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cjra skrev:

Nearly - in your opinion they may not even qualify as countries. But we
each have a king/queen, a language, a parliarment and a legislation.

And Sweden is NOT the capitol of Scandinavia :-)

It's ok, as a former and part-time European, I was just kidding

I realized that :-)


Americans always confuse them, but the worst was when CNN put up a map
showing Sweden as Switzerland (or vice versa, can't remember now).

Like people saying: Iraq - Iran - why can't they decide what to call the
country.

Tine, Denmark

In article ,
Ericka Kammerer wrote:

However, my original point was that I was struck by how *many* of
the people I've encountered with PPD have unrealistic expectations of their
babies, and perfectionistic approaches to their lives. These
characteristics themselves may be driven by physiology as well as family
history, experiences etc, of course, but they can be modified via CBT.

Right--you've got a "chicken and egg" dilemma. It could
very easily be that those who are wired to be prone to depression
have a distorted view and distorted expectations as a result.

And also, research indicates that babies brought up in a stressful situation
grow up to be anxious adults -- ie, our physiological wiring is affected by
our environment.

PPD and other mood disorders are most likely driven by a combination of
physiological susceptibility, environmental triggers (eg difficult delivery
is associated with PPD) *and* thought patterns. If we modify some of these
conditions, we can perhaps prevent or alleviate some cases. I hope so,
anyway.

In some cases, but I think it's really important
not to give people the impression that depression is "all
in your head." Yeah, you can make some inroads without
medication in some cases, but it's not *just* inappropriate
expectations that causes someone to become clinically depressed.
It's that sort of thinking that makes people avoid getting
a diagnosis and treatment because they think that if it's
"just" a matter of inappropriate expectations, then they
can and should be able to fix that on their own. People
who are depressed need encouragement not to blame themseles
(for their "bad" thought patterns) and to go get help.

Yes -- I was noting an association, not apportioning blame or suggesting
treatment could be self-administered (though this site is good for people who
want to try CBT on their own: http://moodgym.anu.edu.au/).

I do think that these particular habits of thinking are, hmmm, maladaptive in
general. Even if they don't push you into depression, they can do terrible
things to the people around you. Think of children of perfectionist parents,
for example (again, there's a cohort of Flybabies who avoided cleanliness and
tidiness for years in reaction to their parents' white glove testing at home!).

When your
life requires a schedule, babies tend to fall into them.
It's no accident that later borns often seem to have less
difficulty getting into a routine than first borns.

In my case, I don't think DS2 is amenable to routines; it's simply that we
have more to do as a family so that if DS2 has to be woken up and dragged off
somewhere, tough. We were more courteous to DS1!

All of our modern conveniences make things
easier, but they remove the technological constraints that
imposed some structure. However, just because we *can* do
more things on an ad hoc basis doesn't mean that doing everything
that way is a more effective way to run a household.

Rather the opposite!

At home, I'm a strong believer in routines
and order, but I have to flog myself to make it happen
and I fall off the bandwagon the moment I take my attention
off of it. You know how they say do something for X days
and it'll be a habit? Pbbbbth. I could do something
every day for a *year*, and the instant I didn't make a
conscious effort to do it, I'd stop. I'm incredibly
routine resistant ;-) But I know what a difference it
makes.

One of the reasons I find Flylady helpful is that my routines are *written*
(and on my fridge). I've been doing this stuff for 4 years and it isn't
automatic yet!

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"In Melbourne there is plenty of vigour and eagerness, but there is
nothing worth being eager or vigorous about."
Francis Adams, The Australians, 1893.

"Chookie" wrote in message
...
!).

When your
life requires a schedule, babies tend to fall into them.
It's no accident that later borns often seem to have less
difficulty getting into a routine than first borns.

In my case, I don't think DS2 is amenable to routines; it's simply that we
have more to do as a family so that if DS2 has to be woken up and dragged
off
somewhere, tough. We were more courteous to DS1!
LOL
#1 fell naturally into her own routine at 10 months.
Even though we now have to be places at a particular time daily, which we
rarely had to with #1... #2 still doesn't have a set routine.
I guess some are born with routines, some achieve routines and some have
routines thrust upon them? (and some, like #2 go their own sweet way
ignoring all routines)
Debbie

Chookie wrote:
In article ,
Ericka Kammerer wrote:

When your
life requires a schedule, babies tend to fall into them.
It's no accident that later borns often seem to have less
difficulty getting into a routine than first borns.

In my case, I don't think DS2 is amenable to routines; it's simply that we
have more to do as a family so that if DS2 has to be woken up and dragged off
somewhere, tough. We were more courteous to DS1!

Exactly--you have fewer choices, so you plan ahead,
create routines, and everyone has to adapt. And lo and
behold, babies tend to adapt! Those firstborns likely
would have adapted too, if they'd needed to. But, because
we didn't *need* them to, we didn't create that environment
of routines and maybe found ourselves with a more challenging
situation than absoluted had to exist.
I can't tell you the number of times I've seen
families with little to no routines for their firstborns
agonizing over how hard everything was and assuming that
there wasn't anything they could do about it--that they
just had to react to whatever the baby dished out. Fast
forward a few years to the same family with baby #2, and
by George, they've got routines (because they didn't
have any choice due to #1's preschool/etc. schedule)
and they're marveling at how much easier #2 is ;-)
Mind you, it's not always that way. I'm not
denying the existence of high needs babies. I'm also
not suggesting that we go back to the "good old days"
of putting babies on rigid schedules. I believe in
feeding on demand and that sort of thing. I just
think you can tune into baby's natural rhythms and
nudge things one way or another to get better
routines going. I think this often works and makes
everything else about parenting go more smoothly,
and makes parents feel much less frantic and
out of control.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Hi all,

I've given myself some time to think about all the responses in this
thread - and I want you to know that I've read them, am thinking about
them, and I appreciate them. I just don't know what to say in response
right now. I'm still marinating on them...

But I had a question about this:

Ericka Kammerer wrote:

Mind you, it's not always that way. I'm not
denying the existence of high needs babies. I'm also
not suggesting that we go back to the "good old days"
of putting babies on rigid schedules. I believe in
feeding on demand and that sort of thing. I just
think you can tune into baby's natural rhythms and
nudge things one way or another to get better
routines going. I think this often works and makes
everything else about parenting go more smoothly,
and makes parents feel much less frantic and
out of control.

Ok, part of this is not knowing what an appropriate routine for a 5.5
month old *is*. I mean, we get up in the morning, change her pants,
and come downstairs in our jammies and we get a cup of (decaf) coffee,
and a granola bar, and she plays on the floor while I check my e-mail,
and we just sort of chill. Then, about an hour after she woke up, we
change pants again, then go down for morning nap. Morning nap lasts
anywhere from 3 hours (in which case I get showered, dressed, start the
laundry, unload the dishwasher, clean the bathroom, get a little work
done, make a few phone calls, and start wondering if my chest is going
to explode before she wakes up) to 25 minutes (because the dog barks or
because it's Tuesday and we just don't sleep on Tuesdays - in which
case I barely get myself dressed some mornings).

Beyond that, it's just random - because I don't know how to structure
anything when I can't predict how long she's going to sleep. I've
tried nursing her back down, and that usually doesn't work. So, if she
slept three hours, she's not going to need to sleep again for a while,
but if she only slept 25 minutes, she's going to need to rest sooner,
and I can't plan the rest of the day not knowing how it's going to be
until I've seen how she's going to sleep that day, you know?

Evenings are a similar problem - if DH gets home at 5:30 or 6, things
are pretty routine. He takes the dog and the baby for a walk if the
weather's warm, if not, he plays with her while I get dinner made. We
eat, then I clean up if she's being nice, but if she's fussy he cleans
up while I nurse her, then we do a bath, story, nurse down, bed around
8 or 8:30. But if he gets home late, or if she's fussy (lately because
she's teething) or whatever, it throws everything off, and some nights
I don't get her nursed down until 10 pm or later (not for lack of
trying - just because I'm nursing and nursing and she won't go to
sleep).

DH and I weren't really structured people prior to having her - we were
kind of spontaneous. Not that we ever really did much, but we were
sort of, "What time do you feel like eating dinner tonight?" "I don't
know, not for an hour or two yet, let's watch TV instead..." sort of
people. We didn't have dinner every night at 6:30 or anything. It's
not really in our nature to be that way. So how do we start now that
we have a kid? And what is an appropriate routine for a baby her age?
How can I have routines and still be flexible?

When I was teaching it was easy, because the bells rang at the same
times every day, so it was easy to do the same stuff - say the pledge,
take attendance, do the weather, then break into groups for
instruction, etc. - every day at the same time. But life at home just
isn't like that - the things I need to do each day differ from the day
before (I don't need to do laundry every day, and I don't need to run
errands every day - some days are busy, some are boring). I know that
structure is important, I just don't know how to get there, other than
to wake up, change pants, nurse, be up for a bit, then nurse down to
sleep, lather, rinse, repeat.... And I'm pretty sure that that's not
what you mean.

Thanks,
Amy

Ericka Kammerer wrote:

Sorry, I had wandered away from the topic of PPD
and more into just generic having difficulty coping with
parenthood. I think people used to be much more routinized
than many are today, and I think those routines helped
people keep their lives under some semblance of control.
I think technology and changing priorities/values and
other things have combined to create a situation where
many people live their lives very reactively and in a
very ad hoc manner, at least at home. Many people can
keep things afloat that way without kids, but throw
a kid or two into the mix and it becomes very chaotic
and frustrating for many.

Since our schedule changes completely every semester I can agree with
this. :-)

Transitional weeks utterly *suck*, when we change from one routine to
another. But there's nothing to be done about them; some semesters DH
teaches daily morning classes and some he teaches two night classes and
a weekend class, and some weeks I have night rehearsals until 10 pm
and some I have to be at a job site 40 miles away at 8 am when the
carpenters are there. Just to get everyone enough sleep to go to work
our routine has to flex +/- four hours every time I turn around. :-(

It definitely helps things if we run the same morning routine and night
routine regardless of the time, though. When that's possible.

--
C, mama to three year old nursling

Chookie wrote:

In article .com,
"Amy" wrote:

It's a LOT to try to live up to.
and it doesn't make sense, because plenty of kids grow up with
moms who don't make cookies and they're fine, [...]

Actually, I'd say your *mother* failed if she spent all those years using all
her skills to such a high level and never taught them to you, nor gave you the
confidence to attempt them on your own, nor passed on her enjoyment. (Did you
notice that your description of your mother lists her skills, rather than her
beliefs and sayings, or the way she makes you feel?)

What Chookie said.

Also, you should do with your daughter your
own stuff. Don't live in your mother's
pattern. I may not be as great a cook as
my mother, but my children will know I took
them to swim lessons from the time they were
12 months old. My mom doesn't even swim!

My mom made cute dresses for me, but she
never made a quilt. I've already made
several for the kids.

Make your own world.

-- Anita --

Amy wrote:
Hi all,

I've given myself some time to think about all the responses in this
thread - and I want you to know that I've read them, am thinking about
them, and I appreciate them. I just don't know what to say in response
right now. I'm still marinating on them...

But I had a question about this:

Ericka Kammerer wrote:


Mind you, it's not always that way. I'm not
denying the existence of high needs babies. I'm also
not suggesting that we go back to the "good old days"
of putting babies on rigid schedules. I believe in
feeding on demand and that sort of thing. I just
think you can tune into baby's natural rhythms and
nudge things one way or another to get better
routines going. I think this often works and makes
everything else about parenting go more smoothly,
and makes parents feel much less frantic and
out of control.


Ok, part of this is not knowing what an appropriate routine for a 5.5
month old *is*. I mean, we get up in the morning, change her pants,
and come downstairs in our jammies and we get a cup of (decaf) coffee,
and a granola bar, and she plays on the floor while I check my e-mail,
and we just sort of chill. Then, about an hour after she woke up, we
change pants again, then go down for morning nap. Morning nap lasts
anywhere from 3 hours (in which case I get showered, dressed, start the
laundry, unload the dishwasher, clean the bathroom, get a little work
done, make a few phone calls, and start wondering if my chest is going
to explode before she wakes up) to 25 minutes (because the dog barks or
because it's Tuesday and we just don't sleep on Tuesdays - in which
case I barely get myself dressed some mornings).

Beyond that, it's just random - because I don't know how to structure
anything when I can't predict how long she's going to sleep. I've
tried nursing her back down, and that usually doesn't work. So, if she
slept three hours, she's not going to need to sleep again for a while,
but if she only slept 25 minutes, she's going to need to rest sooner,
and I can't plan the rest of the day not knowing how it's going to be
until I've seen how she's going to sleep that day, you know?

Well, think of it this way: If you had a preschooler
who had to get to school and be picked up at certain times,
or you had to go to work and take her to a babysitter and
pick her up at preset times, what would you do? Odds are,
you'd do what you had to do when you had to do it, even if
that meant waking her up or delaying a nap a bit until
you got back home or whatever. It could be that she
naps unpredictably because there isn't really a rhythm
to her napping. Again, I'm not suggesting rigid adherence
to a timetable. If I had a baby who had a short morning
nap, I probably would put her down a bit early for an
afternoon nap. Even now, if my toddler has a short nap,
and she's cranky, I'll move bedtime up a little bit if
that's possible. But, unless the situation was dire,
I wouldn't compensate for a 2 hour shorter morning
nap with a 2 hour earlier afternoon nap. I'd try to
have the afternoon nap close to the usual time and
compensate for the crankiness by going out for a
walk or doing something else active and interesting
during the cranky period to help get through it.
Same with extra-long naps. I'll let a baby nap a
little longer than usual, but in general, if a
successful nap is 2 hours, I'm probably not going
to let it go 3+ hours (assuming baby is not sick
or making up for a shorter earlier nap or whatever),
even though the temptation to do so is strong ;-)

Evenings are a similar problem - if DH gets home at 5:30 or 6, things
are pretty routine. He takes the dog and the baby for a walk if the
weather's warm, if not, he plays with her while I get dinner made. We
eat, then I clean up if she's being nice, but if she's fussy he cleans
up while I nurse her, then we do a bath, story, nurse down, bed around
8 or 8:30. But if he gets home late, or if she's fussy (lately because
she's teething) or whatever, it throws everything off, and some nights
I don't get her nursed down until 10 pm or later (not for lack of
trying - just because I'm nursing and nursing and she won't go to
sleep).

Do you need to nurse her until she's out cold?
Or could you nurse her at 8pm, put her down, and let her
go about her business of falling asleep? When your schedule
gets disrupted like that, is it possible that a late dinner
and a stressful evening interferes with your milk production?
Would you be better off carrying on as usual, even if your
husband's not home on time?

DH and I weren't really structured people prior to having her - we were
kind of spontaneous. Not that we ever really did much, but we were
sort of, "What time do you feel like eating dinner tonight?" "I don't
know, not for an hour or two yet, let's watch TV instead..." sort of
people. We didn't have dinner every night at 6:30 or anything. It's
not really in our nature to be that way. So how do we start now that
we have a kid? And what is an appropriate routine for a baby her age?
How can I have routines and still be flexible?

I understand how tough it is to make the transition.
It's not in my nature to be this structured either. However,
I'd rather suck it up and get some more routine going than
have to deal with the rollercoaster.
As far as an appropriate routine, I don't really
think there's a magic routine that's appropriate for every
child and every family. In general, at that age my kids
were transitioning from 3 to 2 naps per day (with bedtime
around 9/9:30pm with 3 naps, or at 7:30 or so with 2 naps).
My days went *much* better if we got up and out and did
*something*. I'd usually try to do something after the
morning nap and after the afternoon nap (getting out of
the house, if possible, even if just to go for a walk).

When I was teaching it was easy, because the bells rang at the same
times every day, so it was easy to do the same stuff - say the pledge,
take attendance, do the weather, then break into groups for
instruction, etc. - every day at the same time. But life at home just
isn't like that - the things I need to do each day differ from the day
before (I don't need to do laundry every day, and I don't need to run
errands every day - some days are busy, some are boring). I know that
structure is important, I just don't know how to get there, other than
to wake up, change pants, nurse, be up for a bit, then nurse down to
sleep, lather, rinse, repeat.... And I'm pretty sure that that's not
what you mean.

Well, that is part of it. But I think you *can*
impose a bit more structure if that's what you need to
get a rhythm going in your day. In my case, I found it
really helpful to do *something* after the morning nap
and after the afternoon nap. With older kids in the
house, that "thing" could have been as simple as getting
and older kid to or from preschool or an activity. It
could be grocery shopping one day or a walk another day
or visiting a friend yet another day. For me anyway,
staying home all day every day was the kiss of death.
Even now, with a 2.5 year old toddler, if I have a day
where I just have a lot of work and other things to
do at home and we don't go out and do something, it's
a killer. She'll be irritable and hard to deal with
and I'll get increasingly frustrated and nothing will
go well and she'll probably cut her afternoon nap
short (and then I'll be even more behind!).

Speaking of, this morning's adventure is that
I'm going to a meeting at work and she's going to
Grandma's, so I'd better get my rump in gear...

I should say that I don't mean to suggest
that developing a bit more of a routine will be
a silver bullet that will make everything perfect
and your baby always compliant. If only! It's just
my experience and belief that it does make things
significantly easier to deal with and help gets
everyone in a groove where they know what's going
to happen. Babies have no control over what happens
to them when. The world is unpredictable, and
unpredictable is scary and stress-inducing. Being
able to predict what will happen next is very
soothing for a baby. It won't turn a high needs
baby into an easy one, but it will likely take
down the stress and effort a bit, and every bit
helps when you're on the edge.
I also don't mean to suggest that it's easy
to do this. When you're not a routinized person
by nature, it's tough. It does mean giving up
some flexibility. It does mean planning ahead.
However, it pays some significant dividends. Also,
as I said, you don't have to be slavish. You can
usually push times a bit this way or that, and
you can substitute sort of equivalent activities
(one quiet activity for another, one active activity
for another, etc.). It's the rhythm of the day
that you're trying to stabilize a bit, not punch
a time clock.

Best wishes,
Ericka

In article .com,
"Amy" wrote:

Ok, part of this is not knowing what an appropriate routine for a 5.5
month old *is*. I mean, we get up in the morning, change her pants,
and come downstairs in our jammies and we get a cup of (decaf) coffee,
and a granola bar, and she plays on the floor while I check my e-mail,
and we just sort of chill. Then, about an hour after she woke up, we
change pants again, then go down for morning nap. Morning nap lasts
anywhere from 3 hours (in which case I get showered, dressed, start the
laundry, unload the dishwasher, clean the bathroom, get a little work
done, make a few phone calls, and start wondering if my chest is going
to explode before she wakes up) to 25 minutes (because the dog barks or
because it's Tuesday and we just don't sleep on Tuesdays - in which
case I barely get myself dressed some mornings).

Beyond that, it's just random - because I don't know how to structure
anything when I can't predict how long she's going to sleep.

Apart from suggesting Flylady, which helps you decide what to do when, which
was just what I needed at 6mo pp, I'll drop in a few other things:

1. BFing time is me time (for reading ngs etc)
2. If I am sleep deprived, baby sleep time is Mummy rest time too.
3. The next priority after sleep is a shower and getting dressed.
4. You CAN work while the baby is awake. A baby does not require constant
in-her-face interaction. But they usually want to be able to see you and what
you are doing. Slings, rockers and playpens are good because they enable this
to happen!

Evenings are a similar problem - if DH gets home at 5:30 or 6, things
are pretty routine. He takes the dog and the baby for a walk if the
weather's warm, if not, he plays with her while I get dinner made. We
eat, then I clean up if she's being nice, but if she's fussy he cleans
up while I nurse her, then we do a bath, story, nurse down, bed around
8 or 8:30. But if he gets home late, or if she's fussy (lately because
she's teething) or whatever, it throws everything off, and some nights
I don't get her nursed down until 10 pm or later (not for lack of
trying - just because I'm nursing and nursing and she won't go to
sleep).

I would be looking to see where the bottlenecks occur and trying to route
around them. For example, if she's BFing when you want to cook, you could
either nuke something from the freezer, get DH to cook, or have dinner cooked
earlier in the day. And yes, expect teething to knock everything for six.
Build in LOTS of slack! I tend to have one focus for teh day (and this is
another FLylady idea) -- MOnday is for groceries, Tuesday for other errands,
Wednesday is for my correspondence, etc.

DH and I weren't really structured people prior to having her - we were
kind of spontaneous. Not that we ever really did much, but we were
sort of, "What time do you feel like eating dinner tonight?" "I don't
know, not for an hour or two yet, let's watch TV instead..." sort of
people. We didn't have dinner every night at 6:30 or anything. It's
not really in our nature to be that way. So how do we start now that
we have a kid? And what is an appropriate routine for a baby her age?

Actually, the routines aren't for the baby. They're for the FAMILY. The
reason you need to have dinner at a reasonable hour is so that you, the
parents, can get to bed at a reasonable hour. The reason you need to plan
dinner is so that the family is well-nourished, especially yourself. (When
you have a toddler you will realise exactly how important regular mealtimes
and adequate sleep are for maintenance of an attractive personality and the
ability to cope with change!)

How can I have routines and still be flexible?

See Flylady!

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"In Melbourne there is plenty of vigour and eagerness, but there is
nothing worth being eager or vigorous about."
Francis Adams, The Australians, 1893.

"Chookie" wrote in message
Apart from suggesting Flylady, which helps you decide what to do when,
which was just what I needed at 6mo pp, I'll drop in a few other things:

I skipped the ideas, just for bandwidth reasons, but all of them were
excellent ideas and thoughts. )
--
Sue (mom to three girls)