Sleep...or lack there of

I have a girlfriend who had her baby two weeks ago.  I spoke with her yesterday and boy was she exhausted.  It is sort of funny that I already forget how hard those first couple weeks are.  She was even more tired than I was because she is nursing her baby every two hours.  The doctor and lactation consultant both told her to nurse every two hours and to wake the baby if he is sleeping (and the two hours is from when you start feeding - not when you finish).  That means you literally have 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours in between feedings.  That also means you only get to sleep in 1 hour increments.  Pretty crazy.  I did not follow this routine.  I fed Maggie every 3 hours and if she was sleeping I didn't wake her up.  She didn't sleep much longer than 3 hours because she got hungry and woke up on her own.  Every once in a while I would get to sleep 4 hours straight and I thought life was great.  My poor friend is so tired and she is also stressed because nursing isn't easy to begin with.  It takes practice and patience and who has patience when you are that tired.  She is almost feeling like giving up on breast feeding because it is so hard.  I am not a doctor and I suppose you should follow your doctor's advice, but I also think you should go with your gut feeling.  If you are stressed and exhausted what is the harm of feeding every three or four hours?  Your baby will not starve.  I also feel like if the baby is hungry before the three hours then why not feed her?  I think the doctors say to feed every 2 hours because they want the baby to get used to nursing and it also helps stimulate more milk production.  All I know is that sleep does wonders and so does the breast pump!  If you are feeling stressed and frustrated try and get some rest.  A little sleep goes a long way and when you wake up you probably won't feel so overwhelmed!

Little Successes!

I am celebrating today!  It's not because I am writing a real estate contract in between nursing and diaper changes (although I'm happy about that too), but it is because Maggie finally ate rice cereal!  She sat there (in her bouncy chair), let me feed the cereal to her with a spoon and actually swallowed it.  It is funny that this feels like such a success, but it really does.  I'm in a good mood and am feeling like I accomplished something.  I think my overall good mood stems from the idea that once Maggie starts to eat solid food she will sleep longer.  I've been pretty lucky that she basically sleeps from 8:30pm to 5:30am every night, but I would love it if she slept an hour or two longer.  I've heard that when babies start to eat solid food they sleep longer because they stay full longer.  That is why toddlers can sleep 12 hours at a time.  Maggie started sleeping eight hours a night at around eight weeks old.  My trouble is that I don't want to go to bed at 8:30pm too.  It might be wishful thinking, but I would love to be able to go to bed at 10:30 or 11pm and sleep until 6:30 or 7am.  I'm wondering if any of you have some comments on what your child does.  Am I lucky as it is or am I right to want more?!?!

Head & Shoulders and a toothbrush

After a few weeks of having Maggie she started to get this scaly layer of dried skin on her head (and her eyebrows too).  I looked it up and found out it was called craddle cap.  It doesn't hurt the baby and they say that after a few months it will just go away on it's own.  One book said that craddle cap may bother you, but it doesn't bother the baby.  I of course couldn't just leave it be.  I would find myself sort of picking at her and it drove me nuts.  I did a little research and they said that a good way to get rid of it was using olive oil and a toothbrush.  Pour a little olive oil on her head and gently scrub the scalp with a toothbrush.  I also read that even a little dandruff shampoo would take care of it.  The olive oil is messy and hard to rinse out, so I opted for the Head & Shoulders.  After a week or so of using it the craddle cap was gone.  Now if only trimming her nails was as easy!

Your Baby Can Read - Month 1

Is it important that your baby can read at 10 months...even before they can talk? Probably not, but this 'Your Baby Can Read' system is pretty incredible looking. When I first saw the tv commerical I thought only neurotic parents would purchase this. www.YourBabyCanRead.com After I saw the advertisement a few more times I got more interested and even bought it. I don't know if them showing little babies reading words off flash cards is what got me to buy this or if it is because I'm a bit of a infomerical junkie (thinking of buying Turbo Jam as I write this). But if I'm the infomerical junkie then my husband is the ebay junkie. Once I showed him the commerical he was searching it out on ebay. He did find it and bought it. It is a DVD system that your child watches and you change DVDs as your child gets older. It has you start with your baby at 3 months (that is how old Maggie is), but you can start later. Again, it seems a bit crazy to show your 3 month old reading videos, but Maggie really likes watching it. She will squeal in delight, so it is obviously pretty entertaining. The video shows an action, says the action and also shows the word. The word can be reaching or clapping, but also words like baby, dog, gorilla and elephant. As a parent the video gets old quick and this first DVD feels a bit amatuer and dated. However, Maggie likes it and maybe it will help her read early. It might help that Maggie likes watching tv in general. It can be soccer or Project Runway, but she definitely will stare if the tv is on nearby. I better beware with all the crap I tend to watch. I will try to keep up with it and hopefully this DVD system won't go by the wayside like my other infomerical purchases (Windsor Pilates anyone?). At least they can't send me automatic monthly purchases (Meaningful Beauty)!

Sunshine!

So, now you know all about Maggie's blow outs...and you can imagine all the staining on the clothes. I would get these cute outfits on Maggie and then poop would ruin them. We were up at our cabin this summer with my mom and sister and her family when I found out a big time tip! Maggie had one of her blow outs and it was all over my skirt too. What I had been doing was spraying the spot with stain remover, soaking it, spraying again with remover and then washing it. Well I did a load up at the cabin and after all that the stains were still there. My mom suggested I lay the clothes out in the sun. So, I didn't dry them and just put them on the table in sunlight! When I went back to get the dry clothes the stains were gone. The sun had bleached them out (but the color in the clothes was just fine). My mom said that when she had us she used cloth diapers. She used to wash them and then put them out on the line to dry. She remembered that the cloth diapers would always be white because the sun bleached out the stains. This worked on my skirt too! Haven't tried this with any other stains, but it does work on poop and now my clothes and Maggie's clothes are nice and clean!

Blow Outs!

Holy cow can babies poop! My sister told me that when her daughter was a baby that she would poop one day a week. She would poop all day that day, but it was only once a week. In the first two months Maggie pooped five times a day (at least). Crazy blow out type pooping...running up the back and dripping down the leg. All very disgusting! The worst was when Kaleb, my mom and I were driving to Carlsbad, CA. Maggie was sleeping great and when we hit our first gas stop in Yuma she was still sleeping. I didn't want to wake her (even though changing her in a bathroom would be easier), so we continued on and let her sleep. Of course about 15 minutes later she was awake, so I fed her a bottle. I was pretty sure she also needed a diaper change so I had Kaleb pull off the highway. I was just going to change her in the car and we could move on. Well as soon as I pulled her out of the car seat I realized she had one of her blow outs! It was up her back and the whole deal. We had pulled off the highway in the middle of nowhere (90 degrees outside) and there were farm fields surrounding us. I jump out of the car, so that I could have some room to change her when about 100 flies came in the car. The fields had just been fertilized and the flies were out in droves. I of course freak out and Kaleb and mom were just as flustered. Kaleb says, "jump back in we're moving the car." I do and we move the car (with baby in my lap and poop everywhere) to the other side of the highway. I jump back out, but the flies are still there....they are everywhere because the fields are everywhere. I just deal with it and my mom, Kaleb and I are all trying to change her diaper, wipe her down, get new clothes all the while we are swatting flies. Again, this is the middle of nowhere and my mom looks around and says, "hey here is a garbage can." No idea why this garbage can was there, but it was the only lucky thing about that experience. Finally, Maggie is cleaned up and we are back driving in the car with the windows down trying to get all of the flies out. For whatever reason flies get out pretty quick in a moving vehicle with windows down. Another 10 minutes later we are all back to driving with the book on tape playing. It was about 25 minutes of pure chaos, but now we look back and laugh our asses off!

WubbaNub

The hospital gives you Soothie pacifiers. I tried a couple of other kinds (you get so many as gifts) and my daughter still likes the Soothie best. We were also given a gift of a Soothie pacifier with a little stuffed animal (pink pony) attached to it. It's called a WubbaNub! http://www.wubbanub.com/ When I got the gift I didn't think I would ever use it. However, when we were home and the pacifier fell out it would fall to the floor. My husband brought out the 'horsey pacifier' and we loved it. It has some weight to it, so it stays put rather than automatically rolling to the floor. Also, because Maggie sleeps on her side the pacifier will rest on the mattress and even if she spits it out she can actually go back to it on her own. We'll see if we continue to use it, but for the last couple of months we haven't gone anywhere without it. The person that gave me the gift got it at the hospital gift shop. Babies R Us does not carry it...I found out the hard way! One day my husband and I decided to go on our first outing with the baby. We of course went to Babies R Us! :) I had stuff to return and things to buy. We had Maggie in her infant car seat and placed it on the shopping cart. She was sleeping as we got her out of the car, but the cart ride from the car to the store woke her up. She was a little fussy, but not too bad. I decided to go wait in the return line and Kaleb was going to push her around until I was done. Maggie started getting more fussy and my husband started to panic. He grabbed a pacifier from the bag, but it was the Soothie on it's own and not the WubbaNub. She kept spitting it out and it fell to the floor. Kaleb was frustrated and didn't really know how to handle a crying baby out in public. He walks over to me in line and hisses, "You didn't bring the horsey pacifier," and storms back to the cart. I stood there stunned...thinking, "I didn't bring the horsey pacifier....YOU didn't bring the horsey pacifier!" I said, "we're in Babies R Us, go find one." As it turns out they don't carry them. We did go online and bought some others (you can collect all 12) and we now tell the story of Kaleb's first baby meltdown!