When I first found out that I wouldn’t be having a baby girl, I was a bit disappointed that I’d never be able to dress one of my children in pants with ruffles on the bum or headbands with bows or pink tutus.
Happily, I’ve found a pretty satisfying alternative for my boys: matching!!
I’m sure my older son will only tolerate this for a short while before he finds it terribly uncool, so I plan to enjoy this while I can.
After almost two weeks, I’m finally starting to emerge from the fog of illness. I have to say, there’s nothing worse than feeling awful when you have little ones to care for.
Although I still have a disgusting cough (which is gross and mucousy in the mornings but dry and hacking at night), the rest of my symptoms have pretty much gone away. I’m sure I could have fought it off quicker if I wasn’t so sleep deprived, but Bo is still up a lot in the night so I’m pretty exhausted.
D was amazingly helpful throughout this whole sickness. He let me sleep as much as possible and took care of the boys while I rested. I’m sure I’d still feel awful if I didn’t have his help.
I’m so relieved to be getting back to normal. I hated missing out on time with the boys and I felt awful that I couldn’t care for them. One thing I’m taking from all of this is how lucky I am to be generally healthy. Being a mom takes a lot of energy and I can’t imagine how hard it must be to care for children when you have a major illness/disease. Now that I’m feeling better, I intend to spend as much time as I can playing with my kids and appreciating the time we have.
One milestone that I didn’t get to truly enjoy was Bo’s first Easter. We spent the weekend at the farm with my parents. Littleman had a blast searching for eggs around the farm (and eating chocolate and bunny cake!) I’m glad the kids got to enjoy the holiday, even though mommy wasn’t feeling well.
Now, I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of things and catching up on all the blog reading that I missed while I was so out of it!
I’m sick. Not just a little sick, but sicker than I’ve ever been in my life. I know that sounds dramatic, but it’s true.
It started with a sore throat on the weekend. I felt kind of crummy on Sunday. Monday, I felt worse. By Monday night, I was a mess. D was working night shift, so I was on my own. I didn’t sleep at all, between feeding Bo and my sore throat and congestion.
Yesterday morning, I was a mess. D got home and took over. I spent the entire day in bed. I had a fever, chills, aches, chest congestion, stuffy nose and extreme sore throat. D brought Bo in every time he needed to eat, which turned out to be every 1-1.5 hours (6 week growth spurt?). I felt like I was dying.
I didn’t manage to sleep at all. I think I now understand what babies/kids go through when they’re overtired. I just COULD NOT SLEEP.
It doesn’t help that there isn’t much medication that I can safely take while breastfeeding. I’m back to taking the same painkillers that I took postpartum (Advil and Tylenol) but they aren’t doing much besides helping with the body aches.
D had to stay home from work last night because I was totally useless. I did finally get a bit of sleep last night. Bo actually went one 5 hour stretch between feeds! I feel marginally better today. Still awful, but at least I can manage to be upright for a short period.
My mom is coming to stay over tonight so D can go back to work. I hope I can kick this soon. I hate not being there for my kids. And I hate being sick. Must go lie down now.
Being awake all night is the worst. Bo’s nights are still really rough. We get one longer stretch of sleep starting around 9 or 9:30pm for about 3 hours. Then, we get a few hour long stretches where he grunts and groans the entire time.
On top of that, I’m fighting a cold. Even if Bo had slept last night, I think I would have struggled to sleep because my throat is killing me. Crap. Getting sick is the last thing I need right now.
At least it’s this face that’s keeping me up at night!
Since I am a first-born child, I’m the one who my parents photographed like crazy and documented all the milestones. When I got pregnant with Littleman, my mom gave me my baby book, where she had kept track of my childhood development and accomplishments.
Reading through it was quite entertaining. Some of the things my mom was advised to do with me seem quite shocking 36 years later.
In the book, my mom kept copies of the daily routines that were recommended by my pediatrician’s office:
Sunbath?! Maybe that’s where I got my love of the sun.
In my mom’s notes, I read that she gave me cereal at 6 weeks. Apparently I “hated it” (ie, threw up). No kidding!
Then at 11-12 weeks she gave me carrots, followed by peas. In both instances, mom noted “disliked.” She gave up on veggies at that point. Turns out she was on to something! I didn’t start eating them again (and liking them) until 6 months.
It was interesting to read that she was encouraged to supplement with formula right from the start and that she stopped breastfeeding altogether at 3 months. Not because she had any problems, just because that’s what she was encouraged to do.
It turns out I was a better sleeper than my own offspring, sleeping 6pm-6am at 6 weeks of age. Wow. Lucky mom!
The funniest part is that I went straight to walking without ever crawling. But there’s a note saying that mom was teaching me to crawl, long after I was already walking. When I asked her about it, she told me that the preschool teachers said that I would never read if I didn’t crawl. What?! How does that make sense? Turns out I was an avid reader from very early on. (Must be because mom taught me to crawl!)
Anyway, what’s interesting about all of this is how much things have changed over the years. I’ve even noticed some small changes in the baby care recommendations since I had my first baby, only three years ago. Goes to show that doctors don’t know everything and, while I follow our doctor’s advice, I also have to trust my own instincts when it comes to raising my babies.
Time to head outside for our sunbath now. Just kidding!
We achieved a major milestone last night. Mommy went out! That’s right, you heard me correctly: Girls. Night. Out.
A bunch of the girls from our street decided to go out for drinks at a local restaurant (after the kids’ bedtime, of course) so I figured it was a good time to try leaving the boys with D.
I’m happy to report that it was very successful! I nursed Bo and got him settled to sleep in his chair before I left, allowing D to focus on getting Littleman to bed. I made sure there was a bottle of pumped breastmilk all ready to go (haha, my autocorrect wanted to call it “pimped!”).
I wasn’t the only one with a baby at home, so no one judged me when I checked my phone frequently. In fact, one of the other moms got called home because her January-born baby was screaming. Bo, however, did great. He woke up and took his bottle like a champ and then went back to sleep, which is what he was doing when I returned.
As tired as I was (I sacrificed my first shift of sleep to go out) it felt so nice to spend some time away from the kids. I enjoyed a glass of wine and felt a bit better about myself when I learned that I wasn’t the only one there who was still wearing maternity jeans! (Getting dressed to go out was a bit of a fiasco and I almost ended up in tears. I finally gave up and tried not to care too much).
Anyways, I feel mentally refreshed after enjoying some adult company and I’m glad to know that they boys can survive on their own. I love to be home with them but I appreciate them even more after a little break.
The other day, I wrote about how hard breastfeeding can be. You know what else is hard? Sleep deprivation.
This time around, I feel like I was much more prepared for the lack of sleep that comes with having a baby. First of all, I don’t think I ever really slept completely soundly or thoroughly since Littleman was born. Second, I suffered from some pretty good insomnia during the third trimester. Finally, I remember the tough nights from when Littleman was a newborn and I know it passes.
But, no matter how prepared I thought I was, this is damn hard. I am so tired.
Bo sleeps pretty well during the day. Not for super long stretches at a time, but he settles quite easily. Sometimes I’ll put him down awake (in his bouncy chair) and he’ll doze off on his own. Other times he’ll fall asleep on my chest while I’m holding him upright after a feed.
Since he has a three-year-old brother, Bo is skilled at sleeping through noises (for example, fire engine sirens, the crash of toys being dumped on the floor, a high-pitched voice yelling “wanna play with me, mommy?”
But nighttime has been a different story. He still has trouble lying on his back, so the bassinet is not happening right now (even with one side inclined). We finally put a bouncy chair in our room, which is a bit better. But, for some reason, his reflux seems to bug him more at night, which means he gags and groans and whines for long stretches between feeds, which keeps us awake.
We’re trying every trick we can think of and have had luck replacing our swaddling with a sleep sack. He’s much happier with his hands free. The pacifier helps a bit (I think the swallowing action helps the reflux) but he spits it out if he’s really worked up. We finally decided that the Sleep Sheep (which we loved with Littleman) wasn’t cutting it so we brought in some more hardcore white noise. We now sleep to my old iPhone blasting “extreme rain pouring”. Amazing.
Last night D was on night shift so I was on my own. I’m proud to say I got one 3-hour stretch and one 2-hour stretch of sleep. Of course, I still feel exhausted but I don’t think I can expect much more at this stage.
Oh ya, and “sleep when the baby sleeps” is a nice idea, but I’ve learned that it doesn’t work quite as well when the baby has a big brother.
At least I have this face to remind me that it’s all worth it!
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One of the hardest things I’ve ever done – and certainly the thing I find the hardest about taking care of a baby – is breastfeeding.
First of all, I have to call bullshit on whoever said that breastfeeding, if done properly, should not be painful. I’m sure there are some people out there who have had pain-free breastfeeding experiences, but I know a whole lot more who have not.
I’m now four weeks into breastfeeding my second baby and we are only starting (yes, just starting) to get the hang of things. When I breastfed my first son, we were doing everything “perfectly” and yet I was still in constant pain for almost six weeks.
Prior to Bo’s birth, I tried to mentally prepare myself for potential breastfeeding challenges. I knew it would likely hurt me, at least for a while. I also knew that, like the first time, I would do my very best to stick it out.
What I didn’t expect was a tongue-tied baby who would chomp the hell out of my nipples, causing them to crack and bleed. Good lord, that hurt.
Once we got the tongue-tie diagnosed and treated, things started to slowly improve. My nipples have healed nicely and feeding Bo usually doesn’t hurt anymore.
But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. In fact, it’s still really, really hard.
Getting Bo to latch is sometimes a challenge. He dive-bombs my boobs, but straightens his arms so that he’s pushing against my chest, keeping his head away from my nipple. Then, once he’s finally on, I have a crazy strong letdown. He often coughs and sputters and pulls off the breast, sending a stream of milk shooting everywhere (often right into his face). That makes him more angry and makes it even harder to get him to latch back on. Usually, in these instances, he ends up coming on and off the breast a number of times, taking in way too much air and, ultimately, spitting up and gagging when he’s done eating.
Other times, it seems quite easy. He latches right away, empties one breast and gives me a nice burp. These times, he’ll often curl up into a ball on my shoulder or chest and doze off into a nice nap.
The calm, easy feeds give me hope. And then the crazy, milk-spewing, screaming feeds make me want to cry.
Bo is also a barfer. Littleman was too, but I guess I kind of blocked out that memory. With Littleman, the pediatrician called it “self-correcting”. He would eat too much and spit up the excess. For Bo, it only started about a week ago. Sometimes it doesn’t seem to bother him, but other times I can tell it makes him uncomfortable. It’s always worse when we have the crazy off-and-on feeds. Otherwise, he generally just spits up if we lay him down too soon after eating. This is easy enough to manage during the day, but in the middle of night, it can be torture. The other night, after a nice stretch of sleep, we had a terrible feed. Then, it took me an hour and a half before I could get him to stop spitting up so I could lay him down in his bassinet (which, we have propped on a rolled towel so he’s on a bit of an incline).
Finally, there are my breasts themselves. As I said, the actual feeding doesn’t hurt anymore. But my boobs aren’t totally pain-free. I seem to make a lot of milk and my breasts get very uncomfortable when they are full. Sometimes I feel like I could feed a small country (thirsty, anyone?) And then there are the random letdowns throughout the day (sometimes when I’m feeding Bo, sometimes just any old time) which still hurt like hell. There’s the fact that I haven’t found totally comfortable bras yet. And, of course, there’s the leaking. I hate nursing pads but I have to wear them if I don’t want to leak all over the place.
So, basically breastfeeding is freakin’ hard.  But I will keep with it in hopes that Bo and I can grow into it together.
How is it possible that Bo is four weeks old already? He’s growing and changing right before our eyes. I meant to start doing this sooner, but I’m going to try to write a weekly update as a sort of log of his activities, achievements and challenges. So, here goes…
Eating: Breastfeeding is getting easier as time goes on. We still have some challenges but nothing we can’t overcome (I think!) More about breastfeeding to come in a separate post, but it is generally going fairly well. Bo is gaining weight and growing like a weed. He even took a bottle of pumped breastmilk this week, which is huge for us since his brother flat-out refused to take a bottle ever!
Sleeping: The kid naps a ton during the day, mainly in his bouncy chair. He gets pretty refluxy (is that a word?) if laid on his back too soon after eating, so the incline of the chair seems to help a lot.
Nighttime sleep is still in short bursts these days. We were blessed with some longer stretches earlier on but those haven’t happened again recently.
We started out swaddling Bo at night, using the Miracle Blanket. We discovered pretty quickly that this baby does not do well with his arms swaddled. We tried using light swaddle blankets and leaving his arms out, but he would manage to unravel the blanket and I think he was getting cold. Now we’re trying a Velcro-style sleep sack that allows you to tuck the arms in or leave them out.
Am hoping we can start to get more than 2-2.5 hours of sleep in a row soon.
Physical development: I can’t believe how strong he’s getting! His neck strength is really good. I can tell that he’s starting to focus on things around him more. He enjoys lying on his play mat and even swats at the animals that hang from it. His favourite thing to look at is the picture that hangs on the walk behind our couch. I’m guessing he likes the contrast between the dark frame and light walls.
Personality: Bo is a pretty calm baby. He has the odd fussy period, usually in the evening, but it doesn’t typically last very long. Most of the time, his crying means he’s hungry or that he peed (poo, incidentally, doesn’t bug him at all!)
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Bo and I just got home from seeing a movie together. A couple of nearby movie theaters offer “stars and strollers” movies once a week. The sound isn’t as loud as regular movies and there is a change table available in the theatre. It’s pretty much only moms and babies who attend, so the theaters are fairly empty and it’s easy to breastfeed or walk around if you need to. No one flinches if your baby cries.
My mom came with us today and we saw Divergent. I loved, loved, loved the books. The movie was okay. But, to be honest, it didn’t really matter. It was just nice to get out and do something.
Bo was perfect. He slept through most of it, just waking for one quick feed. I even got to enjoy a big bag of popcorn.
We will definitely be going to the movies again before Bo gets too old!
Another bun (in the oven)? 