Compulsion

So after about 90 minutes struggling with the Dude, trying to get him down for his morning sleep, he finally lay down next to me, cried with exhaustion, and passed out, feeding of course.  I’m desperately worried about his teeth, which already have holes in them, and I think it’s because he feeds to sleep.  I know we have to start brushing his teeth but it’s so hard to coordinate it, and if he keeps feeding to sleep, I fail to understand how brushing is going to make them better.  I wish I could get him to sleep without feeding but it’s just impossible.  I tried to give him water in a bottle today but he just played with it a bit, got water all over the bed and then got upset because he was so ridiculously tired.

I finally emerged from the room and went out to the kitchen to get some breakfast… at 12:20pm.  Turkish bread, fried eggs, butter, tomato sauce.  Yummy weekend breakfast.  Not the healthiest in the world but the bread is probably the worst thing. That should have been enough.  Yet as I was taking the last bites of the egg, I found myself beginning to think of what else I could eat.  Why?  Not because I’m still hungry. Perhaps because the little Dude is asleep and I don’t get a lot of time to myself to enjoy eating.  But why do I have to enjoy eating?  I wasn’t over analysing things.  I decided, initially, to sit with the idea for a few minutes, just while the food I’d just eaten made its way properly into my stomach. A few minutes was literally about 30 seconds…

Before I really knew what was happening, I jumped up and cut myself a slice of Woolies pecan danish, procured by husband yesterday.  Wolfed that down, yum.  Then I had already thought about the next thing: a bag of those yummy Red Rock Deli chips, cheese and onion flavour.  I didn’t eat the whole thing, mainly because they’re not really mine to eat.  They’re meant to be for Mr Chewbacca while he watched the ten nations or the championship dufusburgers or whatever the rugby is called at the moment.  So I ate about half of that, limiting myself only to the most crunchy, dense, curled-up chips.  I was full.  Too full.  Damn it!

Having gone to the doctor the other day for the Dude’s skin, I was thinking a bit about my eating issues and how they affect him.  I realised I feel incredibly guilty for having been unable to stop myself eating ‘bad’ food and knowing it’s going straight through to him through the breastmilk.  I confessed all this to the doctor, but it surprised me that she didn’t offer a way of stopping that.  She just said to notice what I’m doing when I do it.  So this is me noticing.

Yeah, okay this isn’t anywhere near as bad as recent binges.  I won’t even talk about those, it’s pointless.  What I really want to know is, why do I do it?  Why do I do it when I know it’s not good for me, not good for the Dude.  I’m totally overloading my liver and gallbladder, and I’m not getting adequate nutrition because I’m filling up on junk and not eating much of the basic good foods like simple fruit and vegies.  I’ve said before that I feel like the Dude has come to teach me how not to do that bingeing any more, because it’s affecting his skin and now his teeth which he’s only just got.  But as I said to the doctor, I feel like I’m failing at learning that lesson because I just can’t curtail it, I can’t stop eating shit.  Even for a baby, my baby!

But let’s get real here: I should be stopping eating shit for myself, not for anyone or anything else.  There’s a difference between motivation and misplaced focus.  I know deep down that doing it just for the Dude is silly because as soon as he stops breastfeeding I’ll just go back to where I was.  I know I need to find the root cause and tackle that.  But I have no idea how to do that.  Lord knows I’ve tried many times to find out why I eat like I do and I can’t put it down to anything in particular.  Yeah so it’s probably to do with boredom and comfort and self-loathing and pain referral.  But none of that is the root cause.  I feel like I’ve been stuck at some point in my life for years and I don’t know where or why.

Nearly 9 months

Well, we’ve really hit some milestones this month. The main one is crawling! Yes, the Dude is on the move. And now he rarely overbalances when sitting which is a relief as we were getting sick of having to prop pillows around him. His crawling is a little one-sided as he usually puts his right foot flat and then drags his left underneath but he is capable of normal style as I’ve seen him do it. He makes his way around the new house with speed and efficiency.

Food is going well. I can’t say he’s that interested in actually swallowing food yet, he clearly doesn’t see it as required and is really just playing and experimenting now which is fine. I do give him one evening meal via spoon feeding but I think I may start to change that because it just doesn’t make sense. He is happy to take pureed food off a spoon but I don’t think this is necessary. I think when he is ready to ingest food he will so there’s no need for mushing things up and spoon feeding. I’ve been giving him the stuff out of the packet, organic with nothing bad in it, but many of the ones that are recommended for age six months and up have meat in them! And dairy… And there’s no way in hell I’m giving him either of those for as long as I possibly can, preferably until he’s at least 2. He just doesn’t need either and they will do more harm than good.

I feel kind of slack that I’m not making him food but it’s a bit of a hassle. Well for someone like me it is as I am not that coordinated with meals. I should steam or roast more vegies for him but I just don’t manage it. And I know what the baby-led weaning book says, that baby can just eat what everyone else eats but I disagree on two fronts. One, we have too much spice and seasoning in our food which I think is inappropriate for someone who is developing his taste buds and two, we have meat, dairy, nightshades, citrus etc and I don’t think any of those foods are suitable for his new digestion. He requires none of that for nutrition as he’s getting all his vitamins and minerals through breastmilk. I’ve given him vegies out of my stirfry or risotto which is fine and I’m not paranoid about him trying new things. I just don’t want his body to have to work too hard at digesting complex and toxic foods yet. Plenty of time for that later.

It was nice to go to the homebirth mothers’ group this week after a lengthy break over the holidays. All the babies have grown and changed so much! The Dude crawled around and totally fitted in with all the other kids, cruising around exploring. He definitely hasn’t inherited my shyness. Which is great actually because I think being shy made things harder for me. It’s amazing to see how big the Dude is compared to others! He isn’t chunky, quite slender actually, like daddy, but very tall and solid. He’s just so there, so present, which is the feeling I’ve had about him since he was born. There was never anything frail about him, he didn’t ever have that weak, semi-transparent look that some babies have, where you can see they’re not quite here physically yet. If anything, the Dude is desperate to be more present, and very angry and frustrated that he can’t do all the same stuff as everyone because, well, he’s a baby! It’s like he’s got some big things to achieve and he just wants to get stuck in!

He fell off the bed twice since we moved to Fibroland, once because we hadn’t put his cot up yet and the second time he was sleeping alone and I didn’t know he was awake and he just crawled off trying to come and find me. So we sorted his sidecart cot and invested in baby monitors. Just the basic kind, so I can hear as soon as he wakes. It’s been awesome, I can relax and not worry. In the other place we didn’t have a problem because it was so small. And he wasn’t crawling, or at least he’d only been crawling a week when we left.

Still no sign of him migrating to his cot for sleep. I wish I could say that cosleeping has been a conscious choice and we love it etc but the fact is that I’d be so happy and sleep so much better if he slept in his cot. Our new bed is so comfy and not squeaky like the old one but it’s so annoying to not be able to move into a comfy position because it will wake him or there isn’t enough room. In addition, I miss bedtime with husband. There are times when it’s the three of us snuggled up and it’s lovely but eventually I just want to have some space to spread out and relax. And cosleeping hasn’t had a positive effect on our sex life. I won’t go into any more detail but suffice it to say, it sucks. And all my fellow natural cosleeping parents just don’t get it! In fact neither do the mainstream conservative ones! The former group are like, ‘oh isn’t it great, you have to be more inventive and have sex all over the house and you always know your baby is safe by your side and you can feed without getting up, bla bla bla…’. Yeah, fabulous, if you have a baby who stays asleep for more than 20 minutes without you and your boobs in his face! I never liked having my breasts touched much to begin with, and now they get manhandled 24/7! Yeah, I don’t really enjoy breastfeeding. Not to say I’d stop, as Dude would be even more difficult! But I just don’t like it that much. I think it’s because I’m touch sensitive. Nipples are for the enjoyment of others, simple as that.

The latter group, mainstream parents, are all like, ‘oh my god, he sleeps in your bed? Oh I could never sleep well, I’d be worried I’d squash him’. Yeah, that’s how I felt too, until I had a child that screamed the house down unless he was either being carried around in a sling or feeding next to me in bed. People don’t get it. They all have normal children. They think their babies are high needs because they have to feed to sleep. But they wait for them to sleep then they put them in bed. And they don’t wake up. For a couple of hours anyway. The Dude will ALWAYS wake when being carried to bed asleep. Always. And he wakes when I get up too soon. And sometimes I’ve been lying with him for over an hour, he seems perfectly sound asleep, I creep out, and five minutes later he’s screaming. So it isn’t ever possible to rock him to sleep and then put him down. It has happened maybe three times that we’ve managed to put him in his cot and he’s stayed asleep but every time he’s woken after ten minutes or so. So although it is annoying, cosleeping means we all sleep reasonably soundly most nights. There’s really nothing wrong with the Dude, he is just very aware and very sensitive. Which is what Mr Chewbacca and I are both like so not surprising.

Size wise I’m not sure how we’re going but last time I measured he was 76cm tall and 10.1kg. So he’s still massive. We’re predicting he’s going to be 6’5″. Sometimes he stretches out and his body is just so long! He is pulling himself up to standing on just about everything and thinks he’s awesome when he does it, it’s very cute. Being so tall he can reach virtually anything on the coffee table. He loves all the most dangerous and inappropriate things: electrical cords, the garbage bin, the toilet, the oven when it’s hot, the mop… The list is endless! I try not to leave things around that could be dangerous, not because I’m afraid he’ll hurt himself but more because I don’t want to be saying no and stopping him from exploring.

After that massive complaining rant about the Dude not sleeping, he’s actually been asleep for an hour by himself now… A sign of things to come perhaps.

Nearly four months

So the Dude will be four months old on Friday.  How time flies!  He is extremely cute, getting a lot bigger.  I was reading the latest from The Feminist Breeder yesterday, and was reminded yet again how different babies really are.  Among other things in her first post back since the August hiatus, she mentions that her little girl (who is about 3 weeks older than the Dude) began rolling over at 3 months.  Really?!  Wow!  I was kind of shocked actually because the Dude is nearly four months and still hasn’t rolled over.  I haven’t paid much attention to what it says about when babies are meant to do certain things, but it really made me think about how different babies can be and how all that stuff about milestones really means nothing.  Actually, to be honest, I initially began to worry – why isn’t he rolling over, why isn’t he reaching this crucial developmental stage, is there something wrong with him?  Yeah, apparently that’s what mums do, worry.  In terms of muscle strength, he’s got it all, and then some.  He can easily roll from his back to his side and back again, and I’m sure he’s got the muscles to roll right over, but he just doesn’t do it, doesn’t have the motor skills yet I guess.  Typical boy, bit behind the girls.  On the other hand, TFB also said her little one has grown 4 inches since birth.  Really?  At first that sounded like a lot, but then I converted it to centimetres and realised the Dude has grown more than double that since birth!  17cm and counting in fact.  Which, if my calculations are correct (2.5 centimetres equals one inch?) is roughly equivalent to 10 inches.  Freaking massive!  So I’ve decided all his energy is going into growing lengthways and he’s not had a chance to learn about rolling yet.  It’ll come, in time.

On the other hand, despite not rolling, he is definitely roly poly, a real little chunk.  Actually really bloody heavy!  I haven’t had him weighed since his 6 week check up with the midwife, where he was 5.5 kilos I think, but I’m banking on him being at least 7kg now, probably more.  He is very solid!  And boy does he like to sit up!  Of course he’s nowhere near doing it for real in terms of his balance and motor skills, but he gets so angry if he’s put in a semi-reclining position, and he strains to pull himself up to sitting, and actually manages it a lot.  I can no longer leave him for a second propped up in the corner of the couch, because he pulls himself up and then goes forward onto his face and tries to go head first off the edge of the couch!  He also loves to ‘stand’ – ie. be held under the arms and bear weight on his legs.  The look on his face is one of real triumph, so smug, like, ‘oh yeah, look at me!’

He’s also begun to have some really full on conversations with us.  He does this thing with his eyes as he chats where he scrunches them up, it’s so cute.  And his grabbing is getting really good.  I can now leave a toy within reach and he’ll grab it for himself.  He still gets frustrated very easily, and often tends to protest about something before it’s even happened yet.  It reminds me of the type of kid who, when mum says, ‘okay, how about we go and do….’ and before she even finishes explaining the plan, starts saying, ‘no, I don’t want to do that!’  He shouts and protests just because.  It’s cute, but I’m sure it’ll get to a point where he’s big enough to understand that shouting isn’t always the way, especially when you don’t really know what you want!

Did I update on the osteo? Well if not, the outcome wasn’t great.  He couldn’t finish the adjustment because the Dude had a meltdown!  The guy was like, ‘does he always do this?’ and I had to say, yeah, he does!  He reckoned he was in pain with his digestion and gave me instructions on going wheat and dairy free.  I had resisted up until that point, but thought, hey, maybe he is sensitive.  So I tried it.  And actually managed to avoid wheat and dairy, it was amazing, as I’ve never stuck to any kind of diet for more than about 48 hours before.  I’m convinced it hasn’t made that much of an impact and I realised later when the Dude fell asleep within about five minutes of being in the ergo after the osteo appointment that he was really just tired and I’d timed the visit totally wrong.  Since going dairy and wheat free we really haven’t had any proper meltdowns where he just gets distraught and I sit and let him cry in my arms, but at the same time I’ve begun a routine around sleeping.  I’ve started putting him to bed earlier, like by 7pm, sometimes earlier, and he’s having a bath every night, fresh outfit, then bed.  He hates being changed, but I’m sure he’ll get used to it.  The bath is going really well, he really relaxes and kicks around and makes little noises.

Anyway I’m still sticking more or less to the diet, and it’s definitely reduced the amount of mucus in my system and possibly in the Dude’s as well.  He’s definitely not intolerant, but I think he’s just like any normal person – too much dairy or bread and he doesn’t digest as well.  I also stopped taking all my supplements at night and I think that’s made a difference to him.  I take the odd bit of olive leaf extract in the morning, but I’m not taking anything else and he seems much less vomity than before.  Of course he still vomits but he’s full on, it’s what he does, and he drinks too much milk, but what are you gonna do?  As with everything else, the old adage still applies: this too shall pass.

The ‘routine’

“Babies like routines.”  I’m sure you’ve heard that one.  Or even, “babies need routines”.  I tend to agree, now I’ve got a baby.  He has found his own sort of patterns, but the problem is, any change from the outside (ie. if I go to the shop or if something prevents him falling asleep when he’s ready or if his tummy is sore), and all is lost.  People ask me, “how’s he sleeping?” and I always proudly say that he has slept through the night from eight weeks.  But technically what happens is that he wakes a couple of times, has a quick bit of boobie, and goes back to sleep.  This is still pretty good.  And I always found myself telling people that I hadn’t had to get up in the middle of the night with the Dude since he was eight weeks old.  Well that streak has now been broken.

Yesterday was an odd day, I suppose.  But I’ll start with some background.  Since he’s reached the three-month milestone, a few things have changed.  He is suddenly much more aware, so he notices his surroundings and is distracted easily by random things happening around him, especially the tv.  Prior to this, when he wanted boobie and sleep I’d just put him on as I watched tv and he’d fall asleep.  I’d sometimes succeed at taking him to bed to sleep by himself at this point, or most of the time I’d let him stay asleep in my arms.  Suddenly this is not doable at all.  Similarly, we thought he was the most social kid ever, as we’d taken him out with friends to noisy restaurants and whatnot and he’d just fall asleep in the carrier, not bothered by what was happening.  In fact he seemed happier when out and about, listening and watching calmly and then just passing out happily.  But not any more.  We took him to lawn bowls and then out to dinner the other night and he hardly slept at all the whole time!  He even cried in front of our friends, which has never happened.  He’d feed a bit, get distracted, look around, get angry because he was tired but couldn’t just go to sleep.  The only time I got him to sleep was once when I took him outside away from any noise and fed him – passed out in minutes, and then finally at the end of the night he eventually passed out in the ergo, totally shattered.  So in the last week I’ve been recognising when he’s really tired, then taking him straight to bed and feeding him to sleep lying down.  Sometimes I’ve stayed next to him for an hour or so to get him really sound asleep (thank you trusty old iphone for keeping me amused!) and then he will stay asleep at least an hour by himself.  When he stirs I go in quietly and if he is grumpy and still has his eyes shut I just feed him again and he goes back to sleep.  That was great!  I actually got a few things done around the house!

That brings us to yesterday.  I got a text from a new friend who has a little baby as well asking if I wanted to go for a walk and a coffee, as she lives nearby, which was fine, we did that.  As per his recent distracted/alert phase, the Dude stayed awake most of the way to the coffee shop and finally dropped off, only to wake again when I sat down.  He then fell back to sleep on the walk home, and woke when we got inside, although he was trying to settle himself back down to sleep which was great to see – he sucked on his little hand and kept his head down.  He even did this the other day and settled himself back to sleep for another hour with no input from us, it was amazing.  Anyway, yesterday I think I made a bit of a mistake.  I tried to feed him to sleep as usual, but I think I tried to put him to bed before he was quite tired enough because the rest of the evening was an utter disaster.  I guess I had in my mind that if I could get him to sleep and stay asleep by 8pm then if we get up at 8am he’d have had a full 12 hours sleep overnight and that’ll be the beginning of our little routine.  Husband got home at something like 9:30 and I’d just given up trying to feed him to sleep and begun changing him.  I tried again and he wasn’t having it, obviously had his fill of milk without drifting off and just didn’t want to lie down.  I tried walking him around and hung out in the lounge for half an hour or so, but no, still wasn’t having the boobie.  So I relented and put him in the ergo, where he promptly fell asleep, phew!  But that wasn’t the last of it.  I managed to get him out of that and into bed and asleep, and I finally crawled in myself at about 11:30… only to be woken at 2am!  He was trying to feed back to sleep but it was clearly too much and he was starting to cry in frustration.  It was pitch black but I could tell he was awake.  Not ready to be awake, but awake nonetheless.  I tried so many things to get him to settle back down, and eventually he woke husband (who’d probably been awake all along anyway), and, frustrated, I decided to take him out to the lounge before he got any louder.  I was tired. He was tired. I couldn’t do any ergo pacing in the middle of the night, although in hindsight this probably would have worked the best.  Instead he worked himself up and cried for what seemed like forever!  I wrapped him in the warm blanket I’d just finished edging, held him and looked at him and told him I could do nothing more for him.  He looked back at me as he screamed and I think he knew what I meant.  So I waited.  And he screamed and then he began to go quiet.  It must have been four or five times he went quiet and briefly fell asleep but then woke himself up with a sob and started again!  It wasn’t nice to sit through and I did feel sad for him but at the time I felt there was nothing more I could do.  I was despairing, thinking ‘what have I done wrong here? could this have ended up any other way?  is this a sign of things to come? no more night waking, please!’  Finally he went quiet and stayed quiet, falling into a deep, exhausted sleep.  I sat for a few more minutes, just to make sure he was soundly asleep before I brought him back to bed.  He was pretty restless a few times through the morning too, and at one point I got rid of the blanket he’d been wrapped in and he fell back to sleep, obviously that was too hot and uncomfortable.

Anyway, so it was a freaking nightmare, and I’m scared now that it’s going to be that way every night!  Thank god I’ve got him booked in at the osteo on Friday, hopefully that’ll help him settle. I realise he’s going to wake and need comforting during the night, that’s why he sleeps in bed next to me, but I don’t think I can handle him fully waking and freaking out every night.  It’s so much harder now because he has this awareness and he’s so sensitive to what’s going on around him.  I want him to feel secure and relaxed, that’s all.  Genetically, the odds are not on his side in terms of sleeping and relaxation, that worries me too.  My mum seems to think it was all very simple and normal but I didn’t feel like that about sleep.  I hated night and sleep, hated the dark, hated having to quiet my brain for sleep.  I remember tossing and turning night after night, turning the light back on to read, always having problems getting to sleep.  I never had a problem staying asleep, but my dad is and always has been a real insomniac.  Mind you, this was probably heightened by the fact his mother used to lock him in the bathroom to cry as she didn’t know what else to do!  That’s one thing I’ll never do, I’ll never leave the Dude to cry himself to sleep.  No matter how hard it is I will always at least be there for him when he’s upset, that’s my vow.

The latest dilemmas – 8 week update

So the little Dude is 8 weeks old today.  Tonight at 7:57pm to be precise.  Like many big changes in life, it’s like he’s been here all along and yet feels surreal at the same time.  Sometimes I look at him and think, shit, that’s my baby!  I have a baby!  I am a mother!  Really?!

Overall, he’s thriving.  I’m producing heaps of milk, too much in fact, so that he will feed just from the one breast for ages and ages (often all night) and there’s still milk available.  My midwife had said he is up to the stage of being able to drain both breasts during the one feeding, but there’s no way that’s possible.  He gets to the end of the first and wants to keep sucking but more and more milk is flowing and he’s full!  Poor little guy, really wants to fall asleep while feeding, which is fair enough, but some of the time it’s just not an option, as the milk is still flowing fast and he’s had enough.  I think over time he’ll get bigger and be able to handle more, and my milk will settle more.

So much for not being able to feel letdowns – ouch, they are painful and intense!  Recently I’ve begun to feel the milk flood in when he’s ready for a feed.  So I can always tell when he’s going to wake up, even if he’s not on me in the carrier or being held.  Suddenly there’s just this overwhelming twinging and tingling, pretty painful, and I know he’s going to wake in the next few minutes.  I don’t know if it’s because I’ve had the thought he might wake soon, having looked at the clock and seen it’s been 2 hours or whatever.  The letdowns during feeding aren’t pleasant either, really intense pressure under my arm, and often more painful in the breast he’s not feeding from.  It’s really annoying sitting up in bed and feeling an odd wet sensation on my side or my leg and realising it’s my boob leaking!  Urgh!

He’s been a bit spewy actually, which I guess is normal, especially for a baby like him who is so full of intense energy – kinesthetic is the word, I believe.  It’s annoying because it’s nice to feed him lying down in bed in the middle of the night, but he rarely feeds and then just falls back to sleep.  He usually gets worked up, sucks like crazy, swallows a whole lot of air, writhes around, keeps detaching and clearly has wind he needs to bring up, and the only way to do that is sit up and put him upright; which pisses him off because he wants to be feeding and he’s half asleep and just cranky!  And on top of that I’ve got to keep him quiet because not only will he wake husband, who has to get up for work, but he’ll wake himself up more and then it takes forever to settle him down again.

I’m learning that although he doesn’t have very clear patterns or routines yet, by the same token any patterns or routines get set in stone very easily, and can happen without me realising.  On the one hand, there are so many points when I just want to settle him, in any way possible, so I’ll try everything; but on the other hand, some ways of settling him can prove an issue down the track.  Feeding to sleep, for example: yes, he does do it sometimes, and yes, it’s a great way to settle him, but I don’t want him to associate feeding with sleeping to closely because when he’s bigger he’ll have to feed every time he wants to sleep, and I might not want to do that.

I can’t say I really enjoy breastfeeding.  The various little niggling pains, like the letdown or when he feeds from the same breast and just sucks forever and my nipple gets a bit sore, are just not pleasant.  I think it would be more pleasurable if I was less touch sensitive, and if I enjoyed my breasts and nipples being touched, but I really don’t, never have.  A friend who just had her first baby said she is loving breastfeeding so much (even after only two weeks!) and it makes her feel all warm and fuzzy.  That’s how it’s supposed to feel; I read about this, how breastfeeding causes the release of oxytocin in both mother and baby, the love hormone.  Well, I’m sure I must secrete it because I gave birth without any pain relief, but I certainly can’t feel anything.  I do like that I can nourish my baby myself with my body, and I enjoy seeing him satisfied by my breast milk.  But the actual act, the physical feeling of having my nipple sucked, hmm, take it or leave it really I think.  It doesn’t help that his latch is pretty dodgy, he takes in lots of air while feeding, with every second suck in fact, he breaks the seal, and he often de-latches a dozen times at least during a feed, I think mainly because the milk is flowing so fast.  I don’t get why he hasn’t learnt to just swallow the milk, not to suck so much or so fast and just let the milk flood in.

So because we’re pretty certain that the Dude loves to comfort suck, I have actually be considering getting him a dummy!  I know, it’s something I said I’d never consider – why have some artificial thing for a kid to suck on, when they are perfectly okay as they are, without artificial pacifiers.  But this baby is really full on!  He wants to suck!  And he’s clearly very comforted by it.  I just don’t like dummies, I don’t like what they can potentially do to a kid’s bite, to the sucking reflex, to the formation of teeth, and I really don’t like seeing little kids running around with dummies in their mouths.  I don’t want him becoming dependent on it and having to fight him when he’s three or so to remove it for good.  I want to do things naturally, and dummies just don’t seem natural to me.  Who knows, maybe he’d hate a dummy… but I’m just not sure I want to even try it, maybe I’ll just keep on trying to help him settle without.

Now it’s a waiting game.  Waiting for his sleep cycles to lengthen… waiting for him to learn how to settle back down when transitioning from one sleep cycle to another… waiting to see whether he’ll sleep longer…  We’ve been meaning to put up the cot for two weeks now, and I’m planning on side carting it on my side of the bed, which will be annoying because I won’t be able to easily get into my bedside drawers, but if we can get him to sleep in it, which means getting him to sleep about 30 or 40 cm away from me and being able to be pulled or roll across for feeding during the night, that will make all the difference.  I was ready to get back on the horse with husband in the bedroom weeks ago, but we just haven’t had any opportunities!  The little guy slept for an hour and 20 minutes alone in the bedroom during the day, which is a record, and I think it’s only because I swaddled him… but that was the maximum.  And it’s so much harder work to get him to sleep like that than it is to just strap him in the Hug-a-Bub during the day for sleeps and lie down with him in the crook of my arm at night.  But all that has meant I can count the number of proper cuddles I’ve had with husband during the last 8 weeks on the fingers of one hand.  Not good.  I feel us drifting apart on the physical side and I hate it, I really do.  He occasionally makes some kind of sleepy, pointless attempt to touch me, often in the middle of the night while I’m sitting up feeding and feeling like total shit… doesn’t get him too far!  Or he tries to touch my boobs when he sees one exposed after a feed, which is awful because they’re extra sensitive after the Dude has been suckling like an ant-eater for the past however long… as I said, I never liked my boobs being touched before, but now I like it even less unfortunately.

Anyway, time will tell.  Next update hopefully we’ll be getting more sleep and more time together.

One month on

I can’t believe it’s been a whole month since the little dude’s birth.  It’s been longer than a month actually, but this is the first time I’ve had two hands and enough time to sit down and write a blog post.

The first week I more or less didn’t move from the bed, under strict instructions of the midwife.  I think I probably went out to the lounge two or three times in total.  It was great though, being waited on during that time!  Husband of course ran himself ragged, forgot to eat or look after himself in any way.  My mum stayed for the first three days, then headed home to give us a few days just the three of us before husband had to go back to work.  It’s funny, that first week is something of a blur now.  It was nice knowing the midwife would come every day and I could chat to her about the baby and the birth and everything in between.  There was so much to learn!  In fact the whole thing is a massive learning curve.

I don’t really remember which day I finally went out of the house, but it was really only out the front door to give the little guy some sun as he had a fair bit of physiological jaundice.  The milk came in about day 3 – I was sitting on the bed chatting to a couple of friends who I’d planned to meet up with that night but obviously couldn’t head to the city, so they came to me.  And as I fed him, suddenly I began to leak milk from the other breast!  It was quite a surprise but pretty cool, nice to know things were happening as they should.  That night things really ramped up!  I got a fever, and my boobs swelled and were so hot and tender, it was crazy.  I took a really hot shower before bed and then crawled in shivering, which is really unlike me as usually I’m too hot.  But I wasn’t too concerned, as I knew this was what happens when the milk arrives.  That night was pretty uncomfortable and sweaty and fussy, and the baby was the same, just sticky and feeding furiously but feverishly.  I think we still had the heater on in those early days, so the room was warm and the air was dry, not a great combination.  It had settled down by the next day, and although I was still full, I was no longer painfully engorged and I only had sore nipples to deal with.

Speaking of breastfeeding, it hasn’t been the biggest challenge of all.  It’s been painful and confusing and a little difficult at times, definitely time-consuming, but overall I’ve managed pretty well I think.  I realise I’ve learnt a fair bit about breastfeeding.  I must admit it still pisses me off to read all this shit about how breastfeeding is an art, how you have to learn it, bla bla bla, it doesn’t come naturally.  WTF?!  It’s natural!  Why are we perpetuating this ridiculous myth about how much of a challenge breastfeeding is just because so many women are so out of touch with their bodies and nature that they need to feel validated about finding breastfeeding hard?  Seriously, get over it, nature is a bitch but that’s because we’re stuck in our heads, our intellect rules us, and we’re taught that pain and physical ordeal is unnecessary, unnatural and to be avoided or dulled.  It’s bullshit.  Yeah okay, my nipples were so freaking sore there for a couple of weeks, and they got better and then went tender again, but I’ve dealt with it.  Coconut oil saved me in the first couple of weeks, then my mum bought me this nipple cream by Weleda which is great.  And both that and the oil are odourless and tasteless and non-toxic, so don’t have to be washed off before feeding.

I’ve already dealt with some up-chucking, initially as a result of some reflux I think, mainly because, well, he’s a baby and babies have immature digestive systems, but I also realised I wasn’t burping him after feeds really.  I felt bad disturbing him as he’d always drift off so peacefully after a feed!  But then one day he really vomited, a huge amount of milk, and it was semi digested too, all curdled and a bit sour-smelling.  So I knew it would be like reflux, and I realised I had to be more disciplined about burping him, which is not such a logistical nightmare and doesn’t require special moves or equipment or fuss, it’s just a matter of making sure he’s upright after feeding and perhaps giving his back a little rub or pat to help the air bubbles make their way out.

I began feeding him in a more upright position and soon the reflux wasn’t really an issue, only lasted a couple of days.  But then the wind began, and that’s been quite hard, or was initially.  I did end up googling to look up what it meant when baby writhed and wriggled while still attached at the end of a feed and pretty much tried to rip my nipple off.  He also started crying a little while feeding, which I didn’t get at first.  Through some surfing, I discovered he probably had wind and there wasn’t a lot to be done really.  I just tried to be more vigilant about burping him more often and properly, so the air had less chance of getting down, which has worked somewhat.

At the end of the first week, baby I weighed his birth weight of 4kg, and by the end of the second he was 4.5kg.  The midwife and I were both very pleased.  He began to get longer and every day he’d change.  His jaundice went eventually by the end of the first week, and he started pooing and weeing quite nicely.  We were rather intrigued to note that his hair has remained reddish blond – must be the Irish in my family!  I suspect his hair will change colour shortly anyway.

So last Monday it was four weeks and a couple of days ago it was one calendar month since the birth.  I took him for a couple of walks, the first with husband, who carried him in the Ergo carrier, which has been a real godsend.  If I ever want him to sleep I just put him in it, and he is alseep in a few minutes, provided I’m moving about.  He’s awfully long and getting longer by the day, so I don’t know how long the newborn insert is going to suit, but we’ll see.  His first ever outing was to the bench near the lighthouse where we had walked the last time, while I was in labour, the day before he was born.  Then we went up the coffee shop a couple of times, which was good, nice to get out.  Then the other week I took him for his first trip in the car – to Double Bay to get some money out of the ATM and to the supermarket.  He slept all the way there, slept in the Ergo as I did what I needed to do, then cried all the way home.  I feel so bad hearing him cry and not rushing straight to his aid, but I know he makes it sound worse than it is.  I was very proud of myself for making it there and back without any real dramas!  I next took him to Bondi Junction to get his birth registered with Medicare and drop off some dry cleaning.  He was again good as gold on the way and during, but on the way back he cried all the way home again.

I discovered just the other week that I apparently have an ‘oversupply’ of breastmilk.  Pfft, whatever.  I don’t think there is any such thing, not in the long term, and I’ll explain why.  I’m demand feeding the little man because I know he will feed when he needs it and will in turn regulate my milk.  So if too much is coming out and choking him or causing him to make that clicky sounding suck, it’s because it’s not bloody established yet!  I read all this shit about women having too much or not enough milk, and worrying about baby getting foremilk or hindmilk or whatever, and I just think, FFS, why worry about this crap before the milk has even regulated itself and before baby has settled in and sorted out what’s what.  Baby knows, the body knows, chill the fuck out already people!  Okay okay, I know this is probably the ideal and women do have serious issues breastfeeding and I’m bloody lucky because my body is working so well with my baby etc etc… yeah, true I guess, but I do believe that just relaxing, not getting pent up about things, trusting in nature, and taking care of yourself can really go a long way to sorting stuff out.  I know the little dude’s latch isn’t fantastic, yeah, but he’s still fairly new at this, and he’ll get it.  I know he’s often not latching well because too much milk is flooding out and choking him, so he regulates it by attaching cautiously just to the nipple where he can control the flow.  My nipples are alright anyway, and I figure he’ll get it by 6 weeks or so and things will settle.  I must admit, I was heartened by reading The Feminist Breeder’s six week update on her daughter (I guess she’s a couple of weeks older than my I man) all about how the baby has just switched into this other ‘happy’ mode after having some issues not dissimilar to what I has gone through.  That’s where I worked out about oversupply actually.  I’m not expecting miracles, don’t get me wrong, but I know this will pass and dude will have more moments of lucidity and unbroken sleep (and in turn we will too!)