World Breastfeeding Week

I know I'm a little late to the party since World Breastfeeding Week ran from August 1-7th, but the constant Mommy Wars over the best way to feed your baby this past week really got me thinking.

First, let me fill you in on my history with breastfeeding...

Finish reading this post at Sunshine and Spoons!

31 Days-Feeding Time with a Newborn

You knew it was coming, right?  I had a baby girl 6 days ago so at least one of these 31 Day posts just had to be baby related.  I kind of have baby on the brain (and arm, quite a bit of the time) right now.

I breastfed my older two and am bottlefeeding this one.  I wavered a lot about bottlefeeding her, but it turned out to be an easy decision as she's tongue tied and wouldn't have been able to nurse well anyways.  However, the same basic tool has made each individual experience much easier.

My mom gave me this awesome Munchkin diaper organizer when I had Little Man.  With Princess I used a cardboard box to do the same thing, but it was harder to carry and organize.  The Munchkin diaper organizer is waaaay better than a cardboard box and much cuter!

Munchkin Portable Diaper Caddy (Colors May Vary)

I stock mine with everything I will need for feeding and changing baby.  When I was breastfeeding, that included a bottle of water, snacks, a book to read (because my babies took forever to finish eating), diapers, wipes, changing pad, diaper rash cream, nursing pads, and burp cloths.  Everything I needed was right there and the box/diaper organizer could be easily moved to wherever I was nursing.  No more sitting down to nurse a hungry baby and realizing that if I didn't have a drink of water I was literally going to turn into dust in the next few minutes!  (If you've ever breastfed, you know that feeling!)

Even though I'm bottlefeeding now, my list is pretty similar.  I have diapers, wipes, burp cloths, diaper rash cream, and a changing pad in the organizer during the day.  At night, I load it up with bottles pre-measured with water and a travel formula dispenser (shown below) so I can do everything right from my bed.

Munchkin Powdered Formula Dispenser, Colors May Vary

Diaper organizer loaded up and ready to go!

A box of wipes fits perfectly inside the main pocket.

Do you have any tips for surviving the early days with a newborn?


Want to see a complete list of the posts in the 31 Days to Simplify Your Life series?  Click here.



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Formula Vs. Breastfeeding

Picture from "Accustomed Chaos"

I breastfed Princess for a year.  I had to supplement with formula because she just wasn't getting enough otherwise, but still...a year is an accomplishment.  It was hard, especially for the first few months.  And the next few.  And a few more after that.  First, she couldn't figure out how to latch on, then she went on a nursing strike.  It was rough, but I was determined to make it work.

Then I had Little Man.  Breastfeeding experts will tell you that a baby will never reject it's own mother.  They're wrong.  Little Man violently, angrily, loudly rejected me.  He frustrated an experienced lactation consultant and numerous nurses at the hospital.  I assumed he'd figure it out eventually and stuck it out for three months before a nasty bout of mastitis shut the factory down.  After starting him on formula, my scrawny, screaming baby became a chubby happy baby (actually he still screamed when he was tired, but, not surprisingly, being fed enough did keep him happier the rest of the time).  All told, the experience was a total nightmare that kept me from truly bonding with Little Man for a while.

So what do I do this time around?  The thought of breastfeeding again makes me actually sick to my stomach.  I know I might regret it later if I don't at least give it a shot with this baby, but I really, really, really don't want to breastfeed again.

Everyone keeps telling me that I need to at least give it a try.  Maybe I'll try it for a week or two, but honestly, even if it's going well, I don't want to breastfeed.  Period.  I feel so guilty because I know the health benefits, but I also don't think it's very healthy for the baby if the mommy is absolutely miserable.   

What do you think?

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Little Man

When Princess was a baby, I thought she was difficult.  Several things contributed to this belief.  One being that it was such a huge "culture shock" if you will, to go from life being all about me and Hubby to being all about this tiny screaming baby.  Another was because Princess had problems breastfeeding.  Another  was the traumatic labor and delivery that took almost two months and a lot of pain pills to fully recover from.  The biggest was the post partum depression that I didn't even recognize as such until someone pointed it out to me later.

I survived and when Princess was two years old, she was blessed with a baby brother.

And he made her look like a perfectly angelic baby.

He was born screaming, which most babies are, but his was a different scream.  It was an angry scream that even took the doctor by surprise.  Especially when he didn't stop.  When I tried breastfeeding him, he almost turned blue from screaming so hard.  The experienced lactation consultant who came to help me figure out how to feed this baby boy was amazed at how violently opposed to nursing he was.  Extremely frustrated, she finally left my hospital room with a parting, "I don't know what to tell you, but good luck."

The first night in the hospital after Little Man was born, Hubby and I sent him to the nursery so we could get some much needed sleep.  The next morning, I awoke to the sound of a baby screaming so hard that I'm surprised the poor thing was still conscious.  As I came out of my groggy state, I recognized the scream (not cry) and nudged Hubby.  "That's our baby.  You better go get him." 
Hubby looked at me in disbelief.  "That has to be another baby in a room close to ours.  We wouldn't be able to hear ours so well since he's in the nursery."
Nonetheless, I sent Hubby down to the nursery to bring back Little Man and sure enough, I was right.

At this point, I thought about asking the hospital what their return policy was for babies.  I refrained.

When we brought Little Man home, things didn't exactly improve.  It took almost a month to figure out that the only way to get him to sleep was to swaddle him so tightly that he couldn't move a muscle, throw a light blanket over his eyes, give him a pacifier, and bounce on an exercise ball until he finally stopped fighting and screaming and fell asleep an hour and a half later.  Due to the amount of sleep new babies need, I spent most of my day bouncing relentlessly.  His only redemption was that starting at 5 weeks old, after I'd gotten him to fall asleep at night, he would then stay asleep in his crib all night.  I really looked forward to bedtime. 

The breastfeeding situation didn't improve either.  Because he refused to nurse (still screaming the whole time) my milk supply decreased.  When he was 3 1/2 months old, a nasty bout of mastitis put an end to breastfeeding and I reluctantly decided to bottlefeed.  I was pretty bummed about it at first, but as you can see by the pictures, it was obvious that Little Man wasn't getting enough to eat from nursing and, once that stressful issue was over, things got a little bit better.

Little Man at 3 months old when he was still breastfeeding.  Scrawny little thing, but he still had those kissable, squishable cheeks!

Little Man at 4 months old a few weeks after we switched to bottles.

Around 4 months old, Little Man finally fell asleep in the infant swing.  I had swaddled him, given him his pacifier, covered his face with a blanket and bounced him for almost three hours and he was still screaming.  Finally, I put him in the swing (still swaddled), turned it on, and went outside to get some air before I lost it.  When I came back inside 10 minutes later, he was sleeping.  I was so happy, I cried and I might have also kissed the swing.  Maybe.  After that, I was able to swaddle Little Man, give him a pacifier, and put him in the swing to fall asleep.  I got several lectures from well-meaning friends about how I was teaching him to be dependent on the swing for sleep.  I didn't care.  If I had to special order a swing that would still fit him in kindergarten, I didn't care.  He was sleeping.

Between 4 and 5 months old, Little Man slowly started to improve.  By 6 months old, he was the easiest baby ever and a joy to have around.  It was like he'd had a complete personality change and I was finally able to enjoy being his mommy.

If you are struggling with a colicky baby, have hope.  It will end eventually.    

Is It Really Worth It?

I'm a big fan of breastfeeding. I know the health benefits and I appreciate the bonding aspect of it as well. Although Princess wasn't a good nurser, I still nursed her for a year. She didn't nurse exclusively because she was such a lazy eater that she didn't get enough that way, so she did have formula as well. But when you consider how hard it was to teach her how to latch on and then to keep her sucking long enough to get a full meal, a year is pretty impressive.

I was planning to breastfeed Little Man for a year as well. Now, I want to be done as soon as possible. It's been a nightmare to nurse him since the day he was born. He has problems latching on so I have to use a nipple shield. Then he screams and gets angry if milk isn't pouring into his mouth the whole time so about half the time I have to fight to get him to stay on the breast long enough. I can't take him anywhere because he refuses to nurse anywhere but home. Occasionally I can get him to nurse when we're out somewhere, but usually I end up giving him a bottle. Then I started getting plugged milk ducts, which are pretty painful. One of those led to a pretty bad case of mastitis which took over a week to clear up completely. Since the mastitis, I've been getting a plugged duct almost every day. I also got mastitis again, but since I'd just had it, I knew how to treat it right away to keep it from getting worse.

Breastfeeding has NOT been a bonding experience at all with Little Man. In fact, it's actually kept me from bonding with him somewhat. He has flatout refused to nurse more than once or twice a day for the last week which means I get to haul out the good old breastpump and vacuum out my breasts multiple times a day. Yay. I would love to just stop nursing, but with my issues with plugged ducts and mastitis, I have to go VERY slow so I don't end up with a bad infection.

The lactation consultants and breastfeeding advocates I've talked to have been discouraging me from weaning Little Man. They keep saying that if I just pump, I'll get my milk supply up enough, and I shouldn't be giving him bottles because that's just making the problem worse. I've gotten so many tips on how to get him to latch on, how to relax and enjoy nursing, etc. But, you know what? None of these people are here when Little Man is screaming and turning purple because I'm trying to get him to nurse while Princess is in the bathroom using my toothbrush to clean the diaper pail. So while I still support breastfeeding and believe it's the best option for the baby, I also believe that if it's not working and it's making the mom miserable, IT'S NOT WORTH IT! By the way, the breastfeeding advocates I've talked to all had an easy time nursing, so they really can't judge me for bottle feeding.

And yet, no matter how much I'm looking forward to being done breastfeeding, I'm sad that it didn't work out. I enjoyed nursing Princess and only gave it up at a year because so many people told me that she was "too old" to breastfeed anymore. I know I'll second guess myself later and wonder if I'd tried more, if I could've breastfed Little Man longer. And anytime Little Man gets sick, I'll wish I'd been able to nurse him longer to give him more antibodies. I wavered on my decision to stop breastfeeding for over a month until I got mastitis and decided for sure. But even now, I find myself thinking that if Little Man is my last baby, I'll never get the chance to breastfeed again. However, no matter what decision I'd made about breastfeeding, I think mommy guilt would've kicked in.

Unsolicited Advice:
Breastfeed if you can, but if you can't for any reason, don't sweat it.

Baby Stuff I Love

Apparently I'm not loyal to any one brand. These are some of my favorite brands of baby products.

Boppy pillow: Works great for breastfeeding, bottle feeding, and propping up the baby while he or she is learning how to sit.

Boppy Bare Naked Pillow

Avent bottles and training cups: I love that the nipples are marked with a number indicating how fast the flow of milk is, unlike other nipples which you have to guess at. I also like the wide mouth of the bottle because I don't spill the formula when putting it in the bottle. I used the training cups when Princess was transitioning from a bottle to a sippy. The handles and sippy top screw onto the bottles as well so I didn't have to take a bottle AND a sippy cup when we went out.

Philips AVENT BPA Free Infant Bottle Starter Set

Nuby sippy cups: The soft top makes the transition from bottle to sippy easier on baby.

Nuby 2-Pack 8 oz No Spill Cup with Super Spout

Mam pacifiers: Louise's cheeks and chin broke out everytime she used a pacifier until I found the Mam pacifiers which have dimples on the underside and holes for air ventilation.

MAM 2 Pack Start Orthodontic Silicone Pacifier, Colors may vary

Jeep stroller: I LOVE my jeep stroller. I got an all terrain jeep stroller as a gift for Louise and I used it a lot. It's big and roomy with plenty of storage, has an mp3 hookup, and can navigate rough terrain which is a must since I live out in the country.

Jeep Liberty Limited Urban Terrain Stroller, Spark

Members Mark baby wipes: Reasonably priced at Sam's Club, and the packages come with a pop up lid so you can use them straight out of the package or refill your wipes case with them.

Member's Mark Folded Moist Wipes, Case Pack, 8/90 Count (720 Wipes)

Carter's clothes: Cute clothes, reasonable prices. Need I say more?

Carter's Boys Firetruck 3 Pc Shorts Set 2 in 1 Outfits

Carter's Pink & White Love 3-pc. Bodysuit Set

Sassy toys: Sassy makes some really cute baby toys with bright colors.

Sassy Illumination Station

JJ Cole Diaper bag and pacifier keeper: After going through 3 diaper bags which ripped after a few months of use, I splurged and bought a JJ Cole Mode Tote Bag in the cocoa tree design. I haven't been disappointed. It's heavy duty, comes with shoulder straps, hand straps, and stroller straps, a large changing pad that folds up really thin so it's easy to carry with, and is roomy enough for all the junk I carry around with me. I also like the pacifier keeper JJ Cole makes. It's a good size, straps onto any bag or stroller, and has a velcro closure that makes it easy to get to the pacifier.

JJ Cole Mode Diaper Tote Bag, Cocoa Tree

What are some of your favorites for baby gear?


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Survived Month One!

Little Man is a month old this week and still not nursing well. He eats nonstop, which Princess is thrilled about because that means she can pretty much do whatever she wants, and I can't stop her until Little Man stops eating for a few minutes. Because Little Man eats so frequently and has a VERY hard time nursing anywhere other than home, we've been pretty much housebound since he was born. I'm giving him one more month to start nursing better and less often before I start supplementing with formula. I've given him a few bottles so far, and I enjoy feeding him that way. Nursing, on the other hand, feels more like a chore right now and I honestly don't enjoy it. So much for that bonding experience.

Little Man is a great sleeper. He takes a long nap in the afternoon at the same time as Princess which gives me a little downtime, and he only wakes up once at night to eat. The only problem is getting him to sleep. The long nap in the afternoon is usually his ONLY nap all day and he fights it like crazy even though he's so tired he can barely keep his eyes open. Bedtime is a fun event that starts around 6 pm when Little Man starts getting tired. It stretches out into a marathon of nursing/crying that doesn't end until almost midnight. He's been doing this for several weeks now.  Princess was hard to get to sleep too, but Little Man is worse and started at a much younger age than his sister.

Okay, enough of the griping. I have some observations about baby clothing to share.

1. Pockets.
Seriously. Why in the world do baby clothes, starting at newborn sizes, have pockets in the pants? Every once in a while, I'll run across a fake pocket that doesn't actually open and is for decorative purposes, but most of them aren't like that. They're real, honest-to-goodness, stick your hand in 'em, pockets. It makes me feel as if I should provide my one-month-old with a wallet filled with diaper coupons, a stroller license, and maybe some monopoly money.

2. Belt Loops.
How many newborns do you know that wear belts? To be honest, my skinny little baby boy could do with a belt to hold his pants up, but I haven't come across any belts that are small enough for a baby younger than 2 years old. Maybe I should market a new line of baby belts and take advantage of the otherwise pointless belt loops stitched onto many pairs of baby pants.

3. Snaps.
Yes, I'm thankful that baby clothes isn't inundated with tiny buttons instead of the easier option of snaps, but still... I can't count how many times I've wrestled a screaming baby into an outfit, fought with a myriad of snaps around the neck and legs, and realized when I get down to the last snap that I'm one off. I have no idea what would be a better alternative, but all those snaps still annoy me. My favorite outfits are the sleepers with an easy (and fast) zipper from foot to collar, and a onesie I found at a garage sale that has a strip of velcro instead of snaps in the crotch.

Growing Pains

I've heard so many people say that they worried they wouldn't love their second child as much as the first only to discover that when the second one came along, their love expanded exponentially to include the new baby. I wasn't worried about that. I loved my baby from the moment I found out I was pregnant. And when Little Man was born, I fell in love with him even more. To be honest though, I really didn't start liking him until four days after his birth. I know that sounds terrible, but he was born screaming mad and the next couple of days were spent either trying to get him to stop screaming or trying to get him to nurse which made him scream even more. There really weren't too many opportunities to bond during that time. At one point, while we were still at the hospital, I handed Little Man over to Hubby so I could take a few minutes to use the bathroom. While locked in the luxurious closet sized hospital bathroom, I could still hear Little Man voicing his indignation at being born, and I thought to myself, "What have I done?"

On top of Little Man's anger and eating issues, Princess came down with a cold the day Little Man was born and obviously didn't feel good. Try telling a two-year-old that Mommy can't rock her when she's sick because her new brother needs to be fed or calmed down again. I felt like I had just ruined her life by bringing this new kid home.

On Saturday, Hubby took Princess to his mom's house to give me a break. As soon as they walked out the door, I started an email to my best friend telling her how I felt about my son at the moment and expressing the usual mommy guilt over such feelings. She wrote back to tell me that while it was true that my love could grow to include another child, nobody ever tells you that it could involve growing pains. She also pointed out that while I'd known Princess for over 2 years, my relationship with Little Man was still brand new and needed time to develop. She knew exactly what to say to make me feel better and that afternoon, as I spent one-on-one time with Little Man, I finally bonded with him. It helped, of course, that he finally started getting over his four day long temper tantrum directed at being born and started learning how to nurse.

Today, Little Man is 9 days old and I am thrilled to be his mother. He's a good baby who only gets up once a night to eat and is learning to tolerate his big sister invading his space every second of the day. I actually wish she didn't like him SO much, but hey, at least she's not jealous.

Unsolicited Advice: Never say no when someone offers to help you out with something after you've had a baby. Giving birth is kind of a big deal and requires time to recover. Make sure you don't prolong your recovery by overdoing it after birth.

Ketchup Is My New Best Friend

Eating. Should be simple, right? You put the food in your mouth, chew, swallow, and move on. It used to be that way. Until Princess.

First there was breastfeeding. That was an issue right from the start. I'd sit down with her to nurse her and it would end with her just as hungry as before, both of us crying, and milk everywhere.  It wasn't pretty. At first, I pumped with the hospital pump we rented. However, the first weekend after her birth was spent at my in-laws house. I'm naturally a very private person so nursing and pumping had to be done in a room with a door that shut tightly and no admittance to anyone besides my husband. As you know, newborns eat every 27 minutes or so, so I pretty much spent Princess's first months, hidden away from view and isolated from human contact. Anyways, at my in-laws, she absolutely wouldn't nurse, so I would valiantly try, sobbing, for half an hour before passing her off to eager relatives while I pumped her next meal. Wouldn't you know that the pump decided to make its presence known that weekend by squealing so loudly each time the "arm" pulled back that pigs half a mile away answered back. It was a traumatizing experience as I sat in the "good" living room alone with the door closed listening to everybody wonder what that horrible noise was in the next room. I returned the pump on Monday and swore never to pump again. Thankfully, my sister-in-law rescued me by giving me a handy little silicone nipple-like thingamajig that helps babies latch on. If it weren't for that, Princess would've been bottle fed from a week on.

We survived the early days (more like months) of breastfeeding and things were finally starting to go smoothly when we began transitioning to solid foods. Instead of just lifting my shirt and feeding her until she fell off, sated, I now had to figure out what to feed her and how much. I wrote feeding schedules for the first several months of that and passed them on to my sister (who babysits for me while I'm at work), my mother, my mother-in-law, the mailman, and anyone else who came in contact with Princess during a mealtime. Most of them rolled their eyes and tossed the schedule as soon as I was out of sight, but it was so complicated to me, that without the schedule taped to the kitchen table beside Princess's high chair, I was clueless as to what to feed her. Does she get fruit for this meal, or vegetables? Am I making enough cereal? Do I use juice or formula to mix up her cereal at this meal? Yes, I made it more complicated than it needed to be, but that's the way I am. If it's easy, I must be doing it wrong.

Every time I figured out what to feed her and how much, she would either have a growth spurt or be ready to start another type of food. Pureed meats took me a whole week and a half to figure out.

Fast forward to present day toddlerhood. Once I finally got her feeding herself solid foods, I thought I had it pretty easy. Yeah, right. She ate well for a few months, just to lull me into a sense of complacency. I didn't anticipate the way toddlers refuse to eat more than a breadcrumb one day and then gobble down the whole family dinner the next day. Or the way Princess couldn't get enough of sweet peas and ham yesterday, but tries to climb out of her high chair to escape eating the same thing today. I'm a waste not, want not kind of person, but since Princess started eating solid foods, I've thrown out enough food to fill my bathtub...twice. Since Princess is off-the-charts tiny, her pediatrician keeps telling me that I HAVE to get her to eat. I'm seriously considering dropping her off at the pediatrician's doorstep and saying, "Have fun." before leaving to eat a meal where no food is airborne, and no one leaves the table wearing most of their dinner in their hair.

Enter ketchup, my new hero. I remember chuckling at my 2 year old nephew a few years ago when he wouldn't eat anything without ketchup. I never thought that one day, I too would be relying on ketchup to convince my toddler to eat. Out of desperation one day, I squirted some ketchup on Princess's plate and showed her how to dip her food in it. To my surprise and slight dismay, it worked. It worked the next day and the next day and the next. However, her favorite way to eat it is like pudding, dipped up by the spoonful and headed straight for her mouth without the traditional carrier food. So, at a typical meal, she's eating it with her toddler spoon and in between bites, I'm shoveling as many carrots as I can into her mouth before she realizes she's eating them. I tried squirting the ketchup all over her food, but she will only accept it as long as it's in a mountainous mass not touching any of the food on her plate. The magic words to convince Princess to take a bite of food in my house are not, "Open up, please!" or "No dessert if you don't eat your vegetables." or "Eat your food or Mommy's going to have a coronary." Nope. The magic words are, "Look! There's ketchup on your cereal!" So to keep the peace for now, I'm going to keep telling myself that ketchup is made of tomatoes and therefore counts as a vegetable.

Unsolicited Advice:
Use a kitchen dish towel and a bag clip as a bib. It's bigger than the bibs sold in stores (which means more of your kid's clothes will be saved) and is completely washable.