Our children’s ministry leader, a mother of four, had a funny online segment this morning. She said it’s the day when you’re downstairs, hearing your kids upstairs arguing about who is going to make the cookies, then your husband erupts in irritation. So the day you’re supposed to celebrate motherhood reminds you of what a bad job you’ve done raising your kids. Ha! I always told my husband when the kids were little, “For God’s sake, PLEASE don’t make us to go to lunch! I don’t want to be stressed out over how the kids are misbehaving!”
Happy first Mother’s Day!
LOL my daughter was six months old on my first Mother’s Day, and my husband put a card and a mug in her crib for me to find in the morning. She chewed the card and spit up in the mug. And so goes motherhood sometimes, they chew you up and spit you out!
Thanks everyone. Happy mothers day to mothers and maternal figures everywhere.
Ren got me the best present ever. He slept in repeated 4 hour blocks. Woke up, ate, and went right back to sleep.
Happy Mother’s Day, @romanigypsyeyes, and thank you for sharing your story with us. It makes me happy to hear that Ren is doing so well.
Thank you for coming on the journey 
Honestly, people on here show way more interest in how we’re doing than most of mr r’s immediate family. When I’m feeling sad about that fact, I remember that he has a dozen or so internet aunts/uncles/grandmas/grandpas who he brings joy to and it makes me so happy.
Happy Belated Mother’s Day, Romani! xxx
The phots are priceless and make it so clear how Ren has captivated one and all! I’m glad the puppy allows him to be shared—pup looks might protective!
@HImom thanks :). He’s finally been able to properly meet most of his family thanks to all of us quarantining.
We’ve been having sleep issues for the last few weeks. He is nearly inconsolable from like midnight to 5 AM every night, despite changing bottles, formula, sleeping routines, etc. I sent a message to his ped but forgot it was the weekend. I’m pretty sure he has bad reflux - poor baby :(. (If anyone has suggestions, I’m open to them!)
I go off maternity leave in about a week. I’m ready to go back to work. This is literally the longest I’ve gone without working since I was about 15 and I have been going stir crazy. I even started answering my emails and my boss “yelled” at me and told me to go back on leave ?.
Sleep issues are the worst! Hopefully Ren will get his days and nights sorted soon.
The nightly crying is pretty classic for colic. My son was colicky, though fortunately he chose earlier hours. (I think he used to cry from 9pm to midnight, but it’s a long time ago now so I don’t remember exactly). They do get over it. I was wondering if there had been any sort of medical advances in understanding colic in the last 37 years since my son was born, but apparently not: https://familydoctor.org/condition/colic/
There wasn’t anything I could do with my son except hold him. Sometimes I used to wail along with him.
Sorry I am so late to the party.
Did the 23 page catch up and now up to speed. First of all congrats and blessings to you, Mr. R and Ren Alexander. Babies are the best; even with everything that we are going through, babies give us hope and bring so much happiness. I hope that you are taking a picture a day so that you can see that there is something new to discover everyday. By now he is a good armful of baby with a protective best friend puttering around keeping watch.
Sorry about the colic, i know that there are days where you want to cry with him but this time shall pass. Grab your sleep when you can, continue to take care of you so that your can be the best you for the family. Enjoy this great and amazing ride!! I promise not to let 23 pages go by again. <3
The rough part of colic is that There’s. Nothing. You. Can. Do. DH and I used to try everything, and every once in a while something would appear to work. Then we’d do that thing again and again, and of course it never worked again. (Of course correlation is not the same as causation, we discovered.) I call that period the three months of magical thinking.
My first was colicky. She cried all the time. My pediatrician was absolutely no help whatsoever. He asked what I did when she cried. I told him I held her and walked the floor. He asked why I would reward her like that for crying! Luckily, we moved and I changed doctors when she was about nine months old, but I think she quit crying so much at 5 or 6 months. We found that Mylicon drops helped sometimes.
Actually there are some things that a parent can do… just nothing that works consistently and across the board. Some babies calm down with a drive in the car. Some babies seem to be soothed by the sound of a vacuum cleaner (but this probably won’t work in a home with a dog who barks incessantly whenever the vacuum cleaner is used.) But no harm in trying various options to see what seems to help.
I found some solace in the predictability – always pretty much the same time frame, so clock watching helped me – I knew when it was going to end.
DH walked laps in the house with S2 in a front pack. DH worked up quite the sweat and I got a break from trying to nurse him through it. Putting a forearm under S2’s tummy also helped at times. It did eventually pass.
My guys would get fussy and restless at night when they were about to hit a developmental milestone – especially when they were close to rolling over on their own.
Hang in there – you’re all doing great!
D responded well to an infant swing.
So happy to see Ren has such a large library already. Books in every picture!
This has made me remember D2’s colicky phase…not. easy. Sometimes, holding her in a certain way helped…hand through her legs and having her torso rest along my/dh’s arm with her face down and gently swinging. I tried to find a description by googling and came across this video which is not what we did but maybe it will help:
https://vitals.lifehacker.com/we-tested-the-magic-baby-hold-and-it-mostly-works-1745901483
And, sadly, D2 hated the car–cried the entire time she was in a car. Good luck finding what works for Ren, even if it’s just for the moment. This will definitely pass.
@romanigypsyeyes if the colic doesn’t improve, talk to the pediatrician. My niece had HORRIBLE colic. It just didn’t get better. I kept telling my sister it might be acid reflux but she wouldn’t listen. A few months later, guess what, the ped said it was acid reflux. Meds made all the difference. Something to keep in mind.