Dyed red eggs to celebrate baby’s 100 days

So many thoughts to continue writing down before I forget about this phase of the postpartum (again written out randomly because it’s not easy to remember everything sequentially): 

• Baby is definitely not a newborn now. She is so much chubbier, has a double chin, very chunky and strong thighs.
• She’s started to move her arms slightly up and off the mat when doing tummy time now.
• She’s starting to outgrow one of the bouncer chairs. When she thumps her feet on it, she’s so strong that it makes a big loud sound.
• She likes being held upright all the time and to look around the room. She had several days of crying if we stopped to sit down.
• I’m considering to drop a pump now. I used to pump three to four times and now I’m trying to drop one pump so I only have to do three pump sessions each day.
• My breastmilk output is between 200 to 350ml each time, so I’m still producing about 900 ml a day.  It’s still more than what she eats each day.
• She still feeds like she’s on a newborn schedule. She isn’t sleeping through the night yet. We feed her on demand every hour or 2 to 3 hours. She’ll take anywhere from 15ml to 90ml at a time. The most she’s slept in one go was six hours!!! (Only happened one time so far.)
• Poops are still orangey in colour with the seeds (undigested fat) which is normal for exclusively breastfed babies.
• She is getting so heavy, at around 12.5 lbs the last time we weighed her. Since she likes being carried upright, it’s causing some major pressure on our forearms and wrists when we carry her.
• I’m still taking my prenatal vitamins on a daily basis. I haven’t noticed any postpartum hair loss yet and my menses has still not returned.
• My appetite is still amazing since I’m breastfeeding. It’s nice to inhale food easily but it also means I have to make sure I’m eating enough and drinking enough fluids every day.
• We use the baby carrier on a regular basis now which is super helpful (looking back on how before she turned 7 lbs and this carrier wasn’t even a possibility yet; she was too small for it).
•  She’s discovering her hand (the right one) these days.  I see her bringing her hand slowly to her face almost as if to lick it but then bringing it out again.  She’s connecting the fact that she has a hand and what to do with it. 😂
•  I upped the suction on my breast pump the past week.  I noticed that I was pumping for 30 to 40 minutes each time to fully empty the breast.  It was so inefficient because it was taking me up to 80 minutes in total to do both sides.  I tried increasing the suction and it worked like magic.  I didn’t have to sit there for more than an hour anymore.  Now I just do 30 minutes on each side and it’s done.
• The thought of eventually dropping all the pumps to zero actually made me a bit sad.  I’m super proud of the fact that I can produce breastmilk and have my baby feed on it exclusively.  We haven’t had to use any formula at all (save for the first two weeks before my milk supply really established and that one night when I woke up 30 minutes too late to make some for her in the beginning).  It’s a very fulfilling and rewarding thing I’m doing and despite it being mentally draining and tiring, I can’t imagine one day drying up and not having to pump anymore.  It’s a love and hate relationship but so far I have gotten so used to it.
• Whenever I eat less in a day, my milk supply goes down.
• Because of the COVD-19 pandemic, this little girl hasn’t seen anyone but the three of us regularly.  I look forward to her one day attending swimming lessons, meeting more of her extended family members, and having play dates.
•  She’s really started to sprout.  Her hair is growing out and nearly an inch long at the longest parts.  Even her eyebrows are beginning to lengthen and deepen.
•  She has more rolls in her thighs and her arms are starting to get a little chunky too.  I see the difference every time she has a bath.
• She loves lying down in the play mat and looking at the toys and soft book that hangs there.  It’s great for having a minute to do other things while she’s lying there.
• She’s not rolling over yet.
•  Even though I have been taking photos of her every day since she’s born, when I look back on them I feel like there’s not enough.  There will never be enough photos and videos of her.  She is growing and changing so fast every single day.
• She changes so quickly that every day she looks different to us.  Even mid-day, she could look slightly different.
• “Don’t grow too fast” is such a common thing for parents to say, but I think it’s so normal for them to grow fast.  I never want to say “I want you to stay a baby forever” because they need to move on and grow.  In the meantime, I’ll soak up all the little moments and take more photos and videos to capture these moments forever.
•  Mom guilt.  As much as I soak up all the moments, I also really revel in the moments when someone else has her and I get some alone time to rest.  It’s such a conundrum.  I want to spend time with her but I also need time for myself too. I joked once to Ken that I wish I had a clone.  That way, I could look after her but also have the time for myself to do other things.
• She doesn’t enjoy tummy time for longer than two minutes these days.  Must remember to do tummy time with her more often to increase the total number of minutes per day.
•  Nursing bras?  Tank tops?  What are those? 😂 Despite buying nursing bras and tank tops ready for nursing when I was pregnant, I actually never ended up using these.  I just wear old T-shirts around the house.  I’m not going anywhere anyway due to the pandemic.  It’s so much easier to wear a cotton T-shirt and whip it off when it comes time for pumping and also a no-brainer for easy laundry when baby throws up.
•  Her little cries and coos are so adorable.  I just want to bottle those up forever and replay them.  Sometimes in the moment, I don’t have my phone with me or because I’m enjoying it, I am not reaching for my phone to record it.  Having written this now, I really should sacrifice one of those in-the-moment moments and record it so that I’ll have it for the future.   (Same thing for the little grunts, the sighs, the sounds she makes when she drinks milk.)
• When I was viewing some of the videos of her when she was younger (like a month old), her little cries were so different than now (at 3 months old).  Must record and save.
• I’m really enjoying that she’s not fully mobile yet.  I can leave her in the centre of a bed for a quick second to get something and know that she won’t fall off.
• When lying in the bed, she currently likes to stick her legs high in the air.  When she brings them down, she thumps the bed so hard and loud.
• The best moments so far is when I’m talking to her and she either “talks” back or smiles.  It’s SO cute. 🥰
• In the first month, I still had thoughts that I missed reporting work and wanting to do other things.  Now, I’m more lax and settled into my new role as a stay-at-hope mom.  Work?  What work?  I don’t want to work on transcripts lol.  I still like to blog and write reviews, but those are very low on the priority list (except for these brain dump/progress posts because these moments are fleeting and if I don’t write them down, I’ll never remember them again).
• She has somewhat of a consistent pooping schedule.  She outputs at around 10 a.m. and then another at 6 p.m. or just before dinner time.  Ken says this will be handy for when we start potty training.
• After I finish pumping, I notice that there’s some marks against the flange from the nipples rubbing against it.  I’m really afraid that I’ll have to size up again from 27 mm to 30 mm.  Is there even a bigger size flange after 30 mm?!  If I really do need to size up to 30 and then it goes up even more, I think that might be the end of my pumping journey… Update:  Yes, Medela has a 36 mm one, but I think it is a custom one that isn’t readily available in stores.
•  I leak less often these days.  I’m not sure why…
•  I yielded 449 ml of breastmilk on December 30 after 10.5 hours since the last pump.  That may be the most milk I’ve produced in one sitting and also the longest I went without pumping.
• BB is so much “longer” or “taller” these days.  She really fits well into the onesies now.  She’s three months so many of the three-month outfits are perfect.  Prior to this, we had so many baby clothes that were loose on her and also so many outfits that we weren’t able to wear because there were so many.  However, from this point on, we have less of the 3 month + clothes so we’ll have to start buying some of our own…
• My wrists hurt less these days.  I guess I don’t pump as often now so the wrists have had some time to rest up.
• As of December 30, I have pumped three times a day for the past six days.  I’m still outputting enough milk, over 850 ml per day.
• Her complexion is so nice these days.  It no longer is easily flush or red like it was when she was a newborn.  She has a bit of a slight natural pink flush on her cheeks too.
• When holding her, I still see the soft spot on her head that bobs in and out when she breathes.
• When we’re holding her and holding a phone at the same time, she tends to look at the screen!!  No!!  This is not good.  We don’t want her to look at a screen this early on.  We try to move the phone away from her field of vision but she still tends to find it.  Ahhh.
• She’s putting her fingers in her mouth less often this week.