Fourth Month as a Mom

Battle of the Bottles
[3M6D] OMG! CC took bottle from me, the original milk vending machine! Yoohoo Horray! Lately we’ve been heading out a lot, so in the absence of bottle or myself when he’s in carseat, we give him his monkey binky, which shaped very similar to the bottle nipple. Maybe that helped him identify with the bottle nipple, he is now definitely happier with the bottle! :) We’ve also tried hard to keep up the habit over the Christmas holiday so our nanny won’t have to re-do the work all over again.

[3M2W1D] Another OMG moment! CC took the bottle from Mara this time without even as much as a whimper! As part of the new year resolution for  both myself and CC, we have decided to make bottle drinking as one of the item. And on first day of the year, he started to do so! It did take a lot of experimenting to get here though. We tried different bottles, different nipples, different apparatus, different positions, different background music/TV shows, different milk temperatures…You name it, we’ve tried it. Finally, we went back to the very first bottle we used, and it worked! So you can imagine how proud Mommy must feel to see it all come together! 2.5 months of stress and hard work has finally come to fruition. I must say, it’s better than any work recognition!
Although somehow I think CC was motivated by my promise of, “The sooner you take the bottle nicely, the sooner you’ll get to have all sorts of different yummies!” ;)

Sleep
[3M4D] Wow, did that just happen? On the night of Christmas Day, CC slept for 6 hours straight! A Christmas miracle!

[3M1W1D] Okay, I don’t want to jinx it, but this is the third day in the same week that CC has slept for close to 5-hr stretch! In fact, last night, he slept for a 5.5-hr session (9-230am), then another 5-hr session (3-8am)! And he didn’t even put up a fight during the night feeding! He just ate, burped, ate again, and sleep! Yay! We’re definitely going to strengthen his day routine and hopefully that’ll transfer to his night sleep pattern too.

[3M2W1D] Oh I probably jinxed it. He’s back to feeding every 2.5 hours at night! Although it could also be he’s cold, he peed, he has gas pain, or all of the above.

Sleeping Arrangement
[3M1W1D] We are trying to finalize the sleeping arrangement with CC. From the very beginning, we know it’s not realistic to do family bed. Simply because we already have a family bed situation going on with Twilight. And baby + puppy + two adults on the same bed, albeit king size bed, is just not a good idea. So we have had CC sleep in his own crib in our room during night time, and portable crib in livingroom during the day time for the first month.

By the second month, we’ve noticed even though everyone tells you to let baby sleep in noisy, well-lit room during the day to establish his day/night pattern, it is just not working for the very sensitive CC! He wakes at every little noise or light, so we found ourselves tiptoeing like thieves in the house. And he is not getting good sleeps, which makes him more cranky at night! At which point, we moved him into the new spare room and sleep on the futon. At night, we also took down one side of his crib and side-cart it to our bed, so it’s easier on me after night feedings.

By the third month, we realized the side-carting is difficult on our backs to put him back to his crib, and it’s not really saving me any effort at night. So we put his crib back to how it was, but left it in our room still.

This month, we finally had all our guests gone, so now officially turning the guest room into CC’s nursery. We’ve moved the portable crib, as well as all his clothes and supplies into the room. We’re waiting for when his sleep pattern strengthens a bit more, then we will move his full-size crib down and have him sleep in his own room at night too. Hopefully that will happen by next month.

There’s an App for that
[3M1W1D] Yes, there is an iPhone App for just about anything. I keep track of CC’s feeding pattern for a good two months on Excel spreadsheet on a laptop on the night-stand. It got too tiring after a while and I have given up since. However, now we know he has an solid feeding pattern, we are actually more curious about his sleeping pattern. And with the lack of sleep at night, Woz and I sometimes wake up wondering, “Did he wake up at X time last night?” Well, there is an App for that! A friend we met at the baby play date told us about Baby Connect, which not only tracks baby’s eating, sleeping, and pooping/peeing pattern, it also tracks things such as vaccination, growth, medication!

What’s more, instead of having to graph out the growth curve ourselves, it does all the computation and graphing for us, and we can even see things online! Seriously baby data mining we have going on here! And the best part is, all for $4.99!

No more laptop by the bed emitting radiation to my brain while I sleep!

Back to Work
[3M2W] At exactly 3.5 months, Mommy went back to work for the first time. Leaving not-so-solid-bottle-drinker CC with the nanny for 6.5 hours. Although nanny said I can call to check on him, I was too nervous that I would hear baby screaming his guts out and therefore worry for the rest of the day.
So I didn’t. I looked at his pictures, I showed off his pictures, I talked about him, I tried to catch up with work…anything but worry about him. And I went home to a slightly struggled but happy baby. Absolutely love my little guy!

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.

Second Month as a Mom

Baby Prison
[7W1D] I’ve always thought I would be a good mom. But my own vision of a Mom is someone who educates and disciplines. I did not know staying home 24-7, doing feed-burp-change-and-repeat is part of the job too. In fact, that is all to this "job” so far. Yes, I do feel like I’m in baby prison with no early parole. But the minute I see that cute little face, with cute chubby cheeks, and tiny little fingers…I’d like to say it’s all worth it. Or at least for that moment.


Sleeping…for Baobao that is
[4W] I’ve read from many websites and books to NOT nurse your baby to sleep. It will condition the baby to only want to nurse in order to go to sleep. While chewing on Mommy’s boobs was the best and easiest way to put the little one to sleep, I have that fear of a 7-yo needed to nurse before going to bed! So I took the advice of some people and start adding “constants” to the sleeping routine. For example, I know CC falls asleep very easily when I do lying down side-feeding with him (we both lie down, face to face, while he feeds.) So I tried to put him on his bed, on his side instead of on his back, warm up and give him the pacifier, while rubbing his back.

[8W4D] Well, 4 weeks later, we know there is no worries that CC will be a 7-yo who still wants to nurse. In the last week or two, he has started to learn to fall asleep on his own! Hooray!

Kissy Kissy Mommy! Oh, he just wants to eat!
[4W] Yes, Mommy is tricky tricky tricky! When CC wants to eat and roots around, I sometimes kiss his right cheek, and he’ll turn towards me. And then I’ll immediately kiss his left cheek, and he’ll quickly turn towards me again. If I do it quick enough, I keep kissing his mouth instead! Hee hee. Stole many many kisses!

[5W] Although, WORD OF CAUTION, DO NOT assume because they’re rooting, they have no back-up supply of milk in their tummies! One time, the little bugger decided it would be funny to puke a little into Mommy’s open mouth. YUCK!!!

Colic
[4W] Oh yah, CC gets colicky. Something every parent wish and pray and hope their baby will never get. While they say no one really knows what caused colic, one of the most plausible assumption is gas. After coming out of jaundice, CC started to be more alert/awake and ate a lot more as well. Unfortunately his little belly system did not get the message and therefore wasn’t caught up in ramping up the processing power. Result: very full, very gassy, very uncomfortable every time right after he eats. Supposedly adults get this type of gastro-reflex as well, but we don’t get it until an hour after we eat, and we are just so used to it. But babies’ gastrointestinal system is much shorter, hence affect them much much quicker.

Poor Mommy and Daddy, we want the little guy to eat more and grow more, but we also start to fear every feeding time. Little guy gets so uncomfortable that he grunt and strain and wail and goes crazy! At times, he even turns purple! We tried to do tummy massage and leg pumps, but he gets so worked up and so rigid, can’t even do much! But of course, he always gets relief right after he poops or farts, but somehow the frequency is far and much less lately. Yikes.

After a few days, Mommy finally got very worried and called the doctor. We also tried Mylicon and probiotics. They helped but not completely. Doctor said unfortunately it happens around 4-6 weeks of age, and of course, the famous last words, “It will pass.” (“It” meaning the colic? Or poop and gas? I guess both.)

One day, Mommy and Daddy realized CC was quite loosey goosey and relaxed right before eating and in the morning. Therefore we decided to do the massage and pumps BEFORE he eats instead of after. Mommy also tried to hold CC very snugly to her body, so provide some resistance when CC tried to push and poop. Well, it worked!! We were able to loosen the “goods” before the little trunk gets too stuffed up with both waste and nutrients. Hooray!

Well, this is no professional procedures, but we hope this can help future new mommies and daddies! And we hope this will pass soon for little CC!

[7W1D] In between Mylicon, Florajen (probiotics), tummy massage, and leg pumping, colic seems to ease up a bit until yesterday. Today, CC was in full-blown colicky mode! Unable to sleep for more than 30 minutes for the entire day. Mommy was pooped out by the end of the day and ready to cry herself!

[8W4D] Maybe his stomach issues have gotten better, or maybe we’re just more used to it and know how to deal with it. Seems like he has gradually move out of that fussy colicky phase. Fingers crossed!

Nanny
[7W1D] We found our nanny! Grandma went back to Taiwan last Friday night, so started on Monday, I was all alone during the day and officially full-time Mom. It was scary. Very scary. We went on Golden Gate Mother’s Group to look for nanny, but there are only limited number. So while searching for average nanny wages, I came across this domestic help searching site, Care.com. We narrowed our choices down to a handful of people, and started contacting and interview them. As of today, we have decided on a nanny! :)

[8W4D] After one week of having Mara, our nanny come in on Monday and Wednesday. When the nanny is here and I’m not busy with house work, I situate myself upstairs and do some reading / web surfing. While I complain about baby prison, the irony is I am also extremely tormented when CC cries and I’m not one (or Woz is not the one) to go to him and comfort him! I know our nanny is more than well qualified in taking care of CC and in reality probably much better than I am, but like any mother, I don’t think anyone is good enough to take care of my son! Boy, I think I’ll probably cry on his first day to daycare/school! To think I almost did when Twilight went to puppy playcare last year! But, it’s got to be done. Little boy will have to grow up to be a man, and it’s a mother’s job to teach him how by letting go.

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It’s been a good month, it really has. The drama of pregnancy, birth, and family has quiet down but it is nonetheless quite eventful still. Now back to a little family of 4, we struggled and stayed afloat just so perfectly. Woz has, in the meanwhile, gotten a spanking new job at the Canadian consulate. The little Woz family is happy and getting ready for the holiday season.
Happy early Thanksgiving to everyone!