the past week has been an interesting one. a quick bulleted recap:
- the major excitement in my life was buying a new breast pump over the weekend
- dave and i got our signals crossed sunday night, which resulted in the loss of 4 ounces of breastmilk. that resulted in a bit of a breakdown for me. =(
- anna got a cold. poor kid was all stuffed up and needed to have saline drops put in right before i suctioned all the snot out. which, like all babies, she hated, and so she screamed. the downside was that she wasn't feeling well and cried an awful lot over the past couple days. the upside was that she was pretty much a momma's girl over the past few days, wanting to do a lot of snuggling with me. that always warms my heart.
- anna has begun "sleeping through the night". which means she sleeps for 5-6 hours at a time, from her last nighttime feeding to her first morning feeding. this means i get more sleep at a stretch. score!
- we are working on a new feeding schedule and bedtime routine. her sleeping through the night has helped us with that adjustment. she now gets her first morning feeding at around 6, and her last feeding of the day at 11 pm, after her bath. daddy gets to bathe her and feed her, while i pump through the feeding. it works out well for all of us.
all of this helps with my sanity. =) though i've been getting some baby-wear over the past week or so, as my whole world now revolves around sleeping and feeding schedules, pumping and breast health. it's a lot to deal with, while taking away the rest of my adult life that i was so used to. soooo... i'm adjusting. and grandma and grandpa are babysitting next saturday so that dave and i can have some baby-free date time. slumdog millionare here we come!
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
smiles, v-day, sleep, and doctors
hey! found some time for an update before little miss sunshine wakes up for a feeding. =)
anna jae has hand an eventful week! of course, she had her first-month birthday on friday the 13th. the same day brought her first social smiling, her first shopping trip, and her first car ride over a bridge. how exciting!
valentine's day was, um, interesting. little anna jae got dressed up in her new valentine's outfit, and promptly peed all over it during her first changing of the day. (sorry aunt roe and kay!) so we changed her into another... aunt kira stopped by for her first visit, and anna stayed up to play and smile at her. this, however, continued on long after kira left, and she wound up throwing a fit later in the evening and then konking out completely. we had to give her her second "dream feeding" for the week -- we sort of forced the bottle into her mouth since she refused to wake up, and her natural sucking action allowed her to eat the whole of the bottle without waking. the next day, of course, she was exhausted and slept much of the day, but then didn't sleep nearly as well at night. and so this cycle continued the rest of the week -- one day up and cranky, the next day sleepy except at night, and so on and so forth. i'm trying to correct the situation today if possible.
and finally, she had her one-month checkup on tuesday (the 5-week mark). dr. cao is very proud of her -- she is up to 8 lbs. 11.5 ounces, which is almost a full 2 pounds higher than her birthweight, and she is now 20.75 inches long, which means she's grown an inch and a quarter. you go girl! we discussed anna's gas situation, which is prett extreme while she's eating, but clearly she's getting enough food so he's not overly concerned. so we will just continue the way we have, and she should be great! her two-month checkup (and first vaccinations... eek...) is on march 10.
enjoy the photos!
hiding with aunt robyn.
playing with aunt susan.
smiling at kira.
this is what anna thought of valentine's day.
much calmer the day after!
anna met pye and mariah...
... charmed them ...
... and then pooped in his hand!
being a brooklyn girl with aunt loren!
Friday, February 13, 2009
happy one-month birthday!!
happy one-month birthday to our little anna jae!
anna and i celebrated by getting out of the house and going clothes shopping! not for her, because she's gotten plenty in the way of gifts recently. no, for me! momma needed some new tops that a) lend themselves to easy nursing, and b) aren't maternity tops. so grandma helped get us to kohl's, where i spent a gift card from christmas and got a bunch of new stuff.
how cute did our little girl look for her outing today? she can't go many places yet or stay for very long, but it's good to get out for an hour or so.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
thrush update
well, i'm on treatment. everything and everyone tells me to get anna treated simultaneously, except her pediatrician. he's anti-drugs unless absolutely necessary -- which i totally appreciate -- but i'm concerned that we'll pass it back and forth to each other. oh well. we see him next tuesday, so i'll talk to him about it then.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
thrush!
well, i have thrush. this is what has been affecting anna's feeding sessions and causing me breast pain. ugh. i realized it today, after my pain and her feeding both reached a truly difficult level.
onto treatment! yaaaaayyyy...
onto treatment! yaaaaayyyy...
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
all about anna
whew... after a long 24 hours, anna is finally cooperating with me and is down for an evening nap. yay! now i can write all about her and her first 4 weeks with us.
breastfeeding
well, let's start with what occupies my mind most of the time -- breastfeeding. i've never been so obsessed with schedules, the clock, urine/stool, and, frankly, my breasts ever before! it's amazing how all-consuming the process is. though, if you're doing something constantly during the day with only short breaks in-between, i guess it's only natural.
anna had a hard time at first with feeding. my first night in the hospital was hard on me due to the surgery -- i was nauseous, overheated, and drowsy. i couldn't hold her, let alone feed her. so unfortunately, i had to allow the nursery to feed her formula that night from a bottle. this threw us off a bit... even though i was incredibly lucky to have a baby that latched on well from the start, i knew that i wasn't satisfying her the way the bottle-feedings did. i didn't have my milk yet, it didn't come easily to her, etc. the books are right when they say that first day/night can really make a difference. this was hard for me emotionally. and physically -- anna just kept trying her damndest to get milk from me, and when she couldn't, she'd try harder. which meant she would cluster feed for 4-5 hours straight. it was torturous. i continued to supplement her with a bottle once or twice a day for that first week, but always tried to offer myself first. finally, when she was 1-week old, she gave up the bottle and went for me exclusively. yay! it made such a difference to me emotionally.
now we're at the 4-week mark. anna has gotten much chubbier, so clearly she's gaining weight. she's on a pretty decent feed schedule -- i feed her every 2 hours during the day (from the beginning of the previous feed), and give her a final feeding around 9:30 or so. then she sleeps a good 4.5 hours or so before her next feeding, and another 3 hour stretch after that. she latches well. i've started pumping and i'm able to give a feeding to dave every night. the only problem i have is that she gets rather fussy sometimes, where she pulls off the breast and cries, then reattaches only to start the cycle over again. this can continue for 2-4 hours! it's exhausting. we're trying to figure out if it's a flow issue, a gas problem, or dreaded colic. only time and careful attention will tell.
breastfeeding is hard. really hard. more so because it's so time-consuming in the beginning. but it's also extremely satisfying. i love that she knows who i am so intimately. i love that i'm actually giving of myself physically to help her grow. and i really enjoy our bonding time. i think it's worth the hassle.
sleep
anna was TERRIBLE our first week home! dave and i didn't sleep -- he got just a few hours in, while i got 1 or 2 if i was lucky. that little girl was a terror. not only did she not sleep at night, but she also barely slept during the day. i was starting to wonder if she was a born insomniac. after all, newborns are supposed to sleep 16-18 hours a day, and anna slept for maybe 7 or 8 total. if we were lucky.
i took it upon myself to really push the day/night reversal, figuring that if anna learned that nighttime meant sleep, then maybe she'd be more relaxed to also take naps during the day. the first weekend we were home, we started to kick visitors out by 5 or 6 in the evening. we would dim the lights in the living room for the evening feedings. we put her down at 9 or so in our bedroom, with the lights down. we learned quickly to let her sleep wherever she would sleep, so her swing seat soon became the location of choice. finally, in our next week home, she started to actually sleep for 1-3 hour stretches. not long, but at least it was something. and she did indeed start to sleep during the day after that. she just needed to get sleep so that she wasn't overtired, and she finally learned to rest. part of the solution was a series of methods we learned to use to calm her down and get her to sleep, and that really did the trick. but more of that in a moment...
now our girl sleeps for 4.5 hours for the first clip, and 3 hours after that. the first few days she started to sleep longer, i woke her every 3 hours as per the doctor's request, so that she could feed. but after that i realized that our girl would never not tell us she was hungry at night, so i let her sleep as long as she wanted. it definitely worked out -- she eats often during the day, so it doesn't matter.
temperament
some of you might recall that we were concerned that anna had acid reflux. she just seemed to be unhappy from the start -- fussy, constantly crying, unable to sleep comfortably. our pediatrician told us that he would evaluate her at her one-month checkup, but that until then we just had to do whatever we could to keep her calm, soothed, and happy. but how do you do that with a constantly howling newborn?
my friend clara suggested on this blog that we get the book "the happiest baby on the block." the title was too perfect to resist, so i thought i'd purchase it. but as luck would have it, my friend daniela (a mommy-to-be), already had the book and its corresponding dvd. since she doesn't need them just yet, she offered to bring it to me to use.
this book is amazingly brilliant! we owe our sleeping hours to the author, dr. karp. he theorizes that a baby's first 3 months of life are actually a sort of 4th trimester, and the baby benefits from recreating the womb. he suggests using the 5 "S's" -- swaddle, swinging, sucking, shh'ing, and side/stomach positioning. we had already been swaddling her as per our pediatrician to try to calm her, but we didn't have complete luck. well, the first night we had the book i downloaded a white noise album to play in the background while she slept (the "shushing" part of it), and we swaddled her whenever we wanted her to calm down and sleep. she didn't sleep for a long clip, but she was totally quiet at night, which was amazing! the white noise, turned up loud for the entire night, really seemed to calm our little terror! the next day, she would nap with white noise near her every time, which really did the trick. and that night, we swaddled her, turned up the white noise, and added in her sleeping in her swing. well, that was that. she slept for 4 hours straight for the first time (and actually scared the hell out of me, since i woke up before her and thought something must be wrong!). sometimes we add in the pacifier for sucking if she's having a particularly hard time calming down or if she reawakens when we place her in the seat. it seems to help her lull back to sleep.
the white noise is also particularly helpful if she's having a fit during the day. we bring her to it, turned way up, and she quiets down. if she's hungry, nothing will stop that wail, but otherwise it truly does comfort her.
anna is quickly becoming more alert and aware of her surroundings. she focuses more and loves to stare. this is wonderful to watch. we can also take her out a bit now, so she has been for 3 walks, and has even been to her first restaurant! unfortunately, she's not always so quiet and fun while she's awake. days like today are particularly difficult, when she just wants to be with her momma (this is why god made people who make baby carriers). but this book has helped us, and our sanity, quite a bit.
mom and dad
i'm finally recovering a bit more. my abdomen is still sore to the touch, which my midwives tell me is my nerves and/or muscles regenerating. it's a bit difficult to deal with, as clothes hurt, let alone having anna sit in my lap. but other than that, i'm more that fine. i'm making sure to still not carry/lift heavy things, and i'm avoiding stairs for a while. but the rest of life is back to normal!
my daily life is an exercise in adjustment. i am used to being at home alone, for better or worse, but i'm not used to a) having to give so much physically to another being and b) having so little time to actually do things. like cook a healthy dinner, or write this blog entry. but i'm slowly getting my legs again, and finding ways to be my usual task-oriented self. in the end, i'm just loving being a mommy.
dave is back to work, and his usual long hours, which i know he isn't thrilled with now that anna is in our lives. he misses her quite a bit every day. we try to send him photos if we can, which makes him happy. but he has started to take over one feeding a night a few days a week, which gives him time to bond with her (and gives me a bit of a break). and of course, there's always designated family time each weekend for just the 3 of us, which makes us all feel good.
anna is officially 4 weeks old today, and will be one month on friday. i can hardly believe it. time really does fly, so we're trying to enjoy it as much as possible. as hard as some days are, in the end she's the most precious thing in the world to us. we don't want to miss any of it.
breastfeeding
well, let's start with what occupies my mind most of the time -- breastfeeding. i've never been so obsessed with schedules, the clock, urine/stool, and, frankly, my breasts ever before! it's amazing how all-consuming the process is. though, if you're doing something constantly during the day with only short breaks in-between, i guess it's only natural.
anna had a hard time at first with feeding. my first night in the hospital was hard on me due to the surgery -- i was nauseous, overheated, and drowsy. i couldn't hold her, let alone feed her. so unfortunately, i had to allow the nursery to feed her formula that night from a bottle. this threw us off a bit... even though i was incredibly lucky to have a baby that latched on well from the start, i knew that i wasn't satisfying her the way the bottle-feedings did. i didn't have my milk yet, it didn't come easily to her, etc. the books are right when they say that first day/night can really make a difference. this was hard for me emotionally. and physically -- anna just kept trying her damndest to get milk from me, and when she couldn't, she'd try harder. which meant she would cluster feed for 4-5 hours straight. it was torturous. i continued to supplement her with a bottle once or twice a day for that first week, but always tried to offer myself first. finally, when she was 1-week old, she gave up the bottle and went for me exclusively. yay! it made such a difference to me emotionally.
now we're at the 4-week mark. anna has gotten much chubbier, so clearly she's gaining weight. she's on a pretty decent feed schedule -- i feed her every 2 hours during the day (from the beginning of the previous feed), and give her a final feeding around 9:30 or so. then she sleeps a good 4.5 hours or so before her next feeding, and another 3 hour stretch after that. she latches well. i've started pumping and i'm able to give a feeding to dave every night. the only problem i have is that she gets rather fussy sometimes, where she pulls off the breast and cries, then reattaches only to start the cycle over again. this can continue for 2-4 hours! it's exhausting. we're trying to figure out if it's a flow issue, a gas problem, or dreaded colic. only time and careful attention will tell.
breastfeeding is hard. really hard. more so because it's so time-consuming in the beginning. but it's also extremely satisfying. i love that she knows who i am so intimately. i love that i'm actually giving of myself physically to help her grow. and i really enjoy our bonding time. i think it's worth the hassle.
sleep
anna was TERRIBLE our first week home! dave and i didn't sleep -- he got just a few hours in, while i got 1 or 2 if i was lucky. that little girl was a terror. not only did she not sleep at night, but she also barely slept during the day. i was starting to wonder if she was a born insomniac. after all, newborns are supposed to sleep 16-18 hours a day, and anna slept for maybe 7 or 8 total. if we were lucky.
i took it upon myself to really push the day/night reversal, figuring that if anna learned that nighttime meant sleep, then maybe she'd be more relaxed to also take naps during the day. the first weekend we were home, we started to kick visitors out by 5 or 6 in the evening. we would dim the lights in the living room for the evening feedings. we put her down at 9 or so in our bedroom, with the lights down. we learned quickly to let her sleep wherever she would sleep, so her swing seat soon became the location of choice. finally, in our next week home, she started to actually sleep for 1-3 hour stretches. not long, but at least it was something. and she did indeed start to sleep during the day after that. she just needed to get sleep so that she wasn't overtired, and she finally learned to rest. part of the solution was a series of methods we learned to use to calm her down and get her to sleep, and that really did the trick. but more of that in a moment...
now our girl sleeps for 4.5 hours for the first clip, and 3 hours after that. the first few days she started to sleep longer, i woke her every 3 hours as per the doctor's request, so that she could feed. but after that i realized that our girl would never not tell us she was hungry at night, so i let her sleep as long as she wanted. it definitely worked out -- she eats often during the day, so it doesn't matter.
temperament
some of you might recall that we were concerned that anna had acid reflux. she just seemed to be unhappy from the start -- fussy, constantly crying, unable to sleep comfortably. our pediatrician told us that he would evaluate her at her one-month checkup, but that until then we just had to do whatever we could to keep her calm, soothed, and happy. but how do you do that with a constantly howling newborn?
my friend clara suggested on this blog that we get the book "the happiest baby on the block." the title was too perfect to resist, so i thought i'd purchase it. but as luck would have it, my friend daniela (a mommy-to-be), already had the book and its corresponding dvd. since she doesn't need them just yet, she offered to bring it to me to use.
this book is amazingly brilliant! we owe our sleeping hours to the author, dr. karp. he theorizes that a baby's first 3 months of life are actually a sort of 4th trimester, and the baby benefits from recreating the womb. he suggests using the 5 "S's" -- swaddle, swinging, sucking, shh'ing, and side/stomach positioning. we had already been swaddling her as per our pediatrician to try to calm her, but we didn't have complete luck. well, the first night we had the book i downloaded a white noise album to play in the background while she slept (the "shushing" part of it), and we swaddled her whenever we wanted her to calm down and sleep. she didn't sleep for a long clip, but she was totally quiet at night, which was amazing! the white noise, turned up loud for the entire night, really seemed to calm our little terror! the next day, she would nap with white noise near her every time, which really did the trick. and that night, we swaddled her, turned up the white noise, and added in her sleeping in her swing. well, that was that. she slept for 4 hours straight for the first time (and actually scared the hell out of me, since i woke up before her and thought something must be wrong!). sometimes we add in the pacifier for sucking if she's having a particularly hard time calming down or if she reawakens when we place her in the seat. it seems to help her lull back to sleep.
the white noise is also particularly helpful if she's having a fit during the day. we bring her to it, turned way up, and she quiets down. if she's hungry, nothing will stop that wail, but otherwise it truly does comfort her.
anna is quickly becoming more alert and aware of her surroundings. she focuses more and loves to stare. this is wonderful to watch. we can also take her out a bit now, so she has been for 3 walks, and has even been to her first restaurant! unfortunately, she's not always so quiet and fun while she's awake. days like today are particularly difficult, when she just wants to be with her momma (this is why god made people who make baby carriers). but this book has helped us, and our sanity, quite a bit.
mom and dad
i'm finally recovering a bit more. my abdomen is still sore to the touch, which my midwives tell me is my nerves and/or muscles regenerating. it's a bit difficult to deal with, as clothes hurt, let alone having anna sit in my lap. but other than that, i'm more that fine. i'm making sure to still not carry/lift heavy things, and i'm avoiding stairs for a while. but the rest of life is back to normal!
my daily life is an exercise in adjustment. i am used to being at home alone, for better or worse, but i'm not used to a) having to give so much physically to another being and b) having so little time to actually do things. like cook a healthy dinner, or write this blog entry. but i'm slowly getting my legs again, and finding ways to be my usual task-oriented self. in the end, i'm just loving being a mommy.
dave is back to work, and his usual long hours, which i know he isn't thrilled with now that anna is in our lives. he misses her quite a bit every day. we try to send him photos if we can, which makes him happy. but he has started to take over one feeding a night a few days a week, which gives him time to bond with her (and gives me a bit of a break). and of course, there's always designated family time each weekend for just the 3 of us, which makes us all feel good.
anna is officially 4 weeks old today, and will be one month on friday. i can hardly believe it. time really does fly, so we're trying to enjoy it as much as possible. as hard as some days are, in the end she's the most precious thing in the world to us. we don't want to miss any of it.
Monday, February 9, 2009
and yet more photos
i promise, at some point i'll find the time to write everything about our pretty little girl. in the meantime, here are a few more pics to mark the end of week 4!
great aunt maria.
great uncle richie.
daddy cuddle time.
great grandma love! the best kind!
our first real bath!
just chillin' out. this bath thing is very relaxing!
great aunt maria.
great uncle richie.
daddy cuddle time.
great grandma love! the best kind!
our first real bath!
just chillin' out. this bath thing is very relaxing!Thursday, February 5, 2009
new pics!
i have so much to write, and little anna jae doesn't give me much time! but here are some new pics to tide you over...
aunt michelle, visiting last friday.
with aunt loren, who visited on saturday evening.
getting ready to head out for my first walk outside.
which one is the sleep sheep, and which is anna?!
a lovely mix of patterns in my world.
aunt michelle, visiting last friday.
with aunt loren, who visited on saturday evening.
getting ready to head out for my first walk outside.
which one is the sleep sheep, and which is anna?!
a lovely mix of patterns in my world.
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