Nate’s skin is so dry, it’s this horrible Canadian winter weather! He’s discovered his hair, so he holds onto it, scratching his face and head in the night when he wakes up.

I tried using baby nail scissors to trim his fingernails (I refuse to bite them) but they just wouldn’t grip the nail at all. I used a pair of baby nail clippers at a friend’s house but they left his nails square, so the tiny edges were sharp. Sometimes the nails sort of peel away, but trimming them was still a mystery to me when I decided to ask YOU what I should do.

I asked the Twitterverse, “Tips for cutting the nails of the wiggliest baby on the planet? Other than doing it while he sleeps? Anyone?”

You answered.

alotofnothing said, “bite them off. no, seriously” (I told you, I’m not doing that.)

Nicole013 said, “We do the “one parent holds, the other clips” technique. Since Darren is a better distraction than me, he does the holding.”

sara3isenough said, “I always offer marshmallows after but that won’t help you! Take him outside so he has something to look at? In the high chair”

velocibadgerGRL said, “I’m curious to see what ppl say. I wait for sleep with mine!”

jenbshaw said, “manicure scissors, and yes, while they sleep (or eat)”

S_cerevisiae said, “I go to YouTube & play The Wiggles Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. She becomes mesmerized. It’s the only way I can trim them.”

In the end I waited until Nate was very calm, with his arms at his side, watching Sesame Street, and carefully used regular nail trimmers to get them as short as I could. Man, those little nails grow fast!

Thanks for the advice, everyone!

148111 Comments »http://www.assertagirl.com/?p=1481Tips+for+Trimming+Baby%27s+Nails2010-03-05+01%3A02%3A20Amy

“Do I seem like the kind of parent who complains a lot?” I asked Graham.

We were in the car on the way to visit our friends Tamara and Carys, who live in Guelph. The drive took us about an hour and a half, the longest we’d taken Nate in the car. We timed things just right. We got in the car as Nate was about ready for a snooze, and he slept most of the way there.

“No…why do you ask?” he responded. “Did someone say that about you?”

“No,” I replied. “I was just wondering. I really hope I don’t seem that way.”

I thought about my blog and about how I write about how mothering is so challenging. About how, when we get together with our friends who also have children, we talk a lot about the difficulties of raising them. Of course being a parent is also wonderful in many ways. Although I don’t write or talk about the happy stuff all the time, I really do hope that I don’t sound like I’m not appreciative of every moment we have with Nathan. Because I am.

147811 Comments »http://www.assertagirl.com/?p=1478Appreciate.2010-03-03+00%3A33%3A05Amy

I’ve come to the conclusion that motherhood and sleep are incompatible.

I have one friend who has a new baby almost exactly the same age as Nate, and this friend’s baby has been sleeping through the night pretty much since he came home from the hospital. She kids around and says he’s just lazy, but I know she’s just trying to make me feel better about Nate’s sleeping patterns.

I have another friend who had a new baby about a month ago, and this friend also has two other kids who began to sleep through the night around twelve or fourteen weeks.

I keep hearing people tell me, “It’ll get better,” or “He’ll get there soon,” or “You should nap when he does.”

All of these sentences kind of make me want to scream. I know it will get better. He won’t be a ten year old who wakes up every three hours to nurse. I know he’ll get there. All babies eventually figure out the mysteries of sleep and the nights of interrupted slumber become a distant memory for moms and dads.

But in the middle of the night, when I’ve had the longest stretch of sleep I’ll get that night (three measley hours) and Nathan won’t go back to sleep because his tummy is troubling him or whatever else is preventing him from falling back to sleep…when it’s been days, weeks, months now, since I’ve had any real quality rest, when the tears begin to fall and I begin to envision walking away from the house just to find a bed somewhere dark and quiet…that’s when I know it’s time to ask for help.

Like I did last night.

Desperation began to set in so I put Nate back into his crib. I went back into our bedroom and woke up Graham. I told him I needed help. I was beginning to lose it a little. I was exhausted. Without a word he left our room to tend to our son so I could get some rest, shutting the door behind him.

I felt awful. Guilty. Sorry. Like I had that one night in the hospital when our nurse took Nate, screaming, from our room so a sleep-deprived new mom could cry herself to sleep.

Thanks, Graham. I know it’s hard for you, too, when neither Nate nor I are sleeping well. Thanks for being on our team.

147556 Comments »http://www.assertagirl.com/?p=1475Motherhood+and+sleep+are+incompatible.2010-02-25+13%3A28%3A02Amy

Someday I hope Nate and his Dad will build an addition on our house.

14727 Comments »http://www.assertagirl.com/?p=1472Wordless+Wednesday%3A+Tooltime+edition.2010-02-24+14%3A41%3A58Amy

Well, the nursing and the pooping is under control, so naturally something else has come along to throw me for a loop.

Sleeping.

Or lack, thereof.

Nate will sleep during the night.  For about three hours, at the most, at a time.  He’s still getting up that often for feedings.  Once in awhile he’ll go four hours at a time.  He always goes right back to bed, so night time is not that big a deal.  I’m getting used to the same sleep pattern as the baby, I guess.

During the day, however, Nate fights sleep like nobody’s business.  There’s too much to see!  And hear!  The stucco on the ceiling is enough these days to distract our little guy from falling asleep.  I’ve stopped sweating the fact that he gets some of his best naps in his swing.  My friends tell me that the crib naps will come later.  That right now it’s more important to get his sleeping patterns established than worry about where that sleep is taking place.  He has had the odd nap in his crib, which I consider a bonus.  Conditions have to be just right to make this happen, however…the perfect storm of napping conditions.  He has to be drowsy but not actively fighting sleep.  I’ll lay him in the crib and putter around upstairs while he fidgets there, and eventually he’ll drop off.

Yesterday he was up during the day for three hours between 3 and 6, which is about the longest stretch he’s been awake.  He would not settle.  He got himself worked up into such a state, nothing I did would soothe him enough to settle down.  The television, the computer, the books on the shelves, the lamp on the table…all too exciting and interesting.  Finally I turned off the lamp, turned off the television, took off my top, took off his clothes and the skin-on-skin and some nursing soothed him enough to pass out.  I almost felt sorry for him.  It seems so backwards to me that babies just don’t know that when they’re tired, they should close their eyes and go to sleep!  He is so much happier when he is rested.

I know, I know, this is just another phase.  The ceiling will eventually just be a ceiling and when he starts eating some solids he’ll sleep longer stretches at night.  My friend Kelly said her daughter started having better naps once she was old enough to really play and be active while she was awake.  The activity would tire her out.

That day is coming.  The crazy thing is, once it gets here I will probably long for these days of early, confusing parenthood, instead.

146729 Comments »http://www.assertagirl.com/?p=1467Another+post+about+baby+sleep.2010-02-22+18%3A03%3A22Amy