Not sure what is in my milk however because she is growing like a weed! At 6 weeks she was the size of a 3 month old, weighing in at 11 pounds 2 oz, and 23 inches! At this moment she's almost outgrowing 3 month pants! I don't know how she's so tall, as my husband is average and I am most definitely in the short category, but who knows! I stopped growing in 8th grade so hopefully she has a better shot at growth than I did. Her motor development skills are on pointe, as she is turning from tummy to back and is picking her head up almost the full 90 degrees. It's so amazing to see each day new things she can do. She is learning language as she explores her voice and all the sounds she can make. She loves to have conversations with us, even though her end of it is mostly just vowels :-)
Breastfeeding is still going extremely well and is my favorite thing to do with her so far, it is such an incredible bonding experience I couldn't trade for the world. Even on those days like yesterday, when I was already short on time, got all set up on the couch, baby on boob, but then realized I forgot a vital piece of my manual pump for the other boob and said boob was already started to spew milk everywhere, so here I un-recline the couch, keep baby on boob, carry the boppy and baby into the kitchen and grabbed the pump piece, made it back to the couch and baby managed to keep sucking the whole time! If someone had come in my door at that time it would surely have been a sight to see. Also, my "let-down" is so strong still that one of these days baby is going to take out her own nerf gun and fill it with milk and squirt it in MY eye. The poor thing may have more milk accidentally squirted up her nose or eye than most babies should.... oops!
I never truly knew how much information, knowledge and work it takes to breast feed. Naive pre-baby me thought it was as simple as latching the baby on when they needed to eat. And it is. Except then you have to constantly think about your supply and make sure you're eating and drinking enough. Like drinking water all day. You have to time your coffee intake to an exact science to get it as far away from her next feeding/pumping as possible. Then there is pumping! Milk storage! Bottles! A book I'm reading about breastfeeding pinned it on the tail when she stated that breast feeding IS as easy for women that can stay home with the baby as a stay at home mom and practically never, ever leave the house and remain with baby all the time. But for women who will be returning back to work or enjoy leaving the house at times without baby, breastfeeding is a lot more involved. But I still wouldn't trade it for the world. I guarantee you if someone offered to pay me 1 million dollars to stop breastfeeding right now, I wouldn't. Sorry hubby :-p Some of the products I have seen to market to breastfeeding women have been HILARIOUS. I got an ad for a "hands free breast-pump", which at first I was like, oh cool- so you can do things without holding it there or pumping it yourself. But then the (perfect) woman in the picture ad has these ginormous pumps (uncomfortably it looks) attached to her (perfect) boobs, and what is she doing with her newly freed hands? She's cutting up VEGETABLES. Because yeah, that's the FIRST thing I would want to do if I suddenly could pump without hands for $500. Veggies. They need to think of new marketing for that one.
She can officially take bottles now with pumped breast milk and that has been such a relief. As much as I LOVE the breastfeeding experience, having the newly found freedom to know I can go places without worrying about a screaming, starving newborn at home is such a relief. Last week, hubby got home from work and I declared I needed a trip to target. I had been thinking about this trip not only all day, but pretty much that entire week. I even clipped out coupons I thought about it that much. So I left baby with daddy and a bottle, and me and my newly off-duty boobs HAPPILY skipped to target. Let me tell you, it was GLORIOUS. I walked up and down those aisles so slowly, examining every product, just soaking it all in. Don't get me wrong, I love going places with baby, but like I said in my last post- it's truly an expedition. I truly enjoyed the break of being able to park the car and go directly into the store without the car seat and wondering if she was going to have a meltdown in the middle of the store. And I know its only just begun! Mommy trips to target will definitely be in store for much of my future.
There have been many other lessons learned this month and new products I love. My personality has always had this logic side to me where if something isn't working multiple times in a row, even if its not working by just a little, I think to myself, what can we do next time to make this better? How can we think outside the box here? And I try something new next time. Sometimes it fails miserably, sometimes it improves our process by so much. Trial and error is what it is all about! This skill has helped me immensely in all aspects of my life and in my career. I strongly suggest to new parents not to put up with a process that is stupid or isn't working for you. Think of what you can do to make it better, even if its a crazy idea. It could work!
Two products I know I may not be able to live without this month are the Wubanub and the baby shusher. The Wubanub is a unique pacifier that has a tiny stuffed animal attached to it. Baby wouldn't take other pacifiers until this one. Don't ask me, it makes no sense because its literally the same pacifier (the plastic itself) as the others we have, but she loves it with the animal. I always feel like a cruel human when its time to clean them and I hold the animal over a boiling pot of water and dip in the plastic pacifier. I find myself making a voice for the animal like No, not me, noo! ....... Yes, its sad what happens when you stay at home all day with your baby with no adult human conversation....I fully admit it. This has happened and other sad conversations.
My other favorite product is the "baby shusher". Its literally no bigger than the size of a potato and it goes in the babies crib. It plays the sound of someone saying "shhhhh" over and over again. You can set it to play for 15 minutes or 30. We play it for 30. At first I saw it advertised and I was skeptical. But I figured, theres no assembly required and if baby doesn't like it we can return it. We gave it a good 2-3 nights and by the 3rd night this thing is magic. Some nights its longer than others, but usually within 10 minutes of the "Shhh" sound, she is out like a light. Frankly, I actually find it soothing too as she sleeps in the bassinet on my side. Is that weird?
Other laughable product moments include the time I bought a "boogie bulb" on amazon. The one they give you at the hospital is GREAT, but frankly we are lazy people and it was always upstairs when we were downstairs or vice versa. So we ordered another for boogie sucking. About a week later, the amazon distributor sends me an email asking for me to review their product. Me in my half awake state over my bowl of cereal started imagining the review I would write, "this boogie bulb man...it does EXACTLY what it is supposed to do. It sucks. No literally, it sucks! It sucks those boogies out SO WELL I just sit there in pure awe when I'm done. How can a tiny piece of blue plastic ever have competed so well with the one I got from the hospital? This one, my friend! This boogie bulb!"
...... But seriously, what the heck do they expect when they send these emails? Obviously new parents are buying them. New, exhausted, short tempered parents who aren't going to take the time to review A BOOGIE SUCKER. I mean C'MON.
Speaking of products, baby clothes. Let's talk about that. Completely adorable. But due to the fact that my child is growing faster than the twilight half vampire baby, we have outgrown the size she needs for the temperature/season we are rapidly coming into. We realized we didn't have enough warm items. So off to clothing shop we go and I quickly realized that the number on the tag means nothing. Baby clothes come in the following sizes:
- No way
- This would have worked a month ago
- This is cute but isn't the right season for it
- This says it will fit but my kid is definitely too big for that
- This will fit now but only for the next week
- This will fit her chest but not length wise
- This will fit her length wise but not in the chest
- This says it will fit in what should be 6 months from now but will fit today
- Size who the hell knows I'm done with this store just buy it and she'll fit into it eventually
Seriously though. Gerbers, Carters, and all the other small clothing companies need to get together and get on the same measuring system. One companies size 3m is anothers 6m! Its ridiculous.
Overall, all joking aside, these first two months of her life have truly been magical. If you can't laugh at the situation or yourself as you struggle through these experiences then you will indeed go crazy. Don't try and be the perfect parent. We can only truly succeed when we make mistakes (a lot of them) and see what we did wrong and learn from it. Otherwise we are just dumb ignorant parents.
One nice thing that I will leave you with is a new phenomenon I have noticed since her birth. I consider myself a fairly spiritual person and believe that there are forces at play on this earth beyond our control. Something unique about myself is that for most of my life that I can remember, whenever I am about to pass underneath a street lamp, I see them turn off all the time. Not every single one of course, but it happens more times than likely to happen to call it a coincidence. I always just brushed it off and thought it was cool. Well, since her birth, when I'm driving now, I see dead street lamps ahead and right as we are about to go under, the lamp turns on! And again, I've noticed this more times than likely for a coincidence. I consider this to be one of two things (or both): it is one of her deceased ancestors saying hello and they are watching over us, or that my energy that used to turn off the lamps has now changed since the birth and symbolically, her birth has lit a new light inside of myself..... Call me crazy but it's what I believe.
With that I leave you, thank you so much for reading. I hope mommies and daddies out there found something useful, even if its just knowing you aren't alone. We are all going through it!
Love, the New Motherboard <3
