Shhhhhh…

   

I’m guest blogging over at Hello Owl today, and I’m talking about a sensitive issue for mums. Head on over for a read.

Breast is Best?

I can’t believe I’m actually thinking this, after all the hard work and trauma I went through to make breast feeding work…. but I’m contemplating weaning.
This week (I know, only a week) Pebble has been waking at 3.30am every morning for a suckle, even if she was *just* fed within the hour. She has a little suck for five or ten minutes, then falls back to sleep.
So, what? Well, it’s all well and good if she’s actually feeding, but I feel like a human dummy when she wakes me up just for this. I tried using a dummy instead, tried rocking her to sleep and resettling her, but she was having none of it. Perhaps it will pass.
How will weaning help this? To be honest, I don’t know….
On top of that I’ve woken up in the night with blocked ducts *again*. It’s happened twice before, but it cleared instantly when I located the blockage. This time I can’t find it and it’s getting more and more painful. I’m trying hot compresses, different feeding positions and pumping, but so far it’s not going away.  My next try is a hot shower and massage, but I’m getting desperate. Hopefully it won’t develop into mastitis.
Aside from that, as much as I love her (and I really, really do), I would like to have a bit more flexibility, and be able to be away from her for more than a couple of hours. Expressing has never worked well for me, so to keep up the breast feeding I need to be accessible to her every two to three hours during the day time.
I think I’m just feeling tired, and a bit run down. I feel like I want my body back, just a little. And I feel so guilty for it.
Do you have any pearls of wisdom for me?

In the swing

Pebble and I are getting the hang of this mum and baby business. I think a lot of the changes in the last week come down to me relaxing more. It’s easy enough to tell someone to relax, take it easy, don’t worry….. I’ve been telling myself that for weeks already! But only in the last week, or even the last few days, have I really been able to do it.
Pebble has become more predictable. There’s not a real routine, but I am more able to know how to respond to her needs, and handle whatever she has to throw at me :)
I am also allowing myself to relax about the fact that she is going to cry in the car. This will not kill her. In fact, it helped clear her little nose of boogers yesterday, the poor little mite was crying so hard. It still breaks my heart a little to hear it, but it doesn’t stop me from going out anymore.
So far this week I have gone to my mum’s for dinner with Paul (an hour away), gone shopping for hours with Paul’s mum, and yesterday I took Pebble to the doctors, the supermarket, and the library ALL BY MYSELF. Tonight Pebble and I are heading to my Dad’s for dinner (an hour away), and we’ll be just fine.
It helps that my milk supply seems a little better, but also I’m just not stressing about that so much anymore either. If she’s crying and I don’t seem able to satisfy her needs with breast milk, I can give her a small top up of formula. There is no need for either of us to be stressed by this situation any more.
Of course, key to all of this is some  predictability around night time and sleep. We almost always do the 7.30 – 8.00ish feed, followed by a nice long bath, then another attempt at feeding and a small bottle at around 9pm. Then a cuddle and Daddy rocks Pebble to sleep while I hit the hay. I usually either get woken, or wake Pebble up, around 1am or 2am for a feed and she usually goes straight back down to sleep.
As long as I get this little bit of sleep, I can cope! After that it’s a little bit more all over the place. Sometimes she’ll wake for a feed one or two hours later and sometimes she’ll even go down for another little two hour sleep after the next feed.
This is our usual right now. I know this will change again as Pebble changes, but right now it’s working and I’ll enjoy it.

Someone stole my baby

….. and replaced her with an angel!
The clinic on Wednesday was good….. the time at home putting it all into practice has been awesome. For two days and two nights I have had a baby who sleeps for three hours at a time at night and 2+ hours at a time during the day! In her bassinet!!!
We still had the crazy screaming inconsolable baby from 6pm – 9pm last night (not continuous screaming, more in waves). But from what I understand about these things, that time of night is commonly crazy for little bubs. Hey, if that’s what I gotta put up with then it’s ALL GOOD, BABY!
So,  how did it all happen? The nurses taught me to teach Pebble how to sleep. The steps are:

• TIGHTLY wrap the baby in a large wrap (as big as a cot sheet!)
• put the baby in the cot when they are calm (or bassinet)
• create a ‘seatbelt’ of fabric by folding up another wrap/bassinette sheet/cot sheet so that it is about 10cm wide and long enough to tuck under each side of the mattress. Tuck it under one side of the mattress, pull over bub’s middle, and tuck under the other side of the mattress so that bub’s weight is holding it down.
• tuck in any other blankets if you need them (not so much in the warm weather)
• if bub is distracted by your face, use another wrap to block her view of you (I peg a wrap to the bassinette handles while rocking, then move it while she’s sleeping just in case it accidentally falls over her face).
• now ROCK! like there’s not tomorrow. It’s pretty important that the bed have wheels for this part. A jerky movement is good.
• as bub starts to drift off to sleep slow down the rocking until you’re completely stopped.
• if bub wakes up, start with big rocking again, and slowly withdraw the rocking as she sleeps. Keep returning and trying to resettle every time she wakes.

Easy, right? Well, kind of.
The first time we did this at the clinic Pebble SCREAMED! She screamed longer and harder than she ever had before, so much that it brought me to tears. It may have been only a few minutes, no more than five, of this intense screaming, but …… I just can’t describe the feeling that it gave me. It has horrifying.
Just as I was at breaking point, and ready to pick her up and give her a cuddle, her cries got a little quieter and a peaceful look came over her face. Over the next 20 mins, her eyes got smaller and smaller until they were completely closed. Sure, I had to go back to resettle her twice, and when she woke after an hour and a half I promptly picked her up for cuddles. But she slept! Away from me!
The second sleep time at the clinic, Pebble settled much more quickly, with no big screaming at all. Just a little cry, then the same peaceful look, and she was off. Again, some resettling was needed, but that time she slept so long I had to wake her up so we could go home!
That night I got 7 hours of sleep (4 + 3 + 1) and she got even more (I got up to shower and have breakfast). During the day she had two 2.5 hour naps. Last night she had two three hour sleeps and a two hour sleep, and has been sleeping for 2.5 hours so far today.
I think we’re lucky that it worked so quickly for us. I imagined coming home to at least a week of screaming nights, but Pebble seems so relieved that her mummy has finally learned to help her sleep properly. She is feeding so much better too, I think because she finally has the energy to suck properly for a longer time.
Here is my sleeping angel amongst my arsenal of sleep weapons (I still use ‘Wooshy’ the bear that makes womb sounds, and a CD of baby lullabies).

Hopefully this pattern continues…….. hope I didn’t jinx it by putting it all out there! LOL I’m a little bit superstitious sometimes……

Dude, you better be sleepin!

This is how I check to see if Pebble is sleeping. With covert surveillance! Loathe to move her in case she is not yet quite asleep, and then disturb her, I sneak up from behind. I love my expression in this pic. There’s something of a threat in my eye . Or just plain desperation, perhaps.
The only way I can get to my computer keyboard to write more than a sentence, is to stand at the kitchen bench in front of the lap top, with little Pebble in the sling. Except, of course, for the rare times that she does sleep away from my body during the day, and if that happens you can be DAMN sure I’ll be sleeping too.
Don’t get me wrong here. My heart is full of love for this little bundle, and I lap up the cuddles as much as I can, because before too long she’ll be oh so big and I’ll wonder where my baby went.
Tomorrow the two of us are headed off to the local Child and Youth Heath office for some observation and hopefully some support with feeding and settling. We are still struggling with breast feeding. Sometimes it’s awesome, and sometimes Pebble is all about the screaming and frustration and pulling away. I’ve no idea why this happens, I can’t see a pattern to it, but it’s distressing for both of us. We’re still using formula top ups at night, to make sure that I get more than a half hours sleep at a time.
Still, things could be worse. My heart goes out to my friend who’s little girl is less than a week old and has had to return to hospital to sort out some real feeding issues. At least I have my bub home, she’s healthy and sometimes, for rare glimpses of time, she’s even a little bit happy.
Sending all my love to little baby Brooklyn. You know who you are.
Here’s a little bit of Pebble from this week….
 
Look into my eyes…….
 
Snuggling with mum on the couch (also known as ‘refusing to sleep anywhere but with my mama’).

Chilling on my mamas new breastfeeding pillow (a pressie from my mates Sarah and Dave).