Or cry for that matter. No matter how many children you have, it seems that nothing can bring you to tears quite like a good combination of baby "issues", postpartum hormones and an inconsiderate doctor.
When Morgan was a baby, she would not latch on to nurse for anything. They sent me home from the hospital with all kinds of contraptions, never really explaining to me that it wasn't normal or that she was at risk for many things (including but not limited to jaundice, Failure To Thrive, etc.). I knew my milk had not come in yet and knew that she wasn't really eating great, but felt assured that the tubing that they had me tape to my chest before every feeding would make it all better. Or maybe that she would eventually get the hang of drinking from a medicine cup or medicine dropper. It never dawned on me until we went to our first in-office pediatric appointment, the day after being released from the hospital, that her excellent sleeping habits might actually be caused my malnutrition. Imagine hearing that, as a first time parent from a professional doctor. In other words, I heard "you are starving your baby and that is why she sleeps so much". The panic alarms went off inside me and I got completely stressed out. The fact that she wouldn't nurse made it all that more alarming. I was pumping and feeding her, but apparently not as often as they wanted or as much as they would like. Forget the fact that she was sleeping. I was told things like "strip her down and put a cold rag on her to get her to eat". When you hear things like that, the stress level escalates and you feel like the worst parent ever. And with Morgan being our first, I felt it all compounded with these major feelings of inadequacy and kept asking myself how I was going to do this. What have I gotten myself into? Eventually, I gave in and decided to confront nipple confusion head on and while I continued giving her breastmilk, I found it much easier to do so in a bottle and not the medicine dropper. We got into the groove of bottle feeding her, and then pumping for the next feeding. This happened so frequently (it took 20-30 minutes to bottle feed and 15-20 minutes to pump) that it seems like I was doing this around the clock, especially through growth spurts. I would periodically try her on the breast, at times when she wasn't completely starving and I had a lot of patience. Finally, somewhere around 8 weeks old, she finally caught on to the nursing thing and we went on to successfully nurse until she was about 10 months old.
Then there was Bennett. Now, he came out hungry and nursing like a champ, so all my anxiety related to that quickly dissipated and just as I was getting confident in what a great baby I had (heck, my milk was in and he was gaining weight before we even left the hospital!), I realized that I had been thrown another parental curve ball. A fussy or difficult baby that wouldn't sleep. I knew from the moment we brought him home that he was way more interested in making sure he didn't miss a thing at home than he was in sleeping. We had invested in those new-fangled swaddling blankets and I was using them religiously. That is until Mr. Houdini figured out how to free himself. Every. Single. Time. There were nights where we were up every 30-45 minutes because he had freed himself and was pissing himself off with his free arms. Oh the torture! We'd have to reswaddle him, settle him down and pray that the swaddle stuck for longer than an hour. I remember researching different/new swaddle blankets, swaddling him in a regular blanket INSIDE the swaddle blanket, etc. Nothing was keeping this kid in and he just didn't seem to want to sleep unless he was tightly swaddled. He was one of those babies you had to be careful to not overstimulate him and had to watch his cues like a hawk, lest you miss the yawn in that perfect window for sleeping. Which is not always easy with another kid in tow, mind you. But, eventually we quit the swaddle blanket. Cold turkey was the best way to go and we never looked back from there. Bennett still is not my "good sleeper", but nevertheless, we managed to work our way through that parental challenge.
Baby number three - what else is there that hasn't been covered? I've had the baby that didn't eat and the baby that didn't sleep. I felt pretty well prepared for both of these situations and knew what indicators to look for for either one of these types. When Landon was born, he latched on and nursed like a champ, right away. After bringing him home and him having his days and nights mixed up for the first two nights, he started to give us 3-4 hour stretches of sleep at night. Blessed sleep! Is it true? Did we get the perfect baby?
Well, if I had spent a little less time romanticizing the perfect third child, perhaps would not have been in for the rude awakening that I was to experience when he failed to gain weight back as expected for a baby who was latching on so great. Well, apparently he was eating only the minimum amount needed to sustain his little body and then he would promptly go back to sleep. This was made clear in the week after his birth, where he maintained his weight at 8 lbs 14 oz for the entire week. We were in the pediatricians office nearly every day that week and we watched as he lost an ounce, gained an ounce and then maintained. We were given the advice to wake him every 2 hours during the day to feed him and every 3 hours at night. We did this, but he did not gain. Next, we were told to do this AND supplement with a bottle of breast milk after EVERY feeding. I completely lost it at this appointment because I felt like such an idiot. I mean, come on. I'm not new at this. How could I not know that my child was not getting enough to eat? How could I have been so proud of his sleeping when his sleeping was getting in the way of his eating (similarly to Morgan)? Also, I began to have flashbacks to the issues I went through with Morgan. All the pumping and bottle feeding. I didn't want to accept this as the answer because I knew how much work it was. And my baby WAS latching correctly. It just all seemed too much. Not to mention that the doctor we saw that day (not our regular pediatrician) said a few things that really rubbed me the wrong way. I was a bawling, hormonal mess. I texted my friend Melissa and she called me. I could not keep it together while talking to her. She gave me some great advice - just nurse your baby. He's going to gain weight. It's temporary. Hang in there. And so I did. I hung in there, I nursed him every 2-3 hours and then my mom and Lance bottle fed him after while I pumped. We did that for two more days and then went in for another weight check. Finally, FINALLY he gained weight - adding 3 oz to his 8lbs 14 oz, he weighed in at 9 lbs 1oz!. We were advised to feed more on demand (since Landon was not showing signs of hunger) but continue to supplement. So we did that for another two days and he gained another 2 oz! Our pediatrician then recommended that we continue to feed on demand and cut out the supplemental bottles and so we did that and after another two days, he gained 4 oz, up to 9 lbs 7 oz (only 2 oz shy of his birth weight, which is where they want them to be at 2 weeks old). Finally, we were told we were out of the woods and could officially quit worrying about his weight gain. It seems like he's gotten over the hump and was nursing more efficiently.
Now I've got a little oversupply issue to deal with, but I remember going through that with Bennett before and know how to manage that. But, it is just always something, right? I know nobody ever said caring for a newborn was easy, but who ever thought that three babies could be so different, but yet each of them make you sweat and cry nonetheless. I've told Morgan and Bennett about the ways they challenged me as a mother when they were newborns and one day I'll have the same conversation with Landon. Maybe it will help them appreciate me even more.
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