Eat, Sleep, and Poop
Faith is a week old now. Things are going incredibly well. I mean, compared to all my other newborn experiences, this one is a breeze. We are all so thoroughly enjoying this little girl. It helps that she seems super chill and laid back. I'm making a special effort to find time to chronicle some of these early weeks in the blog so that I don't forget them!
Sleep - Faith is fairly predictable in her routines. She sleeps for two four-hour stretches during the night with a feeding in between. So sometime between 10pm she settles into her deep sleep and wakes up around 2am, eats (which takes awhile, usually - I watch a good chunk of a movie during this time), then sleeps for another four hours or so - until 8 or 9am.
I'm starting to be more careful not to let her oversleep during the day - no more than three hours at a time. It seems like after a long nap, she spends about two hours having intermittent periods where she eats, snoozes, "plays", repeat, before settling down again for a longish nap.
** This next section might have TMI, so skip if you don't want to read about breastfeeding!!**
Food - I spent a lot of time pondering my feeding options with Faith. Most of my friends and family know that I've had some nursing struggles in those first two months with my other children. I won't go into all that again. I had decided to start off exclusively pumping and go from there with Faith. I actually did latch Faith on in the hospital and she was a CHAMP. Wide, open mouth, perfect latch on the first attempt. Made me think that maybe I should at some point reconsider nursing her, except it hurt a LOT right off the bat. So I stuck with my original plan to pump.
With pumping, you really don't get much in the first week, so there was a lot of formula supplementation. Pumping is boring, and time consuming, and I had some extra challenges that were new to me - postpartum swelling that made it difficult to express milk. I had to ice for 20 minutes, pump for 10-20 minutes, then still have time to feed the baby, wash bottles, warm milk, etc. Very time consuming. And frustrating (especially with the added challenge of icing to make the swelling go down so that the milk would come out better).
About day 4, I decided to try nursing Faith on one side that seems to always work better for me (less pain). It was very successful, much to my surprise and pleasure. I had thought of just doing it once a day and easing myself into this, but we were able to basically be 100% nursed on that side from the first attempt. I think the pumping had a lot to do with easing that transition for me. With that first success under my belt, I thought about what I could do to transition to 100% breastfeeding and skip so much pumping. I ordered a nipple shield and waited two days for it to arrive (love Amazon!). And that has been an equally successful transition as well. I'm hoping to be able to stop using the nipple shield as I think it's causing some minor engorgement, but nursing is still not completely pain-free so I'm sort of just waiting to see if that goes away.
I am thrilled to have accomplished one of my main goals, which was to have a lot of great, snuggly memories of my tiny infant and not be so emotionally distraught over the pain and frustration of nursing in the first month or so. Other than one emotional meltdown on Saturday, things have been good and I have FELT good both physically and emotionally. I didn't want to dread feeding my baby - dread hearing her start to fuss. I don't have a lot of happy memories of my other babies as newborns - I mostly seem to remember the trauma of breastfeeding. I'm really excited to think that I might get to have my cake and eat it too - happy memories AND no bottle feeding!
PS - I do plan to feed her from a bottle a few times a week just to keep my options open. Still going to be using my pump, but thankfully not to the same extent as I had anticipated.
Tummy-Time - Several years ago I read an interesting article that talked about postpartum care in other countries. One thing that they do in a lot of Asian countries (such as Japan) is the mother's belly is wrapped. I found that interesting. They said it aids in the muscle recovery. I remembered thinking it was too bad I was never going to be able to try it for myself (ha, ha). I did tell one of my sisters about it, and if I remember correctly she thought it had a positive effect on her stomach shrinkage and general recovery after having a baby. My sister in law did something a little more intense, wearing what is essentially a girdle, and I think she thought it was a success as well.
So that's what I've been doing. I've been using my bella band. I haven't really compared to pictures of myself postpartum to see if it's actually helping, but it feels SO good to have that extra support instead of my loosey-goosey muscles. I'm hoping it will help with my diastasis recti, too.
Side note about postpartum care - I did some research on postpartum depression after a friend of mine had a mental breakdown attributed to that. I learned that many cultures take serious care of moms after they give birth and because of that, they have much lower rates of depression. The article said that for about 6 weeks the mom and baby are pampered, essentially, and given a chance to fully recover without worrying about laundry, cooking, etc. I thought it was interesting that in our culture where we feel in such a hurry to get our bodies back, get back to work, be on top of it all, we suffer for it with higher rates of depression. So - if you have a baby - let yourself take it easy as much as possible during those precious first few weeks!
Sleep - Faith is fairly predictable in her routines. She sleeps for two four-hour stretches during the night with a feeding in between. So sometime between 10pm she settles into her deep sleep and wakes up around 2am, eats (which takes awhile, usually - I watch a good chunk of a movie during this time), then sleeps for another four hours or so - until 8 or 9am.
I'm starting to be more careful not to let her oversleep during the day - no more than three hours at a time. It seems like after a long nap, she spends about two hours having intermittent periods where she eats, snoozes, "plays", repeat, before settling down again for a longish nap.
** This next section might have TMI, so skip if you don't want to read about breastfeeding!!**
Food - I spent a lot of time pondering my feeding options with Faith. Most of my friends and family know that I've had some nursing struggles in those first two months with my other children. I won't go into all that again. I had decided to start off exclusively pumping and go from there with Faith. I actually did latch Faith on in the hospital and she was a CHAMP. Wide, open mouth, perfect latch on the first attempt. Made me think that maybe I should at some point reconsider nursing her, except it hurt a LOT right off the bat. So I stuck with my original plan to pump.
With pumping, you really don't get much in the first week, so there was a lot of formula supplementation. Pumping is boring, and time consuming, and I had some extra challenges that were new to me - postpartum swelling that made it difficult to express milk. I had to ice for 20 minutes, pump for 10-20 minutes, then still have time to feed the baby, wash bottles, warm milk, etc. Very time consuming. And frustrating (especially with the added challenge of icing to make the swelling go down so that the milk would come out better).
About day 4, I decided to try nursing Faith on one side that seems to always work better for me (less pain). It was very successful, much to my surprise and pleasure. I had thought of just doing it once a day and easing myself into this, but we were able to basically be 100% nursed on that side from the first attempt. I think the pumping had a lot to do with easing that transition for me. With that first success under my belt, I thought about what I could do to transition to 100% breastfeeding and skip so much pumping. I ordered a nipple shield and waited two days for it to arrive (love Amazon!). And that has been an equally successful transition as well. I'm hoping to be able to stop using the nipple shield as I think it's causing some minor engorgement, but nursing is still not completely pain-free so I'm sort of just waiting to see if that goes away.
I am thrilled to have accomplished one of my main goals, which was to have a lot of great, snuggly memories of my tiny infant and not be so emotionally distraught over the pain and frustration of nursing in the first month or so. Other than one emotional meltdown on Saturday, things have been good and I have FELT good both physically and emotionally. I didn't want to dread feeding my baby - dread hearing her start to fuss. I don't have a lot of happy memories of my other babies as newborns - I mostly seem to remember the trauma of breastfeeding. I'm really excited to think that I might get to have my cake and eat it too - happy memories AND no bottle feeding!
PS - I do plan to feed her from a bottle a few times a week just to keep my options open. Still going to be using my pump, but thankfully not to the same extent as I had anticipated.
Tummy-Time - Several years ago I read an interesting article that talked about postpartum care in other countries. One thing that they do in a lot of Asian countries (such as Japan) is the mother's belly is wrapped. I found that interesting. They said it aids in the muscle recovery. I remembered thinking it was too bad I was never going to be able to try it for myself (ha, ha). I did tell one of my sisters about it, and if I remember correctly she thought it had a positive effect on her stomach shrinkage and general recovery after having a baby. My sister in law did something a little more intense, wearing what is essentially a girdle, and I think she thought it was a success as well.
So that's what I've been doing. I've been using my bella band. I haven't really compared to pictures of myself postpartum to see if it's actually helping, but it feels SO good to have that extra support instead of my loosey-goosey muscles. I'm hoping it will help with my diastasis recti, too.
Side note about postpartum care - I did some research on postpartum depression after a friend of mine had a mental breakdown attributed to that. I learned that many cultures take serious care of moms after they give birth and because of that, they have much lower rates of depression. The article said that for about 6 weeks the mom and baby are pampered, essentially, and given a chance to fully recover without worrying about laundry, cooking, etc. I thought it was interesting that in our culture where we feel in such a hurry to get our bodies back, get back to work, be on top of it all, we suffer for it with higher rates of depression. So - if you have a baby - let yourself take it easy as much as possible during those precious first few weeks!
So glad everything's going well! I too remember very little positive things about B and A as newborns - because I also DREADED the excruciating nursing. I cried when they cried. I was basically living in a continual state of panic for months. With H when I decided on day 3 or 4 that I would have to pump exclusively, I felt an immediate washing away of my postpartum anxiety and depression. It was a crazy experience. And with K I only had to suffer the pain for about 6 weeks or so. It didn't last 6 months like the first 2 babies. So thankful for pumps!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE your final paragraph - I completely agree that we need to slow down and really lower our expectations of ourselves in those first weeks! I'm so glad you're adjusting well to having a new baby! I wish we lived close enough that I could come get some snuggles and bring you some meals, too... it's just far enough to make it a little difficult. Ugh. But, hopefully soon I can find a way! About the breastfeeding, it was really painful for me with Hugh. Lucy wasn't as hard, thankfully. After every nursing, I'd put lanolin cream on and it definitely helped. Not sure if you've tried it, but if you haven't I'd definitely give it a try. https://www.lansinoh.com/breastfeeding
ReplyDeleteYou're amazing, Kelly!!! Faith is one blessed baby!