On our way to some sort of answer...

I finally got the nerve to call and speak with a nurse at the doctor's office.

Yesterday afternoon Sam's bucking and squealing just broke me down. Something HAD to be wrong, but what? and how to help him. It's not right for a baby so small to not want to be held & fight so much when he's fussing like a mad thing.

So I called and explained to the nurse what's going on and what I've been doing to help the little guy (frequent burping, keeping him upright for 20 minutes after feeding etc) and she said it was either reflux or the formula but it's not clear probably because it's a mild enough case either way.

She recommended I switch to a lactose free formula and give Sam until Tuesday (takes 3-4 days to see the full change she said) and if by Tuesday he's still bucking and spitting up (she confirmed the frequency is a sign of some issue) then to bring him in because it would point more to reflux and the doctor would want to check him out to then decide how best to help him.

So here's hoping he's just got a mild case of intolerance to the formula. I've switched him to a Similac formula that's lactose-free as Enfamil doesn't make one any more. Similac had two varieties. One that just said Lactose Free for fussiness & Gas and the other said R.S. for frequent spitting up (which I'm guessing is a thickened formula for babies with reflux issues). I opted for just the straight up lactose free one. If it is reflux I'm sure the doc will have us change the formula to something like that but no point is going there straight off incase it's just the lactose.

I will say the Similac get's very foaming if you're to vigorous in the shaking.

I feel better that the nurse agreed with my suspicions that this behavior that started up in Sam's 4th week werent' just normal. It just didn't feel right to me. He's not suffering colic, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have something else going on. I'm the only one who's seen when he totally looses it suddenly.

I feed him the first lactose free bottle at noon and he ate just fine. He's not only down for a nap, but napping in the bassinet! Go me, he hasn't used that in a couple of weeks... since he started only napping 20 minutes at a time in the crib or bassinet. A long nap in a proper bed and not the bouncer, that makes me happy. even if it's the only time he does it this week... right now it makes me happy.

Don't know...

Well... it's been a difficult sort of week.

As good as yesterday, during the day, was with Sam... that's as confusing today was. I know every day is going to be crazy different for some time yet... and I guess the only way I can tell that everything is okay is in the long run the little guy is gaining weight.

Today he's only napped in his bouncer. He's shown all the signs of his that he's tired but he's just fusses with me and won't even be rocked to sleep. Put him in the bouncer and he's out in a few minutes and wakes up 3 hours later to be feed again.

I wonder if he has a mild intolerance to the formula. Fussiness, gas and I don't know where his BMs would fall on the chart of what could be expected. Mylicon doesn't seem to be helping all that much anymore with the night time gas either. Or if it is I can't imagine what he'd be like without it. I guess as difficult as he is during the day.

As much as I hate to do it, I'll going to call the doctor's office and see if I can leave a message for a nurse to call me back regarding the fussiness & gas which is impeding naps (and certain nightime feedings) if I'm paying more for a formula that's supposed to avoid fussiness & gas per their recommendation I think it's understandable that I'm confused by the outcome.

On a good note, the spit up has greatly reduced this week so here's hoping that if it was that flap he's grown a bit more and that's helped or he's just able to handle the amount of food better.

At least I have the bouncer so he can get more than a 20-30 minute nap after he eats. He can typically get a good hour if a bit more in the bouncer. So he eats & we deal with gas as best we can for an hour, a bit of playing on the mat if he's in the mood, and then a nap where he then wakes demanding to be changed and then fed. That's how today went.

Yesterday, he slept the entire time I went out and the 30 minutes after we got home before he woke up to eat. He then fell into a milk stupor right after eating and stayed asleep for two hours to eat again at 4 and sleep another hour. We like the sleepy days as we don't feel so lacking. I feel like I'm messing up a lot. No, I don't have anything to base it on except for the fact that Sam fusses and pushes away and can't seem to get comfortable.

Day 1 with no JP

 

JP found my camera cord so now I can upload pictures of Lil' P. Whoo-hoo! This one is from today. He was very fussy after his 1 pm feeding so around 2, since I was hungry I had to put the little guy in his bouncer downstairs so I could get some food. The toot fell asleep instantly, but I didn't move him otherwise I would never have gotten to eat.

Just now I put him down, propped in his boppy next to me so I could shift his bottle to the table and he again fell asleep. Usually he gives me a couple of seconds and then gets angry at sitting tucked in the boppy. So I waited, figuring he'd soon wake as the LC said to use the boppy and lack of stimulation to wake a sleeping baby during breastfeeding.

No luck. He stayed asleep, but I did transfer him to his crib and it was the first sucessful transfer in days if not weeks. He's still asleep... of course this means he'll be awake from 7 to 10.

Since air travel is still wide open here JP left for a weeks trip to San Diego this morning. My Mom is coming after to work to help me out as some nights Lil' P is a big ol' toot and you never know when you'll need help. I'm lucky she is so close by and willing to help.

Alas my sister had to cancel her trip since her hubs is trapped in Germany. This is particularly rough since tomorrow is my nephews birthday and he's been gone for nearly 2 weeks now. Hopefully she can reschedule soon.

So the word for this week is survival. No JP to split duties with at night. Even if I do wake at every feeding it's nice when he actually gives the bottle and I can tidy up or quickly sterilize another batch of bottles so they're ready to go in the morning. Oh well... there will be more and longer times like these so I better get used to it fast.

4 Weeks tomorrow...

Another week has flown by, four bottles at a time.

This has been an interesting week with Sam. I'm guessing he went or is going through a growth spurt. He was eating a lot and very regular and then suddenly on Tuesday he went back to being a sleepy head and doesn't always finish the amount in the bottle. He'll take any where from 2 1/2 to the full 4... typically it's 3 or 3 1/2 oz... when he goes below that he'll wake up after 2 1/2 hours demanding to be feed... when he's at least 3 oz then he'll sleep longer unless it's the time he wants to be awake.

All I can do is make the food available... but I guess this is what the doc meant about when he said Sam would be controling the food intake even with formula.

I went out to lunch on Tuesday and that was the last time out. Yesterday I wanted to stay in to give Sam a break and today it's been the weather.

Tomorrow if my friend calls in the morning I'm going to take the car for an oil change while she watches the little guy. We'll see if she really does call as she tends to forget.

JP is doing a bit better... but really I wish I didn't have to ask him to do every little thing for Sam. Why doesn't he ever say "I want to give him his bath..." or "I want the next feeding.."

*SIGH*

Already Friday?! And 3 Weeks Old?!

Whoa...

Yep total Lil' P is 3 weeks old. He had a good night last night... and by good I mean he went down after each feeding. All Hail Mylicon and all her wonders! Well that's what I'm chalking it up to.

He slept so well that he didn't go down after the 7am feeding and I nearly didn't get a shower. He did go down after a bit and I mangaged a quick one. I took him to watch me make his day bottles since he wouldn't nap and my explanation evidently put him to sleep. D'oh.

We managed Katy Mills yesterday afternoon for a bit. I found a sale at Gap and got him a few things for when he's older on sale. Just a little hoodie and some polo shirts for the fall. I also got a few things for summer at Gymboree, we have a gift card... but I opted to get 3-6 month sizes so he'll have some cute things come full blown summer.

Today our outting was meeting my parents for lunch. Tomorrow night they are gonna come to the house so I can have a break and go see a movie. I don't care what JP says we're going to see Date Night, I need me some Tina Fey and Steve Carell funny times. Love love LOVE those two.

So for the last couple of days Lil' P has been a fussy wee guy. It seems to be, he's tired so he goes down for a nap but then 20-30 min later I hear him fussing like a beligerant little gnome and next thing I know I hear his "I have GASSSSSS!" bark and soon enough he's fully awake, frustrated and not a happy baby. Some times he'll go back down but mostly he's just up.

I've taken the time to put him on his play mat and we flip between tummy time and just checking out all the hanging items. Today is the first day I've had to set him up the bouncer because I had to get things done... oh like his bottles.

He just went down hard after the 4pm bottle and part of that is he was awake since 3, I had him in the bouncer because again making the evening bottles and since he was getting bored and grouchy I put on some music. He seems to like Radiohead which cracks me up. I must have listend to it more than I realized.

So he's still asleep, now moved to his crib, but I don't see that lasting until his next bottle. I'm betting he'll be up sooner rather than later. But I won't use the Mylicon except for evening sleeps.

And Olga's sister, Anna had her little boy Joshua via c-section this afternoon. She was induced this morning due to high blood pressure. Don't know the details yet of why they had to do the C but Mom & baby are doing just fine.

Lots of babies these days... and they're all boys?! crazy.

Fake it to Make it...

Some days are easier going than others that's for sure...

The weekends have been the hardest as JP has some difficulty understanding the limitations of a little newborn.

Right now I'm just following Sam's own "Feeding Schedule." Feeding him on demand wasn't working his first work because he was a very sleepy baby and sleeping longer than the doctors in the hospital said he should. I think too, since he's on the bottle feeding on demand might not work as well as it would if he was still being breastfeed.

So basically I feed the little guy every three hours or so. I'm sure he'll change up his schedule again in the coming weeks. I just try and pay attention to him and his cues. I do know the "I have gas!" cry, "I have a poopy diaper!" and of course "Oh why haven't you feed me yet!?" (which usually comes when he jumps himself a half hour early.

I can say I am not finding dealing with Sam overwhelming at this point. I have my plan of attack and keep to a prep of four bottles schedule. It's more dealing with JP that I find difficult and stressful. I find his ideas of how "newborns are" to be way out of left field. I'm also shocked how difficult it is to get him to understand me. Thank God I can always call my Sis and my Mom.

I've been watching W. during my breaks. Very intersting take on the administration, and probably the first Oliver Stone movie I've enjoyed watching. I'm not up on politics but man the back room scenes of the various dealings are just disturbing and amusing at the same time. Plus whoever is playing Condalezza just cracks me up... that woman annoyed the crap outta me.

In case you didn't know...

My little Sammy was born on Friday the 19th of March at 10:22am, weighing 6lbs 9 oz, and 19 3\4" long.

To say this has been a crazy week or so would be an understatement.

I was in labor the entire afternoon of the 18th at work, not really sure what was going on since contractions weren't consistant but I was getting more and more with an hour.

I still had planned 4 more days of work (I so should have stuck to my original plan of the 15th!) so I haven't done my exit interview or anything and HR has to get with legal to research this as they've never dealt with something like this before.

I won't go into detail about the L&D, except to say my two L&D nurses were awesome. There was one terrifying moment at around 4 am when suddenly my room was filled with nurses and doctors yelling at me to move different ways, the baby was in distress and Jim swears up and down they said to just get the baby out at one point.

Obviously everything was fine, Sam just didn't liked to be messed with in any way. I had all kinds of internal sensors going on at that point too. Fun.

We were home by Sunday and as always the more difficult stuff comes up when you're home away from even semi-access to help.

I had originally intended to breastfeed my baby. I had read the different holds, I knew from EVERYONE I know who's done it that it hurts at the start but eventually (weeks etc) it's very painful but you get through. I hadn't read anywhere about different latching techniques... maybe things would have been different if I had... I dunno know...

I do know that I was torn up completely within a short time (not saying that's unusal) and had skin peeling off. I couldn't even express milk without pain, and yes I had the cream to take care of them... I had practically bought all the Medela side items to make sure I'd have what I needed on hand.

I even had a Lactation Consultant come to the house and spend 2 - 3 hours showing me how to have baby latch (totally different that the hospital & book had shown) Hers was an hour and half ritual she said after 3 weeks would have you and baby nursing without the pain.

See the problem for me was having to "Practice" with my baby screaming for food and totally stressing me out. Sam's feeding technique according to my book would be "baracuda baby" Again not giving any excuse why I didn't go forward...

I didn't intend to be sitting a week after my little Sammy was born to be sitting at home with bound breasts stuffed with cabbage leaves to stop the milk because I just couldn't cut it.

I was bawling and dreading feeding time... that was my fear. That I would pull away from Sam because of my anxiety and physical pain.

It didn't help that I felt JP was basically trying to bully me into my "commitment" to breast feed. I never remember swearing some sort of blood oath, I had always said I would try but from my understanding you never know how it'll go for you.

I mean, I read NOTHING on bottle feeding a newborn and have had to put together a crash course sending JP to the store to buy more bottles, to buy a measure water pitcher, etc etc... Trying to figure out how much formula baby might eat today as not to waist... plus how to figure out how much more he wants and he's slowly increasing.

The pain of stopping I won't go into at all. I had intended to ween via expressing but I guess I hadn't been going long enough and had to ween via breast feeding and well that caused a weekend of intense pain that I put both JP and my Mom through... not to mention the addition hormonal wave that goes with it after the wave of just giving birth hormones.

I felt and still feel very very disappointed in myself... but I had realized after a Thursday night feeding (JP was out) that was so stressful... I realized I have been struggling for so long that I was just tired of it... There was the year of trying to get pregnant when everyone one around seemed to have no problems at all, then all the tests this past spring, then the fertility treatments, then the genetic scare...

I had had enough of continual worry. It's worrying enough trying to learn the cues of a newborn, Is that I'm hungry or I have to pass gas crying? Is that the I'm going no. 2 face or something else?

I decided I wanted to enjoy my time with my baby. I'll never get it back and I didn't want to remember dreading feeding times, I didn't want to remember shredded nipples and poly-whatever it was cream.

I know I'll be looked down on by the majority out there. So be it. All the baby information out there contradicts itself anyway... no one can claim to know what's right for everyone. Yes, I would have liked to get through it and feed my baby naturally but it didn't work out that way, and I'm dealing with that the best way I can.