Tag: parenting

Anyone want a 45 minute timer?

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You could use Aviana as a 45 minute timer alarm clock. Seriously…this girl is to the minute almost exact in her 45 min sleep cycle. 

Just kidding…Although she makes a good 45 minute alarm clock, I’m not selling her just yet ☺️ in the past few days she has just learned how to giggle, interact and ‘talk’ with me, grab things and now she’s putting them in her mouth…it’s too cute. I love seeing her big leaps, even if it means she can be a grumpy moose in exchange of all that development!

Child development- FASCINATING!!!!! 

I keep hearing that at around 4 months this 45 min cycle will flip with light sleep and R.E.M. Sleep and she will enter her biggest sleep regression? Did this happen to you at 4 months? How did you get through it? 

(Ps. The photo at the top is Aviana after she fell asleep when I was feeding her lying down, so I took a photo opportunity and made it look like she was snuggled up in bed-that’s not how I leave her to sleep!  I promise!! She sleeps in a crib, on a firm surface, no blankets and on her back!!)

The fear

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When we went to childbirth classes back in October we were all given a piece of paper to write down our fears about childbirth. Chris and I wrote the exact same thing. We were afraid of our baby girl being born sleeping. Everyone else in the class wrote things like fear of child birth being painful or having a c-section etc. we went straight to the most morbid fear! But was that a result of our infertility and our journey to bring Aviana into our world? Actually everyone else in the room nodded and said yes they too were afraid of losing their baby, they just didn’t write it down!! So maybe we were just honest in our ultimate fears. 

I had a flashback to Aviana’s birth today as I read an article about postpartum C/section bodies. It reminded me of the moments in when I was pushing and Aviana’s heart rate was slowing down after every contraction. This is actually normal to some extent, but her heart was slowing down too much too fast, she wasn’t coping well with the labour. There was talk of having to get her out right now or else it was emergency c-section time. I could hear the heart beats slowing to a point that I was imagining them leading to stopping completely. The doctor had to use the vacuum to help get her out quicker. I hadn’t been pushing for that long and I felt helpless in the moment. Equally, I felt determined that Aviana was going to make it out alive and so I focused on pushing hard, I don’t remember being in pain I was that focused. I do remember being exhausted and barely able to breathe myself. I knew I had to breathe deeply to get her the oxygen she needed but it was hard to find the energy, I was digging deep. But I remember in that moment the complete and utter fear of losing her. It was the most afraid I’ve probably ever been in my life, and I’ve had a few scary moments in my life!

Thinking about that very fear, I hadn’t even really met Aviana and yet I was already afraid of losing her. I loved her before she was even born. Now that Aviana is part of our world that fear has never really disappeared, in fact I’d say it’s even stronger. I can’t imagine ever losing her now that she is here. I imagine this fear is very normal in the parent population, but I wonder how our invested journey to get her here makes that fear higher? But does that even matter? No, not really… a parent is a parent no matter what. Becoming a parent is not only a huge responsibility it’s a huge burden of constant fear in the back of my mind. I imagine my mother right now saying to me – ‘well Danielle, now you finally know how I feel about you going away to dangerous places like Iraq and Afghanistan! Or when you go rock climbing or sky diving or many other types of dangerous activities You partake in etc etc!’. 

….Well here’s to many more years of fearing for my daughter!!! If she’s anything like Chris and I combined we are in for some ‘worrying’ times ahead of us 😋

The third night back in the UK 

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Aviana slept for almost the whole trip. She went pretty much right through from her usual bedtime (7pm) right to the morning 6am US time, 10am UK time when we landed. On the plane from Philly to London she slept in the bassinet that fits into the bulk head. The plane was pretty much empty so it was a relatively quiet flight. My Father in Law travelled with me so it was very handy to have help carrying things! I’ve learned what I can and can’t do in my own for my return trip back. Aviana was an angel and everybody adored her. She even managed to bag not just one set of wings, but two! One from Norfolk Airport staff, the other from American Airlines!!!


The first night in the new time zone I thought she would still be on American time. So when I put her down to sleep at 6.15pm I expected her to wake up again in her usual 40 minute nap. 3hrs later I was peeking in on her to make sure she was still alive! She was sleeping through for the night! It had been a strange and long day for her so it wasn’t too surprising. I gave her a dream feed when I went to bed at 10pm and she slept through to 4am, and again til 7am. It was as if she hadn’t left the US. How did she know? She had none of the normal bedtime cues like bath/change/feed etc.

Second night I bathed her and did the usual routine but it took a little longer to get her down, so by 8.15pm she was down and out for the night. She woke up at 2am, 3.45am and 7.45am. Not so bad, although the 3.45am feed wasn’t much welcome I almost fell asleep feeding her!

Tonight, the third night, I put her down at 6.30pm, thinking she would just nap and wake up, have her bath etc after 40 mins. but nope. She’s down and out for the night again!! What will the night bring me? 

How do babies adjust like that? How does their circadian rhythm work at this age? I really hope it works going back the other way! Because if she did this in the US at the same time we’d be screwed!!!!

I’m super impressed with how Aviana has coped with all this traveling and sleeping in different places. A month or so ago this holiday would not have been fun with Aviana. But it actually hasn’t been bad at all, she has been a star-I’m not bragging just merely commenting on my low expectations for sleep this week!!!


I’ll write another post later about my transatlantic flying lessons learned!!! Because I have a few 😝

Preparing to fly a baby transatlantic 

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It’s time to fly! Aviana has received both her passports now -US and British- and she has conditional approval for global entry (just need to get her to an enrollment centrefir an ‘interview’, photo and fingerprints-ha, really???!!!). She is ready to travel the world!!!

But am I ready to travel the world with her? Ummmm not really! I consider myself an experienced frequent flier, but traveling with a 3 month old baby, I find myself a little nervous! Especially as my return flight to the US I will be alone.

Here are some things I’ve considered but don’t know much about and hoping it all works out…

Infants can fly on your lap. Infants under two years old can fly on your lap, this means you can save on buying a seat. BUT depending on the airline and where you are traveling there still may be a price to pay. I booked my ticket before Aviana was born using my air miles, so Last week I had to call American Airlines to add her to my reservation. Because I’m flying internationally I have to pay 20% fee. Which is not so simple because I paid for my ticket with air miles. It ended up being about $250. It gets a bit complicated in terms of baggage and hand luggage allowances. But for this flight I get a one bag allowance for Aviana, but not extra hand baggage. But I can take a diaper bag. Hmmmm. Confusing! I guess it simply means I can’t take two small air cabin sized suitcases. But that’s fine because I wouldn’t be able to carry that all by myself anyway. 

Get an infant friendly seat with bassinet. When I booked my ticket I chose the seat which allows me to use the airline’s bassinet (only available on long distance certain flights). I was able to do that though because I have platinum status. BUT if you don’t have status you do not need to pay extra to select this seat. When you add an infant to your reservation they will put you in the infant friendly seat….but only if it is available. So my advice is book early to avoid disappointment! OR prepare to negotiate with the people sat in those seats when you board the plane. Which they will probably be reluctant to do if they had to pay extra for that specific seat. I’ve seen that happen before. Bassinets can only be used in the air and if there is turbulence you have to take the baby out and put them on your lap. So must be prepared to have baby on me for long periods of time!

Traveling alone as a single parent? Get a notarized letter from your partner saying they give you permission to take your baby out of country and permission to give medical treatment as necessary. This might not be necessary and border staff may not ask for it, but in case they do I have it ready.  

Traveling with a car seat and stroller. This is my biggest worry. I have bought ‘gate check bags’ to put the stroller and car seat in when I get to the gate. These are non padded bags – you can get padded ones but they are bulky and I will be using the car seat to click into the stroller. I’m nervous about them getting damaged, especially the car seat. I’m also nervous about handling a baby and all these bags by myself. I will have a baby carrier with me so I can be hands free…but what if she is screaming blue murder? I hate it when people look at me as if I am torturing my baby!!!! And the faces of horror when they see a screaming baby get on the plane. I don’t care that much about what people think, it’s just that moment in time I would probably feel flustered and stressed.

Packing to prepare for delays. What if my flight is delayed or I miss my connection? will I have to have enough supplies to last me 24 hours? I usually do that for myself, but I now have to consider baby!! I’m glad I don’t have to worry about food because I’m breastfeeding. Although I will take some formula with me just in case something happens like my boobs dry up for some reason! 

How to carry everything through security, customs and to the gate. How the hell am I going to carry/push stroller, car seat, diaper bag, carry on hand luggage and when I come back to the US, pick up my checked bags and recheck after going through customs? I’ve figured my carry on bag should probably be a rucksack. Ideally my suitcase would be on four wheels, but I don’t have one of those, just a two wheeler. This means I can’t push it in any direction, only bi-directionally. Which is fine, it just could be easier! I’m hoping there might be a nice friendly person who might be able to help me out when I collect my bags. 

Arriving at the airport, tired, jet lagged and getting to my final destination by car. This will involve fitting the car seat base into a car I don’t know with a tired mummy and perhaps a grumpy baby in tow. And it will probably be cold knowing the UK weather!!!

Packing enough stuff for baby. Blankets, muslins, burp cloths, bibs, sleep suits, swaddles, hats, socks, clothes, coats, toys, pacifiers, sound machine, baby carrier wrap….what else have I forgotten? Diapers, wipes, baby toiletries, nappy rash cream, baby towel, bath sling…anything else??? If I have forgotten anything else I can always buy it when I get there or if I don’t have enough of something I can always wash it. Sometimes when I travel I can barely organize enough stuff for me let alone a baby!!!! Or I have the opposite problem – I take too much stuff!

OK so what else have I forgotten in my preparations? Do you have any travel tips flying with a 3 month old baby??

The milk bar

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Our code word for nursing is ‘the milk bar’. Chris will ask me when he is about to give me Aviana for a feed “Is the milk bar open??” . Well this milk bar has had a fun weekend.

Saturday Aviana and I went to our local La Leche League breastfeeding meeting. I thought I’d see what it’s all about. I didn’t have any specific worries or troubles, the only thing that was bothering me was going back to work making me a bit nervous. 

The meeting was led by a La Leche League volunteer. She basically introduced what the point of the meetings were (women help each other out with breastfeeding), how the meetings worked, facilitated the discussion and provided guidance where necessary. Some meetings have particular education themes with time saved for questions anyone may have. This particular meeting we spent the whole time answering and discussing everybody’s questions. 

The first question one mum had was about tongue and lip ties which I knew nothing about so I sort of started to get a bit lost with the discussion at first. Having said that, I did learn some new things about the subtleties of tongue ties at the back of the mouth and what symptoms it causes. 

Next there were was a question about nursing a toddler and how to deal with biting…OK so not my problem now but it was interesting to hear how women were coping with it, lots of tips and tricks for the future. Little things that I would never have thought of, for example, some of the teething necklaces you can find in target might be useful but the rubbery parts can catch on long hair making them painful – and useless, so we talked about alternative necklaces etc.

The third question was about over feeding at day care. One lady had been asked by her daycare to increase her bottles to 5oz because baby was eating all 4oz. The lady was worried how to keep production up. Actually this was too much milk and ideally a breastfed baby should only need about 3oz in 3 hours, therefore rather than trying to pump more, what the mother really needed to do was talk to the daycare and educate them – her baby was the only breastfed baby there. Whilst formula babies take more milk, breastfed babies don’t need as much volume as formula fed babies and shouldn’t be compared for volume requirements. Some ladies had dealt with daycares by getting a doctor’s note to say their babies should not be fed more than 3oz per 3hrs in order to ensure the daycare would listen. It’s a shame that this is necessary at some daycares, but, a useful tip nevertheless to prevent over feeding.

Another question was about tandem nursing with newborn baby and toddler. Wow, that was fascinating to hear how some mothers had coped with doing that!!! Kudos! 

There were several other questions and discussions that in the end, the whole meeting was dedicated to answering everybody’s questions rather than the initial planned education session. That was nice to know that you could come to a meeting and have your questions addressed if need be.

I really enjoyed listening to nuggets of tips and that some of the stresses of breastfeeding were felt similarly by others. It was nice to know it was ‘normal’. I felt it was a good meeting and liked how there was no judgement and that it was about women helping each other out to keep on breastfeeding. Because let’s face it, it’s not always a walk in the park. At the end the leader gave me some reading material about going back to work for the breastfeeding mother….which brings me to the next milk bar topic of the weekend!!!

– Preparing to go back to work! Let’s rewind to Thursday. On Thursday the nanny came a few hours earlier than usual because I had to go have dental implant surgery (ouchie!!). Usually Aviana will muddle through the afternoon by snacking on milk here and there, but this day she decided she didn’t want to take the bottle – at all. She didn’t eat for 6 hours. The only reason she ate anything was because he nanny had tried to give her a different bottle, which Aviana finally took. By the time I came home, I saw the undrunk bottle on the side and it looked really weird, very fatty. I sniffed it and it smelt really soapy. I’d read about soapy smelling milk before – it indicated a high lipase issue. Some babies are sensitive to it and won’t drink it. 

So I researched high lipase and experimented with some of my fresh milk. I left my milk in the fridge for two days and got Chris to taste and compare it with freshly pumped milk. He said that the not so fresh milk was different, tasting soapy and flowery. This confirmed my suspicions that my milk has high lipase and is probably why Aviana doesn’t talk all the bottles in the past, especially my frozen milk. 

Ughhhh. This meant that all my frozen milk was affected (I had worked up about 24oz of frozen milk over the past few months). It also meant that for going back to work on Sunday (the next day!!) I didn’t have enough milk. Panic. 

I posted my dilemma on my local Facebook breastfeeding support group and learned a bit more from other mothers who had high lipase issues. Firstly, there is a way to prevent the soapiness- scalding the milk before freezing it (more here-https://youtu.be/ZcgpGKHUC4c) Secondly, my frozen stash might not be completely wasted if I try to mix in frozen with fresh to make it less soapy tasting and see if Aviana will take that. Basically experiment. And if all else fails I could use my frozen stash for a milk bath. 

Very frustrating to discover this all so close to going back to work (and typical after I had been to the La Leche League meeting – I could have asked the question about high lipase there!!). 

Let’s see how this milk bar works out this week….. 

The Babywearing meet

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Aviana has started to like being carried facing forward so she can see what is going on…and I find carrying her that way quite exhausting, which is crazy considering she still doesn’t weigh much more than an average newborn baby!  So I asked my Doula if she was familiar with the many multitude of baby carriers available out there.  Yes she was, but she told me about a real good nugget of useful knowledge – Baby Wearing International.  She had been to a meet with one of her clients before and recommended it as a good place to try out carriers before buying.  A great idea considering how expensive some carriers are, how picky babies can be, and how different our bodies are.

The very next weekend Chris and I took Aviana to our first meeting of our local Baby Wearing International group.  Here is what happened…

First we signed in at the welcome desk.  The meeting is free and open to the public!  We were given a name tag and a slip of paper telling us how to get the best out of their two hour meetings.  Of course Aviana had to be hungry just as we arrived, so Chris fed her (we are trying to get her more accustomed to the bottle).  There were all sorts of people there with their newborn babies and other toddlers running around playing with each other.  It was very noisy! Probably about 50 or so people. But this didn’t seem to bother Aviana.  In fact she seemed to like watching all the other babies.

About 5 minutes after we arrived a lady announced what was going to happen and what we could do.  There were ‘stands’ with qualified baby wearing educators depending on what type of carrier and carry you needed help with.  So for example if you had a moby wrap you could go to the wrap stand and be shown how to use it, or if you had a soft shell carrier such as a Tula then you can be shown how to use that properly.  There was also a ‘lending library’ for members to use.  You pay $30 a year for membership and that allows you to borrow one carrier from the lending library for one month 11 times in a year.  This sounded ideal because then you can take it home and if it doesn’t work out you haven’t wasted lots of money!

One of the educators helped us out with our requirements – we wanted something that would be suitable for Aviana’s small size, forward facing, and easy for both Chris and I to wear.  Chris tried three different carriers, the third one he tried was the most comfortable.  All this time Aviana was quite obliging being put in and out of a carrier!  Which was surprising to me.  I tried the third one on too and found it easy to use and tie. off.  It was the Baby Hawk Meh Dai – it doesn’t have buckles, just ties.  It is soft but gives Aviana some support with the front panel head piece.  It was also adjustable in different ways of tying it so it suited both Chris and I without faffing with any buckles.  We decided we would borrow this one from the library and see how we all get on with it.

We met a couple of new people which was nice, it was very welcoming.  The whole meet lasts for two hours and at the end a photo of the group is taken.  We had to go before the photo because Aviana (and me) was hungry!  So not only did we achieve something practical, we also met some other parents which was nice.  I also joined their local facebook group and everybody helps each other out with how to wear their babies and toddlers.

Since taking the Baby Hawk Carrier home, Chris has used it once carrying Aviana forwards, I have used it once at home where she slept for two hours in it facing inwards on my front, I have also used it in the ‘witching hour’ to calm her down facing forwards.  Finally, I had some partial success using it when I went out shopping to Petsmart which required me to use the trolley (shopping cart!) for items that required me to be handsfree!  She lasted about 5 minutes before getting pissed off at the world.  I started to queue and of course everyone was staring at me as if I am torturing my baby! It was at that point that I felt absolutely helpless because I had to pay for my items and I didn’t want to give up!!!  So I stuck it out and tried to keep her from wriggling out through her screams!  The only downside to this carrier is that the ends of the wrap are long and so can easily drag on the ground, so not good if it is wet outside.  Perhaps it will just take a bit more practice.

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Snoozy time for Aviana

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I plan to take this carrier back to the UK with me, I anticipate needing it when I get on and off the plane and for when I go through customs and need to pick up my bags as I go through immigration.

I return the carrier in one month when I go to the next meeting.  So if you borrow one you need to go to the next meet which you drop off in the first 30 minutes of the meeting or arrange to give it back earlier if necessary.  I think this system works nicely and I’m looking forward to going back again to try some of the other carriers!

Find out more about your local meet here www.babywearinginternational.org

 

When daddy leaves mummy

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Chris went on a work trip to Atlanta on Sunday…it’s not that bad, he is coming back late tonight (Monday) so he was only away for 36 hours!  However, this meant that I had to put Aviana to bed on my own for the first time – twice!

Here is what went down when daddy left mummy alone with Aviana….

Well I am going to spoil the ending – I am still alive to tell the tale!

First of all, she struggled to fall asleep and had a big fight with her wubbanub (pacifier or dummy with a small stuffed giraffe attached to it). She didn’t really know what she wanted, but it wasn’t a nice deep sleep that was for sure.  When she did fall asleep she was fidgeting, grunting, coughing, snorting, kicking and punching.  Clearly this was not going to be a good night!  And it wasn’t….and of course, after I wrote about Aviana’s new glorious sleep habits, that very night she decided she was going to fall back to her old way of two night feeds.  Seriously girl??! 1AM, 5AM and 6.45AM was when I fed her.  That doesn’t sounds so bad, except she was refluxy, fidgety and very vocal the whole night – she didn’t cry though which is a good thing – but enough to keep me awake every ten/fifteen minutes.  She finally got into a peaceful sleep at about 6.20AM, just as I was ready to get up!!! So I dozed back to sleep myself, until 5 minutes later the cats jumped on the bed and meowed in my face – FEED ME MEEEEOOOOWWW! No peace for the wicked.

This evening, she was like a different baby to the night before.  She was pleasant, smiley, intrigued, anti-witch (where did she go?!), loved her bath, let me massage her for the first time ever, fed calmly and efficiently then fell asleep into a deep sleep quickly on time.  I had a lovely evening with her.2017-03-06 14.29.58.jpg

I am guessing she just missed daddy the first night….then forgot about him this evening.  Haha….just kidding Chris ;-p  I actual
ly think that this experience nicely sums up the essence of parenting – just go with the flow, there will be highs, there will be lows and remember:

Don’t fall into the ‘forever trap’!!!!

The more I remind myself of this, the easier those challenging times are to face head on.

Sleep glorious sleep!

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Let’s talk about sleep and newborn babies. When my friend told me her newborn boy, who is not much older than Aviana, was sleeping for 7hrs straight and Aviana was waking every 2-3hrs, I was insanely jealous. These are the things that went through my head….

  • I’m not feeding my baby enough, my boobs aren’t enough for her
  • She is going to be a nightmare forever
  • Is my baby a freak?
  • We are bad parents

Sleep is such a contentious issue with babies amongst parents. Everyone swears by this method, that method, blah blah blah. Well, here is what I believe.. every baby is different, so chances are each baby will behave differently with different sleep patterns. For example, Chris doesn’t do mornings and I don’t do late nights, so why would we expect our babies to be any different for having a preference for when and how long they sleep for?

However, as a new parent, babies and sleep is something I have very little knowledge of, so, I did buy a book. The ‘baby solution-a proven program to teach your baby to sleep twelve hours a night’ book.  I bought this book months before Aviana arrived. I liked that it was gentle and incremental sleep training, it kind of jibed with our parenting style (what ever that is!!!). By 12 weeks old it promises you your baby will be sleeping through the night. It sounded amazing, I had read the reviews online and there were many positive stories.

In this book by Suzy Giordano, there are three requirements that baby must meet before you start the training: 1. Baby must be at least nine pounds; 2. Baby must be eating at least 24 ounces of milk or formula in 24 hours; 3. Baby must be at least 4 weeks old or 8 weeks if a twin.  This apparently usually comes around the same time and is typically around the 8 week mark. Aviana is now 10 weeks and has only just hit nine pounds so we waited knowingly it would be a while before we could start this program. BTW – I am not convinced she is eating 24 oz of breast milk yet.

There are four stages of training:

  1. change to four feeds during the day every four hours for twelve hours. Not sure I will be able to achieve this whilst breastfeeding. Lots of comments on Amazon saying this is very difficult for a breastfed baby, which I’m inclined to agree with. This would mean Aviana consuming 4-6oz of milk in one sitting. I know that even if she emptied both my boobs that would be a challenge! Maybe every three hours we could achieve.
  2. change to eliminate all night feedings for twelve hours.  Aviana has almost done this by herself already (more on that to follow…)
  3. change to sleeping or resting quietly in the crib for twelve hours at night.
  4. change to sleeping or resting quietly in the crib for one hour in the morning and about two hours in the afternoon. To me this seems quite a challenge for an 8 week old baby, but assumably if you were to follow all the steps in order then this would come almost at 12 weeks old.

Sounds simple right?  Well the book does provide you with ways to achieve this, gently and incrementally over a four week period.  Also the book provides you with some tips for priming your baby before the 8 week point. This includes creating a good sleep environment (in cribs in their own room) and routine for when baby sleeps.  BUT…we haven’t started this program yet.
However, we have established a night time routine for Aviana…. 6pm bath time, with relaxing music and dim lights.  6.30pm last feed of the night, dim lights and relaxing lullaby music. 7pm, lights out, swaddled and in crib.  The first week was a little tough keeping her awake and not letting her nap after 4.30pm, we tried all sorts of techniques to keep her awake and entertained!  Plus she has the witching hour where she becomes a grumpy moose, usually around 4-5pm.  Tricks include going for a walk, carrying her, playing and dancing to nursery rhymes.  The routine worked well for her and she has been going to sleep like clockwork at 7pm for almost 4 weeks now.  Sometimes, she even doesn’t mind just lying in her crib kicking around for a bit before she falls asleep.  Then when Chris and I go to bed later on we carry her from her crib downstairs to our room into her pack and play crib.

A couple of weeks after starting the routine Aviana did a magical thing. I woke up at 4.30AM and I hadn’t fed her yet!!! Whaaaat?  She had slept for 9.5hrs straight.   Over the last week she has been sleeping from 7-9hrs straight and only waking for one feed during the night until she wakes up at 6 or 7AM.  This is AMAZING! So she is sleeping for twelve hours now with just one feed in the night.  Having to wake for only one feed has been rejuvenating for me.  I feel vaguely like a human again – even better than when I was pregnant because then I was still waking up every few hours to pee!  Plus Chris doesn’t need to do a bottle feed and so she is less stressed (because she is impatient she works herself up when drinking a bottle at night!).  The other good thing is that we get a couple of hours to ourselves before going to bed.

I am still doing on demand feeding (except for the 6.30pm feed) and her days don’t have much of a routine yet.  The only routine we try to use is the baby whisperer’s method of Eat, Activity (for baby), Sleep and Yourself time whilst baby sleeps (EASY).  How long that ‘EASY’ routine takes is currently on her schedule.

So….do we need to start trying sleep training?  I’m not inclined just yet to start it. First she has done really well so far pretty much on her own schedule, I’m afraid to regress! And secondly because of her weight.  I don’t want to disrupt her eating and enforce a routine that she doesn’t like because I am worried about her losing weight if we move to just four/five feeds a day.  If I was formula feeding her I would definitely try it.

Now another of our friends who has a boy a couple of weeks older than Aviana is asking me how we managed to get Aviana to sleep for so long.  I actually have no answer.  The truth is, it is a bit of luck.  To begin with we had bad luck – we had hell to begin with having to do 2 hour feeds and supplementing in her first few weeks of life and she had a hell of a time with silent reflux (well we had a hell of a time too!).  Now we have good luck…she is sleeping well now in her own way…will it stay like that?!? Who knows which way our fortune will go!

Ultimately, I like what the pediatricians here say about how to get through parenting in the newborn stage ‘you can’t spoil a newborn baby’.  I think that is something I feel comfortable with and looking back the past couple of months has worked for us.  The question is, when is she no longer that ‘newborn baby’?  When does she stop ‘training us as parents’ and when do we start training her?  I am hoping that in time that will become a bit more apparent with Aviana, but many sleep trainers say it is around the 4-6 month mark.  Only time will tell……in the meantime Aviana is napping in her new Baby Hawk Mei Tai carrier and is probably going to wake up soon so I will stop blabbing, but will continue this another time!

Happy sleep my friends X

The flu is no joke

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I never had the flu vaccine until I got pregnant. It is of course a choice to have the flu vaccine, and they make it easy here in the US for anyone to get a shot. They even do drive thru flu shots for those who can’t be bothered to get out of their car (side note. I’m now learning that drive thrus are handy for when you have a newborn baby!!). So when I was offered it at one of my prenatal checkups last year I accepted because I sensed that I would be forever judged as a bad parent if I didn’t have it. So I had it. The doctor told us that anyone else who would be caring for our baby should also get the vaccine because newborn babies can’t have it so they need to have a circle of protection around them. And so a few weeks later Chris got his flu shot (together with his TDaP too). That was all in October last year.

Fast forward to last weekend, Chris and I both woke up with a slight sore throat and that awful feeling of being about to come down with something yukky. Fortunately for me, that illness never materialised, but for Chris he became progressively ill. Monday morning he was too ill to go to work and even too ill to work from home! Shock horror!!! By Tuesday he had the chills and a fever. So he called our doctor and told him to immediately go to an urgent care centre because they didn’t have any appointments available that day. It probably was the flu. Oh and by the way don’t touch your 2 month old baby!  Apparently there is a flu epidemic going round at the moment so he needed to be checked and there would be a chance he could get some Tamiflu meds to help.

So off we went to urgent care. Aviana and I stayed outside because there is not only the flu going round but also the rotavirus. The doctor confirmed he had flu type B, in fact, unusually the strain he had been vaccinated against and the doctor was surprised he had actually gotten ill. 

Chris was given a prescription of tamiflu, some masks and told not to go to work and he was quarantined from Aviana until his fever went down with out meds. Eughhhh.

I was really nervous for Aviana catching the flu, and on Thursday I started feeling really dizzy and groggy. I think my body was just fighting to not get ill, but I was fearing the worst. When you have flu in the house you want people to stay away, but I was exhausted and wished I could get just a small break from Aviana, especially at night because I was on my own, trying not to fall asleep. It was tough! 

But we survived, chris is now better, the tamiflu must have helped and both Aviana and I avoided catching the flu. Phew-I’m thankful. There is definitely something about the flu vaccine working for baby by either antibodies passed in utero when I got the vaccine or with breastfeeding, especially as I could feel my body fighting it off. Maybe both. Every time Aviana got slightly fussy I was taking her temperature just in case!! But no, she was just fine. 

After all this perhaps I will get the flu vaccine again next season…although Chris caught the flu AND had the vaccine, so it’s not guaranteed, but I think keeping odds in my favour is worth a little jab!

Wee wee wee – all the way home

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Sooooo I may have been listening to too many nursery rhymes recently, but the little piggy nursery rhyme inspired my blog post title. Haha! Actually this blog is about weeing, not pigs or nursery rhymes. Namely, it’s about Postpartum Urinary Incontinence. That’s a thing…and it’s a thing that’s not really talked about much, but….*

  • 35% of new moms experience stress urinary incontinence in the postpartum period.
  • More than 50% of women have a diastatis rectus abdominis after pregnancy. (A diastatis rectus abdominis is the separation of the abs from their central tendon and is a leading cause of low back pain, stress urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse.)
  • 20% of first-time moms show severe pelvic floor muscle injury after a normal pregnancy/delivery.

So it’s actually not uncommon. And this is what I am currently suffering from at 9 weeks postpartum. 

Have you ever found yourself avoiding running, lifting, playing or laughing with your child because you fear incontinence? This is some of what I have experienced. No one should have to put up with it. It sucks! And you shouldn’t wait to let it ‘Resolve itself’ either because it probably won’t wholly. I chose physical therapy to help me to get those pelvic floor muscles back to being strong again. I want to walk, lift and run again! I don’t want to wait a year. 

If you have it, You don’t have to put up with it and be led to believe it is normal. Yes, it is not unusual to experience incontinence after labour, but that doesn’t mean you have to put up with it. 

In France and other countries like the Netherlands and Australia, postpartum physical therapy is a common treatment to help women recover from the rigors of childbirth. Yet in the United States, women have a 6-week postpartum check-up and are told to resume their normal activities.  Another issue is that although women are encouraged to do Kegel exercises, doing so can make perineal tears worse. Knowing how to do the exercises correctly is really important to prevent further damage.

So when I told my OB about my incontinence issues she referred me to a physical therapist. Today was my fourth therapy session. These sessions are really helping, mostly because I have been educated in the whole pelvic floor muscle physiology, what muscles they are connected to, how to build the muscles and train my muscles to hold in the pee better before I cough or sneeze.

It’s all about building your good posture, a strong core, hips and glutes. Everything is connected and helps the pelvic floor muscles to build up nice and strong. 

It’s also about eating the right things… did you know that sweeteners are bladder irritants? Yup, all that tea, diet drinks and yoghurts don’t help my recovery. Honestly, these are hard to give up! Especially tea because coffee is also not good either for the bladder. Ughhhh. 

It’s also about relaxation. HA! Of course I have time to relax with a newborn baby. Ummmm not. But this is the best part of my physical therapy. Breathing deeply, legs up, heating pad on my abdomen and dim lights for several minutes. Stress apparently doesn’t help the bladder either. 

The physical therapy is helping, but I am still having a few accidents now and then. I’m now able to walk a couple of miles now and hold in the pee. Several weeks ago I was fearing taking Avian out for a walk further than down the road m because I needed to pee all the time. But I’m not quite at the stage of being able to run yet. So several more weeks of therapy is still needed. It takes time. It’s also hard to fit in my homework exercises with Aviana, especially any relaxation ones. It’s also meant that I have had to hire a nanny so that I can attend my appointments, but in the end that has been a good thing because I get a little break in the week for some me time.

I can understand why it easy to just get by with urinary incontinence and put up with it rather than going for physical therapy. 1. It’s an embarrassing issue. 2. You can buy pads to cope with it. 3. Some doctors will tell you that time will heal it, so you listen and put up with it. Then a few months later when you still have it, you never find the time to make an appointment to fix it. 

Ladies, it is normal to experience postpartum urinary incontinence, but you DONT have to put up with it. Also, if you want another baby later down the road then it’s also important to get those pelvic floor muscles back into shape before getting pregnant again. Don’t put it off!!! I’m glad I didn’t.

*source: pelvic pain rehab center