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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Sleep, dairy and diapers

Babies are tricky little things to figure out sometimes.  For example today, Emily has cried almost every moment she wasn't either sleeping or eating.  However, last night was the first night we managed to get her to sleep somewhere not on our bed and not on us for three and a half hours straight.  The winning surface was her Fisher Price vibrating chair.  All she had one was her Fuzzibunz diaper and loosely wrapped in a blanket.  Needless to say we'll be trying to recreate the experience tonight.  I won't hold my breath though...

We switched over to the cloth diapers on Sunday now that she's finally big enough to fit them.  So far so good except now a lot of clothing is suddenly too small due to extreme fluffy bum.  We're using the Bummis prefolds during the day (she lets us know as soon as she wets) and the Fuzzibunz at night right now (so she won't let us know as soon as she wets).

I forgot to mention the other week that I started limiting my dairy in order to see if Em would stop squirming at the breast while feeding.  When I say limiting I mean I stopped drinking milk and eating cheese, yogurt and sour cream (the usual dairy in our home) but I haven't gone as far as limiting the dairy in processed foods (or eating Cadbury Mini Eggs because I'm addicted at the moment).  It took almost a week but sure enough Emily stopped squirming when feeding.  Then yesterday I had two lattes and now since last night she's been squirming at the breast again.  I guess that means I really am stuck using rice milk* in my coffee for the next few months.

*I tried rice milk, hemp milk, flax milk, almond milk and soya milk.  I HATE soya milk period and the almond, hemp and flax only in cereal.  The rice milk is the only one I can stand in coffee... barely.

Tomorrow I have my six week follow up appointment with my OB.  I'm not sure how useful the appointment will be but I imagine I'll mention I still have numbness and tenderness in my abdomen but my incision has healed very well.  He'll say take Advil and continue to take it easy and send me on my way.  Taking it easy... such a joke.  How do you take it easy when you get small interrupted periods of sleep at a time (unless your wife generously offers to take the baby for a few hours on the weekend or at night) so basically never getting restful *healing* sleep and then spending the weekdays carrying a baby around?  When I get out of bed in the morning, I stumble around like a baby foal learning to use my legs for the first time.  The stairs are the worst... I have to use the banister AND the wall and I wince in pain all the way as I stumble down.  I feel like I'm 90 years old for the first hour or so and then I'm okay.  The same thing happens when I get out of the car.  Knees, ankles, wrists, it all hurts.  I looked it up online and apparently having achy joints like this is common post pregnancy and can last up to a year.  I'm hoping once the sidewalks and roads are no longer skating rinks outside, I'll get walking around the neighbourhood to see if that'll help get rid of it.

Now that I'm able to lay on my stomach again without pain, I've booked a massage for next Monday.  I can't wait!!  I'm pretty sure it's going to be heaven and I'm pretty sure I'm going to fall asleep during it.  

Also in the next couple of weeks I'm going to book a pedicure and possibly a hair cut.  Jules asked what I wanted for my birthday coming up in mid-March and I listed off massage, pedicure and hair cut.  She offered a hotel room for a night but I immediately shot it down... that's not fair and it's too much money to spend for sleep.  I'll settle for a nice long nap on a Saturday.

Well, Emily is doing her 'I'm going to wake up in less than a minute' stretch routine right now so I better go grab the breast feeding pillow stat!

Sunday, February 17, 2013

One Month

I can hardly believe our little girl is a month old already!

Everything still feels very new and we are far from having any kind of schedule right now.

Emily is now 9 lbs 4 oz and is now too long for her newborn clothing but too tiny for the 0-3 month clothing.

Her hair is growing longer in the back but is very slow to grow in the front. It is a mixture of blonde, light brown and dark brown. Her eyebrows are light blonde. I don't know where she got that colouring from. I can only assume it'll all get darker as she gets older.

Her eye lashes are finally growing in. She has her Father's eyes so I'm not sure how long they'll get.

This week her facial expressions have more variety. It's nice seeing our baby girl with a less serious expression on her face. In fact, we witnessed her first smiles on Friday! No pictures yet but hopefully soon.


She is making a lot of different sounds now and is alert and engaging for short periods throughout the day.



Her days and nights appear to be a little mixed up. She does not go down at night yet... We end up holding her or wearing her or having her lay on our chest most of the night while she wakes up a hundred times. She's just not a baby who will lay there and be content to fall asleep.



We just marvel at our beautiful little girl and look forward to new milestones (and a schedule) while enjoying her lovely, tiny, newness a while longer.

Monday, February 11, 2013

Monday's Thought

I was just looking down at our little peanut sleeping in her vibrating rocker and I had this thought:

Wow, this precious little thing is our daughter.  Not someone else's daughter that we're babysitting and need to hand back in a while but ours to cherish and raise and love and guide through the first part of her life.  She's finally here and we love her more than life itself...

Then she abruptly started screaming the house down and filled her diaper.  That's my girl, telling me in her own way that I shouldn't be getting too sappy on a Monday morning.

I can't help it though... 


Friday, February 8, 2013

A Great Day

Today has been a great day so far.  It started with me getting almost five hours of sleep all in a row before taking over the early morning/day shift with sweet baby girl.  She was all sleepy and adorable this morning so we had a lot of eye contact and new sounds before she fell asleep for a whopping three straight hours during which time I was able to pump, shower, start a load of laundry, iron some desperately needed articles of clothing for Jules and myself, do my hair, straighten up a bit downstairs and surf the internet a bit.

Jules came home at 11:30 am to pick us up for our follow up appointment with the lactation consultant.  Emily decided to show off and latch without the nipple shield with barely any coaxing... traitor.  Our plan for this week is to do more of that and less bottles.  The breast feeding pillow they have there to use is awesome.  It isn't filled as full as a lot of the ones in the stores and it has a really super soft cover.  Emily loves it and it ends up being just the right height for us.  It turns out a woman hand makes them and only sells them in a local store.  We went and picked one up and I have to say, so far so good.  I've already fed Emily with it at home with no problem.  We'll see how tomorrow goes...

The weather today is fantastic.  It's warm and sunny with little to no breeze which is so rare in the winter.  Usually if it is warm, it's very windy because the warm weather is always in a hurry to leave.  Jules is outside right now scraping the melting ice off of our sidewalk and driveway.  We're usually pretty good at keeping it clear but ever since the baby arrived, snow removal is pretty much at the bottom of our To Do list.  It has snowed quite a bit in the past three weeks so there's a lot of build-up to get rid of.  I think we have a few more days of nice warm weather to look forward to before the temperature dips down again.  

After Jules is done the driveway, I think I'm going to escape for a trip to the store for some solo shopping.  It's kind of sad how I'm looking forward to picking up some groceries and other supplies but I really am excited.  

Add to that the fact that it's the weekend and we're a pretty happy family today!

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Three Weeks

Emily had her first appointment with the pediatrician today.  She's grown a bunch and is a strong little thing.  

Weight - 8 lbs 7 oz (up 1 lb from birth)
Height - 21.25 in (up 1.5 in from birth)

I didn't pay attention to her head circumference but she by no means has a huge head (except when it concerned my narrow pelvis) so I assume it's average.

In the waiting room.  Mom, quit opening the flap!  It's bright out there!!


She can hold her head up off of our shoulders for short periods of time now.  When I pick her up, she doesn't feel as floppy as she did in the beginning.  She still has a below average sucking reflex and a well below average rooting reflex.  Stroking a finger or nipple on her cheek or nose does absolutely nothing to get her to open her mouth and/or turn her head to the side for feeding.

I have another appointment with the lactation consultant tomorrow and I'm pretty sure I'll get a little scolded for my work this week.  I think I might have breast fed Emily four times yesterday and today it's already after 2 pm and I haven't done it once yet (though I did pump before we left for the pediatrician).  I'm not comfortable enough to feed outside of the home yet (heck, I'm barely comfortable to feed anywhere but the living room couch) so when we go out we miss opportunities.  That and the fact that Jules was a superstar last night and took Emily downstairs for the night so I could get some sleep (I was pretty zombified yesterday and I pulled one of my stitches so our first solo day wasn't the greatest) so there was no overnight breast feeding session(s).  Oh, and when I do breast feed, I don't even try to get her to latch straight to my nipple anymore, I just use the nipple shield.  Jules isn't around every time to syringe milk into the corner of her mouth to trick her into latching and I'm just not into having Emily scream and thrash around for several minutes while she tries to latch.  Oh well... at least she's getting something.  And she's put on weight so it's not like her being half formula fed is killing her.

As I type this I'm eating a bean soup I made last night.  I absolutely love this soup and missed it so much while I was pregnant and couldn't tolerate spice of any kind.  I'm looking forward to making more of the dishes I couldn't have while pregnant because they last for days and we can eat them for consecutive days without getting sick of them.

Jules bought a baby sling from a local woman the other day and for the past two days she's been subjecting Emily to various positions and holds in this sling.  We're not sure if Emily actually likes being in the sling but it might be that Jules just hasn't found the optimal position(s) yet.  (Jules just saw what I wrote and said, 'SHE LOVES BEING HELD IN IT!!!'... okay, honey...)
The sling's alright when food is involved!

Yesterday I took Emily for her first swim in the bathtub.  It was funny because she floats so it was actually work to keep her submerged so she wouldn't get cold!  She appeared to enjoy the experience because she didn't cry or look uncomfortable.

Such a serious little thing...
Well, I'm done my lunch and my wife is giving me the opportunity to take a nap so I'm going to jump all over that and get some zzzz's!

Monday, February 4, 2013

Gah...

Jules goes back to work on Wednesday.

OMG...

We're at a loss as to how we're going to get through nights when she has to work the next day.  Jules is able to survive on a lot less sleep than I can so she's been taking the largest part of the night with Emily.  Emily will either sleep on her chest (which isn't a very restful sleep when a baby is snoring/breathing/sighing close to your face) or more recently (as in the last couple of nights) either in her bassinet beside her for very short periods of time or next to her in bed (with nothing near her that could smother her of course).  

When I have her at night, she mainly sleeps in my arms (while I don't sleep) or on our recliner with blankets for up to an hour at a time (while I don't sleep because our couch is the most uncomfortable couch in the world).

She no longer likes to be swaddled.  She screams the place down if she can't get her arms free.

She doesn't sleep for very long on her back; she prefers her side or stomach.

She sleeps a lot more during the day (and more soundly) than at night... no surprise there, I guess.  I've read that a lot of babies are like that in the beginning.

She has started feeding more in the past couple of days and with more feedings came a LOT more pooping.  Oh my goodness... There's nothing like poop sprayed on the wall!  

We're still doing half breast feeding, half formula.  My supply has increased a bit but I'm not breastfeeding her the eight times a day I was told to yet.  I'm averaging 4-5 times right now.  Honestly, if I get a chance to take a nap or sleep through a feeding at night, I'd rather do that than breastfeed right now.  I'm still quite uncomfortable from the cesarean and between recovering from that and breastfeeding and doing things around the house, I'm worn out. :(

Jules is up from her nap now so I'm going to go snuggle up on the couch with my wife and baby while I try not to think about Wednesday.