Hippie Mom in a Preppy World

Posts Tagged ‘baby’

I was finally cleaning out the “Enfamil breastfeeding success” (hah!) bag from the hospital and found a form to receive a $5 rebate for the purchase of any breast pump in exchange for “important” information.  I don’t know if $5 is enough payment for me to be spammed by formula company propaganda.

Shammy just overwhelms me with all of the cute stuff that he does.  Daddy Fox has been teaching him to say “I love you”, I almost fell over the other day when Shammy responded with ” ai wuv wu”.  He now also says “hello” and decided to wake me up this morning that way, it’s a super cute way to wake up and I would take that any day over crying.

He has allowed me to shower 3 days in a row which is great, Dr. Punger says to enjoy that while it last because it will go away again, bummer.

I did end up getting a convertible car seat for him and I must say it is way better, Shammy loves it and now he only cries in it if he’s hungry or needs a diaper change and not just because he hates it.  In this process I became an expert at installing the darn thing, lol.  What I don’t like about this car seat is the fact that the button to release the harness is very hard and sometimes I have to struggle pressing with both thumbs for a while before it will release and giving me sore thumbs in the process.  I didn’t have that problem the first day so I must be getting weaker (in hindsight, I was developing a cold so yes, I’ve been weaker).

Shammy enjoyed the seat on his first road trip to Orlando, he slept happily the whole way there.  Grandma treated us to Shammy’s first trip to Disney and Shammy got to meet Mickey and friends!  I will say that I have never been excited about Disney until having this kid, lol.  He did remarkably well during that trip.

ignoring Minney Mouse

We attended Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween and Shammy was the cutest little skeleton baby and his costume glows in the dark!

The stroller didn’t get used as much while at Magic Kingdom as he became overstimulated very quickly and started to freak out, the only way that I was able to keep him calm while out of the Baby Center was if I wore him in my sling, thank goodness that I had the sense to bring it!

Shammy has personalized mouse ears!

People had warned me about nursing in public at Disney saying that I could only do it at the Baby Center and that I would get harassed if I tried it anywhere else.  I know my rights and refuse to have a hungry baby wait until I can get to the “nursing room” so I breastfed in public all over Disney in benches, at the hotel, in an ice cream shop in Downtown Disney and many more places and never once got bothered by anyone and had a happy baby.

the undead family

For this trip I tried out using gDiapers, they’re a hybrid diaper with a cloth pant and disposable insert that is fully biodegradable, they work really well as long as they are used right, I made the mistake of only giving Daddy Fox a very brief tutorial on how to use them before I went to lie down and had a major leak when Shammy was brought to me to nurse because the insert had one corner that wasn’t tucked in.  Overall the gDiapers are a good choice when traveling and not yet having a large cloth stash.

I have about given up using prefolds with Shammy, he just hates them, instead I use them on the changing table to deal with messes.  Little by little I will continue to get Bumgenius 4.0, I am thinking about selling the 3.0 stash that I have to fund the purchase of new ones, I also ordered 1 Flip diaper to try out and see how Shammy likes it, we’ll see…  I hope to soon have a decent enough stash so that I can go back to cloth diapering full time.

Shammy is growing tall like his daddy, he is up to 9 pounds and 15 ounces and 23 inches long!  I call him my wiener baby because he is long and skinny.

He has been turning into a bit of a momma’s boy lately, preferring to be with me when I’m around and crying if I leave the room, it’s very cute but it will make it that much harder for when I go back to work next week.  I’m so NOT looking forward to returning to work.

In other news we’re officially planning the Blessing Ceremony for Shammy’s 3 month birthday, I ordered the invites today so that they can go out by the end of next week since it will be on a busy weekend for many people.  It’s funny that my stress right now is about what Shammy is going to wear for it, and not a worry about what I may wear, lol.

the cutest giraffe ever

Motherhood really changes you, I never thought that I would get poop on myself and not be grossed out by it.

For the past week we have been dealing with a very fussy baby, this is a lot of fun when I’m home alone all day while hubby is at work because I can barely put the baby down to use the restroom and it requires an act of congress to get him down for a nap that he would then wake up from 5 mins later.

The fussiness seems to be gas related but I don’t know if it’s something in my diet that he gets through the breastmilk since it doesn’t happen at every feeding.  He tends to be cranky in the afternoon and evening, once he settles down for the night he sleeps like an angel and I have to wake him up to nurse or else he’ll sleep straight through the night.  By the morning my breasts are so full that I feel like I’m carrying water balloons.

Before we start to get the flood of suggestions for things to try, please know that we have done research and tried all of the usual suggestions from wearing, movement, positioning, white noise, vacuum cleaner, etc.  they usually work for a few minutes if that.  So unless your suggestion is really offbeat and uncommon, we have already tried it.

Usually he finally settles down after a nursing session in which he’ll fall asleep on my chest, the key is knowing when he’s in a deep enough sleep to be transferred to his bassinet, lately I’ve discovered that he’s fine as long as he’s not sleeping on his back.  Doctors don’t advise babies to sleep on their stomachs but I admit to have done it once or twice during the day when he finally falls asleep after crying inconsolably for hours.  I end up checking up on him very often and don’t do it at night.

It is only a matter of time before he makes the choice for himself though.  He can already easily roll over on to his side, another favorite sleeping position of his so I wouldn’t be surprised to one day see him completely turning onto his stomach and then there won’t be much that I could do about it.

he turns onto his side all by himself

I can’t hardly wait for Shaman’s and my appointment with Dr. Punger next week.  We had noticed that he had a slight tongue-tie but didn’t think it was a problem but after almost 2 weeks I think that it is interfering with his breastfeeding latch.  He is fully capable of a perfect latch… when he wants to but when he’s not in the mood he just does what he wants and it takes quite a bit of adjusting and pain in the meantime.  Thank goodness for Lansinoh.

After a struggle to get my disability forms in now it’s a matter on waiting for my employer’s HR department to submit their part in hopes that I can get the first check before our rent is due.

The baby blues have eased quite a bit without me having to take the pills but I admit that I come close to losing it when I’m home alone with a baby that’s been crying non stop for an hour.

you wouldn't imagine that he had just spent 3 hours crying nonstop

The anemia is better in the sense that I no longer get dizzy spells but I still struggle with weakness and exhaustion and the fact that I easily get cold, even when the thermostat is set to 80 degrees.  That is quite a change from when I was pregnant and I felt like I was melting at 70 degrees.

I have lost an additional 8 pounds this week for a total of 29 pounds lost since birth.  I’m sure that a demanding baby that doesn’t let mommy eat more than mini snacks during the day has anything to do with this.

The swelling is not fully gone but it has gone down considerably, my wedding band fits again (barely) and some shoes fit again (tightly), we’re getting there.

Right now I’m not using cloth diapers exclusively due to some slight technical difficulties.  The washer for some reason is not filing up with hot water while washing them and since them his skin seems to be sensitive to them, not rash extreme but enough that I alternate between cloth and sposies to give his skin a break.

I will say that the cloth diapers are way better at containing his blowouts, the only time that he’s had “accidents” has been when wearing disposables.  I still use the sposies at night until he can grow into the pocket diapers that I have since he tends to sleep for so long that I have to wake him up to change him.

I do like the cloth wipes way better than the disposable wipes.  Just a cloth wipe and water does faster cleaning using less wipes, I really should get more of those!

And by the way, the backseat of the car SUCKS as a changing table.

Shaman’s first few days were spent being poked and prodded at all hours of the day.  Since Shammy was born after my water had been broken for a long period of time, the doctors feared that he may have an infection.  The cultures came back negative  and he never had a fever but one of the usual markers for infection was way higher than normal so he ended up receiving antibiotics and spending an extra day at the hospital.

Because he was born by C-section I wasn’t able to take the placenta home to encapsulate.  I actually had a mini argument with the surgeon while I laid out open in the OR but I realized that it was a losing battle as he dismissively said “we’ll have you talk to the pathologist”.  They were not against giving me the placenta once they were done with it, they just insisted on giving it to me in formaldehyde, ugh.

While at the hospital I kept getting comments of “wow, big baby!” and the doctor even said that he didn’t think he could have been born vaginally due to his head being so big, I disagree but there is no point in arguing by now.

Sometimes I look at him while somebody else is holding him and think “that big baby came out of me?!”, lol.  Now that we’re in the outside world people ask if he is a preemie until we tell them how old he really is and then they switch to wow, that’s big, lol.

This is a very strong boy from the start, he was holding his head up just hours after being born and smiling.

He has taken to breastfeeding well although since I nurse on demand we’re still trying to find a schedule and stick to it, right now it looks like it’ll be every 2 1/2 hours or so.  I am glad for this as breastfeeding poop is so much better and doesn’t smell.

There was a particular nurse at the hospital that annoyed me and I nicknamed her the breastfeeding nazi.  First she expected my milk to have come in less than 12 hours after he was born, she was overly critical of the latch position in contradiction to the feedback from other nurses, the lactation consultant and later on Dr. Punger.  But when she really freaking annoyed me was on the last night at the hospital when she tried to lay a booby trap on me.  Boobys trap are misconceptions that are forced upon nursing mothers that make them feel that they are unable to exclusively breastfeed their child, thankfully I had been well educated on this in pregnancy so her tactic didn’t work.

The bf nazi decided to wake me up at 2am on our last night at the hospital and while I was in a sleep induced fog tried to “inform” me that Shaman had lost too much weight and that I will need to supplement with formula starting immediately.  In my fog I was able to muster enough coherence to explain to her that no, it is normal for a newborn to lose weight (and she should know that) and that even though he was in the upper range of weight loss, it is normal for breastfed babies to lose more until mom’s milk comes in and there is no need to rush into formula as long as he’s soiling enough diapers.  She kept arguing with me so I ultimately convinced her to bring me a breast pump and allow me to supplement with pumped breastmilk.  She didn’t like it but realized that she was not going to change my mind without bringing a team of pediatricians in carrying medical literature.

In the end I only pumped about an ounce that was never brought back to us to give to him before discharge.  Just like I knew, she had been making a big deal over nothing as Shammy had regained 8 oz by the time he had his first pediatrician’s appointment approx 30 hours later (and grew half an inch!) and although he hasn’t been weighed since then I can tell that he’s gaining weight by watching his cheeks filling up and noticing that he’s already outgrowing the newborn sized fitted cloth diapers.

I am lucky that I only encountered the one booby trap but feel bad for other mothers that would have easily succumbed to the pressure.  I met one such mom at the breastfeeding class I took at the hospital that was already supplementing with formula on the belief that she wasn’t making enough for her baby.

The hospital experience was so stressful for him that it made him constipated.  This poor kid was really holding it in for several days.  He pooped while in distress and then once more the night he was born and then nothing again until he came home from the hospital.  The doctor was not worried so I wasn’t either.  Within hours of coming home he relaxed and cleaned himself out over the next 24 hours to catch up.  Now he can fart with the best of them, it can be heard all the way across the house.

I am not doing elimination communication yet as it was too overwhelming to move around and take care of him but I am trying to pay attention to his patterns so that when I do try it it’ll be easier for me to know when he needs to go.

This little baby has inherited his mom’s “in your face” approach to certain things as he insisted on nursing during the whole wheelchair ride out of the hospital room to the car when we were discharged.  It was hilarious to watch the look of shock on everybody that we encountered along the way.  The nurses asked if we wanted to wait and my response was “he doesn’t mind”, I guess that they’re not used to dealing with somebody that is confident in nature’s design.

Shammy proudly nursing at the hospital's entrance while waiting to get into the car

Now that he’s at home I wish that there was a camera constantly following us to document all of the precious moments, there is so much that is being missed on a daily basis.

I can just stare into his eyes forever, they are so hypnotizing.  I just sit there in awe every time he smiles or when he makes interesting facial expressions as he is having nice dreams.

He is showing tendencies of being a barefoot hippie as he doesn’t seem to like wearing socks and is an expert at taking them off in record time.  The same applies to hats and blankets.  We just ended up having to get a sleep sac so that he won’t end up with cold feet overnight.

isn't he the cutest sleeping little ball?