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Jul
01

It’s funny how inconsistently  I can get to writing this blog.  Ah well, such is the life of a new mother with attachment parenting tendencies.

Yes, we’re still having breastfeeding issues.  I’ve been keeping track of … well, most things (except diapers, oddly enough), and have found that the average pain levels may have gone down somewhat, but not by all that much (not even 30% since our visit with the PT), and not as much as I’d like.  I’m still working towards the plan of waiting until three months and then deciding what to do about continuing feeding at the boob or pumping and bottle feeding.  My midwife did note that it is not uncommon for women to start losing their supply if they go to exclusive pumping, which is one of my fears, but she also had a great reminder – what’s right is what gets the most needs met for the most people, and that may not be the perfect solution for everyone, but is best for the family as a whole.

I’ve mentally moved on to the next issue.  (Well, not so much moved on, but moved in addition to.  Motherhood is neither linear nor binary.)  After looking over the data I’ve been gathering for about three weeks now, I’m fairly certain that little Miss Daphne is sleep deprived.  8 week olds are supposed to be getting (on average) 15 hours of sleep a day.  Sure, that can vary widely, but she gets 11 to 12 (sometimes slightly less!), and shows plenty of signs of often fighting sleep and being extra cranky in the evening.  So it’s off to work on sleep!

There appear to be as many ways as parents to “work on sleep”. Depending on the philosophy, different (contradictory) biological “facts” are stated, so, I’m doing a read of a number of approaches for background, and plan to synthesize/evolve what works for us.  Neither Jason or I are a fan of various “cry it out” methods.  For one, even most of those methods say she’s too young, and for two, it seems an unnatural approach for us.  (I’m not criticizing those who use it, however.  If someone finds it works for their family, that’s awesome!  It’s almost certain that there are going to be child/parent combinations out there for whom this is the most effective method.) A completely rigid schedule doesn’t make sense to me either, since I know of few humans who work that way, and Jason and I certainly aren’t examples of that few.

My current plan (no input needed from the peanut gallery on “why it won’t work”, Daphne… See More will be the arbiter of that), is to take advantage of the natural 90minute rest/active cycle in humans, and encourage her to nap when she shows signs of sleepiness (yawning, droopy eyelids, vacant stare, fussiness, and whatever else I can learn to read from her).  Yes, this is marketed through a book – what method of sleep training/teaching/improving/whathaveyou isn’t.  So, calming the environment, not stimulating her, and providing some variety of boring but gentle rhythmic input to help her ignore the other sensory stimulate around her. This may include swaddling/shhh’ing (though she’s seemed meh about swaddling), walking, gentle bouncing on a ball, escalating to dancing/singing, her swing, or even a car ride if necessary. I’d prefer to keep it as simple as possible, however, so she doesn’t become too reliant on those external influences. And sucking is on the table, but almost certainly not at the boob unless/until we resolve the breastfeeding pain issue.

If she take the opportunity to fall asleep, great! She seems to fairly obviously fight sleep, so I’m going to try to get to this as soon as she shows signs of tiredness, and be really patient about encouraging her to sleep. If she doesn’t, she doesn’t, and I can’t force her, but I’ll keep stimulation a little lower so she isn’t overstimulated by the time we get towards then end of the next rest/active cycle to try again. If she does take advantage, and falls asleep anywhere but already in a sleeping location (cosleeper, crib, playard), I will keep in mind what sleep cycles are like and try to wait until she’s in deep sleep, not the active REM sleep that babies start their sleep cycle with, to move her to a sleeping location.

The theory here is that babies (particularly after two weeks, but before six months) need help learning to voluntarily go to sleep, ignoring the overwhelming new sensory input that they want to take in. Many will, given the opportunity, stay awake until the get fussier and fussier and crash. But because they are overtired, they won’t sleep as deeply or as long, waking up unrefreshed (so they don’t learn that sleep is a rewarding thing that they can do) and tired, leading to more fighting sleep fussiness.

It may mean that she’s taking naps every hour and a half, rather than trying to go five or six hours in the day without one. (This is NOT a good thing for an 8 week old; she needs sleep to integrate what she’s learned while awake!) It may do that, or may lead to a few longer breaks of wakefulness in the day. It may also mean that it takes half an hour to get her to go down.  But we’d be managing her in some fashion during that time anyway, so now we just do it in a different way.  We will see what works for her. It is likely going to impact how I get out of the house (being out is very stimulating, and I’ve got to prioritize her sleep a bit more), but breastfeeding already does that – and on a similar time scale, since she often goes two hours between daytime feeds.

I don’t think either Jason or I were paying enough attention to her sleep signals, since she used to drop off more readily. But as she has become more alert, she’s wanted to stay awake (at all costs) more, and we were, unintentionally, helping he do that. I’m sure the reflux and gas didn’t help (providing discomfort that woke her fully during the lighter stages of the cycle), but that’s getting better too.

I like the approach because it’s very baby centered, and goes along with my general “attachment parenting light” approach. But who knows if it’ll work as I hope. If it doesn’t, we will try something else.

Jun
23

Since the PT appointment yesterday, feeding (you know, the thing my life revolves around) has been up and down.  We had a couple of intensely painful feeds (like, just cry through it, because there’s nothing else to do – especially when you don’t have pumped milk available and you’re already there and you’re a stubborn pain in the ass who won’t give up until she decides, independent of the heat of the moment, to switch plans) and some good feeds that weren’t completely not-uncomfortable, but were totally manageable and probably as good as I can expect until my nipples heal.  It makes me skittish to go into a feed – or really, just to latch her on, even if it’s one feed but switching sides.

Having a tentative plan, however, makes me feel much better – I plan to “grin and bear it” as best as possible until three months, and re-evaluate the situation then.  If necessary, we’ll use “strategic pump&feed” once or twice in a day, and I’ll keep using my magic nipple cream (really, just a combination of lanolin, st. john’s wort oil, and using the cotton nursing bra pads I have), and get through it if at all possible.  Clearly, if things go downhill and it’s just no longer a tenable situation, then I’ll change that plan.  But I have at least two other professionals I would want to see first.  If, at three months, things are not improved, I will probably move towards more (and possibly exclusively) pumping and bottle-feeding the breastmilk.  If things do improve, well… problem solved.  (This problem, anyway.  I’m sure there will be others.)  While I want to be optimistic every time we have a good feed, the bad ones tempt me to flip over the other way, so having this plan in mind makes me feel better – I’m working towards an end, rather than some open-ended who-knows-what.

I had commented on the overwhelming attention breastfeeding is taking in my life to Jason the other day.  He asked when I was thinking of taking Neo back to obedience class, and I said “when we have this feeding thing figured out; my life is kind of on hold until then”.  And that’s really how it feels, outside of teaching four (and a half) yoga classes a week (and three of those are at home, and are likely to be our pump&feed feedings), my life really has been on hold until this gets resolved, since not only do feedings take a long time, but I just have to spend some time recovering afterwards, and being so very careful of how I move and what comes near my breasts, including her feet and hands while we’re playing.

Jun
20

Someday, my breasts will no longer hurt.  Someday, my nipples will not be pink and raw.  Someday, I won’t pause, mid-whatever, and just wait for a wave of burning through the boob to pass.

To say I’m frustrated is an understatement.  I’m too stubborn to give up on breastfeeding, as I don’t feel that this pain is yet worthy of being a reason to not provide the quantitative and qualitative benefits of breastmilk.  But I can see the line where that’s no longer the case drifting in front of me at some unknown distance.  I don’t particularly want to go to pumping and feeding either, for both practical reasons (it’s incredibly inconvenient, and I don’t know how it would work logistically when I’m by myself as there are times that she won’t go to sleep or be on her own after eating or be asleep before eating), selfish reasons (it’s so convenient to just have a boob available if we go anywhere for more than an hour; pumping while out and about would be far, far less convenient), and for her (the skin to skin time is great, and she gets good comfort out of it).  But I either have to get used to the pain, or something.

For no particularly good reason other than “lots of things change then”, I’m hope, praying, that at three months, she’ll get better about using her mouth and things will improve.

I’m sure that this isn’t the only painful, long-term tradeoff I’ll be making as a mother.  I’m sure there are other difficulties (physical and emotional) that will make this seem like barely a speedbump on the way to raising a child, but I’m not feeling that at the moment.  I’m feeling uncertain as to what the future holds, and how I should handle it.  If I knew it would be better by three months, it’d be easier to hold on for another five weeks and wait it out.  I mean, pregnancy was nine months of discomfort, so what’s another three months?  But if I knew that it would be no better by three would I do anything different?  Would I stop now just because there wouldn’t be improvement then?  I don’t know!  I don’t think so, but it’s hard to make good decisions when you’re in the middle of confusing things.