Hi everyone! Haven't posted in a bit, but back on line today and figured I'd get a November thread started.
All is pretty good here. Feeling very lucky to have made it out of New York, where the whole family was for a wedding, on one of the very last flights out Sunday night before all the airports closed from Sandy, and hoping all of you in the North East are safe.
I can't believe my baby is going to be two months tomorrow.... time is flying!
How are all of you???
Well, I have had a little BFing adventure/nightmare. I posted in the Oct thread about finding a parasite in my stool. The lab found that it was from a trip I took to Peru in 2006! My doc prescribed Albendazole, and recommended that I not BF for 48 hours. So I started my LO on bottles, alternating between my tiny stash and formula, and started pumping and dumping.
In the afternoon we were fine, but at night Armie hated the bottle. He kept reaching for my breast and grabbing at my shirt, it broke my heart! About 12 hours in, the right side of my right breast was painfully engorged. My little pump just wasn't draining the whole breast. I tried everything I could think of - massage, a warm shower, pumping in different positions, hand expressions - but the breast just kept getting harder and more painful. The left side was fine.
Finally, I turned to the internet, and found that the WHO has said there are no issues with BFing on the meds I was on, it is regularly prescribed for infants, and I even found a little essay by Dr Hale (the leading authority on breastfeeding and meds) saying that it was safe to nurse with the meds I was on! I grabbed my little guy, and found quick relief.
I don't know whether to be pleased that the doc was conservative, or frustrated that I had to go through that unnecessarily. If I ever need to do this again, I will totally rent a hospital-grade pump!
Hope all the east coasters are safe & powered! We left RI just in time :)
Boots, congrats on deciding to stay at home! That must be a huge relief. I'm finding myself increasingly frustrated with trying to balance between two worlds. I have to finish a chapter of the book and then start the long editing process and it's just impossible so far with nap times changing every few days and things just generally being chaotic. I wish I could either leave her with someone I trust consistently or stay at home full time. This in-between thing just isn't working that well. That being said, I think the perfect balance might be having her in daycare two or three days a week so I can get things done and then having DH watch her on his day off. Right now though I just think she's too little for daycare. I'm torn. :(
CCoello, that's crazy! I guess I would be happy your doc was playing it safe, but that's super frustrating. And that's terrifying about the parasite. I lived in South America (Ecuador and Peru) for 7 months, so now I'm a little anxious something could have been hanging out since 2003. Craziness.
Rebecca, glad you got out in time! Folks in our city upstate lost some power, but otherwise we were lucky. The devastation downstate is pretty awful.
AFM I'm starting to get super frustrated with the pumping situation. I love my little Medela handpump, but I'm just not getting enough to get away for a full day. So I rented a hospital grade pump today and was so excited to use it and got.... 1 oz. Less than one oz, actually. Granted, it was in the early evening when my supply is lowest, but it had been almost two hours since she nursed last, so I can't believe I got 1 oz. Ugh. And sometimes DH is a little frustrating. After my pumping failure, I told him I'd nurse her quickly before hopping into the shower. He responded that he thought I was empty. When I told him the baby gets milk when the pump doesn't, he looked at me like he didn't believe me. He seems to think the pumps are magic. I suppose it's hard for him to understand why I'm so possessive of the pumped milk, but it takes me 45 minutes just to get 4 oz with the manual pump, so yes, I'm a little invested in the stuff. And at this point I think I know more about BFing and pumping than he does.
Otherwise, things are going well. Piper is clearly going through some insane growth spurt. She slept last night from 10:30pm to noon today (dream feeding in there, obviously). It was crazy. I kept going in an checking on her, but she was out like a light. It will be interesting to see what new skills she has when this sleeping binge ends.
LilyTiger, I feel you on the pump situation. It is so true the baby is way more efficient. I am pleased as punch if I get even one whole ounce after an electric pumping session using both of them for over half and hour. But my baby is very healthy so obviously is getting more than one ounce a feeding. There have been times when DS cluster feeds for hours and I have seen milk dribble out when he is all done so not sure I am ever really empty either. I am not an expert, but just going off what I see.
Most of all I worry about how we'll be prepared to protect our LO next time something like this happens - to keep him warm, clean, dry and safe.....
New mum, I completely understand you on the car seat front! Gilliam still doesn't like his car seat much and will frequently scream for whole car rides no matter what we do. I have tried stopping and calming him but its just not worth the time invested because he just starts up again when we put him back in the seat.
We did find maybe 30% relief when we bought a new car seat. The bucket just wasn't very good to us. As it was, we weren't getting any advantage by using it because it stayed in the car the whole time and we never carried it in anywhere. We bought a convertible seat and he seems a little happier in it. Definitely not 100% though.
On another note, I have a friend who moved to Hoboken about 2 weeks ago I guess...she is unhurt but her apartment is without power..and her car is gone.
Sol, this isn't really relevant to the pumping/nursing but, I love milk faces..Gilly has his own pressure spout built in because of my supply..he eats what he can and lets the rest dribble out the other side of his mouth.. lol
Ccoello, Im glad you got eh med issue worked out. Its a shame doctors don't double check this stuff..
Rebecca, Time does go so fast! I can't believe Gilliam turned 2 months on the 2nd!
Hope i Didn't forget anyone Im doing this off memory and now the baby is squirmy!
2 months old, oh my!
Another car hater here. It's so stressful. And I've never tried to do a drive longer than 1.5 hours. NewMomJoy, I feel for you. I hope it all went well yesterday. With both of my kids, flying has been infinitely easier than driving. And I hope the move to Brooklyn goes well. While it's small consolation, at least Brooklyn itself seems to have weathered the storm quite well. None of my friends there even lost electricity.
I've also been worrying about how to keep everyone safe in an emergency (here, it's earthquakes that are the biggest threat). I was a bit horrified to realize the other day that I had never thought about how my EBF baby would eat if we got separated or god forbid something happened to me during an emergency. So yesterday, I went out and bought a bunch of formula for our emergency kits. I hope we never have to use it, but either way, I think it is money extremely well spent. Same goes with the diapers I bought (in one size up) for the kit. Last Sunday, when I thought we were going to get stuck in Sandy, I was so stressed to realize that we only had 4 diapers left. I don't want to be in that position in a bad earthquake or other disaster. Pre-Sandy I was able to send my husband on an emergency run for diapers, but we won't have that luxury in an earthquake, and I'm not sure even in a hurricane I would want to count on being able to do this. I also need to update my kit with some extra clothes and blankets for the baby and planning ahead, probably some baby food. What other baby specific emergency supplies am I forgetting?
Gilbert has turned a corner with the car seat thing, until now he's had to be the very last one buckled up and as soon as that last clip snaps, the vehicle needs to be moving or else he gets worked up pretty quick lol! As soon as the truck stops I would have to get him out right away, or jiggle the car seat at stop lights. Okay it wasn't terrible, but annoying if nothing else.
But lately he has actually just sat in his car seat and waited for me to run back inside to grab something, or been content to watch the scenery when we drive or even in stop and go traffic! I've been driving more with him lately, it's a minimum of an hour to any city here so I think that has really helped.
Along with swaddling when it gets dark, and when DH drives I'm sitting beside him and I'm able to baby talk to him which just cracks him up every time.
He had a growth spurt this week bang on the 3 month mark. We survived, but it was slightly annoying. I think he was unlatched for a total of 15 minutes that day, the dishes didn't get done, laundry never got hung up and I pretty much spent the entire day sitting in the rocker and nursing him.I really needed a shower so I dug out a bottle and defrosted some milk from the freezer. Of course, the bottle I dug out was a drop in liner one and the freezer bags I've used don't fit so I had to dig out (and wash) another one while holding a fussy, growing/starving baby. Circus!
On the plus side, he did drink 2 oz, not with enthusiasm but with success, and it bought me a 10min shower. I'm happy to know that he can take a bottle if necessary now :)
Now of course my supply is through the roof LOL but he's back to being so relaxed and happy. He has slept pretty much all day today, even passed out on his own on the floor twice amidst the chaos of his siblings and a friend's child that I had over.
He's been giggling a lot and today I taught him that tickling was funny, darn the giggle hiccups though.
Okay, does anyone else have a baby who HATES tummy time? I didn't even know we were supposed to be doing it yet, but we took him to the speech pathologist for his tongue, and one of her observations was that he doesn't quite have the neck strength he should at this point. She said he should be doing an hour of tummy time a day - about 10 min 6x a day. We're trying for 3 min 3x a day at this point, because he HATES it. He cries, and rubs his nose hard into the burp cloth underneath him. This is even when I put him on the couch and sit there at eye level and talk to him and encourage him and wave toys at him.
Once or twice, he's actually pulled his head up and looked around and done all right, but I can't figure out what made the difference. I've tried pulling his arms under him, too, so he has something to push off of. The funny thing is, he holds his head up quite well when sitting, so I don't know what this is all about.
Okay, does anyone else have a baby who HATES tummy time? I didn't even know we were supposed to be doing it yet, but we took him to the speech pathologist for his tongue, and one of her observations was that he doesn't quite have the neck strength he should at this point. She said he should be doing an hour of tummy time a day - about 10 min 6x a day. We're trying for 3 min 3x a day at this point, because he HATES it. He cries, and rubs his nose hard into the burp cloth underneath him. This is even when I put him on the couch and sit there at eye level and talk to him and encourage him and wave toys at him.
Once or twice, he's actually pulled his head up and looked around and done all right, but I can't figure out what made the difference. I've tried pulling his arms under him, too, so he has something to push off of. The funny thing is, he holds his head up quite well when sitting, so I don't know what this is all about.
YES. An hour a day, ugh! Not happening here. He screams bloody murder. He has reflux so I really hate to do it to him. He has developed most of his neck/head strength by being carried over our shoulders in "burp" hold, or being held in a sitting position. I don't know. I know what's recommended but I also have heard from some moms that around 3-4 months their babies stopped hating it so much, so I am waiting. I saw that you can do tummy time on a yoga ball and we were going to try that but then the cats popped the yoga ball!
Re: Tummy time. Yeah, we are doing nothing near an hour a day. Maybe five minutes. And maybe twice a day. My doctor and everything I've read online said 3 minutes a few times a day is enough. Maybe your speech pathologist wants to up the ante a bit, but an hour a day is way over what I've heard. Piper still hates it and still doesn't quite realize that she can roll out of it. She'll only roll when she's in a good mood, which is funny because it's only when she's really mad about being on her tummy that rolling would be helpful. Weird babies.
In other news, Piper is teething. Ugh. I can see and sort of feel a little white dot on her lower gum, which explains why she was drooling like a maniac the last few weeks. I can already feel it a little on my nipple when we nurse, so this does not bode well. Piper has also started to develop a pretty obvious "mom preference", which means DH deals with a crying baby when I leave. Obviously part of it is that he can't soothe her the way I can, but the other part is that he's not quite as good at making baby talk and having baby conversations. He's really very good with her, but I wish he interacted with her a touch more when they hang out. They do a lot of napping and watching Netflix (gah!).
We were told by a nurse right before leaving the hospital to do TT every single day from then on out. While he loved being held up right always he mostly didn't like TT, or would be OK for a few seconds, sometimes tolerated it OK for a few minutes, and now likes it most of the time for short periods. It could be his age too. On his lists of likes for tummy time:
Since it is cold we put a heater around the area so he doesn't have to wear hats and sweaters and stuff for tummy time. This is also good since he likes the fan on, like, a lot lot. The big cloth diapers also seem to restrict what he can do, disposibles are easier to move around in. We have been dealing with a little bit of diaper rash so we sometimes use tum time to let him air out.
Sol, that's good info, we'll keep plugging away.
So my husband's best friend and his wife just had a baby (as in it was announced on FB ten minutes ago) and it's so funny I had to call my husband to tell him that I couldn't believe all the "great name" comments they were getting, we got barely any! The new baby's name is Oscar which I do love (Oscar Wilde is my favorite) but in my opinion Lyle is better, ha! Of course we picked a name that was most popular in the 1920s and hasn't been on the top 1000 since like the 50s or something, so it's no wonder people are sort of like "huh"
What's your baby's name (Just to remind me) and did you get a lot of compliments? Actually I get more compliments now from the moms in my group than I did when he was born. But there are kind of a lot of weird names in my mom's group, ha.
Also, thanks everyone for the support about my decision to stay home this school year. It was tough but it meant a lot to have you guys remind me that I was doing what I knew was best for Lyle and I. I have an interview next week for a very part-time weekend gig evaluating teacher candidates, so wish me luck. Will be good to make some money, get out of the house, and keep my resume fresh.
I really don't remember who is on the East coast and may have been affected by the storm but I hope everyone is safe and sound!
What's your baby's name (Just to remind me) and did you get a lot of compliments? Actually I get more compliments now from the moms in my group than I did when he was born. But there are kind of a lot of weird names in my mom's group, ha.
He's named Atticus, and we get tons of compliments! I had no idea everyone would be such a fan.
And chalk him up as another tummy time hater! Those are some great suggestions, Sol - I'll definitely try them out. Right now we're getting maybe 2-3 minutes, once a day.
our little girl's name is Eulalie ( we pronounce it you-lolly), we call her Eula for short. We have gotten a good amount of compliments for her name, but we've also received utter confusion. We are really careful to pronounce her name clearly when people ask or else we end up repeating ourselves over and over. Though Eulalie is a traditional name, most people have never heard of it (which is one of the reasons we chose it), but this also means we get a lot of blank stares or comments like" oh, does that mean something?" (actually it does, it's from greek meaning sweetly spoken, which we love especially since my dh and I studied ancient Greek in college). Whatever, we love the name, think it suites her, and she can always use Eula if she wants to keep things simple when she's older.
My baby's name is Armando. We call him Armie. I always get compliments on his name - someone told my mom that it was the "sexiest name I've ever heard". So that might help him out down the road :) I do wonder sometimes if he's the only Armando in the world who won't speak Spanish. At least DH and I can't teach him! It's DH's father's name (he emigrated from Peru in the 1960s), but DH never learned Spanish so...
And Armie hates tummy time too. We do 1-5 minutes every other day. But his neck control is great! Being in the carrier really helps.
Our daughter's name is Piper, aka Piper Doodle, Doodle Bug, and Piper the Piperian (my dad's contribution). We get a ton of compliments, with the exception of my mom who, when we announced the name to them half an hour after giving birth, responded, "That's an odd name." And that was it. Thanks, mom. Ah, well. You can't please them all...
In other news, is anyone else's baby having a daddy reaction? Piper gets really fussy when I leave the house and is only quieted by copious amounts of pumped milk. I fed her at 3:45 today to go to a workout and she apparently screamed the entire time (which she never does with me... ever) until DH ended up giving her 5 oz (5 oz!!!!!! After she just ate!!!!!) of milk about an hour after I left. She definitely was not hungry. Aghhhh.... So basically, I'm the only one who can soothe her down for naps and so on. Really frustrating. Is this normal for this age? Total mommy dependence? I felt like before she could be rocked down for naps and such, but DH has really been struggling lately. To make up for it, she is super flirty and smiley and charming and giggly, so I guess there's a silver lining. I don't mind being manipulated when she's chortling at me like an adorable insane person.
I have Quinn and I've gotten mixed reviews on her name. Some people really like it, and some people are just so, "Oh, Quinn that is...nice". Then there are the people who think she is named Queen, Quinton....I don't even know, so I'm trying to be really careful when I tell people her name.
Q also hates tummy time, she will be fine in it for a minute while she tries to figure out how to roll over, and then she either rolls, or starts crying if she can't. I've tried propping her up on the Boppy, but that buys me only about 30 more seconds.
Did everyone see that there is mobile Mothering? I just signed in on my phone and selected the mobile option and it makes it so user friendly on my phone. I guess they're mainly supporting iOS and Android right now, so it doesn't work as great on Blackberrys, but yay! It has been so much harder to keep up on here since the baby was born.
Interesting reading all the name-reactions!
VV, I just can't imagine little Miss Serious-pants Quinn as anything but Quinn! It suits her so well.
I saw that there is a mobile mothering and I'm going to download it on my android. Can't wait. I was considering buying a forum app but didn't want to spend the money. My first thought was why wasn't this here when we were all pregnant!?!? Hehe.
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