When baby arches back and cries when being held. Screenshot taken from @artinstic

Thoughts this week and/or thoughts I’ve been meaning to dump out: 

• • We are chronically crouched or bent over. Terrible posture because I’m rocking her or holding her and feeding and you can’t really sit straight when doing that. Always bending over to get her from the pack-and-play or change table. Bending over her to give her belly massages. Can’t wait for the pandemic to be over to resume biweekly/monthly massages to straighten out my posture and back.
  • Feels good to be able to sleep on my back again. Sleeping on the back during pregnancy is not recommended so I was always on my left side for the fetus’ sake. It’s nice to lay flat again. 😀
  • Her hair is growing. The top is seen spiking up.
  • Baby can look farther at things now.
  • I know how to prevent clogged ducts now. Must always massage during pumping and use a hot compress every so often. Even when the clogs happen, I know how to rub them out each time. 😀 I was really afraid of getting mastitis since the beginning — still am — (because I heard of how painful it is), but I think as long as I empty my breasts each time, I should steer clear of that territory.
  • My wrists always hurt these days. It’s from holding the breast flanges in place during pumping as well as from massaging. I grip so hard. As well, wrists hurt from holding the baby too.
  • I guess I can say she is currently at a “needy baby” phase. She arches her back and screeches or screams during or after feeds these days. It’s very tiresome. Ken found the above screenshot on IG. This is exactly how she looks like when in such fits.  …  It shows she has strong lungs and a big voice. No matter the phase she’s in, we are in for some ear-piercing screams when she is older.
  • When she scratches herself on the face and scabs form, they heal so quickly. I guess a baby is growing so fast that even their wounds heal quicker than an adult’s would.
  • Easy to accidentally “baby talk” to your spouse because you talk to baby like that all day. 😂
  • She is the most calm when being fed (unless the bottle is done or she has gas). She is also super calm once in the bath tub and being bathed. She looks different or in a different mood too when in the tub. It’s cute.
  • Sometimes she makes noises like a kitty cat (when first brought home from being born). Sometimes she squeals like a piggy. Recently today we heard a trumpet-like cry like an elephant. 😂😂
  • Sometimes she’ll make sounds which sound like words. A couple times from her sleeping area, I heard a clear “Hey” like she was directing it to me. 😂
  • We think she will speak earlier than average because of this. We’ll see.
  • She has bad dreams. She will suddenly cry out when sleeping. Needs shushing or held to be rocked back to sleep.
  • So glad to have Facebook mommy groups to consult on. I definitely know not to compare her development with other kids because I read others being so different or similar to my own. Moms back in the day wouldn’t have had this global resource at the tip of their fingers. It can be a lonely path if you don’t have these resources since not all doctors or friends or family will give you the advice you need to hear. E.g., I know from those groups that other parents have babies not sleeping through the night yet at 10 weeks old, which is reassuring. Not every two-month-old will start sleeping longer stretches. Every baby is different.
  • Had some mommy guilt the other day when I didn’t burp her properly after a feed and she threw up the milk. I really hate getting milk spit up on the furniture, especially the upholstered ones because they stain and breastmilk is oily and difficult to get out.
  • Surprised to see the lochia return this week… (only lasted 1 day though; was half afraid it was my period returning already).
  • As stated in the last mommy post, having a third adult in the house for childrearing is not just good for the physical things but for mental health as well. Parents need a break from their child to maintain sanity and proper wellness (even an hour or a short “handing off” of baby). The baby can’t speak and can only inform you of their needs or wants via crying or screaming. That can take a toll if only one person is looking after the baby day in day out. I can imagine how hard single parents would take this or those who have an unhelpful spouse/partner.

Turns out I have so much more things to dump out from the past 10 weeks of becoming a new parent 😂. Continuing on…

• • It is so cute to walk by the pack-and-play at night to see a little face tucked in a swaddle sack and sleeping. She looks totally different when sleeping compared to when her eyes are wide open and awake.
  • Whenever it is almost time for me to pump milk and I haven’t yet, I leak milk out. Again, I didn’t expect this just like I didn’t expect to have a slight oversupply. I also leak milk and stain/soak through my shirt when I’m holding her. The human body is just amazing to know that I’m looking at my own child and holding her which releases the milk so freely from my body. It’s incredible.
  • The other day when I was holding her and she was snuggling and rubbing up to me, it seemed like she wanted to nurse instead of taking the bottle with the breastmilk in it. I whipped out my boob for the first time in a month to try to see if she would latch. She didn’t latch (wasn’t hungry) but the milk came out so easily so that if she really wanted to, she could have nursed. The body was ready.
  • I spend so much time on my smartphone than before having the baby. It’s because I’m pumping 4 to 5 times a day and sitting there that the natural thing to do is scroll on my phone or watch videos.
  • We try to shield her away from watching the TV screen.
  • Sometimes I can hear her “phantom” cries when I’m by myself and finally have some silence in the room. Her cries echo in my head. 😂😂
  • She has less of the moro startle reflex now. I’m going to miss it when she outgrows it. As much as it wakes her up sometimes, I like holding her when she startles and spays her arms wide open and out. It’s cute.
  • Still wondering what to do about my extra milk… Any mommy friends reading my blog in the Markham area want it to feed your baby…? I don’t have enough to donate yet nor do we even have the freezer space for it.
  • Unfortunate that she hasn’t had the opportunity to meet her two great-grandmothers yet. One is 99 and the other is 103 years young. How rare it is to have four generations, but if only we could all meet again. None of my side of the family has even met her yet because we all choose safety and precautions first during the pandemic.
  • Biggest thing to note down: our baby cries and coughs when crying.. it’s like she does it when thirsty or hungry or to get our attention. Do other babies cough and cry?! I’ve never heard of it before. She will go, “Waa waa waa (cough cough). Waa waa waa (cough) waa waa (cough).” 🤷‍♀️🙄
  • Instead of using a shared app to record down how much milk she intakes during each feed, we’ll message each other the amount. The majority of our conversations are all about the timestamps and milk amounts now 😂. #newparentconvos
    

    Screenshot of the numbers we exchange

     

• Oh, and my memory is shot these days. I can barely remember the answer to things I just asked about. I’m not sure if it’s a case of “mommy brain” or the lack of sleep or sheer exhaustion or all of the above.
• Same line of thinking where I have lots of brain farts or will say the wrong word or can’t think of a word on the spot.
• Many times, I will watch the breastmilk being extracted from within the flange. It’s so satisfying to watch the “streams” of milk come out. When I massage/squeeze the right spot, the stream bursts out. I’ve seen two streams at once.
• Two times of the day, I’m pumping in the dark with the washroom light on (so as not to wake the others). During these sessions, I can’t see the flange as clearly and will have to use my cellphone flashlight to check the final amounts when I’m done for recordkeeping. During the gloomy days when I’m pumping and haven’t turned on the light in the room, it makes it hard to see too.
• The longest I have gone without pumping is 8.5 hours from accidentally sleeping through because of exhaustion. Thankfully my supply hasn’t been affected because of that.
• Okay, I guess the next points are all about the pumping:
• The most milk I have produced in one session is 327ml 409 ml (on Dec 2 after 9 hours since the last pump).
• My right breast produces more than the left. The left is what other pumping mommas refer to as the “shitty titty”. 😂😂😂 It didn’t start out like this. I think my right produces more because I pumped it one extra time during the beginning and now it’s continued to stay ahead.
• Unlike most moms, I single pump. I find that I empty out a lot more efficiently this way. Single pumping means that I put the pump on one side and let the electric pump extract milk. Instead of leaving the other side open, I use the ever-useful Haakaa pump to suction out milk. Then after 30 mins, I’ll switch do the other side: pump on the alternate breast and Haakaa on the other breast.
• The Haakaa pump is the one best item for any milk-outputting momma to have. It doesn’t require to be plugged in, is not a manual pump, and just uses the power of suction to extract the milk. Cheap and easy. One day when I write my “must haves list” for new moms, I’ll include it on there too.
• We call her so much by her nicknames that I don’t think she really knows what her real name is yet. 😂😂😂
• I’m used to eating cold food now. It is true. Baby prioritizes over everyone so when she cries and I’m in the middle of my hot plate, I have to attend to her first.
• She still sleeps in our room. Even though I mentioned in the 1 month baby blog post that she transitioned to her own room to sleep in her own crib, it didn’t work out after all and she is now back in the pack-and-play. Too bad we had already moved the Nanit monitor over already too.. now we have to wait until she’s actually in her own crib to make use of it again. We don’t want to reposition the Nanit monitor again since it’s attached and screwed into the wall.
• Despite all her fussiness lately, I have to say that I’ve never laughed so much at things. Ken and I remark on various things and make fun of different scenarios that the baby makes. I’m so glad we can find humour during these sleepless and restless days. E.g., we make the baby wear a “sock hat” with big googly eyes when she is misbehaving. Hehe. Like another mommy friend said to me: you’ve got to remember to laugh.
• My hands have never been so dry. I don’t know whether it’s because of postpartum and losing hydration in the body or it’s because I wash my hands so often now. We wash our hands wherever we pick up the baby and certainly every time after we change her diaper which means a lot of handwashing every hour each day.
• I think my uterus is finally shrinking back to its normal size. When I’m sitting down, I no longer have a bulge like in the first 6 weeks. I can feel my stomach fat instead of the bloated part again.
• I now understand why babies have dirty nails. It’s because if they have scabs on their face due to scratching themselves, when they continue to scratch themselves again, the dark scab particles get dug further into their nails. It’s quite unsightly actually 😅. I try to trim her nails using the electric nail trimmer regularly but she still manages to scratch herself and get regular marks on her skin.
• Oh, and the “hot flashes” or periods where I get super hot and sweaty during pumping or right before it. It’s like I’m a milk factory and my temperature goes up because I’m producing milk.
• Sometimes when she cries, I like to call her “little goldfish eyes”. 😂 Her eyes really do look like a goldfish’s, but only during the newborn stage.
• She’s easily wakeable from loud noises. When she was a newborn in the first month, the same sounds wouldn’t faze her and she would just continue sleeping. It was great. Nowadays, we try to be quiet when she’s sleeping at night.
• Ever since she was born, whenever she’s sleeping, she likes to have her left arm up next to her face and her right arm down. I’m certain this was how she placed herself when she was in the womb. It appears to be a default arm placement for her whenever she sleeps. It’s cute. 🙂
• So used to eating or using my phone with one hand now.
• Managed being able to hold her with one arm now and balanced on the hip.