Sunday, May 27, 2012

1 month

Baby L is definitely proving to be different than K in so many ways. One difference is definitely their eating habits and how my body has reacted.

With K, my milk came in at about 5 days, whereas with L, it was coming in while I was still at the hospital! The first night home was miserable as my milk officially made its appearance but I was glad for L - it would help him get over his baby jaundice ... if that was what he had. Unfortunately it was breast milk jaundice so it was actually making his jaundice worse. A bit ironic, if you ask me.

L has been gaining weight like crazy (compared to K, at least). I can tell because my arms get sore and tired while I feed him. He's no light 7 pounder anymore. In fact, when I weighed him last on the scales with me, he was over 9 pounds! K was 9 pounds 15 ounces at 2 months - I think L will surpass that for sure. He definitely likes to eat.

I've really been pushing what the Baby Wise book suggests - sleep, eat, awake, repeat. It worked wonders for K - she slept about 7-8 hours at 5 1/2 weeks. I liked that. And I would love to sleep more than 2 1/2 hours at a time real soon but I'm not sure if that will happen with L. Even in the Baby Wise book, it says that boys are a little slower to comply to the Baby Wise method and start sleeping through the night.

So I google searched it a couple of nights ago and what I found was astounding! I was a little worried that L was being a little slow about increasing his time between feedings at night with only one stretch of 4 hours at 3 weeks. But apparently, there are a lot of parents out there who are still feeding their kids in the middle of the night at 6 months, 9 months ... there was even a lady who said that her 17-month old wakes up in the middle of the night for a bottle of milk. Are you kidding me? If I was still getting up with K to make sure she ate/drank in the middle of the night, I would for sure be feeling insane from the lack of continuous sleep I'd be getting! In fact, at 6 months and still giving the baby 1 or 2 feedings in the middle of the night would do me in for sure. I'd probably never have another baby again. My sleep is too important to my normal functioning.

And it should be to other mothers out there too. But let me give you a hint - if you are a mom and you are waking up your baby in the middle of the night to feed him and they are over 6 months, I can guarantee you that your baby can sleep through the night if you train him to. A lot of parents (that I read about) thought that it was cruel that mothers wouldn't feed their children in the middle of the night at 2 months, 3 months, 9 months, etc. but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that K was just fine at these ages without middle of the night feedings. If she wasn't, she would have woken up to let me know. Babies can do it. Sure, they're small, but they need their sleep too.

So I tried to tank him up during the day. I've heard that giving an extra feeding during the day can help so they don't eat as much at night. Well, I only tried it once and it didn't work at all.

Last night, however, he went 4 hours and 3 1/2 hours between feedings which was awesome!

I'm no longer trying to shoot for 7-8 hours of straight sleep at 5 1/2 weeks but if it does happen to work out that way, I won't be disappointed.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

tank him up

Baby L is definitely proving to be different than K in so many ways. One difference is definitely their eating habits and how my body has reacted.

With K, my milk came in at about 5 days, whereas with L, it was coming in while I was still at the hospital! The first night home was miserable as my milk officially made its appearance but I was glad for L - it would help him get over his baby jaundice ... if that was what he had. Unfortunately it was breast milk jaundice so it was actually making his jaundice worse. A bit ironic, if you ask me.

L has been gaining weight like crazy (compared to K, at least). I can tell because my arms get sore and tired while I feed him. He's no light 7 pounder anymore. In fact, when I weighed him last on the scales with me, he was over 9 pounds! K was 9 pounds 15 ounces at 2 months - I think L will surpass that for sure. He definitely likes to eat.

I've really been pushing what the Baby Wise book suggests - sleep, eat, awake, repeat. It worked wonders for K - she slept about 7-8 hours at 5 1/2 weeks. I liked that. And I would love to sleep more than 2 1/2 hours at a time real soon but I'm not sure if that will happen with L. Even in the Baby Wise book, it says that boys are a little slower to comply to the Baby Wise method and start sleeping through the night.

So I google searched it a couple of nights ago and what I found was astounding! I was a little worried that L was being a little slow about increasing his time between feedings at night with only one stretch of 4 hours at 3 weeks. But apparently, there are a lot of parents out there who are still feeding their kids in the middle of the night at 6 months, 9 months ... there was even a lady who said that her 17-month old wakes up in the middle of the night for a bottle of milk. Are you kidding me? If I was still getting up with K to make sure she ate/drank in the middle of the night, I would for sure be feeling insane from the lack of continuous sleep I'd be getting! In fact, at 6 months and still giving the baby 1 or 2 feedings in the middle of the night would do me in for sure. I'd probably never have another baby again. My sleep is too important to my normal functioning.

And it should be to other mothers out there too. But let me give you a hint - if you are a mom and you are waking up with your baby in the middle of the night to feed him and they are over 6 months, I can guarantee you that your baby can sleep through the night if you train him to. A lot of parents (that I read about) thought that it was cruel that mothers wouldn't feed their children in the middle of the night at 2 months, 3 months, 9 months, etc. but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that K was just fine at these ages without middle of the night feedings. If she wasn't, she would have woken up to let me know. Babies can do it. Sure, they're small, but they need their sleep too.

So I tried to tank him up during the day. I've heard that giving an extra feeding during the day can help so they don't eat as much at night. Well, I only tried it once and it didn't work at all.

Last night, however, he went 4 hours and 3 1/2 hours between feedings which was awesome!

I'm no longer trying to shoot for 7-8 hours of straight sleep at 5 1/2 weeks but if it does happen to work out that way, I won't be disappointed.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

prayer works

As I am quickly learning, having two kids definitely creates some jealously issues. I spend as much time with K as possible, but she wants the exact same attention as I give the baby all the time. She wants to be held and cuddled and changed on a blanket. She wants to be wrapped in a blanket and to swing on the baby swing. She cries all the time now instead of using words ... well, I guess it's more of crying with a few words that are usually not understandable. And I hate the crying. She knows to use words instead of just crying but the baby just cries and gets attention, so I guess she figures she can do the same thing. Instead, she gets left alone until she calms down which usually takes a while.

So a couple of days ago, after having a rough day, I prayed really hard to have more patience with K. And after many prayers and much faith, it worked. I had more than enough patience to deal with all the crying and disobedience of little K.

L, on the other hand, is so perfect. Sure, he cries quite a bit during diaper changes and only allows me to get about 2 1/2 straight hours of sleep at a time if I'm lucky, but goodness he's perfect. It's amazing to think he's only been on this earth for 3 short weeks! He has also lost his newborn face which also means he looks a lot less Asian. Mike's plan of calling him "Chang" really doesn't fit very well anymore. Thank goodness.

I've yet to do many pictures with L but I will be sure to do some soon because he's getting older and I don't want to forget how cute he is with his little baby face!

Saturday, May 5, 2012

two crying kids

Mike just said that the days are better than the nights because the kiddos don't cry during the day like they have been tonight. Obviously, Mike has not been home during the day these past few days.

It's about 2:45 am and we have been awake for over 2 hours with both kids because K cried for over an hour and refused to let us help her or hold her and L just wants to keep eating. I've been no stranger to being up from about 12:30-3:30 am but this is all new to Mike. But it's definitely frustrating with all the crying.

K ended up needing a diaper change and downed 2 slices of homemade bread. I wish she would have just said so in the first place.

The good news, however, is that I'm only 11 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight. Thank you good genes and baby L for nursing so well - without these things, my weight loss would not be as possible. And my body greatly appreciates it as well. It's so nice to be able to move mostly normal again. My back feels great too.

Friday, May 4, 2012

Baby L: 1 week

It's hard to believe we had our baby boy one week and two days ago! In a way, having two kids almost seems natural ... or maybe it''s my lack of consecutive sleep that is stopping my brain from functioning properly.

I just received a notice from my Google calendar that Landon is due today. However, I'm so glad he's here with us instead of still waiting for him to be born!

We found out yesterday that he has breast milk jaundice which is a real bummer. Basically that means that he'll likely have jaundice for a few more weeks. Luckily though, he doesn't have to go back on the bilibed. He's been off of it since Wednesday afternoon and it's nice to be able to hold him instead of forcing him to lay on a blue-lit bed most of the day.

K has finally come to terms with the fact that the baby is permanent in our family. In fact when she thought she was being separated from him at the grocery store parking lot since she was going into the car first, she flipped out. I'm glad she's enjoying the baby more now.

Baby L seems to already show a boy trait - his love for eating. It only takes him about 20-30 minutes to nurse but at least once a day, he tries to get in multiple feedings in a row ... he seems to think I offer an all-you-can-eat buffet, especially from about 12:30-3:30 am. And if he poops at all, he demands more food immediately after. I felt like I spent most of Thursday feeding him while K ran rampant around the house.

With Mike going back to work on Wednesday, I have come to really respect mothers with at least two kids who haven't gone crazy. Having two kids who depend on you all day to take care of them has really thrown off my mother groove. The day is a lot more busy and for now, is a lot more scheduled. And K has lucked out with me being a bit more lenient about some things because I simply can't chase her down every time she's getting into something she's not supposed to and quite honestly, I don't have the energy to enforce some rules. So the past two days, I've had to pick and choose which are most important: K playing in the toilet = bad (and so gross) which results in time outs since it's not her first offense. K getting into the baby's swing even though she's not supposed to = not so important so she's had a few good rides in it. I'm sure one day I'll be back to my old self but for now, I think K is really soaking in my lack of punishing her.

For more details on baby L's birth, please visit our personal blog (kimbymaes.blogspot.com) and please notify us if you need an invite.