So it’s my
last week of maternity leave, I’m a bit emotional today, a bit in denial and a
lot grateful for the time I’ve had with my daughter. As my peanut is hanging out in her swing (one
of her favorite places to be) I thought I’d jot some notes about the “4th
trimester” or “Sophie’s 1st 3 months” or “my maternity leave”. They say you forget, you get amnesia as to
how it really is or you would never have more kids… this MUST be true. My daughter is adorable and sweet and I could
literally eat her every day and she has not been the easiest baby. I’m extremely lucky because Bart got to stay
home with us for the first 8 weeks, hats off to you moms who are home by
yourself your entire maternity leave – I have NO IDEA how you do it! Here’s to making sure we remember the first
three months…
Breastfeeding – let’s start with this
topic as this is the one thing that has taken over my life the last 3
months. I had no idea what I was doing
and we had a lot of issues in the beginning.
First we had to trick Sophia to latch because she was used to getting
bottles in the NICU. So we would have a
syringe of breast milk and put it in the corner of her mouth to get her to
latch. (Thank you Bart for the HOURS of
help with this). Then she would latch
and begin screaming and arch her back. I
went to see a Lactation Consultant at my pediatrician’s office and she
recommended seeing a doctor for reflux.
She also noticed I had a very fast let down and oversupply which is
probably from pumping around the clock the first 10 days when she was in the
NICU to get enough to feed her. So she
recommended a kangaroo hold and side laying positions as well as a shield to
help with this. Every day I wanted to
quit, I had so much anxiety feeding my baby.
I would literally stare at the clock and as it got closer to feeding her
I could feel my anxiety build. I would
cry and cry as I fed her knowing we would have to start the whole process again
in two hours. I set small goals for
myself, let’s see if we can make it to 4 weeks, then 6, then 8 weeks. I can honestly say I’m SHOCKED we have made
it this long and yes it did get better.
Around 7 weeks there were 2 days Sophie didn’t want to nurse and I about
lost it – by this point it’s so convenient not to have to worry about bottles and
formula and the price is right and I was not ready to stop. Luckily we made it through and I’m proud to
say we’re still nursing. Now going back
to work and pumping will be a different story, I’m back to setting very small
goals for myself – let’s see if we can make it through week one!
Things I learned:
·
Get your partner on board and supportive
·
Get a My Breast Friend. Boppies suck!
·
Try different latches
·
Set small goals and celebrate small wins
·
Find a lactation consultant to help if you’re
having problems
·
Don’t beat yourself up if you supplement or stop
·
Don’t quit on
a bad day – wait for a good day and make a rational decision
Reflux – Sophia has acid reflux, not
the throwing up everywhere kind, the heartburn kind. We started her on Zantac at the doctor’s
recommendation. At first we were giving
it to her every 12 hours and at about the 10th hour it would stop
working. So we switched to 3x a day. Then
we were giving it every 8 hours so sometimes that would be in the middle of the
night – one day I asked Bart “why don’t we just give it to her when she wakes
up, midday and before bed”. She was
getting the benefits in the middle of the night when it wasn’t benefiting
anyone. DUH! We also had to keep
increasing her dosage as she gained weight (see all that work breastfeeding
above to get that chunk). She seems to
be doing much much better with the reflux.
The next step would be a stronger medicine as she is capped at her Zantac
dosage. We’re really hoping not to have
to do that as there is long term side effects with the stronger meds that we
would like to avoid if at all possible. The doctor is confident that it will
get much better around six months of age when her stomach is more mature and we
will be able to stop all meds J.
Colic – In addition to the reflux,
Sophia would just cry. ALL. THE.
TIME. There were nights where she
would cry for 6 hours straight – cry through feedings, cry through changings
just never stop crying. Those nights
were rough. We tried everything, going
for car rides, the swing, the bouncy seat, swaddling, shushing, walking around
with her swaying or bouncing or singing, bouncing on an exercise ball, football
hold, laying her on her belly on our laps, I mean everything. Different nights different things worked,
some nights nothing worked but waiting it out and passing her back and forth to
give each other a break. One day we got
in the car and drove around for 3 straight hours – she even slept through a
feeding and I threatened Bart’s life when he asked if I wanted to stop for
dinner. She still gets fussy sometimes
for no reason. Her “witching hours” tend
to be anywhere from 4:30 – 7, I have found if she naps during that time it is
much more peaceful ;-).
Mom’s group – my lactation consultant
at my pediatrician’s office has a mom’s group that meets on Wednesdays. She strongly encouraged me to go. The first time I went I had never taken
Sophia out by myself. The benefit of
having Bart home was we could do everything together; the bad part is I had
zero confidence to take her out on my own.
What do you do if you’re driving and she has a meltdown? Well… you figure it out. So I started going to this mom’s group. Sometimes I went and just watched and
listened to the other moms, sometimes I had 10 million questions to ask,
sometimes it just feels good for someone to go “ugh I remember those days they
suck but it gets better”. This group
became one of my favorite parts of the week.
It gave us something to do and got us out of the house and I got
solicited advice on top of it. I used to
bring a pumped bottle to feed her in the beginning and as the weeks went on, I
got a nursing cover and that was the first place I felt comfortable nursing in
public (with a cover of course). I loved
this group and will really miss it going back to work.
2 month shots – I made our 2 month
doctor appointment will full intentions to send Bart and stay home with a glass
of wine and avoid the whole situation.
Bart just happened to start his new job the exact day that these
occurred. She didn’t do all too bad
getting the shots – she got 5 total vaccines, 2 shots in the left leg, one in
the right and one orally. One of the
shots in the left leg had 2 vaccines in it.
I bought Tylenol just in case and headed home. We nursed and she went down for a long
nap. I thought hey we got this, my kid
is so used to being poked and prodded in the NICU we’re all good. At about 8:30pm she woke up from her “nap”
screaming bloody murder. I thought she
was starving because she hadn’t eaten in a while but when I laid her on her
side to feed her she screamed louder. I
went and looked at her legs and that left leg was all red and about double the
size. Like when you slap skin and its
hot red, the whole thing looked like that.
I gave her Tylenol instantly but she kept screaming. I called into her doctor’s office fully
expecting them to say no biggie, give Tylenol and all will be good. NOPE she says I would like someone to check
her out. I’m like ok like in the
morning, she says no right now, and I go ok where do I go, she says the
ER. WHAT?!?!? THE ER?????
Apparently allergic reactions are real scary in infants. We went to the ER right by our house and
luckily it was only a surface reaction and Tylenol was all we could do and wait
it out. She seemed fine in a few
hours. Mental note – remember this at 4
month shots!
Sleeping (or lack there of) – I’ve
asked a lot of opinions on sleeping – where do you put your baby, what do you
dress them in, what is your bedtime routine, what time do you put them to sleep
– here is what I learned… everyone is different, everyone does it different and
everyone gets different results. When
Sophia was nursing every 2 hours throughout the night it was way easier to have
her in the room with us. I put her rock
n play right next to the bed and we put a pack n play with a changing table in
the room too so that we could change her right there and not have to wake her
up too much. My goal was to feed and get
her back to sleep as fast as possible to I could try to get about 45 minutes of
sleep before she woke again. Sometimes
I’d let her lay next to me in bed if she fell asleep so I’d get a little more. I envy those who just put their baby in a
crib right away and their baby sleeps there all night long. I envy babies who magically sleep through the
night. One of these days I’m going to
put my big girl panties on and put her in the crib. I have no idea how to do this when I go back
to work, I’m exhausted every day and have no idea how I will function in the
real world. People say to sleep when
your baby sleeps; I’ve never been able just to fall asleep easy so I think I’ve
been running on empty for 3 months.
That’s one thing about nursing, when she wakes up in the middle of the
night it’s all on momma. I can’t wait
for this to get better, but I hear there is a 4 month sleep regression that
takes them back to the newborn stage so I’m not getting too excited about it.
Filling the days – let’s face it, I’m
not meant to be a SAHM. I like my career
and adult conversation and challenging myself in other ways. I envy SAHMs who can be at home all day I’m
just not one of them. There are days I
watched the clock and couldn’t wait until Bart got home. When they’re this little and you’ve watched
every show on Netflix or On Demand you can think of, you get a little
bored. What else can I do to entertain
this baby? We spend a lot of time
smiling and laughing and making faces at each other. This is my favorite thing to do and what I
will miss the most about not seeing my baby all day every day. We also do tummy time, play on the play mat,
hang out in the swing and the bouncy, walk around in the Bjorn, rinse and
repeat. Since it’s cold and crappy I
spend many days walking around Woodfield mall with the baby in the
carrier. It was good exercise but got to
be a bit boring after a while. Other
than the smiling and cooing, my favorite part was watching Sophia learn new
things. Things like learning to stick
out her tongue, finding her hands, grasping the oball for the first time – I’m
mortified to think about all the things I’ll miss while at work. We found a very sweet lady to watch Sophia. I have dropped her off twice for dry runs for
both me and the baby. It gave me a day
to get stuff done around the house to just some Monica time, and made me feel
more confident dropping her off every day.
I’m hoping it continues to go as well as the dry runs did and that
Sophia will love Cindy.
I have no
idea if I’ll ever talk my husband into giving Sophia a sibling – I hope someday
he forgets how tough the last three months have been so we can consider doing
it all over again and if that day ever comes, I wanted this post to look back
on and remember that we got through it all!
