Life with babe - Week of Nov 21st-26th

[deleria]

Oh mamas, this has been a difficult few weeks in our DDC, with terrible losses and a lot of mourning. I know I've had a hard time posting about my little guy with so much sadness in my heart for the mamas who aren't able to share their own new motherhood experiences.

However, I could use the support of my DDC mamas as we juggle Jackson's arrival into our family. I'm sure others could use this thread, too.

So, how's babe doing? How are YOU doing?

Is anyone else dealing with regression from older siblings? Our just-four-year-old has been using the potty for nearly two years and is now having several accidents a day. Does anyone have experience with how to handle this? I don't know if we should just gently clean it up or encourage him to help us with the laundry... He gets as much one-on-one time as we can give him right now, plus goes to preschool three mornings a week to have some 'Declan time' (no accidents while there, btw). I'm just at a loss.

[sweetfeet]

Well, I think Sophie, my 4 yo, has croup. We're going to her ped in a few hours to confirm or figure out whats wrong with the poor dear. She started an awful barking cough last night after a birth/parenting meeting. I'm so upset that I unknowingly took a sick kid to a place with new babies and pregnant moms. I feel like crap about it. I hope that she didn't get anyone there sick and I hope that Atticus doesn't get sick either.

The baby is such a lovely little guy. So sweet and calm, well until you get him in his car seat. We had him in the companion from birth, but bought a safe seat thinking that he may have just hated the companion. So far I've spent $325 on car seats that my kiddo hates. Just peachy. At least I have a large grocery store really close by, thats all I really need to get to.
Atticus nurses all.the.time. For hours straight. I'm getting a little annoyed, but I'm sure it'll pass soon enough. I was hoping that it was a growth spurt when he started this up, but alas it's been 2 solid weeks of 24/7 nursing.
He's starting to wet through his infant sized prefolds really quickly so it's either time to move up to our regular sized ones or make some doublers.

I'm doing good. I spent some time talking to my lovely mw last night and talking about my birth gets me all excited about it all over again. I had a weird birth, but I got my vbac and I'm still on cloud 9 about the whole thing. If I weren't so anti-minivan(for myself) and didn't suffer from infertility issues I would do it all over again to have her as my mw. I still need to think of some way to thank her.

Amanda- Sophie hasn't regressed in the same way as your son. That's got to be hard to deal with. She did however become ultra attached to my dh while he was on paternity leave for 4 weeks. She was almost baby-like in how she insisted on him holding her constantly. Now that he's gone back to work she seems to be doing okay.

[LavenderMae]

My ds1 was acting A LOT and it was driving me crazy. He has been doing better this last week! Transitioning from two to three has been harder for me than going from one to two. For some reason this little guy is throwing me for a loop, I almost feel like a first time mom again. He is so sweet though and for the most part very laid back (he sleeps well, eats well ect..)! I'm not sure why I'm so anxious.

I wish I could help you with the you ds having accidents but I really don't know. Hopefully someone else has BTDT.

[TheDivineMissE]

I agree, the losses on this board have been heartwrenching. I'm so sorry for the mamas who have suffered losses. You're always in my thoughts.

As far as we are concerned, the transition has been easier than I thought it would be. Perhaps I'm just lucky with the personalities of my kids - but they've made it very easy to adapt to having a 3 year old and a newborn. The little one is starting to work out her schedule and I'm very lucky with what she is picking. I don't schedule my kids - I let them fall into natural ones.

Right now (and I realize I'm jinxing myself typing this out) she's waking up at 7:00am - up for an hour and then sleeping until 10am. After 10 we start our daily out-and-about activities and she'll usually catnap and nurse through our playgroups. Then home for lunch, she naps, nurses and has alert time off and on until 8 or 9pm. Then she's down for the night after a marathon of cluster feeding. She wakes up around 2 or 3am, nurses and goes back to sleep until 7am again. It's working out very well and only one night time feeding is more then I expected at just under 5 weeks! I'm not complaining - not even a little!

We went to the nurse-in yesterday and both kids did wonderfully!

[Peony]

Our experience has been surreal.: We were just starting to get back things 2 weeks ago when we got dxed with pertussis. At that point we were trying to keep dd2 from getting it, so dd1 got sent to grandma's with Dh for the week. DD1 has done very well considering everything that is going on. She hasn't regressed any, she has gotten more demanding but then again she is almost 4. My mom has been taking her most days to allow me to attempt to rest, this pertussis is kicking my butt. I feel like we haven't been able to really bond as a family yet, DH has been sick since DD2 was born, then him and DD1 were gone a week, now I'm hanging on, we spend our days just trying to survive. DD2 is still holding her own, we are still hoping that she will only get a mild case of it, but we won't know for a while. I just want this all to be over so we can finally feel like a family again, and get used to two dc. DD2 is a month old, and I haven't had to really handle 2 dc by myself because dd1 is always gone. When she is here, she does love her sister and is very gentle to her.

I literally haven't left the house, except to take dd2 to the pedi, in 2 weeks. She hates the carseat anyway. Other then that she is a very mellow, sweet little girl. I really needed a baby like that after dd1, you can not use those words to describe dd1. DD2 looks just like me as a baby, i'm enjoying that.

[OMama]

Things are going fairly well around here. I was worried last week that DS might have relux or just be a collicky baby, but things have greatly improved. I am realizing that he is actually really mellow and goes along with most things pretty well. He still has his moments of course, but overall I think he is doing great. He had also gained four pounds since birth at his one month appointment! Yeah for wonderful breastmilk! He still wakes several times at night so I rarely get a stretch of sleep longer than 2.5 hours, but he is so sweet and cute and I love him so very much, that I really don't mind.

We are having a more difficult time with our 2.5YO. She is being much gentler with her baby brother the last few days, but it is still exhausting dealing with both of them. Nap and bedtime are horrendous! It regularly takes over 1.5 hours each time to get her to sleep. A newborn is easy compared to her. The good news is that she seems to be potty-trained now! Just in the last few days this has happened. She wears panties everywhere now and even at night. DH and I are very excited about that, and so is she. She has announced that babies wear diapers and that she is a big girl. Yippeee! (I hope this lasts).

[swampwitch]

We went to the nurse-in, to, and it was sooooo good to be around other moms.

DS is doing well...in fact we just mastered side-lying nursing in the past two days, so I'm actually sleeping in bed at night instead of the recliner. That's helping my back problem, too. I got a nursing injury . DS favored the left breast and had terrible latch on the right, so the LC suggested using the cross clutch on the right since he was so successful in the football hold on the left. Doing that for two or three weeks overworked the muscle in my back that controls your arm's movement forward and backward. Yeow! It is still difficult to stand up and still hurts some to walk, but the worst was two weeks ago when I went to pick up DS and couldn't. THAT was scary. I thought I was going to have to call my DH and have him come home from work to take care of both of us. Fortunately, I found a different position to stand and lift in and was able to get him back to the couch, where my arse has been parked for much of his five weeks.

In the past week he's started settling into a bit of a pattern, but nothing definitive. It makes scheduling things difficult, but fortunately most people can work around me being late and having my baby with me. Tomorrow I have an interview/audition for a yoga teacher position at the local Y, so DH will be on daddy duty for a full two hours with no booby in site. I guess I need to go buy some nipples for the bottles I've pumped, huh?

Love, love, love CDing. We had to use sposies during a hospital stay his first week...they had to weigh each diaper...and I was so happy to go back to cloth. DS is almost too big for his infant dipes but the regular size dipes are just a smidgen too big...it looks like it's swallowing him up! I'm going to try making some fitted diapers out of the hemp prefolds...that's assuming I get enough time to make the fitteds!

We had our first out of town excursion over Thanksgiving and ds was great, but we were exhausted by the whole thing! One more go around of that at Christmas, I get tired just thinking about it.

[Leilamus]

I've been hesisitant to post as well because of so many losses on this board, it's just not fair and it breaks my heart. I'm thinking of all of these mamas so often.

We're doing ok here. Nate is doing very well, he had a checkup yesterday and is a half ounce shy of 12 pounds and shows no signs of having been a preemie which is great news. I LOVE our pediatrician too, just always comforting and reassuring and always says "good job mama" How nice is that?

Ben is adjusting pretty well. He definetely misses being in daycare to an extent because he misses his friends (I left my job to stay home with both boys now) but he really likes being home a lot more than I expected. He was so used to the structure I wasn't sure how he'd do but he's very happy. He has also moved into his own bed in his room by his choice this week. I think he wanted to do it because the bed that we got was at my mom's for a while and he used to sleep in it at her house so he felt comfy with it. Anyway, he loves it and does a great job and 3 out of the last 7 nights he's told us he's tired right around his bedtime and asked to go to bed. SOOO different than he used to be. Man,they grow and assert their independence fast don't they?

That's about it from here. We are starting to gear up for the hokidays but keeping it low key this year. Hope everyone here is doing well!!! Have a great week!

[MidnightCommando]

So far,things have been going much easier than I imagined. Before this, I had almost no experience with children, and hadn't been around a baby in probably 10 years, so I was sort of envisioning my own scenario of what life with a babe would be like. I don't know if we totally lucked out or what, but Aislyn has been almost too easy.

She has been cluster feeding during the day, and waking 1-2 times per night to feed. This was fine with me and then we just mastered the lying down nursing position so my lazy butt doesn't even have to sit up at night: She has a really mellow temperment - she takes after her dad in that respect. She seems content in just hanging out with me during the day, and is napping almost like clockwork. I am just crossing my fingers and hoping things don't change. Sweetfeet - my DD hates the carseat too! It is really the only times she cried and I feel so helpless that I can't do anything about it. If you find something that works - let us all know!

The animals have welcomed her and adjusted better than I could have hoped. The cat, who sadly has to be shut out of the bedroom at night now, still lays outside our room and cries at night: I feel horrible about that but she has always had a habit of laying on my face when sleeping and wants to do the same thing to Aislyn when she is in bed and I can't take that risk. We are contemplating getting another cat to keep her company.

Next week we have to travel a few hours to see a pediatric cardiologist. The day she was born, our doctor found a 'non-innocent' sounding heart murmur. We had an echocardiogram done 2 days after birth and she was diagnosed with a ventricular septal defect (VSD). It is a small hole b/t 2 chambers of the heart and is actually a pretty common congential heart defect. They said hers was small enough that is will probably close on its own. I really hope so - I don't know if my heart could handle that emotion of her having to eventually need heart surgery! We will find out much more detail at this appointment.

I wasn't planning on going back to work until after the holidays, but my work can't find anyone qualified enough to fill in for me (kind of makes me feel good) to finish the end-of-year reports and write next years operating plan, so I will slowely be working on these from home, and have to go to a few meetings. I posted in the BF forum about introducing the bottle b/c dad felt left out - now it looks like I will have to do it sooner than planned b/c of this work crap. The BF and I talked last night about me being a SAHM. I would love it but our current financial situation just wouldn't allow it. My plan now is to figure out a way to do it. If we moved, it would be possible - the cost of living around here is rediculous!!! bad time to try and sell our house though :-(

Well - it sounds like everyone is taking things in stride. swampwitch - good luck on your interview!

[ColoradoKat]

Well this is our first baby and things are going great! Until 7pm......you know the drill, 3 hours of crying. But after that, the night time is great! Co sleeping, Neva goes to sleep about 10, up around 2 and again at 6 and up for the "day" about 11.

I am not sure what to do during those couple hours. I am not eating wheat, dairy, citrus, gassy veggies, chocolate, caffiene. Pretty much nothing. She will feed and feed and feed...but then spit everything up and just want to eat more. Do I keep feeding her? I have tried to pump so that she is just sucking but she get so mad she wants food. But when I give her milk she gets really uncomfortable and just spitts up. Ahhhhh.... We wear her most of the day, but she just screams in there at night. We swaddle her, tried every appliance noise in the house, it is too cold to take her outside , the only time she stops crying is on the boob. I guess just time and it will work itself out.

Besides that, we are doing so great. She is so happy during the day, naps wonderfully, loves the bath and being worn. We are venturing out a bit more, I even took her to Target in the Moby. She doesn't love her car seat when I first put her in it, but settles once the car gets moving.

She doesn't really like being held in arms when she is awake. She would rather be put down on a blanket. I think she gets overstimulated in my arms. So we lay on the floor a lot together and sing songs, look at books, etc.

She LOVES being on the changing table! And I LOVE puting all these cute cloth diapers on her. I am loving CDing!! I am so glad she likes the table. I have taken care of babies who hate it and it is hard to deal with. Sometimes we spend over 30 minutes there!!!!!

I think this will be our only baby so I taking it all in. I feel so lucky to be able to stay home with her!

My dh is so wonderful and helpful, again I am so grateful! My hormones feel like they are leveling out a bit, thank god! I was a teary mess for a while. BFing is going well, I tend to get a little lazy at night with the latch, I need to fix that, but it is just so hard to stay awake!

Glad to hear from you all!!!

[LavenderMae]

All the losses are just heart wrenching. I am keeping all the mamas close to my heart and always in my thoughts.

My little guy will be 6 weeks on Saturday! He has a fussy time now which starts around 9pm and last until 11pm. He doesn't cry non stop but off and on and mostly just fussies. He is also still fighting the gas, I can't wait for his digestive tract to mature. It seems to be getting better.
Other than those two things he is a very happy baby. He has started smiling at us so big and making sweet little sounds! He is also starting to fatten up! He also has been sleeping for 4 and couple of time 5 hrs at night. But then after that stretch he wakes up about every 2 hrs.

Side-lying nursing is the BEST!!!!!