The Trixie Update

Last night was a disaster. Not only did Trixie not sleep through the night, she divided her total sleep time exactly into thirds to maximize the inconvenience. Her 1 am and 4:30 am awakenings were made more painful by the fact that we secretly hoped for a repeat of last night’s uninterrupted 8 hour stretch.

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Sleep-training Trixie this past week has taken a lot of work, and yes, yet another log. For once, this isn’t that outrageous a concept — every how-to sleep book says to keep a log, they just don’t all advise making it web-based. As you might expect, the Sleep Log will soon be added to the site.

Right now we’re just collecting data. We basically had no idea how many hours she slept a day or when she was sleeping. We now have 5 days worth of data and all sorts of trends are becoming clear. For instance she sleeps about 13 hours a day (fantastic), but most of her naps are between 35-40 minutes long (infuriating). This came as a surprise to me, because I was pretty sure she was awake about 22 hours a day. The goal now is to use this data to try to manage her sleep cycles so she doesn’t get so cranky.

Last night was an unexpected treat. Previously she had been sleeping 4 1/2 hours, waking up at 2 or 3 am for a snack, and then sleeping another 4 hours. Last night, however, she slept almost 8 hours. She was extra worn out from a busy Thanksgiving yesterday, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed for a repeat.

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The pregnancy hormone β-HCG was detected. This isn’t where it all began, but it’s as close to the beginning as we can get. On Saturday, November 23rd, 2002 we took a quick trip over to Pathmark to pick up the home pregnancy test. Twenty minutes later we confirmed the existence of an undifferentiated clump of cells. Eight months, eight days later we got a Trixie.

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This is too good to be true. Trixie went to sleep by herself for a second time after crying for only 15 minutes. The first time took 40 minutes. I know two measurements don’t make a trend, but hell, I like the trend! If this were Vegas, I would put all my money on the parents - straight up - the baby doesn’t stand a chance. How naive we were to think that a baby could outsmart us, adults.

Editor’s note: I fully plan to recant all of the above in the near future once the system breaks down and Trixie reintroduces the 4-hour scream-a-thon perfected over the past couple of weeks. But right now, the house wins.

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This could become the most practical milestone we have achieved. It took almost 40 minutes of frustrated crying before she fell asleep for a mere 60 minute nap, but that’s a small price to pay in the long run. What’s at stake here is Trixie’s ability to fall sleep by herself and comfort herself. Up to this point, we were only able to put her in the crib when she was already asleep, and she would often wake up in the transfer.

Now we are ready to put her in the crib when she starts exhibiting sleepy behavior — the funniest of which is balling up her hands and rubbing her eyes — and she should learn to go to sleep. Of course, it’s possible this afternoon was just a wishful anomaly, and Trixie might have no intention of going to sleep without a bottle in her mouth or a warm body holding her.

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We just came through a harrowing couple of hours — at least I think we’re through it. Trixie choked on a bottle of milk earlier around 5:30. This in itself isn’t that scary. It happens often enough. She’ll be too excited, too distracted, too sleepy or just too starving to moderate her gulping. The milk will go down the wrong pipe and she’ll snap to real quick as we yank her upright to cough it out of her.

Tonight, however, was different. The coughing turned into persistent rapid-fire hiccups accompanied by tiny but disturbing raspy gurgles. For about 2 hours she was stricken with these convulsing hiccups. She was able to breathe fine (and scream) but it sounded like something was in the back of her throat or nose. She was also hungry but we couldn’t feed her because she kept coughing and gasping on the milk when the hiccups would hit. Exhausted, she eventually fell asleep and the hiccups gradually tapered off, but she was still shuddering and sputtering in her sleep for at least an hour. Trixie was much better when she woke, much like a rebooted computer. The symptoms weren’t totally gone, but she easily and greedily drank down a whole bottle. Even now, 5 hours later, it’s not totally over. She’s still surprising us with a few isolated abnormal gasps.

At any rate, this ordeal has consumed and distressed us for the entire evening, and we’re not sure if we’re out of the woods yet. Worst case is that she coughed some milk in her lungs that could turn into pneumonia, but we’ll be on the alert. I guess this is what it’s like to worry as a parent.

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We just changed Trixie’s 1000th diaper. Mercifully, it was neither poopy nor leaky. More diaper news coming soon-

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Granted Trixie is cute, but I can’t stare at her exclusively all day long — there are things to do. Often I hold or feed her while I’m reading and writing. Engrossed in my work, I’ll cough or sneeze without giving any warning. Catching a baby off-guard with a violent noise or body reverberation is a risky gamble. If I’m lucky, the only effect is her huge saucer eyes staring at me in terror. If not, I try to enjoy the half-second grace period of silence as her lower lip buckles in anticipation of the screaming and crying that are about to come.

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Yep, this is the bargain that Trixie has struck with us.

I know it’s been a while since I’ve reported on her development; a lot has changed over the last weeks. Trixie is starting to act like a real sentient being and not just a pooping machine. I’m here to bring you up to speed in the next couple of entries.

Trixie has become a very social little creature. She likes to look at people, she likes to interact with people and she likes to greet them with a giant, gaping mouth. She never actually bites, but if you don’t watch out you may end up with a hickey (she gave herself one on her arm earlier today.)

Her poor stuffed animals don’t fare as well. As you move one of her animals closer, her mouth opens wider and wider. If you pull the animal back, she closes her mouth a little bit, all the while carefully judging the distance from her jaws. If the animal gets within grabbing distance, it’s promptly seized. Then it’s gummed until thoroughly covered in slobber — or until she’s distracted by a tastier target.

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Trixie has been officially recognized by the Federal government. Let’s just hope Social Security is still solvent in 70 years.

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