In Chaya-papaya's ascendency through the eschelons of sweet six weeks, Englettlaw takes on a third generation while Gramma Pam Mombossa aids and abets the mad milk mishmash. Chaya bulks up, but falls wee in the company of her gentleboy companion babies. Playdates perforce! Mommy goes through the night in a mad miasma of unsleep and desperation. And weary parents give in to the dark side, with deals with the devilish and an eery (if short lived) Paci Chaymanum.
Back to Work We Go Heigh Ho: Sleepy mama and the baby hugening
It might be an exaggeration to say that I'm "back" or "at work" at this point. But I have commenced exercises in being physically at the office. While I am at the office, I may spend more time (1) changing Chaya; (2) packing and unpacking all of Chaya's accessories; (3) making lunch while interrupted by Chaya noises; (4) almost eating lunch when Chaya officially decides she must eat now!!!; (5) undergoing a complicated and highly time consuming feeding ritual involving fancy yet unerotic lingerie, direct on-tap feeding, a bottle of expressed milk, a bottle of formula, an overly helpful mombossa, and a big scary pump; (6) taking advantage of having handed baby Chaya off to mombossa for the bottle feed (while mommy pumps) to actually scarf down lunch, (7) burping Chaya and cleaning up after the variously strewn spit up that ensues during and after lunch, (8) preparing for the next feed or diaper or what have you...
Sometimes I check the internet or try to get in a nap.
What the heck.
I'm back baby!!
It is unreal how long it takes to do anything with a little baby. And this is a baby who sleeps several hours during the day. Going to be "interesting" with a slightly older baby. Especially once mombossa figures out she can't always come pick me up in the morning after a second feed and wait as I scramble to get everything together in the ubiquitous extra hour of "wait, one more thing" that always attends. She may, eventually, have to work herself!
Still, it is nice to be back. As much because it's nicer to have my mommy around as I tread the mommy waters.
And I can actually do the whole feed ritual by myself, but it's more fun with somebody else.
The ritual? So, the lactation lurgy continues to keep my lady-tap just functioning on a limited basis. Not enough to keep our rapidly spurting spurter up to par, but enough to keep me from being able to throw in the nursing bra and embrace the baby Ensure. The upside is that so long as I keep at it, she still gets some of those benefits of breastfeeding. Whether that be antibodies, compounds, melatonin, specially digestible proteins, or just the comfort of skin-to-skin suckling, she gets that still. The downside is that it's a huge extra circus to keep it all up. Not to mention the additional bag of accessories and constraints on time.
Maybe all the pumping is just to get those last antibodies out of me and into the baby. Or maybe they really will effect the proper signals to my beleaguered endocrine system, and it will increase the almighty supply! I'm not holding my breath (because I already forget to sleep and eat... breathing is my non-negotiable self-care line item), but there's enough right now to make it impossible to give up on... today.
And so. Chaya gets hungry, mommy starts with a bottle of previously expressed milk. While she's feeding that to the screaming and kicking baby, mommy coaxes a let-down by smooshing her lady parts into little pumps until milk starts to come. At which point we switch to on-tap on-demand suckling until that doesn't appear to be productive anymore. Then we cha-cha down Chaya's buffet to feed her the formula. Meanwhile, mommy dons a pink bra with weird architecture in the cup area. Then she jams some pumps in through the mystery holes in the bra and pumps some more. When little drops of milk fall into the attached bottles, it feels like the first flutters of snow on the night before a predicted snow day. It's just as sad when they stop. But we keep going on the pump for 10-15 minutes every time.
This, by the way, is kind of the less insane "pumping for increased supply" approach. If you're really going for it, you would pump every two hours night and day. Pumping on the various intervals that Chaya feeds is comparatively modest.
Though actually Chaya takes a small eternity at her bottle once she reaches it, so pumping during her midnight feed isn't all that additionally burdensome once you figure out how to prop her up on the boppy just far away enough to not kick the pumping apparati. Takes some acrobatics, but I'm already perfecting the one-handed walking bottle feed to complement my one-handed walking nursing. Now if I could just figure out how to use my feet...
And yes, the advantage of using more formula appears to be that it requires longer to digest. She more often goes three or even four hours before feedings. That is when it's not cluster feeding growth spurting time and suddenly she must have a bottle, boob, or something in her mouth producing potables at all times. But then there are no such things as intervals.
Anyways, it's kind of an intense schedule, even at her 3 hour intervals (sometimes 4 at night, thank goodness), and can definitely eat up some of those working hours. Especially for a sleepy mommy. Hence, why I think I may still be more of a net drag on productivity here, but a newly crowned (recrowned) grandmother doesn't seem to mind just yet.
And all that feeding is paying off. Our little monster has been eating about twice what a baby her weight is predicted to eat at any given session. She's gained about a pound since last week. She's HUGE!
Or seems that way until we see other babies.
On Sunday, we went to our first get together for the fellow summer moms on my Facebook group. And boy are there some brobdingnagian babies there. Two to three times Chaya's size. Quite something.
But Chaya keeps at it, so she may well catch up in no time. Or at least eventually hit my birth weight... One of these days
And maybe eventually I'll get this feeding stuff nailed (and/or throw in that burp cloth and learn to love the formula), and maybe some day actually sleep. And eventually, maybe, I'll actually be productive at work again. Probably about a week before Mombossa retires!
Paci Chamanum Bringing out the Binkie
We went there. It's almost 6 weeks now and until then, I had remained reticent about using pacifiers. They say to avoid them in the first month of a baby's life to avoid "nipple confusion." Of course baby Chaya's nipples are very confusing to begin with, so that may have been a lost cause. But admittedly, I was very concerned that pacifiers and other artificial nipples would indeed destroy my baby's latch and deep-six-seven-and-eight the sacred breastfeeding connection that lies therein.
And of course once the lactation began lacking, I was even more dismayed at the thought of introducing yet one more obstacle to that experience. We already were introducing bottles, and the convenience that attends them. Well, we got premie nipples that make strenuous suckling a full time gig, but there's still much more payoff with those Dr. Brown's than putting in some excavation work on the (not so) big bosom. And besides, our baby was losing weight. We were advised to avoid anything that could confuse hunger cues.
But now, well, our ravenous little beastie popped on about a pound in a week. And no matter what they say, you can overfeed a newborn. When you do, it gives them a tummy ache. They in turn wish to suck for comfort. They make little sucky faces and try to latch on things (in between spitting up). It looks like hunger cues even. They get angry if they don't have something to suck on. Like a bottle. Even if there's milk in that bottle. They continue to over eat. They produce three epic dijon disaster diapers in an hour and continue to want to eat through the spit up...
Eventually, you start thinking maybe the baby could stand to have a "dummy" in her mouth.
And, well, at this point I am admitting a few things. (1) She is basically six weeks old. So we've held off as long as is typically advised. (2) There will never again be a time where she is exclusively breastfed. We've introduced bottles. They work. Formula works. Even if my supply rebounds some substantial amount, she'll still need more than I can produce. And there's still little indication that said supply will do anything but fade into the sunset.
I continue the good old breast is best struggle with the hope of getting the last goodies of whatever theoretical advantage breast milk has (demonstrated in minor outcome improvements in studies that do not necessarily rule out confounding factors).
But I increasingly wonder where that line of "reasonable measure" really is to be found. Right now, it's a buffet feeding ritual every three hours for about 7 times total. It's chapped nipples, an extra bag of stuff to carry everywhere, and quantifying my mood for the next hour by how high a fraction of an ounce I'm left with at the end. It's taking handfuls of herbs that I don't think work (but wouldn't rule out). And possibly, trying an off-label use of an anti-emetic that boost prolactin and is commonly used as a galactogogue in Canada.
But if I go to further lengths for a further time, I have to ask "Is it for her or for me?"
I am in awe of what "best" milk purportedly can offer, but there is surely more there. Is there some part of me hoping to quell my anxieties with an easy objective standard? Latent anxieties about being physically defective due to inadequate hormonal regulation? My anxieties about being a mother?
I love my baby girl beyond contemplation but I don't feel like a natural. I suspect few do, but there's some myth of natural motherhood that is difficult to shake. I don't know her cues often enough. The songs I croon don't instantly plunge her into a sprucing peace. I can't soothe her pain when a gas bubble or existential angst hits in the middle of the night. Sometimes the best I can do is cry with her and not raise my voice too much when I get frustrated. Sometimes I have to hand her off to daddy for a moment of sanity.
I see others with my lady and am in awe at how good are with her and what pleasure they take in the simple routine tasks. My mother proffers that bottle with glowing and rapt attention all through the forty minutes Chaya may take. Meanwhile I'm holding the bottle in her mouth with my chin so I can pump, clean my pump, check my phone, start dinner...
But more than that, she was once a part of me. My body naturally attended her needs instinctively and immediately. We shared a soul. That will be a part of my memory forever. But now she is separate. And I cannot live up to the standard my own body set.
When I am nursing, we are momentarily remelded into one. Her saliva passes into my body. My body creates specially tailored antibodies to suit her specific needs, other chemicals to suit the time of day, and remodels itself over time to suit her age. Or it would anyways. We are both flooded with hormones in that moment. It is unity. I am not separate and she is not separate. My body sustains and supports hers. That isn't the same with a bottle. But then it isn't as devastating to see her not having those basic needs met from a bottle either.
I continue to ask when does my pursuit of giving her that breast milk come at the cost of mothering? When am I too preoccupied with numbers of (fractions of) ounces in a pumped bottle? To busy gamifying motherhood to just mother? When am I too tired from midnight pumping to marvel at what I've been given? When is she left unsoothed for minutes while I transition from nursing to pumping"while-bottle feeding ritual. When am I so wrapped up in my loss that I forget to simply revel in her existence?
When do I even risk her health leaking into herbal and medicinal supplements that could possibly pass through along with all those nummy antibodies?
I don't know that there is an answer. My love for my baby is intrinsically selfish, as evolution has ensured. Perhaps the things that don't feel like good mothering do not feel that way simply because I do them for my own pleasure (her well-being at the core of these things). When I lay back with her snuggled on my chest and feel radiant, I glow. When I gaze into her eyes and wax poetic with her about the world, it's my edification and amusement. When I attend to her needs it's because her distress is keyed at causing me distress and her happiness triggers mine. That is natural. That is intrinsic. Mothering is both selfless to the greatest degree (giving up your body and much of your independent identity at this age) and the most selfish act a woman can contemplate.
I don't know the limits and the answers there, but holding off on a pacifier definitely would have served none of us at this point. She took to it immediately, while still rejecting it when hunger hit. The whole Wright family had a far more peaceful evening for the accoutrement.
So happy almost six weeks little lady. You paci glows in the dark, by the way. How rad is that?
Bottle Boozed Betty And the baby vice patrol
We are graduating from pacifier in our descent from the obscenely virtuous parenting roster. Want to daze a slightly spazzy baby? Apparently television is just the perfect combo of lights and motion to boob tube the baby. Yes, the TV may even be more mesmerizing than a perfectly functioning boob. Terrifying. Not our intention, but we had been holding/feeding the baby while watching My Name is Earl on Netflix in the evenings. She's too young for us to put her to bed and have adult time. So we have "Chaya's not here right now because she's drooling on a nipple" time.
Saturday night she turned around in between baby fusses and was entranced. I typically try to turn her away from staring directly at the screen, but that is not always easy. We may be abridging our evening ritual at this rate. Some little babies are getting a wee bit too cognizant. Of course that doesn't count the several hours that we Wrights are clocking on various computer and phone screens while enjoying the sweet tedium of a beautifully konked baby. Which bleeds over into alert baby time easily enough.
Fortunately, Chaya has developed quite superbly in her sixth week and is now capable of a whole slew of new emotions and attendant cries. She has, most particularly developed the ability to be bored. Very bored. And reproachfully so. This comes hand in hand with her prior ability to become overstimulated, making parenting a fine balance between desperately trying to appease a baby who must be distracted and immediately removing all distractions when she must be calmed. We are entering a cycle punctuated by her feedings. She falls asleep at the nip... totally out for all the world. For a few minutes. Lest some sleepy parent think this is a sign that s/he has earned a quiet moment to sleep/eat/check the internet/use the bathroom... she will stir. And she will stir and shake and be incredibly averse to the cozy climes of the boba. This is new. As a new newborn, she ate and then slept. Sometimes she pooped. Now she sleeps less and resists the sleeping far more vigilantly.
And so she rouses. And fidgets and struggles for release. Begin the series of escalating distractions. Does she want to stair at the tree outside? Yes for a few minutes before that tree is very stupid and she needs must move on. Does she want to kick and shimmy on the changing table? Yes, for considerably longer. She would also like to make her baby cooing noises and freaked-out-baby-face that come with her little baby farts. Does she then immediately want to be burped, held, and walked around... but NOT in the boba? Sure, but maybe try singing for a few minutes. How about the swing? Ok, enough of the swing... Tummy time? Play mat on back? Ooop overstimulated! And then of course there's more walking and rocking and eventually she lets down her guard, lets an eye droop and finds herself back in the boba. At which point she falls into a Chaya slumber that will only be broken when she wakes with a hand or two in her mouth and the goat girl scream that means it's eatin' time!
But just because I am a new parent and we are slipping down the slippery slope, may I sound the screen time alarm: We're doomed! She'll grow up autistic from all the screen time. Or hyperactive. Or whatever toxic malevolence screen time does to babies. That's if the vaccines don't get there first. After she develops allergies to oxygen from the lack of breastfeeding and gets cancer from her organic formula. Man, parenting is hard.
I will say that the pacifier is not the crack-heroin of baby-calming that pre-parents have been spooked into believing. She will take it about 50% of the time. If she's hungry, she will spit it out with venom. If she's otherwise upset, she'll cry right through it. And even if she wants it, she'll whack it out of her mouth with a not-entirely-controlled hand. But it is one more thing to wash repeatedly.
God baby stuff is a water-waster. Between bottles and pacifiers, our entire kitchen counter is populated with drying baby stuff. And the sink is perpetually soaking more of them in soapy water. Let's not think of the breast pump parts that need to be boiled once a day. We are getting a little cage for these things so that we can run them through the dishwasher. I'm guessing we'll want more cages. And more bottles to justify running the dishwasher on a quotidian basis.
But soon, I think we'll be down some washing. After a lot of self-serving internet research, some conversations, and a bit of time observing the lengths to which other women have gone to keep a teeny stream of milk running (with their frustrated tears), I think I'm going to let go of the quixotic relactation quest. After one more week. Maybe. Maybe after trying this last last-resort mediation that I had already ordered. Maybe I'll gradually wind down after that. I want to give a few things just a little more time and have a chance to speak with my OB, but I am coming to the place where I have done nearly everything that is reasonable to be done.
I've talked to two LCs, a certified nurse practitioner specializing in women's issues, my reproductive endocrinologist and had tests run by my OB-GYN. The answer is a startling uncertainty but not grounds for optimism. The LCs gave me a boatload of herbs and accessories for all varieties of breast-milk extraction. The RNP thinks it may be that my body did what it could getting me through the pregnancy and first month of my monster's life. My RE told me it could well be related but may also not be due to my fertility issues, but that breastfeeding women were typically close to osteoperosis and that if my periods did not start after six months of being off breast feeding, I will need to get back on HRT or get pregnant again immediately for my own health. My OB so far has run a thyroid test with a result that my LC thinks is normal, but which was grounds for a mysterious call this week telling me to "up [my] dose" (which is strange because I had stopped taking thyroid medication after giving birth per their instructions). I'm still waiting to hear if I should be taking the original dosage, the increased dosage, or no dosage at all. And still unclear on why I should be taking this new dosage at all.
I admit to having ordered an anti-emetic that is widely used to boost prolactin (and thus supply). But I think doing so is what really made me realize I am nearly ready to move on. It may work miracles. It does for some. But for many it hardly works at all. Many see a slight boost and must then continue taking the pills and following a strict pumping regimen for as long as they feed their babies. I have came to realize that I don't want to do this to Chaya or myself. I know there are women here who rely on it, so there may be a fire sale of booby goodies for them. I've also got the pump. I'll see if said miracles occur. But if not. I'm really pretty ready. I've even nixed the overnight pumping session at this point.
It's surreal to think of letting that go. Especially after i gave away most of my wardrobe on the grounds that my boobs were too big to fit (I was buxom those first three weeks, which is a whole 'nother surreality). It means eating for one. Being able to take medications and eat foods without researching how it passes to the baby. It means being that much more anxious to get back into my athletic antenatal shape. It means being prepared to go out the door with only one overflowing bag of baby stuff. And technically being able to be away from the baby for hours at a time. Essentially, it means becoming my own individual person again as she becomes her own individual person. Emotionally, we'll have to wait on that one.
Although given her current state, she might grow bored with me and want me to leave! I swear it takes a village with these babies sometimes. Until she gets stranger fear and then decides only one person will do. But who knows which one she'll choose. And will I be off having a postpartum massage at that point?
The Long Suck Goodnight
People are always asking "how she's sleeping?" I now answer "mostly on mommy and only while mommy's walking and bouncing her." I exaggerate, but nonetheless, it's about accurate. Really, the follow up to that question from people is that it must be getting better now that she goes longer between feeds. Which is true. That she goes longer between feeds. Better is kind of a judgment call.
In her early newborn stage, Chaya had the luxury of a full breast or two on tap. It was an insatiable demand, naturally. She wanted to eat constantly, which was more draining than any great suckling technique on her part. But, it was also a muss-free experience. She's start to make little baby noises in her sleep and suck on her hand. I'd pull her to me, latch her on and lay back. She'd fall asleep after a half hour... and we'd repeat in an hour and a half or so.
Now she most certainly can go up to four (or sometimes more) hours between the start of one feeding to the next. However, well...
This is kind of my night:
9:00 pm - Go upstairs with the beastie. She is swaddled and probably recently passed out on a bottle that her daddy was giving her. Theoretically, ready for bed.
9:05 pm - Daddy leaves the room to do his nightly stuff. Chaya decides it's play time and begins cooing. Or rooting. Or maybe she has gas.
9:06 - 10:00 ish - A hit or miss of trials and errors juggling pacifiers, burpings, different positions, and the remainder of whatever bottle she fell asleep on before mommy's memory blanks out and I can only assume she eventually fell asleep.
11:00 pm - Chaya gets gas and needs to burp. She makes a strange rasping noise like an emphysemic Lou Asner to indicate the burping. She makes little cooing cries in between shrieks, as formula migrates through her belly. Readjust and pat her feebly.
11:00 pm - 11:45 pm - Continue pattern. Chaya falls asleep. Then Patty Simpson possesses her body. Pause. Fart. Coo. Thrash. Repeat.
11:50 pm - Enough thrashing rouses the beast and it's time for the midnight snack. Mommy grabs Chaya along with her phone, the expired bottle, and maybe a pacifier, and heads to the kitchen.
11:55 - 12:20 - Chaya becomes more and more alert, allowing the hunger to mount in a series of barking goat noises and happy food farts. Mommy continues to hold her with one hand while warming some formula and assembling the bottle of expressed milk with the other hand. She then puts impatient little goat girl to her bosom to buy time. As Chaya begins nursing (grunting all the way), Mommy takes advantage of the extra time to throw handfuls of stale popcorn into her mouth, drink a bottle of water, and finish off an ounce of the four ounces of stout she decided were "supply boosting necessities" after a rowdy Chaya evening of (you guessed it) bouncing Chaya while walking and singing at peril of reproachful screams. But, hey, Chaya is making swallowing noises, so that stout is clearly paying off. Better have some more. For the baby.
12:20 - 1:00 p.m. - Formula and expressed milk are ready for consumption. Mommy feeds the expressed milk to Chaya between sides, and leaves her latched to the bosom (and asleep) as she returns to the bedroom. Mommy keeps Chaya on bosom while propping herself up with some pillows. Chaya rouses briefly to express despair at finding herself unlatched from mommy's nipple. Only to repeatedly fall asleep at the bottle. Mommy eventually stops trying to wake Chaya and leaves the almost entirely untouched bottle on the nightstand, figuring the little goat will maybe want more in a half hour to hour.
1:10 a.m. - Mommy comes down and successfully manages to re-tuck herself into bed and black out.
1:30 a.m. - More burping. More gas. Chaya spits up and then rubs a big drool blob on mommy's chest repeatedly. Mommy's ready with the bottle. Chaya is not interested.
1:45 am - Mommy is assured that Chaya does not actually want to eat and is going to sleep some more. She returns to sweet oblivion after finishing an article about baby gas and GERDS. Or is she precociously teething? No, probably GERDS. Or that thing that makes them vomit that's even worse? Except that's not vomit. And will Chaya ever poop again? It's been a day! Oh god, poor baby tummy!
3:00 a.m. - Chaya starts farting and fussing, but doesn't seem super motivated about eating again. The bottle on the bedstand is past the safe window for consumption anyways. Mommy tries the pacifier. Chaya keeps losing it, but doesn't seem to be intentionally rejecting it, as much as exhibiting her inability to hold a pacifier when sleepy. Mommy holds the darned thing in Chaya's mouth until Chaya is snoring.
3:10 a.m. - Mommy starts to drift off.
3:15 a.m. - Shriek. Fart. Where's the pacifier??
3:20 a.m. - Things are calming down.
3:30 a.m. - No, no they aren't. Now we have Patty Simpson, the cooing fart monster, and a baby that is starting to root while barking. Ok, mommy gets the baby and the old bottle and heads downstairs.
3:45 a.m. - Chaya is downstairs but dead asleep. Mommy is confused.
3:50 a.m. - Mommy starts the coffee for Daddy, who is due to wake in about an hour and fifteen minutes. Mommy begins planning her strategy. Could Chaya wait until 5 a.m. per her usual? Will she wake soon? Should mommy pump this feeding? Should she get up again at 5:00 to pump like her schedule demands (in the name of giving this extra week a fair shot)? Should she just skip two pumpings, since she now skipped the midnight one? Will missing two in a row cause her dwindling supply to vanish for all eternity? Was it an error to come downstairs? While contemplating this, mommy starts daddy's eggs, since she thinks she might not be getting up at 5. THe oatmeal is already mostly made because mommy got a break yesterday evening and planned ahead. She could have taken a nap, but Chaya has a way of knowing when Mommy's closed her eyes and does not approve.
3:55 a.m. - More cooing and some thmmmp noises in the diaper. Chaya starts to fuss. Mommy takes her to the changing table and battles with the sleep sack. Sleep sack now pulled up around Chaya's waist, Chaya continues her desperate attempt to get a swaddled hand into her mouth, pulling her own head all the way into the sleep sack. Mommy unleashes the beast and unswaddles the sack. Baby starfish!! Incidentally, the diaper is wet, but only wet. More farts not enough pooping.
4:00 a.m. - Chaya makes cooing noises but occasionally barks and shoves her hand in her mouth. She doesn't unleash the latch reflex when a finger is placed on her cheek, but she does seem increasingly pissed about something. Mommy cuts her odds and takes down her top, while taking the formula bottle out of the fridge.
4:00 a.m. - 4:10 a.m. - Insistent nursing. Possibly comfort nursing. Possibly feeding. There are definitely swallowing noises. Mommy grabs the formula bottle and goes upstairs. She'll pump later. Mommy changes her mind and comes back downstairs. She is not getting up again at 5. Mommy goes back upstairs. Chaya might just fall asleep at the bosom and not want the bottle. Then back downstairs. Who is she kidding?? As she lingers on the stairs, mommy finally decides that there's no way Chaya won't want the bottle and heads back upstairs. She'll pump some other time. Maybe have daddy hold Chaya and pump in the morning. Maybe just skip it and screw it.
4:20 a.m. - 4:30 a.m. - Chaya is upstairs and off the bosom. She has taken the bottle but seems pissed at it. There are whimpering noises. Mommy takes a swig from the bottle to see if it's coming out ok. It's not. The bottle must have a clump again! She shakes the bottle. Still doesn't work. Chaya has fallen asleep for reasons unknown. Mommy opens the bottle and reassembles it, violating all health standards for little immunocompromised formula baby. It still isn't coming. She shakes it again. Finally coming. Chaya is still asleep. Mommy puts the bottle down, figuring she'll be ready again at this point.
4:36 a.m. - Chaya's not asleep and she wants that bottle! AAAAAA! Goat noises! Waaaa!
4:40 a.m. - Mommy brings Chaya and the bottle downstairs so she can one-handedly assembles pump parts. She sets Chaya in her lap and lets the bottle slip for a minute while she puts on her pumping corset fetish wear and applies the flanges, which are now smaller after a consultation with the LCs. Mommy realizes that maybe the smaller ones don't work as well. She also realizes she forgot to lube the flanges at all. Oww. Chaya screams bloody murder until the bottle returns to her greedy mouth.
5:05 a.m. - Pumping is over and mommy shimmies out of the apparati, while trying to keep that bottle properly in Chaya's mouth.
5:00 a.m. - Chaya is mostly done with the bottle, showing shocking resolve on guzzling an amount that usually takes her forty-five minutes to finish. Mommy decides to ask Daddy to hold her and finish the bottle while Mommy washes all the pump parts. She wakes Mr. (W)right and he seems to be following.
5:05 a.m. - After a trip to the bathroom.
5:10 a.m. - and a drink or two of his coffee. Daddy might not realize that the bottle is nearly done. Mommy didn't specify that. He probably thinks he's in it for the long haul feed.
5:15 a.m. - and passed off! Mommy feverishly weighs her expressed milk (bah humbug, not a great yield but more than she expected), and washes several thousand little parts plus three bottles and a nipple. In the meantime, she reheats daddy's oatmeal and eggs.
5:20 a.m. - Mommy takes Chaya back up to bed. Chaya needs burping. And repositioning.
5: 30 a.m. - Mommy loses time. Sleep again?
5: 40 am. - Daddy comes upstairs to say goodbye.
5:45 a.m. - Mommy loses more time.
6:00 a.m. to 6:45 a.m. - Chaya starts writhing. Patty Simpson, cooing, and uncertain little baby noises. On and off with a pacifier sometimes working until some stillness.
6:50 a.m. - Repeat the prior ritual, except Chaya decidedly does not want the pacifier. Commence all new noises of indignant and unhappy babyness. Mommy is very very tired. Mommy asks Chaya plaintively to just tell her this once what's wrong instead of the shriek charades. Chaya fusses with some new cues.
7:15 a.m. - Downstairs. Baby is latched... poorly. And angrily. This is not a comfort nursing experience. Chaya is making swallowing noises, but she's also writhing back before making more farting noises. Her relatches don't feel spectacular and mommy lectures Chaya on proper eating etiquette. One handed assembly of pump parts, bottles retrieved. The feeding begins anew. And it's daytime! Mommy's off to work!!
So yes technically, Chaya goes far longer between feeds. And that might connote more sleep, but somehow...
I'm reintroducing full strength coffee into my life. I stopped in an excess of saintly caution back when we were padding into the first trimester. I stayed minimal on it this first month lest I find any opportunity for a nap. But there's a point.
And to those who say "sleep when she sleeps":
1. Consider the fact that mommy closing her eyes is baby's cue for dealing up screaming. She knows... She knows...
2. Do I have a personal valet? If I sleep when she does, when will I eat, use the bathroom, bathe, brush my teeth, maybe even exercise, pay bills, clean the five million soiled baby things that need sterilizing every day, make that darned coffee, have an actual adult conversation?
3. Given her sleep is unpredictable and sporadic, am I theoretically supposed to suddenly drop to the ground unconscious when she inevitably passes out in the car or while I'm walking?
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