Mom2*Lauryn*Jacob* for this beautiful sig!
But by "not go get her", do you mean at all, or you mean your husband will and she'll be with him? I think it would probably be great for her to learn to be comforted with just your husband. And if he doesn't hear her, put the monitor right beside his head and crank the volume.
My perception of you is that you have set extremely high expectations of yourself as a mom. It's ok to not be perfect. In fact, nobody IS perfect. It's ok if your child has to cry with her father (or another loving adult) because you are doing something that can't be interrupted. I think you need to cut yourself some slack. But what do I know, I only know what you post on here! Take from this what you will!!
She co-sleeps with us so her daddy is there next to her. He does hear her but sometimes he's a bit slow to wake up and groggy so it may take about a minute for him to roll over to the side of the bed where her crib is side-carred. A lot of times she's already hysterical in that one minute. So when I say "not go get her" I mean let her scream while daddy tries to calm her down, however long that may take.
I guess I'll talk about it with DH tonight and see if he has ideas for making the morning more fun and special.
I'm really torn between feeling like I should just put her on the boob and deal with it during my meetings, and feeling like after 2 years, enough is enough.
I think I may have to approach this like I did the night-weaning: talk about it a change in routine for a while, make it clear that I won't come in any more and that daddy is going to take care of her and she'll be just fine. The problem is that just like with night-weaning, I didn't want to go forward until I was sure I could follow through. I'm not completely sold that I want to follow through even if she's crying for 10 or 20 minutes. And if I give in, that just teaches her that she just has to cry longer and harder and I'll come in. *Sigh*
Mariah, I can relate to your dilemma a bit. I posted before about how DD cries for me/the boob and how my husband feels inadequate. I've been trying to let him comfort her without running in right away but it's HARD sometimes. Especially when I know she wants to nurse for comfort. She'll cry and cry but eventually settle down with him. I just hate hearing her cry though and I admit, sometimes I do go in and nurse her, which is probably bad and sending mixed messages. She has gotten a bit better with DH. It's so hard when you know why they're crying but you can't meet their needs. I guess in most cases I could meet her needs but I want to give DH a chance. I don't think you should feel bad about letting your husband handle things. Like the others said, sometimes you have to wait in life and it's not CIO if you husband is there. I don't think this would make you a bad mom at all.
I ditto the others about DH learning to comfort her. For so long I was the "go to" parent 99% of the time, and now that I'm on bedrest, I just can't do some things. DH struggled at first, but it is amazing to see what a special bond they have been forming. I do get a little jealous sometimes, but when she wakes up upset and wants Daddy, it warms my heart. And he is SO excited to be the one she wants...men love to feel needed.
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I agree with a lot of what the other ladies have said, but I agree it is hard. To be totally honest... I might try to teach her that work time is work time and that she cannot nurse at will. What if you worked outside the home? She certianly wouldn't be able to nurse then. I would just nurse on my lunch break and then after work. Teach her that when the door is closed and there is a scrunchie on the handle, it means mommy is working and she can't have mama milk right then, she has to wait.
DH's idea to make mornings easier was to have our Kindle loaded with Elmo videos, so when she gets upset he can distract her with that, and that will keep her entertained in her crib long enough for him to take a shower, solving two problems at once. This morning we didn't get to test the theory because my meeting wasn't until 7:30 and she had already nursed before it started. Tomorrow I have a 6:30 so there's a good chance we'll try it, but she may also sleep through the meeting. Fingers crossed! I'm hopeful that the kindle idea will work even though I'm not a big fan of tv in bed.
Ever since I posted this, she's slept in until at least 7:30 every morning so we haven't had to worry about the issue. However, now we're having stressful nap times because she still wants to nurse all the way to sleep even though I'm working and it takes 15-20 minutes to get her to sleep and sometimes I'm on the phone or trying to get stuff done. If it's not one thing, it's another.
You've never really seemed receptive to not allowing her to nurse at will.
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