First time mom here to this sweet baby girl! Mom-ing is the best thing I have ever done & by far the hardest thing I have ever done. Let's talk about the good, the bad, & the ugly of motherhood. Here I'll share my experiences!
Sleep...
I love sleep! And babies do too. In the first couple weeks of my daughters life I hadn’t heard of the “wake window” schedule. We have been working with Katie Roeder from HappilyEverAfterSleep and learned more than I could have ever imagined about newborn and baby sleep! One tip that I think is extremely important is paying more attention to the time that baby is awake rather than keeping track of how much they are sleeping. Newborns sleep A LOT. I know you have probably heard that a million times and so had I. The problem I had was truly understanding the necessity of the amount of sleep they need. My daughter would sleep most of the day away and for the first week or two of her life I would nap when she napped as much as I could. After that though, I didn’t want to be sleeping the day away and just be awake mostly at night. My logic was to wake baby throughout the day so she would “sleep better at night.” Big mistake. This sleep that I was attempting to save for nighttime would only catch up with her later on as cranky and over-tiredness that would spike in the evening around the same time every night. When she became overtired she would give hunger signs which sort of confused me and I would try to feed her again which of course wasn’t what she wanted or needed (that I knew but breastfeeding is tricky & hard to tell how much baby is getting each feed so I would second guess myself). After a few failed attempts of trying to feed her I began to question if she had an upset stomach and was gassy. Again, not the case. Every baby is different but sharing my experiences may help someone else so my point here is that once I became educated on these wake windows and paid attention to her sleep we no longer had these weird evening witching hours where I didn’t know what to do to make her feel better. Like I said I love sleep! And so does my baby! She is now 2 months old and is a champion little sleeper. Her wake window is growing as she is growing and I am now aware of that. Below is the sleep chart we follow. I hope it helps you and your little one too!
4 Weeks
Breastfeeding
This is all new and we as moms are all doing our best and trying to keep these little humans alive! No matter how you feed your baby they are being fed and that is all that matters so be proud of yourself mama! To share my experience there were many things about breastfeeding that no one told me. First of all let me say breastfeeding your baby is no joke! You would think you just stick the nipple in your baby’s mouth, they eat, and you move on. Wrong! There were so many things I had no idea about before seeing a lactation consult starting the first week my daughter was born. I learned how important a good latch is and what to look for. Other key factors in successful breastfeeding are both mom and baby’s body positioning, baby’s head and neck posture, and how deep of a suck baby gets. Starting out with a solid breastfeeding foundation with your baby is so important and there are still things I am learning along the way. I have an oversupply of milk so even though my daughter doesn’t have the widest latch she is still gaining and getting enough milk. This is something we are currently working out with a possible tongue tie. She has never had a painful latch either so that is also confusing. I share this to show you every persons breastfeeding experience is different and like mine there are hurdles to overcome sometimes big and sometimes small. Before I began breastfeeding I was very naive to the whole thing and I had no idea that when your milk comes in you go through what is called the ‘engorged stage.’ This is something no one can prepare you for. I would wake up drenched in breastmilk (sometimes still do), when baby is eating on one side milk is spewing out the other, my boobs were so rock solid that they actually burned. Steaming hot showers turned out to be my best friend through this time and massaging just to drain some and relieve the pain but not to empty got me through the toughest of it. I was able to avoid pumping by using the Haaka and breast shells to catch and store my milk. I would limit the Haaka use as that could also prolong the engorged stage by telling my body I need to make more milk. I heard of a company called ‘Miracle Milkookies’ while I was pregnant that makes lactation cookies with clean ingredients. I preordered some to freeze and have on hand for if I had a problem producing milk. The day I came home from the hospital I ate two of the cookies as I was so nervous my milk wouldn’t come in in time and my baby would start losing weight (not sure why this was such a fear of mine). Within a few hours of eating the cookies my milk came in full force! Since then my milk production has been through the roof. Fortunately, with this oversupply of milk I have been able to freeze and store a lot. I’m not sure if it was the cookies or I just naturally produce a lot but either way I am very thanful! These cookies are made from all natural ingredients and bonus points for tasting so good too! I think they are great to keep in mind if you see a decline in your production at any point throughout your breastfeeding journey. Breastfeeding is hard but it is so amazing! I love everything that comes with breastfeeding and feel extremely fortunate we have had a pretty smooth go at it from the beginning. I do know some people that haven’t and I strongly believe with a good lactation support system and education it can get better so don’t give up!