Third Month as a Mom

Happy 3-Month Birthday to CC! 

Battle of the Bottles
[9W] Boy, is it ever hard! No, not breastfeeding, that was a piece of cake for us. Bottle-feeding was absolutely difficult for us. Who said they’ll have nipple confusion? He is definitely not confused at all! We’ve started trying since he was barely 4 weeks old and following instructions (once or twice a week). He resists at times and takes it at others, but this past week  has just been a pure act of defiance! The second the silicon nipple touches his lips, he makes it abundantly clear that’s not what he’s looking for. Finally, Mommy gave up and decided to go out while the nanny works with CC to take the bottle. And there is ends, the battle of the bottles…at least for CC and nanny Mara, and sometimes Dad. With Mommy, CC still wants the fresh stuff!

[3M] CC was taking the bottle awhile ago, but at 3 months, he’s rejecting it again. Tonight, Dad suddenly feels maybe the flow is just too slow and that’s why he gets frustrated. So we tried the Size 2 nipple from LifeFactory. And he finished within minutes! Amazing. It sort of makes sense, since my letdown is always faster than average women. Babies are suppose to like using bottle nipples over Mom’s because it’s easier and less work for them, but if it’s more work, they would definitely get frustrated! Well, we will try again tomorrow with Mara. Hopefully that solves the battle of bottles!

Breastfeeding and Mastitis
[10W] Again breastfeeding itself is not hard at all. I never gotten plugged ducts nor mastitis when I was purely just nursing CC. But the minute we introduced the bottle (and therefore started pumping), all hell broke loose. Because there is no screaming demanding baby to feed, I forgot and therefore skipped a feeding/pumping. I started to get engorged while out and have no way to drain. Then plugged milk ducts. Then, the ultimate mastitis. Oh the pain of full boobs that can’t be relieved!!
And so I went on antibiotics Keflex. As a result, my body reacted to the antibiotics with 5 days of diarrhea. Okay, 5 days of diarrhea by myself is barely tolerable, 5 days of diarrhea with baby is just impossible! Not cool.

I finally recovered from the upset stomach, and then plugged ducts came back few times. Sigh, you just can’t win!



Holidays
[11W] Don’t get me wrong, I love the holiday season! But it is also the hardest time for baby who is trying to establish his routine, and the baby’s mom. With all the parties and celebration, we tend to forget that the baby may be over-stimulated, or simply unable to stick to his own schedule or to sleep!
So it starts. Feeding and burping is rushed because we needed to get to a party on time. Medication is skipped because we forgot. Sleep is segmented because we couldn’t keep our voices down.

At the end of the day, a cranky baby with upset tummy who pukes all over his Mom.

Maybe, as much as I love the merry happy holidays, we should just skip it this year?

Dad
[11W6D] Fathers can never understand the job of a mother is tremendously more difficult than theirs. But some do try. Back in our parents’ generation, Dads don’t even touch the babies at all. Yes, I do get very frustrated with Woz at times, but I still appreciate his help and his willingness to discuss in details about CC’s growth, parenting plan, and future.

Cluster Feeding
[3M] CC was finally sleeping 3-5 hour stretches at night lately, but all of a sudden he’s waking up every 2 hours wanting to eat at night, and even more frequent in the day time! Not knowing what’s going on and fear for engorgement and mastitis again, I searched online. Apparently, at 3 months, babies go through growth spurt again! Sometimes though, they do not necessarily growth physically. Sometimes when they’re going through some developmental growth (lifting heads, turning over, learning language), they also cluster feed! After three days, the cluster feeding went away and now he’s back to his normal schedule.

Sleep Training
[3M] I have been reading up on sleep training, and in general I couldn’t agree more with Elizabeth Pantley, the author of “The No-cry Sleep Solution”, that there are only two ways to train a baby to sleep through the night, tears vs. time. And like her, I choose time. Not so much because I am an over protective and pampering Mom, but CC did and may still does have some fundamental physical discomfort that makes it hard for him to fall asleep and stay asleep.

However, we contacted a sleep training consultant recommended by a friend, just to see how things may work. Of course, unlike our pediatrician who thinks sleep training shouldn’t be done prior to 4 months, she believes sleep training should start from birth. Given CC is going to have to adjust to me working from home starting January, and then daycare late January (which coincides with his 4 months mark), we’ve decided to just hold off and wait until then to make our decision on hiring a sleep training consultant. To be honest, now he sleeps at 9-10pm and wakes at 6am, with only one feeding needed in between anyway.  We’ll just have to find some way to shorten that one feeding from 1-hr to 15-min!

Fingers crossed. CC, keep up the good work. Mommy hopes she’ll never have to put you through intensive sleep training which may result in $500 less in our pockets and lots of tears for both of us!

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It’s like a light bulb has turned on in CC’s head, he now is very aware of the surroundings. He can also reason a lot better. I truly truly love my boy and look forward to all the fun we’ll have as mother and son.