Sleeping babies, bedtime, dads with lower cortisol

I read a short post about dads putting babies to sleep. The claim was that dads carry less cortisol than moms and therefore may have better outcomes when they manage their baby's bedtime.

So ----- that might be generally true in the culture I live in. Though it can be true that females have low cortisol, as well, and they remain calm as they observe the baby, looking for signals that baby is giving to communicate its needs. So in that case, mom would have good outcomes for bedtime. It seems it should be equally possible for a man or a woman to be effective at bedtime, provided the person has learned to navigate life and babies with lower cortisol / stress.

For me as a mother, it was true that I carried more cortisol. When dad put the kids to bed, everything went smoothly and I was grateful for that. But I also thought there was something I should have been doing differently, some way I could have more success with putting the children to bed myself.

When Adara was very young, Jon watched me trying to care for her. At some point, Jon finally convinced me to leave the house and go somewhere while he worked to calm and care for Adara. I did leave, but I had nowhere to go. We lived in Phoenix, Arizona, and I didn't have a support group or friends --- I didn't know how to develop a support group or ask the Relief Society or my ministering sisters and brothers for help.

There were families in the ward who were aware of us. I can't tell you any of their names now. Oh, except a guy named, I think, Frank. He was a musical person and arranged for me to sing a solo (I think I remember) at a theater production..... or something. 

Well, I thought there was something the matter with me that I couldn't get Adara to be calm and to sleep well. And as the years went by, and Jon would put the kids in their beds and they would all go to sleep ..... and I didn't have that same experience. The kids didn't calm down and go right to bed when I was the one putting them to bed.

I was frustrated. I knew there had to be a different way of being, but I didn't know where to begin.

 wanted

when i was 4 years old, my family lived near St. Paul, Minnesota. (I think --i'll fact check this later.) For Christmas that year I was surprised to find a doll that could walk and talk. It was for me. Someone guessed that I would love a doll like that. I don't remember if I'd seen the commercials and shown interest. Or whehter my mom simply knew.

The year I was 9 years old, or was it 10, I received a homemade cabbage patch doll. The doll had black yarn for hair. I hated the doll. Because it was homemade. Because it had black yarn for hair. My hair is not black. That's what I wanted to believe.

At the age of 5 years, I think I remember the age correctly, I received a family of dolls of the same size and shape as the Barbie dolls. The mom had medium-brown hair, curled, and perhaps there were some highlights in the mother doll's hair. There was a father doll. I think he had brown hair and brown eyes. But his hair was painted on to the molded plastic shaped like a man's haircut. Then there were two children dolls. The little girl I think had blond curly hair. And there was a baby boy, who maybe had brown hair that was not painted like the dad's, but was short and quite pleasant.

I don't remember receiving any other dolls for Christmas, and I don't remember any for a birthday, either. I'm sure I had some other dolls that I played with, and they must have been the Barbie type dolls. But where they came from, I don't recall.

Oysters and Mussels and Crawdads and Grandpa

 When my Granddaddy was a boy and he was hungry, he would go to the river. I guess I don't know all the details about that, because I'm wondering now why he didn't try to catch fish. Maybe he was too hungry and went for the easy calories! (Think about the title of this post.)

As an adult, out with friends and work associates, sometimes the opportunity to eat shellfish came up. From what I've been told, my Granddad did not care to eat shellrish as an adult. I reflected on that as I opened a can this morning -- oily, already-shelled shellfish in a convenient can. Maybe it doesn't taste like a delicacy. Maybe it is hardly palatable at all. But the fat and other benefits assure me that I won't be hungry when I eat them. And at least some of what's in the food is good for me.

I wonder whether I'll go the way of my Grandfather as I expand my horizons, and stop wanting to eat the little creatures found in riverbeds and on the ocean floor. Or maybe I will aspire to be like Sam Walton, eating a can of tuna while chatting with boots-on-the-ground employees in my stores.