After I had Trix in fall 2010, I spent a lot of hours planted in the glider, on account of having an infant who refused to be put down for more than a few seconds. (At left, the typical result whenever I put the baby down for even a diaper change.) Since I was a tad wary about the effects of cortisol on Trix's plastic little mind, I figured, what the hell, I'll just hold the baby until we figure out how this works.
(Oh, that cortisol/brain-damage business. As KJ Dell'Anotonia writes, it's "the headlines and the easy takeaways that stick with sleep-deprived, anxious parents.")
ANYWAY. Baby stuck to my side 24/7 + nursing on demand every 90-120 minutes = the most profound sleep deprivation I've ever experienced, with an unsurprising drop in my ability to concentrate on anything. I'd try to read something on my Kindle and words would literally float around. But I needed something to entertain the bored jibbering monkey in my forebrain.
In 2010, the American Academy of Pediatrics was sticking to its recommendation that children under the age of 2 watch no television, and that was one of the few parenting ideals I was determined to put to into practice. Since I had grown up on half hour chunks of television doled out on a daily basis, I reasoned that my kid would be well off with an equally disciplined media diet.
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