Turtle Monkey

Elias is definitely teething. Yesterday was so hard on all three of us. Starting around 1pm, Elias was fussy and his mouth was obviously in pain. He wouldn’t stay asleep for more than 15 minutes. Finally around 9:30 or so, he fell asleep in the Moby. After he’d been there for about 20 minutes, I tried laying down with him to go to sleep for the night, but he just woke up hungry. After feeding him, he seemed way too awake to go to sleep. I tried rocking and nursing him until midnight or so, but he only slept for maybe an hour before waking up hungry again.

He had more trouble falling asleep after eating (normally he just goes straight to sleep again), but I think he finally settled down around 2am. He slept, if fitfully, until 6am when I fed him again and tried to get him back to sleep. As with yesterday, he just wouldn’t stay that way. I’m pretty sure he kept waking up in pain.

I finally got up with him around 7 or 8am (time is a blur) and tried rocking him in my arms. That seemed to do the trick and he’s been sleeping in his swing now for a couple of hours.

I think in addition to teething, he’s reverse cycling due to the drastic change in his routine from when he’s at home. I’ve tried to keep it, but it is so hard taking care of a baby in someone else’s house, no matter how hospitable the hosts.

We decided not to take him along to the New Year’s Eve party at Mark’s friend’s house; his sister Kathy is going to babysit for us. As fussy as he’s been the past couple days, I really don’t think it’s a good idea to disturb what little sense of routine he has left in life.

I love being here, but I hate being away from home, where I can easily take care of my baby and everyone is perfectly comfortable.

Elias seems to be in his normal spirits this morning, though he is easier to upset (at least he doesn’t stay upset as long as I’m ready to distract him with a new activity.)

He actually fell asleep in his swing about 15 minutes ago. I am amazed! Who is this joyous baby someone switched my newborn with?

I just ordered Elias’ Christmas presents. I had them shipped directly to Mark’s parents’ house so we only have to lug them one way. (Plus I got some carseat toys, so we can use some on the way back!)

The little stinker is already costing us a ton of money at Christmas and Mark and I both agreed to go light this year.

Yesterday went well! My mom came over and brought a 22lb turkey, cranberry sauce, ingredients to make stuffing and a green bean casserole. I made pumpkin pies and macaroni and cheese. We also had rolls and country crock sweet potatoes, but the latter wasn’t really all that great.

Elias was a bit fussy last night after everyone left, but I think that may have been because he was a bit overstimulated during the day and just refused to take an evening nap. He was up for four hours straight from 7:30-11:30 and wanted to eat most of that time. I’m not sure if he was really hungry, but he kept shoving his fists in his mouth and kept spitting out my nipples, which he doesn’t do if he wants to comfort nurse. He’d just cry inconsolably until I’d give him some formula (we’re doing bottles now mostly, especially at night, though I still use my SNS too because I prefer to at least feel like I’m breastfeeding him.)

He’s getting SO heavy. He definitely went through a growth spurt over the weekend. He seems longer and he’s absolutely heavier. My mom and Jim noticed a big difference in him from when they were here on Saturday.

I’m worried that he may be getting too much formula, but I’ve also heard that young babies don’t overeat if they’re not hungry, so I’m not sure. Who knows how much milk he’s getting from me (he nurses on both sides before each feeding for maybe 15-30 minutes total in addition to comfort nursing throughout the night and day) but I can’t imagine it’s more than a couple of ounces total. Up until last week he was taking between 20-24 ounces of formula a day. Now he usually scarfs down 28-32 ounces a day, most of which is late at night. He’ll drink between 8-12 ounces within a 4 hour period late at night. It doesn’t seem right… it definitely seems like too much, but nothing else will make him happy. We’ve tried every other method we have to comfort him before giving in and letting him eat and eating is the only thing that makes him happy. Maybe he’s still just going through a growth spurt and it will taper back down to ‘normal’ soon. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was up to 12 pounds, so 28 ounces wouldn’t be so far off from that, but I am concerned when he takes 32 ounces in a day.

I hate not being able to exclusively breastfeed. After reading tons of information about it, I definitely do feel like I have low milk supply due to insufficient glandular tissue (especially since the Reglan, very frequent nursing and herbs didn’t make any substantial differences in my supply) but I think the poor start we got to breastfeeding didn’t help matters any. Hindsight is 20/20, but if I had to do it again, I probably would have waited even longer before introducing formula. I felt that there was something wrong with the fact that he nursed half the day away and got frustrated at my nipple, but I now know that at least he was getting SOME milk from that if he had to nurse 24/7 to get all the milk he needed, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world. I think having people around me constantly and feeling like I needed to “do something” didn’t help matters any. Whenever I see a post in the breastfeeding community of someone complaining about the amount of time their baby wants to breastfeed I feel like slapping them. I would kill to go back to having that opportunity.

I think our next child may have a better chance to get more milk from me. I don’t think my supply right now can be built to be enough to sustain Elias, but maybe I should at least try it… skip his next formula feeding and just let him nurse and nurse and nurse to try to pull as much milk from me as possible… I don’t know. I’ve read the information on kellymom about relactation and I’m already doing 90% of that stuff in my normal daily routine with him since the start and it hasn’t made any difference in my supply. Sometimes I can hand express up to 1/4 of an ounce in 15-30 minutes, however I haven’t been able to hand pump more than a few drops and I got the same results with the hospital grade electric pump. These results truly just make me feel that it’s an IGT issue and not me giving up too soon or not doing the right thing. But if it is IGT, then with my next pregnancy I should build more glandular tissue and with a good start, I may be able to exclusively breastfeed, or at the very least supplement with much less formula.

I didn’t mean for this to turn into a breastfeeding post, but it did. I try not to let it bother me, but I do still have a lot of guilt over the formula thing. I am happy that I have at least a little milk so he can comfort nurse and I can nurse him in bed, buying an extra hour or two at times overnight.

Here’s today’s batch of Elias shots. Mark’s mom and his sister Kathy went shopping at the outlet malls when they were in town and they got him this outfit. It’s cute!

1. 10-31-07-05 Elias Fingers, 2. 10-31-07-01 Jack-O-Lantern Feet, 3. 10-31-07-02 Halloween Outfit, 4. 10-31-07-03 Elias Face

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.