4 month wakeful

My followers from the bump know what I am talking about. We've all heard about it. We've all dreaded it. I am experiencing it. Sorry to say ladies but it is just as bad as they make it seem. Kylie was doing great as far as sleeping goes. She would go to bed around 8:30 and sleep till 4 or 5. Most of the time when she would wake up she wouldn't even need to eat anymore. I'd just give her the paci and she would go right back to sleep until 7 or 8 in the morning. I was SURE it would be any day now that she would just sleep the whole night one night. Then on Sunday night I put her to bed as usual and around 2 she was up. And I mean WIDE AWAKE. I gave her the paci and got her back to sleep and maybe 20 min later, wide awake again. We did this dance a few more times when I finally said ok it's super early but she must be hungry. She took about 3 oz and went to sleep. Half an hour later she's up again! I got her back to sleep a few more times and each time she woke up she was getting crankier and crankier obviousally because she must have been getting so tired. I figured she must have still been hungry so I fed her again. She took 4 oz and went back to sleep. I thought for sure this was the end of it and went back to sleep. She lasted an hour and this time when she woke up she was screaming bloody murder. I picked her up, changed her, checked to make sure her clothes weren't hurting her, checked for fever, everything seemed fine. I gave her the paci and she sucked on it like her life depended on it and when she realized there was no milk coming out, it went flying across the room. Seriously she's hungry again? I didn't know what else to do so I fed her again and finally at 5:30am she fell asleep for the rest of the night! I don't know if it is teething or maybe formula is just not enough to keep her satisfied or what but wow that was awful. The next couple of nights were not as bad though I did have to use Tylenol some nights and that really seemed to help her and other nights she still woke up way more often than usual. I really wanted to wait a little while longer, but we have decided that we are going to start cereal and see if that helps because we are both working and literally can't function any longer on zero hours of sleep! Four month wakeful = HELL!!!

Baby on the Move

We have a roller! Kylie rolled over from front to back today for the first time Saturday. I was doing tummy time with her on the couch and she almost scared the crap out of me when she rolled halfway over. Of course I had my arm there but she had never made it that far so I wasn't expecting it. Then a minute later she rolled all the way over towards the back of the couch. I thought well maybe the couch leans back so she kinda just went halfway again and gravity pulled her the rest of the way. So I put her on the rug in her room and almost immediately over she went! I flipped her back over and before I could get the camera ready to take a video, over she went again. I couldn't believe it. I did manage to get 2 videos of her, both in barely enough time to capture the moment. I can't help but laugh because rolls over so quickly that I think it takes her a minute to figure out what happened and she gets surprised and kinda scares herself. I'm such a proud mommy today!

Flip Video

Jason and I have been thinking about buying one of these cool new video cameras. They are small, lightweight, have built in memory, and record in HD. We really wanted to get a camcorder to capture the great moments we are having with Kylie as she is growing up. I found a great blog featuring a contest to win this awesome camera at sisterlysavings.net! I have entered it and I'm crossing my fingers hoping that we get lucky!!

3 Months

Kylie is now 3 months old and had a major growth spurt during her second month. She is now 13lbs 10oz and 25 and a quarter inches long! She grew 3 inches and gained about a pound and a half last month. She is getting soooo big! She is now in size 2 diapers and we will be phasing out her 0-3 month clothes.

We finally decided to switch pediatricians and I am so glad we did. The new doctor is so patient, taking time to answer all of our questions, and made us feel confident we are doing a great job with our little girl. The office was clean andthe staff was friendly and helpful. I really wish we would have done this a lot sooner!

Kylie is doing great. She consistently sleeps about 7 hours a night. She slept through the whole night for the first time this week, from about 9-6. Of course I woke up at 2 and at 5 to check on her so I didn't get to take advantage of the full night's sleep and she hasn't done it again since. I think she decided to do it once to show me that she can, she just doesn't want to!

Last week was my first week back at work. The first day was hard but we made it. I'm working mostly evenings since Jason works early mornings and Kylie is in bed by the time I get home. I miss her but I feel lucky to have the mornings and early afternoons to spend time with her when she is up and wanting to play. Jason is really getting the hang of taking care of her for so many hours at a time and I think finally realizes that I don't get to just lay around and watch tv all day long. I am also very grateful to have family members here to help us when our schedules overlap so that we don't have to put her in day care yet.

Picture Update

I just realized I haven't posted any pictures this month. So here we go, a picture recap of Kylie's second month.

She smiles all the time

She loves to eat

She makes silly faces

She chews on her hands

She wakes up happy every day

She goes to the beach

She tries to push herself up

She goes to the pool

She likes bathtime

She grows and learns something new every day and we just can't get enough of her!

How?

I was in the waiting room at my doctor office with Kylie and a family walked in with their baby and sat by me. I told them she was almost 3 months, and they told me their baby was just 1 week old. I looked at him bundled up in his car seat, so incredibly tiny, eyes barely open, and then looked at my baby almost filling up her infant seat, smiling at me and looking all around the room and my heart almost broke because in that moment I realized I could hardly remember her ever being that small. How could this happen already? It hasn't even been three months yet! Everyone warns you that this will happen. That time goes by so fast and before you know it your baby is all grown up. I'm getting tears in my eyes just thinking about it and wishing that I could somehow slow time down so that I can have as much time with her as possible. I literally got out my phone in that waiting room and went back through all the pictures on it from when she was just born and studied them. I don't ever want to forget any of this...

Redemption

Kylie totally made it up to us. Last night she slept 11 hours and only woke up once to eat at 3:30!!! Jason said I was sleeping like a rock and I don't doubt that for once second. Now let's hope she keeps this up and she didn't just give us a little taste of something so sweet.

Three

Is the number of hours Kylie slept for last night. THREE! This better be the three month growth spurt coming early because if not I really don't know what I am doing wrong and it is getting very rediculous.

Worst Mom Ever

I earned this award today. So Kylie has been trying to laugh for a while now. Like it looks like she is laughing but nothing comes out. Well this morning I went to get her and she was all smiles as usual and then she totally giggled at me. It was just the cutest thing ever! When she did it again I got out my phone to try to take a video of her to show Jason and I dropped it. And it hit her by the mouth. And immediately her first laughs turned to tears. I felt sooooo bad. Yep. WORST.MOM.EVER!

What happened??

What the heck happened to my baby who was doing so much better with sleeping at night? We have a bedtime routine: bath, swaddle, book & bottle, sleep. And it was working. She would fall right asleep and stay that way for up to 5 or 6 hours. Lately she is falling asleep as usual but then waking up about an hour later. I go in her room and pop the paci back in her mouth and she goes right back to sleep, only for this to happen again 15 minutes later. Sometimes I have to go in there 3-4 times until she stays asleep but other times its like an hour and 10 trips later and she's still up when I finally feed her about 2 extra ounces and then she will finally sleep. So she's pretty much "wasted" those first 2 hours of sleep because the time doesn't seem to reset after all this and she doesn't sleep any longer than she would if she would have just stayed asleep from the beginning. I've tried feeding her more at bedtime, going to sleep earlier, going to sleep later, nothing seems to work though some days are better than others I just can't figure out what the trick is. I do not go into her room if she is just fussing with the hopes that she will fall back asleep but she almost never does on her own. She once slept for 7 whole hours and I totally got spoiled and thought that was a sign of good things to come.

She also does not like to take naps but that is a whole other post!!

And just like that...

...the porn star boobs are gone. It was fun while it lasted. Maybe one day we will meet again.

2 Months

My baby is 2 months old and has grown so much both physically and emotionally this past month. She now weighs in at a whopping 12 pounds 3 ounces and is 22 inches long! This formula has really put some meat on her bones! A little bit too much I am afraid, as she gained 2 pounds in 2 weeks. I was a little bit concerned that I was feeding her too much because even though she is only eating about 3.5 ounces, she wanted to eat every 2 hours or even less sometimes during the day. The doc says I need to space out her feedings a little bit more and that she should be eating about 4 ounces every 3-4 hours. This will probably be a challenge since shes used to snaking all day long now and when she is hungry she does not like to wait.

She is so alert now, she smiles all the time, and is starting to make a few little noises here and there. She looks around a lot more and seems to be more aware of her surroundings. When I put her in her swing, she actually looks at the animals going around on the mobile. She is really good at holding her head up and is starting to really try to push her head and body up during tummy time. She is starting to move all around in her crib. I put her down with her head towards the left side of her crib with her arms and legs swaddled tight, and when I go in to get her, she has usually turned at least 90 degrees with her head facing the back or even towards the back right corner, and she usually has scooted herself further towards the right side of the crib, all while staying swaddled! I don't know how she does it! She is also up to sleeping for 5 hours for the first stretch, Thank God, and then usually sleeps for another 3 hours, eats, back down about 3 more hours finally getting up for the day around 8-9.

As far as I go, I am feeling good. The engorgement has gone down somewhat though I'm still leaking a bit. How long till it dries up Nikki? My wound seems to be healing up nicely. I'm not really in any pain anymore so I'm happy about that. I also dropped about 4 of the 8 pounds I was holding onto while breastfeeding which was a nice surprise so now I have 4 pounds left to go till my lowest pre-pregnancy weight! On a bad note, only about 3 weeks left till I go back to work :(

Packing up my Pump

Thursday morning I went to the ER bright and early to have the procedure done. I was taken back into a room in the ER to wait for my turn with the surgeon. My mother in law was home with the baby so I took advantage of the alone time to take a little nap. The surgeon came in a gave me a quick overview of how things were going to go, He said they would put me under general anesthesia because it would be very painful under just a local. There would be a small incision and then he would drain out the puss or whatever else was in there. The wound would then be packed allowing it to heal from the inside out. The whole thing would take about 10 minutes. He also said I would have to quit breastfeeding because it would be possible for milk to come out the hole. I was emotionally prepared for this but not physically as I was going to have to stop cold turkey. Thet took me to the OR around noon, and when I woke up I was in a little bit of pain but already felt relief from the abscess being removed. I went home a couple hours later.

That night was rough. My boobs got rediculously engorged and were huge and hard as rocks. I think the pain from the engrgement was probably worse than the pain from the surgery. I tried to hand express just a little bit of milk every couple of hours to try to soften them up a little, and I also had some pain meds which helped a little bit. Friday morning I had a follow up visit with the surgeon and he said everything looked great. He showed Jason the process of packing and unpacking the wound because he is going to be the one taking care of me. I bought some Sudafed which in theory is supposed to help dry up my milk, and a head of cabbage which is also supposed to help. Last night Jason unpacked me so I could take a shower and that was the first time I actually looked at it and let me tell you, its pretty gross. Its about a one inch incision, but the cavity is about 2 inches deep and is hollow. Well it was until it started filling up with breastmilk. GROSS!

Today I feel a little bit better. My boobs are still engorged but are starting to feel a little bit softer and the pain is bearable. I am quite the site too see though. I have the patch over the incision, followed by a diaper to absorb the ooze, a cabbage leaf over each boob all topped with a sports bra! Hey, whatever works!

Mirena, mastitis, and more

Tuesday I had my appointment for IUD insertion and I finally decided on the mirena. I really liked the idea of hassle free birth control and no periods at the same time! The insertion process was a breeze. One big cramp as it was going in and a little bit of spotting that day and that was it. I don't feel a thing! The doctor says to expect some spotting for the first couple of months while it regulates so we shall see.

While I was there I had her look at my breast which was still plugged up despite being on antibiotics for 4 days and was getting more and more painful. She said it felt large, about the size of a golf ball, and sent me to have an ultrasound right away. The doctor at the hospital took one look at the ultrasound and said, "I could stick a needle in this and try to drain it but I don't think that will work. Rather than put you through two procedures I recommend having this surgically drained right away." I had a feeling this was going to be the outcome and to be honest I was just happy to finally get some relief soon whichever means necessary. I got a call from my doctor letting me know she had spoken to the surgeon and instructed me to go to the ER tomorrow morning and the surgeon would squeeze me in. I am a little nervous about having surgery even though it is such a minor procedure and a little mad that the first doctor I saw a week ago just brushed it off as nothing because I feel like if she would have given me antibiotics then they may have had a chance to work. But it is what it is now and at this point I just want to feel better.

Catching Up

I know, I have been a bad blogger lately. Truth is, I haven't had time to do much of anything lately.

First, I had my 6 week postpartum exam. Everything looks ok, though I am not completely healed as of yet in the spots that I tore. The doctor gave me a prescription for an estrogen cream which seems to be helping. I still have about 5-7 pounds left to lose. I bought the workout video "30 Day Shred." I have done it once. Yea, good luck getting results like that! We also spoke contraception, and I think I will be getting the mirena IUD. It is good for up to 5 years, you can have it removed anytime when you are ready to get pregnant again, and best of all you usually have no periods while on it! I have not missed Aunt Flo since she has been away. I will go back in 2 weeks too have it placed and by then I should be completely healed.

Kylie had her first trip to the beach! Jason's uncle got married on Ft. Lauderdale beach and some of his family would be in town so we decided to get a hotel down on the beach and spend a few days on a staycation. We had some vouchers from hotels.com that we needed to use so we thought this would be the perfect opportunity. Everyone was staying in Lauderdale by the Sea, so we expected the hotel to be older, but when we got there we were in for a big surprise. We went up to our room and it reeked like smoke. The carpet seemed dirty, the tile in the bathroom was black, and the tub was peeling! I didn't want to touch anything much less sleep there. We went back downstairs and got another room. This one was much better, BUT it was missing the kitchenette and we needed the fridge for Kylie's milk. So back downstairs we went. The receptionist searched and searched for a room when finally he tried to send us back up to the first room saying they could fumigate it with air fresheners to take away the smell. Umm, no thanks, not with a 6 week old baby! We left and went to the hotel where his uncle was staying and luckily got the last room there. It was like night and day here. So clean, and best of all we were right there with everyone else. We had a great week, hanging out on the beach or at the pool during the day and going out to dinner with the family at night. I got to meet some of Jason's out of town family members that I had never met before and Kylie got to meet her second cousins, twins Avery and Alexa. By the end of the trip, I was exhausted and ready to go home. Kylie is really too young for this type of thing, but at the same time it was nice to get away and get out of the house.

Kylie smiled for the first time! Jason was able to catch a smile on camera and every time she does it, it just makes our day. She is becoming much more alert every day. But, she also starting spitting up a lot, and was extremely fussy at times. She would cry like she was in pain, sometimes for hours upon hours, and spitting up and soaking her clothes. I suspected reflux, so we went to the pediatrician and he seemed to agree with me. Since we don't know for sure, there is a process of elimination we have to go through to see if she improves. After feedings we have to keep her upright for 20-30 minutes which is a challenge especially in the middle of the night. We had to switch her formula to a thicker one made for reflux because the consistency of it makes it harder to come back up. The doctor recommended alternating between bottles of formula and breast milk so she could continue to get the benefits from the breast milk. Since then, Kylie has improved tremendously, although we had to completely cut out the breast milk for now because she just spits it up and then cries in pain after. I am continuing pumping for now with the hopes that we can slowly reintroduce breast milk mixed in with the formula and eventually switch her completely back over. I have to call the doctor back next week to let him know how she is doing and he will advise us on where to go form there. She is starting to sleep a little bit better at night too, sleeping sometimes for 4 hours straight. She weighs 10 pounds 4 ounces now, and is growing out of all her newborn clothes.

I think that brings us up to date! I only have 4 more weeks to go before I have to go back to work, and I am not really looking forward to it!