babyboba

Today I went to a baby store where they had a weigh station, and had an opportunity to weigh our torito. She came in at a hefty 19.5 lbs with a diaper on. Hmm. No wonder she still wakes up to eat every 3 or 4 hours or do. We’ve been working our way through solid foods, but I have to admit that I am lazy and have not embraced the introduction of solids just yet. Maybe a little bit of laziness and a little bit of reluctancy as I have to admit I like feeding. Even though there are times when it’s difficult, there’s something about those precious 10 min every few hours where she looks up at me and smiles while stuffing her face with milk. It’s like we have a secret that no one else knows and she gives me a little giggle as we fill that belly.

But as much as I like feeding, I know it can’t last forever, so we have been trying a variety of foods. So far tried, sweet potato, peas, spinach, oatmeal, mixed grain cereal, and in the finger food category gerber puffs and cheerios. She likes the cereal and will often grab the spoon to stick in her mouth by herself. The sweet potato have been a thumbs up, she’ll accept the peas, but spinach makes a yucky face. I think we’ll have to mix that in with something else. Next I want to try avacado and carrots. It’s been interesting to try different foods because it makes me think about how we learn how to eat and drink. How do we learn to chew? Food for thought.

In other news today, I bought an ergo carrier after many months of debating whether I really needed it and wanting it but not wanting to waste money. I ended up getting the ergo sport which is made of airier material. I hope I get my money’s worth from it. I see it all the time at farmer’s markets. I’m such a yuppy.

In the middle of changing our feeding schedule, I had another encounter with a plugged milk duct. One of the pains of breastfeeding is potentially plugging a duct and this is the 3rd time it’s happened to me in the last 2 months. There are a lot of potential reasons why a duct gets clogged, not draining the breast is the main one, but in my case I think it is caused by stress. Anyways, here’s a summary of what I did to unclog the duct.

• Feed often to try to unplug that duct. While feeding massage the area in circles to try to loosen things up.
• Hot showers or baths to help soften the area.
• Look for a small white dot on your breast where it looks like a clog and squeeze until milk comes out. Then apply pressure where the duct is plugged and a stream of milk may come out.
• Put some olive oil on a cotton ball and then place it over your breast to soften the plug.
• Drink lots of water and get lots of rest, though that’s easier said then done.

A plugged duct is suprisingly super uncomfortable, and while plugged it’s pretty hard to concentrate on anything else. So this past weekend I spent a lot of time taking showers and just trying to get unplugged. Oh the joys of motherhood.

we’ve had some marginal success with our nighttime feeding adjustment. the last 2 nights, we ate at 6pm, went down around 8pm, ate again at 11pm, 3:30am, and then 7am. The first night I thought it was a fluke because she went down at 8pm, work up at 11pm and then for the next hour was awake talking to herself in bed. It was super cute and funny, so even though I know I’m supposed to be non-interested, I couldn’t help but laugh which just kept it up. eventually she fell back asleep though and work up again at 3:30 am to eat. 11pm to 3:30 am is four and a half hours. Not bad. Let’s see if she keeps it up. \

so last night, i failed. the plan was to skip a night time feeding to move towards 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep for yours truly, but last night i failed. i think it was because tori missed 2 feedings during the day yesterday, so last night when it was time to let her cry it out, my body was telling me otherwise. and to prevent another plugged milk duct, i fed her. i know, selfish. well, tonight is another night and we’ll try again. as a positive sign, she woke up one other time and just cried a few times then rolled over and fell asleep. so i’m thinking as long as we don’t miss any day time feedings, we should be ok. fingers crossed.

on to more fun things, this morning we hit a milestone where we fed her solids for the first time. her first meal? a tasty combination of oatmeal and breastmilk. she seemed to like it, as she kept grabbing the spoon and sticking it in her mouth.  i’m a little sad because it’s just another sign of how fast she is growing. but it’s also pretty exciting because now we enter a new phase of learning and experimenting and just seeing her evolve. i think i’m going to try to make as much baby food as i can, since i can then control what goes into her tummy. but before you think i’m too crazy, i don’t buy into the organic only craze. if mommy eats from ranch 99, baby will eat from ranch 99 as well.

we are working on torito’s sleep habits and have resorted to letting her cry it out. not that i think that’s the best way to put your child down to sleep, but for us, we realized that was the only way for her to fall asleep. she’s almost too big for our arms and a little wiggle here and there makes it almost impossible to keep her in our arms. and as heavy as a bag of rice, we just don’t have the endurance to walk around. so, in the end, we’ve been trying to find that moment of tiredness and putting her down and we’ll rub her back or her head till she hopefully falls asleep. that being said, putting her down has never been our main problem, the bigger problem is the night wakings. we can get her down normally between 8 and 9pm, but she’ll wake again around 11pm, 2am, and then again at 5am. each time if i feed her she’ll go back to bed right away. but that 2 am feeding is really bringing me down. so the goal is to let her cry through that. of course, our challenge with that is she is now so mobile that when she’s angry she’ll just roll roll roll and she’s been rolling off her mattress onto the floor. last night i woke to hear her banging her head against the wall. my poor baby. we take it one day at a time, but i realize between the nanny, the husband, and myself, we each have different methods, so i think we just end up confusing her. tonight we try again.