How are the recent GP grads doing?

[Jalapeñomel]

Lots of new moms lately, so let us know how you are doing:

sameoldash bazinga ErinExpat sporklemotion

Who else am I missing?

[sporklemotion]

I'm doing well over all-- thanks for asking!
We came home yesterday, so last night was our first solo evening. It was nice to eat whatever we wanted instead of hospital food, and to introduce our cats to Esther. So far, they seem to like her, now that they are used to the wailing. When I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I came back and one of my cats was watching over her from our bed.

The not-so-good stuff: Esther is a cluster-feeder, which I did not realize until after we had ordered dinner. She nursed for several hours and every time I thought we were done, we weren't. Plus, she is not taking well to sleeping in her bassinet at night. So I was up almost all night because every time I would try to move her, she'd wig out. I am napping more today in hopes that I'll have more energy to spare tonight.

DH is helping as much as he can, but it's hard for him to do much when she won't let him take her, either. She's about 50-50 on that. So he tries not to bother me and tries to console her, but she just ends up more agitated and then I get upset, too. I know he's having a hard time watching me get so worn out, but he can't fix this in the ways he wants to. He hasn't read or researched as much as I have, so he'll try to wait on giving her to me to nurse so that I can rest more. He is starting to get it, though, and I think it will work out. We are also using other soothing techniques (alas Happiest Baby on the Block), and hopefully they will help.

We had our first pedi appointment today, and she said that Esther looks good. She was hopeful that the nursing/sleeping stuff will work out eventually.

[vmars]

So glad everyone is doing well - I can't wait to join you!!

[Jalapeñomel]

Dec 6, 2013 18:40:37 GMT -5 sameoldash said:

does anyone else feel the sun is magic? night time can be soooo hard, but i can actually FEEL my mood lighten as soon as the sun starts to come up. it's like my eyelids are no longer heavy, and i feel much more positive about things. i didn't expect it to be so intense!

OMG yes.  The night time feeds are one hundred billion times more difficult than feeding during the day time.  The MOTN threads on MMM make me feel like I am a little less insane.  D still eats every 2.5 hours, and on the off day that he goes for 3, I feel like a new person.  One day he went for 4, and my boobs kept me up. 

Glad to know you are all surviving.  Not to scare you, but I actually think the first week or so was the easiest, because you still have that adrenaline high from having a new baby.  

Oh and the leaking thing will get better...I think I have finally regulated to his eating habits. 

[amaristella]

I still kind of lurk here although I never felt like I officially "joined". We had a visiting nurse do A's 2 week check up at home yesterday. It was really nice that I didn't have to schlep him over to the germ-infested clinic. A is doing great, he's already gained 11 ounces over his birth weight.

I ugly cried after the appointment was over though. Dh mentioned that he (the baby) doesn't sleep that much at night. Her response was a demonstration of what she called "tummy time". She spread an adult size blanket on the floor and tickled his feet (some sort of reflex) to make him push on her hands and move across the floor. She said to exercise him like this every time he eats during the day because we don't want him to be a toddler who doesn't sleep at night. Well, he cried during the whole thing and wasn't really participating in my opinion because she wasn't giving him any breaks to get his bearings or go at his own pace. He literally was pushing himself across the floor on his FACE and screaming the whole way. She then said to "top him off" with more breast milk afterward because we don't want him to lose weight. Like, is my baby a car? How does that work?

I told DH afterward we are not doing this to our child. He is not developmentally ready for structured play time. I want him to learn to move around at his own rate when he feels ready. I want him to sleep as much as he wants whenever he wants and put his energy towards becoming a chunky baby not "fixing" his sleep schedule for mom and dad's convenience.

Edit: And I also don't want him to develop some weird association between feeding and stressful tummy time.

[Jalapeñomel]

Dec 6, 2013 20:01:35 GMT -5 amaristella said:

I still kind of lurk here although I never felt like I officially "joined". We had a visiting nurse do A's 2 week check up at home yesterday. It was really nice that I didn't have to schlep him over to the germ-infested clinic. A is doing great, he's already gained 11 ounces over his birth weight.

I ugly cried after the appointment was over though. Dh mentioned that he (the baby) doesn't sleep that much at night. Her response was a demonstration of what she called "tummy time". She spread an adult size blanket on the floor and tickled his feet (some sort of reflex) to make him push on her hands and move across the floor. She said to exercise him like this every time he eats during the day because we don't want him to be a toddler who doesn't sleep at night. Well, he cried during the whole thing and wasn't really participating in my opinion because she wasn't giving him any breaks to get his bearings or go at his own pace. He literally was pushing himself across the floor on his FACE and screaming the whole way. She then said to "top him off" with more breast milk afterward because we don't want him to lose weight. Like, is my baby a car? How does that work?

I told DH afterward we are not doing this to our child. He is not developmentally ready for structured play time. I want him to learn to move around at his own rate when he feels ready. I want him to sleep as much as he wants whenever he wants and put his energy towards becoming a chunky baby not "fixing" his sleep schedule for mom and dad's convenience.

Edit: And I also don't want him to develop some weird association between feeding and stressful tummy time.

Aw, your poor baby. I would've flipped out.

I have never heard of such a thing anyway, she sucks. 

[amaristella]

Dec 6, 2013 20:20:26 GMT -5 mekiakoo said:

I don't understand how this works while feeding?

And what's the purpose? Poor baby

In between boob 1 and boob 2 is what I think she was getting at. Or maybe after each feeding. I didn't really ask for clarification. And the sole purpose is to "fix" the sleeping schedule of a 2 week old baby. I had the same problem as a baby. Mine never resolved despite years of my parents' best efforts but I still managed to grow up and become a productive member of society.

[runblondie26]

Things are going really well. DS took to breastfeeding easily (no bloody nipples, woot). I slept poorly during pregnancy and was training for a marathon right before that, so I guess I'm used to living in a constant state of exhaustion, lol. The 2-3 hour snippets of sleep he's giving me have been sustaining me.

I think it helps that this is my second. I had so much first time mom anxiety. I was so focused on doing everything "right" that I made little things like sterilizing bottles into monumental tasks. I feel a lot more comfortable and laid back handling a newborn, which has really enhanced the bonding process.

Here are my 2 little peanuts

[ilikedonuts]

Dec 6, 2013 20:01:35 GMT -5 amaristella said:

I still kind of lurk here although I never felt like I officially "joined". We had a visiting nurse do A's 2 week check up at home yesterday. It was really nice that I didn't have to schlep him over to the germ-infested clinic. A is doing great, he's already gained 11 ounces over his birth weight.

I ugly cried after the appointment was over though. Dh mentioned that he (the baby) doesn't sleep that much at night. Her response was a demonstration of what she called "tummy time". She spread an adult size blanket on the floor and tickled his feet (some sort of reflex) to make him push on her hands and move across the floor. She said to exercise him like this every time he eats during the day because we don't want him to be a toddler who doesn't sleep at night. Well, he cried during the whole thing and wasn't really participating in my opinion because she wasn't giving him any breaks to get his bearings or go at his own pace. He literally was pushing himself across the floor on his FACE and screaming the whole way. She then said to "top him off" with more breast milk afterward because we don't want him to lose weight. Like, is my baby a car? How does that work?

I told DH afterward we are not doing this to our child. He is not developmentally ready for structured play time. I want him to learn to move around at his own rate when he feels ready. I want him to sleep as much as he wants whenever he wants and put his energy towards becoming a chunky baby not "fixing" his sleep schedule for mom and dad's convenience.

Edit: And I also don't want him to develop some weird association between feeding and stressful tummy time.

what the ever loving fuck is wrong with that nurse?!?!?! I would have cried too. I'm sorry you had a rough appt.

[AlpineSlide]

You guys, I have no time to post! there have been a million things I want to post about and ask questions about (!) but do not have the time. I'm doing something wrong. Mothering is hard, yo. I didn't even open my laptop for about 8 days after the birth. Everyday I was like I need to work on his birth announcement, upload pics, etc...yeah, nope.

Anyway, we had a rough start. Besides the failed spinal block during my C and needing to put me under, the next morning the baby had an issue with puking up green bile (?) while in the nursery. and he had to be transferred to a NICU at a different hospital :**( Talk about fucking hard - being separated from your baby. First I wasn't awake when he was born, then he was taken away (DH went with him). I bawled and bawled. Thankfully my OB released me later that day so we were only separated about 8 hours and I got out on day 2 after a section instead of the typical 4 days. So I went over to his hospital and had to be in a wheelchair to go everywhere. It was a struggle, I was needing to recover but wanted to be with my baby. Baby was a champ in the NICU and they didn't find any issue related to the bile, and it didn't happen again. We were released around 7 pm on Thanksgiving and we got to our house around 9 pm.

Baby is doing really good now, but lost a good bit of weight. I'm breastfeeding but due to our separation, we didn't get off to a great start. So I pump and supplement 2 oz. every 3 hours, plus nursing as much as desired. So that is pretty time consuming. Otherwise he sleeps great and only gets fussy at diaper changes.

Anyway, there is so much more I want to post about but I'm going to get some sleep now. I will return one of these days to read up on how everyone else is doing. Good luck girls!!

[sporklemotion]

Dec 6, 2013 18:40:37 GMT -5 sameoldash said:

does anyone else feel the sun is magic? night time can be soooo hard, but i can actually FEEL my mood lighten as soon as the sun starts to come up. it's like my eyelids are no longer heavy, and i feel much more positive about things. i didn't expect it to be so intense!

Definitely! No matter how long the night is, by morning I fee more positive.  We'll see how tonight goes-- she's still cluster feeding, but with longer breaks tonight.

[Jalapeñomel]

Dec 6, 2013 23:18:35 GMT -5 AlpineSlide said:

You guys, I have no time to post! there have been a million things I want to post about and ask questions about (!) but do not have the time. I'm doing something wrong. Mothering is hard, yo. I didn't even open my laptop for about 8 days after the birth. Everyday I was like I need to work on his birth announcement, upload pics, etc...yeah, nope.

Anyway, we had a rough start. Besides the failed spinal block during my C and needing to put me under, the next morning the baby had an issue with puking up green bile (?) while in the nursery. and he had to be transferred to a NICU at a different hospital :**( Talk about fucking hard - being separated from your baby. First I wasn't awake when he was born, then he was taken away (DH went with him). I bawled and bawled. Thankfully my OB released me later that day so we were only separated about 8 hours and I got out on day 2 after a section instead of the typical 4 days. So I went over to his hospital and had to be in a wheelchair to go everywhere. It was a struggle, I was needing to recover but wanted to be with my baby. Baby was a champ in the NICU and they didn't find any issue related to the bile, and it didn't happen again. We were released around 7 pm on Thanksgiving and we got to our house around 9 pm.

Baby is doing really good now, but lost a good bit of weight. I'm breastfeeding but due to our separation, we didn't get off to a great start. So I pump and supplement 2 oz. every 3 hours, plus nursing as much as desired. So that is pretty time consuming. Otherwise he sleeps great and only gets fussy at diaper changes.

Anyway, there is so much more I want to post about but I'm going to get some sleep now. I will return one of these days to read up on how everyone else is doing. Good luck girls!!

I did almost all my postings in the middle of the night while pumping!

Sorry things got off to a rough start, but glad to know things are better!

[osulori]

Dec 6, 2013 20:23:27 GMT -5 amaristella said:

Dec 6, 2013 20:20:26 GMT -5 mekiakoo said:

I don't understand how this works while feeding?

And what's the purpose? Poor baby

In between boob 1 and boob 2 is what I think she was getting at. Or maybe after each feeding. I didn't really ask for clarification. And the sole purpose is to "fix" the sleeping schedule of a 2 week old baby. I had the same problem as a baby. Mine never resolved despite years of my parents' best efforts but I still managed to grow up and become a productive member of society.

I don't understand how that's supposed to "fix" a baby's sleep schedule, especially a two week old baby...they're not really on a schedule at that age.  It must have been hard to see your baby so upset amaristella For what it's worth, AJ had a really hard time with traditional tummy time at that age.

[osulori]

Glad to hear things are going so well, ladies! sameoldash and runblondie26, your babies are adorable

[beans20]

Dec 6, 2013 20:01:35 GMT -5 amaristella said:

I still kind of lurk here although I never felt like I officially "joined". We had a visiting nurse do A's 2 week check up at home yesterday. It was really nice that I didn't have to schlep him over to the germ-infested clinic. A is doing great, he's already gained 11 ounces over his birth weight.

I ugly cried after the appointment was over though. Dh mentioned that he (the baby) doesn't sleep that much at night. Her response was a demonstration of what she called "tummy time". She spread an adult size blanket on the floor and tickled his feet (some sort of reflex) to make him push on her hands and move across the floor. She said to exercise him like this every time he eats during the day because we don't want him to be a toddler who doesn't sleep at night. Well, he cried during the whole thing and wasn't really participating in my opinion because she wasn't giving him any breaks to get his bearings or go at his own pace. He literally was pushing himself across the floor on his FACE and screaming the whole way. She then said to "top him off" with more breast milk afterward because we don't want him to lose weight. Like, is my baby a car? How does that work?

I told DH afterward we are not doing this to our child. He is not developmentally ready for structured play time. I want him to learn to move around at his own rate when he feels ready. I want him to sleep as much as he wants whenever he wants and put his energy towards becoming a chunky baby not "fixing" his sleep schedule for mom and dad's convenience.

Edit: And I also don't want him to develop some weird association between feeding and stressful tummy time.

I'm sorry you got off to a rough start! I wouldn't listen to that nurse either. I have a 3 year old (and I'm 15 weeks with our second). I promise you that this will get easier and sooner than you think this will only be a blip on your radar.  Someone once told me that the days are long but the years are short.

Do you think he has his days and nights mixed up? It's common because when they are in utero they are rocked to sleep all day and when you lay down at night the motion stops and that's their awake time (hence the reason that they are more active when we are trying to sleep at night). My pediatrician told me when the baby wakes at night only turn on a dim light, no talking to the baby, feed him, and then right back to bed. During the day, when the baby naps go about your business as usual, leave the shades open, don't be quiet because the baby is sleeping, etc.. It could be a coincidence, but as a result my 3 year old will sleep through anything once he's asleep. I could even vacuum when he's sleeping and he won't wake up. It makes things so much easier!

Becoming a parent is an adjustment for sure but I promise it gets easier. Good luck with everything!

[trafficgirl]

Dec 6, 2013 18:40:37 GMT -5 sameoldash said:

does anyone else feel the sun is magic? night time can be soooo hard, but i can actually FEEL my mood lighten as soon as the sun starts to come up. it's like my eyelids are no longer heavy, and i feel much more positive about things. i didn't expect it to be so intense!

Omg - a million times yes. Once it hits about 4 or 5pm I start to get all anxious about the night. And I usually feel like crying around 7 or 8pm.

One thing my Dr suggested that's helped is H and I have split up the night with him staying up with the kids from roughly 10-2am and then I have them from 2-6am. So we're both guaranteed at least 4 hours of sleep a night. While I know we'd both love more, just getting that much has saved my sanity. We'll see how it goes once H goes back to work though. I'm dreading that - he only has about a week of leave left.

[trufflefries]

I'm not a regular but my baby was born on 11/19 so I want to play.

Aurelia will be 3 weeks old on Tuesday. I'm feeling like I'm finally starting to tread water. The first week was really difficult. We thought we were going to have a colicky baby on our hands because every night she would scream and scream for hours. Night #2 in the hospital was a total nightmare-our night nurse finally convinced me to let her take the baby to the nursery for a few hours so we could get some relief. We spent a couple hours with a lactation consultant in the hospital and we found out she was getting mad because she was hungry-I guess I wasn't making enough colostrum and my milk hadn't come in yet. So we started supplementing with formula and it was like magic-different baby. She still is breastfeeding but now gets 1-3 formula bottles a day in addition to breast feeding and that seems to keep her happy. She got back up to birth weight at her 1 week pedi appt. I thought I would feel more like a failure if breast feeding didn't work out, but as it turns out, I just want my baby to eat. I really don't care that I need a little help because it's what she needs to grow and be healthy. I'll breast feed for as long as I'm able but I'm strangely at peace if we have to go to all formula at some point.

She sleeps about 3 hours at a time-but only if someone is holding her. So we're doing it at the moment in order to get any sleep at all. She hates having her diaper changed, changing her clothes, baths...basically, anything that makes her cold. But now that we got her hunger situation figured out for the most part, she really only cries if she's got a wet diaper or is hungry. Some mild fussiness occasionally but nothing like it was that first week.

Sorry for writing a novel! We're hanging in there for the most part. Baby snuggles are the absolute best!

[Jalapeñomel]

Dec 8, 2013 12:01:27 GMT -5 @kirkette said:

Dec 6, 2013 20:01:35 GMT -5 amaristella said:

I still kind of lurk here although I never felt like I officially "joined". We had a visiting nurse do A's 2 week check up at home yesterday. It was really nice that I didn't have to schlep him over to the germ-infested clinic. A is doing great, he's already gained 11 ounces over his birth weight.

I ugly cried after the appointment was over though. Dh mentioned that he (the baby) doesn't sleep that much at night. Her response was a demonstration of what she called "tummy time". She spread an adult size blanket on the floor and tickled his feet (some sort of reflex) to make him push on her hands and move across the floor. She said to exercise him like this every time he eats during the day because we don't want him to be a toddler who doesn't sleep at night. Well, he cried during the whole thing and wasn't really participating in my opinion because she wasn't giving him any breaks to get his bearings or go at his own pace. He literally was pushing himself across the floor on his FACE and screaming the whole way. She then said to "top him off" with more breast milk afterward because we don't want him to lose weight. Like, is my baby a car? How does that work?

I told DH afterward we are not doing this to our child. He is not developmentally ready for structured play time. I want him to learn to move around at his own rate when he feels ready. I want him to sleep as much as he wants whenever he wants and put his energy towards becoming a chunky baby not "fixing" his sleep schedule for mom and dad's convenience.

Edit: And I also don't want him to develop some weird association between feeding and stressful tummy time.

When they are really little, babies can do tummy time your chest. You can also use it as time to bond skin to skin. I'm surprised the nurse didn't mention that to you. 

And if you wear your baby, it is considered tummy time.  That nurse is BSC. 

[amaristella]

Dec 8, 2013 13:26:14 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

Dec 8, 2013 12:01:27 GMT -5 @kirkette said:

When they are really little, babies can do tummy time your chest. You can also use it as time to bond skin to skin. I'm surprised the nurse didn't mention that to you. 

And if you wear your baby, it is considered tummy time.  That nurse is BSC. 

The photo copies of 20 year old reading materials she gave me did mention the normal tummy time. And I looked it up on the internet after. We've been doing those with moderate success although it doesn't usually last long. At some point he usually starts snarfing the person or blanket and when no boob appears he either gives up and goes to sleep or gets frustrated and cries. He does fantastic when DH has him in a carrier but I've been doing less well. I have a hard time getting him positioned right in the ring sling or K'tan and when I do there's a good chance he'll wake up and go into super baby snarf boob seeking mode.

[bazinga]

This is the first time in awhile that I have checked in. I completely agree with daytime being magic. I am in a much better and more positive mood during the day. We have had some rough nights with inconsolable crying. She had a hard time feeding at first but is doing great now. It is hard being the only one who can feed her and also having to do it every couple of hours. We go back to the doctor next week so hopefully her weight is back up.
DH has been amazing with her and me. He was off for two weeks and I don't think I would have survived without him.
She is becoming more alert every day and we just love her so much!