[blparent] falling asleep?

[sharon howerton]

I've said similar things to Leslie and told her that since Michael is still 
in the hospital, the medical folks watch everything and this can make one 
crazy. The hardest thing is finding yourself at home with this newborn for 
the first time.
At risk of sounding crazy, I'd like to make a comment. I saw a guide dog 
handler do this with her dog and please believe me, I am making no 
comparisons between babies and dogs though my babies are now almost 27 and 
almost 24 years of age and my dog is almost 8.5 years old. This woman kept 
saying, "What is he doing? What is he doing?" One can do just the same thing 
with an infant. "Is he sleeping? Is he awake? Is he smiling?" One can do 
this ad nausium. You'll learn a whole lot about your infant by listening to 
him, touching him and, most importantly, learning to relax with him which is 
sometimes easier said than done. In short, I think the more we attract 
attention to ourselves and our blindness, the more attention we're going to 
get. I mean, it's plain as day that most of us are blind without going 
through all this question asking stuff. Then to me it really looks like we 
don't know what we're doing and since doctors and nurses don't see that much 
of us anyway, it just calls attention to us. I apologize in advance if I 
have said anything out of line as this certainly was not my intent.
Sharon
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "DIANNA ALLEY" <dianna24 at earthlink.net>
To: "NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List" <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2010 9:27 AM
Subject: Re: [blparent] falling asleep?


>I don't worry about it.  I just make sure that I am in a place that she 
>can't fall from.  I don't do half the stuff doctors say.  My theory on that 
>is doctors don't know everything.  After my sea I had to sleep with my 
>child on me.  It was the only way I could be comfortable and know where she 
>was.
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Leslie Hamric" <lhamric930 at comcast.net>
> To: "'NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List'" <blparent at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2010 7:54 AM
> Subject: [blparent] falling asleep?
>
>
>> Hi All.  I was wondering if you could give me any ideas, as I'm running 
>> into
>> a problem that could be potentially serious.  Its happened a few times 
>> where
>> I've fallen asleep with my baby in my arms.  The first time it happened, 
>> one
>> of the nurses saw it and she informed me that I could potentially 
>> suffocate
>> my baby by doing this. The problem is that I don't always know I'm 
>> getting
>> sleepy unless someone tells me I am or until I start nodding off.  I had 
>> a
>> sleep study done in 2004 and the specialist said I have a non 24 hour 
>> sleep
>> cycle and the only way to remedy that is to get a full 8 hours of sleep 
>> at
>> the same time every night.  Well, we both know that's virtually 
>> impossible
>> now that I'm a new mom.  Have you ever had this problem and if so, what
>> kinds of things did you do to stay awake while holding your baby?  One 
>> thing
>> I've tried was having the radio on and that doesn't seem to help.  Andy's
>> really worried about me too. He doesn't want me to fall asleep and
>> accidentally smother the baby.  I don't want that either.  I'm just at a
>> loss of how to solve this issue.  I've heard other blind people having 
>> the
>> same problem since they don't get the light stimulation.
>>
>> Leslie
>>
>>
>>
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