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@pachamama: So my babe is now 14 months, but I wanted to commiserate on middle of winter babies. I haaaaaated being on leave in the dead of winter. My first was born in late April during a really warm spring. By early May, we were out on long walks every day, sometimes multiple per day. My second was born mid-December so we were stuck inside every single day (we're in ND). I actually joined a gym so we could walk around the track with the stroller, but it's not the same as fresh air and sunshine! We'll be trying again soon, but waiting til babe would be due no earlier than February because I don't want to be stuck inside every day again. I really felt like I didn't get that same good experience on leave with my second. I think it led to some (undiagnosed) PPD for me.

ETA: the sickness was so much worse for my second too! My April baby didn't have so much as a sniffle til she was like 7 months. My December baby had a terrible cold more often than not for her first 4 months.

@pachamama: just sending good vibes, I get it! My last baby was a winter baby last year and even though we live in a warm area all the rainy days and cold for us days and terrible flu season with other little kids at home was difficult! My second was also a sick season baby. Hang in there!!

Ah! My almost 3 week old DD is driving me up the wall - but she’s just so damn precious We found that co-sleeping has been the trick to get her to sleep 4 hours at night, which we never planned to do but it’s whats keeping me sane right now. Having a winter baby has its pros and cons - I don’t have to drive to work with crappy weather (I live in the Midwest) but I wish I can go on walks with her around the neighborhood. Hopefully, I can start doing that sometime in April before I go back to work in May.

Newborn mama here with a December baby. She's just turned 11 weeks yesterday and I feel like (finally) things are getting into something of a groove.

Weeks 4-7 were the height of hardness for us. I have a 6 yo DD who has been the best rockstar big sister - so empathetic to the baby, very understanding with us, and so patient. I mean, we prepared her A LOT while I was pregnant but you never know how a kid will do when the baby is in the house and screaming for hours and hours...
She gets more tablet time than before, especially if it's just myself or DH with both kids.

Our biggest challenge was that while we thought she was possibly colicky, but it turns out most of her fussiness and hours of crying and short sleep cycles were because she was not getting enough milk. I BF'd my first for 15 months without issue, and this baby had plenty of wet and dirty diapers, but then she wasn't gaining weight. Once we started supplementing a couple ounces of formula with each feed it was like night and day. She gained over a pound in a week, started taking naps longer than 15 minutes (mostly), and for the first time spends more than 10 minutes of her awake periods happy/smiling/not crying.

I went back to work PT last week and DH is caring for her and DD on my office days for now. We have an in-home daycare that DD went to and baby will go to 3x/week once I am back at work FT. I think I was only able to relax about going back to work once we had the feeding issue figured out. Before then I was SO stressed and worried about leaving this baby who mostly just screams all day and night with DH and DD and no backup or break.

And I'm a Floridian so I have the opposite problem -yesterday it was already over 90 degrees outside and that's just too damn hot. Today though is gorgeous and I was super jealous of DH's stroller walk he got to take her on while I sat in meetings. That doesn't stop all the winter sickness though. A couple weeks ago there were kids out in DD's elementary class with strep, a cold, a stomach bug, and pinworms. There are 12 kids in her class and I picked her up one day to find there were only 5 left at school - everyone else was out. So far our house has been mostly spared and no sickness has passed to the baby.

@pachamama: I’m usually a deep sleeper but I find that I’m such a light sleeper with her! She’ll sigh and my eyes shoot open As long as it’s working, I’m gonna keep going with it. Plus, she’s just so little and wants to be held so much that I can’t help but just give in

@lindseykaye: DD lost 11% of her weight when we got discharged and it was mainly because my milk came in late. I’m breastfeeding again after taking a 2 week break due to wrecked nipples but I don’t think she’s getting a ton of milk from me yet because I usually have to top her off with 1-2 oz of formula with each feed. I’m hoping the feeding stuff will be settled when I go back to work in May!

@pachamama: My DD did end up with a 3-day mild fever with a cough and runny nose so I am thankful it wasn't worse.

I even came down with a cold when no one else in my family did and DD was only about 5 weeks old. I was so scared I would get her sick and was SO miserable not sleeping on top of being sick and stuffed up. I complained to my husband because I didn't go anywhere ever and yet I was the one to get a cold. Harumph. Now we're all fighting allergies since the pollen has come on strong with the start of spring.

@Mrs. Oreo: My milk came in super fast and I originally had an oversupply that I was trying to correct with block feeding. Her poops got better (yellow and seedy vs. green and foamy) but I think it worked too well and my supply ended up too low. She's getting almost half of her daily feed via formula now so I think it's too late to try to catch up. I'm totally ok with formula supplementing or eventually fully formula feeding this time around if that's where we end up.

@Mrs. Oreo: Just chiming in to say I'm so happy your LO is here! My milk was also slow to come in, and LO had a tongue tie that we didn't diagnose until almost three months. As a result my supply was a bit short, but we're still breastfeeding at 14 months and DS *loves* it, which is what matters the most to me. We also co-slept until about 10 months - he was a horrible sleeper and I had literally started to hallucinate and nearly passed out from exhaustion when we discovered co-sleeping and side-lying nursing a couple of weeks in. Breastfeeding definitely gets easier as they get older, though it felt like forever in coming at the time...

I had postpartum depression that was so bad that one morning I told my husband I hated our baby I didn't have any desire to hurt him, I just didn't want anything to do with him. This sounds horrible, and it was. We really wanted a second child. Although for what it is worth the birth of my first child was also anticlimactic, but she was an emergency C-section and I had uncontrolled pre-eclampsia.

I cried through his first doctors appointment. He had lost a lot of weight and wasn't gaining any. The same thing happened with my first baby, and I felt so guilty. He was starving because he wasn't getting much breastmilk.

A large part of it was his inability to breastfeed. I was producing so much milk, like 1200ml per day, and my milk came in fast this time. We almost made it work, but he wasn't very effective because he didn't have a great latch. Turns out I have a very large nipple and my babies have slightly smaller than normal mouths due to mild chin recession. This makes it very difficult to get a deep latch. I exclusively pumped for my fist child because she couldn't breastfeed. Around like 4 weeks he started to get a deep latch, but then he got sick and went on a nursing strike. It was frustrating because I really wanted that bond with my baby, especially since he is the last one. My mom pointed out that it would be nice to have that bond but I didn't have it and it was causing me lots of stress. Also, I have an active toddler, so I couldn't feed him all day, nurse, pump, and then bottle feed him. Once I switched to exclusively pumping things got much better.

Now he's almost 12 weeks old, and I've fallen in love with him. I feel horrible that we had such a rocky start. Another positive about pumping and producing so much milk is more weight loss XD I've dropped down almost 18 pounds since he was born. Still have another 15 to go!

My toddler is in daycare Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, which is nice because I get to spend that time bonding with my baby. We recently potty trained her, and sometimes she uses the potty every 5-10 minutes, so I have to stop what I'm doing and go help her. He finally fits into my Lille Bebe carrier, so that makes things a bit easier because he will only sleep if someone is holding him. At night he's so exhausted he will sleep in his crib, but once 7am comes around he will not go back to sleeping in his crib.

In California we get paid maternity leave after the baby is born and then paid family leave. They give you like 60-70% of your pre-tax income, so I made almost as much as I did working. At least I didn't have to worry about money, but California does have the highest income tax in the country sooooo, yeah. Guess it's nice to experience some of the benefits XD

Here is a recent picture of him The car seat is pink because that was the one we bought my daughter and didn't want to buy another one.

@periwinklebee: Thank you!! She's definitely a peach I feel like each day is a slow improvement in the breastfeeding front. I have no problem with formula feeding, but I'm glad she's mostly getting breastmilk now. I hope this is a sign that it'll just get better and better.

@pachamama: Awww, he's so cute, and look at that smile I'm bonding faster with my second child, but that first month was still awful, especially with the postpartum depression. Wouldn't want to redo it, which is one of the many reasons this is my last planned baby He's a pretty easy baby, but when I'm together with my baby and toddler it's just chaos. I've called my mom more than once with the baby crying, toddler screaming, cats yowling, and me crying all at the same time XD

I want to join this thread! I have a 4 year old and a 12 week old. Both boys.

I had a very rough first pregnancy and had a lot of trouble bonding with my first. Breastfeeding was hard and I would hand him to my husband and walk away just to keep my sanity. We decided that I had PPD but I went untreated and it eventually went away.
This time my pregnancy was much easier and I only had a little bit of baby blues in the beginning, however since I returned to work 2 weeks ago I have been having some Depression. Its usually at night when I'm tired and nothing seems to be going right. DH is very observant to it and he stays up and helps me when he can see i'm in that mood. I am breastfeeding when at home and pumping at work which doesn't help with the stress.

My oldest started not wanting to sleep through the night once we brought the baby home. He would get up at all times of the night and go downstairs and we wouldn't hear him until we got up with the baby (because we were exhausted). We had to put a door alarm on his door so we would hear him get up and since then it has almost stopped completely. He has also been pushing buttons and getting in trouble a lot for attention which makes me sad, but I know he will outgrow it eventually.

And even with all of this, I somehow have baby fever. I think it's because we had initially said this would be our last. And trust me the first few days in the hospital (csection) I all but yelled at my husband that we are never doing this again. But now I feel sad every time I do something with him that it's my last time. It was also making my depression worse. So I talked to DH and he agreed that we can try for another in a year or so.

I like this thread! DD2 is three months already. I can't wait for winter to end, too. All. These. Layers. And most of the family had the flu a couple of weeks ago, thankfully baby got Tamiflu quickly and she was OK. The older two are in school and part-time day care, so I have a bit of a break. Sleep is still awful but at least I got her to sleep in her crib for the first half of the night... then I run out of steam and we cosleep. Nursing is going well. I'm so hungry all the time though. Apparently, to make enough milk, I need six meals a day

@thepaperbutterfly: awww, so cute! Don't feel bad... I had the same experience with my second. I wanted her to be here so much, and then when she was born, I couldn't cope and wanted to run away for the first few weeks. Maybe it was PPD, maybe it was just a personality clash... she wanted to be carried all day and screamed these horrible angry screams if she was anywhere but in my arms. Like, it was way louder than normal baby crying, I couldn't go outside without strangers giving me horrified looks and unsolicited advice. I felt much more of a bond after maybe 12 weeks. Although... she's three and I'm still working on coping with the personality clash thing I'm an introvert and she still wants much more attention than I can give, and I'm working hard on reconciling our "love languages."

@pachamama: so cute! Hang in there. Six weeks is really hard. Hopefully, less fussiness and better sleep up ahead!