Today is that kind of day. I just had a coffee. A really good, bought from my favorite cafe kind of coffee. In an hour or two, I'll be having a made-from-home coffee just to take tylenol because for some unknown reason I am hitting that kind of exhaustion. We are starting to get longer stretches of sleep and for some reason its screwing my system up and making all the past months of no-sleep catch up with me (I think). Then after that second coffee there will be a half cup of wine.
Why wine? Not because it tastes good (thank goodness this particular kind does, DH bought it for me), but actually because it helps with breastfeeding. I have Raynaud's Syndrome. This pretty much means that the blood flow to my extremities isn't working correctly. So my hands, feet, ears, nose and chin get really cold and turn purple and hurt. Or my hands and feet get too much blood, it can get back out and they swell, turn splotchy and sweat, sweat, sweat. Apparently it affects nipples as well, especially when breastfeeding. It hurts, to the point it always feels like you have a bad latch even when the two of you are working perfectly together. My nipples feel like they are being stabbed repeatedly if they get cold and I get random shooting pains. They turn white after I am done feeding. Mostly, doctors tell you to keep those nips warm, cover up as soon as you are done feeding and carry on. There is a drug they can give you, but it has a known side effect of migraines and low blood pressure. Already having both of these, I don't need meds to help out more. So I sit with a heating pad on my breasts before and after she eats. Take a warm shower every night. If I get cold outside, you'll see me walking with my hands on my breasts trying to warm them up. And I drink a half glass of red wine every night.
There is no medical evidence that it helps - the wine at least. But for me it does make a difference. I had my first bottle of wine and notice that breastfeeding was actually enjoyable. I wasn't having pain, it actually felt nice to let my daughter eat as long as she wanted to. I didn't put two and two together until I stopped drinking the wine. All the pain came back. I couldn't wait for her to finish dinner, I hated when my nursing pads rubbed the wrong way on my breast or if my cat climbed up to lay on me. Now I am on my second bottle of wine and once again it is getting better. So for the next year - or as long as my body lets me make milk - there will be nightly wine. Maybe I am turning into my parents!
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Sunday, January 13, 2013
On Being Overwhelmed.
Being a parent is hard - emotionally and physically. Being a sahm who is ebf (stay at home mom...exclusively breastfeeding) is even harder. This post is not meant in any way to degrade anyone is isn't breastfeeding or staying at home, I completely get it is hard anyway you parent. I just think it is harder the way I am choosing, and able, to parent.
Working out of the house would be difficult because you spend the majority of time away from your child. You are exhausted and need to function enough to drive a car and meet someone else's work demands. Staying at home is hard because I don't get a break. I am parenting 24/7. My break during the work week is 20 minutes to shower while DH watches LO. Other than that I am at my daughter's beck and call. She needs her diaper changed, I am doing it. She wants human touch, I am holding her. She needs to eat, I am feeding her. There is no "I" anymore, it is exclusively a "we" and right now her needs come before my own. It is extremely overwhelming to never get a break, especially right now when she is going through an extremely fussy stage. I am hoping it isn't going to be her new trend. I am still my own person, but I don't get to be that person until she is further developed and can self-soothe, self-learn and self-entertain. If I need to go run a five minute errand, it is going to take me over an hour because I need to change her, feed her, put her in the car seat, get her out of the car seat, do the errand, put her back in the car seat and get home. Besides of course getting myself ready as well. That alone makes it not worth it to just run out and get out of the house. I also still lack friends, so all my time is spent with the baby and my adult conversation happens when DH gets home if he is mentally present. Sometimes he is too stressed and isn't. By the end of the work week, I am completely overwhelmed and exhausted. DH sleeps while I am up trying to get our daughter to sleep, changing her diaper and feeding her every 2ish hours. I haven't had unbroken sleep since she was born. And when you already have anxiety, being sleep deprived is not the best add on. Not being able to exercise, also not the best for me. There are trying days where I struggle to be sane, stay away and meet lo's needs. One day it will get better, but who knows when. In a month, tomorrow, in a year? Who knows when she will learn to sleep through the night or be a more efficient eater so she gets fuller and eats less often. Who knows when I will learn to balance her needs and mine. And, as my therapist said, all ebf mom's feel like single parents because there is very little the father can do. At what point does that feeling end? Because feeling like you are doing everything alone is even tougher (and I am not putting DH at fault here, if he had boobs full of milk, I am sure he would give me a break - though probably not at nights still). And the fact that LO just wants to eat from me and not sleep for me - not helpful either!
I am sure DH is also overwhelmed. He wants to see his friends, but knows he has to help me. He has not been around babies and doesn't know how they developed or exactly what to do all the time. He walks her around, changes a diaper and lays on the couch with her. I don't think he can quite fathom yet that you have to learn how to empty the dishwasher or do laundry while holding a baby. So is he tired and overwhelmed as well? Absolutely. But it was made abundantly clear today that he has no idea what it is like for me. And that only adds to my own overwhelmed-ness/isolation. So now I need to garnish a plan on how to make this easier for me. We need to compromise on what we both actually need and give up what we want. Because we will never anymore get what we want every day, every week, every month or every year. A few things, sure. But not everything and not even close to everything. We gave that up the day we decided to have a kid and now we need to actually live that choice.
Until we figure this out though, here is to surviving the insanity.
Working out of the house would be difficult because you spend the majority of time away from your child. You are exhausted and need to function enough to drive a car and meet someone else's work demands. Staying at home is hard because I don't get a break. I am parenting 24/7. My break during the work week is 20 minutes to shower while DH watches LO. Other than that I am at my daughter's beck and call. She needs her diaper changed, I am doing it. She wants human touch, I am holding her. She needs to eat, I am feeding her. There is no "I" anymore, it is exclusively a "we" and right now her needs come before my own. It is extremely overwhelming to never get a break, especially right now when she is going through an extremely fussy stage. I am hoping it isn't going to be her new trend. I am still my own person, but I don't get to be that person until she is further developed and can self-soothe, self-learn and self-entertain. If I need to go run a five minute errand, it is going to take me over an hour because I need to change her, feed her, put her in the car seat, get her out of the car seat, do the errand, put her back in the car seat and get home. Besides of course getting myself ready as well. That alone makes it not worth it to just run out and get out of the house. I also still lack friends, so all my time is spent with the baby and my adult conversation happens when DH gets home if he is mentally present. Sometimes he is too stressed and isn't. By the end of the work week, I am completely overwhelmed and exhausted. DH sleeps while I am up trying to get our daughter to sleep, changing her diaper and feeding her every 2ish hours. I haven't had unbroken sleep since she was born. And when you already have anxiety, being sleep deprived is not the best add on. Not being able to exercise, also not the best for me. There are trying days where I struggle to be sane, stay away and meet lo's needs. One day it will get better, but who knows when. In a month, tomorrow, in a year? Who knows when she will learn to sleep through the night or be a more efficient eater so she gets fuller and eats less often. Who knows when I will learn to balance her needs and mine. And, as my therapist said, all ebf mom's feel like single parents because there is very little the father can do. At what point does that feeling end? Because feeling like you are doing everything alone is even tougher (and I am not putting DH at fault here, if he had boobs full of milk, I am sure he would give me a break - though probably not at nights still). And the fact that LO just wants to eat from me and not sleep for me - not helpful either!
I am sure DH is also overwhelmed. He wants to see his friends, but knows he has to help me. He has not been around babies and doesn't know how they developed or exactly what to do all the time. He walks her around, changes a diaper and lays on the couch with her. I don't think he can quite fathom yet that you have to learn how to empty the dishwasher or do laundry while holding a baby. So is he tired and overwhelmed as well? Absolutely. But it was made abundantly clear today that he has no idea what it is like for me. And that only adds to my own overwhelmed-ness/isolation. So now I need to garnish a plan on how to make this easier for me. We need to compromise on what we both actually need and give up what we want. Because we will never anymore get what we want every day, every week, every month or every year. A few things, sure. But not everything and not even close to everything. We gave that up the day we decided to have a kid and now we need to actually live that choice.
Until we figure this out though, here is to surviving the insanity.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Understanding Coffee.
I drank coffee only a few times a week, not that I didn't want it (I find the taste comforting so I had decaf on days I really wanted it), but because I wanted to make sure the caffeine would work toward migraines. Because I get migraines frequently. So I never understood why people needed to drink coffee on a daily basis. But now I get it. Now that I am sleep deprived on a regular basis - and its looking to stay that way for the unforeseeable future - I have coffee every day. Usually I try to make it to the evening before I have it so I have the energy to make it until bedtime. But sometimes in the morning, I can barely move from the bed to the couch and those days I have two small cups of coffee. I'm slightly worried about dealing with the migraines when they come back however, because I know at some point they will. Until then, coffee every day.
Besides exhaustion, having a new baby means aching nipples (for me). Constantly clogged milk ducts, engorged breasts. There will be another post of this to come. And no - it isn't due to a bad latch or feeding, it has to do with a medical condition.
LO is working on doubling her birth weight by the time she reaches two months. She is currently weighing in at almost 13lbs and she is 7 weeks old. We are about to transition from 3 month clothes to 6 months. She can hold her head up pretty regularly, however she still has a little floppy head. She eats about every 2 hours around the clock still. Better than when it was every one hour by far, but we are still hoping to get her to sleep longer at night. This week we are going to start a bedtime routine for her and hope that helps her recognize when it is time for long stretches of sleep.
Her routine is going to be getting a bath (she just learned to like this last week), new diaper, new outfit, getting warmed up and cuddled. Reading a book (we just went and picked out six for her today: one on space, pokey little puppy, a zombie kid's book, the beast and his friend, you know fun titles. After the book is done, we will change her diaper if necessary, feed her, rock her to sleep and put her to bed at about 9pm. Eventually she will then sleep from 9pm until around 7am every day. She will probably wake up once to feed during that time. Everyone can then get better sleep, DH and I will get an hour or so to ourselves and will get to bed by 11pm instead of 2am when she is finally ready to sleep.
And we are now exclusively cloth diapering. I'll write more on that later as well, it deserves its own post. It may be a little hippy-ish, but I love it.
Besides exhaustion, having a new baby means aching nipples (for me). Constantly clogged milk ducts, engorged breasts. There will be another post of this to come. And no - it isn't due to a bad latch or feeding, it has to do with a medical condition.
LO is working on doubling her birth weight by the time she reaches two months. She is currently weighing in at almost 13lbs and she is 7 weeks old. We are about to transition from 3 month clothes to 6 months. She can hold her head up pretty regularly, however she still has a little floppy head. She eats about every 2 hours around the clock still. Better than when it was every one hour by far, but we are still hoping to get her to sleep longer at night. This week we are going to start a bedtime routine for her and hope that helps her recognize when it is time for long stretches of sleep.
Her routine is going to be getting a bath (she just learned to like this last week), new diaper, new outfit, getting warmed up and cuddled. Reading a book (we just went and picked out six for her today: one on space, pokey little puppy, a zombie kid's book, the beast and his friend, you know fun titles. After the book is done, we will change her diaper if necessary, feed her, rock her to sleep and put her to bed at about 9pm. Eventually she will then sleep from 9pm until around 7am every day. She will probably wake up once to feed during that time. Everyone can then get better sleep, DH and I will get an hour or so to ourselves and will get to bed by 11pm instead of 2am when she is finally ready to sleep.
And we are now exclusively cloth diapering. I'll write more on that later as well, it deserves its own post. It may be a little hippy-ish, but I love it.
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