Babby is ten days old today. His birth feels like a lifetime ago. And also like yesterday. He’s a good baby, generally, and overall I like him quite a lot. But cluster feeding is from the devil, I’m here to tell you now. I like nursing him, but sleep would be nice.
My mother has been here helping out and I have no idea how I will survive without her. She and Dad are supposed to leave Monday, but she’s going to see if she can switch her ticket to stay for another week. This after I started weeping over my baby this morning out of exhaustion.
The first three nights of his life largely involved screeching to the point where we feared the Dread Demon Colic. The next few nights were actually just fine. He would wake up, nurse, and sleep for another two or even three hours. However, the last two or three nights have been getting increasingly worse. His nursing sessions have stretched from an hour to an hour and a half to even two hours long. Even then he fusses and cries and I have trouble settling him. Once I do, he’s up in only an hour or two at most, and it starts all over again. Poor PH is back to work and so must actually sleep at night as much as possible, so it’s no longer a tag-team effort.
This morning I woke my mother at 8:30 completely exhausted after a two hour feeding session, which was preceded by an hour of sleep after an hour and a half feeding session. She spent nearly an hour humming and singing him to sleep while I hovered around fretfully, and then shooed me upstairs for a nap. I slept for a couple of hours, then nursed him again, and the time between two and three thirty was spent in us taking turns singing to him and rocking him while he fought sleep valiantly. His eyes would close for a little while, then pop open just as we were starting to relax. Another hour and a half nursing, and now he’s finally out for the count. I went back to sleep once he was out, and got another hour before PH came in, wrapped his arms around me, and roused me for dinner. I’d forgotten to eat lunch, and my mother is still beating herself up for forgetting to force feed me.
On most days I’ve been feeling good. But a couple of those bad nights and BOOM – I feel like I can’t possible handle it.
What on Earth will I do when his Nana isn’t here to take over for me and let me get some sleep?
My little sea turtle. Unfortunately, I can't adopt the sea turtle style of parenting and let him crawl out to sea on his own.
Oh dear, poor you. It does generally get better, but knowing that doesn’t make it much easier to have only five or six hours sleep in tiny little chunks. Let’s hope the particular horrors of this week are designed to get your milk up to speed and the pace will ease when you’re producing a bit more.
I found with both of mine that they had an enormous fussy period in the late evening, when they would feed and cry and feed and cry until my breasts felt like vacuum packs. I suspect that on those occasions it was more tiredness than hunger doing it, but never quite had the brutality to just put the little f***rs down. Maybe it would have been better if I had…who knows?
Anyway, hooray for your mum, and good luck with getting through the crazy first few weeks.
What evolutionary adaptation makes babies fight sleep?? I mean, were they fighting sleep in the womb, too? Creepy! It’s probably the same evolutionary adaptation that is responsible for two year olds…
You will cope after your mom leaves. You will, because you will have to. And you will probably surprise yourself with how capable you are 🙂
On a more practical note, have you tried (once the initial rush of letdown peters out) mannually expressing milk into his mouth while he’s nursing to help him get the fatty hind milk? A lactation nurse gave me that little tid bit back when I was in the hospital, and I found it helpful. Also, we used to let Violet suck on our fingers (clean fingers, of course) in between meals. If she was actually hungry, and not just trying to satisfy the sucking impulse, then the finger would not cut it. I also used to tuck a pillow under my head while nursing so I could dose a bit (because, I don’t know about you, but nursing used to knock me out. Bottled, it could be a substitute for ether), before she was old enough to master the side nursing position, which was a god send when that finally happened.
The first couple of weeks SUCK BALLS no matter what you do. It’s such a shock to your body, to your emotions and to your mental health to suddenly be entirely responsible for this tiny being who seems to be constantly dissatisfied. After two weeks, it may get better, or it may not, but at least you start adjusting to the normalicy of the suck. *Hugs*<and you know I don't send virtual hugs lightly 😉
Yes, the nurse at the hospital got me to do the “breast massage” thing while feeding him!
Darn. Oh well, I would feel remiss if I didn’t mention it, just in case.
Well, on the bright side, you have a very cute baby. Can you imagine how much harder this would be if he were an ugly baby??
It’s true – although I don’t think mothers of ugly babies know that their babies are ugly, so for all I know you guys are referring to Babby as “Quasimodo” behind my back.
I was pretty much going to say everything Corinne said in that final paragraph. The first few weeks are HARD. It’s pretty much all about survival at this point. Let other people take care of the house and cooking and YOU, because you need to concentrate on feeding that baby and that’s a lot of work. Get rest whenever you can.
The breastfeeding gets more tolerable when you’re able to do it one-handed and can do other things at the same time. Side-lying nursing is, indeed, a godsend. I have no idea what to tell you about how to get longer stretches of sleep, ’cause I’m almost a year in and still being woken every two hours or so. But they’re not all like that, so have hope he’ll be a good sleeper soon.
You will survive! It gets better, I promise. (We won’t discuss toddlerhood yet. :P)
How goes the cloth diapering?
Great! Except he has a tiny bit of a rash on his bum and I can’t use zinc creams because they’ll ruin the diapers.
Poor baby.
it gets better, to only get worse again… and then better… you get it. there are days and even weeks when it’s a good thing i don’t own guns 🙂 but the days where it’s the opposite make you forget the shit storm from the day before.
he’s still new and wants to be close. give him lots of hugs and warmth, but also give him those moments to realise that “yes, mommy does come back”…
and as for when your mom leaves, you’ll start to relax. knowing she’s there gives you an out, and when she’s gone you have to figure it all out on your own… i’m speaking from experience, my parents were here for the first week, and i DREADED them leaving…. HOW was i gonna cook, feed myself, feed the baby, bathe him, and do all the other things that come with the house…. but a couple days after she left all was well, and i was eased my knowing she was still just a phone call away.
Those beginning weeks were awful for us. Seriously. And, not to freak you out, but you may want to have a lactation consultant visit you. Another blogging friend, Candice of BookishPenguin (bookishpenguin.com) had a very similar feeding story with very long feeding sessions like yours and not a lot of time in between and crying and it turned out she wasn’t producing enough milk. Hers was due to a breast reduction and your story could just be that baby needs a little longer to get the hang of it, but having a visit with a lactation consultant could REALLY help. Even if she just tells you that everything is normal and not to worry it will get better in a day or two.
And I know what you’re feeling with your mom. I don’t know how we would have survived the first couple of weeks without my mom. If she went home at night, I cried. I cried most nights as the sun started to set those first weeks. It absolutely gets better, but I know what it’s like being where you are and “better” seems worlds away. Just keep sleeping. It’s so okay to miss eating like you did. Sleep is better!
We have a lactation consultant next door, but he is definitely getting enough milk. He has a wet and poopy diaper like, every five minutes it seems, and I can actually SEE him getting fatter. I’m feeling the first “my little boy is growing up” pangs because he’s less and less my scrawny chicken baby and more and more a beefy boy.
MOOOO.
Yup, I cried bitter tears when my mom left after Isaac was born. I was so convinced we would all starve without her help. But I coped – and so will you. You can do this. Even the lack of sleep will eventually become the new normal. Promise.
Like Corinne says, that first two weeks in particular are just THE PITS. It is no fun. No fun, I say! Her advice about manually expressing is something I’m going to try if I ever have another one. And the finger suck saved my life, I’m serious. Both of my boys could often be lulled to sleep with a clean finger (and after a month of sleep deprivation, I often wasn’t super-fussed about how clean it was. Or even who it was attached to, but that’s another story). Babies need to suck, and are comforted by it – but they don’t always need to be on the boob.
You’re doing great. And he is adorable, little fella.
Would it help if your mom made you some meals to freeze so when she leaves all you have to do for a few days is reheat? Soup/chilli are great just to zap so you get fed too while you’re too busy with baby to feed yourself. I hope he settles into a routine you can handle quickly! You can do this 🙂
And swaddling helps A TON with sleeping if you aren’t doing that already! Just wrap him up tighter than you would expect to – REALLY tight – and they’ll quiet down and go to sleep.
My mother is the queen of swaddling and we are slowly picking up the knack. It worked like magic the first few days but he’s on to us now.
Swaddling is a godsend. Glad you mother knows how!
For really good info on the how of swaddling (and a few extra, very effective strategies tips like swinging/jiggling and white noise), I can’t recommend Harvey Karp’s “Happiest Baby on the Block” enough — but skip the book for now and just get the DVD. You’re too tired to read, and the DVD shows the techniques better, anyway. I’d lend you my copy, but the last client I lent it to
stole ithasn’t yet returned it. It’s that good!Totally agreed on the Harvey Karp. I was going to send you my book, in fact, but couldn’t find it. Truly a godsend, though.
No additional advice, because you guys will get to know each other and sort it all out. I just wanted to add that he is so beautiful, I actually felt my ovaries try to throw an egg down the cut and burned fallopian tube. He’s perfect. Sniff his head for me. (Emerson’s already smells like toddler head most days. It’s not the same.)
XD Will do!
I haven’t had a baby for a long time. My infant mothering shoes are dusty. All I can tell you is what worked for me. When desparate you’ll try just about anything, so the more ideas the better.
Owen was a long nursers too. He wanted to suckle just for comfort, not for food. So against all advice and people who are experts, I gave him a soother. It soothed him, it worked, he slept, I slept. At night I would strip him down and change his diapers so he’d be full wide away, eat fast and hardy and then I’d swaddle him up nice and cozy warm and with fresh warm jammies and full belly of warm milk, he’d be out like a light. Otherwise, he’d suck on me alll night long and neither of us would sleep.
He’s beautiful and I’m sure you’ll all find your own way. Best of luck. Have fun. If nothing else, through sleepy eyes, enjoy him.