A couple weeks after we got home from the hospital with little E, one or both of us went grocery shopping. (Those first few weeks are hazy in my mind.) When we (or B) returned, we brought in groceries and had nowhere to put them because on the counter were two dishtowels, covered in drying bottle and pump parts. We had to put the grocery bags on the floor and unload them from there.
I remember thinking, "Is this how my life is going to be from now on?"
The answer is, yes! Life is, in general, more difficult with a mini human. But we are learning to adapt.
For instance, with regard to the counter, we've figured out that we can fit said bottle and pump parts on one towel. And now that I pump less frequently, we don't have to run the dishwasher two or three times per day, so there are occasionally stretches of time in which there are no drying parts. That having available counter space in our kitchen is a success is testament to how carefully one will look for anything resembling success during trying times.
Another success is E's sleep, not that we can take credit for a sleepy baby. He started sleeping through the night at a young age. We can take credit for breaking two habits (which, in the interest of full disclosure, we imposed upon him)--sleeping in his swing, and sleeping in a swaddle. I worried on a daily basis about how we were going to get him into his crib and out of his swaddle. Last week, feeling inspired (ok, guilted, whatever) by daycare, I declared to B that E was sleeping in his crib that night. And he did.
Did he sleep through the night? No! He woke up frequently. However, we turned the baby monitor off, and I put in ear plugs, so my night was not too horribly interrupted.
Perhaps you think I am a neglectful mom for being honest about our sleep training. However, I read Weissbluth's book about childhood sleep twice, and he convinced me that his "extinction" method is the best way to break babies of bad sleep habits. Teaching E how to fall back to sleep on his own is a skill that he will need for the rest of his life, and the sooner he learns it, the better off he will be.
He's been in his crib, sans swaddle, for about a week now, and it's going well. Last night he was awake between 4:30 and 5, singing to himself. I'm considering turning the hated baby monitor off for good, but I'm worried I won't wake up if he starts crying and something is genuinely wrong.
(In case you're interested in sleep training, I highly recommend reading a book about it. Some people are under the mistaken impression that sleep training means that you can put your baby down if he's crying and you don't want to deal with him, or that you never go to your baby when he cries, or that you don't have to do your part to get your baby ready for sleep. I recommend learning the rules before you play the sleep-training game.)
One final success is pumping, though even that success is tempered with the horror of spoiled breastmilk. B has already covered this story well in his blog, so I won't go into much detail, but we spent over an hour last night defrosting, sniffing, and dumping an entire month's worth of frozen milk. Tonight we work our way through August's milk and hope that not all of it has turned soapy/metallic/horrific.
This post is as scattered as my mind is lately.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Achy breaky mom
I gave birth over four months ago, but I'm not finished with my pregnancy rants yet.
I expected to be a little creaky during pregnancy, when everything spreads out a little. But I expected the creakiness to be over after little E greeted the world.
The creakiness did not end. In fact, it only got worse.
I feel as if I have aged 30 years in just a short period of time. My knees ache when I walk up the stairs. My first steps of the day after getting out of bed are tentative, delicate, and painful. My joints crack when I walk. This is my reward for giving new life?
A quick internet search revealed that I am not alone with my achies, and they might be related to breastfeeding, a painful irony to accept. Isn't the breastpump punishment enough? Must I feel arthritic, too?
Motherhood: Not for wimps.
I expected to be a little creaky during pregnancy, when everything spreads out a little. But I expected the creakiness to be over after little E greeted the world.
The creakiness did not end. In fact, it only got worse.
I feel as if I have aged 30 years in just a short period of time. My knees ache when I walk up the stairs. My first steps of the day after getting out of bed are tentative, delicate, and painful. My joints crack when I walk. This is my reward for giving new life?
A quick internet search revealed that I am not alone with my achies, and they might be related to breastfeeding, a painful irony to accept. Isn't the breastpump punishment enough? Must I feel arthritic, too?
Motherhood: Not for wimps.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Spitup saturation
Events in recent weeks have led me to ponder thoughts that have never crossed my mind. For instance: How much spitup needs to be on my shirt before I decide I have to change it? How long will it take before the carpet in the second-floor hallway is completely worn down from my pacing back and forth, trying to get E calm enough so that he can fall asleep? Most importantly: When I am ready to stop pumping, can I throw my breast pump into a bonfire and watch it burn, baby, burn?
Deep thoughts for a Friday morning.
News in the world of Little Man...
Playing
He's sort of grabbing toys now. Significance of this milestone: He is now sort of interactive. Emphasis on the "sort of."
Muscular development
We are seeking treatment for his crooked neck (medical term: torticollis). Torticollis occurs more frequently in boys and is more common now that babies sleep on their backs rather than their stomachs. Before he entered the world, E was in the same position for the majority of my pregnancy, so it's not surprising that his head tilts one way.
The issue been present since birth but seemed to be getting worse, so now we have a nurse/personal trainer coming to the house to stretch him out and help him strengthen the weaker side of his neck. We also have stretches and exercises that we do with him every day. We've already seen an improvement in his neck strength and range of motion.
Schedule
We're off the old schedule. I didn't like waking E up from naps. He didn't like it either. Now he sleeps more and almost never cries. (Except when he gets overtired or is not ready to be put in his crib for sleeping.)
Bonus: Since we no longer wake him at 6 AM, we get the chance to sleep in a little bit. And he's sleeping much better in his crib now that he's sleeping when he wants to sleep.
Downside: Everything's a bit more loosey goosey these days, until he becomes more consistent with his sleeping. (Allegedly, he should do that by 12-16 weeks. At 14 weeks, he is not yet there.) However, he still goes to sleep between 5:30 and 6 each night, so our evenings still belong to us.
School
E has been attending daycare three days per week for the last two weeks. He picked up a cold in his first week. He might have another cold now, after his second week (or maybe he's just not over the first one?) Our pediatrician assures us that this is just the beginning of his immune system becoming stronger. The sad truth is that even though I like to pretend that I am Wonder Woman, his eating my breastmilk has not turned my son into Superman, and he is still susceptible to colds just like all other kids.
His first day of school was difficult for me, but dropping him off is getting easier. My wanting to be back at work has certainly helped that situation.
Deep thoughts for a Friday morning.
News in the world of Little Man...
Playing
He's sort of grabbing toys now. Significance of this milestone: He is now sort of interactive. Emphasis on the "sort of."
Muscular development
We are seeking treatment for his crooked neck (medical term: torticollis). Torticollis occurs more frequently in boys and is more common now that babies sleep on their backs rather than their stomachs. Before he entered the world, E was in the same position for the majority of my pregnancy, so it's not surprising that his head tilts one way.
The issue been present since birth but seemed to be getting worse, so now we have a nurse/personal trainer coming to the house to stretch him out and help him strengthen the weaker side of his neck. We also have stretches and exercises that we do with him every day. We've already seen an improvement in his neck strength and range of motion.
Schedule
We're off the old schedule. I didn't like waking E up from naps. He didn't like it either. Now he sleeps more and almost never cries. (Except when he gets overtired or is not ready to be put in his crib for sleeping.)
Bonus: Since we no longer wake him at 6 AM, we get the chance to sleep in a little bit. And he's sleeping much better in his crib now that he's sleeping when he wants to sleep.
Downside: Everything's a bit more loosey goosey these days, until he becomes more consistent with his sleeping. (Allegedly, he should do that by 12-16 weeks. At 14 weeks, he is not yet there.) However, he still goes to sleep between 5:30 and 6 each night, so our evenings still belong to us.
School
E has been attending daycare three days per week for the last two weeks. He picked up a cold in his first week. He might have another cold now, after his second week (or maybe he's just not over the first one?) Our pediatrician assures us that this is just the beginning of his immune system becoming stronger. The sad truth is that even though I like to pretend that I am Wonder Woman, his eating my breastmilk has not turned my son into Superman, and he is still susceptible to colds just like all other kids.
His first day of school was difficult for me, but dropping him off is getting easier. My wanting to be back at work has certainly helped that situation.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Hungry
I am 42.9 percent of the way toward completing my 6-month pumping goal. Precise, yes, because I run this calculation nearly every day. One does what one must to keep going.
B is fond of presenting to me hypothetical situations that require a choice, and I am generally unable to choose. However, I presented such a situation to myself the other day and found that the choice was surprisingly easy.
Would I rather pump for 6 months or go through labor again?
I choose labor. If labor could somehow produce 6 months' worth of the best nutrition for little E, I'd take it in a heartbeat over pumping. (Assuming, of course, that I could get an epidural.)
But I don't really have that choice, so I continue to pump and to deal with the inconvenience, physical discomfort, and the feeling that my body is not really my own.
And I have to deal with the hunger. I thought that I was extra hungry during pregnancy, when you're supposed to eat 200-300 extra calories per day. Having to consume an extra 600 calories per day is unexpectedly difficult.
I'm hungry all the time. Only on several occasions in the last 11 weeks have I felt really, truly full. (Side note: Both times occurred after large meals of hot salted meat.) I have to eat several breakfasts and lunches each day, and I consume ice cream at night by the gallons. (Ok, usually by the pints--I am an ice cream snob.)
I eat as much as B does, sometimes more. He hasn't been able to finish one of my meals in ages. Sad for him, perhaps, though I think he doesn't mind the nightly ice cream.
My body's increased calorie burning did mean that I lost my 30 pounds of pregnancy weight very quickly. I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight, though not my pre-pregnancy size. My waist and hips are both 2 inches bigger than they used to be. I suspect that this change is permanent. My pants still fit, thank goodness (you have no idea how difficult it is for me to find pants), but I have had to say good-bye to most of my fitted dresses.
As for my feet, I'm not sure if they've changed. I haven't got around to trying on all my shoes yet, but the shoes I wear all the time still fit. I bought my first pair of post-pregnancy shoes recently and had to go a size up (11 now--gah), but they run small, so it's tough to say whether my feet have really grown.
I had sort of been hoping that my feet would get bigger so I'd have an excuse to throw out all the uncomfortable shoes I have and start over. Perhaps the hidden animosity I have toward them is reason enough to get rid of them and start anew.
B is fond of presenting to me hypothetical situations that require a choice, and I am generally unable to choose. However, I presented such a situation to myself the other day and found that the choice was surprisingly easy.
Would I rather pump for 6 months or go through labor again?
I choose labor. If labor could somehow produce 6 months' worth of the best nutrition for little E, I'd take it in a heartbeat over pumping. (Assuming, of course, that I could get an epidural.)
But I don't really have that choice, so I continue to pump and to deal with the inconvenience, physical discomfort, and the feeling that my body is not really my own.
And I have to deal with the hunger. I thought that I was extra hungry during pregnancy, when you're supposed to eat 200-300 extra calories per day. Having to consume an extra 600 calories per day is unexpectedly difficult.
I'm hungry all the time. Only on several occasions in the last 11 weeks have I felt really, truly full. (Side note: Both times occurred after large meals of hot salted meat.) I have to eat several breakfasts and lunches each day, and I consume ice cream at night by the gallons. (Ok, usually by the pints--I am an ice cream snob.)
I eat as much as B does, sometimes more. He hasn't been able to finish one of my meals in ages. Sad for him, perhaps, though I think he doesn't mind the nightly ice cream.
My body's increased calorie burning did mean that I lost my 30 pounds of pregnancy weight very quickly. I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight, though not my pre-pregnancy size. My waist and hips are both 2 inches bigger than they used to be. I suspect that this change is permanent. My pants still fit, thank goodness (you have no idea how difficult it is for me to find pants), but I have had to say good-bye to most of my fitted dresses.
As for my feet, I'm not sure if they've changed. I haven't got around to trying on all my shoes yet, but the shoes I wear all the time still fit. I bought my first pair of post-pregnancy shoes recently and had to go a size up (11 now--gah), but they run small, so it's tough to say whether my feet have really grown.
I had sort of been hoping that my feet would get bigger so I'd have an excuse to throw out all the uncomfortable shoes I have and start over. Perhaps the hidden animosity I have toward them is reason enough to get rid of them and start anew.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Useful baby books
I wanted to share the books that have helped guide us along the parenting path.
The Contented Little Baby Book
Does the idea of putting your baby on a schedule appeal to you? Do you like the idea of knowing that you'll have several predetermined chunks of time each day to yourself?
If so, consider checking out Gina Ford's book. She's a famous nanny in Britain, and lots of British (and now American) parents have adopted her ideas.
Most books say that you can't put a newborn on a schedule. However, we've had a lot of success. Sure, everything doesn't always go as planned, and sometimes he falls asleep earlier than he's supposed to or wakes up before he's supposed to, but we do our best to get back on track and usually can.
If the idea of a highly structured day is overwhelming to you or if you are committed to feeding your baby on demand, no matter the time of day, don't bother reading this book. But if you like the idea of only 5-7 feedings per day and of getting your baby to sleep through the night at a young age, check it out.
(For the record, Rooster is not yet sleeping through the night, but most nights, we get a 5-hour stretch, which is good for a 7-week-old.)
The Happiest Baby on the Block
This book frequently offers opposite advice from Gina's book. The author says that there's no way you can put a baby on a schedule until at least 8 weeks and that your job as a parent is to adapt your life to your baby and do what he wants.
The book focuses on getting your baby to stop crying, theorizing that a non-crying baby will sleep well. The author offers a few ideas that we know that Gina would pooh-pooh, but they work for us.
For instance, Gina says that the baby should sleep in his crib, as sleeping elsewhere will encourage him to develop bad sleeping habits that you will then have to correct down the road. However, she doesn't address what to do when your baby will sleep for only 30 minutes at a time in his crib. The Happiest Baby book tells you to let your baby sleep in his swing, all night if necessary, until 4 or 5 months or whenever he is ready to move back to his crib.
We put Rooster in his crib for each nap, and sometimes he sleeps there the entire time, but most of the time, he wakes up crying after only a half hour. At that point, we calm him down and put him in his swing, where he sleeps like a contented little baby for the rest of his nap (not always, but most of the time).
You do what you must to get sleep.
Another side note--at some point, you will have an inconsolable, screaming baby on your hands. And the tricks in the Happiest Baby book will get him to stop crying. Buy this book, learn about the 5 S's, and your baby will cry less.
What to Expect series
These books are great for the paranoid preggo and mom who wants to know every bad thing that could possibly happen and who wants to commit many hours to reading the books cover to cover, as the books are not designed to be scanned or used as reference material.
Are the books useful? Sometimes. Are they annoying? Definitely. You make the call about whether you can handle their overcautiousness.
The Baby Owner's Manual
If you have very little experience handling babies, consider buying this book. Most baby books provide theoretical information, but this book provides step-by-step instructions for all your baby-related tasks, from getting into breastfeeding positions to giving a sponge bath. Plus it's well-written, scannable, and fun.
Am I biased because I have written a few manuals myself (admittedly, not nearly as fun as this one)? Perhaps. But I suspect that this book is appealing to non-technical writers, too.
Baby 411
We bought this book on our Kindle, a decision that I regretted at first, as it's enormous and the Kindle does not allow for easy scanning. However, the Kindle has a Find feature, allowing us to search the book when we have questions about anything from cradle cap to thrush.
The book provides a lot of detail, perhaps too much. Reading it while I was pregnant gave me nightmares. Purchase if you want too much information about everything or if you want a comprehensive reference book.
Milk Memos
If you want to know how what it's like to return to work and still try to breastfeed your baby, consider buying this book. It will also provide encouragement if you are pumping.
The Contented Little Baby Book
Does the idea of putting your baby on a schedule appeal to you? Do you like the idea of knowing that you'll have several predetermined chunks of time each day to yourself?
If so, consider checking out Gina Ford's book. She's a famous nanny in Britain, and lots of British (and now American) parents have adopted her ideas.
Most books say that you can't put a newborn on a schedule. However, we've had a lot of success. Sure, everything doesn't always go as planned, and sometimes he falls asleep earlier than he's supposed to or wakes up before he's supposed to, but we do our best to get back on track and usually can.
If the idea of a highly structured day is overwhelming to you or if you are committed to feeding your baby on demand, no matter the time of day, don't bother reading this book. But if you like the idea of only 5-7 feedings per day and of getting your baby to sleep through the night at a young age, check it out.
(For the record, Rooster is not yet sleeping through the night, but most nights, we get a 5-hour stretch, which is good for a 7-week-old.)
The Happiest Baby on the Block
This book frequently offers opposite advice from Gina's book. The author says that there's no way you can put a baby on a schedule until at least 8 weeks and that your job as a parent is to adapt your life to your baby and do what he wants.
The book focuses on getting your baby to stop crying, theorizing that a non-crying baby will sleep well. The author offers a few ideas that we know that Gina would pooh-pooh, but they work for us.
For instance, Gina says that the baby should sleep in his crib, as sleeping elsewhere will encourage him to develop bad sleeping habits that you will then have to correct down the road. However, she doesn't address what to do when your baby will sleep for only 30 minutes at a time in his crib. The Happiest Baby book tells you to let your baby sleep in his swing, all night if necessary, until 4 or 5 months or whenever he is ready to move back to his crib.
We put Rooster in his crib for each nap, and sometimes he sleeps there the entire time, but most of the time, he wakes up crying after only a half hour. At that point, we calm him down and put him in his swing, where he sleeps like a contented little baby for the rest of his nap (not always, but most of the time).
You do what you must to get sleep.
Another side note--at some point, you will have an inconsolable, screaming baby on your hands. And the tricks in the Happiest Baby book will get him to stop crying. Buy this book, learn about the 5 S's, and your baby will cry less.
What to Expect series
These books are great for the paranoid preggo and mom who wants to know every bad thing that could possibly happen and who wants to commit many hours to reading the books cover to cover, as the books are not designed to be scanned or used as reference material.
Are the books useful? Sometimes. Are they annoying? Definitely. You make the call about whether you can handle their overcautiousness.
The Baby Owner's Manual
If you have very little experience handling babies, consider buying this book. Most baby books provide theoretical information, but this book provides step-by-step instructions for all your baby-related tasks, from getting into breastfeeding positions to giving a sponge bath. Plus it's well-written, scannable, and fun.
Am I biased because I have written a few manuals myself (admittedly, not nearly as fun as this one)? Perhaps. But I suspect that this book is appealing to non-technical writers, too.
Baby 411
We bought this book on our Kindle, a decision that I regretted at first, as it's enormous and the Kindle does not allow for easy scanning. However, the Kindle has a Find feature, allowing us to search the book when we have questions about anything from cradle cap to thrush.
The book provides a lot of detail, perhaps too much. Reading it while I was pregnant gave me nightmares. Purchase if you want too much information about everything or if you want a comprehensive reference book.
Milk Memos
If you want to know how what it's like to return to work and still try to breastfeed your baby, consider buying this book. It will also provide encouragement if you are pumping.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Great expectations
B is frequently frustrated by my inability to play "Let's Pretend." He enjoys throwing out hypothetical situations to find out what I'd do in them. Invariably, I respond to his questions with more questions, probing for details, and in the end, my answer is usually, "I don't know," or "That sounds unlikely to happen."
My brain just doesn't process hypotheticals.
It should come as no surprise, then, that I had no idea what to expect from my new role of "mother," so I didn't think I had many expectations before entering this new role. However, I apparently did have some expectations, perhaps unspoken even to myself, because I am constantly surprised by my new role.
Here are a few areas that have taken me by surprise in the last month or so.
Fun
The secret that no one tells you is that the first few weeks of parenthood aren't much fun. People hide this knowledge in statements such as, "It gets better," or "It gets easier." What they're really saying is, "There are limited opportunities for fun in the beginning."
Sure, there are elements of fun and wonderful, particularly when your baby is cute and provides you with adorable photographable moments of cuteness explosions. But a lot of the time, it's diaper blowouts at 3 in the morning and the need to change the bedding and the diaper and swaddle blanket of a screaming newborn.
That situation probably doesn't sound like fun--because it isn't!
Now when people tell me, "Oh, the early days are so much fun," my answer is, "Actually, they're not that much fun." And it's amazing how the conversation changes afterward! Invariably, the woman (because men do not feel the need to pretend that newborns are a barrel of laughs all the time) lowers her voice and admits that she herself did not enjoy the early days that much, and then she offers the age when the fun actually begins (usually somewhere in the 2 to 4 month range).
I am doing my best to maintain an even keel until the fun increases. It must get better, or people wouldn't have multiple children.
Baby blues
They warned us in childbirthing class about the baby blues, and naturally, I assumed that I would be immune to them.
This situation illustrates the danger of inflated self-confidence.
The baby blues usually start a couple days after the birth of your baby and are the result of your hormones going haywire. You can go from laughter to tears within minutes and have very little control over your emotions.
I first experienced the baby blues when I nearly started crying while we were leaving the hospital. Make no mistake--I couldn't wait to get home. But actually walking down the hallway with Rooster in his carrier, knowing that we'd soon be flying solo with him, left me overwhelmed.
Many situations left me overwhelmed those first couple weeks. I cried...a lot. A couple times, I felt like I couldn't stop crying, a scary situation because the baby blues can turn into postpartum depression.
Now, four weeks later, my baby blues are mostly gone. I still get overwhelmed taking care of a newborn by myself while B is at work, but I feel like I am much more in control of my emotions. I think that my baby blues were very closely tied with my physical recovery, another unexpected result of this thing they call childbirth...
Lengthy recovery time
I did not expect to be in so much pain following the birth. I thought that lengthy recovery times were for c-sections only. Wrong!
In the days following Rooster's birth, I could barely get out of bed. I watched the clock religiously and requested my Motrin every 6 hours. Two weeks later, I was still taking Motrin and walking like a bit of a gunslinger.
A month later, I still have not fully recovered. During pregnancy, I thought that classifying pregnancy leave as a short-term disability was a little odd, but now I understand because I genuinely do feel like I am physically disabled much of the time.
It seems awfully unfair to have to deal with the physical recovery from birth at the same time that you have to learn how to take care of a newborn, but that's the way it is. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have B. Single mothers, you amaze me.
Breastfeeding difficulties
Breastfeeding is natural and easy, right? You and the baby instinctively know what to do, and your baby gains weight and thrives with very little effort from you while you still manage to get lots of sleep.
That's how it's sold, anyway. The reality was quite the opposite.
My baby didn't know what to do, he only lost weight, and no one got any sleep.
I've already written about this subject, so I won't belabor the point, but anyone who says that breastfeeding is easy is either extremely lucky or is lying.
Exhaustion
I knew I'd be tired. I just didn't know what tired really felt like until now. I leave a room to grab something and forget what I needed. I start sentences and stop speaking in the middle because I've forgotten what I was going to say. I forget how much milk I put in Rooster's bottle. I find my eyelids getting awfully heavy while I'm rocking and feeding Rooster.
Sleep is at a wicked premium in our house these days (for everyone except Rooster, that is). Getting 6 hours of sleep--not consecutively, mind you, total--in a day is now a luxury.
We are lucky that he wakes up only twice each night and that he is rarely fussy during the night. (He saves that behavior for me during the day.)
Apparently, it will get easier.
My brain just doesn't process hypotheticals.
It should come as no surprise, then, that I had no idea what to expect from my new role of "mother," so I didn't think I had many expectations before entering this new role. However, I apparently did have some expectations, perhaps unspoken even to myself, because I am constantly surprised by my new role.
Here are a few areas that have taken me by surprise in the last month or so.
Fun
The secret that no one tells you is that the first few weeks of parenthood aren't much fun. People hide this knowledge in statements such as, "It gets better," or "It gets easier." What they're really saying is, "There are limited opportunities for fun in the beginning."
Sure, there are elements of fun and wonderful, particularly when your baby is cute and provides you with adorable photographable moments of cuteness explosions. But a lot of the time, it's diaper blowouts at 3 in the morning and the need to change the bedding and the diaper and swaddle blanket of a screaming newborn.
That situation probably doesn't sound like fun--because it isn't!
Now when people tell me, "Oh, the early days are so much fun," my answer is, "Actually, they're not that much fun." And it's amazing how the conversation changes afterward! Invariably, the woman (because men do not feel the need to pretend that newborns are a barrel of laughs all the time) lowers her voice and admits that she herself did not enjoy the early days that much, and then she offers the age when the fun actually begins (usually somewhere in the 2 to 4 month range).
I am doing my best to maintain an even keel until the fun increases. It must get better, or people wouldn't have multiple children.
Baby blues
They warned us in childbirthing class about the baby blues, and naturally, I assumed that I would be immune to them.
This situation illustrates the danger of inflated self-confidence.
The baby blues usually start a couple days after the birth of your baby and are the result of your hormones going haywire. You can go from laughter to tears within minutes and have very little control over your emotions.
I first experienced the baby blues when I nearly started crying while we were leaving the hospital. Make no mistake--I couldn't wait to get home. But actually walking down the hallway with Rooster in his carrier, knowing that we'd soon be flying solo with him, left me overwhelmed.
Many situations left me overwhelmed those first couple weeks. I cried...a lot. A couple times, I felt like I couldn't stop crying, a scary situation because the baby blues can turn into postpartum depression.
Now, four weeks later, my baby blues are mostly gone. I still get overwhelmed taking care of a newborn by myself while B is at work, but I feel like I am much more in control of my emotions. I think that my baby blues were very closely tied with my physical recovery, another unexpected result of this thing they call childbirth...
Lengthy recovery time
I did not expect to be in so much pain following the birth. I thought that lengthy recovery times were for c-sections only. Wrong!
In the days following Rooster's birth, I could barely get out of bed. I watched the clock religiously and requested my Motrin every 6 hours. Two weeks later, I was still taking Motrin and walking like a bit of a gunslinger.
A month later, I still have not fully recovered. During pregnancy, I thought that classifying pregnancy leave as a short-term disability was a little odd, but now I understand because I genuinely do feel like I am physically disabled much of the time.
It seems awfully unfair to have to deal with the physical recovery from birth at the same time that you have to learn how to take care of a newborn, but that's the way it is. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have B. Single mothers, you amaze me.
Breastfeeding difficulties
Breastfeeding is natural and easy, right? You and the baby instinctively know what to do, and your baby gains weight and thrives with very little effort from you while you still manage to get lots of sleep.
That's how it's sold, anyway. The reality was quite the opposite.
My baby didn't know what to do, he only lost weight, and no one got any sleep.
I've already written about this subject, so I won't belabor the point, but anyone who says that breastfeeding is easy is either extremely lucky or is lying.
Exhaustion
I knew I'd be tired. I just didn't know what tired really felt like until now. I leave a room to grab something and forget what I needed. I start sentences and stop speaking in the middle because I've forgotten what I was going to say. I forget how much milk I put in Rooster's bottle. I find my eyelids getting awfully heavy while I'm rocking and feeding Rooster.
Sleep is at a wicked premium in our house these days (for everyone except Rooster, that is). Getting 6 hours of sleep--not consecutively, mind you, total--in a day is now a luxury.
We are lucky that he wakes up only twice each night and that he is rarely fussy during the night. (He saves that behavior for me during the day.)
Apparently, it will get easier.
Moo
We've had some challenges, our new family, during this "transition" period. One of the biggest challenges has been feeding our child.
I was committed to feeding breastmilk to Rooster, but he and I had some difficulties with breastfeeding. He had trouble latching, so I got a shield, which helped somewhat, but he still had a terrible latch that left me in pain. If I removed him, he wouldn't relatch, so I had two options--deal with the pain, or let him starve. I did my best to suck it up and deal with the pain.
At the hospital, we had several visits with lactation consultants. The visits were unpleasant at best, traumatic at worst, leaving Rooster screaming and no more able to eat than he had been before. Seeing my baby being manhandled in an attempt to get him to eat left me feeling resentful and angry towards these women and made me distrust lactation consultants.
I also felt like I was a challenge rather than a human being to them. "I'm going to get him to eat without the shield," one consultant declared on our last day at the hospital, grabbing hold of his neck and of me and leaving both of us in frustrated and in pain. (She did not succeed. I knew she wouldn't.)
It was the visiting nurse, who stopped by the day after we got home from the hospital, who put the final nail in the breastfeeding coffin. She brought her portable scale and weighed him, and he had lost weight since leaving the hospital.
"Feed him every two hours," she recommended.
Something you should know about this "every two hours" recommendation--it doesn't mean that you feed him, and then two hours from the end of the feeding, you start again. No, no, no. If you start feeding at 10 PM, your next feeding begins at midnight, even if your 10 PM feeding takes 45 minutes (or longer!).
Further complicating matters was that it took two of us to attempt to get both Rooster and me into the right position for a feeding, so B, Rooster, and I spent one horrible, sleepless night with lots of tears and screaming (mostly but not exclusively from Rooster). At the end of each feeding, Rooster and I were covered in breastmilk, but very little actually made it into his belly.
The next day, we started charging the breastpump. It took 24 hours to charge, so we all suffered another horrible, sleepless night during which I felt guilty for (gasp!) going 2 1/2 hours between feedings so that I could get maybe 30 minutes of sleep at a time.
Finally, the breast pump was charged. The first time I pumped was a glorious, wonderful experience. Rooster drank the contents of the bottle in about 5 minutes and was ready for more when he finished. For the first time in days, he looked like a content baby.
As for me, I felt free for the first time since his birth. "You mean," I asked rhetorically, "I can still feed him breastmilk, but don't have to breastfeed in public? Other people can feed him, too? I can leave the house and not worry about taking his food supply away? We'll know exactly how much he's eating? Sign me up!"
So for the last 3+ weeks, I have been pumping. In the online world, this setup is called "exclusively pumping," or EP, and seems to be most popular among women whose babies are born prematurely and can't breastfeed, and others like me, who attempted it but couldn't deal with the stress of the early days.
The situation is both the best and worst of the breastfeeding and bottle-feeding worlds. I already mentioned some of the benefits, but there are downsides, too, mostly logistical. Between bottles and breastpump parts, we have a ton of washing up to do, so we run the dishwasher multiple times per day. I have to find time to pump 6 or 7 times per day, and each pumping session lasts a long time, 20 minutes or more (the longest I've gone is 50). When I'm flying solo at home, I have to pump during his naps, but if he wakes up crying, I have to either quit or try to juggle a baby and a breastpump (an acquired skill...I am still acquiring it...).
And while I'm not exactly chained to Rooster, I am sort of chained to my breastpump, as I have to pump every few hours. During our road trip this past weekend, I pumped in a mall parking lot and in a parking lot just off the side of the road while B fed Rooster. I wouldn't call it a fun experience, and it's not one I'd like to have every day, but it's doable when you have to travel.
In hindsight, should I have persevered with breastfeeding? Maybe, maybe not. Even though it was overall dissatisfying and humbling, I appreciated the idea of it and even sometimes enjoyed it. But at this point, pumping is the path that I have chosen.
It's not an easy path, and I have on occasion thought wistfully of the free jar of formula we received at the hospital. My goal is to continue for six months, but six months is an awfully long time, so I approach the activity with a "one day at a time" motto. Every day I wake up and make the decision to pump that day. I'm glad that I've stuck with it, and I'm going to carry on for as long as I can.
I was committed to feeding breastmilk to Rooster, but he and I had some difficulties with breastfeeding. He had trouble latching, so I got a shield, which helped somewhat, but he still had a terrible latch that left me in pain. If I removed him, he wouldn't relatch, so I had two options--deal with the pain, or let him starve. I did my best to suck it up and deal with the pain.
At the hospital, we had several visits with lactation consultants. The visits were unpleasant at best, traumatic at worst, leaving Rooster screaming and no more able to eat than he had been before. Seeing my baby being manhandled in an attempt to get him to eat left me feeling resentful and angry towards these women and made me distrust lactation consultants.
I also felt like I was a challenge rather than a human being to them. "I'm going to get him to eat without the shield," one consultant declared on our last day at the hospital, grabbing hold of his neck and of me and leaving both of us in frustrated and in pain. (She did not succeed. I knew she wouldn't.)
It was the visiting nurse, who stopped by the day after we got home from the hospital, who put the final nail in the breastfeeding coffin. She brought her portable scale and weighed him, and he had lost weight since leaving the hospital.
"Feed him every two hours," she recommended.
Something you should know about this "every two hours" recommendation--it doesn't mean that you feed him, and then two hours from the end of the feeding, you start again. No, no, no. If you start feeding at 10 PM, your next feeding begins at midnight, even if your 10 PM feeding takes 45 minutes (or longer!).
Further complicating matters was that it took two of us to attempt to get both Rooster and me into the right position for a feeding, so B, Rooster, and I spent one horrible, sleepless night with lots of tears and screaming (mostly but not exclusively from Rooster). At the end of each feeding, Rooster and I were covered in breastmilk, but very little actually made it into his belly.
The next day, we started charging the breastpump. It took 24 hours to charge, so we all suffered another horrible, sleepless night during which I felt guilty for (gasp!) going 2 1/2 hours between feedings so that I could get maybe 30 minutes of sleep at a time.
Finally, the breast pump was charged. The first time I pumped was a glorious, wonderful experience. Rooster drank the contents of the bottle in about 5 minutes and was ready for more when he finished. For the first time in days, he looked like a content baby.
As for me, I felt free for the first time since his birth. "You mean," I asked rhetorically, "I can still feed him breastmilk, but don't have to breastfeed in public? Other people can feed him, too? I can leave the house and not worry about taking his food supply away? We'll know exactly how much he's eating? Sign me up!"
So for the last 3+ weeks, I have been pumping. In the online world, this setup is called "exclusively pumping," or EP, and seems to be most popular among women whose babies are born prematurely and can't breastfeed, and others like me, who attempted it but couldn't deal with the stress of the early days.
The situation is both the best and worst of the breastfeeding and bottle-feeding worlds. I already mentioned some of the benefits, but there are downsides, too, mostly logistical. Between bottles and breastpump parts, we have a ton of washing up to do, so we run the dishwasher multiple times per day. I have to find time to pump 6 or 7 times per day, and each pumping session lasts a long time, 20 minutes or more (the longest I've gone is 50). When I'm flying solo at home, I have to pump during his naps, but if he wakes up crying, I have to either quit or try to juggle a baby and a breastpump (an acquired skill...I am still acquiring it...).
And while I'm not exactly chained to Rooster, I am sort of chained to my breastpump, as I have to pump every few hours. During our road trip this past weekend, I pumped in a mall parking lot and in a parking lot just off the side of the road while B fed Rooster. I wouldn't call it a fun experience, and it's not one I'd like to have every day, but it's doable when you have to travel.
In hindsight, should I have persevered with breastfeeding? Maybe, maybe not. Even though it was overall dissatisfying and humbling, I appreciated the idea of it and even sometimes enjoyed it. But at this point, pumping is the path that I have chosen.
It's not an easy path, and I have on occasion thought wistfully of the free jar of formula we received at the hospital. My goal is to continue for six months, but six months is an awfully long time, so I approach the activity with a "one day at a time" motto. Every day I wake up and make the decision to pump that day. I'm glad that I've stuck with it, and I'm going to carry on for as long as I can.
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