Breastfeeding journey

Anyone who has seen us or read our blog knows that we are breastfeeding. Anyone who has talked to me knows that we haven't had the easiest time of it. I went to a La Leche Legue meeting and we discussed how many times women downplay the difficulties of breastfeeding which can lead to the belief that it is easy. I remarked at the time that I certainly haven't done that :-P  As Josh and I are finally on the better side of the breastfeeding tunnel I can truly say that it hasn't been an easy ride, but it has been worth it. I have appreciated all of the help and support from family and friends and wanted to share some of our journey incase it can help someone else.

At the hospital they ask if you are planning to breast feed. At Hopkins they were very respectful of making breastfeeding work and formula was not even offered, despite it being clear that Josh wasn't really eating. I had heard stories about babies being fed formula at the hospital and then having difficulty with breastfeeding, so I was glad that Hopkins was not like this.

Shortly after delivery, Josh tried breastfeeding for the first time. He was pretty tired, and too interested in his surroundings to really be particularly interested in eating, but he seemed to have the right idea. During my stay at the hospital, they have you either breastfeed or do skin to skin contact every 2-3 hours while you are there. The skin to skin contact is to encourage your milk to come in. For the first day, Josh would latch on and then just stare at me with big wide eyes and sit there not eating. I thought perhaps this was because I didn't have any milk yet, so I would just let him sleep on me and do skin to skin contact. By the second day in the hospital it was clear Josh hadn't really eaten much, so the lactation consultant on staff came to visit. Josh was sleepy and didn't want to eat while she was there, so she just told us we had to work harder to wake him up and left (not the most helpful consultation...). By that evening the night shift nurse made it her goal to help Josh figure things out and start eating. She was extremely helpful and determined. Josh clearly had a very strong suck reflex when you put a finger in his mouth, but he was not sucking when latched on. She brought us some tools to try and improve his suck reflex and things seemed to improve a bit. The next day the lactation consultant came back, and gave us a nipple shield which was very helpful. She also advised that if I pumped a bit before feeding it would help make it easier for Josh to get food.

The first few days at home were very rough. My milk finally started coming in , which was good (although painful!), but I couldn't really pump any milk out so I couldn't tell if Josh was getting anything or not. After consulting our new best friend, "the google", Julian suggested that my pump parts might be the wrong size. After an emergency target run to get the correct parts, things started getting better. I was clearly producing milk so we were hopeful that Josh was also getting some. At our one week appointment Josh had gained a few ounces so we thought the hard part was over!

Unfortunately by the 2 week appointment Josh had lost some of the weight he gained, so our doctor suggested we see a lactation consultant to make sure things were going ok. I was still using the nipple shield with Josh and she checked his latch both with and without it. She set us up with a pumping and supplementing routine to get Josh's weight back on track, and suggested a hospital grade pump for me to use. After more weight checks and visits from the lactation consultant (Lactation Consultation). Josh's weight was finally consistently increasing.

My next challenge was to try and ween josh off the nipple shield. Dawn (our lactation consultant) suggested starting using it and then removing it halfway through. Unfortunately this just resulted in a very unhappy Josh because he wanted it back. I finally tried just starting a few feedings per day without the shield. Sometimes he would latch and sometimes he would just scream and scream. It was definitely a test of wills. I slowly increased the number of times each day that I would make him nurse without the shield until finally he started having trouble latching with the shield. This process was way more painful physically than I thought it would be since Josh basically had to re-learn how to latch. Fortunately he finally got it and it is no longer painful! As soon as Josh stopped using the shield he was able to get milk much faster and more effectively. Our nursing sessions went from 1hr to only 20 min!! I felt like a new person with all this free time :-)

We slowly changed our nighttime routine back to nursing from bottles and after nine weeks Josh and I finally reached exclusively breast feeding :-) It didn't take Josh long to get spoiled by this, and now when I need to go to work or out he has been difficult about taking bottle...

I'm still working on correcting the oversupply issues I have from having to pump early on, but I'm very proud of the progress we have made!

Cute pictures!

Sorry for the blog silence...Josh has had a fussy and high maintenance week. Fortunately he has been sleeping very well (11 hours straight!!), despite the daytime fussiness. Here are some cute pictures to make up for slacking:

We're rolling now

Josh rolled over today!  He rolled over from his stomach onto his back.  We have been expecting this for a few weeks as he has looked like he could rollover during tummy time but today he finally did it.

The video below is of the second time he rolled over.

It's been very exciting for us to watch Josh grow and see all of his accomplishments!

Two thumbs up!!

This morning Josh has been quite cranky... He didn't want to eat, he didn't want to be held, and he didn't want to walk around with me in the front front carrier. So I put him in a play gym, which he was not happy about either. Since nothing I could do made him happy I just let him sit in the play gym and be cranky while I ate lunch. He fussed in clear protest while playing with his toys :-P. But then something amazing happened...he found his thumb!!! He then sat quietly and sucked his thumb. He has been sucking on his hand or fingers for the last few days, so Julian and I have been waiting for him to find his thumb. Hopefully this is the beginning of a new found ability to self soothe :-)

On my mind...

After hearing the news of the bombs in Boston at the marathon, I first wanted to make sure my family and friends were all safe. My sister(E) had spent the weekend in Boston and although I knew she was at the airport at the time, I was happy to see a "I'm fine" text from her quickly after the incident.

Later I began thinking about how this incident will change the face of races forever. I don't know how you make a race course safe from this type of attack. I know one if the best things about BIG races is how much the city and community supports the runners. For 5 years I have participated in one of the races for the Baltimore marathon (never the full marathon, but the relay, half marathon and 5k events). The spectators for the event are one of the best parts. Throughout the whole course there are people cheering you on and towards the end there are lots of people that put out speakers, dress in costume or hand out snacks. I don't know how you make 26 miles of a city safe and I don't think that running a "closed" race would have the same joy.

Then when watching the news of the 8 year old boy who died waiting to give his dad a hug, I felt a deep fear and sadness. Having a child certainly changes your perspective on tragedies. I'm sure that the father worked very hard to qualify and train for the marathon, and his son must have been so excited to cheer for him that day. I know when we cheered for E's marathon I was very proud and excited to be there with her. As a parent I hate to do anything that would put Josh in harms way, and something like watching a race would never seem dangerous. Julian and I are signed up for a 5k in Baltimore in May and the plan is for my sister to watch Josh while we run. When I first asked E she suggested taking Josh on a walk to watch the race, which I thought was a great idea. I'm sure that is what others thought yesterday. It is so hard that there are so few things in the world that are safe.

Days like yesterday make me hold Josh tight and send my thoughts to others who are affected by this tragedy.

Boston!

When the World Synchronized Skating Championships were announced to be held in Boston, I knew I wanted to go! I had to get a ticket before Josh was born, and we decided that we would plan to fly Southwest so that everything was refundable if we had to cancel our trip. After Josh was born, life was much more difficult that we expected so Julian and I rethought the plan of going--particularly since flight prices had been really expensive. Just when I had accepted the fact that we probably weren't going, flight prices dropped (finally!) and Josh's personality and eating improved dramatically (thank goodness!). We decided that it would be nice to get away and see what traveling with a baby was like :-)

Hanging out at the airport

We were not sure what we would need so we decided to bring everything.  Some nights Josh goes through several outfits so we didn't want to not have enough.  We ended up with a large bag for Josh, a small one for Julian and I, a portable crib (since we didn't trust the hotels) and the stroller/infant seat. Fortunately we found out our infant seat can be used without the base, so we didn't need to bring that! Even though we could check 4 bags with southwest, we didn't want to have more stuff than we could carry.

Josh studying up before the flight

Overall Josh did really well!! Many people advised me to nurse him on the takeoff to help his ears adjust. I carefully worked out a feeding schedule to make that happen, only to find out our flight was delayed. I got a text message about the delay and was able to delay his earlier feedings to make up for it a bit. It seems the middle of the day is "traveling with kids" hour, so there were lots of parents and kids and very few angry businessmen. By the time we got on the plane Josh was a bit cranky and hungry, but I didn't want to let him eat too soon. He was fussy until I let him eat, but then he slept for the rest of the flight.

After checking into our hotel, we got a recommendation for a nice dinner place (that wouldn't be too nice to bring a baby) and headed out to eat. Because we are super cool, we arrived at dinner at 4:45 before the kitchen was open :-P  We ended up getting a table at the bar and enjoyed some happy hour specials until we could order dinner. Josh was so well behaved at dinner that even the manager was telling us how cute he was. After dinner I headed out to the Skating Competition and Julian and Josh hung out at the hotel watching sports. Unfortunately Josh was less than pleased to be given a bottle, and he and Julian had a rough evening.

We had been worried that Josh wouldn't sleep in the portable crib at the hotel, since he will not nap in it at home. But we were wrong and Josh slept through the night the first night in the hotel :-)  Sadly he did not keep this up for night 2 in the hotel.

Josh is King of the bed!

Josh inside the footprint of a T-Rex

The next day we headed off to the Museum of Science. I had been to the museum on my 6th grade trip to Boston and have wanted to go back ever since. The museum was great!! While Josh is a bit on the young side for a science museum, he did enjoy looking around :-)  I would highly recommend the museum for others with kids (or without!). This was the first time Julian and I went to a "kid friendly" place since having Josh and we had a new appreciation for it. There were benches everywhere and the map of the museum said that nursing was welcome anywhere in the museum which made me feel much more comfortable.

Because Julian had such a hard time with Josh the day before, I decided to miss the first hour of day 2 of the skating competition. Sadly that meant missing Team Mexico, the team I hope to skate for in the future :-P. Julian and Josh had a better time this time, and since the competition started earlier that day I was home in time for bedtime for Josh. Although it seems he slept better when I wasn't there...

On Sunday we checked out and left our bags at the hotel to walk around Boston. We started on the Freedom Trail and met up with Rana. Rana found us a great brunch location and we got to hang out :-)  Rana met Josh when he was only 2 weeks old and was having trouble gaining weight, she was amazed at how big he has gotten. We then walked around a bit more until it was time to head to the airport.

The flight home went well too! This flight was full, so we were concerned for the person who ended up stuck sitting with us. Fortunately we ended up with a really nice resident at Hopkins in dermatology. Josh again slept for most of the flight and only started getting fussy when we were waiting to get off the plane because it was past his bedtime.

Overall it was really nice to get away! It also helped Julian and I feel more confident as parents having to be outside of our element and away from "all our stuff". I'm sure that traveling with Josh will change as he gets older and more mobile, but I'm glad we took the chance to go away before that stage!

Margaret,  Josh and Rana

March Madness

For those interested, here is our the first family bracket challenge ended :-)