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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My Bouncing Baby Boy

I love Little Man. He smiles easily and has started laughing although I'm not sure if he's laughing because he's happy or if he's laughing at me.

Little Man is also pretty challenging. The only way to get him to sleep is to swaddle him tightly, give him a pacifier, throw a blanket over his face, and bounce him. I have an exercise ball that I spend several hours a day on...not exercising, but bouncing Little Man, who is quite literally my bouncing baby boy. If I forget to cover Little Man's face with a blanket while trying to convince him that he needs at least one nap during the day, he simply will not close his eyes. My theory is that he never has actually fallen asleep, but simply passes out from lack of oxygen due to having his face covered. Don't worry though. When he falls asleep, I pull the blanket off his face so he can revive himself within 11 minutes and then proceed to scream for the next two hours because he's so tired.

Little Man may view falling asleep as tantamount to having his fingernails pulled out one by one, and he may have issues with taking a nap that's longer than 17 minutes at at time, but he does sleep through the night. So my days are frustrating and long while my nights are peaceful and full of sleep. When I'm out somewhere and Little Man is screaming his head off like I've forgotten to feed him for a week, I get looks of pity which turn into deep sympathy when I explain that this is what he does EVERY TIME he gets tired. Then, I usually make the mistake of saying, "Well, at least he sleeps through the night." At that point, most people roll their eyes and tell me that I don't know how good I have it. I'll agree with that. I've been blessed with two children who, so far, (knock on wood, cross fingers, pray HARD) are good at sleeping during the night, but lack that skill during the day. However, people don't have much sympathy for a mom with a "high-needs" baby if that baby sleeps through the night. Guess I don't blame them though. I'd much rather that Little Man is a bear during the day as long as he sleeps all night.

Unsolicited Advice:
When taking laundry out of the dryer, fold it and stack it in the laundry basket instead of just dumping it all in. This ensures that, even if you don't have time to even look at the basket of clothes again until you actually need to wear something out of it, you will at least find folded clothes instead of a wrinkled mess.

If You Don't Go To Sleep Right Now...

Princess decided that she simply did not want to take her nap today. By the time we got home from babysitting and she'd eaten a delicious lunch of pb&j, it was 1pm. Definitely time for a nap, right? So I gave Princess her blanket and pacifier and laid her down in her crib with a good-night kiss. She didn't move at first, but then I left her room and sat down to finish my lunch. A tiny whimper reached my ears, then a louder one. Within a few minutes, she was screaming. Not crying, not yelling, but angry bloodcurdling screaming that came one after the other. After about 10 minutes of this, I marched into her room, checked her gums, her temperature, and everything else I could think of to make sure that there was nothing really wrong and quickly ascertained that she was throwing a major tantrum in an effort to skip her nap. I gave her a little swat on her diapered bottom and sternly told her that it was naptime and it was not negotiable. I tried to lay her back down in her crib, but she spit her pacifier at me rebelliously and tried to climb my arm to get out. I pried my arm out of her grasp and left the room to angry yells that soon turned into screams again. Within a few minutes, Princess was beyond angry. She was hysterical. I went back into her room and picked her up, knowing from experience that the only way to get through a tantrum this bad was to hold her close and tight and "shush" her until she calmed down. I finally managed to get her to stop screaming and tried once again to put her in her crib. She clung desperately to my neck and refused to let go. Finally, I gave in and sat down in the rocker to rock her to sleep. As she played with my hair, her fingers gradually slowed down until her hand hung in mid-air before dropping to her side. I realized then how much I miss being able to rock my baby girl to sleep. One of the great rewards of parenthood to me, is being able to hold your beautiful sleeping child and study all of their tiny perfect features. I thought about how just a few minutes earlier, I had been angry with her for throwing such a massive tantrum. Even though I had given her a spanking and was stern with her, she still wanted only one thing-me. Talk about humbling. I rocked her longer than I needed to, listening to her soft snores and holding her relaxed litle body close to me. And then I thanked God for the opportunity to rock my baby girl to sleep even if it did involve a temper tantrum.

Unsolicited Advice:
From the time Princess was a newborn, making a repeated "shushing" noise has always soothed her. Even now when she's 20 months old, I can still get her to relax by doing it.

Sleep Issues? Not An Issue.

I am constantly reminded of what a unique child I have when it comes to sleep. Sometimes if I forget and take Princess's exceptional sleeping habits for granted, a sleep-deprived and sometimes bitter mother will take it upon herself to remind me that I could be "blessed" with a child like hers who hasn't slept for more than 56 minutes at a time since birth and refuses to take that sleep in the crib so lovingly (and optimisticly) bought and assembled for him or her before birth.

Tonight, I sat on the couch reading a book while Princess played nearby, not with one of the dozens of entertaining, educational toys she has acquired in her 17 months of life, but with the drab, unexciting drink coasters that she had once again stolen from off the coffee table. It was 7:30 and bedtime was looming on the horizon. Suddenly, she threw the coasters to the floor with an exasperated yell and marched her tiny heinie out of the room. I didn't think much of it as toddlers are often known to engage in bizarre behaviors with absolutely no explanation involved. However, a minute later she came back with the pacifier from her crib in her mouth. Now, she is not allowed to have a pacifier unless she is going to sleep, and she has followed this rule splendidly ever since I caught her snitching her crib pacifier and promptly put her back into her crib for a second nap that afternoon. She didn't sleep, but she definitely got the message, and she hasn't attempted another pacifier robbery since then. Anyway, Princess came back into the living room with the pacifier in her mouth, grabbed my hand and insistently tried to pull me up off the couch (not an easy task as The Hubby will tell you.) The minute I stood up, she took off running down the hallway to her room motioning for me to follow. When we arrived in her room, she stood beside her crib, held her tiny arms above her head, and used the universal baby language (grunting insistently) to tell me she wanted up in her crib. If she had been able to climb into her crib herself, I believe she would've done so and, I would've found her there asleep when I went to find out why she was being so quiet.

Unsolicited Advice:
When Princess was a newborn, she would fall asleep easily in my arms only to wake up the moment her body touched the crib mattress. To lull her back to sleep without picking her back up, I would lay my hand on her chest so she could feel the warmth and then slowly pull it away after she was asleep.

It's YOUR Turn

Last night, I went into Princess's room to check on her before I went to bed like I always do. Like usual, as I tiptoed past her dresser, Hubby hissed from the doorway, "Get out of there, you're going to wake her up!" And like usual, I shot a glare in a his direction and continued my stealthy trek to the crib to watch Princess sleep peacefully with her tiny derriere up in the air. The hubby just doesn't understand the magnetic pull a sleeping child has on its mother. After watching and chasing said child in raucous endless circles around the house all day, to see her motionless and quiet is mind-boggling and gives the mother a serene calm that will help her sleep peacefully until the race begins again the next morning.

There have been times that, while I tread softly across the baby blue plush carpet in Princess's room, she has sighed loudly or turned over in her sleep. When she does this, my split second reaction is to drop to the floor like a lead balloon and pray that she didn't open her eyes and catch a glimpse of me. I know from experience, that if she does see me in her room, she will be inconsolable if I try to leave without picking her up. That leads to a long night filled with crying and devoid of sleep. And the crying comes from both me and Princess when she refuses to let me put her back in her crib.

Princess was sick yesterday and so she didn't sleep well last night. At 11:34 pm, I got up to give her another dose of infant tylenol. Upon returning to bed, I nudged (okay, punched) my husband into wakefulness to inform him that since I had to get up in the morning and go to work and he did not, Princess was his responsibility for the rest of the night hours.
After my alarm went off this morning and I had hit the snooze button 14 times, I rolled over and poked my husband. "It's just my luck that the night it's your turn to get up with Louise, she sleeps until morning." I grumbled, slightly irritable because I felt that he deserved to know what it felt like to be up 11 times in one night. He glared at me through bleary eyes. "I spent half the night rocking her back to sleep."
Mollified, I got up and got ready for work while Hubby began sawing z's again. Princess's usual MO is to wake up for the day around 8 or 8:30 am so I tried not to feel too sorry for him, knowing that he would get at least another hour of sleep before daddy-duty began. Walking past Princess's room on my way to the bathroom, I glanced in her open door to see two big brown eyes staring at me from between the bars of her crib. I thought perhaps, she would fall back asleep if I just kept going, but that proved to be erroneous. So I went into her room, picked up my crying daughter and gave her a hug and a kiss before plopping her on the bed next to her soon-to-be-awake father.

Let me clarify something though.Princess  is an incredibly good sleeper except for when she's sick. And she always get sick when Hubby has to get up early and go to work and I get to "stay home and relax all day." (His words, not mine!) And so, on the rare occasion that she does get sick when he has the day off, I maybe enjoy my sleep a little too much. Maybe not.

Unsolicited Advice:
When going on a long trip in the car or maybe an airplane, buy some small toys at the dollar store and wrap each one in wrapping paper. For each hour (or half hour, or 7 minutes depending on your child's boredom level), give your child one to open.