pear / 1718 posts
@mossyslane: Sometimes it seems like the coolness of the RNP makes him a little more awake. I also do a similar type thing with his swaddle--before I swaddle him, I lay the swaddle on his back while I'm burping him so that it will warm up (while he's still being held) and not be cool fabric against his body. Keeping him warm seems to help (I noticed that he slept more soundly when I put him in a long-sleeved footed sleeper at night versus a long-sleeved onesie). .
grapefruit / 4045 posts
@MrsSCB: thank you for that app suggestion. I will look into it tomorrow. Wait... It's tomorrow already! Ha! Can't say I'm loving these all night hours. at least I have bachelor in paradise taped.
@MrsBeluga: thank you for checking on me! So... Monday was awful. I felt I was being ripped in two. I called my ob for a prescription for Norco. They made me pick up the prescription in person! So me, baby and husband drove to get it. and they only gave me 15 pills! But the pills definitely help. Or are they just masking the issue? No clue. But I have a follow up appointment to check out my region in two weeks. I also feel like I bruised my tail bone. Ugh. I walk around my house like a broken person. One plus side, I'm back to pre-pregnancy weight already. When I got pregnant, though, I dropped 10'poinds. So I'm hoping i can work to getting back to that minus 10 pound weight. However, all I do now is lay in bed or lounge on couch, breast feed my baby, while my husband feeds me. All I want to do is walk the baby to the park! The days are getting better. It's just so much to get used to. Good thing my baby's face is the best thing I've ever seen in my entire life! how are you doing????
wonderful clementine / 24134 posts
@agold: I felt like I had bruised my tailbone after sitting on the hospital bed for 3 days. It went away after a week or so. I'm still having pains. Every day it's something different though.
Last night I ended up with the chills and a fever. Advil got me through the night but today I'm staying home.
grapefruit / 4045 posts
@T.H.O.U.: good to know that it could be something normal like just soreness from sitting. And oh my gosh. I'm so sorry you are sick!! What a horrible thing to deal with on top of all the pains from childbirth. I really hope you are okay and it passes quickly for you, whatever it is.
cantaloupe / 6017 posts
@agold: you have a tremendous amount of healing to do, I'm so sorry about the tearing and your pain. For what it's worth, I'm three weeks out and didn't tear at all and am still not up for going for walks. Even in the best case scenario bodies need a long time to heal from something as major as childbirth!! Settle in, and find a good Netflix series to binge watch. It's all I did while holding and nursing my first, and I miss it terribly now that I can't indulge in that rest because of my toddler!
pomelo / 5257 posts
@T.H.O.U.: Oooh, what are you watching? I've been alternating between a few shows. My husband and I have been watching 30 Rock together (we're on the second season now) and I've been watching Odd Mom Out on demand from Bravo, which is really entertaining. I also just started on the West Wing on Netflix. I'm getting a little stir crazy, so I need some variety
grapefruit / 4045 posts
@T.H.O.U.: she's adorable!!! How are you feeling??? I'm just lounging today, too. No guests except my mom coming so I can take a nap while husband runs out to get stuff we need.
I'm not even going to complain on here anymore. As soon as I complain about something or express worry, the issue fixes itself and a new one arises!!
Here is my girl!!
grapefruit / 4045 posts
Well here's one thing I will complain about! The hospital gave me some super basic looking large pads that I now love. I can't find them anywhere except Amazon - box of 12 for $97!!!!! Wtf? Why so much? Someone is exploiting new moms suffering after childbirth.
wonderful clementine / 24134 posts
@agold: yea I'm guessing you won't be able to find them. I'm currently using Always Maxi with wings. Extra long. They are green. They aren't as long as the hospital ones so I would go up to red, orange or even purple. I'm not bleeding but I like the padding
watermelon / 14467 posts
@agold: Buy these: https://www.amazon.com/Always-Overnight-Extra-Heavy-Unscented/dp/B0029NYQ6A/ref=sr_1_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1472673279&sr=8-2&keywords=Always+maxi+pads
They are amazing for when you are still bleeding heavily. Also, keep a few around for when you get your first postpartum period. It can be a doozy.
nectarine / 2280 posts
@T.H.O.U.: Oh dear! I hope you feel better soon.
@agold: @T.H.O.U.: Cuties!! Seriously those pads are awesome. I thought they were ridiculous at first but this time I made sure to snag extras.
cherry / 215 posts
@T.H.O.U.: Such a cute netflix buddy. ... Are you feeling better?
@agold: She is gorgeous!
nectarine / 2461 posts
Hi ladies! Finally checking in--we got home from the hospital Tuesday afternoon and it's been fun but almost totally sleepless for me. We are totally, totally in love with our munchkin, he's such a sweet lump of baby and he looks just like my husband in his infant pictures, which I love.
1. Here is my (long) plain-jane birth story for anyone interested:
Started having menstrual-crampy contractions at 7:30am Saturday (40+2) about every 30 minutes, and by lunch they'd escalated into serious contractions every 10-20 minutes. At 6pm they were excruciating and every 8-12 minutes. My husband didn't want me to call the OB because they'd told me the 5-5-1 rule and we'd both heard so many stories about people coming in prematurely and being sent home, but I had a contraction that was 3 minutes long (!) and left me screaming. When it was over I broke down crying and said we were calling and I wanted to go to the hospital. We got there around 8pm and I was already dilated to a 4; they ordered an epidural and called my OB to come, by the time I got the epidural I was almost at a 6 and contractions were every two minutes. Sitting perfectly still 15 minutes to place the epidural was the worst part of the entire birth process, which says a lot about how not-bad the whole thing was. After they got it in I felt total relief, they turned the lights down low and we just watched them and the baby's heartbeat on the monitor. I dilated really quickly but he wasn't descending, so we just waited quietly a couple more hours until the OB said he was right there and it was time. I pushed for 20-25 minutes, which wasn't painful but I could feel it (good epidural and wasn't totally numb). His head finally came out and he had the cord wrapped around his neck once, which sounded scary but the OB just slipped it off, and without giving me a break she told me to push again, hard, and his entire body slipped out. He was 8 pounds 15 ounces, 21" long, and almost completely bald, just a tiny bit of blondie peach fuzz I got a second-degree perineal tear and a first-degree labia tear, so I'm sore and tender but not complaining. The only complication I've had in recovery is that the first day I could *not* pee, which was so uncomfortable. I finally begged them to put a catheter in and it immediately drained 2 liters (yes, the size of a grocery-store bottle of coke) of urine. They removed it that night and I struggled with peeing the next day, and now I have to go about once an hour, urgently, light incontinence if I wait too long (which I keep doing because I'm ALWAYS FUCKING nursing). Hoping that when I'm healed and start back on kegels that it'll get better. The experience at the hospital was great, the nurses and LC's were amazing, but it's nice to be back home. Which brings me to
2. Catching up on this thread and I feel like I'm just now experiencing everything you've been talking about in the past 36 hours! @agold: @MrsSCB: I'm right there behind you on the latching learning curve, cluster feeding, baby who is angelic being held but seemingly NEVER will acquiesce to being put down, and reverse cycling I got the blessings of multiple nurses and LC's that we had a good latch going in the hospital, but I think I was careless a handful of times about not correcting a not-deep-enough latch here or there, and I'm paying for it. @pregnantbee: last night I watched the youtube video you posted a while back three times in a row and it has been better since then, so *thank you* for sharing that. Still so sore, but it's not horribly painful (after the first few seconds) when I'm fastidious about the angle and depth of the latch. Last two nights he's been feeding for 1 hour, sleeping for 1 hour, --or-- feeding straight through with little 5-10 minute breaks for 6 hours at a time, so, I'm getting maybe 3-4 hours of sleep in a 24-hr period, broken into an hour each. During the day he's been more reasonable (feeding every 2 hours). I was panicking a little that something was wrong with this, but the LC's told me it was perfectly normal behavior, and accepting that has really made it easier to stomach the discomfort. My milk came in yesterday morning on Day 4, but it hasn't seemed to make a dent in his appetite or the duration of the feedings. My husband has been super helpful and sweet and is doing a lot, but there's only so much he can do, as a lot of you have said. I am absolutely dreading when he goes back to work.
So, general question to everyone: it seems that I'm in the thick of a cluster feeding period now--if you guys have had another episode of cluster feeding at the 2-week mark, does that mean you got some respite in between?? and by respite I mean maybe sleeping 2 hours straight at night. Is it so much to ask? Gah.
@pwnstar: my little monkey is also in a rock n play next to my side of the bed (well, sort of)--I tried your trick with laying a hand on his belly and it seemed to help, I got him to stay in there for an hour a few times. thxxx
@agold: Emma is just gorgeous, and I love that she had that head of hair after all those dumbass predictions I'm so sorry about your tearing and the tough birth, that sounds very, very difficult. I do know several women in real life who had the same experience, and by 6 months down the line they were all healed with no long-term damage I personally haven't found that I feel any better with all the numbing spray, ice packs, witch hazel pads, etc--the only thing that seems to make a difference to me is making sure that I take my 600mg of motrin exactly every 5 hours, so on that note I'm really glad to hear you got some serious pain meds. and I also love the hospital pads! I went home with three bags of them and they're already half gone. @avivoca: ordered the always, thanks for the recommendation!
@agold: @T.H.O.U.: lots of people IRL recommended buying the Amazon streaming DVD version of Happiest Baby on the Block--last night my husband and I ordered thai and watched it, I thought it was pretty helpful and liked seeing his techniques demonstrated, as I don't think I would have shushed that loudly or jiggled that much, which he says over and over are essential to getting the tricks to work. I still haven't figured out how to use them to get him to sleep longer than an hour, but maybe it's just not in the cards this week... anyway agold, it's only $7 to purchase if you feel like you need it.
@T.H.O.U.: totally going to re-watch Friday Night Lights, thanks for the reminder! I love coach's wife.
wonderful clementine / 24134 posts
It's official. I've got mastitis. And there is a hurricane headed straight for us. Last time there was no power for a week.
cantaloupe / 6017 posts
@LCTBQE: a typical pattern for us is two hours between nursing. I'm at three weeks and basically do that all day and all night. Hope you get some rest!!
@T.H.O.U.: oh no!!! I'm sorry, on both accounts. Stay safe!
kiwi / 595 posts
@LCTBQE: loved reading your birth story, need to finish mine! Just a note about kegels- I had horrible incontinence after my first- I ran a half marathon 6 months after she was born and there's a great official race photo where you can see the pee running down my legs. Hawt. So, I finally saw a pt about it- turns out I had been doing too many kegels- and my pelvic floor was tight, not relaxing. I found Pilates and barre3 transverse abdominal work to help the most. I had to massage my pelvic floor to loosen up the tight muscles and then I found a noticeable difference after just a week or two of doing other work besides kegels. Whew, that was longer than I intended, but hopefully it'll save you peeing in public stories!
kiwi / 595 posts
@T.H.O.U.: damn. On both accounts. Hopefully the hurricane misses you, and I hope you get relief from the mastitis soon.
grapefruit / 4045 posts
@LCTBQE: wow. What an incredible birth story. It really sounds great. Although, I'm so sorry a it your second degree tear. And really? A labia tear? How does that happen??? Does it hurt much? And regarding the incontinence... I suspect I'm dealing with that too. But sadly I don't know for sure if it's pee or my own melting ice diaper.
About the two week cluster feeding issue... I think you and I will be figuring it out at the same time!!!
Baby Emma had her best sleep last night! we used a white noise machine. And swaddled. I hope those two things work again tonight.
What do you all do about a baby who sleeps all day??? Should I wake her up? I worry she won't sleep tonight.
coconut / 8472 posts
@agold: I sometimes wake her up if it's been too long. I don't want her to confuse days and nights.
So we had the craziest day/night ever yesterday. Lily has been a cluster feeder since day one. She's attached to me like glue all the time. Yesterday she barely slept except for one nap (that we only achieved by taking a drive). We had friends visiting and I felt bad because she was screaming to nurse all day. By the end of the day I could tell she was over tired and just trying to use me as a pacifier. Even another drive in the car didn't help. Then, when she finally passed out - she slept until 3:45am! So like 6 hours! My boobs were about to explode .Then she slept 3 more hours after that. It was unreal. Today she's been a little more normal, though still sleeping a lot. Possibly because we went out shopping and I was pushing her in the stroller for a few hours, which she liked.
pomelo / 5257 posts
Had our two-week appointment this afternoon -- F weighs 8 pounds, 12 oz now, so he has officially surpassed his birth weight (8 pounds, 7 oz)! This means we don't have to wake him up anymore during the night to feed, we can just let him sleep. Not that he sleeps for long stretches anyway... He's basically exactly following the curve on weight and head size, which is great. For length, he's now in the 90-some percentile, which is so funny because neither my husband nor I are tall. I'm 5'3" and he's 5'8". Don't know whether height at a young age has any bearing on height later, though. Maybe he takes after my dad, who is six-feet, while everyone else in his family is short. My grandma isn't even over five feet, haha.
In other news, after a bit of a break, my H is very intently job searching now. I'm feeling a little resentful and bitter toward his old work, because I know he's stressed and depressed about not having a job and this is supposed to be a happy time...but I'm trying not to focus on that too much because I already have way too many emotions going on
@LCTBQE: Your birth story sounds pretty great! I need to get mine down in writing before I forget... And your early experiences sound very similar to mine. Unfortunately F still doesn't really love sleeping anywhere but on us. Our pediatrician today gave us some ideas that we'll be trying so I'll let you know if any work! As for the cluster feeding, I did get a bit of a break but it seems to be back in the last couple days. He just turned two weeks yesterday, and he ate pretty much constantly from 12 - 4 p.m. At least it wasn't in the middle of the night, though, progress!
@T.H.O.U.: sorry about the mastitis, ugh, and I hope the hurricane doesn't cause you too much trouble!
@agold: white noise is one of the things our pedi suggested -- I'll be trying that tonight. Glad to know it seemed to work for you.
nectarine / 2461 posts
@T.H.O.U.: oh my gosh, that sucks regarding both hope you can heal quickly and the hurricane is not as bad as anticipated.
@Silva: sounds rough still, but I guess I'd take it. good to know what's realistic to expect, thank you.
@OldpuebloJenn: yes, do finish yours! that is great to know about the peeing and kegels, I have never heard anything but glowing "do your kegels!" advice before, but makes perfect sense. so far I've only peed on myself in the privacy of my own bathroom, hoping to keep it out of the public eye I actually do (or used to do and still pay for monthly) barre 3 online videos. if there are any that you think might be particularly good for this, would you tell me what they're called or send the links? if not I'll figure it out--this is extra motivation to get back to my usual workout routine. maybe after the stitches heal...
grapefruit / 4045 posts
If your baby feeds on one side, and then a few minutes later, feeds on the other side, do you count that as two feeds or just one?
grapefruit / 4045 posts
@pregnantbee: thanks lady!
Oh I'm just up with a baby who seems to like to use mama as a pacifier. Anyone up deal with this ever? If she cries, I check diaper, then offer her a boob. At least she's not inconsolable.
pomelo / 5257 posts
F slept in his rock and play for almost five hours last night! From 1-2, then he ate and then from 3-6:30. I hope this is the beginning of a trend. We downloaded a white noise app on my phone so maybe that helped. Even if it was a bit annoying for us to listen to
@agold: I do the same when he cries, and I do think he comfort nurses a lot. Like he eats at the beginning, and then kind of hangs on for awhile. He refuses a pacifier, so I guess he prefers the boob. Normal from what I can tell!
pear / 1718 posts
@MrsSCB: Hope this continues! And lol about the white noise. My daughter still uses white noise--it's crashing waves combined with rain. I've heard it the through the monitor for so long it makes me sleepy now to hear it! I am currently using the Baby Shusher for the baby, but will graduate him to the same white noise when we move him into his crib in a few months.
wonderful clementine / 24134 posts
Thanks all. I'm feeling better with meds but not totally sure how to handle milk. I know I need to keep that side empty but I also don't want to pump and have a bigger supply and a bigger issue on that side.
We are without power (and water since we are on a well). So that stinks. Over 70,000 residents are out so who knows how long it may be before we get power.
nectarine / 2461 posts
@MrsSCB: @agold: sorry I didn't get back to you two last night! you'll never believe it but I had to go nurse him before total meltdown then once he was sated, I put him in the Solly Baby wrap which he L O V E S, and my husband and I went to a neighborhood place and had dinner like human beings do, it was lovely. So first wanted to tell you both, I just got back from our first pediatrician appointment, and I reported to her that my nipples were in enormous pain and basically scabbing over from these marathon feeding sessions (worst one was a 6-hr overnight stretch before I pulled the plug and gave him a bottle, which he downed half of). She wanted to know how long I was going on each side, and when I told her 15-45 minutes, she was like, *absolutely not, stop doing that*. She told me to do 10-15 minutes MAX on each side, and that anything longer than that the baby was just using me as a human pacifier, and to not let him. Her take was, if he's rooting around and seems truly hungry and the (rubber) paci or trying to sooth him isn't working, do 10 mins on each side, and do that as often as he needs, but don't let him feed through nonstop like that. I was told at the hospital that my boobs are never empty and to let him have as much as he wants, so I think that's why I felt like I had to comply with that baby insanity. I know she was responding to that our baby is big and I'm producing a good amount of milk already, so dunno if it's great advice for everyone or just for me, but wanted to throw it out there. She also encouraged me to feed him as much as possible in the day/evening to discourage the reverse cycling, which everyone probably already knows about, but I didn't. Regarding pacifiers vs boob paci, my boo just got into his Avent Soothie yesterday, but now he accepts it, and it's really working when he's fussy. Have you two looked into trying alternate brands? I've heard diff babies can be really particular but once you find one that works, they love it. just a thought so you aren't chained to them as human breast pacifiers.
My monkey is back up to birth weight at Day 5! So we also got the blessing to not wake him at night for feedings, thank god--except I can't imagine getting more than a 1.5 or 2 hr stretch for the time being anyway... maybe in a couple weeks we'll get to where F is now! that is amazing that he actually went down MrsSCB
@agold: about sleeping all day, our ped and several of my friends have said this is not a concern for a newborn and won't really affect how alert/awake they are at night--they're not like adults where if we nap in the afternoon, won't be tired at bedtime. as it happens, yesterday our baby slept like 8 hours (woke him for feeding and changing but otherwise he was OUT) and last night was our best night yet. I'm curious if that's the opinion/experience of the second- and third-timers here. Ped did say what would affect nighttime sleep was the aforementioned day/evening feeding focus.
@pwnstar: thought I recalled from the gear board that you also had a Solly wrap--does your boy love it, too? mine will go three hours both sleeping and awake, totally placid and happy in that thing. I remember thinking it was a ripoff when I bought it, but it's soooo nice (and not ugly for once!)
pear / 1718 posts
@LCTBQE: He does love it! I needed to construct and frost my daughter's birthday cake yesterday, but couldn't get him to settle in the bouncer. So I wrapped him in the Solly and he was out in about 5 minutes flat. It was amazing!
cantaloupe / 6017 posts
@LCTBQE: I think when they are newborns they basically sleep all the time. It was my experience with my daughter that she slept less at night if she was overtired (so not getting enough daytime sleep). My three week old has just started having short periods where he is awake and calm but if I don't start trying to get him to sleep after an hour or even less, he becomes an overstimulated and exhausted little cranky baby
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