Babies

I’ve been conflicted about breastfeeding lately. It’s an inconvenience to pump at work, but I’m not ready to give up nursing altogether.

I decided this weekend that I’m going to stop breastfeeding during the day. I’ll maintain my 6 a.m., 6 p.m., and 8 p.m. nursing sessions, but let go of the daytime feedings.

This won’t impact Henry’s schedule during the week, as he is already being bottle-fed during that time. It just means that we’ll be bottle-feeding him during the day on the weekends.

We’ve also already introduced him to formula and we’re supplementing his bottles with about 50% formula, so we don’t need to be concerned about not having enough milk.
I’m excited, I’ve found a solution that will work well for both of us!!

Following in the tradition of cute babies Finn and Tesla. This outfit courtesy of William and Joyce, who still have yet to meet Henry. Come visit!!

A question I posted on a local message board. I’m reproducing it here to see if I get any good advice from my friends.

Greetings,
I’m going back to work in a few weeks and I’m trying to get my nine-week old son Henry to sleep longer at nights (or through the night would be great!).

Here’s some info on his feeding habits.
I try not to feed him any sooner than 4 hours between feedings, but will feed him at 3 hours if he’s displaying hunger signs. He only eats around 2-3 ounces at a serving when bottlefed. I’m not sure how much he’s eating when he’s breastfeeding, but I can’t imagine it’s more than when he bottle feeds. When he bottle feeds, he is not a guzzler. He’s fooled me on more than one occasion when he sucked and sucked and made all this noise at the bottle for 10 minutes, 20 minutes or longer, only to discover he hadn’t actually drank anything. So, all of this to say that he’s not a big eater. But the doc says his weight (11+ pounds) is fine and if that’s what he eats, then fine. I guess part of me worries that he’s not eating enough to sleep long enough at night.

Now here’s his nighttime routine:
He usually gets fed around 8 PM (roughly 2 oz), then has a bath and goes down for the night in his crib. He falls asleep on his own and sleeps until around 1 AM. At that point he gets fed again. I’ve replaced nursing at night with a bottle. Sometimes he will just suck on the bottle without drinking but other times he’ll eat. Last night he ate 1.25 oz at 1 AM but it took 30 minutes or more to get him switching from the aimless sucking to actually drinking. Then, he goes back down to sleep easily.
He’ll awake again around 4 AM or 5 AM. Last night he drank 2 oz at that time but only after aimlessly sucking at the bottle for 10 minutes.
Finally, he wakes up between 6 and 7 AM. I think that’s his natural “wake-up” time even though he’s not technically due to be fed until around 8 AM.

So, I’d like to try to eliminate one of the feedings - maybe the 4 AM. Any suggestions on how to do this? I’ve tried offering the pacy before the bottle but he’s not having it. Would love your tips, hints and suggestions!

Yesterday Ele came over to visit. We spent some time chatting on the couch while the babies slept, then took a nice walk through the neighborhood.

I complained that I felt Henry was “snacking” too much, not eating enough at a sitting and therefore eating more often. She talked to me about Baby Wise and the Baby Whisperer. The basic premise of the theory is to put your infant on a loose schedule and to prevent them from drifting from nursing into sleep. She summed it up with the mnemonic E.A.S.Y.: Eat, have some Activity, and go to Sleep, which leaves a bit of time for You (the mom).

So I started to try the basic principles yesterday evening by keeping Henry awake for 30 minutes after he ate, then putting him down for a nap. He did great and had a three hour eating cycle and then a two hour eating cycle. He started his last feeding at 11 PM, which took an hour, and went to bed at midnight. He woke me up at 4.30 AM for his next feeding. That’s four and a half hours of sleep! and technically is a 5 1/2 hour feeding cycle! How lovely!

Of course, this morning he’s been a snacker and very, very fussy. Baby steps.

Ele and I met out at Salsa Fresh earlier this week for a nice cheesy lunch, then we sat on my couch for a few hours feeding the babies, watching the birds and gossiping. She even brought a food donation for the fridge, hooray!

I can’t believe how big Finn is in comparison to Henry. Having been hauling Henry around for a few weeks now, I was really surprised to see that he is actually very teeny!

Read Ele’s post here.

I’ve been consumed with learning how to breastfeed for the past two weeks. Breastfeeding isn’t easy - it’s not natural or automatic like you might think. Also, the baby isn’t born knowing how to suckle. It’s understandable that people give up after only a few days - it is a really frustrating when it doesn’t go right.

I suggest if you are trying to breastfeed, don’t give up! Ask for help. Get a lactation consultant. Ask for more help. Talk to your friends about their experiences. And realize that it’s totally normal to struggle with it. It’s taken about two weeks for me to get the hang of it.

Well, unless I have the world’s shortest labor, it looks like we won’t be having a leap year baby. If we did have a leap year baby, he’d age at 1/4 the speed of everyone else! How cool would that be?

In light of our latest doctor visit, we decided to post an online Baby Pool so you can guess at the date and time of the birth of and the weight and length of Baby Dickens.

So click the link below and go vote!

Thanks to the folks at ExpectNet for creating a free, online baby pool. Here’s info from their website:

How is the winner calculated?
ExpectNet calculates an overall winner and a winner in each category (closest to length, weight, and birth date and time). To calculate the overall rankings, penalty points from each category are totalled. The default points are assigned as follows:
birth date & time: 5 points/hour
weight: 5 points/ounce or 0.2 points/gram
length: 10 points/inch or 4 points/centimeter

The winner is the person with the fewest points.

Dave and Amy made it home safely!

Ian plays around on the playmat.

I can’t highly enough recommend a very long lunch at a fancy cafe with girlfriends to soothe the soul. Especially on a workday.

On Tuesday, I met with new mommies Ele and Molly and babies Finn and Cooper at the cafe at Nordstrom to have their tasty chicken caesar.

It was awesome getting to catch up with the girls - I haven’t seen Molly since Ele’s baby shower and it’s been about 5 weeks since I’d seen Ele and Finn. We chatted babies and transitions and pregnancy, even a little L&D. I definitely felt better seeing what it’s like on the other side, and knowing that I can do it, too!