Winter Weather

Some pictures of the frost today (I didn't even realize all those cobwebs were there!):

This is the stairs leading to the loft on the barn, and the main door in. There are cat doors for both, although only downstairs is heated. The cats are free to come and go as they please, although they spend most of their time inside during the winter months,which is good because all the mice want to come in too!

We had terrible problems with mice last year; it never really got cold enough for them to go into hibernation, (if that's what mice do...) and they were building nests in the hay stacks. Not only that, but they were coming in the house! The lower kitchen cabinets,my sewing room, and the room that would become baby's were the worst affected. At the time, baby's room was mostly filled with boxes and furniture,so it was a perfect place for them to hide. Once we began to convert it to a nursery,we realized how bad it had been. Wild mice can carry hantavirus, which can kill humans if they contract it, so it was very important to clean and disinfect the room before baby moved in. I was very worried about the mice being in the hay too; I was pregnant at the time, and it was impossible to get hay to feed horses without coming into contact with mouse feces. We ended up burning probably 10-15% of the hay, it was too gross to even think about feeding it to the horses. This year, we built a proper hay shed, so the hay isn't just under tarps, which should help. (It will also keep the rain and snow off, which means less lost to mold.) We also got two more cats.

Surprisingly, the dogs did a fairly good job of helping with the mice in the house. The library at that point was still just an empty room, and the walls hadn't been painted since before we moved in. We kept coming home and finding blood spattered all over the walls. How it got there was a mystery until one day my husband saw a mouse run through the kitchen and the dog go chasing after it. When he caught it, he shook it and shook it before eating it. Mystery solved!

I don't mind mice. When I was about 8 and living in British Columbia we had pet rats (bred domestically), and mice are similar, if not so big or so smart. Alberta is considered a rat-free province though, so we had to give them to a friend when we moved here. (Rats make fabulous pets, by the way.) So, I like small rodents, in general. But when they're in my house, ruining my hay, and potentially making me or family sick, that just won't do. We haven't seen any traces of them in the house yet this winter, but baby has one of those plug-in sonic noise deterrent things in her bedroom, just in case.

Despite the fog and frost today, the temperature is still unseasonably warm, and we have almost no snow, when by now it should be at least 6 inches deep. Very troubling, and not just from a "what does this mean for global warming" standpoint. Our house is rather old, and the septic system (handles all everything that goes down the drains) does not do well in winter if there isn't a bunch if snow on the ground to insulate it when the really cold days come. Things tend to freeze up, which can lead to it backing up into the house through the drain in the laundry room floor. We had some trouble this summer with rain causing a backup as well, but at least that water was relatively clean. The hope is to replace the septic system next summer, but we'll have to see.

Hopefully the weather returns a little more towards normal soon.

Best wishes

A small step for baby, but a giant leap for mum...

Guess who slept in her own bedroom last night! Yup, it was Avi. I too, spent the night in my own bedroom (with the husband and the dogs of course), but I didn't get much sleep. Spent most of the night checking the video monitor. Anxious? Me? Not at all...

So, at five months and one week of age, my little one begins her first big step towards "independence". (Yes, I realize that she'll rely on me and my husband completely for many months yet, and in some way, shape, or form for years to come, but sleeping in her own room is such a big step!) I know that it is recommended that babies sleep in your room for at least the first six months, if not longer, but I feel that her bassinet may no longer be the safest place for her...

The bassinet is kind of traditional in my family. It's a large basket, a little higher at one end than the other, and is probably a good 60 years old. My grandparents received when they purchased a car back in the 1960's. The wife of the man selling the car noticed that my grandmother was pregnant, and added the bassinet as part of the deal. (She and her husband had used it for their children, but were done with it now, and wanted it to go to good use). My grandfather built a stand for it, and voila, instant baby bed. I don't believe that my mother slept in it; I think it was my aunt, her younger sister, that was the then baby-to-be, but my grandmother held onto it for when her own daughters had babies. So, when I came along (I'm the first born grandchild), my mother sewed a liner/cover for it, and it became my bed. Then, a few years later, my brother's. My aunt never had any children, so the bassinet went back to grandma, but when they moved from their farm a few years back she gave it to my mother, for any future grand babies. 

So, of course I wanted my baby to sleep in it too. But the mattress that came with the basket had long since fallen apart, and would likely have fallen short of today's safety standards. However, it's basically a custom size, so what to do to keep baby safest? In the end, we got the closest size bassinet mattress we could find, and trimmed it down. Most bassinet mattresses, at least that we found, are a piece of fairly hard foam with a waterproof covering on them. It was easy enough to trim down the foam,but the covering gave it extra rigidity, and it is my understanding that the hardness of the mattress is what prevents the baby from smothering if they should end up face down. So, to keep what was left of the cover in place, we duct taped it. And it has worked quite well so far. The mattress sits inside an old pillowcase, with a receiving blanket stretched over top and tucked around the sides, and everything stays neatly in place. At least, it has been. But, baby is getting bigger, and stronger, and has now decided she wants to roll to her side or her belly to sleep, instead of staying on her back where I put her. The modifications to the mattress, coupled with the fact that the basket is not fixed to the stand, and could, in theory, fall off with her added movements, has made me decide its time for her to sleep in her crib.

So, after her last feeding, we went to her bedroom and read her story in the rocking chair (which had belonged to my husband's mother), and then put her in her crib to sleep. She cried a little longer than usual, and needed a little more soothing, but fell asleep in a relatively short time, and stayed that way until it was time for more food (she is still getting up once or twice at night to eat). Once she had finished her formula, she went back to her crib, and promptly fell back asleep, both times we got up. In the morning when she woke up, she lay in her crib, waving her arms and kicking her feet and just generally being her merry little self until I went down and got her. And I know what she was doing because I was watching on the video monitor. Actually, I was watching it for a good portion of the night, and consequently didn't sleep very well.

Hopefully my anxiety calms down a little more tonight, and I can get some better sleep. I think my little one will manage just fine.

Best wishes

Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to adventures in country parenting!

First, a little about us: we are a family of three living in rural Alberta, Canada. The husband and I were married in autumn  2010, and our baby girl was born in early summer of 2016. We live on a ten acre farm, with two dogs, a bunch of horse, some cats, and a handful of chickens.

So, why did I choose to start a blog? There are so many out there, it almost seems redundant, right? Well, partly it's something to do in the evenings after supper and before bed. Also, however, it's a way for me to share my thoughts and experiences. People, especially parents, seem to like giving advice. However, since I became a mother, I've had so much unsolicited advice I could choke! So, how to avoid being obnoxiously over-helpful, yet still have an outlet for that need to share?  My go to answer for most things: the internet! The beauty of it is, I can share all the tips, anecdotes, and philosophies I want, and onky people actively searching for such advice will read it. I get to share, and people get advice, but only if they want it.novody has to listen and smile for the sake of being polite; if you disagree with me, you can just close the page.  Sounds like a good idea to me!

What exactly is going to be discussed here? Probably a little bit of everything... though I'll try to stick to stuff related to parenting as much as I can. I might go off on a rant every so often, especially if something is really bothering me, but I'll try to keep that to a minimum. I try to be a pretty open minded and non-judgemental person, so don't be afraid to comment on my posts, even to call me out if you think I'm being unfair. I do ask that everyone treat each other with respect in the comments section as much as they can...

I'll also talk about products that I like for my baby. Something that really helped me make decisions in regards to the things I wanted for my baby was online reviews. I found them not only helpful, but also somewhat soothing; everyone wants to do what's best for their child, and learning as much as I could about stuff helped set my mind at ease, and helped me feel like I was preparing while I was pregnant. That being said, I'm a bit of a minimalist when it comes to baby stuff (and many other things) and I'll  take  quality over quantity any day.

That's about it for this post. I hope you enjoy my future ramblings!

Best wishes!

Bedtime woes

So, at just over five months, my baby had her worst night in her life so far. She was so tired, she could not sleep. This may sound a little odd if you haven't experienced it, but I will explain.

First, Avi is a pretty good sleeper. We have our little bedtime routine, then she  fusses and carries on for ten minutes or so, then generally falls asleep. Doesn't work perfectly every night, but most nights are pretty good, and we seldom have any real trouble.

Not this night.

The problem was two-fold. One, it was the first night we tried to put her to bed in her crib in her bedroom, instead of her bassinet in our room. Two, we had visitors, namely my in-laws and some of my husband's cousins. In hindsight, it wasn't a good night to try her in her room for the first time, but she'd flipped herself over to sleep on her tummy for the first time the previous night, and I'm apprehensive about the bassinet mattress. (Her bassinet is a big basket, nearly 60 years old, and it was impossible to find a mattress that fit it, the original having been discarded after my brother and I were babies. So we got the closest size we could find, and cut it down. Unfortunately this meant we had to put duct tape around the edges to keep the waterproof top and bottom layers in place... fine while she's sleeping on her back, but on her front? I just don't know.)

Now, she's spent some time in her crib, even had a few naps there, so it's not like it's a totally new place. We try to spend some time there everyday, even for just a few minutes, to help with the transition. So when it came time to put her to bed, it was a little different, but not an entirely strange place. She fights sleep, fights it hard, my little girl does, and wakes easily if you try and move her. This means wherever you want her to sleep, she needs to be there before she falls asleep, and because she fights, there is inevitable a bit of fussing and carrying  on before she finally lets herself fall asleep. Don't get me wrong; I'm not letting her cry and cry until she passes out from sheer exhaustion. The second she starts to get panicky or hysterical I'm there to soothe her. But she does cry and is a little sad for a few minutes while she falls asleep.  This is where the second problem comes in, and it's a big one:

My mother-in-law was over, and doesn't believe in letting babies "cry it out". She is a firm believer in rocking them to sleep and then placing them in their bed. And she's not the type of person who is good at keeping her opinions to herself. So, as much as I tried to explain that as soon as you try to move the baby she wakes up again, any time the baby made a peep she would go immediately to baby's room and pick her up. She'd rock her back to sleep in the chair, and put her back in her crib, and within thirty seconds baby was awake and screaming again. I'd have baby mostly soothed, lying in her crib; still fussing but not really upset, and in she would come, insisting that the baby needed to be held and rocked to sleep, and picking her up and doing so.

This went on for nearly three hours.

After everyone had finally left, the husband and I abondened all hope of getting baby to sleep in her crib, and brought her back to the bassinet in our room. But by this point, she's started to work herself up and is having trouble staying calm. The late hour is beginning to take its toll. For another hour we tried to soothe her, feed her, let her cry a little bit, anything to get her to fall asleep, but she got more and more hysterical as the night went on. Finally we hit a breaking point. I banished my husband and the dogs (all heavy sleepers, fond of cuddling) to the downstairs guest bedroom, tied back my hair, turned on the light so I wouldn't sleep too deeply, and did something I swore I'd never do: I brought the baby into my bed to sleep.

Now, she comes in our bed for snuggles all the time, but this is when we're fully awake. The blankets get rolled down and the pillows get pushed up so there's nothing too soft for her to smother herself on. She's never come to bed for the sole purpose of sleeping before. Even then, with me holding her and rocking her and humming lullabies, everything in my baby soothing toolkit, she still screamed and sobbed for another half an hour before she finally drifted off to sleep. She was so tired, so upset, that she could not calm down enough to sleep. This is what I mean by "too tired to sleep". I have never seen my daughter so hysterical, not even when she was getting vaccine injections. My heart aches just thinking about it. Even three hours later when she woke for her middle-of-the-night feeding, she couldn't go back to her bassinet to sleep; the second I tried to put her down she started to panic. So, back to bed she came.

Needless to say, it was a rather terrible night for all of us, and the next day I was dragging my butt. Tonight is the second night since, and she's still not 100% caught up on her sleep. She had three lengthy naps today (quite unusual for her) and when  her 8:00 bedtime rolled around she was getting quite cranky. We had to go through our bedtime routine a second time to get her fully calmed down. However, after five minutes or so of complaining she nodded off to sleep and seems to be sleeping soundly.

My point, I suppose, after all this long rambling, it this:

You probably know your baby better than anyone. Babies are all different, and even the similarities they might have with one or both parents only go so far. What worked for one baby, even for you or the baby's other parent, may not work for this baby. "Secrets" and "tricks" for this thing or that can be great, but if you have something that works for you and your baby, stick with it! Don't go changing it just because someone tries to tell you their way is better. And for heaven's sake, stick up for yourself, and for your baby! Someone may have the best intentions, but as they say, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.  You know your baby best, and don't let anyone bully you into something else. I did, and I regret it. The next day, after hearing of our horrible night, my mother-in-law did apologize, but still won't admit that she was wrong. If I had stuck to my guns and told her to let the baby alone, the whole catastrophic incident may have been avoided. I regret that I didn't; my poor baby had probably the worst night of her life so far because I was trying to avoid conflict.  Sometimes it's just not worth it.

Well, that's my rant for today. I hope you gain some insight from it.

Best wishes!