The First Few Months
What was the best part?
Hillary said, “The best part was knowing that we were home as a family away from all the doctors and nurses constantly checking in and giving advice. It’s nice to have the advice, but trust your instincts--you will know your child better than you think and you will know what to do. Don’t stress.”
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| Sweet newborn Cambrie |
Sarah felt it was “the time you get to spend getting to know your child; figuring out what she likes; learning when she is going to be sleepy or hungry; finding all the tricks to getting her to sleep or eat; how to make her smile and coo at you; feeling the profound sensation that you are her mommy and she is your baby.”
What was the hardest part?
The theme here is sleep. For Hillary, the hardest part was “being so tired and not being able to sleep because Zoie was up.”
What was the hardest part?
The theme here is sleep. For Hillary, the hardest part was “being so tired and not being able to sleep because Zoie was up.”
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| Just barely on our way home from the hospital, and already exhausted. |
Sarah said it's “being exhausted. Labor drains your energy to begin with, but you also have the left over responsibility of caring for yourself. Then you also have to take care for the baby. For about a month and a half I could tell the time by when my baby wanted to eat. She got hungry every two hours and feeding her took about 45 minutes, so the longest time I had in between feedings was about an hour and fifteen minutes to sleep, eat or shower.”
What do you wish you had known beforehand?
Hillary said, “This is kind of silly, but I wish I knew to freeze meals so I could just heat them up and eat.”
Sarah had a difficult time with nursing. She said, “I wish I had known how much a newborn baby needs to eat. Not how often but how much. I had chosen to nurse, but my milk didn’t come in for seven days and we had a lot of problems getting the baby to latch on. The first night home she was so hungry and I wasn’t producing enough to satisfy her. We wouldn’t even have had any formula to give her, except that the hospital gave us some samples. We only gave her 5ml at a time. When we went to the pediatrician the next morning she told us the baby needed between 20-30ml per feeding and I realized we had basically been starving our child because of our ignorance. I was devastated. Don’t believe what those ultra-purest lactation specialists tell you. Formula is not the devil incarnate and a bottle won’t destroy your chances to breastfeed. Just go with your instincts and do what you feel will keep you and your baby happy and healthy.”
Hillary said, “This is kind of silly, but I wish I knew to freeze meals so I could just heat them up and eat.”
Sarah had a difficult time with nursing. She said, “I wish I had known how much a newborn baby needs to eat. Not how often but how much. I had chosen to nurse, but my milk didn’t come in for seven days and we had a lot of problems getting the baby to latch on. The first night home she was so hungry and I wasn’t producing enough to satisfy her. We wouldn’t even have had any formula to give her, except that the hospital gave us some samples. We only gave her 5ml at a time. When we went to the pediatrician the next morning she told us the baby needed between 20-30ml per feeding and I realized we had basically been starving our child because of our ignorance. I was devastated. Don’t believe what those ultra-purest lactation specialists tell you. Formula is not the devil incarnate and a bottle won’t destroy your chances to breastfeed. Just go with your instincts and do what you feel will keep you and your baby happy and healthy.”
(Stephanie speaking here...) Sarah's experience is not that uncommon--for a lot of women there is a lot of grief surrounding nursing. I will say that it was, for a while, quite the awful, painful experience. But things eventually got better for me, and I was able to nurse Cambrie for about 14 months. Remember to use all your resources--from the medical side and the lactation consultant side. Once you have all the information you need, I suggest two things: give it time (if you are having trouble, try sticking with nursing, exclusively or not, for at least a month before stopping), and in the end, make a decision and stick with it. You are not a failure if you do not nurse your baby until age 3! In any case, you are just as likely to take to nursing like a fish to water. Then, it can be a beautiful, wonderful, easy experience!
Sarah adds additional advice:
“I also wish I had known that there are things you can do to help if your mild supply is lacking. There is a prescription called Reglan which help me so much. I tried one thing after another for six weeks before finally asking my ob-gyn if there was anything we could do. It took about three weeks, but now I have enough to feed my daughter. I wish I had been more willing to ask for help when it came to breast feeding,. When I finally started asking questions I found out I wasn’t alone and there was something I could do about it.”
What do you wish you had done differently?
Hillary said, “Zoie slept all day the first few weeks and I didn’t take any naps while she slept. I wanted to get the house cleaned and catch up on some stuff, but I wish I would have slept more when she slept.”
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| "Really, mom? Do I look like I'll ever let you sleep?" |
I will add that this is a theme I have heard many-a-time. Forget the house! Sleep! Take friends and family up on their offers to clean/cook/watch the little one for you. You will feel better if you do.
Sarah said, “I wish I had set aside a budget for nursing bras and nursing friendly clothes. Once my milk came in I was a very full cup size bigger. All my bras, except one, were far too small and very uncomfortable. I think that was a contributing factor later when my daughter got thrush, which is a yeast infection in the mouth. I also walked around for about two months feeling dowdy and fat because none of my pre-pregnancy clothes fit and all my maternity clothes looked… maternity. Finally buying some, “in between,” clothes helped boost my morale immensely."
What are you very glad you did?
Hillary said, “I am very glad that I took tons of pictures. It’s fun to look back and see how much Zoie has grown. I am also glad that I was able to get Zoie into a nap and bedtime routine--it made it easier when she got older. Start early and be consistent.”
(Stephanie again...) I will add one thing about the pictures--definitely take a ton, but if you take videos, leave them short (30 seconds or fewer). I remember thinking, "Everyone else may find them boring, but I'll love watching my little 1 month old spit and gurgle and smile for two minutes straight forever!!" Wrong. Give it eight more months and you'll be as bored as the rest of the world. Shorter videos are way cuter. :-)
Said Sarah, “I am very glad that I let my husband help with everything. He knew how to feed the baby, change her diapers, and bathe her. Very importantly, he knew where everything was, so when I needed a break I felt comfortable leaving the baby with him for an hour or two. I just knew he could do it on his own, and so did he. Neither of us had anything to worry about.”
What one product/trick was super useful?
Hillary shared: “Always put your child’s needs before yours. It’ll make a difference in your day and attitude-- especially your baby’s. For example, I wanted to shower or read my book, but I needed to feed, change, put to sleep or play with Zoie, and it frustrated me for a bit, but when I forgot about myself and took care of Zoie, she would calm down and eat better and sleep better.”
Sarah said, “A bottle warmer was so useful. You just sit the bottle in the warmer, pour in the prescribed amount of water and about sixty seconds later when you test the temperature of the milk it’s perfectly warm. You don’t have to boil water, let the bottle sit in it, test the temperature of the milk, let it warm some more or wait for it to cool down a little, and test again while your baby cries that she was ready to eat ten minutes ago when you started making the bottle.”
Said Sarah, “I am very glad that I let my husband help with everything. He knew how to feed the baby, change her diapers, and bathe her. Very importantly, he knew where everything was, so when I needed a break I felt comfortable leaving the baby with him for an hour or two. I just knew he could do it on his own, and so did he. Neither of us had anything to worry about.”
What one product/trick was super useful?
Hillary shared: “Always put your child’s needs before yours. It’ll make a difference in your day and attitude-- especially your baby’s. For example, I wanted to shower or read my book, but I needed to feed, change, put to sleep or play with Zoie, and it frustrated me for a bit, but when I forgot about myself and took care of Zoie, she would calm down and eat better and sleep better.”
Sarah said, “A bottle warmer was so useful. You just sit the bottle in the warmer, pour in the prescribed amount of water and about sixty seconds later when you test the temperature of the milk it’s perfectly warm. You don’t have to boil water, let the bottle sit in it, test the temperature of the milk, let it warm some more or wait for it to cool down a little, and test again while your baby cries that she was ready to eat ten minutes ago when you started making the bottle.”
My last, older sisterly advice? It is okay, and normal, in the first few months to have moments where you think to yourself, "What were we thinking?!?! I can't do this!!! I'm tiredtiredtiredtired, my baby is crying and I don't know why, and I'm tired, and because my baby keeps crying/won't go to sleep/won't eat/won't poop I'm a failure as a mother and never should have procreated, and I'm tired!"
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| That's my "I'll try to look like a competent mom for the camera" look. |
It's okay. That moment will pass. Your baby will cry some day/night/wee hour of the morning, and you will have a little nudge in your head. You will act on it, and it will work. Then, a few weeks later, your baby will sleep from 9 pm to 6 am only waking up twice in the night, and it will be beautiful. And then your baby will start to watch you, and smile at you, and stop crying when you pick her up because she knows you're her mommy. And, slowly but surely, that super-powerful-all-knowing-runs-on-zero-sleep-and-still-manages-to-dress-baby-up-in-cute-outfits-and-do-the-dishes mommy inside of you will make her way to the foreground.
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| This was my reason it was all worth it. |
And, with your beautiful angel in your arms, you will feel on top of the world.
1 comment:
this (especially the last paragraph) made me laugh and cry. so beautifully written and such wonderful advice.
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