Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Funny Observations on Motherhood

Motherhood is hard. Motherhood is also beautiful, and with the right mindset, highly entertaining. I'm so grateful for our little hungry hungry hippo, and we just love her so so much!  I have more serious things to say about most of these topics, but I'll save those for another day -- after our long birth story, the blog needs something a little more light-hearted!

Breastfeeding
I LOVE breastfeeding my baby.  Yes, it's sometimes challenging, but it is usually one of the best parts of my day. She makes the most hilarious faces when she's on my boob! I wish I could post her funny faces without posting...well, my boob.  And when she's trying to find my nipple, she raises her head, her eyes get really wide, her lips form a little "o", she shakes her head a little bit, and then she DIVES into my nipple like a bird chasing a worm.  Sometimes she misses and she headbutts my boob in the process.  It makes me laugh every time!

FEED ME!!!

Cluster Feeding
This has become a 4-letter word in our home.  When Baby L decides she only wants to eat for 5-10 minutes before falling asleep and then wakes up 20-30 minutes later to feed again, we call her Jerk Baby.  Her favorite time of day to be a Jerk Baby?  Between 3am and 5am.  Brat.  We still love her.

Milk Supply
I think Baby L has finally caught up, but for about a week, I was in oversupply.  Yes, there is such a thing!  Oversupply meant that Baby L hiccuped and spit up a lot because she was gorging herself and causing some reflux.  It also meant that I leaked everywhere.  Those TV sitcoms where mom's are leaking?  I didn't think they were real until I started leaking everywhere!  I pumped some to compensate, but I didn't want to pump too much to exacerbate the problem.  Which brings me to the next topic.

Nipple Confusion
Or lack thereof.  The nurses in the hospital fed her with a syringe, which is a pain in the butt.  We decided she's going to have to learn the bottle, so we might as well start now.  The first bottle we gave her (A Phillips Avent bottle that we got for free) is supposedly breast-like.  Well, I tried to give her the bottle, and while she was drinking, she gave me a dirty look and then spit everything back up. There is no confusion on this end, our #divababy knows what nipple is what.  We have had some success with medela bottles, but she's still not a fan.

I'll let Daddy feed me with a bottle.  Sometimes. If I'm hungry enough.
Dry Skin
I read a ton before giving birth, but I was not ready for all the skin on her body to be cracked and peeling.  I mean, it makes sense, I just didn't expect it.  At her first appointment, the doc said to use lotion to help prevent her becoming excessively dry and possibly infected.  I have tried 2 kinds of baby lotion and 2 kinds of rash cream, and she hates them all.  I rub them in my hands to warm them, and she still hates them and screams at me when I try to put them on her.  So my #divababy now gets the royal treatment with mommy's $50-a-bottle organic cold-pressed jojoba oil. She seems to love her little oily massages, and jojoba oil absorbs nicely into her skin without leaving a greasy residue. Baby L has expensive taste!  Good thing a little oil goes a long way!

Diapers
So changing diapers for us is usually changing 2 diapers in a row because the little stinker likes to poop into a fresh diaper.  Does anybody know the reason for this?  Seriously, this double diaper habit is a little ridiculous.  She also likes to poop right onto the changing pad, or like this morning, she likes to projectile poop mid-diaper change. Poor G is slightly traumatized from the projectile poop experience because the poop flew about 4 feet from her butt.

Changing Clothes
Baby L hates changing clothes.  Somehow, she seems to know when we're unsnapping and snapping her onesie, because that's when she starts and stops crying.  How she knows, I have no idea, because it's not like her bum isn't covered by...well, a DIAPER, so she shouldn't be able to feel the breezes blowing into her nether regions when we're snapping and unsnapping the onesies.  She's kind of psychic like that.

I hate being naked!!  Put some clothes on me!!!
Swaddles
I've mentioned Baby L is an escape artist.  The doctor doesn't like the zipper swaddles we have because he thinks they restrict her leg movement which is not great for her hips...so we've decided to use them for maybe a month or so, and then we'll give them up.  We just love them because she can't get out of them.  She manages to break out of her blanket swaddles with ease, and the velcro swaddle effectiveness depends on how squirmy she is.

I love my freedom from swaddles!
Dirty Laundry
I knew going in that babies generate a lot of laundry - burp cloths, messy clothes, swaddles, crib sheets, and all that.  I've given up on all her stuff being clean. The decision tree is now, "Is there poop on it?  No?  Is it dry?  Yes?  Ok, good enough!"

Drooling
Maybe it's just a function of me being sleep deprived, but ever since I came home from the hospital, I wake up in a puddle of drool on my pillow.  Apparently, like baby, like mommy???

Mommy's Sleep
Before I was pregnant, I was a stomach sleeper.  I managed to sleep on my stomach through my first trimester and then after that it was propping myself up on a pile of pillows to stay on my side.  I was sooooo looking forward to sleeping on my stomach after birth.  Nope.  Boobs full of milk are really hard to sleep on!  So piles of pillows it is for now.  Total bummer.

All kidding aside, we love our little sweet pea, she brings us so much joy!  From her facial expressions (which we know she has no control over!) to her flailing arms and legs, every day there is something new and silly to discover about this little peanut!

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