Good Bye Old Friend

The end of an era has dawned; my daughter is no longer nursing. When she was born and I started breastfeeding I said that I was going to do it for one year and then she was cut off (yes, “cut off” were my exact words). After my 10 months of vomit filled pregnancy, I wanted my body back to myself and dreamed about the day that I could eat what I wanted and drink what I wanted… Well, one year came and went, my priorities changed and we were still a nursing team. I learned all about the World Health Organization’s 2 year recommendation and that the world average of nursing cessation was 4.2 years old… so I decided at 2 years we would start the weaning process. I felt good about our choice to continue, and I say our choice because it was one that we both made. Everly had already decreased feedings at her own pace since she turned one year, it wasn’t something that I pushed or discouraged. On her own she went down to 2 feedings/day (nap and bedtime) and I was happy to continue with this routine. It didn’t bother me that some people thought it was weird that I was still nursing her. I thought it was weird that they thought it was weird… ah our lovely Western Culture and its sexualization of the breasts.

And then I started experiencing severe digestive health issues. Suddenly I had doctors encouraging me to take different medications that were not healthy to take while nursing. I had a tough choice- her or me; for the past 2 months, I have chosen her. After some soul searching and talking to other experienced moms, I realized it wasn’t such a black and white situation; there was pretty shade of gray area. By taking these pills that may help to stabilize my digestive health I am better able to be there for her all the time. I won’t have to keep a stash of toys in the bathroom just in case we have to hang out in there for extended periods of time and we won’t have to remain at home when we would rather be at the park or the pool or playgroup.

I took the opportunity to stop nursing while I was away in Las Vegas at my cousin’s wedding last week. I thought it would be the perfect time. I would be away from her so she wouldn’t expect it anyway, and this time away I was told would dry up my supply. Okay, plan in place. My last nursing session with her was the Saturday night before I left. I was sitting with her in the rocking chair and feeding her as she drifted off to sleep. I could not help but cry, and I can’t help but get misty eyed about it now as I write. I just thought in my head, remember this moment. Everly warm and snuggly in my arms, the smell of her freshly bathed skin, still wet curls at the nape of her neck, the gentle suckling of her cheeks and pursed lips, her pink sleep sack and her baby in her arms. I put her down in her crib, by now she was in a deep sleep and I told her I loved her and that I would see her in a few days. I probably checked on her 4 times that night, just to watch her sleep before I left.

Las Vegas was great. No pain from milk supply, the sun was out and the deck chairs were welcoming! News from home told me that Everly was taking my absence like a champ; I didn’t know whether to be happy or sad about that one, lol! I was still feeling sad about stopping, and I was missing her, but all in all I knew that I was doing the right thing. Each day I check to see if the milk was drying up as I was told it would. I pictured this desert wasteland that my boobs would become inside, maybe it would nastify them even more? But each day there was still milk- wth? I shrugged it off as weird and went about my sun bathing and shopping.

I got home from Las Vegas late at night. I had to sneak a peek at my sleeping girl. I breathed in the smell of her room, the smell of my daughter everywhere; ahhhh, home. She looked so peaceful and I have to admit that it took all my might to keep myself from scooping her up and holding her! The next day when nap time came, I rocked her and put her down, no issues at all… same for bedtime. The days since have been the same, she has only asked once or twice and has been easily distracted by Goodnight Moon both times. It was hard to say no and I felt guilty, but I did it. We did it. And I think now it’s safe to say that she is officially weaned (despite the fact that I still have milk; gross, when will this stuff dry up? Am I that much of a milk machine?).

I didn’t expect it to be this hard. And I didn’t expect to miss nursing this much. I thought that I would beam with freedom from the mountain tops and drink Bellini’s and eat onions like a fiend. I guess it doesn’t help that I now know I am allergic to onions and can’t eat them anyway and I am not supposed to drink either;  that bit is a little anticlimactic isn’t it. But nursing was good to me and I would like to thank breastfeeding for the following:

1)      Helping my body fit into a size 4. Yes, size 4. The recent removal of sugar and high fat foods among other things has also helped with this, but Nursing can be credited with 40 pounds worth of the 60 pounds that I have lost. Wow, just typing that makes me all the more thankful again. Boobs you are great!

2)      Taking multi-tasking to a whole new level. I could nurse, Photoshop, talk on the phone and have a snack all at the same time. I remember setting up a nursing station early on- water, lip balm, phones (home and cell), remote and oh, the baby (ha). By the end I could walk around and nurse at the same time (ta-da!).

3)      Making my life easier. I saw what moms who bottle fed had to go through. The formula making, the boiling water, washing and boiling bottles, filling bottles, heating bottles, it seemed like an endless amount of work. Time and time again, all I had to do was lift up or pull down my shirt and whip out a boob, affix to E’s mouth and we were ready to rock and roll. This convenience was especially nice in the middle of the night when I just had to roll to my side and she was beside me.

4)      Newfound respect for my body and mother nature. Before I became a mother, I thought about my body in terms of looks and valued it that way. Now I am better able to value it for function. I grew a baby and then fed that baby. I know women do it all the time, but still, it’s pretty freaking amazing.

5)      My attachment to my daughter. Now this one is tricky. I am not saying that mothers who don’t breastfeed their babies won’t attach as well, because it’s just not true, they will. All I am saying is that personally, nursing Everly really helped me to attach to her and I am pretty confident that it helped her to attach with me. We had a bit of a traumatic birth. Things didn’t go as planned and I was in shock after she was born. I didn’t get that glowy moment where she was put on my chest and B cut the cord and all that. So it wasn’t until we were snuggled together and we were trying to get her to latch that I realized I had a baby. I know that sounds really stupid but it’s true. It dawned on me, I am responsible for this precious little bug! She looked up at me through those long lashes of hers and she likely thought something of the same.

And that’s all I can think of for now. But I am sure there is more! Breastfeeding I tip my hat to you, it’s been a good run friend.

8:05am Cheers With The Sippy Cup

Yesterday morning I got a taste of what it would be like to be a working single mother with an 8 month old baby, let me just take a moment to say, wow- my hat goes off to those ladies who do this every day!

7:20am… B walks into the bedroom to tell me that Everly is still sleeping and that he is leaving for work. I pop out of bed like a piece of toast, amazed that it is 7:15 and she is still sleeping… what happened to her waking me up between 6:45 and 7:00? Knowing that we need to be out of the house by 7:50 I walk down the hall and open the door to her bedroom, hoping that the morning ambiance will wake her.

7:25am… I am in the bathroom having a hooker shower with a face cloth and wetting my hair, just as I start brushing my teeth I hear B walk into her room and pick her up (wasn’t he leaving)? He plunks her down on the floor in the bathroom and says see ya later- thanks babe, (secretly I was hoping that she would stay sleeping until I was dressed).

7:27am… she is hungry and not being shy about telling me (of course), I realize that I am going to have to feed her as I do what I need to do to get ready. In the high chair she goes as I mix up her breakfast, am thinking this might be better because now she is contained. I drag the high chair to my room where I take turns giving her spoonfuls of cereal mixed with fruit and getting myself dressed. One spoonful, 2 socks, one spoonful, underwear, one spoonful, bra… until I am done and she nearly is too- aha! We have a system.

7:37am… I sit to feed her the last bits of her breakfast and suddenly I am aware of the towel still on my head. I drag her high chair to the bathroom door and take turns putting product into my hair while feeding her the last spoonfuls of her cereal- thank goodness she choose to cooperate and eat this morning is all I can think of… thank you patron saint of feeding babies. I pause and wonder what would the patron saint of feeding babies be called? Emeril, Rachel, Top Chef? Maybe that guy who swears all the time… okay focus, focus.

7:45am… time to nurse Everly. I thought we might be able to wait to do this until I got her to my cousin’s (who was looking after her), but no, she would have none of it. I am tapping my foot on the floor as she guzzles; said guzzling is partially because I am squashing my boob with my free hand to make the milk come out as fast as possible… I have seen how this kid can throw back a bottle, I know she can handle it.

7:50… we were supposed to be leaving the house at this point but nope, it’s only time to get Everly dressed. Getting Everly dressed is kind of like trying to get a lobster into one leg on a pair of pantyhose without the pantyhose being snagged; it isn’t easy. So we wrestle and sing songs and eventually she is ready to go. I put on her coat and strap her into her car seat.

7:56… I am a pack mule waking out to the car with Everly’s diaper bag, my work bag, Everly’s daycare supplies bag and my donations for work bag… oh and Everly in her car seat- which now officially combined weighs over 25 pounds. I hobble and hop and get half way to the car and realize that I am still wearing my slippers. I trek on despite the slippers, I have come too far with my load to turn back, I am closer to the car than my door. I play put stuff into the car tetris and then quickly run back into the house for some shoes- awesome, we are ready to go and only 10 minutes behind schedule.

8:03am… I am in the car at an intersection and hear my tummy growl, I feel my throat- heechk (a bit dry and pasty), is it possible that through all of this I have not eaten or drank anything, YES. Food I knew I didn’t have, but water hmmm, I took a quick look around the inside of my car and miracle of miracles, there in the cup holder was one of Everly’s sippy cups. I grabbed the cup and tried to get the lid off so that I could down the water inside, yeah, no, they don’t make these lids easy to get off do they. So I started sipping. I learned yesterday morning that it takes a lot of effort to get water out of a sippy cup, so I was sipping hard. I started to feel like I was being watched and sure enough I was. The lady in the car on my left was staring blank faced right at me. I found myself embarrased for a nanosecond and then I took the cup out of my mouth, raised it in a cheers like fashion and drove away as the light turned green… at least I gave her something to tell her friends at work.

8:13am… we arrive at my cousin’s house, 13 minutes late but everyone present and sound. I drop her off without any trouble and head to work. I take a deep breath and blow it out slowly… ahhhh work the vacation day in my week.

Do The Babies Have Large Talons?

One thing I forgot to ask in the prenatal class was if the babies come out with large talons… I am not sure if they would have told me the truth and said yes, they would have probably lied and said no. It’s fitting that this crucial bit of information was left out like so many other “gems” that may affect one’s decision to procreate. So I am here to tell you that yes, the baby comes with large talons, maybe not right away, but they grow in and they are sharp. Once the nails start growing you realize that you are going to have to cut them. I am not sure there was anything about infant care that I was so terrified about. You are holding this tiny baby hand with it’s 5 paper thin, nearly microscopic nails and you are meant to clip them with razor sharp cutters (okay maybe the cutters are not razor sharp but they might as well be for how scary it is). I made Brandon do it the first few times. The first time he cut her nails she bled, and since fingertips bleed like gutted pigs, the blood kept pouring… reminding us that we had failed on this one. Fortunately she was so tiny and tired that she barely noticed (thank God!). The next few rounds of cutting were uneventful, I think it was once he got confident that he accidentally cut her again, this time she was awake, alert and livid. She cried and bled for what seemed like hours but was probably only 5 minutes. I volunteered to take over after that. So now nail cutting is my job and I do it while she is eating at night (her most naturally sedate time). It’s a good thing that by this point in time I have gone pro nail cutter, because my daughter’s nails grow so fast, I could cut them twice a week if I really wanted to be picky about it, come to think of it the time may have come to get picky. 

Baby and Daddy!

 

Lately each breastfeeding session results in my boobs clawed up, (like I said, those little f***ers are SHARP! Everly has a need for a lot of tactile stimulation right now, and by tactile stimulation I mean clawing, scratching, pinching, twisting and pulling; all of the above are currently offenses committed by her on my sensitive boob skin and nipples. Right now both my right and left breasts look like google maps- little scratches like little streets and scabs that might represent a school or shopping mall. Yes we have started the discipline thing and I take her off the boob and hold her hand and say NO! I have even taken it one step further and I hold her hand and run my finger along the top of it and say ‘gentle’ so that she knows what a gentle touch feels like. But all it takes is one second and she is really good at getting that one second in! I was very near to weaning her from the breast I was so fed up with it, instead she now wears mittens or gets swaddled, which you can guess she really appreciates. How funny does that look, my little baby tucking in for a meal with pink woolen mittens on her hands. The good that has come out of this is that the swaddle really helps her to relax before sleep, thank you breasts for your sacrifice… should have known that the brain in it’s quest for sleep would be willing to sacrifice other body parts.  

Yes, the topic of sleep, always an interesting one in our household. How I wish I could go back to the days where she slept with us in our bed without a peep for solid 8 and 9 hour stretches, only we would all have enough room. In this fantasy my ass wouldn’t be hanging off the side of the bed while B’s leg hangs off the other side, while Everly ‘queen of the bed’ spreads out like a snow angel in the middle, life would be good. But no, life didn’t continue on like it does in dreams and we had to put her in her crib. If you have been reading this blog you know the ordeal that has been for our ‘spirited’ baby. Well it seems that the Baby Whisperer (who told us our child is spirited) has helped this family. I say seems because so far things are going pretty good. She is only waking to feed once in a 12 hour stretch (I am totally willing to live with this) and she is sleeping in her own bed. When she goes down for sleep times it can sometimes be a bit of an ordeal and may take up to 30 minutes, but I feel okay with that because the Baby Whisperer said her worst case had her standing next to the crib for nearly 2 hours. I feel better knowing someone had it worse than us, isn’t that mean, yes it’s mean, but it doesn’t change the fact that I still feel better about it, lol! 

Pickle likes her crib!

Page 56 Is Changing My Life… I Hope?

Click  HERE  and scroll to page 56…  I have experienced all 10 of these myself, (the breastfeeding issue has come only recently) and I would bet my weight in diamonds that almost every mother out there has as well. Who hasn’t felt guilt in motherhood? Can I go so far as to say if you haven’t felt guilt you are doing something wrong, lol… If you haven’t, please raise your hand so that we can spot you and appraise you accordingly!  Maybe some of us are better at looking at parenthood objectively, and responding appropriately to our own needs, but my experience has been that all objectivity goes out the window the minute your heart gets so invested.

I visited our Healthcare Professional with Everly on Wednesday as a follow up to our hospital visit for a case of croup (poor baby). Everly is getting better quickly and should be back to herself in a week or so (hmmm, was she ever not herself? I don’t remember her slowing down at all!). It was me who received two prescriptions though. I guess my state of sleep deprivation was a little bit more noticeable than I though. I admitted that sometimes my arm goes numb and tingly and I am experiencing apraxia and dizzy spells, yeah I am tired, but really who isn’t? Every mother that I know is tired! I said that the sleep training was on the back burner until Everly is well again… I was told this is no excuse to not be taking care of myself. Hmmm, I guess it isn’t.

Prescription number 1- I must take 2 hours for myself AT LEAST 5 days of the week and I am not allowed to do household chores during that time (no cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry- all the fun stuff). Well this all sounds good on paper and it’s not like my husband hasn’t been urging me to do this for some time, but at the end of the day I am so freaking tired I just want to zone out and lay down and relax which is kind of hard to do when my home is still full of activity. The last thing that I usually feel like doing is getting ‘outside’ clothes on, getting in the car and going somewhere. But maybe I should. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to see if I actually feel better once I get out… kind of like when you don’t want to go to the gym but you make yourself go and once you start exercising you are glad you went?? Will have to test this theory, maybe tomorrow, lol, no really am acknowledging that I have to test this theory.

Prescription number 2- Brandon and I are to rotate the night shift once sleep training commences. This one also sounds wonderful on paper, except for the fact that I wake up before him and can’t go back to sleep until the baby is also back to sleep, so I still have to hear her cry. I think it might even be worse to lay there and listen to her cry because I feel like I am not doing anything to help. But that’s where the article on guilt comes in. I need to step back and let Everly and Brandon find their way together too. B suggested that I wear earplugs and I hesitated in doing that because he doesn’t wake up as easily as me, but if there is one thing I should know about Everly by now it is that she is REALLY loud when she needs some attention, lol! So I think it’s time to buy some earplugs.

Yesterday the prescriptions were written and I have already broken #1 twice, but it’s not really my fault, seriously it isn’t. Will try to follow the rules more closely and not let outside influences lure me away!

Is This A Routine?

So it’s been how many days since I last blogged… did I take a hiatus without even knowing it? I think so. Kind of like Gray’s Anatomy and their rip off episode a few weeks ago, oh well at least I have all the Christmas shows coming up to take it’s place. Yes I am a little bit addicted to some tv. I can admit it, I don’t care. I know that some people are all like, I don’t watch tv… well congrats to you, you don’t watch tv, I do and I like it. Right now the PVR is my best friend. I don’t know what I would do without it. I think the reason I actually like tv still is because of the PVR, if I didn’t have one, I would miss everything and then maybe I would be one of those non-tv watchers. I just like the fact that I can press play and zone out for 30 minutes and not be responsible for anything other than sitting on my ass. Not a lot of people will admit that, but I have no problem. I am pretty much “Shaw On Demand” for my baby; always entertaining and trying to be new and fun and exciting with great graphics (of course I have great graphics!). So I think it is only fair that I should be allowed some time in my day where I don’t have to use my brain. I always thought that staying home with a baby would leave me using less of my brain. I have found that in a way it might, as I am not thinking as hard, but I thinking more so it feels way more exhausting. This is way more tiring brain work for me than University. That might have something to do with the kind of Unviersity student I was though; minimal attender, crunch studier and last minute paper writer. At Uni I only had some days that were like that amongst many that were smooth sailing. Everly is a crash course everyday!!

A crash course in CUTE!

In the last 4 days that I haven’t written Everly has kept on truckin’ at this little schedule of hers that she may be developing. I say MAY because I don’t want to jinx anything. Sometimes when I write about how well things are going, things get tough again, so I start to wonder, am I jinxing myself or does my head get inflated with confidence and I think I can do anything? Who knows, but at any rate, things are going really well. She is to bed around 7:30, up at 5:30am to eat and back to sleep again until 8:30 or so. Today I was a bad, bad mom and I brought her into bed with me to sleep in, we slept in until 9:30 because we were really tired. Well Everly may not have been but I was. Now that she is sleeping good I have to work on sleep training myself. Parents- why did you not sleep train me? I hope that things continue on this positive path. Well, at least until our trip to Seattle this weekend, will be interesting to see how that one goes? UGH!

Baby is leaving the country.

So I have been getting sideways glances and “feedback” about the way we have chosen to introduce solid foods to Everly. Being as fortunate as I am to have the job that I do, I have been able to take many different training courses and attend various conferences on infant/child development. One thing that I had the opportunity to learn about was the history of puree baby food and the concept of baby led weaning. Like pretty much everyone else out there I had no idea that baby food puree was invented when formula was invented to provide nutrients that the formula was missing out on. Now because such young babies were eating the baby food it had to be pureed and strained so that they would swallow it. Very young infants have the reflex to push out anything other that liquid from their mouths with their tongues… as formula started to be more complete (and mothers fortunately started nursing again- another can of beans that rots my socks), the age at which to introduce solids became older and then older again until finally experts settled on the 6 month/milestone related reference that we use today. The funny thing about all of this is that how we introduce solids to babies has not changed. We still introduce them as though they are tiny infants! By 6 months a baby is ready for some lumps and bumps and they need these things to help them develop speech sounds and to learn how to NOT choke on food. So with this in mind, we decided to go the baby led weaning  route with Everly. We don’t puree her food and we let her feed herself as much as possible. I still spoon feed her cereal because she can’t feed herself with a spoon yet and she needs the cereal because we don’t have enough iron rich foods worked in her diet at the moment. A lot of  people don’t like this way of going about introducing solids, especially older people. They shake their heads and make that tut-tut sound that basically means you are a terrible mother and your baby WILL SUFFER. Well tut-tutters, what did people do before there was jarred baby food to buy? Oh that’s right, they fed them tiny pieces of food from their hands or a tray, hmmmm, we are all still here and we learned how to eat, funny thing that is.

Yes I feed myself and it gets messy!

How is it that nearly everyone I know has almost finished or has completely finished Christmas shopping, decorating and wrapping. I tried to start wrapping stocking stuff last week but it just didn’t happen and I won’t be putting my tree up until it is December. I know that my “mom” friends have to jump at the opportunity when it presents itself so they got everything done while they could. I am a “mom” friend, why have I not jumped at the opportunities when I have had them? I always thought I was the festive one. Maybe not. Christmas is really stressing me out this year, probably because I have less than half of the amount of money that I used to be able to put towards it. Now I know the Christmas is not about the gifts and blah, blah, blah, but it kind of is. Do we really thing that so many people would enjoy and celebrate Christmas if there were no gifts? I am here to play the devil’s advocate and say that no, no there would not. To me, the real fun of Christmas is getting things for everyone that you know they are going to like. I love hunting for gifts and watching the reciepient’s face when they open the present and see that it’s just what they wanted/needed and there is this moment where they look and you and are all like, you were listening to me when I spoke. I listen and I like to deliver. This year I have had to be a bit more creative. What we are giving might not have been on everyone’s lists, but I can guarantee there will be no returns and no unhappy reciepients, they just didn’t know it existed and that they could ask for it… sneaky, sneaky, sneaky!

Christmas Baby!

Hello, My Name Is Jessica And I Have Been Sleep Training For Over 30 Days….. Hello Jessica….

I have to say that the 30 day mark brough us some interesting changes. For one, Everly now makes very little fuss when she is put down to sleep. In fact she does this really cute little ritual of playing with her hippo and talking. I think she is telling the hippo a sleep time story. We keep the hippo in the crib, so she only gets him at sleep times- creating novelty we are! It is so nice to just lay her down and she falls asleep. This was our biggest problem and it began to be solved, how lucky were we!

Then she started a new routine of consistent night waking and staying up for 2 hours. Needless to say, I was quickly eager to kick this experience to the curb, as I didn’t think it was beneficial to anyone in our family or entire household. I read an article about trained night feeders and another about the possibility of backsliding to multiple feedings each night because of night feeds for babies who really didn’t need them… a 4:30 am feeding becomes 4:00, and then 3:30 and then 3:00 and so on and so on… this is what was happening to us. Then I read another article about morning rituals and we were guilty of a confusing morning ritual as well… gawd! All of this googling happened between the wee hours of 1:00 am and 3:00 am while I was waiting for her to fall back asleep on Sunday night.

When we started the sleep training I just fed Everly when she woke up in the middle of the night. The first week of training the middle of the night was around 5:00 am (yes I know that’s not the middle of the night but it felt like it, lol). The week after that it was 4:00 am, and then 3:00 am and then 2:00 am. Each time I fed her she would go back to sleep for another 3 or 4 hours. Initially when the feedings were very early morning another stretch of 3 or 4 hours was perfect. However, once she was waking at 2:00 am, one night feeding became two and she started staying awake and wanting to play. This was not a habit I wanted us to get into because if she didn’t need it before, why did she need it now… well I realized that she needed to eat to get back to sleep. So we decided to eliminate any feedings that occurred before 5:00 am (a baseline time we knew she could comfortably do). I read a lot about how to know when a baby is ready to eliminate night time feeds and it looks as though she qualifies by age, health and size; I also have an appointment with our doctor on Thursday to confirm these findings. 

So, to eliminate night waking we have begun the process of gradually eliminating the 5:00 am feeding. Last night I let her eat until she was drowsy again and it took 15 minutes, so tonight she eats for no more than 14 minutes. Apparently once you get to 5 minutes and under the baby will eliminate the feeding all on their own. The night before last was the first night we tried this and she protested, oh did she protest! I was up for 3 hours in the middle of the night waiting for her to fall back asleep. I just needed to know if it was possible- and it was! Last night she didn’t wake up until 5:00 am again, so I got a blissful 7 hours worth of sleep. I feel a bit drunk truth be told 🙂

Our morning ritual was another speed bump that we had to level. When she would want that 5:00 or 6:00 am feeding, I would bring her into bed and lay down while feeding her and of course we would fall asleep. Now how confusing must that have been for her. No wonder she would wake in the middle of the night and be upset. She had no idea that 2:00 am was not 5:00 am, she just knew she wanted to be fed to sleep in our bed and that sometimes it happens, so we had to cut that out. Yesterday and today I fed her on the couch and put her back in her crib and both times she slept until 8:00 am (longer than she does in our bed!). So now I feel super guilty of course as I was confusing the crap out of her because I wanted to get in a little more sleep. Well I have now learned to not underestimate her. I thought she wouldn’t go back to sleep if I put her back in her crib at that time of the morning. Turns out that if she is still tired she will sleep- what a novel idea. I promptly apologized to her. She can still come in to our bed in the morning for a little play time so we can cuddle, I don’t want to give that up, that is my favourite part of the day, it’s when the 3 of us feel most like a family to me 🙂

So here’s to having another night like last night, but with only 14 minutes of eating at 5:00 am!