A week ago it was 74 degrees here in NJ in the middle of March, so to celebrate the unseasonably warm weather, we decided to bring The Diva to the beach for the first time. People seem surprised when I tell them that I haven’t brought her to the beach yet, especially because I only live 40 minutes from a few beaches, and my mom is about 10 minutes from Seaside. Last summer when my daughter was 5 months old, she was still really unpredictable and miserable most of the time, and I was afraid to really bring her out anywhere because of it. Plus, she was nursing so often and I’m not one of those women that feels comfortable doing it in public. I know they sell covers and stuff, but with my clumsiness and her fussiness, it would have winded up on the ground anyway. So that’s why it took me so long to bring her. We went to the beach at Belmar since it’s the closest, and we first took her on the playground that’s on the beach. When we first sat her on the sand, she looked confused, and then almost irritated when she touched the sand with her hand. She gave me this look like, “What the F?” But then I picked up some sand in my hand and she watched as I released it and let it fall to the ground. She was soon doing the same, and started squealing and kicking her feet. The best part about this playground is the swings. They have some adult swings along with baby swings, so there’s nothing more relaxing than swinging on a swing while looking out at the ocean. It was beautiful and I felt very carefree for once.

After the playground we went and sat down on the beach, closer to the water, and she immediately looked over at the loud noise that the ocean waves were making. She looked for a few seconds, but then she quickly went back to picking up handfuls of sand and clapping at the same time. This would make the sand fly in her face, but she didn’t seem to mind. We had some lunch, and she decided to grab a handful of sand and put it right in her mouth. I thought she would be really grossed out by the texture, but she didn’t seem too bothered by it. I think I was more disgusted than she was. Good thing I brought plenty of bottled water. The ocean water was too cold to put her feet in, but we stood at the shore line while I held her and pointed out the waves. She smiled and clapped her hands. It will be nice when it’s warmer and she’s able to walk on her own so that we can really enjoy it (she’s currently still creeping). Next time I plan on going to Seaside since my mom is right there anyway. Now I just have to wait until it become 80 degrees!

Around 4 1/2 months old, I really wanted to try to start my daughter on some sort of schedule. I mean she was already eating on a schedule because she wanted to nurse like every 2 hours, so I kept her on that, but she needed some sort of sleep/nap schedule. No one in the family got any sleep because she didn’t sleep. As with everything else, I turned to the Internet for some advice, or at least for some book recommendations. (I swear, what did new mothers do before the Internet?) There were a few books I was interested in, but my library only had one of them, so I got a copy of “The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems” by Tracy Hogg. One of my favorite sections of the book is the part about different temperaments/personalities that babies can have. THANK YOU. I felt reassured to know that I am NOT going crazy when I swear that my child is a Diva baby. My baby definitely is a mix between 2 of the personality types: spirited and grumpy. She is very excitable, but also has a strong temper. So you get strong emotions either way…no chilled out baby here. Her grumpy/spirited personality probably explains why she had colic issues to begin with since she’s very expressive and has something to say about every little issue that comes her way. Boy, you should have heard the screams she would do from having hiccups as a young infant. And even now, at 9 months old, if she misses a nap you better be close to home or she’ll make you regret going out in the first place. It seems my friends all have either Angel babies or Textbook ones, so that’s why they have no clue where I’m coming from when I try to explain a lot of the issues I have with my daughter. I liked reading the book because I felt I wasn’t alone in dealing with a difficult, fussy baby.

As for the schedule/routine-making part of the book, I took what I could from that section, but I didn’t agree with all of it. For instance she says that a young breastfed baby can nurse at almost the same frequency as a formula-fed baby. I disagree- I believe in nursing a young baby on demand, and that breast milk is no where near as filling as formula. Also, she explains how to get your baby to take longer naps and how each nap should be about 2 hours. Well, I tried and tried, but my daughter would only take 30 min naps. So her suggested schedules were hard for me to follow since my daughter’s nursing times and nap times were way off the author’s suggested ones. However, I still felt like I gained a lot from reading the book, and I did follow it loosely. Even though my daughter’s naps were really short, at least she was taking them at certain times of the day, and in her own crib. And the best tip I got from the book was about doing a night routine so your baby knows it’s time for bed. Every night my routine became giving her a bath, then nursing, then bed. Because she has eczema/cradle cap pretty bad I didn’t always use soap, but I went through the motions just so she could know what to expect. It really made a difference. She went down for bed soo much easier. This part of motherhood, the schedule-making, actually felt like real work. Like a project that I had to study for, plan, and then try to execute. I actually kept lists of times for each thing. I wish I could have just gone with the flow, but since my baby’s personality isn’t “laid back,” it wouldn’t work with her. That was another valuable tip from the book: try to work WITH your baby’s personality type and not around it because otherwise you’ll have total chaos and many meltdowns. Deal with the hand you’ve been given, so to speak.