Here I am... talking about anxiety for the babies and myself. Stranger anxiety, separation anxiety - for babies; and air travel anxiety, jet lag anxiety, food anxiety - for me!
Man, it has been interesting. A million miles away from home, hoping that things fall in to a routine. It has been exactly a week since we arrived and we are still working on getting in to a schedule.
The babes are in the stage where they had stranger anxiety and separation anxiety. I was pretty worried as to how they would cope with a million people around them, with relatives and neighbors frequently visiting and trying to hold and play with them. Would they cry, throw a tantrum? Nope, the kids are loving the attention. Their stranger and separation anxiety seems to have vanished in less than a week! It will be nice to continue with it once we get back home. They seem to be managing pretty well! We have quite a bit of local travel coming up and it will be interesting to see how that goes. Daddy dearest will be joining us in 2 weeks from now and will be with us for 3 weeks. Then he goes back and we will return in 3 weeks from then. We timed it such that they are not separated from Daddy for too long!
As far as my anxiety is concerned. The babes were wonderful during the flight ride. They slept for over half the flight journey, which is less than their usual sleep time, but definitely commendable for the noise and crowd that was around them. So, I would say the journey was successful! I pumped once while they were sleeping and I was good for the rest of the journey (I am just pumping twice now (instead of 4 times) and producing around 30 oz)
Jet lag - phew! It is expected of them to take a week to get over it! But, we seem to be no where close to it! There are times when we feel that they are almost settled in and then - bam! RM has been sleeping at around 11 pm and getting up at 4-5'ish am and sleeps for approx 8 hrs during day time. RT, who is the light sleeper has actually been sleeping better at night from around midnight to 0630-0700'ish am and then another 8-9 hrs during day time. I don't blame them for the whacked up sleep cycle, but this better get over soon. It is messing up with their day time activities. As for RT's frequent night wake ups - they have pretty much vanished (I hope I am not speaking too soon) and makes me feel better that we did not CIO her! Every time I am inching towards CIO, we end up in a situation where we feel better for not going that route because some thing pops up and shows us why she has been the way she has. May be the lack of separation anxiety is helping her this time? May be these are just phases and I need to cope up with it than expect her to change.
We are hardly getting to prep any food for them since there are no guarantees when they will be up and not be sleepy enough to munch down their meals. So they have been getting either ready or quick meal options on a very random non-existant schedule. There are no guarantees when they will drink milk and their night time routine is shot.
One may ask why we decided to whack up their oh so perfect (?!?) routine and make them go across the globe! At times I feel guilty for doing this to them. I feel guilty for having to decide on cutting short bf'ing (pumping)! So why did we do it? We have been away from most of our relatives for ever. More than anybody else, we really wanted to bring the babies to their great grandparents (GGP). I have been blessed to see most of my GGP alive while I could understand things. I doubt the babies will remember anything. But the GGP have been more than thrilled to see the babies. Their blessings will always remain with the babies and this will be another milestone in the GGP's life... since these are pretty much their first great grand kids! So, we did this for family! And I hope the babies will cherish the videos and the pictures we take for years to come!
Tomorrow we will be celebrating the 8 month birthday! :)
More to come...!
Man, it has been interesting. A million miles away from home, hoping that things fall in to a routine. It has been exactly a week since we arrived and we are still working on getting in to a schedule.
The babes are in the stage where they had stranger anxiety and separation anxiety. I was pretty worried as to how they would cope with a million people around them, with relatives and neighbors frequently visiting and trying to hold and play with them. Would they cry, throw a tantrum? Nope, the kids are loving the attention. Their stranger and separation anxiety seems to have vanished in less than a week! It will be nice to continue with it once we get back home. They seem to be managing pretty well! We have quite a bit of local travel coming up and it will be interesting to see how that goes. Daddy dearest will be joining us in 2 weeks from now and will be with us for 3 weeks. Then he goes back and we will return in 3 weeks from then. We timed it such that they are not separated from Daddy for too long!
As far as my anxiety is concerned. The babes were wonderful during the flight ride. They slept for over half the flight journey, which is less than their usual sleep time, but definitely commendable for the noise and crowd that was around them. So, I would say the journey was successful! I pumped once while they were sleeping and I was good for the rest of the journey (I am just pumping twice now (instead of 4 times) and producing around 30 oz)
Jet lag - phew! It is expected of them to take a week to get over it! But, we seem to be no where close to it! There are times when we feel that they are almost settled in and then - bam! RM has been sleeping at around 11 pm and getting up at 4-5'ish am and sleeps for approx 8 hrs during day time. RT, who is the light sleeper has actually been sleeping better at night from around midnight to 0630-0700'ish am and then another 8-9 hrs during day time. I don't blame them for the whacked up sleep cycle, but this better get over soon. It is messing up with their day time activities. As for RT's frequent night wake ups - they have pretty much vanished (I hope I am not speaking too soon) and makes me feel better that we did not CIO her! Every time I am inching towards CIO, we end up in a situation where we feel better for not going that route because some thing pops up and shows us why she has been the way she has. May be the lack of separation anxiety is helping her this time? May be these are just phases and I need to cope up with it than expect her to change.
We are hardly getting to prep any food for them since there are no guarantees when they will be up and not be sleepy enough to munch down their meals. So they have been getting either ready or quick meal options on a very random non-existant schedule. There are no guarantees when they will drink milk and their night time routine is shot.
One may ask why we decided to whack up their oh so perfect (?!?) routine and make them go across the globe! At times I feel guilty for doing this to them. I feel guilty for having to decide on cutting short bf'ing (pumping)! So why did we do it? We have been away from most of our relatives for ever. More than anybody else, we really wanted to bring the babies to their great grandparents (GGP). I have been blessed to see most of my GGP alive while I could understand things. I doubt the babies will remember anything. But the GGP have been more than thrilled to see the babies. Their blessings will always remain with the babies and this will be another milestone in the GGP's life... since these are pretty much their first great grand kids! So, we did this for family! And I hope the babies will cherish the videos and the pictures we take for years to come!
Tomorrow we will be celebrating the 8 month birthday! :)
More to come...!
Sweetie, you know one thing? I have no idea where you are!! I'm sure things will settle down soon! Love, Fran
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