ABOUT
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Information We May Collect
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Other Information We May Collect:
Anonymous Data Collection and Use
To maintain Website quality, we may use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer the Website by identifying which areas of the Website are most heavily used, and to display content according to your preferences. Your IP address is the number assigned to computers connected to the Internet. This is essentially “traffic data” which cannot personally identify you but is helpful to us for marketing purposes and for improving our services. Traffic data collection does not follow a user’s activities on any other websites in any way. Anonymous traffic data may also be shared with business partners and advertisers on an aggregate basis.
Use of “Cookies”
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What We Do With Information We Collect
Contact You
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Targeted Social Media Advertisements
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Submission, Storage, Sharing and Transferring of Personal Data
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Data Retention
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Confidentiality
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We will use our best efforts to keep your username and password(s) private and will not otherwise share your password(s) without your consent, except as necessary when the law requires it or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary, particularly when disclosure is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to others or interfering with our rights or property.
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Security
We take commercially reasonable steps to protect the Personal Data you provide to us from misuse, disclosure, or unauthorized access. We only share your Personal Data with trusted third parties who use the same level of care in processing your Personal Data. That being said, we cannot guarantee that your Personal Data will always be secure due to technology or security breaches. Should there be a data breach of which we are aware, we will inform you immediately.
Anti-Spam Policy
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Third Party Websites
We may link to other websites on our Website. We have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of any other individual, company, or entity whose website or materials may be linked to our Website or its content, and thus we cannot be held liable for the privacy of the information on their website or that you voluntarily share with their website. Please review their privacy policies for guidelines as to how they respectively store, use, and protect the privacy of your Personal Data.
Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance
We do not collect any information from anyone under 18 years of age in compliance with COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) and the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation of the EU). Our Website and its content is directed to individuals who are at least 18 years old or older.
Notification of Changes
We may use your Personal Data, such as your contact information, to inform you of changes to the Website or its content, or, if requested, to send you additional information about us. We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to change, modify, or otherwise alter our Website, its content, and this Privacy Policy at any time. Such changes and/or modifications shall become effective immediately upon posting our updated Privacy Policy. Please review this Privacy Policy periodically. Continued use of any of information obtained through or on the Website or its content following the posting of changes and/or modifications constituted acceptance of the revised Privacy Policy. Should there be a material change to our Privacy Policy, we will contact you via email or by a prominent note on our Website.
Data Controller and Processors
We are the data controllers as we are collecting and using your Personal Data. We use trusted third parties as our data processors for technical and organizational purposes, including for payments and email marketing. We use reasonable efforts to make sure our data processors are GDPR-compliant.If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at graeme@graemeseabrook.com
Last Updated: January 2025
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon.
We've been home for a little over two weeks. The first week Adam’s parents were here and I thought I could totally rock this mom thing. Grammy and Pop Pop were not overbearing, but they were there when I needed someone to hold him because my incision was killing me, or I had to pee, or shower, or I just wanted to eat with both hands. It was nice to have company as I slept in my chair each night. My incision hurt waaaaaay too much when I laid out flat, so I've been sleeping in the oversize chair in our living room. Grammy slept on the couch next to me and Andrew was usually in his pack-and-play infant sleeper — or in my arms.
Once they left, my mom was here for a night. That's a story for another time.
Then there were three. Adam was home with us for another week. He worked from home in the afternoons and I got spoiled. I could shower. I could eat. I could pee. I could think about "I.”
Now we've been home alone for three days and it is quite possible that I am losing my mind. Although I don't think I have postpartum depression, I can now completely understand how it could manifest. I feel myself walking a slippery line between being OK and having a total breakdown.
Mostly it's because I have no idea what to do. I've read the books and the blogs and I've listened to all the older moms around me. None of them tell you how to make it through each day, though. Add the insecurity to massive amounts of sleep deprivation for a person who needed 10 hours BEFORE she got pregnant and you have some... well... issues.
After a sleepless night last night and a diagnosis of thrush this morning from Dr. K I was on the edge. We went to Starbucks and I got a venti mocha chip Frappuccino. WITH CAFFEINE. It was that or gin. I think I made the right choice.
When we got home I left him in the carrier because I am a horrible mommy and I got so many things done! I clipped coupons and made a grocery list for Adam, pumped and prepared a bottle, stuffed the birth announcements into envelopes, started the dishwasher, sent some emails, checked Facebook, and ate lunch. I didn't wake him up to eat when I should have. I let him sleep and felt simultaneously guilty and relieved.
Adam’s Aunt L is a baby nurse. She had commented on my self-pitying morning Facebook post that maybe it was time for us to do some sleep training. That's when I did the best thing I could have done today. I messaged her and asked her exactly HOW we were supposed to do that.
Me: So how do we do the sleep training? Do we just try to keep him up all day? Keeping him awake has never worked in the past. When this kid wants to sleep he can SLEEP. Any ideas or advice you have would be life-saving. No kidding.
Aunt L: The goal is to shorten the amount of daytime sleep each day.... play a little before feeding if possible, or in the middle of a feeding... and to keep him up as long as possible after a feed before he naps. It is hard at that age because they do fall asleep so easily, but try dressing/ undressing, baths, stimulating noises, different music, drumming on surfaces, etc. Try to find ticklish spots, teething rings... one hot, one cold. Don't make him or you miserable keeping him up... just extend the normal awake time. And decrease nap time... especially mid-afternoon and later! Just waking him up by doing something stimulating, be creative... you'll learn with Andrew what works. By the second or third night, he should be sleeping a tiny bit longer, but almost definitely will go back to sleep faster
Aunt L: Does he spit up a lot? Just wondering, because reflux can make them choosy about the position they sleep in.
Me: THANK YOU!!! We'll start tomorrow and see what happens. That doesn't sound so bad. I thought that we'd need to keep him awake for hours and hours to get any relief! He doesn't spit up that much — a little bit after every second or third feeding. And he's only fussy about sleeping at night — he'd sleep all day long if I let him!
Aunt L: A lot of babies don't understand night and day, so get him lots of light, noise, and stimulation during the day (smells too!). Thrush isn't uncommon, hopefully that'll help some... keeping him up for extended periods is an option if the other doesn't help… but the biggest naps to keep shorter are mid to late afternoon through early evening... oh, and maybe sing the same song or play the same music when it's actually " bedtime" whenever you normally would go to bed, maybe a little earlier for him? Hope it helps, good luck, and hugs!
So after, we played a little bit before I fed him — it took about five minutes until he started to get fussy. After he ate and burped I put on some music and we "danced.” I moved his arms and legs in time to the music and picked him up so he could kick and I tickled his belly and we just… played. He wasn't fussy and I wasn't cranky and we were simply Andrew and Mama. It lasted for three songs before the yawning and crumple-face set in, but those three songs changed my entire day.
Sometimes you have to reach out and ask for help. Someone out there has an answer.
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