feedback for "Read 'Em and Weep"

1. I really relate to this article.  My husband and I love to read and I loved reading books before my son was born.  Now my husband still sneaks in time to read his books, but I really just read magazines now.  I did read a lot of US Magazine-type stuff when the babe was itsy-bitsy, but now that he is older, I try to expand my brain a bit more by reading The Smithsonian and The New Yorker.  I feel okay reading these mags because I do feel like I am still feeding my brain a bit more.  I just wish I could get my attention span back for books, because I loved reading them!  Someday.
   

   posted by : edierks on 11/29/2007 at 1:02 PM Flag For Abuse

2. 
   I also was under the impression that time spent nursing and caring for my new infant would mean endless hours of reading- a month and a half into it, I don't even have the attention span to watch a movie. I can read pieces of a magazine ( a huge accomplishment) and watch things that are episodic, like tv shows on dvd that we own. I have only managed to survive and keep awake for late night nursing sessions by watching Battlestar Gallactica, all 3 seasons, over and over. I know I'll get back to reading, but for now I've realized I have to accept things will be different for a while.
   
   

   posted by : chantalart on 11/29/2007 at 2:48 PM Flag For Abuse

3. For the first few days after my hellish birth experience, I was physically unable to get my eyes to focus enough to read or write for more than a few seconds (so much for the idea of recording my son's birth in faithful detail). But I finished reading my first book ("The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd) when my son was two weeks old, and went to my book group meeting that night. I read so much during my maternity leave--I looked forward to the 2 am and 5 am feedings so I could find out what happened next, it made getting up in the middle of the night more bearable. Sometimes I would get so into the book that my son would sleep on my lap for 45 minutes after he drifted off from nursing. (At 4 months I had to stop reading while nursing because he was too interested in grabbing my book.) Now he is a toddler and I work full time, and reading is pretty much exlusively reserved for those nights (two or three times a week) when I can take a long bubble bath after putting him to bed and taking care of household chores. I miss those early, cozy days.   I do completely identify with being unable to read or see stuff where awful things happen to children. It just tears at my heart too much.

   posted by : raincitykitty on 11/29/2007 at 3:15 PM Flag For Abuse

4. Thanks for making me laugh so hard. War and Peace while nursing! Ha. I can totally relate. I had similar plans for catching up on classic novels when my daughter was born. But I had plans to read said books out in the back yard, which I was planning on landscaping myself once the baby came out and I was able to bend down and kneel in the garden again. Needless to say, there was no fabulous tropical flower garden that year, and my reading habits didn't really stray much from Star magazine (Us weekly's trashy little cousin). I couldn't watch anything heavy on TV either. I became obsessed with the Gilmore Girls and caught up on several season's worth of shows on DVD. Such a great show. Funny, I was never a fan until I became a mom and caught a few reruns while on maternity leave.  

   posted by : mama2v on 11/29/2007 at 3:26 PM Flag For Abuse

5. I've had trouble with memory and attention span since before I was diagnosed with depression several years ago- becoming a mom only made the problem worse. I still enjoyed a good shampoo bottle (I can so relate to that!), but "Goodnight Moon" was enough for one sitting. It was so sad- I used to read at every spare moment I had!   A year and a half after S. was born, my ability to focus started to come back. It's been strange; I can devour large parts of a book, but only if it's non-fiction on a topic I'm interested in. The next baby's due in a few months, though- so I guess I can once again kiss my brains godbye.

   posted by : AllisonWonder on 11/29/2007 at 3:28 PM Flag For Abuse

6. My mother actually DID read War and Peace while nursing. I was a little in awe when I learned that.
   

   posted by : gwynne on 11/29/2007 at 3:47 PM Flag For Abuse

7. Wow, I find these comments echoing the writer's experience fascinating!  I too am a reader, and I didn't read books right after my daughter was born while nursing, but only because I found it cumbersome juggling baby, nursing pillow, and a book, so I usually surfed the internet on my blackberry.  I never felt like I had attention span problems, though, and once she started napping regularly, I started reading books again (especially when I was on maternity leave).  I am always fascinated by other moms' birth and motherhood experiences, and this was one apparently common experience that I was unaware of.  And something to keep in mind as my husband and I gear up for number 2!  Thanks for an interesting article and comments.

   posted by : Dwtintx on 11/30/2007 at 7:23 AM Flag For Abuse

8. That was a great piece (I gave you a 5 on the ratings) for so perfectly capturing what I went through too. It's five years later and just now can I get through a New Yorker again.
   

   posted by : sfwork on 11/30/2007 at 2:44 PM Flag For Abuse

9. I too suffer from mama brain (two boys, aged 5 and 1), and have managed to read almost nothing in ages. I used to get-- and read-- the daily NYT, and now I can barely make it through one-hundredth of the Sunday. As for books... when nursing my first I had this eBook gadget and indeed (because I could read it with one hand and also in the dark) read pretty much all of Jane Austin that way. What I remember... nothing. This coming weekend I have my first weekend away, for a wedding, child-free. I'm mad with glee and very deluded, I assume, about how much I will be able to read between limitless sleeping and a few wedding events. But the book I'm bringing is literally the new translation of War and Peace! Will I crack it? Or will I spend the whole time watching re-runs of  Star Trek? I hope I do at least start it. ... Pevear and Volokhonsky are an incredible translating team, and if you haven't had the pleasure of reading their Anna Karenina you should. Maybe when the kids are in high school.
   
   
   

   posted by : cleverland on 12/1/2007 at 8:52 PM Flag For Abuse

10. I can completely relate. Before my daughter was born I would run into walls because I would be walking around with a book in my hands. I even brought a book with me to the hospital and my boyfriend bought me Elle magazine shortly after I gave birth. Little did I know while sitting reading Elle while my daughter was asleep in the bassinet next to me, the day I was released from the hospital and waiting for my boyfriend to pick me up, that it would be the last time I could enjoy reading a magazine. Reading during nursing was out of the question for me. I needed one hand to hold my daughter and the other for my breast. My daughter would sleep just long enough for me to eat a meal or clean something. I almost got through the Gradual Vegetarian staying up late to read it. Elle is out of the question now because my daughter just loves ripping up the pages. With my daughter becoming more active, I am too exhusted to read at night. So now I read message boards. Instead of running into walls my fingers are glued to mouse. But that only takes one hand, so it's possible. My problem really instead attention span, but lack of hands.
    

    posted by : dhsredhead on 12/4/2007 at 12:35 AM Flag For Abuse

11. The first book I started after birth was the AAP's Caring for your baby and young child book. Honey, I got to about page 70, when they began to explain a condition where the urinary tract somehow gets rerouted out of a baby's NAVEL and just threw the book across the room. When I was assured that my daughter's plumbing was intact, I started on Seabiscuit. It took 4 months to read.

    posted by : youngshay112 on 12/7/2007 at 1:07 PM Flag For Abuse