Baby Jett - 8 Months

I seem to have fallen off of the edge of blogging planet...I guess I've run out of things to talk about as of late!

I realize it's been a whole month since I posted anything but lately Baby Jett's been sleeping better and apparently I don't have anything to write about when sleeping isn't an issue.

So let's do Baby Jett's 8 month update.

He's still skinny, with all his clothes on at the pediatrician's office he weighs 17 lbs. 11 oz.  That's the 25th percentile...with his clothes on.  Not sure what to do about that as we're eating solids 3x a day now.

As to the solids he's eating like a champ and he's got the poop to prove it!  Ugh, I hate the new poop! Cloth diapers with solid food poop = yuck!

He will still try anything that you put in front of him but he definitely has some preferences.  He loves pears, strawberries, asparagus and carrots and he's not a huge fan of meat or eggs.  Who really needs protein?  Oh right, the baby does!  I've been giving him almond butter to try to get some protein and healthy fats into him.

We've tried most of the most common food allergens and so far so good, no allergies as of yet...you know other than the milk protein thing, which I STILL have not tested.  I just can't bring myself to do it, I don't want my baby's belly to hurt!

His personality is really coming through, he is...ahem...determined.  Some might say stubborn, we're putting a positive spin on it and using words like determined and persistent.  But holy shit this kid is PERSISTENT.

When he wants something he NEEDS it and puts in A LOT of effort to get it.  He's actually becoming quite the accomplished climber this way.

I put stools and laundry baskets and whatever else is in the room in the walkway in front of the cat food to keep him away from it but NO OBSTACLE WILL KEEP HIM FROM THE CAT FOOD.  He goes up, over, around or just pushes the damn thing out of the way to get there.  I am both proud and annoyed that he JUST WON'T GIVE UP.

He has 2 very stubborn parents...I see many fights in the future for all of us...sigh.

He "talks" to the cats.  One day I noticed he seemed to be whimpering a lot, I thought he was FINALLY going to cut a tooth as he was just generally really fussy, a few days later he wasn't fussy anymore but he was still whimpering.  Then I noticed WHEN he was whimpering...when the cats are around!  He whimpers at the cats, he's mimicking their meows!  CUTEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN.

AND

Sleeping is getting better!

Sometime in the last month he just started sleeping more.  I think he just wasn't ready before and now he is.  He's done 7 hour stretches several times and when he doesn't do 7 he still does 5 or 6 most nights.  It's not perfect and there are still nights where he's up every 3 hours, BUT IT'S GETTING BETTER.   We're down to only doing 2 feeds at night MAXIMUM, which means that some nights we only have one middle of the night feeding and that I've actually slept for longer than 3 hours in a row!

Truth be told I don't necessarily feel more rested.  Sleeping in longer stretches is overrated.

Boo.

He's also started napping better.  Again, it's like he just wasn't ready before and now he is.  I've put him down awake in the crib for morning naps and he puts himself to sleep for an hour or more.  IT'S CRAZY AWESOME.

He got his first cold this week.  He made it 8 months without being sick and luckily even this was pretty mild, with just a slight fever and a runny nose, but he gave it to me!  First time I've been sick since he was born too!

And then there's the standing.  Standing, standing and more standing.  His favorite thing in the world is to pull himself up, find something to pick up, bend down pick it up, stand back up then bend down and set it back down and stand back up and REPEAT SEVEN MILLION TIMES with different objects.

He's also a huge fan of pulling everything he can reach off the pantry shelves, just so it's on the ground and he can bend down and pick things up and put them down again.

He also does this with the tupperware shelf.

Ok, he does it with ANY shelf he can reach.

He also opens and closes drawers and cupboards and anything with a handle!

And last but not least he STILL HAS NO TEETH.

I'll leave you with these piccies.

 Right after taking this picture I turned to set the camera down and he basically dove head first off the chair.  Luckily I was there to catch him, but this kid is fearless!

 Enjoying a plum in the park.  I brought cut up pears for him to eat, the plum was for me but once I took a bite he wanted it for himself and he basically devoured the whole plum!

 First time in the swing!

Watchin some Baby Mozart.

 Just grabbing a cold beer out of the fridge after a long hard day of standing...and squatting...and standing some more.

Baby Jett - 7 Months

Ok, 7 months, we're 7 months already!

This has been an active active month for Baby Jett.

• He started crawling...
• ...and climbing...
• ...and pulling to standing.  This baby is on the move! 
• He also sits up completely unsupported now which seems unremarkable with the crawling...but it happened at almost the same time as the crawling and is still new this month. He literally one day was a wobbly little baby and the next day was a moving, climbing, trying to walk almost toddler.  It's been non-stop every since!
• He slept through the night, if 6 hours counts as through the night, exactly once.

Little update on the sleeping, as of Jett turning 7 months yes he only slept 6 hours once, BUT THEN, this week he slept 7 hours in a row for 3 NIGHTS IN A ROW!!!!  And is now back on his every 3 hour schedule, BUT IT HAPPENED and I have hope that he will do it again now.

• He continues to sleep in 3-4 hour stretches...sleep training did not work as well as I had hoped.
• He continues to suck at napping, though every once in awhile he'll sleep for an hour or an hour and a half in his crib.
• He started solids.  He loves food, give him anything he'll eat it.  We've gone the Baby Led Weaning approach and so we just give him french fry size pieces of food and he goes to town!
• Weighs 16 lbs. 6 oz...that's the 10-25th percentile...he's kind of skinny, the pediatrician recommended feeding solids more than once a day so we've bumped it up to at least twice a day that he gets real food now.
• Height 27.75" which puts him in the 75th percentile.  Tall and skinny.
• Is one busy little baby, we now have toy boxes set up in each room and we just plop him down in front of his box and he happily sits there pulling toys out, putting toys back in, crawling away from the toy box as soon as he sees a cord, or a cat, or the cat food, or anything dangerous or heavy or sharp or something to pull himself up on and we just pick him up and sit him back in front of the toy box and he starts all over.  GOOD TIMES!
• Still loves his baths.
• Is chatty, he blows raspberries and babbles incoherently.  But says 'mamamamama' when he's upset, SUPER CUTE.
• Is in 6-9 month clothes, except pants he's in 9-12 month.
• Is such a social butterfly!  He loves other people and other babies and is so content when he's around others.  He is such a showoff when we take him to hang out with friends or have people come around.  Over and over again I hear "what a good baby you have!  He's so happy and content!"  Of course he's upset as soon as we leave and he's overtired from all the showing off he's been doing, but it makes me happy that he's so content and unafraid of others!
• Still has blue eyes, they haven't turned gray like I suspect they will yet.
• His hair is half light brown and half blonde.  All the original baby hair is light brown and everything new growing in is blonde, it's like a patchwork quilt of brown and blonde.  I'm very curious to see what happens with his hair in the coming months! 
• He "waves" with both hands...I don't think he knows what he's doing, but it's super cute, he looks like he's a bird trying to fly.
• And he still has NO TEETH.  I'm perplexed by the lack of teeth, surely they should be coming in soon, no?!  He doesn't seem to be teething any more than normal, no extra drool or fussiness...who knows when those bad boys are gonna show up!

 

 

A comparison of 1 month to 7 months.  Such long legs!

 And a demonstration of our standing.  The crib has been lowered ALL THE WAY to the bottom to keep him safe because the moment he wakes up be it after naps or in the middle of the night he assumes this position.

And this one just because it's cute! 

And what Baby Jett is doing right now as I type this:

 

The Boobs Revisited

I'd like to revisit the status of my boobs.

When last I left you here these babies were producing...and spraying....milk like there was no tomorrow.

And they were big.  Full D's.  That was big for me folks, I know some of you have like HH's or some other crazy letter with your new mama boobs, but D's were big for me!

Everyone told me that things would calm down and settle somewhere around the 12 week mark.

Well 12 weeks came and went and we were STILL making enough milk for me to provide for my own baby, pump 5 oz bottles even after a feeding and also donate to several women in my midwife group who didn't produce enough milk.  

I was convinced it was all a bunch of crap and that I was just going to make tons of milk forever.  I was going to be like the Mother Teresa of Nursing and just continue to donate milk to women with low supply everywhere.

And then FINALLY somewhere around Week 16, 4 months in to this whole breastfeeding thing, the boobs got the message that I didn't give birth to triplets and relaxed.

It was such a subtle change that I wouldn't have noticed it except for the fact that my brand new bras suddenly didn't fit.

I found these really pretty nursing bras whist in London and bought them in D's.  I tried them on, amusingly spraying everywhere all over the dressing room while trying them on and they fit beautifully.

source

Two weeks later after we'd returned home my beautiful new bras suddenly didn't fit anymore.

Sad face.

So, here we are 4 months of nursing and my boobs have shrunk back to their pre-pregnancy size of 34C and they are now just kind of always full of a certain amount of milk.  Engorgement is rare and deflation is rare, they are just sort of always semi-full , so much so that I have a lot of trouble remembering which boob baby last fed on.  Before it was easy because one boob was huge and the other was not, now they always feel the same!

Annoyingly, pumping now only gets me 3-4 oz. and that's every drop and takes half an hour.  I used to be able to pump 5 oz. in 20 minutes and that was with me choosing to stop the pump because pumping is tedious and boring, not because my boob was done giving milk.  

In hindsight I should have built up more of a freezer stock in those first 4 months...but they would of been tainted with dairy...so nevermind!  Advice to new mamas though, build up your freezer stock before your milk regulates!

I already miss my D cups.

So there you have it, oversupply or not, things DO eventually regulate in the milk department!!!  How long did it take some of you other new mamas???  Longer than the 3 months they promised?

Baby Continues to Change it Up

The baby is always one step ahead of me.

Always.

Just when I think I have everything figured out, he changes it up.

As we discussed here, he was only napping for half hour at a time, after trying everything and I mean EVERYTHING including letting him sleep on me again...he still woke up after half hour...I decided he was just going to be a half hour napper and that I would have to accept that and work around it.  I wasn't going to continue to stress about how much he was sleeping, all it was doing was making me crazy and definitely NOT making him sleep more.

Our "schedule" went something like this:

7-8am - Baby up so everybody gets up

8am-9am - Almost exactly one hour later - Baby down for a half hour nap

Then the day proceeded from there with baby needing a nap no more than 2 hours after the last time he got up.

This resulted in 5 half hour naps in the day (sometimes 6 if bedtime at 7-7:30 resulted in a half hour nap on the boob and baby not really going down for the night until 9pm) and me feeling like all I did everyday was put the baby down for a nap over and over and over again.

But whatever, if that's what he wanted to do then FINE I was adjusting and working with his schedule he made up, tedious though it may be.

And then out of nowhere...he started to take one 1-hour nap a day.  Which still meant he had about 5 naps everyday and that he was a cranky beast by the time 7pm, his "bedtime", rolled around because lots of half hour naps does not a happy baby make. 

And then, AND THEN, this morning he took a glorious long nap, we're at 1 hour and 45 minutes...and he's still asleep.

WTF Baby?

I mean, I'm thankful for the extra time to myself, but guess what I've done?  

Absolutely nothing.  Because I kept thinking he's going to wake up?!  

For the first half hour I just sat in front of the computer with my coffee, enjoying my half hour to myself.  After we hit half hour I sat anxiously by the baby monitor waiting for him to wake up.  Because normally that's all I have!

When he made it to 45 minutes I went and did the dishes and then went back to watch the baby monitor some more, CERTAIN that he would wake up at the one hour mark.

When he made it to an hour and 15 minutes I thought for sure I didn't have enough time for a shower now as he'd already been asleep so long but thought I'd just skip the shower and get dressed and put makeup on and get ready for the day.

When he made it to an hour and a half I kicked myself for not taking the damn shower.

And now, now we're at just over one hour and 45 minutes and here's what I'm doing...I'm writing this damn post...and baby is still asleep.

This makes me super anxious as I'm like "what's wrong with the baby?!"  But normal babies sleep for 2 hour naps don't they?

I can only hope that this is the new normal and not just a crazy growth spurt or some other out of the ordinary reason for baby to be napping so well.

Everyone cross their fingers for me!!!

Turning a Corner

It's no secret that me and Baby Jett struggled to survive the first few months...especially after my husband went back to work traveling and Baby Jett developed my worst nightmare...colic.

Nighttime sleep notwithstanding, sometime in the last month things got easier.

We've turned a corner.

I can't pinpoint the week it happened exactly, but I think it might have been in London when we were finally able to get him down for naps consistently and Baby Jett started to develop a sleep routine.

Mornings are so predictable now that I can actually PLAN a bit of my day around baby naps.

Before now it's been very very unpredictable when baby would go down for a nap and if I would have to hold him for the duration of the nap or if he would let me set him down, so it was hard to figure out when I would:

Clean the kitchen

Make Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner

Do the Laundry

Pick up my bedroom

Take a shower
Get Dressed
Pee

Put makeup on...

And the list goes on and on.

Basically I was just winging it every day, hoping to get at least something done, but planning on a day of baby holding and little else.

But now...now I can do it all, even with only half hour baby naps I can get shit done...as long as I don't plan too much into my day.

Certain things I do while baby is sleeping like laundry (SO many stairs involved with laundry) and cleaning up the kitchen.

Other things I've figured out are easier to do while baby is awake...he "helps" =)

Like cooking, baby helps cook.  I just keep a running monologue of what I'm doing and make sure he always has his "green beans" handy to shove in his mouth.  If he gets bored here, there's a mat nearby and a vibrating chair, as long as I rotate him every 15-20 minutes he's happy.

Also things like taking a shower is easier when he's awake.  I just plop a blanket down in the hallway outside the bathroom, put baby on the blanket, leave the door open and hop in the shower.  Baby happily plays on the blanket while I take a shower, popping my head out every now and again to make faces and talk to baby so he doesn't get bored.  I also feel like I can take a longer shower when he's awake and I can see him because if he's sleeping in another room I get paranoid that he's woken up and is screaming and I just can't hear him because of the shower.

And then we move on into the bedroom and he goes down on another blanket or the swing and he happily amuses himself while I get myself ready for the day.

I know this will only last another month or two until baby is mobile, so I'm taking advantage now while I can.  Because of course I will have to completely change everything up again when he can roll and crawl.

But for now, at 4 months old, things are easier.

Even now as I type, Baby Jett is hovering nearby happily amusing himself on his play mat.

Dom is even gone...all week...and when I got the news that baby and I would be spending the week on our own there was no dread, no sense of doom, no fear, because I GOT THIS.  I might have taken 4 months but finally, finally I got this motherhood thing down...

At least until the next developmental milestone throws another curveball at me.

Baby Jett Does London

A post in pictures.

These 2 were due 4 days apart and ended up with birthdays 3 days apart...and Jett discovered his hands in London...we think he's teething as his hands are ALWAYS in his mouth now.

Babies with their mamas!

It was bloody cold in London!

 To prove to Baby Jett that he was in fact in London when he was 3 months old =)

Baby Jett in his first pub. 

Having his first shandy ;-) 

First ride on the Tube.

And the best thing to come out of London...we've finally figured out how to get baby to sleep on his own.  He looks like he's passed out drunk doesn't he?

We're coming home today.  One more 10 hour flight and we will have successfully completed our first international trip with a baby!  Who says having children means you have to change how you live?

What Do You Mean Your Baby Sleeps Through the Night!?

I could also title this post Pros and Cons of Co-Sleeping.

The biggest con?

My baby at 14 weeks is nowhere near sleeping through the night.

P.S. Sleeping through the night is defined as 5 straight hours.  Yeah, I know!  We're not even talking 8 hours here people, just 5 hours!

My jaw drops to the floor when I read that some of your 2 and 3 month olds are sleeping 8 hours at night.  

THAT IS BEYOND AMAZING TO ME.

I'm lucky if I get 3 hours in a row these days...baby thinks he is ALWAYS hungry at night.

I know I'm not getting great long stretches of sleep because the baby is next to me and can smell my milk and sometimes just wants to SNACK every 2 hours...

But I'm not a zombie.

Because...

The biggest pro to co-sleeping is that me and baby stay laying in bed all night long.  Sidelying nursing is my savior as I don't get up at all unless it's to pee or we have a massive blowout that needs tending to.  This is HUGE to me and means the difference between a well rested mama and a sleep deprived crazy lady. 

In the midst of the fallout from the dairy allergy before we knew we had a dairy allergy an extra side effect was that sidelying wasn't working for us anymore because EVERY single time I would try to feed him in bed he would spitup HUGE amounts all over both of us and we'd end up having to change both our clothes.  This means that before we uncovered the dairy thing we were physically getting up and into a seated position EVERY 2 HOURS ALL NIGHT LONG.

It added to the hell that was my life a few weeks ago.

But now, even though baby doesn't sleep for long stretches, I still feel like I'm getting a pretty good amount of sleep.

Our nights look something like this:

I Moby the baby when he looks tired until bedtime, so he's usually sleeping from about 7-8pm onward.  Then between 9-10pm we go to bed (just me and baby usually, hubs comes to bed later) sleep great, amazing and wonderful AND STILL until 1-2am...and then it's feeding every 1.5-2 hours for snacks the rest of the night.  I hardly even wake up for these, just make sure the boob is out and that baby can get to it and back to sleep I go.  THEN THE GRUNTING AND KICKING AT 4:30am starts...oh yes...there's still grunting.  He continues the grunting and kicking and wiggling until he finally wakes up between 7-8am and the husband takes him downstairs for the morning baby shift and I sleep in for an extra hour.

I know I'm not getting great long stretches of sleep because the baby is next to me and can smell my milk...

But the fact that I barely have to wake up to feed him means I'm not a zombie during the day and don't even feel the need to nap most days.

For now this is working for us.  And while I long for a full night of sleep, the fact of the matter is that I've been sleeping like this for more than a year now as while pregnant I was up at least every 2-3 hours to pee.  The amount of wakefulness required to feed the baby while lying in bed is about the same amount required to get up and pee and it means it's very easy to fall back to sleep after the middle of the night feedings...mostly because I don't actually get up!

Ideally I would like to put baby in his crib at 7pm, go get him at 9-10pm whenever I go to bed, keep him in bed with me until he starts grunting at 4am and then put him back in his crib until he gets up at 7-8am.  But honestly I still can't figure out how to get the baby down without me laying next to him for any length of time. 

Sad but true...baby only sleeps alone for morning naps...the rest of the time he's on or next to me.

All our other sleeping issues aside the other huge pro to the co-sleeping and the frequent feeds continuing through the night is that I can expect my period and ovulation to stay away for longer.  I've heard many of you out there complaining about your periods making unexpected early appearances as soon as baby begins sleeping through the night...I shudder at the thought! 

The fact is that I NEED any ovulation that may happen to continue to be suppressed for as long as possible because otherwise WE HAVE TO START TTC AGAIN.  I have no idea how long I will ovulate if ovulation starts again on it's own and if we didn't TTC and then ovulation stopped again like last time I WOULD NEVER FORGIVE MYSELF FOR THE WASTED OPPORTUNITY.

Bottom line is I am in no position to be thinking about #2 and thus frequent nursing sessions all day AND all night help keep me suppressed which means we will continue to co-sleep for as long as I'm happy with the quality of sleep and the suppressed ovulation.

It's entirely possible that I am creating a terrible situation in which my baby will never learn to sleep in his crib but for now it works and I'm not messing with it.

I still have hope that one day baby will sleep longer than 4 hours but I'm learning that it's rare for a baby that co-sleeps to sleep through the night because of the aforementioned smell of milk.  Anyone out there co-sleeping AND have a baby that sleeps through the night?

Milk, Milk, and Even More Milk

We all know and worry about low milk supply issues.

And while pregnant we all hope and pray that we will be able to breastfeed our children successfully and not suffer from said low supply issues.

But have any of you spent any time worrying about having TOO much milk?

I didn't even know such a think existed and if I had given it any thought it wouldn't have seen it as a problem.

And anyone who suffers from low milk supply can't see how it's a problem.  Because how can having TOO much milk be a problem?

Well...it's a problem.  And one that I don't hear discussed very often.

It turns what is supposed to be a calming soothing experience into a form of torture for your baby known as WATERBOARDING.

If you couldn't guess I have an oversupply issue.

And we're all drowning in a sea of milk over here.

You see, my body is convinced that it produced twins and has enough milk to feed those twins...and maybe a few other babies as well.

Do you know what happens when you make too much milk?

You have a crazy quick FORCEFUL letdown in which you milk comes shooting out of BOTH BOOBS regardless of which one the baby is on and tries to drown your infant.

My midwife compares it to having a firehose shoved down your throat.

DOESN'T SOUND CALMING OR SOOTHING DOES IT?

Well, my baby doesn't think so either.

In fact there is A LOT of coughing, sputtering, spitting up and burping every time we nurse.  Which is still roughly every 1-2 hours during the day!

IT'S ROUGH.

Baby latches on smoothly enough, but as soon as I feel that tingling of the letdown, off comes the baby choking and gagging on the firehose of milk while my boob sprays him and whatever else is in front of me with a geyser of milk.

I then have to somehow cover my geyser with a towel (without pushing on my nipple because I WANT the geyser to gush out into the towel to get rid of the excess milk and pushing on the nipple will staunch the flow) and soothe and burp the crying coughing gagging baby.

Really it requires 3 hands...at least

After the geyser is down to a trickle it's back to latching and sucking for awhile and then OH RIGHT THERE'S ANOTHER LETDOWN and we do it all over again.

Everyone INSISTS that around the 3 month mark the excess milk will start to calm down and my body will adjust the milk according to what baby actually NEEDS...and not try to feed all the babies in San Francisco.

I'm waiting patiently.   But in the meantime...

There are several "remedies" to this oversupply, all of which we've tried, but we're still drowning.

I feed on only one boob for 3-4 hour blocks of time, once we get close to that 4th hour the boob FINALLY feels like it's emptying and baby can nurse calmly without coughing and gagging.  But then the next feed is onto the heavy full boob and we start the routine all over again.  

I feed in positions in which gravity is NOT helping the milk flow.  Lots of getting baby latched and then leaning back so that the milk has to flow UPHILL.  We also do a lot of baby in sitting positions rather than laying positions so that he can better deal with all the milk.

Sidelying also works really well as the excess milk just flows out the side of his mouth and he doesn't have to try to gulp it down.  We both end up in a puddle of milk when sidelying but nighttime feeds are actually the easiest!

I'm also drinking peppermint tea everyday as peppermint is supposed to naturally help lower one's milk supply...so far nothing, but we're only 1 week in to Operation Peppermint.

Anyone else out there dealing with an OVERSUPPLY issue?  And if so, what did you or are you doing about it?  Anything work?  Or do I just have to give it more time?

And please no one tell me to try pumping as I do pump occasionally but anymore and it is only going to increase my supply!

Oh, and look who smiles finally!

Wherein Another Anonymous Comment Makes For a Very Good Blog Post

The Anonymous Commenter says:

Your posts make me so sad. Not once have you talked about how precious you think your baby is or how blessed you are to have him after considering yourself to be "infertile". All of your posts have been about how boring you baby is or how much he cramps your style or how he won't "shut the fuck up". What did you honestly expect from a newborn? I hope for your baby's sake that you can stop being so selfish and thinking about yourself and figure out that it isn't all about you anymore.

You are correct Anonymous, I don't come into this space and write about how wonderful my child is and how blessed I am to have him.

I come here to vent.

What is the point of blogging if not to vent?  Am I right?

I don't come on here, into this space and start writing when life is great.  That's not why I started blogging, that's not why I blog now.  If I'm here it's because I need advice, or I need help or I need to get something off my chest.  Or I just need to know that there is someone else out there going through the same sort of hell that I am.  

I need to feel less alone.  

This is why infertility breeds so many bloggers, because we NEED a space to vent about how much life sucks while we're dealing with infertility and we need support.

This is also why infertility bloggers drop off the face of the blog planet when they finally get pregnant.

It's because they're happy.

Or because they fear comments like the above.  They don't want to be seen as complaining when they fought so hard to get there.

Well, I'm not gonna blog about how great it is to be a parent and how it's the most special thing in the universe and how I think my child is the most wonderful child on the planet.

That's not real.

I don't enjoy reading mommy bloggers who only have good things to say.  I don't believe women who say their first months of motherhood were the best months of their lives.  

If that's all you read about from other bloggers and then you get there, when you're the mommy and things aren't as great or as easy as all those other mommy bloggers led you to believe you start to think that something is wrong with you or your child.

BECAUSE IT'S NOT ALL GLITTER AND CUPCAKES.

Parenthood is fucking hard, whether you deal with infertility beforehand or not does not change the fact that sleep deprivation and a screaming child who won't sleep IS HARD.

I don't need support from others when Baby Jett and I have an amazing day together.  I don't need to tell you about the nights when he sleeps well and when I feel like a rockstar parent.

Again, I don't come here to gloat or for you to tell me how special and gorgeous my baby is.  I come here for help.

IRL this is also what we. as women, do with our girlfriends.  We get together to bitch about one thing or another.   We bitch about our husbands, we bitch about our babies, we bitch about our weight, we bitch about our jobs.

Rarely do I get together with my friends and we all start chatting about how wonderful life is.

Maybe me and all of my friends are bitchy?  Do others sit around with their friends and declare how much they love their husbands?

You'll notice Anonymous that I don't write much about marriage or my husband on here.  This is because marriage and my relationship with my husband are pretty great and I don't find myself needing advice or seeking help in those areas of my life.  But you also won't find me saying how wonderful I think my husband is and how great our marriage is.

For me, this is not what this space is for.

So, while I may post pictures of my son from time to time (I know my family reads this and wants to see piccies!) the majority of the time that I mention Baby Jett it is to "bitch" about something and seek advice or I just want to know that someone else has gone through the same thing and that what I'm dealing with or feeling is "normal".

If you're a parent and you've never thought to yourself OMG MY KID IS SUCH AN ASSHOLE, CAN I TRADE HIM IN FOR A DIFFERENT QUIETER ONE then you either have the best baby in the whole damn world or you're lying to yourself.

You and me Anonymous would not be friends in real life (thus you don't need to read my blog if it makes you so sad) because in real life my friends all understand when I say my kid is being an ASS that it's because KIDS ARE LITTLE SHITHEADS...especially at night...and that I still love him more than I've ever loved anything else in the world.

I'm also preparing all of my pregnant readers for the wonderful world of parenthood that is before them...because as I've discovered, NO ONE TELLS YOU THESE THINGS BEFOREHAND.  So maybe, just maybe, if one of you lovely ladies who hasn't had your baby yet hits 6 weeks with your little one and he turns into little Screamy McScreamerson and you want to kill yourself as you hit the 4th hour of Screamfest 2012 you'll remember how that blogger once wrote about how her baby turned from a great sleeper to a sleep boycotter overnight and instead of thinking OMG MY KID HATES ME , I'M THE WORST MOTHER IN THE WORLD you'll think HOLY SHIT NOW I KNOW WHAT SHE WAS TALKING ABOUT and you'll feel just a tiny bit less alone and a tiny bit less like everyone else has the best babies in the world and yours is the only asshole.

But now I'd like to know, why do the rest of you blog?  Do you blog to vent?  Do you blog to share the "good" with your family and friends and keep the "bad" out of it?  Or for some other reason?  And does anyone else actually get the feeling that I'm not eternally grateful for my son and think that all I do is bitch about how hard parenthood is?

The 4am Grunting - Advice Needed!

There are many many many of you who have just had your babes in the last weeks or months...and I need your advice!

Baby Jett has this new thing that he does and it makes me want to die.

Generally he's a good sleeper, he naps plenty during the day and then he gets fussy for 2 hours before bedtime, but we nurse and burp and fuss and nurse and burp and fuss until he finally goes down sometime around 10-11pm.

Then he sleeps for 3-4 hours, change, feed, back to sleep.

He used to then go back to sleep for another 3-4 hours and lather rinse repeat.

BUT NOW, now he has this thing that he does. 

At 4am, give or take an hour, after the change, feed and burp routine HE STARTS GRUNTING and straining and wiggling AND HE KEEPS IT UP FOR 3-4 HOURS or until I give up on sleeping and just get up for the day having really only slept the original 3-4 hours that he allowed.

It's as though he is constipated and he's straining straining straining to have a bowel movement.

But breastfed babies don't get constipated!

Conveniently he started this just before his 1 month appt with the pediatrician and I asked her about it.  She said it's VERY COMMON and a complaint she hears from new parents a lot.

In a nutshell, he's learning how to actually control his bowel movements, learning how to push BUT HE  ISN'T RELAXING HIS BUM so he's pushing and straining and grunting.  AND HE WILL GROW OUT OF IT.

I accept this explanation.

BUT OMG I WANT TO DIE.

He's been doing this for almost a week now AND I AM SO TIRED.

So, new mamas, DOES YOUR BABY DO THIS AT 4AM?  And if so, IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT?

Or is this one of those cases of "this too shall pass".

The damn baby is absolutely fine the rest of the day, not gassy or fussy...generally a good baby, so I don't believe this is a diet issue or a reflux issue but I'm having trouble functioning on 4 hours of sleep.

CAN ANYONE HELP ME?!

How Nursing is Cramping My Style

Advice to preggos everywhere:

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE CLOTHES THAT YOU CAN NURSE IN WHILE YOU CAN STILL GO SHOPPING SANS BABY.

It turns out my wardrobe is really really not nursing friendly.  So, even though I can fit into all of my old clothes, I really can't wear much of it because I CAN'T NURSE IN ANYTHING I OWN.

I have exactly one dress that has a neckline that can be pulled down enough to nurse in.  

ONE DRESS.

Are you freaking kidding me?!?

My wardrobe consists of like 85% dresses.

SHIT.

This conundrum has forced me to dig through all my clothes in search of low necklines and stretchy materials.  I've found 4 or 5 tops that work, but do you know what the problem with tops are?  It means  I have to wear pants!

Ugh, I hate pants.

Seriously, I would rather wear a dress any day of the week over pants.

But until I find some cute dresses with low necklines...I'm stuck in pants.

Boo.

Also, I CAN'T GO SHOPPING WITH BABY.

I mean, theoretically I could...but not really, not here, not in SF.

This is one of those things that I just haven't figured out how to do yet.  I mean, of course it's possible, women don't just NOT go shopping after they have babies right?

But...it's just not as simple as it used to be and I'm having trouble adjusting.

It would require me to either wear baby downtown and take public transport, which...how do you try on clothes while wearing baby?

OR

Drive downtown and take the stroller.

I shudder at the thought.  

You see...I don't drive downtown.  I'm anti downtown driving.  ANTI DOWNTOWN DRIVING.  

My other option?

Go to the local boutiques with baby in a stroller.  

This is obviously the best option, but...I haven't done it yet.

I know I just need to suck it up and GO rather than whine about my lack of wardrobe, but to be honest baby is still a bit too new for me to set out on such grand adventures with him.

Maybe next week.

So for now I'm stuck walking around in my stupid pants, or...wearing my one dress several days in a row until it gets so covered in spitup that I am required to wash it.

To all you other ladies nearing the end of your pregnancies who are finishing up buying all your baby essentials, DON'T FORGET ABOUT YOURSELVES!  And make sure you buy some nursing friendly clothing before baby arrives!

Also, are there any other style of dress besides wrap dresses that work to nurse in?

Baby Jett - 1 Month

One month down.

Some days all I can think is...why did we want kids so bad again?

And other days I think...wow, what a cute kid we made!

This month has been one of the most challenging of my life and I have trouble understanding those who have nothing but good things to say about the first few weeks of their kid's life.  The good is of course the healthy baby, but OMG the whole experience of a newborn is nothing like I imagined.

I know there's a learning curve involved but one month in I'm still having trouble figuring out how to "do" things around the house, as well as all the other errands I used to do like grocery shop etc etc.

It's absolutely exhausting getting absolutely nothing done everyday.

Everyone says that you should really soak up and enjoy these early newborn days because they change so fast and that you'll never get that time back again.  And just like I'm not supposed to be doing I spend a lot of time wishing away these early days and waiting for the day when baby is a bit more...interesting.

I can't help it guys, I know it's so close.  I have friends with 3 month olds and they are doing SO much more than Baby Jett...I can't wait.

All that being said Baby Jett has GROWN.  He's like a giant baby now.  He weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs. 3 oz today at his one month appt!

I can't believe that some people give birth to babies this big...he seems so huge to me.

My little newborn baby on Day 2 weighing in at 5 lbs. 6 oz. 

My giant one month old weighing in at a whopping 9 lbs. 3 oz. 

At one month...

...I'm still busy drowning my baby in my oversupply of milk at each and every feeding...the pediatrician insists this will calm down in another few months but in the meantime I can spray milk across the room, or more importantly ALL OVER THE BABY.  He gets a milk shower at least once a day.  Did you guys know your boob could literally SPRAY milk?  It's fascinating.

...Baby Jett is getting better at dealing with the milk drowning...I mean FEEDING.  He takes more breaks for burping rather than gulping furiously to try to swallow it all as quickly as he can and that seems to make the whole ordeal more manageable.  We still have some exorcist style spit ups...but thankfully they are down to once every few days.

During the day he feeds quite a bit, usually once every 1-2 hours and most nights he's really good about sleeping for 3 hour stretches with a 4 hour thrown in every once in awhile...those nights are heavenly.  But some nights he sticks to his daytime routine of feeding every 1.5-2 hours...those nights are hell.

...Baby Jett will not take a pacifier.  We didn't introduce one until this past week and he was really uninterested in it.  He's not much of a comfort sucker, if he starts sucking on his hand it's because he's hungry and that paci just isn't gonna cut it!

We also introduced a bottle this week, which means I attempted pumping this week.  He accepted the bottle just fine which made daddy happy but mommy really hates the pump and with the oversupply issues I've already got going on pumping is only going to be happening once every other day or so...and still only to appease daddy.

...Jett LOVES baths.  He gets very chill and mellow and just seems to really enjoy the sensation of the warm water.  We take baths together once every 2 or 3 days.

...he's a grunter.  Oh my how he grunts!  It's particularly annoying at 3am...so much grunting!

...has become a bit of a barnacle.  He used to let us put him down to sleep...now it's hit or miss. Sometimes you can put him down and sometimes he won't sleep unless someone is holding him or laying with him on their chest.  I ALWAYS attempt to put him down and even let him fuss for a bit before I go pick him up because I don't want him to never sleep on his own, but sometimes the only thing that works is to hold him...and I must admit when I'm exhausted and can't get the baby to sleep on his own, it's a great excuse to lay down with him and take a nap with him on my chest.

Overall I have to say that we've been blessed with a pretty easy baby...but I'm still looking forward to the days when he can actually interact with us!

"Stimulating" Your Newborn

Before this whole thing called parenthood entered my life, when I was still in the infertile trenches longing for a baby more than I'd ever longed for anything before, I found the idea of comparing your kid to other kids ridiculous.  Same goes for comparing your style of parenting to another.

Ridiculous.

But then I had a baby.

And for the first time I UNDERSTAND.

I find that Baby Jett sleeps ALL THE TIME and is really boring, so when he's awake for those few hours I really feel like I'm supposed to DO something with him, you know?  Like...interact with him.

Except he's a baby...and he doesn't do a lot of interacting.

He's boring.

So I find myself just waiting for him to go to sleep again so that I can go about my day.

And I found myself FEELING BAD ABOUT THIS.

Ugh, the guilt starts already.

So I googled "stimulating your newborn" and lo and behold...let the comparisons begin.

Apparently everyone, everywhere thinks their baby is the greatest thing in the world and does not find their newborn as boring as I find mine and DOES THINGS WITH THEIR BABY instead of just wish they were sleeping more.

Like play games with flashcards, try to put things in their hands and have them grasp them, sing to them, talk to them etc etc.  The list goes on and on.

I find if I sit around trying to stimulate my baby all day I never get anything else done.

I talk to my baby but it's more like "What's the matter baby?  Hungry again?"  Etc etc.  I've also attempted to put things in front of his face or in his hand, but come on, he's 4 weeks old...and I think adjusted he's only 2 weeks old.  He accidentally grabs my hair, he does not purposefully grab anything else yet.

AND I'M OK WITH THIS.

I find that things like baby grabbing things and baby becoming interested in things visually should sort of happen on it's own.  When he IS looking at me I make sure to talk to him, but if he's happily staring at the side of his pack n' play I don't find the urge to go pick him up and "stimulate" him.

Nor does my husband...at least we're on the same page in our parenting style.

Is that wrong?  Isn't the side of his pack n' play stimulating enough?  Should I be doing more with him now?

I found myself feeling bad that I wasn't "doing" more with my baby from one Google.

I HAD NO IDEA.

So, in a nutshell, it's really REALLY easy to feel like your parenting style is "less than" other parenting styles.  And I'm sure it only gets worse from here.

Ugh, Welcome to Parenthood Jesica.

What does everyone else do with their newborns???

Things I Never Knew About Newborns

I'm learning so much about babies, I never knew...

...that their umbilical cord stump stinks before it falls out!  And I mean STINKS!  For like 3 days my baby boy smelled GROSS, every time I'd go to change him this horrible stench would just come wafting up from him...EW!  In case anyone is curious why it stinks it's because baby's digestive juices are eating away at it from the inside-out...I never knew this.  Once it's off though baby is back to smelling like a delicious baby!

...they pee ALL. THE. TIME.  I had no idea a baby could pee so much!  He literally pees at least once an hour BARE MINIMUM.  And almost always you can get him to pee when you change his diaper.  SO MUCH PEE!

...baby boys pee EVERYWHERE!  Their little penis is like a hose and no matter if you point it down in his diaper or not somehow he can still pee everywhere.  He's peed out the side of his diaper, out the back, out the front, all over me, all over the bed, through his diaper, his clothes and his blanket through to the mattress, he even managed to pee on himself and cover himself from HEAD to toe...yes, he peed on his own head.  Again, there is SO MUCH PEE!

...because of all the pee, there are SO MANY DIAPERS!  We've started cloth diapering now that baby is bigger (he started out way too small for the cloth diapers!) and even with my 12 that I have we go through SO MANY DISPOSABLE DIAPERS!  I'm stocking up on more cloth so that we can get out of disposables completely, but HOLY HELL...I had no idea just how many diapers a newborn could go through in a day.

...they sleep A LOT.  A newborn is actually really boring!  I rarely see my baby's eyes.  They don't do anything except sleep, PEE, poop and eat.  It's a neverending 2 or 3 hour cycle of feed the baby, change the baby, baby sleeps for 1-2 hours and REPEAT.  I've never been so bored and yet so overwhelmed at the same time.

It's a good thing babies are cute because otherwise I don't know why we, as humans, would continue to procreate!

We call him...The Burrito. 

Look how tiny The Burrito is in the big bed!

Breastfeeding - A Timeline

I didn't read a damn thing about breastfeeding before baby came.  I bought a book and had every intention of at least glancing at it before I hit 40 weeks, but we all know how that turned out. So when Baby Jett arrived I had no idea exactly how breastfeeding was going to go down, but I knew it was happening whether I was ready or not.

I find this information would have been helpful to me over the first few days, so here you go, here's how the beginning of breastfeeding goes.  Of course everyone is a little different with how your milk comes in, but this timeline would have saved me from a bit of anxiety!

The first 24 hours baby doesn't eat AT ALL.  You put them to your boob like all the time, let them sit there for hours with their mouth at your nipple, smelling and rooting and licking...but baby doesn't eat anything.  My baby literally didn't leave my boob for the first 12 hours of life except for 15 minutes when he was escorted by his father down to the nursery for his newborn check and not once did he eat anything.  It's weird...but they don't, they don't need to eat in that first 24 hours. As long as you put boob and baby together a lot, so they can get used to eat other...it's fine.

The second 24 hours baby is still very interested in eating but still doesn't really eat and you have to express colostrum and hope that's enough.  Baby would lick off the colostrum and go back to sleep, BUT everyone assured me he was getting enough and that he needs just a taste every two hours or so and that was enough.  I HATED expressing the colostrum, it feels totally gross to squeeze your own nipple the way you have to to get the colostrum out.  This is also the point when baby gets weighed and you find out that baby weighs less than they did at birth.  If you have a normal size baby this probably doesn't stress you out too much, but if your baby started out at 6 lbs and gets down to 5 lbs. 6 oz, this is when you're like EAT BABY, EAT!  But it's ok, baby will eat...I promise.

The third 24 hours baby finally starts to eat but it hurts like hell and you have to watch baby's latch carefully to make sure they are latched on correctly...it's very confusing because it all hurts, even a correct latch.  A correct latch hurts DIFFERENTLY than a bad latch...but it all hurts.  Baby also seems to want to eat a ton here as there isn't much colostrum that he gets and this is like a test to see how committed you are to breastfeeding because your nipples hurt from the nearly constant sucking and the rest of your boobs hurt because they're getting ready to grow an insane amount and fill with milk.  This was a very painful day.

The fourth 24 hours your boobs hurt like crazy as the milk has finally come in and you're convinced that your boobs will always hurt and you just have to get used to it if you want to keep nursing.  They're also massively huge...and I was small chested when I started this, I imagine if you were already busty they would be INSANE!  But the pain in the nipples has at least subsided as they get used to nursing and baby gets more efficient at latching properly.  Somewhere in here you may also find out that your amazingly huge boobs that finally have milk in them have helped baby grow again and your amazed that you are doing this...sustaining him on the outside just like you did when he was on the inside.  Baby also feeds a bit less since he gets way more milk in eat feeding than he was getting when it was just colostrum.

The fifth 24 hours...relief.  The boobs don't hurt anymore...and breastfeeding finally works.  The latching barely hurts, the actual feeding doesn't hurt at all and the crazy engorgement only happens if baby has gone too long between feedings.  But rather than have to sit there with painful boobs, you just wake baby up, pop him on the boob and VOILA, instant relief from the huge boob.

And every day after that things just get easier and easier (when it comes to breastfeeding anyway!) The whole thing is absolutely amazing, the symbiotic relationship between baby and boob is NEATO.  I wake up easily when I know baby needs to eat and they start leaking if he cries in pain.  And the boobs are even down to a more comfortable and more reasonable size...they're still D's, just like when I was pregnant.  They were DD's for like 3 days right when my milk came in but didn't stay that huge.

At 17 days in we're exclusively on demand feeding.  If baby shows ANY signs of being hungry, onto the boob he goes.  He has never had a pacifier and I have never tried to pump.  We will continue this way for AT LEAST a full month before I give pumping a whirl just to appease my husband who wants to feed the baby.

Baby is still an "efficient" nurser and doesn't dawdle on the boob.  Feedings are 7-10 minutes with a rare 15 minute feed thrown in every once in awhile.  I definitely have a quick let down and he gulps and gulps to deal with the gush of milk, but he's getting better at it.  There's still a lot of pausing for spit ups and pooping, so nursing sessions are never less than half an hour, but the actual time on the boob is short.

Books say feeds of 15 minutes on each boob is ideal.  Which means...I still stress a bit that baby only nurses for short periods of time AND very rarely makes it to the 2nd boob.  If he's managed 10 minutes on one boob he's usually out for the count and not interested in the 2nd boob.

But as far as I know he's still growing and he always seems satisfied with his short sessions, usually lasting 2-3 hours between feeds, with a cluster of one hour sessions in the morning and evening.  And OMG he lasted a full 4 hours between feeds last night!  Baby is also peeing and pooping like nobody's business, so again everything appears to be working even with his less than "ideal" feeding schedule.

So, books be damned...stressing about baby NOT being attached to my boob 24/7 is the LAST thing I want to be worrying about on such a small amount of sleep.

Anyone else find their baby to be nursing well but very very differently than what is considered "ideal"?

My drooly spitup baby with his EYES OPEN.  

You can't beat waking up to that little face right in front of you.

The Babies Are Coming!

Remember back in March when I finally decided to get rid of my TTC Timeline and added a Fellow Pregnant IFers tab along the side of my blog?

It was my attempt to embrace pregnancy, let go of the fear of losing the pregnancy and celebrate the fact that so many IFers were getting their BFPs right alongside me.

When I wrote that post there was roughly 30 of us all of who struggled through infertility and all pregnant.   Since that time the number has climbed to roughly 50 and the miscarriages were oh so few, and for once this group of women who seem to always be on the wrong side of statistics were BEATING the statistics.

The due dates were (and are) June through October and with the added BFPs that have sprung up in the last few weeks they've extended out to December/January.  ALL DRAGON BABIES!!!

But a few of the little dragons have decided to make an early appearance.

AND THE BABIES HAVE STARTED COMING!!!

Rebecca's twin boys arrived a few weeks ago at 31w3d.

Lindsey also had her baby a few weeks ago delivered early at 38 weeks due to pre-e.

Brittany had her baby about a week ago at 35w4d due to complications.

Jessica twin girls arrived a few days ago at 25w4d.

and Lulu who is supposed to be delivering her baby today at 37 weeks due to restricted growth.

As you can see most of these ladies were well ahead of me in their pregnancies and due late May or early June and their babies were purposely delivered early for one reason or another.

But poor Jessica was BEHIND me in her pregnancy and honestly that sort of freaks me the fuck out.  Yes she was on bed rest for a few weeks and it was a twin pregnancy but STILL!!!  Those early babies are doing nothing to squash my fear of preterm labor!

But in honor of the new little dragons that have started to make an appearance I've added a new tab over on the right called IFer's Who Made it to Motherhood!

And in other news today is MAY 15 and my due date is AUGUST 15.  Just 3 months to go!!!