The first month of motherhood!

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside!

Well, I’ve survived the first month of motherhood! Owen has survived his first month of babyhood, and we are doing just fine. He’s asleep in the bedroom now, giving me a little break from feeding – earlier he was on/off feeding for 3 hours, the little monster! But nows a good time to think about my first month as a mum, and how I’m doing. No-one tells you how you’re doing, you don’t get gold stars or black marks. You have to assume that you’re kind of doing okay, if baby is still alive and gaining weight, pooing, weeing and gaining weight etc.

It hasn’t been as hard or stressful as I thought it might be,  but the stresses have been different to how I imagined. I think I assumed that the baby would be crying a lot, and that that would be the main stress. Well, Owen doesn’t really cry that much. So no real stress there, although when he does have a particuarly inconsolable crying attack I can see how stressful it would be if it happened all the time. No, my major stress has been breastfeeding. I think I really underestimated how difficult it was going to be. I don’t think I even really thought about it that much when I was pregnant, and if I did I just assumed that I’d be able to do it no problem. But there are so many things about breastfeeding that they DON’T tell you before you start! For example, how much LONGER it takes to breastfeed – in terms of  how long baby is on the breast, and that they will need to be demand fed, which can be every 2 hours or can be every 10 minutes, depending on how baby is feeling! There are a million other things they don’t tell you, I guess, but the things they don’t tell you about breastfeeding really add up. I’m not sure I would have even started trying if I’d known beforehand how much upset it was going to cause me. But I’m very proud of myself that I persevered with it, and that Owen is now coming on in leaps and bounds, he latches on nearly every time now, even for the night feeds. My clever little guy!

Because I’m breastfeeding and trying to follow attachment parenting principles as much as possible, I haven’t really got a routine sorted yet because I have to demand feed, so it’s hard to get a routine going when Owen is leading on the feeding. But I’m hoping in the next month or so that Owen will fall into a pattern of waking, feeding, playing and sleeping. I’m already putting him to bed earlier, at around nine-ish, and he sleeps till the midnight feed. It’s tiring, not having a strict routine, but I think it’s better at the moment to follow his cues. I don’t have anything better to do with my time after all – it’s not like I HAVE to get up for anything and I’ve got at least a year to find a pattern that suits both of us. This first month has been about me learning the ropes, and learning about my baby. What makes him tick. How he wants to be handled, how he likes to be put to sleep, woken, fed, changed, etc. I think I’m gradually getting there, and he certainly lets me know if I get something  a bit wrong! I want to get it right – I have to get it right first time. There is no dress rehearsal, this is my one chance to get it right for my little one. I can’t afford to fuck things up, even in small ways. I owe it to him to get it right.

He seems like a happy, content, relaxed little boy, and everyone says this, the midwife and the health visitor, and everyone else who meets him. I hope this reflects how I am with him, I try to be calm and quiet with him, talk to him quietly when I change him and feed him, read him stories and play guitar or a CD to quieten him and send him to sleep, massage his legs and feet when I change him because he loves this! I think that this helps him to be calm. But sometimes he does get extremely agitated, for example, his ‘nipple rage’ – which could be because he’s got over-hungry or could be because he gets frustrated when he can’t latch on properly. And sometimes he just has a little scream for no apparent reason, but luckily this doesn’t happen very often, and it’s probably me not reading his signs properly. I need to pay more attention to the body language before the crying begins. I already know his ‘Feed me!’ signs – he does this funny little knife and fork gesture, sticks his tongue out and does a baby bird wide open mouth, and makes funny little clucking noises… plus if I’m holding him he turns his head so his mouth is against my breast and very unsubtly tries to bite me! He has also tried to suck my nose!

So on the whole the first month has been successful, tiring and stressful on the feeding front but apart from that I have a very content and growing baby boy, I am virtually recovered from the birth except for my back is still quite painful, the house is not a tip and mum and I have not (yet) driven each other too crazy

… and most importantly, lest I forget, I’m still completely thrilled with and in awe of my beautiful son, I spend far too long just gazing at him, I want to cuddle him all the time and don’t ever stop thinking about him. It’s not even really consciously thinking, it’s just that he’s there, a constant, comforting presence in my mind, a delicate, perfect little human shape traced on my psyche. I don’t suppose he will ever leave. He’s there for ever and ever, my little love!

Big Wobbly Stretchmark Beast from Outer Space

"OMG, what IS that huge wobbly purple veined thing that's coming in between me and the milk?!

Wriggly piglet really is a piglet – he’s put on another stonking 1lb  2oz in a week and 3 days bringing him to 9lb 12oz which is great! I’m very happy and relieved because it means that he is getting enough (maybe more than enough!) milk from me. He feeds a lot, but I can’t help worrying that he’s just comfort sucking, or getting lots of the thirst-quenching fore milk but none of the rich hind milk. Anyway, I can stop worrying about that now. I’m sure I’ll find something else to worry about soon enough, anyway!

Other progress… last night he managed to latch on without the nipple shields for the night feeds for the first time ever, too! And this morning he did the biggest, runniest, yellowest poo in the history of poo, after I worried all day yesterday because he hadn’t done a poo at all. He really is the cleverest baby in the world, and I’m not just saying that because I’m his mum!

Went to the mother and baby clinic today to have him weighed, which was the first time I had taken him out in his buggy on my own. Saw lots of other mums out with their babies in buggies too – they all look so young! Some of them can’t be much more than teenagers. I feel old and inexperienced next to them! The nursery nurse who weighed him last week was at the clinic, and she said to come along next Thursday in the morning, because it is more of a social thing. And she’s put me down to go to baby massage as well. And another exciting thing - Swimbabies phoned me back this morning and Owen is now going to his first swimming class on Saturday! Well, that is if his bum is big enough. If he is too small to fit into the swimming nappies then he will have to wait till May. I hope his bum is big enough!

My bum, on the other hand, is the size of a cow. I will need to buy a new swimming cozzie I think… I am still hovering around the 11 stone mark and my tummy is still huge, wobbly like a jelly and now COVERED in gazillions of nasty purple stretch marks – I didn’t have any stretchmarks at all until after the birth! I thought I’d escaped, but no, my formerly wafer thin tummy has turned into the Big Wobbly Stretchmark Beast from Outer Space… and my belly button, well, words cannot describe the sheer horror that is my discoloured, protruding belly button… still, it’s all worth it for my perfect little wriggly piglet!

Growing fast…

Owen is four weeks today, and is really growing fast! I can’t believe how big he looks now when he’s lying in his Moses basket. He’s already outgrowing some of his newborn clothes. I can’t wait till Thursday to find out how much he weighs now. Last Monday he weighed 8lb 10oz, the previous Monday he wass 7lb 8oz (his birthweight) so he put on 1lb 2oz in a week, which is a massive weight gain, and I’m hoping that he’ll have put on quite a bit this week too. The more weight the better at this stage, I think – it’s a good sign that the breastfeeding is doing the trick and he’s getting what he needs. And they say you can’t overfeed when you’re breastfeeding anyway.

Went to Tesco today, another ‘first’! Owen rode in the trolley in a special baby seat and got lots of female attention! It was a lovely warm day, almost spring-like. I can’t wait till proper spring, we can take Owen for lots of lovely walks by the sea and in the country.

This evening I decided to try and start Owen on a semi-routine in the evenings, so he gets used to going into his Moses basket in the evening. So after dinner at around 7pm, I fed him and then had a bath with Owen in the bathseat, which he seems to love, at least he doesn’t complain and wriggles about quite happily. After we’d dried off and dressed etc. I fed him from the other breast, and when he was looking pretty sleepy and full, I carefully put him in the Moses, gave him a little kiss and quietly left the room with my fingers crossed. That was 2 hours ago, and he is still in there, he’s awake now because I can hear him making little gurgles and squeaks on the monitor, and I popped in to check him 10 minutes ago. He’s perfectly happy, watching his mobile toys. I’ll need to change him before I go to bed and he’ll be due another feed soonish, so I’ll have to wake him for those, but I’m pleased that he’s responded so well tonight to this routine. If it works, I’ll have a couple of hours in the evenings to catch up on things that I can’t do one handed!

Oops, I might have spoken too soon, he’s started to make a few more unhappy noises on the monitor now!

Owen’s first party!

Owen went to his first party today! John’s granddaughter’s little boy was one year old today and had a little get-together, so I decided we would be sociable and show our faces. This sounds like it should be relatively straightforward but three quarters of an hour later I am still not out of the door, having had two pooey nappies to change, and then little mister decided he was hungry! And then there was stuff, stuff and more stuff to pack…

And I still forgot to pack the nipple shields. I managed to breastfeed him, though, at the party in an upstairs room, which I was very happy about! Mum, Owen and I then drove off down to the sea front and went for a little walk along the prom and pier. It was cold but not too cold, the sky was perfectly cloudless and blue and the sun was just going down over the sea. The tide was out and the sun made the wet sand glisten so it was hard to look at. Owen responded to all these aesthetic stimuli by sleeping the whole time, as he always does as soon as his head hits the car seat. Vibration is guaranteed to send him off quicker than anything else.

I am starting to feel a bit more confident about going out now. Yesterday I went to a ‘breastfeeding drop-in group’, which I was a bit nervous about. I didn’t really know what to expect. I thought, it must be more than a bunch of women getting their tits out and sticking their babies on. But basically it pretty much was a bunch of women getting their tits out and sticking their babies on. Oh, and tea and coffee, and playmats and stuff. Actually I’m being facetious – it was useful because I got to talk to a couple of breastfeeding counsellors, and it was nice to get out of the house and chat to some other mums with young babies. Owen slept through the whole thing, which made me feel very proud (smug) since a lot of the other babies were yelling the place down!

Anyway, got to go now, it’s past me and little mister’s bedtime!

A game of ‘Kick the Snail’

Today I decided to start using cloth nappies. Aargh. Why must I make life difficult for myself? After seven changes of nappy AND clothes I felt as if I had done nothing all day except feed and change Owen. I am either doing something wrong, or the nappies I am using are rubbish. I will see how this goes over the next few days. I can’t change his clothes every time he has a change, I don’t have enough clothes!

I am trying not to let my parenting become mundane. I don’t want my experience of motherhood to be completely taken over with the practical stuff, changing, feeding etc. I want cuddle time, and play time. I tend to hold him a lot during the day and the evening especially. I don’t want him to just be lying around in his Moses basket all day long – although sometimes he’s perfectly happy to just lie cooing and kicking in there. He’s got these little furry bugs that I’ve hung on the edge of the canopy, and he’s totally riveted by them, I’m convinced that he tries to reach up to grab them and if I dangle them over his feet, he kicks like crazy! He especially seems to enjoy a game of ‘Kick the Snail’, maybe because it has a little bell in it that tinkles when he kicks. He loves looking around him, he really seems to see what’s going on and take interest. Sometimes I think he’s just gazing into space, contemplating life. I am completely taken over by him, I love just watching him, his funny little expressions, and listening to his funny little noises…

He’s so amazingly beautiful. Tonight, mum and John were watching a film called Venus with Peter O’Toole in. I can’t really say I was watching it, because I was mainly watching Owen in his Moses basket, and then I had him on my lap and he was being very cute and lovely. I did catch one bit, which made me almost cry… it was a line spoken by Peter O’Toole and I know that it is true. I didn’t catch the whole thing so I looked it up on IMDB…

Maurice: For most men, a woman’s body is the most beautiful thing they will ever see.
Jessie: What’s the most beautiful thing a girl sees? Do you know?
Maurice: Her first child.

I know this, without a doubt, to be completely and utterly true.

(Now I’m going to hang up seven damp babygros ready for more leaking nappy action tomorrow.)

Spoke too soon!

I spoke too soon . The honeymoon period is over and Owen seems to be having second thoughts about my nipples. Every feed has now become a fight to get him to latch on. He does, usually. However I have given up on the night feeds and we just use the nipple shields – I can’t face the stress at 3am. And sometimes I have to start him with the shields and then slip them off halfway through. I have also started putting his hands inside his sleepsuit during feeds so that he can’t flail around – this seems to work quite well but I feel awful doing it, I feel like somehow I’m making the experience even more unpleasant for him, and of course he absolutely HATES having his hands restricted! He’s very fond of his hands and loves nothing more than to grab and punch things with them – including my poor nipples!

I feel shattered and depressed about it again, and wonder how long I will be able to keep this up. Both Owen and me become extremely wound up during feed times now, and it definitely is NOT relaxing or nice for either of us. I just hope that this is a phase and that it will get easier again, it must do, surely. Everyone says that it will get easier, and I have to believe that it will, or else I might as well give up now.

I just don’t understand – am I doing something differently to how I was before? Is the positioning wrong? Am I making it hard for him somehow, am I pressuring him too much? I have tried the baby-led approach, you know, put him on my chest and let him find his own way to the breast… well, he does wriggle down to my nipples but when he gets there he just falls asleep!

There is one overriding fear that threatens me. I do not want to look back on my first year of motherhood, on my precious few months with Owen as a baby, and feel that they were ruined by a negative experience of breastfeeding. I don’t want my feelings toward my son, or his toward me, to be marked in any way by negative feeding experiences at this stage. I want to give him the best start in life, and they say that breastfeeding is the best start in life, but surely it is not the best start in life if it makes baby scream and struggle, and it makes mum depressed and frustrated?

The last thing I want to do is to give up and go back to using the nipple shields, but I keep thinking – Owen doesn’t care how it’s delivered, in fact he doesn’t even care if it’s breast or formula – what he needs is food and love and as long as I give him those I think I am doing okay.

UPDATE: I wrote all this yesterday and then forgot to publish it - today, Owen is again feeding without the nipple shields and without fussing! I am just going to have to take this one day at a time, I can see!

No more nipple rage! Winning the battle, finally…

Well, I am very excited today! My little love has really started to get the hang of this breastfeeding malarkey.  After a very up and down week, today is a bit of a milestone. Owen has done all his feeds today without the nipple shields. I really think that he is almost there now, and that I will be able to breastfeed straight from the nipple from now on, which is absolutely brilliant!

On Monday, the health visitor came in the morning to give me and Owen the once over. She weighed him and he was almost back to his birth weight, which was a big relief as it means he is getting enough milk, even with all the feeding problems. He was due a feed so the health visitor said why don’t you give him a feed now and I can watch and see if I can help at all. So I popped my boob out and started trying to latch him on, and at that minute there was a great rumbling in the bowels of the Owen and then a tidal wave of luminous yellow poo came cascading out of his bum all over my trousers, and just kept coming! Panic stations, as I tried to catch it before it went on the floor, and the poor health visitor got lumbered with cleaning Owen’s bum while I removed my trousers and tried to find alternative apparel (which is kind of difficult since I have precisely ONE pair of trousers that fit me). Eventually Owen and me were cleaned up and the health visitor made a quick exit!

Wednesday was registration day. Owen now officially exists! It was also my first time taking Owen out in the car. He was, of course, good as gold. Mum came with me, and everything went without a hitch. Back home, I tried feeding Owen without the nipple shields. I had already done this a few times, by cunningly sneaking the shield off in the middle of a feed. It seemed to be sort of working on and off – sometimes he would latch on and sometimes he’d just throw a hissy fit. I managed to get him on this time, but it felt quite painful, and after a few minutes he came off. I noticed that my nipple was red raw, and bleeding a little.

Aaargh. The very last thing I needed was sore, bleeding nipples! How was I going to feed him? At least my left nipple was okay. I would have to feed him on that one, but then wouldn’t my milk supply dry up in the other breast if I didn’t feed him or express? I tried to express some milk, but there was quite a lot of blood and it was excruciating! I fell into a black mood and cried for a bit, unable to do anything constructive at all. I felt useless and on the verge of giving up breastfeeding. Then I pulled myself together and fished out all the bits of paper I’d been given by midwives, hospital, health visitors, total strangers on the street… breastfeeding support groups, breastfeeding helplines, breastfeeding international rescue team, breastfeeding jedi knights association, etc. etc. etc. I tried phoning a few numbers and got answer machines, and one time a fax machine. Or perhaps it was a coffee machine… I fell into flagrant despair again. Nipple shields and left breast it would have to be.

Thursday morning I got a phone call from a breastfeeding consultant with whom I had left a frantic and tearful message, obviously not on the coffee machine. She sounded brisk and down to earth and thankfully she said that she could come out that same day, say, between 12.30 and 1.30? I said that was fine, and I’d try and hold off feeding him till she got here. Owen chose this day to be ravenously hungry and went from angelic lambikins to screaming milk fiend from hell. With an hour to go till 12.30, I had to give him some expressed milk, which barely touched the sides. Between gulps he screamed at me and tried to grab my breast. Clearly the bottle wasn’t doing it for him! I suddenly had a taste of what it must be like to have a baby who cries a lot… nightmare. Thank goodness (touching wood, crossing fingers, legs etc.) that Owen is such a relaxed, chilled out little fellow normally!

It was a relief when I saw the breastfeeding counsellor coming up the drive. Owen was more than ready to do an eating demonstration by this stage, and also my right breast had become very engorged from not feeding or expressing. Conditions were perfect. 1 x Very hungry baby + 1x Very full boobie = breastfeeding success. And indeed it was. Owen latched on no problem, on both breasts, and fed like a pro! I felt a bit daft, to be honest, as if I’d over exaggerated how much of a problem we were having. I was, of course, delighted though. I felt very positive and kind of like we’d cracked it. The consultant gave me a few more tips, showed me something, I forget what, on a knitted tit… and more usefully, some Lansinoh cream for my battle-scarred nipple. But that night, Owen just point blank refused to go on without the shields. I wanted to scream.

Friday was more of the same. Each time I fed him, I tried him without the shields, but it was no good, he wasn’t having any of it. After several major tantrums, I decided that for the night feeds I wasn’t going to enter into any battles, I would just feed him with the nipple shields and both of us would get a peaceful night. Thankfully, my poorly nip seemed a lot better and I was able to feed from it.

That was last night. I did exactly that, and we had a trouble free night. I fed him at around midnight and at 3am when he grizzled. Then he woke at 7am and I realised I didn’t have a clean, sterilised nipple shield. I would have to either make him wait 15 minutes, or try him on the bare nipple. I put him to my breast (thankfully now fully healed and pink again!). To my astonishment, he made the big baby bird mouth, I pulled him in towards me and he latched on straight away! He fed for about 25 minutes, and then I gave him the second breast. Again, he just went straight on and fed for around 10-15 minutes. No fuss. No punching the nipple. No screaming. No head shaking. No foot stamping. Straight on, like he’d been doing it all his life. Which is only 2.5 weeks, admittedly, but you’d never know it watching him breastfeed now!

Now I don’t want to put a jinx on things… but every single feed today he has gone straight on to my nipple, the nipple shields have not come out of the steriliser and I feel very positive and confident that Owen is going to be a totally boobie-fed baby until he is at least six months! Cross your fingers and toes for me, everyone!

(PS. It’s a good thing he’s off the nipple shields – he tried to suck my nose the other day and I think it’s because the texture of my nose is similar to a nipple shield!)

Photos of my little love

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Here are a few piccies of my darling little love!

Baby boy fountains and bath time loveliness!

 

Owen and my jelly belly!

Well, Owen is sleeping with Mozart gently tickling his earholes so I thought I’d grab the opportunity to write my blog. I don’t know where the days go! Well, I do. Mainly feeding at the moment! Owen is feeding for longer and longer at the moment, so a feed can go on for an hour or more in total! This includes the time it can take to get him on properly and the time that he comes off and has a quick nap before wanting more, and the time that he decides he wants to burp or vomit or just stare vacantly into space for a while! It doesn’t include expressing time, though. I am trying to express after each feed, so I know roughly how much he’s not getting, and so I can give this to him later if necessary. I worry that he is getting enough. I know this sounds silly, when he can be on the breast for half an hour sometimes, but I suspect that some of this time is just comfort sucking, and not proper feeding. I will have to wait for the baby clinic on Thursday when I can have him weighed to know if he is putting the right amount of weight on.

Feeding is the main preoccupation of my life and Owen’s. Then of course comes nappy changing. I am amazed at how many nappies Owen gets through in a day, still, I guess that’s a sign that he’s getting a good amount of milk through his system! I have now experienced the baby boy fountain effect several times, and have still not mastered getting to the little chap’s winkie in time to angle it away from me, his own eye or electrical equipment. I am getting pretty good at speedy pit stops, though – although Owen makes it his duty to wriggle just as much as he can, go stiff as a board just when I want to get his vest on, jam his feet into the nappy and generally make life difficult! I’ve also discovered that he loves being massaged, I do his legs with olive oil because he has very dry skin, and he just goes into a trance! It’s a nice thing to do when I change his nappy, because it can calm him right down if he’s finding it stressful. Sometimes he seems to quite enjoy a change, other times it’s like I’m torturing him!

Aside from feeding and nappies, we have also had two lovely baths where Owen lies on his side on my wobbly jelly belly in the bath and just drifts off into the land of nod! He seems to absolutely love being semi-submerged – I’m trying to introduce him gradually to the water because I want to take him baby swimming as soon as he’s had his injections. Bath time is great, really relaxing and special time for both of us.

We have also had our first excursion outdoors in the buggy. This was a little stressful for me and mum, as it was pretty cold out and the first time we’d used the buggy so I had beginner’s nerves… Owen, however, was totally oblivious! I don’t think he even knew he’d left the house, he was asleep when we put him in, stayed asleep the whole time we were out and was still asleep when we took him out! He does sleep loads at the moment, which I’m sure will all change as he gets older… well it’s nice while it lasts! I, on the other hand, am getting very little sleep. I don’t seem to sleep too well at night, even when Owen is asleep, I flicker in and out of sleep and have to keep checking him. I’ve started falling asleep in the day whenever he’s sleeping now, and when he’s been on the breast for ten minutes or so I get a massive urge to just drift off, I guess it’s the hormones again - or maybe just the sleepless nights!

Battle of the Breast!

My happy little chappie!

Well, my little Owen is 10 days old today, on my lap and sleeping like a baby – or not like a baby I suppose would be a more apt description! He’s such a sleeper, he could sleep all day I think, if I didn’t wake him up. He sleeps through nappy changes sometimes and is always falling asleep when he feeds. He’s the most beautiful baby I have ever seen, of course I am biased but I truly believe that he is more beautiful than any other baby ever!

Although I’m loving being a mummy, we have got off to a difficult start with breastfeeding. I have a four hourly Battle of the Breast. I really really want to exclusively breastfeed, but right from birth, Owen has not  been able to latch on to my nipples. When the midwife put him on my tummy after birth, she tried to push his head repeatedly onto my breast, and he became quite upset. He didn’t manage to feed then, at that critical post-birth moment when I think most babies instinctively do know what to do, and when I tried later, again, he made the motions of trying to latch on, but kept falling off and getting upset. 

The midwives at the hospital didn’t want me to leave until I’d managed to get him on the breast, and this was the start of a nightmare couple of days, with about five or six different midwives repeatedly grabbing Owen’s head in one hand, my boob in the other and jamming them together forcefully and repeatedly. This was day and night. I have to say that at 3am when you’re knackered and sore and stressed, having someone thrusting your crying, struggling newborn baby onto your breast is a nightmare experience. And after a couple of days of this, I think Owen was put off my nipples for life. I don’t blame him, I feel almost like giving up myself. But I won’t, I am determined to get my breast milk into him, somehow!

We ended up staying in hospital because Owen had a suspected infection in his cord stump, and I had had to give him a couple of formula feeds because he just wasn’t getting any decent amount from the breast. But when my milk came in I started expressing and could give him syringe or cup feeds. I had also had a text from Linda to say that she was using nipple shields because she had the same problems latching her little man on. So I got mum to bring me some nipple shields. They worked much better, although they still weren’t great. They kept slipping off, and they weren’t rigid enough. Owen and the nipple shield would spend up to 10 minutes fighting it out before he managed to get a good mouthful… and then I was never sure how much he was getting. The four hourly battle of the breast was really getting me down.

The Battle of the Breast went kind of like this: I collect paraphenalia (nipple shields, breast pump for priming nipple and expressing, stopwatch, feed book etc.). Get into position and manipulate Owen into position. Nipple shield goes on. Owen screws his face up and makes little plaintive cries. I position nipple shield next to Owen’s mouth. Owen bats at nipple shield with his hands till it falls off. I put it back on. Owen knocks it off. I put it back on and nudge it against his mouth. Owen stuffs both hands in his mouth, arches his back and throws his head around. Nipple shield falls off. Owen screams the house down. Nipple shield has disappeared. I find nipple shield, replace it. Owen gets nipple shield in mouth for the grand total of 2.5 seconds. Repeat whole sequence three times. Finally, with a bit of help from me, Owen manages to grab nipple in his mouth and suck as if it were going out of fashion! Sometimes I laughed, I couldn’t help it – his breast antics were so extraordinary!

I now have some different nipple shields (Avent), which he seems to have taken to and the breast behaviour seems to have calmed down a little, thank goodness!