Arghh! So slack! I have all these ideas for great posts I want to write, but I know half the time I sit down and start writing I will be interrupted by the small fry waking up and demanding my attention- hehe.
So, I'll start this entry and let's see how far I actually get with it.
Today we have an 8 week follow up appointment for Hudson. I hope the doctor finds that all is well. I am also going to mention the feeding issue (e.g fussiness in the afternoons!), because it's getting really tiring dealing with it. I have taken to feeding him expressed milk in addition to his usual feedings in the afternoon. When he gets really fussy while feeding and gives himself wind through being so fussy (poor guy!) and therefore starts screaming because he's in pain, I go and get a bottle of expressed milk and voila! Problem solved! Apart from that, he is such a happy, calm, content baby. We really got lucky!
Last night we put him down at 10pm after his late night feed (yes, he was sleeping before this as well) he slept until 5.45am! Woohoo!We are making major progress. He is doing close to 8 hours- which I am really really happy with for an 8 week old.
I can't believe he is 8 weeks today. The time has flown by, but yet it seems like he has been around for longer than 8 weeks.
Oops, there he is.. must go!
Monday, July 25, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
Feeding the Baby
If it's not worrying about sleep and settling with a newborn, it's worrying about.. dum dum dum.....
feeding!
I am currently breastfeeding the little guy, and I swear nobody tells you that it can be quite difficult! When I see/ hear of others breastfeeding it always just seemed to easy and relaxed.
In truth, it can be quite the opposite! I am pretty determined to continue breastfeeding for a while longer, but it hasn't been without it's hiccups. To start with, the first month or so I had to deal with the pain of cracked nipples. Now I had midwifes and such check to see if he was latching on correctly (he was), but I still had this hideous toe curling pain each time he would feed. Finally they healed up, and all is well.
Now I'm past the first hurdle and onto the next one!
It seems that Hudson is getting more and more fussy every time he feeds. I don't know if this is a wind issue, or if he is a lazy feeder, but I swear during my afternoon feeds he is on and off the breast like crazy, having little cries and looking as frustrated as I feel!
I'm always hoping he is getting enough milk and each week when I weigh him I always have my fingers crossed that he has gained weight (Thankfully he has had a gain each week!).
Sometimes I think it would be sooooo much easier switching to formula- he drinks from a bottle with no issues (have tested this with expressed milk), Hubby could share with the feeds, and at least I could actually see how much milk he was taking in.
But, I've decided to stick with this whole breastfeeding caper for a while longer. Let's see how we go!
feeding!
I am currently breastfeeding the little guy, and I swear nobody tells you that it can be quite difficult! When I see/ hear of others breastfeeding it always just seemed to easy and relaxed.
In truth, it can be quite the opposite! I am pretty determined to continue breastfeeding for a while longer, but it hasn't been without it's hiccups. To start with, the first month or so I had to deal with the pain of cracked nipples. Now I had midwifes and such check to see if he was latching on correctly (he was), but I still had this hideous toe curling pain each time he would feed. Finally they healed up, and all is well.
Now I'm past the first hurdle and onto the next one!
It seems that Hudson is getting more and more fussy every time he feeds. I don't know if this is a wind issue, or if he is a lazy feeder, but I swear during my afternoon feeds he is on and off the breast like crazy, having little cries and looking as frustrated as I feel!
I'm always hoping he is getting enough milk and each week when I weigh him I always have my fingers crossed that he has gained weight (Thankfully he has had a gain each week!).
Sometimes I think it would be sooooo much easier switching to formula- he drinks from a bottle with no issues (have tested this with expressed milk), Hubby could share with the feeds, and at least I could actually see how much milk he was taking in.
But, I've decided to stick with this whole breastfeeding caper for a while longer. Let's see how we go!
Friday, July 8, 2011
Sleep Scehdule.. Yawn!
Wow I am a slacker. Really need to POST.MORE.OFTEN!
Things here are going well. My main obsession with our little boy is.. *drumroll*... sleeping! I swear after almost 6 weeks of not having a full nights sleep, I am obsessed with him sleeping through the night. Now, I know he is only 5 1/2 weeks old, and I can't expect that he will sleep through just yet, I am super keen to get him into a routine so that the transition to sleeping through the night is easy and when he's ready he will just do it.
I have consulted a number of books and strategies to help with this.
Firstly, a friend lent us a book they swore by. It is called 'Baby Wise- Giving your Infant the Gift of Night Time Sleep' (more like giving the sleep deprived parent the gift of night time sleep!). I think it has a lot of really, really good points that I agree with. For example, having a routine and also highlighting the negative aspects of what he calls 'child centred parenting'. Main problem here is I don't think he really emphasises what to do when your little one cries and cries through the night, apart from just letting them 'cry it out'.
Next, my cousin recommended 'Save Our Sleep' by Tizzy Hall. Again, some good points, good routines etc, deals exactly with how to let your little one 'cry it out', but alas, the crying it out thing just doesn't seem to work for Hudson. Trust me, we have tried. Put him to bed, followed everything the book said to do. He wailed and wailed and wailed, didn't seem like we were getting anywhere. Honestly. So, gave the little guy his dummy (which Save Our Sleep does not recommend), straight away he calmed down, and about 10 minutes later he was asleep (which is when we would promptly go in and do the 'stealth dummy removal'). Trust me, we have tried every different soothing technique and the foolproof, works 99% of the time strategy for Hudson is his dummy! The poor little guy often needs it to soothe himself.
Ok, so the next thing we've consulted is 'The Happiest Baby on the Block' DVD. I think this one is great. Has some really good tecniques to calm your baby down. Great DVD (Hubby liked it too as he didn't have to read a book, could just watch the DVD!). And lastly, I have just ordered the 'Mom's on Call' book and DVD, so we'll see if this one has anything different to say!
So far Hudson's schedule goes like this:
7am- feed/ play/sleep
10-11amish- feed/play/sleep
1/2pm-ish- feed/play/sleep
4/5.30-ish feed/bathtime with Daddy, Put to bed in his bassinet for the night.
9-9.30pm- I wake him for a feed (still deciding if this is the best strategy- for me to wake him or just to let him wake on his own?)
He then sleeps until around 1am-2am, he wakes for a feed.
Then he sleeps until around 6.30-7am when he wakes for a feed.
I am hanging to get rid of the 2am feed, but I know that could take some time!
Things here are going well. My main obsession with our little boy is.. *drumroll*... sleeping! I swear after almost 6 weeks of not having a full nights sleep, I am obsessed with him sleeping through the night. Now, I know he is only 5 1/2 weeks old, and I can't expect that he will sleep through just yet, I am super keen to get him into a routine so that the transition to sleeping through the night is easy and when he's ready he will just do it.
I have consulted a number of books and strategies to help with this.
Firstly, a friend lent us a book they swore by. It is called 'Baby Wise- Giving your Infant the Gift of Night Time Sleep' (more like giving the sleep deprived parent the gift of night time sleep!). I think it has a lot of really, really good points that I agree with. For example, having a routine and also highlighting the negative aspects of what he calls 'child centred parenting'. Main problem here is I don't think he really emphasises what to do when your little one cries and cries through the night, apart from just letting them 'cry it out'.
Next, my cousin recommended 'Save Our Sleep' by Tizzy Hall. Again, some good points, good routines etc, deals exactly with how to let your little one 'cry it out', but alas, the crying it out thing just doesn't seem to work for Hudson. Trust me, we have tried. Put him to bed, followed everything the book said to do. He wailed and wailed and wailed, didn't seem like we were getting anywhere. Honestly. So, gave the little guy his dummy (which Save Our Sleep does not recommend), straight away he calmed down, and about 10 minutes later he was asleep (which is when we would promptly go in and do the 'stealth dummy removal'). Trust me, we have tried every different soothing technique and the foolproof, works 99% of the time strategy for Hudson is his dummy! The poor little guy often needs it to soothe himself.
Ok, so the next thing we've consulted is 'The Happiest Baby on the Block' DVD. I think this one is great. Has some really good tecniques to calm your baby down. Great DVD (Hubby liked it too as he didn't have to read a book, could just watch the DVD!). And lastly, I have just ordered the 'Mom's on Call' book and DVD, so we'll see if this one has anything different to say!
So far Hudson's schedule goes like this:
7am- feed/ play/sleep
10-11amish- feed/play/sleep
1/2pm-ish- feed/play/sleep
4/5.30-ish feed/bathtime with Daddy, Put to bed in his bassinet for the night.
9-9.30pm- I wake him for a feed (still deciding if this is the best strategy- for me to wake him or just to let him wake on his own?)
He then sleeps until around 1am-2am, he wakes for a feed.
Then he sleeps until around 6.30-7am when he wakes for a feed.
I am hanging to get rid of the 2am feed, but I know that could take some time!
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Birth Story
This is a bit overdue, but here is my birth story:
Well, it all started on Monday morning, the 30th May. I woke up at about 4am with some intense pains that kept coming every 20 minutes or so, that wouldn’t let me sleep. I guess these were some pretty mild contractions. Hubby didn’t want to go to work that day, as he was pretty worried, but I sent him off- knowing it could be some time before things really ramped up. My contractions continued at about one every 20 minutes or so. By the time Hubby came home from work, they were closer together, coming at roughly every 10 minutes. I wasn’t too fussed, so we continued going about our normal routine- making dinner, watching TV and so on. At 11pm, they were getting stronger and much closer together, but I decided to give sleeping a go. Off to bed I went, which lasted all of 20 minutes, as I had quite strong contractions coming every 7 minutes. At this point Hubby was getting pretty worried, and decided to call the hospital. They told us to wait until the contractions were 3-5 minutes apart. I knew this wouldn’t be too far off, so Hubby started loading the car up, putting extra food out for our cat-child while I had a nice hot shower to try and relax. Every time a contraction came at this point I had to lean against the wall as they were getting pretty painful. We kept timing the contractions (using a trusty iphone app!) and when they were every 4-5 minutes and I was in way too much pain, we got into the car and headed off to the hospital. Sitting in the car and not being able to lean forward when I got a contraction was agony, so I was really happy that, being it was close to 1am- there was no traffic!
We went into the hospital and were immediately sent to the Early Pregnancy Assessment Unit at about 1am, where they did an examination and found I was 4cm dilated. I stayed in the bathroom there for another couple of hours under the hot shower on the fit ball, breathing through each contraction. When the pain became a little too much to bear on my own, I was then transferred to a birthing suite so I could use the gas to help ease the pain of my contractions.
Again, I chose to sit in the shower, alternating between a chair and a fit ball, with the hot water on my abdomen. Hubby kept helping me out by rubbing my back and giving me water after breathing in the gas as it dried my mouth out.
By 7am, my favourite OB started her shift which I was pretty happy about.
It had been close to 6 hours since my last examination, and being that your cervix should dilate approximately 1cm per hour, I was thinking we should be nearing the end and coming close to pushing time. Well, after my examination my OB told me that I was now only 5cm dilated. 5cm!! It had taken close to 6 hours to dilate 1cm! I was devastated. My waters had also not broken, so at this point they had to be manually broken. Once this happened, my contractions went from something I considered painful, to the most intense pain I have ever experienced! I could no longer sit in the shower as I was in too much pain. I kept leaning against Hubby and squeezing his hand. At the peak of my contractions I was yelling and screaming in pain- I never thought I would be one of those people! I continued trying to suck on the gas, but the pain was so intense I could hardly hold it in my mouth, instead I was sobbing and crying out in pain. At this point, I knew I needed something else to enable me to continue, so my midwife convinced me to give a shot of pethidine a go to ‘take the edge off’ the contractions. Well, let me tell you, the pethidine was the biggest waste of time. All it did was make me feel sleepy and drugged out in between each contraction, but did not at all lessen the pain! I persevered another few hours, but by about 11am I’d had enough. They examined me to find I was now 9cm dilated, and when I asked how much longer I’d have to go, I was told it could be another 3-4 hours. Oh my god. Then all of a sudden I got this intense urge to push and I screamed out “I need to push”- it was like it wasn’t even me, it was my body completely taking over. My body was no where near ready to push, so I have no idea what was going on there. At this point I was so exhausted from lack of sleep the past 2 nights and I told Hubby I couldn’t do it anymore and I needed an epidural. He made sure that I really did want one (oh my god, did I ever), and that was that. The anaesthesiologist was sent in (after what seemed like eternity), I had to agree to all sorts of risks (I would of said yes to anything at this point) and they started prepping me for the epidural. I was supposed to sit up very straight on the bed and keep still while the inserted the needle. Let me tell you, it is not at all easy to sit up straight on a bed while crying out in pain through contraction after contraction hoping that the anaesthesiologist isn’t going to mess up because you’re moving! Well, I somehow managed to stay still and they got the epidural up and working (“How long is it going to take? How long is it going to take?” ), once it kicked in, I felt like it was a completely different labour. I was calm, relaxed and was feeling really good about my decision. I have no regrets taking it all as it came, and if I were to go through labour again, I definitely would not opt for an epidural off the bat. Some people are lucky enough to have a short labour, which I believe I could of endured!
A few hours later, after having to have a drip to increase my contractions, due to a ‘failure to progress’, I was told it was time to start pushing. We were going to have a baby really soon! Well, again nothing was to come easy with this labour, and I had to lie in numerous positions to try and push our little baby down the birth canal. After an hour and a half of pushing (again, thankful for my decision to get an epidural at this point!) my OB told me I had a very small pelvis and our baby was started to become distressed and would need a little bit of help to come out. I remember thinking “Oh, no, I hope they don’t want to give me a caesarean!”, but luckily that was not the case. She told me she thought a vacuum extraction was needed. At this point my dignity was long gone and my legs were put up into the stirrups, the vacuum put onto his head and I was told to push. I pushed with all my might, and after a few more minutes at exactly 1.42pm on Tuesday 31st May our little baby was pushed out into the world. Instead of telling us the sex, they held our baby up so we could see…. It was a… boy! He had these big eyes that immediately stared at everything around him, then he started crying. Hubby cut the cord, and then they placed him on my chest for some skin to skin contact and his first breast feed.
I remember really not caring that my legs were up in stirrups as my 2nd degree tears were being stitched up (thank god I was distracted and couldn’t feel the pain!) as I was instantly in love with this little being laying on my chest. He weighed 6lbs, 10oz (2.998kg) and everything on him was just perfect.
After a long, long labour and the most ridiculous pain I have ever experienced our little baby boy- Hudson was brought into the world.
We went into the hospital and were immediately sent to the Early Pregnancy Assessment Unit at about 1am, where they did an examination and found I was 4cm dilated. I stayed in the bathroom there for another couple of hours under the hot shower on the fit ball, breathing through each contraction. When the pain became a little too much to bear on my own, I was then transferred to a birthing suite so I could use the gas to help ease the pain of my contractions.
Again, I chose to sit in the shower, alternating between a chair and a fit ball, with the hot water on my abdomen. Hubby kept helping me out by rubbing my back and giving me water after breathing in the gas as it dried my mouth out.
By 7am, my favourite OB started her shift which I was pretty happy about.
It had been close to 6 hours since my last examination, and being that your cervix should dilate approximately 1cm per hour, I was thinking we should be nearing the end and coming close to pushing time. Well, after my examination my OB told me that I was now only 5cm dilated. 5cm!! It had taken close to 6 hours to dilate 1cm! I was devastated. My waters had also not broken, so at this point they had to be manually broken. Once this happened, my contractions went from something I considered painful, to the most intense pain I have ever experienced! I could no longer sit in the shower as I was in too much pain. I kept leaning against Hubby and squeezing his hand. At the peak of my contractions I was yelling and screaming in pain- I never thought I would be one of those people! I continued trying to suck on the gas, but the pain was so intense I could hardly hold it in my mouth, instead I was sobbing and crying out in pain. At this point, I knew I needed something else to enable me to continue, so my midwife convinced me to give a shot of pethidine a go to ‘take the edge off’ the contractions. Well, let me tell you, the pethidine was the biggest waste of time. All it did was make me feel sleepy and drugged out in between each contraction, but did not at all lessen the pain! I persevered another few hours, but by about 11am I’d had enough. They examined me to find I was now 9cm dilated, and when I asked how much longer I’d have to go, I was told it could be another 3-4 hours. Oh my god. Then all of a sudden I got this intense urge to push and I screamed out “I need to push”- it was like it wasn’t even me, it was my body completely taking over. My body was no where near ready to push, so I have no idea what was going on there. At this point I was so exhausted from lack of sleep the past 2 nights and I told Hubby I couldn’t do it anymore and I needed an epidural. He made sure that I really did want one (oh my god, did I ever), and that was that. The anaesthesiologist was sent in (after what seemed like eternity), I had to agree to all sorts of risks (I would of said yes to anything at this point) and they started prepping me for the epidural. I was supposed to sit up very straight on the bed and keep still while the inserted the needle. Let me tell you, it is not at all easy to sit up straight on a bed while crying out in pain through contraction after contraction hoping that the anaesthesiologist isn’t going to mess up because you’re moving! Well, I somehow managed to stay still and they got the epidural up and working (“How long is it going to take? How long is it going to take?” ), once it kicked in, I felt like it was a completely different labour. I was calm, relaxed and was feeling really good about my decision. I have no regrets taking it all as it came, and if I were to go through labour again, I definitely would not opt for an epidural off the bat. Some people are lucky enough to have a short labour, which I believe I could of endured!
A few hours later, after having to have a drip to increase my contractions, due to a ‘failure to progress’, I was told it was time to start pushing. We were going to have a baby really soon! Well, again nothing was to come easy with this labour, and I had to lie in numerous positions to try and push our little baby down the birth canal. After an hour and a half of pushing (again, thankful for my decision to get an epidural at this point!) my OB told me I had a very small pelvis and our baby was started to become distressed and would need a little bit of help to come out. I remember thinking “Oh, no, I hope they don’t want to give me a caesarean!”, but luckily that was not the case. She told me she thought a vacuum extraction was needed. At this point my dignity was long gone and my legs were put up into the stirrups, the vacuum put onto his head and I was told to push. I pushed with all my might, and after a few more minutes at exactly 1.42pm on Tuesday 31st May our little baby was pushed out into the world. Instead of telling us the sex, they held our baby up so we could see…. It was a… boy! He had these big eyes that immediately stared at everything around him, then he started crying. Hubby cut the cord, and then they placed him on my chest for some skin to skin contact and his first breast feed.
I remember really not caring that my legs were up in stirrups as my 2nd degree tears were being stitched up (thank god I was distracted and couldn’t feel the pain!) as I was instantly in love with this little being laying on my chest. He weighed 6lbs, 10oz (2.998kg) and everything on him was just perfect.
After a long, long labour and the most ridiculous pain I have ever experienced our little baby boy- Hudson was brought into the world.
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