Dear Diary
I'm going to whine just a little bit here, but I am not actually looking for solutions/sympathy - I just want to vent. On my birth club message board, we call such ramblings "Dear Diary" posts.
We have had two major challenges this week, one being that Maya's nighttime sleep has gone into the shitter - not that she was sleeping that well before - but for the past three nights, she's been up every hour between 10pm and 5am, and then napped in my lap (but only in my lap, and only if I remain very still) all morning to make up for it. The only good part about this is that all the extra nursing has been helping me resolve bad challenge #2, which is that I'm currently battling my 5th clogged milk duct in 10 days - quite the record for me! Clogged ducts are bad enough on their own, especially the ones that plug right at the nipple (oh lord, the stabbing pain!), but my coworker just had one turn into a raging case of mastitis and then an ABSCESS in the space of about 48 hours (and she's been breastfeeding for over a year, on her second child! That's not supposed to happen to her!). That kind of story fills me with fear and panic, so as soon as I get a clog, I have to drop everything I'm doing for a day and instead do everything in my power to clear it. This basically involves remaining within a 20 foot radius of the shower and a lot of painful nursing in acrobatic positions. Oh, and a lot of Advil. And not a lot of science.
Whew.
Anyway, I'm not trying to be a downer - I'm just trying to provide an accurate record of what life was like at three months, and it's not all sunshine and roses (cooing babies and clean houses? Ha ha ha….).
On the bright side, I'm buying a plane ticket today for Maya and me to head to California at the beginning of May - hallelujah! It'll be spring here by then, but it'll be great to see my mom and take the baby to the beach, even if it's not quite the salvation from the cold that it would be if I went right now. Husband has three out-of-town seminars to give over the next month, so this is my motivation (reward?) to get through all the nights without him!
Since I'm feeling so snarky about life right now, I'm going to end with two videos of Maya and her hatred of wind. We did this not to torment her, but rather because we know she'll get over it soon and we wanted to be able to remember it :)
Here's to a better week next week!
We have had two major challenges this week, one being that Maya's nighttime sleep has gone into the shitter - not that she was sleeping that well before - but for the past three nights, she's been up every hour between 10pm and 5am, and then napped in my lap (but only in my lap, and only if I remain very still) all morning to make up for it. The only good part about this is that all the extra nursing has been helping me resolve bad challenge #2, which is that I'm currently battling my 5th clogged milk duct in 10 days - quite the record for me! Clogged ducts are bad enough on their own, especially the ones that plug right at the nipple (oh lord, the stabbing pain!), but my coworker just had one turn into a raging case of mastitis and then an ABSCESS in the space of about 48 hours (and she's been breastfeeding for over a year, on her second child! That's not supposed to happen to her!). That kind of story fills me with fear and panic, so as soon as I get a clog, I have to drop everything I'm doing for a day and instead do everything in my power to clear it. This basically involves remaining within a 20 foot radius of the shower and a lot of painful nursing in acrobatic positions. Oh, and a lot of Advil. And not a lot of science.
Whew.
Anyway, I'm not trying to be a downer - I'm just trying to provide an accurate record of what life was like at three months, and it's not all sunshine and roses (cooing babies and clean houses? Ha ha ha….).
On the bright side, I'm buying a plane ticket today for Maya and me to head to California at the beginning of May - hallelujah! It'll be spring here by then, but it'll be great to see my mom and take the baby to the beach, even if it's not quite the salvation from the cold that it would be if I went right now. Husband has three out-of-town seminars to give over the next month, so this is my motivation (reward?) to get through all the nights without him!
Since I'm feeling so snarky about life right now, I'm going to end with two videos of Maya and her hatred of wind. We did this not to torment her, but rather because we know she'll get over it soon and we wanted to be able to remember it :)
Here's to a better week next week!
Eli's sleep is in the shitter, too. He gets up about 10 times per night, and he doesn't really settle even when he's NOT up-- it's all writing and grunting. By the 4th time I've been up in an hour, then *I* have trouble settling, and the whole thing sucks!! To top it off, I went to a 'weaning workshop' at my dr.'s office yesterday, and there was a woman in there complaining because her child gets up ONCE in the night. The nurse suggested having her husband tend to the baby (so the baby would learn it couldn't nurse), and the lady said she didn't want her husband to bother becuase he works. Duude, those people are pussies! Try working full time writing papers and such, with a non-sleeping baby, lady!
ReplyDeleteSucks on the clogged milk ducts-- I haven't had too much trouble with them, but when I do get them, I find that quite firm massaging of the painful spots during breastfeeding seems to be the best solution.
Maya is adorable as always, and it's definitely worth capturing the fleeting trials and tribulations as well as the beauty and charm!
And CALIFORNIA!!! Yeah! :)
(note that I ignored the whole 'not looking for solutions/sympathy' part of this post!!) oops. :)
DeleteI'm so sorry to hear that Eli isn't doing any better than Maya in the sleep department - has he been like this a while, or is it new (since being back from your trip, maybe?)? Yeah, once per night would be totally doable, and then we could all feel like humans again! Maya is more of a kicker than a grunter during restless sleep, so she fully winds up and destroys anything within reach of her feet - it's one reason bedsharing with her isn't that appealing to me even when she's not sleeping. Even when we just nurse sidelying, she spends most of the time double-barreling my incision - not restful!
ReplyDeleteThe clog thing is bizarre. I've had like 3 or 4 total in 3 months, and then BAM! I do always manage to clear the clogs, but it takes me a while. Massage is key - I even brought the cat brush (the closest thing I own to a wide tooth comb) into the shower the other day to try the "comb toward nipple" trick. But two of the recent ones have been "phantom clogs," where they hurt and get red but I can't actually feel any lumps or tell exactly where the issue is, just a general area of unhappiness. They must be deep. Is it due to the measly amount of pumping I've added in (come on, *one* extra feed per day could cause this?!?)? Am I sleeping in a different position without knowing it (oh wait, I'm not sleeping…)? Too little water or a milk composition shift? Blech.
And sympathy never hurts :)