Berend: 2 Months

July 19, 2018August 18, 2018 nk3304 Comments

I know I’m one of those people who doesn’t think the first month goes by very quickly with a new baby, but the second month does. I can’t believe our Little B is 2 months old already!

Age: 2 months on 15 July 2018
Weight: about 12.5 lbs (12 lbs 14 oz on 25 July)
Height: about 24″ long (24.21″ long on 25 July)
Teeth: none
Clothing Size: 3-6 months & 6 months
Diaper Size: close to size 2 in disposable and newborn in cloth
Milestones: He can roll from tummy to back, his head control has improved a lot, he give big open mouth smiles, and he “talks” to us!

Likes: Nursing, pooping, staring out windows and at high contrast patterns, smiling at his family, standing on our laps, baths

Dislikes: Waking up, having gas, being overtired, not being fed immediately, his car seat

Sleeping: Berend is still sleeping swaddled in a bassinet in our room (or in the living room during the day). He usually takes a couple of good naps (about 2 hours) and several catnaps during the day. At night, bedtime is usually 10pm at the latest and sometimes as early as 8:30. He is still up every 2-3 hours until around 5am. That’s when he starts working on gas/poop and is too restless to sleep. I usually lay him on the bed to bicycle his legs or jiggle him back to sleep in between toots. Once he gets all of that out of his system, he usually goes back to sleep for a couple of hours. In a 24 hour period, he’s averaging about 16 hours of sleep a day.

Eating: Berend seems to be eating well based on weight gain. He normally nurses a very short amount of time (5 minutes or less) during the day. I wish he would nurse for longer since he still is eating every 1.5-2 hours unless he’s napping. At night he tends to nurse for longer because he’s calmer and sleepy. He’s been cluster feeding a bit in the evenings, although not to the extent that Gerrit did!

Mommy Update: I’m doing much better this month! But I can definitely feel this sense of hopelessness when I first wake up in the morning after a rough night. Just goes to show how much sleep deprivation can affect you. Normally I feel like myself again though. I feel much calmer and more patient, which definitely helps me get through my days. Andrew has commented more than once that I seem much happier with Berend at this stage of infancy than I did when Gerrit was this age, so I think I’m bouncing back more quickly emotionally this time. I believe a good part of this comes from knowing how quickly it goes by this time around too.

One thing I feel like I should mention since people probably think it’s a bit taboo to talk about: gender disappointment. I wouldn’t even say disappointment in my case, I guess. I had a gut feeling that Berend was a boy throughout my pregnancy, but a big part of me hoped I was having a girl, knowing this was our last baby. While I’m thrilled to have another little boy, I did go through what I would consider a “mourning” period for the daughter I’ll never have. I had and still have a great relationship with my own mom, and I really wanted to experience that with a daughter of my own. But Andrew pointed out that I could still have a close relationship with my sons as well, and that’s so true. Once I came to terms with that, combined with my depression and anxiety symptoms decreasing, I started feeling more connected to Berend. I’m excited to see what kind of kid Berend becomes and what things we’ll bond over.

This month I also got a little braver. We went out to the 4th of July festival on base as a family, despite me having anxiety about Berend being fussy. I also went out to lunch with a friend with the boys (without Andrew), followed by a trip to Walmart by myself with the boys. Berend did better than I thought he would for all of those outings, minus the car rides. He is not a fan of the car seat!

I lost a few more pounds, so I’m just a little under my pre-pregnancy weight. I’m hoping to stay at this weight until I decide to start working on losing weight again later this year. I definitely haven’t been eating great, resorting to quick meals most of the time. I know I’ll feel better once I start cooking healthier meals again.

Memorable Events: Berend’s 2nd month was pretty low-key. It was very hot, so he and I really didn’t get outside very much. It was way too hot and humid for him to tolerate being in the Moby wrap. He did spend some time out on the blanket a few days though!

Probably not super exciting for Berend, but he started wearing cloth diapers every day this month! I had a hard time getting into it at first, because he was so small, and I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing. But as I started feeling less overwhelmed, I decided to get back into using cloth during the day.

Berend celebrated his first Father’s Day with Andrew! He didn’t give Dada anything this year (besides his presence haha) but Gerrit made him a cute card.

Another first holiday for Berend was 4th of July! We didn’t do anything on the 4th because it was very hot, and we weren’t going to stay out late enough for fireworks anyway. But I still took the opportunity to dress my boys in coordinating outfits!

Gerrit wasn’t ready, but Berend is smiling!

He also went to his first festival: Liberty Fest, the 4th of July event Little Rock AFB put on the weekend after Independence Day. He slept through the entire thing, but Gerrit had a lot of fun!

And Berend’s July photo of the month:

And a cute brother picture, because Gerrit insisted:

We love seeing Berend being more aware, especially when he gives us those big open-mouth smiles! We can’t wait to see his personality continue to develop next month. We love you, little bear!

Baby Update · Parenting

Berend: 1 Month

June 18, 2018August 18, 2018 nk330Leave a comment

We survived the first month with two kids! I said it last time, and I’ll say it again: that first month is so long in some ways. I struggled with postpartum depression and anxiety again, and that just makes the days drag. Thankfully, Andrew had two weeks off of work, and my mom was here to help. I don’t know how I would have parented a 3-year-old and a newborn without them.

Age: 1 month on 15 June 2018
Weight: 10 lbs 12 oz
Height: 22.5″
Teeth: none
Clothing Size: 0-3 month and some 3 month
Diaper Size: size 1 in disposable and newborn cloth diapers
Milestones: He can roll from his back to his side, and he can hold his head up during tummy time for a few seconds.

Likes: sleeping, nursing, watching Gerrit, being bounced on the birthing ball, baths (usually)

Dislikes: being overtired, gas, pooping, burping, the car seat (unless he’s asleep), the Moby wrap (unless he’s asleep)

Sleeping: Berend slept through most of his first month! He has done pretty well with sleeping swaddled in the bassinet for naps and at night, but he wakes to eat pretty regularly day and night (every 1.5-2 hours usually). I think the longest stretch of sleep we’ve ever gotten is 3 hours, and it’s definitely not a regular thing.

Berend is a very noisy sleeper. He grunts and squeaks and groans while he tries to poop or pass gas and sometimes even cries out in his sleep. Even after getting a white noise machine to help cover some of his sounds, it’s next to impossible to sleep through them. I have a hard time knowing if he’s waking up or just making noises in his sleep. My mom even said that he’s the noisiest baby she’s ever known!

Even though Berend doesn’t sleep long stretches yet, he does sleep quite a bit. He usually takes 1-2 hour naps throughout the day in the bassinet, which allows me to do things with Gerrit and get things done around the house (like cook dinner!). He also goes back down pretty quickly and easily at night after feedings. Sometimes it’s hard to get him to bed at night, and he does still have a late bedtime (between 10 and 11 usually), but I really can’t complain too much about his sleep so far.

Eating: Berend had no trouble latching in the hospital and stayed attached to my boob for a lot of his stay in the hospital. He continued to nurse well at home, although I had to wake him to eat every 2 hours for that first week. We only really struggled when my milk came in: I got very engorged and he struggled to latch, especially on the left side. Sometimes I had to skip the left side when trying to nurse and just nurse off the right side. Then I’d pump off an ounce or so from the left side and use cold washcloths to try to reduce the swelling. Thankfully my milk regulated within a week, so we went back to nursing one breast per feeding. I’ve done some very minor block feeding: if Berend isn’t taking a full feed, I stay on one breast for an hour before switching.

By the end of the first month, Berend was nursing well (and gaining well… 4 lbs in one month!), and I wasn’t having to pump at all. He has not done any major cluster feeding at all. It seems like when he goes through growth spurts, he just lengthens his nursing sessions instead of increasing how often he wants to nurse. I’m hoping that continues, because I remember feeling like I was stuck on the couch for hours when Gerrit went through growth spurts!

Mommy Update: I had a hard time in the first few weeks postpartum again. The first few days home from the hospital, I would say it was more of the “baby blues”: I would get emotional over little things. I went to get Gerrit’s pajamas and nighttime diaper ready while he was in the bath, and I started crying comparing the difference between his size 5 diaper and Berend’s newborn diaper. I got very emotional about missing out on an event at the children’s museum that we were going to go to as a family too.

But when the anxiety started coming on heavy, I knew I was moving into PPD/PPA territory again. I was having a hard time sleeping, I wasn’t eating much, and I felt intense anxiety all day. My hands and feet felt tingly all day long from anxiety, and I felt very disconnected from everything. I was irritable with Gerrit, everything seemed overwhelming, and I just wanted to run away and cry. When I woke up, I was almost shaking with anxiety about getting through the day. I felt anxious when I went to bed, worrying about how soon it would be before I had to get up with Berend. I was exhausted but could hardly sleep. The hardest thing was that I felt anxiety with Berend in the room with me, but I felt worse anxiety when I left him in the living room with Andrew or my mom to try to get uninterrupted sleep. I would just lay there, feeling my hands and feet tingle and my heart racing. It was pretty miserable.

I made an appointment with my PCM only a week after I had Berend. I knew I wasn’t going to feel any better if I couldn’t even calm down enough to sleep. We started increasing my medication, but I really didn’t feel a difference. I wanted to just go back to my pre-pregnancy dosage again. Once I was at my regular dose for a couple of weeks, the physical symptoms of anxiety started to subside. I was finally able to sleep! I started to feel like I could interact with Gerrit again. I felt affectionate toward Berend instead of just going through the motions of caring for him. I felt like myself again.

Physically, my body recovered quickly from this pregnancy. I was at my pre-pregnancy weight and back in non-maternity clothes the day Berend turned 2 weeks old. I was surprised by how much thinner my legs looked after I got home from the hospital! I didn’t feel like I had gotten that much bigger during pregnancy, but once the weight started coming off, I noticed my skin felt loose all over. Besides the cramping that came with the first couple of days postpartum, I really had no pain. I was able to just take Ibuprofen occasionally and didn’t even fill my prescription for stronger pain killers. Andrew even commented that it’s interesting how well my body handles recovering from pregnancy whereas my brain really struggles.

Memorable Events: Despite it being a difficult month, I made sure to take quite a few photos to remember our little guy as a newborn. I remembered how quickly Gerrit had grown and changed as a baby, and I knew Berend would change fast too.

Our hospital stay was brief, but it was way more relaxed than when we were in the hospital with Gerrit! We weren’t so anxious this time around and definitely just enjoyed our snuggles with our newest little boy. Andrew made sure to get in some skin-to-skin time with Berend as well as plenty of extra cuddles.

We came home to a super cute homemade sign from my mom and Gerrit:

Gerrit gave Berend a stuffed giraffe as a welcome present:

Gerrit and Berend in unintentional matching crab pajamas:

I’m so glad my mom got a full month with Berend! She was so helpful to all of us, and I know she loved all the newborn snuggles.

Berend’s first real bath:

Berend’s first cloth diaper (probably not put on very well haha):

Berend got to meet his Papa as well! My dad drove down to visit for a weekend, and Gerrit LOVED having him here!

It was quite a month! Highs and lows, lots of diapers, nursing around the clock, and adjusting to being a family of four. We’ve definitely had some growing pains, but we’re settling into our new normal.

A couple more from our 1 month photo shoot:

Berend, we are so happy you are a part of our family! We’re excited to watch your personality develop and to see you learn & grow. I know Gerrit can’t wait until you two can play together. We love you, little bear!

Daily living · Parenting

Weaning the “Extended” Breastfeeder

March 18, 2018 nk3301 Comment

With a little extra free time being in TLF right now, I’ve been going through some old drafts that didn’t get published when I started working on them! Here’s one that I started in early December:

Well, we’re done. After over three years of breastfeeding, I have packed up my nursing tops for the time being. As much as I kept wanting Gerrit to self-wean, the end was bittersweet.

I’m not going to recap our nursing journey too much, except to say that we had a rough start, Gerrit was never predictable and never followed any type of schedule, and after all that he surprised me by starting to want to nurse all the time a few months before his first birthday. I was pleasantly surprised when he started nursing better, and thought maybe we’d actually make it to two years (the recommendation by WHO).

Well, we definitely made it to two years! I kept hoping that sometime after he turned two, he would start to self-wean. Not a chance haha! I ended up cutting out the majority of his night nursing shortly after his 2nd birthday, but I didn’t push any other weaning until I got pregnant this fall.

I’ll be honest, part of the reason I wanted to get pregnant was to give me a good reason to wean Gerrit. I figured being pregnant would dry up my supply at some point, and I knew I definitely did not want to tandem nurse. Well, it worked! Between my supply drying up and the pain that started accompanying Gerrit’s latch, I knew we needed to wean. Fast.

The most painful nursing session for me was the first of the day. I usually would let Gerrit come to bed with me around 5 or 6 in the morning, and he would nurse/snuggle until he was ready to get up for the day. Sometimes it was 30 minutes, sometimes it was 2 hours. As my first trimester progressed, that long nursing session became increasingly painful. I got to the point where I couldn’t even sleep through it, so it was clear that it had to stop. I can’t remember when exactly I cut this session out, but it was shortly before Gerrit turned 3, so I’ll say mid-October. I told him he could still come to bed and snuggle with me, but no more boo-boo (nursing). He was mad about it, but he had been telling me that there was no more milk left, so he didn’t fight me too much on it. He probably only came to bed with me a couple more days after that to snuggle before he decided he’d rather just stay in his own bed. We had some early mornings for awhile there, but he quickly got used to going straight to eating breakfast in the morning instead of nursing.

The next nursing sessions to go were the daytime ones. These had been decreasing some days anyway, but it seemed like when I cut out that early morning session, it set the tone for the day. Gerrit basically stopped asking to nurse at all during the daytime! It helped that my parents were visiting, since they were a good distraction, but I was really surprised by how easy it was to stop the daytime nursing.

Last to go, and the one I figured would be the hardest, was the bedtime nursing session. I think the thing that helped the most with weaning off of this one was talking about it with Gerrit. We talked about how my milk was going away because he was a big boy now. I really didn’t want to bring the pregnancy into it, because I didn’t think it was a good idea for him to think the baby was “taking away” his milk. I also told him that he had his water cup in case he got thirsty. We would still rock together in the glider before bed, and I would still sing him a bedtime song, because I thought keeping things as similar to what he’s always known was important. It got to the point where Gerrit would nurse for awhile, then stop and tell me, “Hm, no more milk.” Then we’d either keep rocking together or he’d ask me to put him in his bed and just rub his back.

I think I’ll always remember the last time I nursed Gerrit, because it was the day before Thanksgiving. We had friends over for Thanksgiving dinner, so he stayed up a bit later than normal. He was so tired when we finally got him ready for bed! And that was the first night that he didn’t ask to nurse at all. I was so shocked, but I didn’t say a word… just rocked him to sleep. The next night, he did ask to nurse, but I reminded him that he hadn’t nursed the night before, and he just said, “Oh, okay.” And that was that.

Once Gerrit was done nursing, he did still ask for boo-boo once in awhile. I would tell him that my milk was all gone now, and he pretty much just accepted that answer. We gave him some “big brother” books for Christmas, and while reading those he realized that I was going to be breastfeeding his baby brother or sister. So that’s when I told him that I still didn’t have milk, but that when the baby was born, I would make milk just for him/her. He occasionally suggested that they could share: “One boo-boo for the baby, and one for me!” But I told him that the baby would need all the milk to get big and strong so they could play together.

As for me? It’s hard to say how weaning affected me physically. I feel like the symptoms that can come with weaning are also symptoms of pregnancy, so I’m not sure how much they overlapped! I didn’t really have any uncomfortable physical symptoms, since I really had pretty much just dried up. Plus it was very gradual anyway. I had nausea and headaches, but I attributed that to pregnancy without realizing it could also be from weaning. Emotionally it was tough. I definitely went through a depressed phase, although I didn’t really realize it until later. It felt like Gerrit didn’t need me the same way anymore. I felt like I wasn’t as much of a mother as I had been. I didn’t realize what a difference it would make to not nurse my child anymore. I was glad to be done: my breasts and nipples were so sensitive at that point. But I just wanted him to need me that way again. I missed the snuggles. I missed that special bond.

And now it’s 4 months later! I feel like so much has happened in those 4 months: Gerrit potty-trained himself, he started becoming more social, and he is now out of his crib. I feel like he has just grown up so much since turning 3. I have no idea if weaning played a part in all the changes, but it’s been emotional for me to see him leave toddlerhood behind. I’m amazed at the little boy he’s becoming, and the shift I’ve felt had a bigger effect on me than I thought it would.

I always knew I wanted to breastfeed. I never knew how hard it could be. As we left infancy and moved into the toddler stage, we encountered new challenges. I had fewer and fewer friends to talk with about nursing as more and more weaned their little ones. There were days I hated it, and there were days I loved it. All in all, I would definitely say I loved breastfeeding my son. There were so many tears, smiles, hurdles, and snuggles. I will always appreciate being able to nurse Gerrit as long as I did, and I will savor all those sweet memories we made.