What's That Funky Smell?

    It's Erin's regurgitated formula.

     Stay at home moms are stereotyped as women who are frumpy. Frumpy is another word for "not well kept." I must confess, I have become this type of stay at home mom.

     I'll start off with my hair. For those of you who know me well, it takes a lot for me to not do my hair in the morning, even if it is always done in the same style. Blow dry, curling iron and a little hairspray to pat down the stuff the sticks up at my part. Doesn't ever take me that long to do my hair. (Unless I decide to curl it more than just the bottom) 10 minutes tops. Now days, I just blow dry the front. Two seconds, that's it. I leave the rest to air dry. What's the point when 11:00am comes around and it's put back into a pony tail anyway to keep Erin from grabbing at it all day. Plus, I'm shedding like crazy right now. That nice thick pregnancy hair is falling out.

     Make up: since I started wearing this stuff consistently in college (yes, college. Swim team in high school kept me from having time or caring to work on my face), I never go a day without it. Even if I know I won't leave the house that day, I still normally do it. My facial canvas is now left plain. Maybe I'll put some moisturizer on it, but some days it doesn't even get that treatment. I find it rather funny I still scratch my eye as if I'm afraid to ruin my mascara or eye shadow.

     My wardrobe: Where do I begin here?  I believe I probably became a good candidate for TLC's "What Not To Wear" back in the 90's. (Too bad no one has nominated me yet.  To my knowledge anyway) My style hasn't changed much since then. Jeans and a T-shirt. That's my signature look. Of course in the winter I might throw on my grey cardigan that I always carry around with me. I believe it has a hole in it too. I don't think anyone notices but me though. Grey goes with everything and it the cardigan looks somewhat stylish. Although, when I was teaching, I realized that kids are not afraid to tell you what everyone really thinks about what you look like. I've heard, "you wear the same thing every day" quite a few times from those 4th graders. I do switch it up: summer, it's shorts and a t-shirt. Now that I'm a stay at home mom, my closet hasn't changed much except my clothing size. :( I still wear a t-shirt and shorts around the house. My shorts are so old they have holes in the crotch. I don't care as I don't wear them outside. They are comfy and with the amount of spit up they meet, its good I keep my actual shorts in the dresser until I really need them to venture outside.

     Spit up: this seems to be my new fragrance. Not by choice, though. Erin has silent reflux. (silent reflux means the child catches their spit up on the way up and swallow it.  This is in contrast to the traditional reflux which entails large amounts of projectile spit up) However, the silent part doesn't stay silent all the time. I believe my shirt acquires a good portion of her nasty smelling formula. Yeah, her formula smells bad. Really bad. She's on Alimentum, made my Similac. It's a special formula that has the milk protein already broken down. She drinks this because she can't tolerate anything else. (When I did breast feed her, she would even spit that out too.)  That stuff is the worst smelling formula on the market! It smells before it's consumed and smells 10 times worse when its expelled from the body no matter what end. I even manage to get this down my shirt, on my bra, down my back, and other places I didn't think spit up could get to. I always keep a burp cloth either near me, in my hand or in a pocket to at least try to catch what comes from Erin's mouth at any unexpected moment.  Tummy time...yeah, that's done 3 hours after she ate and she still manages to spit up a good amount at that time.

Yes folks, it true. I've fallen into that stereotype of a stay at home mom. I think I need to keep looking at the bright side: at least I'm exercising.

Nap Training continues

It is currently Day 4 of nap training.  I'm exhausted....exhausted from waking up at 5:30am to ensure that I get a shower in for the day before Erin wakes up at 7am.  The whole idea of sleep begets sleep continuously plays in my mind.  I'm finding myself more stressed, my teeth are clenched almost all morning just anticipating how the first nap would go.  I'm anxious and antsy, but I know that I'm doing all I can to minimize over tiredness setting in badly at 4 months of age. Last night, I spent about an hour talking myself out of my strategy and into an entirely new one.  I did some research on the "pick up/put down" method from the Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg.  At 7 weeks of age, I have vowed to myself I was NOT going to use anymore of Tracy's material as putting Erin on that woman's routine at 2 months of age completely back fired on us and led to middle of the night wakings that were NOT for food. It also worsened Erin's Silent Reflux which resulted us putting her on Zantac.  Well, I was sitting here talking myself into it.  I posted on a Babycenter forum for sleep training (there is a group of women that post all with babes born in April) to get some feedback on my idea.  I received a good pep talk from my accountability partner there who reassured me that changing a little bit of my nap routine is okay, but not completely.  The goal is to keep with consistency as much as possible to make things work.  If you aren't consistent, the child will not learn and thus you will not have success.  This is true for ALL sleep and nap training methods.  I decided to tweak my routine as such:

After Erin's book, I will rock her for 5-10 minutes with her paci instead of letting her have it in the crib.  I tried this for nap 3 yesterday, and it worked really well.  I would then place her in the crib, put my hand on her tummy for a bit and then walk out.  If she began crying, this would be when I started the timing.  Each time I go in, I would pick her up, pat her back (make sure she doesn't have air stuck in there) and gently place her back down.  If began crying, reset clock.  If she slept for a bit, or 15 minutes had passed before she began crying, I would go in immediately, soothe and then begin the timing for each time she cried right after.

My accountability partner agreed that this might be a better plan for Erin since she has not mastered sucking her digits yet.

Nap 1: began beautifully, she woke up at 42 minutes in, I tried to soothe but was unsuccessful at getting her back to sleep (She should be napping for at least an hour).

Nap 2: began beautifully as well.  This time, she slept for 48 minutes before waking. She ended up completely refusing to take naps 2 & 3.

I really felt defeated at the end of day 4.  I started wondering if I should have really done this or if I was doing the right thing.  I wondered if this was ever going to work.  I received some pep talks from some friends and decided to continue.  I later learned that days 2-4 tend to be the worst.

Day 5: 
Erin took a bit to settle for the first 2 naps.  She protested a bit and then woke up early. I was successful at getting her back to sleep!  This was also Ping's first day at the new routine.  He was really good about it! The third nap, Erin wouldn't drop the paci like she usually does, so I put her in the crib, paci still in mouth (if she doesn't give it back in the chair she usually loses it in the crib transfer).  I just left it and decided if it fell out and she was crying, I'd take it away then.  No peep until I woke her up!

Day 6:
This day, I was nervous about...Sunday...church.  Erin woke early from her first nap again, and wouldn't go back down.  So, we got her ready for church.  I entered the nursery, fed her, and gave her to one of the staff around her nap time.  I told her she is supposed to nap now, and the woman asked me how I usually get her to nap.  So wonderful when they are willing to work with you!! I told her our system and she agreed to do it.  I kept second guessing myself while listening to the sermon.  I should have just let her stay up and then did a late nap when we got home....I just pictured everything going off course.  Service ended, we enter the nursery and who is sleeping in the crib!?!  Erin!!  The staff told me she went down easy!  Awesome!  Bummer: She woke up by a car horn on the street on our way home.  Ping was able to get her back down for another hour though when we arrived home.  Third nap: Erin fell asleep at her bottle so Ping just put her down.  Awesome day!

Day7:
Whew!  We made it through a week!  I thought this day would NEVER come!  Erin protested her first two naps, but not that much, I just had to do one reassurance and that was it!  Her third nap she went down beautifully with no protest at all, just sucking away at her hands!

Today is Day 8:
So far Erin has been AWESOME!  Well, she woke up an hour early. :(  We also discovered diaper rash.  She was really tired after her bottle (I gave it to her early) so I put her down for her first nap and decided to give her 3 hours if she wanted it.  She did.  Nap 2, no protest either!  She also wouldn't give me the paci back.  Let's hoping that our little girl is this sweet and sleep training is deemed successful!

Still loving those G's!

Erin has officially moved up to the medium size Gdiapers!  The mediums are for babies that are 13-24 pounds.  What's great about moving into the mediums is that you're pretty much golden in terms of the plastic liners and cloth/flushable inserts from here on out because they fit mediums, large and the new extra large gpants!  I decided to use some resources and get as many used medium gdiapers as possible.  It was hard to resist the Gsale that is going on right now (3 solid color gdiapers for $39!).  I did buy into it once.  I was able to get the rest of my stash gently used or used, but in excellent used condition.  They are still working great and we have no leaks thus far!!  I am very pleased!  We love our G's!

Ferberizing.....

When Erin was born, many people suggested the book, Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child by Dr. Marc Weissbluth.  He is a world renowned pediatrician in the Chicago area (wish he was in NYC) who specializes in sleep disorders in children.  I ordered the book on Amazon along with a few others: Baby Whisperer, and Baby Sleep Guide.  Out of the three, I like Weissbluth the best.  It was the hardest of the three to read, but made the best sense to me.  Weissbluth tells you that you can begin sleep training and putting your child on a schedule at around 6 weeks of age at the earliest.  This is only to be done when you are DESPERATE and going back to work.  Ping and I weren't desperate at that point and decided to wait until Erin was 3-4 months to sleep train her.  Weissbluth says that for the common fussy baby, the best time to sleep train and nap train is between 12-16 weeks of age. The first 3 months of a babies life, many parents are sleep deprived but also find their babies VERY portable.  They sleep in the stroller, the car seat, while at the grocery store, through a fire drill and other loud obnoxious things.  But, somewhere around 3 months, that same Mom is at the grocery store looking for the best deal on pasta sauce and suddenly looks into the car seat (that takes up more room in her cart than the food does) and is surprised to see that their child is NOT sleeping!  Rather, she is laughing and cooing at the stupid ad on the cart's seat!  For me, the revelation took place while Erin and I were out for our morning run.  Erin was pretty good at sleeping through this and for an additional hour when we got home.  This made for perfect timing for me to shower and enjoy some time to myself before she woke.  That Thursday morning, as I finished a running interval, I heard a sound, "OOOOOHHHHH!!!" I looked down and saw Erin enjoying the trees passing by above her!  Now, Erin has woken up a few times before this and then has dozed back off a minute or two later.  But today was life changing....she did NOT go back to sleep!  CRAP! What do I do now?  I got home, and found myself at a crossroads: do I put her in her crib and try to soothe her back to sleep or do I put her in her bouncer to play while I shower.  At the second "agoo" and third smile, I decided to put her in her bouncer.  I didn't have time to soothe her (who knows how long that will take!) and get out the door with a shower in the next 40 minutes!

Just as I turn the shower off, I hear Miss "fussy pants" emerge.  Oh geez.  Here we go.  I had NO time to deal with this.  We had to meet my counselor in 30 minutes!  I put her on the bed under the playmat to entertain her, the hairdryer scared her.  I kept talking to her to calm her...not working.  I finally  got her in the car seat to go.  Of course, she fell asleep in there, but only for 20 minutes before I had to feed her!  I noticed that our morning walks/runs were not going to happen again for a while a few days later when the same thing was happening each day.  That's when I decided to throw in the towel and.....

FERBERIZE HER!

Dr. Ferber is also known for his sleep training methods.  He, however, advises not to do it before 4 months.  But my plan, I have to try it now.  Nothing else will soothe Erin to sleep for a quality nap anymore, I have to let her CRY IT OUT a little.

Dr. Ferber's method is a "graduated extinction" method of cry it out. (Dr. Weissbluth outlines this method in his book as well) This means that you go into the room at set intervals to soothe the baby until they fall asleep during one of those intervals.  The intervals gradually get longer and longer each time.  The intervals can go as follows: 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes.  For naps, the longest interval should be 20 minutes and the nap should be considered a failure at the one hour mark from putting them down.  For Bed time, as long as it takes or what you are comfortable with.

Tuesday, 1 day shy of Erin's 3 month birthday (Happy 3 months, Erin!), I took the plunge.  Here is my plan:  Naptime routine will go as follows:  go in room, change diaper, turn on sound machine, sit in rocker and read a book, rock a few minutes more (get that cuddle time in) with her pacifier until she is drowsy, then lay Erin in the crib with her blankie.  I will then sit with her for 5 minutes with her pacifier (it soothes her, yet she can't keep the stupid thing in her mouth yet), then leave the room.  Nap time routine totals about 10 minutes.  If Erin begins to cry, I will set the clock for 5 minutes.  If she is still crying at that 5 minute mark, I will go in and soothe her WITHOUT picking her up for ONE minute.  Erin lasted 20 minutes before she started crying.  After 5 minutes, I went in, gave her a kiss on the cheek, gently told her that it was nap time, and I rubbed her belly while "Shhhhing" for 1 minute.  I then quietly left the room.  She began dozing off at the end of the minute.  Naps 2 and 3 yesterday went without any crying!

Yesterday, Ferberizing day 2:
Nap 1: routine done, 20 minutes later, began crying, after 5 minutes, I went in and soothed, the moment I closed the door, she began crying again.  Because Erin is a little on the young side, I decided the next interval would be 7 instead of 10 minutes.  At the 5 minute mark of that interval, she stopped crying and fell asleep. Little worse than yesterday, but still pretty good.

Nap 2: routine done, started protesting  16 minutes later, she began crying 4 minutes after that.  I set my timer for 7 minutes.  I went in after 7 minutes, soothed 1 minute and left.  Crying started again the moment I left the room, I set my timer for 10 minutes, went in and soothed 1 minute, crying started again when I left the room, I set my timer for 15 minutes.  She stopped crying after 5 minutes.

Nap 3: routine done, started crying after 15 minutes, went in at 5, minutes, 10, minutes, 15 minutes.  At the 15 minute interval, I gave her the pacifier back since she was so worked up that just me rubbing her belly was not calming her.  She actually kept the thing in her mouth at the end of a minute so I just left it there.  She fell asleep, but only got 15 minutes in before I had to get her up at 5:30 to preserve her bedtime at 7:30.

Today, nap training day 3:
Seemed to be worse than yesterday a bit.

Nap 1: complete fail.  Routine done, started crying after 10 minutes, waited 5, 7 and 10 minutes.  After the 10 minute mark I had to get her up because we needed to leave to see my counselor.  She dozed on and off in the carseat for 1.5 hours.  I don't consider that a good nap.

Nap 2: Complete fail.  This could have been a success.  After I finished with my counselor, we went to Starbuck's for Erin and I to eat.  Erin was quite gassy and there was no changing table there, so I decided I would change when we got home.  She smelled like she pooped.  We left at noon, giving us an hour to get home before nap 2 began.  12:30, she falls asleep in the car.  DANG IT!  This was really bad...that diaper change was going to wake her up!  But I didn't want her to sit in her crap and get a diaper rash!  I tried the best I could to change her without stimulating her too much, but no dice.  I opened the diaper and was shocked to see NO POOP!  AH man!  I could have completely avoided this!!!  So, routine done, started crying the moment I left the room.  waited 5, 7, 10, 15 minutes and nap failed.  I got her up to play a little and try again within the hour.  Well, that hour would be up at the time her next feeding was due, so I fed her early...she is falling asleep at the bottle, or course!  By the end of the bottle, she's totally awake though, and now it is usually the time for nap 3.

Nap 3: I begin our routine again.  This time, I cut out the book because I know she's just so overtired!  I just rocked her for longer with the pacifier until she was VERY drowsy.  Then I laid her in her crib at while point she wakes up.  I offered the pacifier again, but she wouldn't open her mouth for it and she started to drift off again.  I stayed one minute to make sure she was really drifting off, then quietly left the room. Over a course of 20 minutes I heard two short wimpers and then nothing.  She's still sleeping I hope. 

They say you should start sleep training with the nights first and then once the nights are mastered, to move on to naps.  Erin has never had a problem with her night sleep (she's been sleeping through the night for 4 weeks now) so this is why I started nap training.  Experts also say that nap training is MUCH harder than night time training and can take longer to get down.  It's starting to get harder for me to hear her cry, but I have to do it...NOTHING else will soothe her anymore!  I hope Erin learns quick, but for now, I'm sticking to my guns.

Shrieks, Squeals, Screams, and Cuteness

These cute eyes right here were the same eyes that were wide open yesterday, soaking up all the details of the exam room. Those eyes studied Dr. Grijnstein's (pronounces Greensteen) face when he walked in the room and touched her, poked her and prodded her. She was the perfect patient. So cute and cuddly. She really studied his face up close when he fed her the oral vaccine. No matter how much of it didn't get into her mouth, as she sat on Mommy's lap, she was as cute as can be. Then, the horror happened......the left thigh was penetrated by a long sharp needle. The moment it left her leg was the moment my heart broke. Now, I have seen my nephew at 6 months hit his head on a toy and start to cry like this. I have never seen Erin cry like this until that moment. It's the cry that breaks you because you know your child is really in pain. It's the cry that speaks the end of the world to them and nothing will be better again! As I watched her face turn a deep maroon color, her mouth opened as wide as possible, all I could do was hug her and remind her to breathe....because at that moment, to you, it seems like they aren't going to take another breath. And when she finally did, it was the loudest, most high pitched, ear piercing scream I had ever heard come out of her mouth. I did not think that such a little person was capable of such a scream....I had never heard it before. Then came the right thigh. Before the doctor even put the needle in, she began screaming upon the slightest touch! After 10 minutes, some rocking and a good suck on the pacifier, she felt safe and secure in her car seat. The next 3 and a half hours were bliss for me and Erin. She had a bottle when we got home. I gave her some Tylenol upon doctors orders and took a nice nap in her bouncy seat while I got things done. As I looked at her, she seemed so peaceful and calm, I then wanted to cuddle with her. I felt so bad for what she endured a few hours earlier, I just wanted to hold her in my arms. We spent an hour cuddling and after Ping arrived home from work, I passed her off to him so he could greet her.  Then the horror started... all she did was shriek and scream. Erin would scream that ear piercing scream the moment one of us would take her off our chest and pass her to the other. We had to hold her close in order for her to not wail and save our ear drums. By the time 8pm rolled around, Ping started to draw the water for her bath. I called my sister on the verge of tears wondering if we would have a baby glued to our chests all night long. She reassured me one night wasn't going to break the nice habit she has of sleeping in her crib. I was skeptical, but said okay and hung up the phone. As we set Erin in her bath, the fussiness calmed down a bit. She normally loves her bath and is just like Ping in that she likes her water on the warmer side. Warmer meaning that if any seasoned caregivers tested it, they'd say it was too hot for a baby. But for Erin, anything colder than that, she hates.  After the bath, we put her jammies on and I read her a book while Ping prepared her bottle. Erin drank from the bottle as she drifted off to sleep. I burped her, cuddled her on my shoulder for a bit and gently laid her in her crib. This was the moment of truth, I thought. She would either scream or go right to sleep as usual. Erin chose the latter! We are so blessed to have such a beautiful girl. So normally easy going, that I think we can thank our lucky stars that only this type of screaming seems to come out when she gets her shots....so far.

My First Day Back

Can someone please cut me a slice of humble pie?  This morning marked my first day back running.  I have been looking forward to this date for the past 10 months or so.  Last week, I prepared myself by thinking about how I was going to ease back into running.  After I lost Rachel, I just got out there and did what I had to do to make myself feel better.  Too much too soon led to an injury.  I didn't want to repeat that experience again this time around.  I know a lot of runners who have used the Couch to 5K training plan to ease back into running after a long hiatus, so I decided now would be my chance to try this plan out.  I found it online and printed off a copy.  "Yes!  I'm so excited!" I told myself.  I then looked at the calendar and marked a week from then that I would start running again.  The plan calls for running 3 days a week for 9 weeks with a slow build up to running continuously for 30 minutes or 3.1 miles.  I counted the 9 weeks and saw my end date: July 23.  "Hmmm...I wonder if there is a 5K near by that is on that date?"  I go to my local and not so local running club pages and search through their events.  "Aha!  July 23rd, Long Beach, NY...5K!"  I decided to run Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.  I discussed my plan with Ping:  "I'll feed Erin that last early morning feed (usually around 5am) and then run after.  That way I will be done before you head off to work. Then Saturday mornings, you will be here too. Also, there happens to be a 5K race at the end of this, can I register?"  "That all sounds fine to me." Ping replied.  I'm so thankful to have a husband on board with this!

Okay, back to this morning.  Well, rewind a little bit.  Ping feeds Erin at 11pm, then heads to bed.  Around 3:30, I notice Erin stirring and telling us she's ready to eat again.  (I was a bit shocked as this is the longest she's gone at night without eating, ever!) Ping was supposed to get this one.  But I realized that I would be feeding Erin at 6:30am, thus not allowing me to run!  He told me he would take the 6am feed if I did this and I can still run.  What a sweetheart!  I really love this man!

Okay, now, really back to this morning.  6am, alarm goes off.  I roll out of bed (with a split second guess of whether I should go or not), get on my new running clothes (yes new, because I don't yet fit into my old ones!), lace up my shoes, blow off the dust and power up my Garmin 205 and head out the door.

First part: brisk 5 minute walk.  No problem.  My watch beeps to tell me to move onto the the next thing:  run/jog for 60 seconds....I then move into a running pace, or what I thought I remembered running to be!  The first 10 steps were more of a balancing act making sure I actually don't fall flat on my face. It seemed that every one of those 10 steps I took, my feet kept hitting each other as they passed.  I'm sure to the common spectator across the street, they pegged me for a weirdo:  someone who has obviously never run before in their life, yet has this running watch that screams: "I take running seriously."

Beep...Beep...Beep....next phase: walk 90 seconds.  Whew!  That was a bit of a nightmare!  Walking is good, I can do walking.

I had 7 more rounds of that to go.  With each round of running, my body started to get a little better at it.  I'm sure I still looked like a goof though.  It's nice to know that at 6am the only people out on the street in NYC are those that are walking their dogs one last time before they stuff them back in their tiny apartment and head into the city for the next 8-12 hours.

As I reached the end of my run, I felt better...better to be back out on the road and better to be running again. Now please hand me the rest of that pie.

Everyone is asking me....

What kind of diapers are those??

They're gDiapers!!  A hybrid diaper that is really awesome!  The many colors and styles make it easy to get addicted to as well!  When I first thought about what diapers I would put on my child, the question was simple: Cloth or disposable?  I researched cloth diapers and was a little intimidated by the care and how many ways you can care for them now.  There were so many brands and styles to choose from.  Then I thought to myself, what do I want to be doing at the end of my day: washing diapers, or taking out the trash?  For two weeks, my mind was made up: take out the trash.  But I just couldn't shake the fact that it takes 200 years for one disposable diaper to biodegrade completely in a landfill.  It bothered me knowing this.  I looked at cloth again, and read more about care, felt a little more confident doing cloth diapers, but didn't like the idea of using cloth when out and about.  The cost of cloth at home and disposables while out didn't make sense to me.  Then, I discovered the hybrid diaper!  A three part diaper that allows you to do disposable OR cloth!  You have the outer "gpant" that the child wears all day.  This is the fun colorful part.  The waterproof snap in "gliner" that is the barrier to keep the mess contained.  And the insert: either disposable (biodegrades in 30 days, compostable, flushable or trashable) or cloth!  The cloth inserts are to be washed seperately just like any other cloth diaper.  While the liners and gpants can be washed with the baby's clothes. 

So what is my opinion about gDiapers so far?  Now that Erin is 3 weeks old, she is still in her "tiny g's" for newborns and I LOVE THEM!  The biodegradable liner is so absorbant, I've gone up to 3 hours without changing her and probably could have gone longer!   As Erin is approaching 7 pounds, I have found the fit around her legs to be getting snug.  Ping and I decided to try the smalls on her to see if she could fit in them...Nope, she leaked right through, so back into her tiny's she went. 

I then finally had enough cloth inserts to begin completely cloth diapering!  I was so excited!  About an hour later Erin needed a change.  Great!  cloth insert loaded in her tiny g and ready to go on her bum.  The fit was nice and I was environmentally happy.  An hour later....I noticed a leak.  Okay, maybe I didn't put her diaper on right.  With gdiapers it is important that you have the "seal" around the legs otherwise you will get leaks.  I try a second, then a third, fourth....a full day of cloth diapering and ALL of them leaked!!  Now, I was frustrated!  I posted on gdiaper's Facebook page (responses from gdiapers and other "gmoms" are pretty quick there.  That's when I found out that the tiny g's are not meant to be used with the gcloth inserts!  Bummer!  You mean I have to wait until Erin is in her small's to go full on cloth!?!  Something I was never aware of and was not posted on gdiaper's website when I did my research before buying.  My suggestion, hold off on buying the tiny g's until a) you know your baby's weight and b) if you are going to do full on gcloth from the beginning. 

As Erin gets bigger and moves into her smalls, I will let you know more about what I think about gdiapers!  But I love them thus far!

A New Member of our Family

I must confess, for most of you, I've been keeping a secret....and now I'm ready to reveal the newest member of our family: Erin Rachel Lee!

Erin was born via c-section on April 13th, 2011 at 12:50pm.  She was 5 pounds, 14 ounces at birth and 19 inches long.  We love every minute we spend with her and are so happy to finally have a child we can take home with us.

One thing everyone has been asking me lately is if I am nursing Erin.  I'm elated to say, "not anymore!"  In the beginning, I thought the two of us had hit it off quite well in this arena, but we quickly found out that we didn't and it was a long two week battle for us.  I started to have some pretty serious PPD because of our nursing experience and was on the fence about quitting a week after Erin was born.  Each time Erin would nurse of over an hour and still not be satiated was a huge upset for me.  I began to have feelings of resentment towards Erin, even though I knew none of it was her fault.  Those feelings made me feel even worse about myself because after losing Rachel, I never in a million years expected to every have an ounce of resentment towards my future children. And here I was having that feeling!  I saw a lactation consultant as a last resort.  She was highly recommended by a personal friend and also advertised in our pediatrician's office.  I left that appointment still feeling frustrated and told Ping I wasn't sure if it was worth the money.  I went home and began the next nursing session with Erin.  I tried all the techniques I learned from the consultant.  Erin nursed for over an hour and half and was still hungry!  I was at my breaking point.  Ping would have to help me take breaks to compose myself, calm down and then feel okay to try again.  90 minutes into it, I handed Erin off to Ping and said, I'm done.  I can't keep feeling this way about our daughter.  I've been so happy about my decision!  I have been able to enjoy Erin so much more, I'm sleeping better and am happier being a mom too.  Yes, maybe I didn't try hard enough, or keep practicing the techniques I learned from the lactation consultant, but in the moment during that last nursing session, I knew this was not for us.  My only concern is that Erin is healthy and thriving, and she wasn't when we were nursing.  We both weren't happy and satisfied. 

Erin is starting to open her eyes up more and look around.  Unfortunately, she likes to do this at 2:30am.  Not okay for us.  I want to go back to sleep!  If you have any tips out there to train this child to know night from day and when it is appropriate to be awake and asleep, please, let us know! For now, say hello to Erin!