2/11/23
when baby is gone during the day and I’m going from room to room cleaning up the mess from the day before, it’s usually late afternoon- almost time for him to come home again. Which makes it seem like… every day, all I have time for is to clean up right before he comes back… to make a mess again. I can see how, caught in this cycle, a person could become desperate for…just any break from it.
tonight baby was sticking his hands in my food, so i asked if he wanted to eat, he said yes, and i said “ok mommy get you food,” and in the rush of going back-and-forth with his highchair and food and feeding baby, at one point when I brought him some cheese cubes, R was like, “I want some cheese too!” and my auto-response was, “OK mommy get it for you” and I realized my mistake right after, but didn’t have the energy to correct it.
2/12/23
realized I’m kind of glad I did so much stuff before I had a baby, like had boyfriends and my one night stands and clubbing, etc. I feel like I wouldn’t wanna do any of that now, and I also read that toddlers thrive on stability and routine, which I want to give him. like I’m glad I’m not wondering about any of that stuff now, because I already went through it. because like, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t really, with all the time and energy it takes to raise a baby.
he’s growing more amazing though. He starting to speak basic sentences, like “daddy sleeping upstairs,” or “mommy open door.” I think I’ve never laughed so hard at any stage yet than now. he talks all the time, and is so funny. Sometimes he makes me laugh so hard that it actually wakes me up a little when I’m tired.
2/14/23
today while he nursed from 5:30 am to 7:04 am, i was desperate for sleep. towards the end, started hearing myself think over and over: “this is too much- let go.” pictured slapping/pushing/punching him to get him off me; realized that would make it worse. remembered hearing some mothers pinch their noses so they can’t breathe and let go; seemed too cruel for me, didn’t do it. just started sobbing hard (quietly) over him when i didn’t know what else to do- twice those sobs involuntarily turned into big yawns – this never happened while i was crying before, but i guess just visually sums up how i feel (frustrated + exhausted). when i’d counted much more than 8 consecutive seconds without sucking, i thought he’d finally fallen asleep and tried to pull out – when i did this, it roused him and he continued sucking for 5-10 more minutes. he finally let go on his own, only when he was done – when he decided. i’d come downstairs in the dark, and by the end of nursing, it had been light outside for awhile. he only took a break around 7, then woke up and continued nursing from 7:30 to 9 am.
2/15/23
I realized sleep is a privilege- not everyone gets it, whether due to babies or mental unrest or injury, etc…. it’s really a precious thing, a treasure of life that you should feel lucky to have, if you have good rest.
2/16/23
Got desperate enough to try squeezing his nose when he bites to see if he’ll let go. I can stand a little biting – I let that go. But he does this thing sometimes where he’s actually like chomping (always at the end, when he’s near falling asleep, so I can’t verbally correct him/he doesn’t hear me) – the chomping i realized is too much for me – my pain boundary- so this is when I tried the nose pinching. So far it doesn’t work- it just wakes him up crying, and i have to put him back on for more nursing. But something dark I realized about why I was so hesitant to try nose pinching: a part of me was scared I think, to get carried away with it and kill him.
Like… you’re only supposed to pinch for a second (which in the moment, amid the acute pain of nipple being chomped, I forgot and did several seconds, because he didn’t let go in the first second – which every cell of my body wanted to happen). But I was scared that…maybe the stress of parenting and breastfeeding combined with the mental distortion from lack of sleep (not to mention acute pain of nipple being chomped) would, while pinching his nose, make me pinch for way too long or even bring his whole face into my chest to smother him- like it might be too easy, once I started with that little thing, to get carried away.
I feel like I would never in reality do it…but also feel like this fear is a real signal from somewhere that’s trying to say that maybe I’m not yet stable enough in body or mind to be manipulating my baby’s breath like that. Like I maybe shouldn’t go near that kind of tactic or mess with it at all, as long as I’m not feeling 100%, which I’m not. If I had to rate my current percent…I would say I’m only at 60-70 percent. I feel fleeting bouts of 70+ percent, usually right after I wake up from getting to nap alone undisturbed in the morning after dad takes the baby. But just two months ago when I went to the ER, my percent was obviously much lower. I’ve been trying harder since that wake-up call (prioritizing sleep, supplements, daily walks), which has def helped. There was kind of nowhere to go but up from there.
Marriage Journal 