Happy one month to my secondborn!

Week 122 of motherhood with a toddler and newborn: 

• Jan 14:  I am so much more “rough” with this second baby than the first one.  The first one seemed more “delicate” and “fragile” since I was a first-time mom and never handled a newborn before.  Now as a STM, I know babies are not breakable and they’re okay to handle.  Not that I rough house with her, but I definitely don’t feel like she is made of glass.
• Still have lochia and either brown or bright red on my TP when I wipe.  The lochia never lasted this long (almost 4 weeks now) the first time postpartum.  My mom thinks it’s because the pui yuet didn’t give me enough herbs and soups that helped me to release the pp bloods as much as the first time.
• This little newborn is about 8.4 lbs now!!  So heavy so quickly this time around.  It’s likely due to her good latch and feeding well and around the clock and sleeping like 20 hours a day too.  She is like a koala lol.  We did tummy time again for about 3 mins and she didn’t really complain until the end.
• Can’t believe I have a backordered transcript so soon into my “mat leave”.  Ugh, it is annoying because I am procrastinating on it and also it came too quickly.  The baby was 7 months old last time before I had my first backordered transcript.
• Been obsessed with the Too Good To Go app and ordering daily Surprise Bags from various stores.  It’s like a thrill and a chase to see IF I can get a bag and WHAT is in the bag.  The 2 yo has been enjoying all these treats too.  Mini cakes, molten yolk croissants, breads, Pocky sticks…
• Love caring for this newborn as it’s so “easy” so far.  She eats so promptly at every 2.5 to 3 hours.  We change her before every feed.  And then if she continues to cry, it’s either because she has air trapped somewhere and needs to burp it out or she’s overtired.  Recently, the 2yo has been loud in talking (she has a high shrill voice) which is waking up the newborn.  The newborn gets agitated and can’t sleep when it’s too loud in the evening.  (Different from daytime when people want her attention or there’s too much stimulation going on.)
• Can’t believe that the newborn onesie that DH’s manager bought for us is already stretching to its limit.  The first week, her toes didn’t even reach the end of the oneside.  And now, she is pudgier/ has more meat.  She even looks bigger too.  She has a double chin too!
• She likes to sleep near my crotch… many times after a feed while we are on the armchair, she eventually shifts downward into a position where she has her head near my crotch.  And one time where her head wasn’t near it, she slowly inched downward so that she was.  I guess she likes the smell?  (As in so used to being head down in the womb for 9 months that she gravitates towards it? -pun intended.)
• There were 3 times where after a feed, she didn’t pass out right away and was fussy.  She didn’t have a dirty diaper either and didn’t have gas trapped.  I let her rest near my breast and she eventually passed out with her face near my nipple.  I think that is comforting to her too to have the smell of milk nearby lol…
• Jan 18:  The toddler is finally sleeping through the night consistently!!  Not sure what really triggered the transition finally, but my guess is that the exhilaration of being a big sister plus eating more calories these days (thanks to my Too Good To Go pickups 😆), she’s levelled up.  Woohoo!  Less work for DH at night and just glad that she can sleep through the night.  (6 out of 7 nights, I’d say)  (She slept for almost 12 hours the other day; unheard of just a few months ago!)
• Bb slept early enough and the newborn was asleep too such that DH and I were able to watch Everything Everywhere All At Once and The Menu movies at night two nights this week. 🥳  EEATO is a 2.5 hour movie we were able to watch in one setting.  We’ve never been able to do that before!
• DH has been bringing the 2yo out to the park or library or to groceries or to run errands and it’s been great so that I can just stay at home and rest with the newborn.  When she’s in the car, she passes out and that’s when she takes her nap.
• This newborn continues to sleep and feed well.  She even went to 4 hours of sleep during the night too!  Also unheard of for our firstborn when she was a newborn.
• I continue to sleep in the rocking chair at night..  I tried to sleep in the bed again for a few hours and it was so great to lie my head down and rest my neck but I found it not only difficult to get up physically (pelvis is still not fully 100% flexible) but mentally hard to drag myself out of the warm bed. How do other moms do it?
• We had her one-month-old wellness appointment.  So annoying/anal that the receptionist didn’t let us enter the room until we called Service Ontario to find the version code of the health card, saying that the temporary card wasn’t valid anymore (even though the sheet says that the number should be used until the new health card comes in the mail and it could be up to 8 weeks).
• The newborn is officially 8.4lbs on the doctor’s scale!
• The pediatrician asked us how things were going: breastfeeding every 2 to 3 hours, 7 to 8 wet and dirty diapers a day.  He asked if she is able to focus her eyes on us and we said yes.  Other than that, she is gaining weight and there was nothing he was concerned about.  He said she was still a bit yellow but it’s due to breastmilk jaundice which is harmless.  He said she gained 450 grams since the last weigh-in at two weeks old, so for us to keep going what we have been doing.  I asked if I needed to feed on demand still or can stretch out the hours.  He said since she’s a month old now and more stable, that I certainly could stretch out the hours to get more rest and sleep.  He did the usual check of her eyes, lungs, groin area.
• Sometimes when she’s on either breast (more so the left side) and the letdown is too much, she chokes on the milk.  And then she lets out a big cry as if I’m bullying her or not letting her drink milk.  It’s like a complaining kind of cry.
• Can’t believe she is a month old now.  She’s growing longer and thus it’s less comfortable to lie down in the armchair.  She keeps slipping down.
• So bittersweet she is outgrowing her newborn clothes.  I wasn’t emotional about this with the newborn last time as I guess she didn’t outgrow her clothes as quickly.  This time, this little one is soon getting into size 1 diapers and the newborn onesies are too tight too.  It’s also unfortunate because she hasn’t worn that many newborn outfits either.  This girl rarely spits out and so we actually don’t change her everyday.  She’s been in the same outfit sometimes for two days at a time.  So she wears even less of the newborn outfits than her older sister did.
• We took the one-month-old photos on the milestone blanket that the firstborn had.  I’m not sure why last time it seemed to be such a huge hassle.  It’s quite simple and the newborn barely moves, so it’s even easier to take the photos.  We did the photos on the bed and then the photos with the cake too, just like last time. 🙂
• Our routine these days is every 2 to 3 hours when she cries, DH or grandma will get her changed and then I’ll feed her.  During the night, it’s the same. DH pops out from the bed to carry her to change her diaper (his hearing is immaculate — once she cries, he immediately wakes up from the bed), I’ll also head to the toilet to empty my bladder, and then I’ll put on the haakaa and DH hands her to me to feed her.  Then we’ll sleep in the armchair until the next feed.  She’s getting too big to sleep alongside the arm part and is curling up to sleep against my crotch or sideways on the chair with the pillow under her head and I’ll be sitting on the side of the chair (when feeding on the left side).
• We terminated the meal service from the pui yuet this week.  Last meals were Monday and Wednesday.  It’s too bad that she didn’t have the same level of quality of care this time.. we originally had planned to hire her for a longer period than last time but alas her performance has been severely lacking.  That’s the end of that.  We’ll have to make our own meals and soups again.
• This week also, the newborn started to yank and pull on my nipples when she’s close to the end of the feeding.  It hurts, no doubt, but I also realize that my nipples are quite flexible and the elastic type.  I also realize that I haven’t had any bleeding or broken skin or some other potential skin-pain issues that other breastfeeding moms might experience.  Very grateful for that.
• The latch-on pain at the start of this week for the left side was so, so painful.  The right side hurt a lot last week, but dissipated this week.  And now it’s the left hand side’s turn.  The pain is initially so, so painful that all my toes curl and I cringe and close my eyes.  I wait and then after 30 seconds or so, the pain disappears.
• Thank goodness it was only for a day or two (it felt like forever though) and the latch-on pain for the left side also dissipated.  Phew.
• Neck is so, so tight as well as the upper shoulder/bottom neck part.  Too much hunching over… over the baby and over the phone for doom scrolling.
• Need to get back into my daily diary writing since the nighttime routine has all changed.
• Finally turned off the bathroom lights at night and used our salt lamp as the light source instead.  The newborn slept even better (3.5 to 4.5 hrs stretch) due to the dimly lit room.
• The toddler talks so, so much these days.  It’s non-stop.  It’s starting to become the point where I understand where stereotypical parents get so frustrated and just want a moment of calm and quiet.
• At night, the toddler’s voice is so loud and crisp that it tends to keep the newborn from sleeping soundly.
• The toddler talks fluent Cantonese and forms complete sentences naturally and talks like us all the time now.  It’s pretty incredible and I’m so proud of her.  I’m quite sure that her language skills are way above the norm.
• While the infant is now one month old, the toddler is two years and four months old.
• The infant had a day of no poops and then three-in-a-row poops the next day.  We aren’t too concerned about the lack of BMs though.  The breastmilk will eventually make it through and she’ll be able to have a movement.  That’s the difference this time between this baby and the last one.  We know so much more about what we’re doing and we’re not as overly concerned about the little things.  It really is easier the second time around, but I’m also glad that this baby generally is easier to take care of.
• I happened to hug the 2 yo this week while reading on the floor and my goodness, she is like a giant now compared to the newborn.  She’s so meaty and big.  Time really flies.
• Also one time after I changed the newborn’s diaper and then I changed the 2 yo’s, it was a gigantic difference.  I rarely change the older one’s diapers these days (she’s still unwilling to use the potty — we actually put her in pull-ups this week for the first time, but after a day, she resisted again), so it was a shock to me to see how heavy and bigger she is now.
• Toddler still enjoys drinking my bm.  So glad because that’s the only way we can get rid of the backlog of the surplus from my haakaa.