The price of gas is apparently my sleep. And my sanity.
If Brendan were waking up at night because he was hungry, I wouldn't be nearly as upset and stressed as I am. But he's gone from waking every four-five hours at night to waking every one-two hours, and it's not hunger, it's definitely pain. He jolts awake and cries very angrily. If I try to "pump" his legs to get him to toot, he shrieks. I rub his tummy, pump his legs, and sometimes he'll toot, sometimes he won't. This all started between three and four months of age, and I thought it started around the same time as I started taking More Milk Plus capsules to boost my production (I've always struggled to keep up with him). So I stopped taking them, but it didn't stop the gas. I tried giving him gripe water, but that didn't help (actually it seemed to make it worse, but I can't say for sure). I've tried giving him Mylicon drops after each feeding, but it doesn't help either. Brendan's been getting some cereal since he turned four months, but we've varied the type of cereal (rice and oatmeal), the amount, what it's mixed with, and when he gets it during the day (and even if he gets it at all--there've been a couple days this past week when he hasn't had any cereal at all), and that hasn't affected the gas either. Yesterday he had formula during the day (we were traveling), and before I breastfed him in the evening I pumped some and dumped off the thinner foremilk, and he was just as bad last night as any other night. I tried laying off dairy products all weekend, thinking maybe something was passing through my milk to him, but it didn't seem to matter either. I just don't know what to do. He doesn't show any other symptoms to milk allergy, lactose intolerance, or an foremilk imbalance--no diarrhea, no green frothy poo, no vomiting, no eczema, not spitting up any more than usual...I just don't understand what has changed. He's sleeping worse now than he did when we came home from the hospital (and that's when he was practically starving to death because I wasn't producing any milk at all).
As terrible as it is for me to hear his crying, I'm incredibly selfish, because I'd do just about anything to get some $%#&@$& sleep. I've never been able to nap during the day, not even when I was little. If I do manage to sleep during the day, I wake up disoriented, achy, and basically feeling worse than I did before I took the nap. I'm not expecting a full night's sleep (although I wouldn't turn it down), but I'd love to get back to when Brendan when sleeping from 10-3, nursing for an hour, and then sleeping until 10 am. I'm also concerned because I am hoping to get a long-term sub job that starts mid-April, and if I get it I'm really going to need more sleep than I'm getting...
I just have this overwhelming feeling that I'm not doing it right. Between friends, former coworkers, and former students, I know about 15 people who had babies right around the same time I did, and it seems like everyone else "gets it" but me. When people tell me that their babies slept through the night at 3 weeks old (formula or breast), it just seems like proof that I'm doing something wrong. Everyone keeps saying "all babies are different", but it sure feels like we're the odd ones out. I mean, all babies may be different, but there has to be some reason some babies sleep through the night early and some don't. People have been having babies for thousands and thousands of years without drama, so why are we at five months with no schedule yet? Some days he naps for three hours at a time, some days I'm lucky to get him to nap for fifteen minutes. Some nights he'll drop off to sleep between 9-10, as soon as I nurse him, other nights he's still wide awake and full of it at 11. And regardless of when he goes down, some nights he's awake again in 45 minutes, and some nights he stays asleep for a couple hours. Some mornings he'll go back to sleep until 9 or 10, and some mornings he's up at 6:45 with no nap in sight. It sure makes me feel like there's some trick everyone else knows but me.
With the breast feeding vs. formula, I've started to feel like there's a mom on each shoulder, instead of an angel and a devil, whispering in my ears. On the breast feeding side, I know it's the natural option--"breast is best" and all that--and the least expensive, should boost his immune system, prevent some allergies, strengthen the bond between the two of us, help me lose weight (which totally ISN'T happening), etc., etc. Plus, I fought so hard to breast feed in the first place (since my milk came in so late, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to breast feed at all). But the formula side is accumulating some heavy artillery. It's more convenient--I wouldn't have to worry about pumping and storage (if I get this sub job, I'll only have two times during the day that I can pump--I can't guarantee they won't be back-to-back because I don't know what the schedule of the classes is--I've got to figure out where I can store the milk until the end of the day, and i don't know if I'll be able to pump the amount that Brendan will consume during the day). I wouldn't have to waste any milk, since I could mix the formula as needed and not have extra. I could give him a formula that would help with the gas and whatever might be causing it. And it might get me a full night's sleep sooner rather than later. It's just really hard.
I'm sorry to just kind of go off, but I really feel like I'm just a meltdown away from thrusting him into the arms of the first person I see and running off screaming into the woods somewhere.
Pool Time
Showing posts with label frustration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label frustration. Show all posts
Monday, March 21, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
The right to bare arms
I haven't even bothered to weigh myself. I haven't made good food choices lately, eating the wrong stuff and a lot of it. I also haven't been working out at all. I suck. Completely and totally. It never really occurred to me how much easier it was to eat better when I was out of the house and working all day. Also, it's much easier to work out, because I'm out of the house anyway so why not swing by the gym? That sounds so stupid, especially since I have work out equipment here at the house: an elliptical machine, some hand weights, even Wii Fit. But it's also terribly easy to sit on the couch, watch TV, and check Facebook compulsively. I'm lame.
But enough about me. My husband is out of town for a couple of days, and my father-in-law isn't staying with us this week, so I figured it was a good night to experiment. When I put the baby down at a little after ten, I only swaddled one arm, his left one, since it seems like he has better control of his right, and also since he tends to rub his face with his left. Instead of sleeping for 3-5 hours, like he typically does, he only slept for 2 hours. I fed him and he fell back asleep pretty quickly, so I just swaddled the one arm again and put him back down. Again, he only slept for two hours, then woke back up. That time, I went ahead and swaddled both arms. He didn't sleep that much longer with both arms swaddled, three hours instead of two, then woke up again. After I fed him, I left both arms unswaddled, put him back in his crib, and went out to walk the dog. We weren't out of the house more than ten minutes, probably not even that long, and when I came back the baby was still awake, so we went ahead and got up. He's now snoozing on his boppy pillow next to me. Anyway, the result of the experiment seems to be that he goes to sleep easier with an arm unswaddled, with less fighting, but he doesn't stay asleep as long as he does when both arms are swaddled. So it doesn't really seem like there's an appreciable benefit to leaving one arm unswaddled, at least, not yet. It could be, though, that the more often I leave him partially swaddled, the more he'll become acclimated to it, and then it won't wake him up so easily. He'll get used to it. I will try it again tonight and see how it goes. I'd like him to get used to being unswaddled, so that I don't have the huge fight on my hands that I seem to have every night these days. It wears me out.
I had a bad parent event the other night. Brendan was fighting going to sleep, pretty hard. I finally plopped him down in his crib and walked out of the room. I needed to reset my internal thermometer; I was getting really frustrated and angry. I doubt that I would ever "snap" and resort to physical violence, but I wanted to yell at the baby to shut up. I figured it was better to leave the room and count to 100. I know it's better to do that than the alternative, but I would have liked to think that I'm not likely to get frustrated and angry like that. Oh well.
One more milestone to report. Brendan sat up briefly the other night. Saturday night, I think it was. I put him in the middle of his boppy, and he held his balance for about 30 seconds before tipping over. We'll keep practicing. I know it will be months before he can get up into a sitting position on his own, but it's nice to know that he's developing the strength and balance to do it. He's still not rolling over consistently. Sometimes he'll roll over right away. Other times he'll lay there and cry and get really upset. It's like he's forgotten that rolling over is an alternative. I'm sure he'll get better at it as we keep practicing.
But enough about me. My husband is out of town for a couple of days, and my father-in-law isn't staying with us this week, so I figured it was a good night to experiment. When I put the baby down at a little after ten, I only swaddled one arm, his left one, since it seems like he has better control of his right, and also since he tends to rub his face with his left. Instead of sleeping for 3-5 hours, like he typically does, he only slept for 2 hours. I fed him and he fell back asleep pretty quickly, so I just swaddled the one arm again and put him back down. Again, he only slept for two hours, then woke back up. That time, I went ahead and swaddled both arms. He didn't sleep that much longer with both arms swaddled, three hours instead of two, then woke up again. After I fed him, I left both arms unswaddled, put him back in his crib, and went out to walk the dog. We weren't out of the house more than ten minutes, probably not even that long, and when I came back the baby was still awake, so we went ahead and got up. He's now snoozing on his boppy pillow next to me. Anyway, the result of the experiment seems to be that he goes to sleep easier with an arm unswaddled, with less fighting, but he doesn't stay asleep as long as he does when both arms are swaddled. So it doesn't really seem like there's an appreciable benefit to leaving one arm unswaddled, at least, not yet. It could be, though, that the more often I leave him partially swaddled, the more he'll become acclimated to it, and then it won't wake him up so easily. He'll get used to it. I will try it again tonight and see how it goes. I'd like him to get used to being unswaddled, so that I don't have the huge fight on my hands that I seem to have every night these days. It wears me out.
I had a bad parent event the other night. Brendan was fighting going to sleep, pretty hard. I finally plopped him down in his crib and walked out of the room. I needed to reset my internal thermometer; I was getting really frustrated and angry. I doubt that I would ever "snap" and resort to physical violence, but I wanted to yell at the baby to shut up. I figured it was better to leave the room and count to 100. I know it's better to do that than the alternative, but I would have liked to think that I'm not likely to get frustrated and angry like that. Oh well.
One more milestone to report. Brendan sat up briefly the other night. Saturday night, I think it was. I put him in the middle of his boppy, and he held his balance for about 30 seconds before tipping over. We'll keep practicing. I know it will be months before he can get up into a sitting position on his own, but it's nice to know that he's developing the strength and balance to do it. He's still not rolling over consistently. Sometimes he'll roll over right away. Other times he'll lay there and cry and get really upset. It's like he's forgotten that rolling over is an alternative. I'm sure he'll get better at it as we keep practicing.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Adventures in breastfeeding...
...or, My new life as a dairy cow.
I had no idea that something that female mammals have been doing since God created the world would be so frickin' difficult.
Nine days after my c section, my milk still has not "come in". I am a mixture of frustrated, annoyed, and emotionally drained by all this.
While I was still in the birth center, a lactation consultant came and talked to me about feeding. The nurses had given me a plastic breast shield to help draw out my nipples, but that first consultant recommended I not use it. She said it made for "lazy nursing" on the baby's part. She told me to use sugar water or drips of formula on my nipple to keep Brendan's attention during nursing, and gave me advice on helping him latch on. Later that same day, a second, different consultant came by to see how things were going. I told her Brendan was having difficulty latching on without the shield. She said she thought I should go ahead and use the shield if it helped. She told me that once Brendan got the hang of feeding I could start "weaning" him off the shield.
I had expressed to both consultants that I was concerned that I wasn't producing any milk. At no point during my pregnancy did I ever notice any colostrum or anything. My breasts did go through changes during the pregnancy: they got very sore and sensitive, and definitely increased in size (like I needed that). Both consultants assured me that, while I might not see anything, I surely was producing colostrum, and that newborns don't need much because they still are running off the nutrition they had gotten from momma prior to birth, and that my milk would "come in" soon. Since these were the knowledgeable professionals, I did what they told me to do.
After the first few feedings, we noticed (and the nurses concurred) that Brendan got positively frantic during feedings. One of the nurses compared his attempts to latch with a dog with a chew toy. He cried, he rooted, he flailed. Several of the nurses agreed with us that he still seemed hungry after our attempted feedings, and they suggested that I supplement with formula until my supply increased.
The first night home was a disaster. Of course we were all exhausted just trying to get into a routine, but Brendan couldn't seem to breastfeed at all, and we resorted to full bottles of formula out of desperation. We went back in that next day to talk to the lactation consultant again. She spent a whole hour working with us on all the technicalities of feeding (how to hold the baby, helping him latch, etc.). She told us again to use drips of formula on my nipples to "prime the pump" and encourage him to keep feeding. She gave us a little eye dropper to use and sent us on our way. She again sort of "pooh-poohed" my concerns about my supply, and told us not to supplement with formula.
We went home and tried to stick with the plan the lactation consultant had laid out for us. But after much screaming, flailing, rooting, hand-chewing, and a great deal of crying on both our parts, I broke down and gave Brendan a bottle of formula in the middle of the night. He just seemed so HUNGRY.
The next day we had our first checkup with the pediatrician (Brendan was now four days old). To our horror, Brendan had lost almost a full pound from his birth weight (born at 8 lbs, now down to 7 lbs 1 oz). The pediatrician was extremely concerned; she said that weight loss of more than 10% could be cause to admit him to the hospital. They did a heel stick to check his bilirubin, which thankfully was in the normal limits so they didn't admit him to the hospital. But the pediatrician finally listened to my concerns about my supply. She sent us home with instructions to try to breastfeed him for as long as he'd tolerate on each side, then get on my breastpump and see what I could pump while my husband gave Brendan a couple ounces of formula. Anything I could pump would then be given in a bottle during the next feeding (after the breastfeeding and before the formula). She told us to come back the next day.
Definitely a complicated feeding plan. But I was incredibly relieved, when I got on the pump for the first time, to see that I indeed was producing something. I managed to pump a tiny bit of colostrum, only about half an ounce, but it really was there. I was so relieved, in fact, that I burst into tears. I had just been devastated by the idea that I was not able to take care of my baby's needs. So we went back to the pediatrician the next day and reported what had happened. Just with our formula supplementation, Brendan's weight was back up to 7 lbs 9 oz, after only one day. Poor baby had obviously been super dehydrated. Just in those 24 hours he produced more wet diapers than he had the entire rest of his life. How sad is that?
The pediatrician had been doing a little research. She said that hypertensive mothers (I've been treated for high blood pressure for probably seven or eight years now) often have a delay in their milk coming in. Also, women who had a c section tend to be delayed. And since I had so many anti-diuretic meds during the course of my labor and c-section, I am having major fluid retention issues (my legs, ankles, and feet are horrifically swollen), which probably is also affecting my milk production. She told us to continue our feeding routine--the pump would help Brendan access my milk regardless of how well he was latching, and it would help stimulate my milk production. She said she felt confident that we were still within the window of opportunity for me to be able to breastfeed.
So feeding has been a two-person job. While I start Brendan out on breast, my husband warms up the previous pump-job's bottle of breast milk and then mixes up the bottle of formula. When I'm done, I hand Brendan over to him and get on the pump. I still have not pumped more than an ounce total at one time, but the quality of the milk has changed (not colostrum any more; thinner and whiter), and Brendan is spending more time on each breast which means he's probably getting more from me than he was.
But everyone keeps talking about milk "coming in", and breasts getting engorged, and "letting down" and all that, and it just isn't happening for me. I would really like to be able to stop worrying about the formula (and the pumping--holy crap that thing hurts!) and just breastfeed. I'll be happy to pump enough for my husband to do some feedings himself, but this whole "pump every two hours" thing is exhausting and painful. It takes over an hour to complete the feeding process, and when we're feeding every two hours, it seems like my entire life is spent either breastfeeding or pumping. I'm tired.
Did anyone else have any problems similar to this? Do you think my milk will ever show up, or am I going to be doomed to keep up this stupid feeding schedule forever? I'm just super discouraged.
I had no idea that something that female mammals have been doing since God created the world would be so frickin' difficult.
Nine days after my c section, my milk still has not "come in". I am a mixture of frustrated, annoyed, and emotionally drained by all this.
While I was still in the birth center, a lactation consultant came and talked to me about feeding. The nurses had given me a plastic breast shield to help draw out my nipples, but that first consultant recommended I not use it. She said it made for "lazy nursing" on the baby's part. She told me to use sugar water or drips of formula on my nipple to keep Brendan's attention during nursing, and gave me advice on helping him latch on. Later that same day, a second, different consultant came by to see how things were going. I told her Brendan was having difficulty latching on without the shield. She said she thought I should go ahead and use the shield if it helped. She told me that once Brendan got the hang of feeding I could start "weaning" him off the shield.
I had expressed to both consultants that I was concerned that I wasn't producing any milk. At no point during my pregnancy did I ever notice any colostrum or anything. My breasts did go through changes during the pregnancy: they got very sore and sensitive, and definitely increased in size (like I needed that). Both consultants assured me that, while I might not see anything, I surely was producing colostrum, and that newborns don't need much because they still are running off the nutrition they had gotten from momma prior to birth, and that my milk would "come in" soon. Since these were the knowledgeable professionals, I did what they told me to do.
After the first few feedings, we noticed (and the nurses concurred) that Brendan got positively frantic during feedings. One of the nurses compared his attempts to latch with a dog with a chew toy. He cried, he rooted, he flailed. Several of the nurses agreed with us that he still seemed hungry after our attempted feedings, and they suggested that I supplement with formula until my supply increased.
The first night home was a disaster. Of course we were all exhausted just trying to get into a routine, but Brendan couldn't seem to breastfeed at all, and we resorted to full bottles of formula out of desperation. We went back in that next day to talk to the lactation consultant again. She spent a whole hour working with us on all the technicalities of feeding (how to hold the baby, helping him latch, etc.). She told us again to use drips of formula on my nipples to "prime the pump" and encourage him to keep feeding. She gave us a little eye dropper to use and sent us on our way. She again sort of "pooh-poohed" my concerns about my supply, and told us not to supplement with formula.
We went home and tried to stick with the plan the lactation consultant had laid out for us. But after much screaming, flailing, rooting, hand-chewing, and a great deal of crying on both our parts, I broke down and gave Brendan a bottle of formula in the middle of the night. He just seemed so HUNGRY.
The next day we had our first checkup with the pediatrician (Brendan was now four days old). To our horror, Brendan had lost almost a full pound from his birth weight (born at 8 lbs, now down to 7 lbs 1 oz). The pediatrician was extremely concerned; she said that weight loss of more than 10% could be cause to admit him to the hospital. They did a heel stick to check his bilirubin, which thankfully was in the normal limits so they didn't admit him to the hospital. But the pediatrician finally listened to my concerns about my supply. She sent us home with instructions to try to breastfeed him for as long as he'd tolerate on each side, then get on my breastpump and see what I could pump while my husband gave Brendan a couple ounces of formula. Anything I could pump would then be given in a bottle during the next feeding (after the breastfeeding and before the formula). She told us to come back the next day.
Definitely a complicated feeding plan. But I was incredibly relieved, when I got on the pump for the first time, to see that I indeed was producing something. I managed to pump a tiny bit of colostrum, only about half an ounce, but it really was there. I was so relieved, in fact, that I burst into tears. I had just been devastated by the idea that I was not able to take care of my baby's needs. So we went back to the pediatrician the next day and reported what had happened. Just with our formula supplementation, Brendan's weight was back up to 7 lbs 9 oz, after only one day. Poor baby had obviously been super dehydrated. Just in those 24 hours he produced more wet diapers than he had the entire rest of his life. How sad is that?
The pediatrician had been doing a little research. She said that hypertensive mothers (I've been treated for high blood pressure for probably seven or eight years now) often have a delay in their milk coming in. Also, women who had a c section tend to be delayed. And since I had so many anti-diuretic meds during the course of my labor and c-section, I am having major fluid retention issues (my legs, ankles, and feet are horrifically swollen), which probably is also affecting my milk production. She told us to continue our feeding routine--the pump would help Brendan access my milk regardless of how well he was latching, and it would help stimulate my milk production. She said she felt confident that we were still within the window of opportunity for me to be able to breastfeed.
So feeding has been a two-person job. While I start Brendan out on breast, my husband warms up the previous pump-job's bottle of breast milk and then mixes up the bottle of formula. When I'm done, I hand Brendan over to him and get on the pump. I still have not pumped more than an ounce total at one time, but the quality of the milk has changed (not colostrum any more; thinner and whiter), and Brendan is spending more time on each breast which means he's probably getting more from me than he was.
But everyone keeps talking about milk "coming in", and breasts getting engorged, and "letting down" and all that, and it just isn't happening for me. I would really like to be able to stop worrying about the formula (and the pumping--holy crap that thing hurts!) and just breastfeed. I'll be happy to pump enough for my husband to do some feedings himself, but this whole "pump every two hours" thing is exhausting and painful. It takes over an hour to complete the feeding process, and when we're feeding every two hours, it seems like my entire life is spent either breastfeeding or pumping. I'm tired.
Did anyone else have any problems similar to this? Do you think my milk will ever show up, or am I going to be doomed to keep up this stupid feeding schedule forever? I'm just super discouraged.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Another year older and still pregant
Well, I do not have to worry about sharing my birthday with my child, I guess. Turned 36 yesterday, and still no sign of labor. Of course I don't yet know if the pineapple I ate the other day has had any effect (I did get some more at the store today, just in case); I won't know until I get to the doctor tomorrow morning for my checkup. I still have lots of pelvic pressure and discomfort, and I have occasional lower abdominal discomfort, almost like menstrual cramps, and some lower back pain, but none of it seems to fall into the pattern of contractions or even early signs of labor. There has been some hope that perhaps I might have the baby tomorrow (which would have been my mother's birthday), but as today progresses I have to assume that possibility is getting less and less likely. My sister-in-law hopes I'll have him on Monday, which is her birthday. I'm just hoping he decides to show up while my dad is in town, which is until the 26th. But I'd just like him to show up, period. I'm tired of being pregnant. *sigh*
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Day 181 - 6/30/09
*sigh* All I can report is that there is nothing to report. My husband flew to the corporate headquarters and spent today meeting with a number of people at the company. Although it sounds like it went well, all we know is that the company needs to consider their next step, and the head of the department will be out for the long holiday weekend, so we won't hear anything until next week. Again.
This is all just very frustrating. I am excited about the possibility of moving, but it's also very disconcerting for something this important to be so out of my control. Maybe if the knowledge that we were moving was all that was coming, it would be a little easier to wait. But the fact is, once we determine that we're moving, a whole list of things I have to do pops up. First of all, I will have to give notice at my school. I'll have to pack up everything in my classroom and say goodbye to my coworkers. Then there's the question of what I'll be doing wherever we end up living. Unless we were to make the decision that it's time to try and get pregnant (resulting in my staying home), I'll need to find a teaching job. That means applying for certification in whatever state we're in, and then applying for jobs. So once my husband's employment is decided, the rest of my world will be up in the air.
It's hard for me to accept that so much of my life is out of my control right now. I don't like being out of control.
Apparently, the limbo is just beginning...
This is all just very frustrating. I am excited about the possibility of moving, but it's also very disconcerting for something this important to be so out of my control. Maybe if the knowledge that we were moving was all that was coming, it would be a little easier to wait. But the fact is, once we determine that we're moving, a whole list of things I have to do pops up. First of all, I will have to give notice at my school. I'll have to pack up everything in my classroom and say goodbye to my coworkers. Then there's the question of what I'll be doing wherever we end up living. Unless we were to make the decision that it's time to try and get pregnant (resulting in my staying home), I'll need to find a teaching job. That means applying for certification in whatever state we're in, and then applying for jobs. So once my husband's employment is decided, the rest of my world will be up in the air.
It's hard for me to accept that so much of my life is out of my control right now. I don't like being out of control.
Apparently, the limbo is just beginning...
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