Operation Silent Night Feed

The mother of any toddler and newborn will nod her head in agreement when I say that one of my biggest fears before having Mika was that he would wake Luca at night. Luca is a really good sleeper, so we’ve been spoilt,  and the idea of him being woken at night by a crying newborn and having to contend with TWO demanding little people literally fills me with dread. So I do whatever it takes to keep these feeds as stealthy and quiet as possible. Case in point: last night …

22H40 Night Feed 01 Commences

Baby wakes with gentle moan. Swiftly whip baby up and attach baby to boob. Bend over backwards to plug in bottle warmer* with right hand, and place bottle in said warmer, whilst ensuring that baby does not fall off feeding cushion or boob. Attempt to maintain state of consciousness while bottle warms. Awake 15 minutes later to baby covered in breast-milk and bottle heated to an undrinkably hot 40 degrees celsius. Re-attach baby to boob. Remove lid from steaming hot bottle, placing bottle on side-table and wait for it to cool. Check Twitter repeatedly in order to STAY AWAKE. Ten minutes (and twice as many desperate screen refreshes) later, finally replace lid on bottle and feed to baby. Tickle cheek/tummy/nose of baby in order to maintain baby’s state of consciousness so that baby consumes as much of bottle’s contents as possible, in the hope that baby will sleep longer than the predicted 3 hours. Place sleeping baby carefully back in bassinet and assume the sleeping position. House remains quiet and calm. Mission accomplished.

*WHY does the Pigeon Bottle Warmer not have an on/off switch ON the machine???

23H01 Night Feed 01 Complete

01H00 Night Feed 02 Commences

Baby wakes with a loud squeal. LEAP out of bed and knock over pile of nappies. Attach baby to boob whilst still standing. Pick up nappies whilst ensuring that baby remains attached to boob. Look desperately at the time. This can’t be right? It’s only been 2 hours and 20 minutes since the start of the first feed? Accept defeat. Place bottle into bottle warmer. Instantly drop off to sleep in seated position with baby attached to boob. Awake 5 minutes later and check bottle temperature. Slap forehead in frustration. Bottle warmer was not plugged in. Bend over backwards to plug in bottle warmer and wait, checking Twitter and now even Facebook, in utter desperation to stay awake. Repeatedly check temperature of bottle, thus slowing down the heating process. Eventually give bottle to baby anyway. Baby refuses to drink more than 40 ml of the 120 ml bottle. Give up and place sleeping baby in bassinet. Catch a whiff of poop and realize THAT’S why baby wouldn’t eat. Place waking baby on bed. Place bottle in warmer. Mentally high-five self for remembering to place bottle in warmer AND switch on. Use feet to keep restless baby still. Use one hand to keep silencer pacifier/dummy in baby’s mouth. Successfully change nappy and fling, unsuccessfully at dustbin. Remove bottle from warmer whilst trying to shush baby. Hear toddler call out from other room and feel all blood drain from face. Send husband to assess the situation. Resume baby-feeding process. Baby consumes all of bottle and finishes off with ANOTHER poo. Repeat changing process and swiftly place baby in bassinet. Flop unceremoniously into bed and pass out in 3 seconds flat. Mission accomplished in longest period of time to date.

02H10 Night Feed 02 Complete

04H14 Night Feed 03 Commences

Baby probably wakes calmly but eventually develops into a desperate scream, due to the unusually long 3 hour, 14 minute time-lapse and a failure to leap out of bed fast enough. Simultaneously attach baby to boob and plug in bottle warmer. Wake sleeping baby to change nappy and mix formula bottle. Adrenalin has obviously kicked in and activities are happening thick and fast. Wake baby and successfully feed the baby a whole 20 ml of the bottle before awake baby becomes sleeping baby. Give up. Place baby quickly back in bed in the wishful hope that sleep will now resume until 06H00. Mission accomplished. Only just.

04H55 Night Feed 03 Complete

05H00 TODDLER WAKES UP

Wait until “MOMMY” has been called enough to assume that toddler is, in fact, awake and not just having a moment. Husband assesses the situation. Hear TV being switched on and CBeebies music quietly filling the house. Try, for half an hour, to sleep. Unsuccessful due to wriggly, hungry baby moaning and groaning for bottle that went undrunk at 04H14. Attach baby to boob and lie down to feed. Pass out and wake up 5 times in as many minutes. Get up to join bleary-eyed husband and perky toddler for a 06H00 episode of “Show Me Show Me”. Resist the urge to shout “ABORT MISSION” and make a run for it.

Over and out.

3 days later …

… and I couldn’t be happier with the decision I made.

Not when Mika is this relaxed.

Even when he’s awake now, he’s chilled …

Sometimes Most of time the things you stress the most about, don’t need stressing about at all.

The best part? This week, Dave and I will have a date night – dinner and a movie! YAY!

What should we see? Contagion? Breaking Dawn? The Help? Ah hell, I just want to sit in a cinema and have warm popcorn and a cold slush! I’ll watch trailers for two hours for all I care 😉

I will also spend all of Saturday morning with Luca, Melinda & Emma at the Beautiful Creatures Musical at Monte Casino, as well as an afternoon of fun with our BFFs Tanya & Max later that day before we all head off on our December holidays.

I’m LOVING this time of the year!

And I’m so happy with what we decided to do 🙂

Ditching the guilt…

I’m writing this to the sound of my breast pump whirring away. Yes, I’ve begun the very unglamourous task that is expressing. I hadn’t wanted to start expressing until at least 7 or 8 weeks but, I’ve started. I’ve managed to build up a nice supply in the deep-freeze too. There’s something strangely satisfying in seeing your breast milk stored neatly and ready for your baby’s consumption, should you not be available to breastfeed directly.

But that’s not the only reason I’ve started expressing. For quite some time now, Mika’s not been settling well between feeds. By “not settling well”, I mean being wide awake and generally pretty unhappy as a whole. Crying and only really calming down when he’s held. Now, I know every baby is different, but Luca was never like that. He would wake, eat (breast-fed), occasionally poop and then go right back to sleep. And his awake times were calm and easy. I don’t really remember ever feeling stressed out by him crying. Not the case this time around.

Anyway, Dave came home on Thursday evening, to a particularly frazzled wife. It had rained most of the day, which meant that I had been “trapped” indoors with a whining toddler and a screaming 5 week old. NOT fun. I was reaching the end of my proverbial tether. I had snapped at Luca more than once and also felt incredibly guilty about having to say, “Not now monkey-moo, I’m busy with Mika” every time he asked me to play with him in his room. I felt as if I was drunk with exhaustion. You know that feeling when you “miss” a couple of hours in an evening because you’re so hammered? I felt exactly the same way, but because I was so freaking tired. So all the pain of the “hangover” without the fun of getting drunk. I was irritable, tired, dirty (you know those days when it’s impossible to even bath because your newborn just needs you THAT much? Yes, that!) and very despondent. Dave walked in and said, “Would you like me to go get some formula?” The dreaded F word. I immediately got a lump in my throat and my knee-jerk response was, “NO!” The guilt set in immediately. Just THINKING about giving him formula already felt wrong. But, as he continued to wail in my ear, I thought about it. He weighed more than Luca at birth. He never stays awake longer than a couple of minutes on the boob, or fusses uncontrollably and then starts I cry. He wants to eat EVERY TWO HOURS, day and night. My poor boobs. Every TWO hours. So, I took a deep breath and allowed Dave to buy the formula. He came home with it and I cried as I made the bottle. I cried as I sat down to give it to him. And he wouldn’t take it. Shit. What if he won’t take bottles?!?! Will I be chained to him every two hours FOREVER?! (Dramatic impulses kicking in here, obviously). I thought about my stash of breastmilk in the freezer and took a container out, preparing a second bottle for him. We did the old suck-on-the-dummy-then-quickly-whip-it-out-and-replace-it-with-the-bottle trick. It worked. He downed that 120ml of breastmilk faster than you could say GUILT. His arms instantly relaxed to his sides, his body unclenched and he assumed the adorable milk-drunk look that he hadn’t had for ages. And I then realized, he’s using me (my boobs) as a soothing device. He’s using me to relax and go to sleep, but not to eat. I pretty much cried myself to sleep that night, wracked by the guilt of giving him formula already. A bottle already. That night I breast-fed him twice and gave him one formula bottle. He had a great night. As soon as I got home from taking Luca to school, I breast-fed him again. But I still felt like a failure. Cue a voice of reason…on the way to Tanya’s blogging workshop at Manna Cafe, I called Roz. I cried. I told her how terrible I felt and how much of a failure I believed myself to be. My special and darling friend spoke the kindest, non-judgmental and caring words. She pointed out how tired I sounded, from the obvious lack of sleep I was experiencing due to the two-hourly feeds, lasting for anything up to an hour at a time. Roz helped me, in that conversation, to see that I wasn’t a failure, that I was trying too hard to be the “perfect” mother and, in the process, destroying my own sanity and general well-being. I needed someone to commiserate with and to look for reassurance with, and she was that person.

I still felt pretty down for most of the day. Mika was SO chilled, so relaxed. Was my own milk THAT useless? Once home again later that morning, I breast-fed Mika again and this time he drank with gusto, remaining awake until he was satisfied. To say I felt proud is an understatement. I could do this! I could do a combination of actual breastfeeding, expressed and bottled breastmilk and formula as a form of “top-up” to keep Mika’s hungry little belly nice and full.

Just as an added bonus, Mika gave me his first proper smile shortly after a bottle feed that morning. The first time in almost 6 weeks that he looked satisfied after a feed. I knew then, that I had made the right decision. For both Mika and I. Saturday has come and gone and I have spent the whole day, marveling at how relaxed and settled my baby is. Tonight I am going to sleep with a smile on my face and contentment in my heart. It’s what’s best for us both.

Day/Night

 

 

 

Consider THIS your TMI warning!

It’s official. I am 99.9% sure that Mika has day and night mixed up.

He does his longest stretches of sleep during the day (convenient because it allows me to catch up on sleep during the day) for anything up to 4 hours.

At night, however, it’s a whole other kettle of fish. He goes down at 7/8 and then does a 2 or 3 hour stretch. After that, it’s an hourly/2 hourly wake up routine. It wouldn’t be so bad, if it didn’t take anything between 20 – 45 minutes per feed.

He’s also VERY vocal about his bowel movements, with much grunting, groaning and apparent pushing before he eventually lets rip with a ma-HOOOSIVE fart or does a little poop. He is definitely not constipated as (a) he’s exclusively breastfed and his poops are completely soft/runny. It’s just a little bit more of an effort for him, obviously! These poop noises accompany his hourly/2-hourly wake ups all through the night, which adds to the exhaustion factor for me.

So, as of today, I am going to try to wake him more often for day time feeds, in the hope that he starts to figure out that when the sun is out, it’s time to EAT and when it’s dark, it’s time to SLEEP! We’re also off to Magic Mike Marinus this morning for our chiro appointment, which is meant to be really good for caesar babies too, so maybe that might even make a small difference.

Wish me luck … and lots of sleep!

PS: Follow Mike Marinus on Twitter and read his blog on chiropractic practices for children here.