My bust is a bust

I’m at a weird place. I haven’t been producing much milk. Since I’ve been sick, my production is down to about 10-12 oz a day in 4-5 pump sessions. That’s about 1/3 of what The Baby drinks. My pump is also slowly biting it. Milk keeps getting backed up into one of the horns and the suction doesn’t seem as intense as it use to be. So, do I invest in new pump parts or just stop? The Baby is almost 8 months. Maybe the weekend will help production.


On a lighter note:, Awwww… The Baby has his first friend. She’s this cute little red head at daycare. I’m not going to be obnoxious and call her his little girl friend, but ... :-)

The Baby’s daycare is pretty sweet. Not only is it just three blocks from our home, making pick up for me and drop off for dad super convenient, it’s a small facility. The infants and toddlers are in one small building complete with playroom, sleep room, kitchen/craft area and an outside play yard made just for kids under the age of three. The preschool is in a separate building and features the same set up.

Anyway, the tots are just so nice to The Baby. When they sit him up in a Boppy, all the kids start bringing him toys and piling them around him. He smiles at each of the kids, but he absolutely cracks up at his little red head friend. Not only that, he actually interacts (rather than just reacts) to her. He actively tries to keep her attention if she walks away. Sheese. He barely does that with us!

You hear so many unpleasant things about daycare and I'm happy to say that I'm really pleased with the place we chose! While I've had misgivings about work (in particular, grappling over whether I should seek a job with part-time hours), I've never once questioned daycare. With the exception of all the bugs the kids are sharing, I think it's a great place and a good experience. If it were three out of five days a week it'd be even better -- at least for me. Finding a good center is so important and I feel lucky that we found one that is so ideal.

Guess who has an ear infection?

The Baby? No, thank goodness! Mommy has an ear infection. I’ve been out of work for a day and a half. I now feel qualified to speak for the millions of kiddos who get these on an ongoing basis. They hurt. Bad. I woke up at 3:30 in the morning on Monday with a horrible earache. As the morning (night) progressed, my ear went from feeling like it had to pop (like when you change altitudes) to feeling like it was being jabbed with the sharp end of a toothpick. Not fun. No wonder The Baby was inconsolable last week when he had a double ear infection. I feel much better now, but it’s kind of hard to keep my balance. I feel like I’m walking crooked. Oh, and half of my face and my infected ear are numb. I’m too tired to type. :-(

RBS

I’d like to talk a moment about a serious condition – restless baby syndrome. It most often occurs at night when a baby wakes up and can’t fall back asleep despite all attempts to feed, comfort and sleep train. RBS struck The Baby this weekend on Sunday morning. We were in another state in an unfamiliar house and despite white noise, a 6 oz bottle, and a lot of back patting, he just tossed and turned and cried. The weird thing is that his eyes were shut. He obviously wanted to go back to sleep but couldn’t. So I picked him up and brought him into bed, something that I never do. Not that I have anything against co-sleeping. In fact, I secretly wish I could snuggle and sleep with my little hot potato every night. He won’t have us. We try in the morning sometimes. He just wants to play and sit up. Plus, I’m afraid he’ll suffocate in our pillow topper.

The guest bedroom that we were in has two twin beds, so our sleeping situation resembled The Flintstones. I pushed my bed flush against the wall and put The Baby between the wall and myself. For 25 minutes he huffed and puffed and flipped around. I was on my side with my head resting on my elbow (so as not to get the pillows too near The Baby). He’d heft his head on my arm and move in really close as if to snuggle. He’d lay nice and still and just when I was feeling like Mom of the Year complete with a tear of joy in my eye, he’d sigh, roll off of my arm and squirm away from me. Then the noises began. It went from his typical, “Bah, bah, bah,” and short shrieks to releasing each breath slowly with a monotonous moan (my son, the Yogi). At one point he chewed my elbow. I was very tired, but I couldn’t help but laugh. At 5:45 a.m. I awoke to the sound of scratching. The Baby had rolled over to the wall and was scratching it. He had a huge grin on his face when I moved in to see what he was doing. Cute little guy. My husband deemed it late enough to trot the baby down stairs to his parents’ room and we got a few more hours of sleep before leaving for what turned out to be a 12-hour ride home.

From the Pump Room:
Okay, I confess. It wasn’t as bad as I thought. Our weekend away turned out just fine. I managed to find a private place to pump all weekend long, though I only managed to pump three times a day. I just switched the ratio of milk to formula to 50/50 for the weekend (except for bottles in the car… I used all milk as it was easier) and we were just fine. By the time I got home, I had enough milk for daycare and three bottles for tonight. Starting out the week in surplus is always good! The only downer of the weekend is that I got a cold, but I tried to look at it on the bright side: me being sick means that The Baby is getting a dose of antibodies.

Random thought: The only thing that sucks more than a fridge full of leftovers that you don’t know how you’re going to use, is a fridge with no leftovers. :-( That is the downside to traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Homemade Lullabies

I can’t carry a tune. Not even in a bucket. So it is no surprise that I don’t really remember any lullabies or kids’ songs to sing to The Baby. What is a surprise is that I sing to him – and often. He likes it. It calms us both down and gives us something to do.

Back in the spring, when I was still counting his age in weeks, I found myself singing Jingle Bells to him because I knew the words. One desperate day I sang 99 Bottles of Beer – the whole thing (I subbed milk for beer, natch!). He was on his back and every time I got to the part about “you take one down and pass it around...” I’d move his hips and legs in a big circle. He liked it, and when I stopped he cried.

Since then, I’ve wised up and bought a sing-a-long CD with all kinds of kid favorites. But as I write I find myself a little nostalgic for the old days (aka maternity leave) when it was just me and my buddy on the couch making songs up and hanging out.

Here are our two favorites. All can be sang to the tune of Itsy Bitsy Spider (it’s the one I know). If you too suffer from the inability to remember lullabies, hit print and change the name!

Song number one
Little baby Cole sat upon his mommy’s lap
On came a song and they began to clap
Off went the song – the room was quiet once more
So mom and baby Coley played upon the floor.

Little Baby Cole, played upon the floor.
Mommy fell asleep and she began to snore.
Cole kicked his legs and laughed at his good luck,
But his laughing and his playing woke his mommy up.

Song number two
I’m daddy’s little helper
Cute as cute can be.
When something needs fixin’
He can count on me.
We hammer and we saw until the job is done,
Then we put away our tools and have ourselves some fun!

Anyway, the year has finally caught up with my musical repertoire. The holiday’s are upon us. The baby and I can now sing Silent Night and not feel completely ridiculous. In less than three hours, we’re leaving for Ohio. The doctor said the trip would be fine. It’s at least eight hours, so wish me luck! The Baby is on the downside of a cold/double ear infection combination.

From The Pump Room:
I am jealous of you ladies with an office. I pump in the handicap bathroom at work because it’s the only private room and it locks. I won’t miss the disinfectant smell or the view of the sink and toilet this weekend!

I’m worried about my supply. My morning pump is down to a total of 4 oz! That used to be my biggest session – I’d get 8-10 oz. I pump 5 times a day and I’ve only been getting 15 oz a day. Every ounce counts, right? Then why do I keep obsessing over it!?

Working with a sick baby sucks

Ughh…. The Baby’s cold has reared its ugly head again and brought along a double ear infection for the ride. He had a 103-degree fever this morning and was up most of the night. Luckily, they got him right in at the doctors and gave him some antibiotics that should clear it up pretty quickly. I swear, that he’s been sick since the beginning of October.

I feel guilty when I go to work and my son is sick. I have only a few days left for the holidays. I used six weeks of vacation and sick leave when he was born. People are sympathetic with the “That’s just daycare for you,” “Get used to it,” and “Oh, he must be a daycare baby!”

Are we horrible parents? Do we value material comfort and status quo more than the comfort of our own son? So far he’s had three colds – all with bronchitis – and a double ear infection. But then I think about quitting my job and I also feel guilty. How could I take daycare away from The Baby? He loves the action. When I post and say that I think he gets bored with us, I’m serious! He loves being around and watching all the kids. They provide stimulation that I can’t. This, of course, isn’t to mention the loss of my income and the loss of our medical benefits, which I carry.

I know this is an issue that all working parents deal with – moms in particular. I’m just venting. I’m tired. I’m cranky. I just ate a really mayonnaise-y sub, a brownie (#2 of the day) and a handful of chocolate covered pretzels. I feel fat and bloated on top of it all.


From the pump room:
Oh, crap. Something is wrong with my pump. Milk keeps getting backed up in one of the horns. It’s not draining into the bottle. I have to break suction and then the backed up milk flows into the bottle. I have an Ameda Purely Yours. I’ve changed the white valves and those clear cup-like things are in good shape. There doesn’t seem to be a hole in the plastic tubing. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

R.I.P. the electric snot sucker

That's right, after all this time it died on us after three whole days. *sniff, sniff* Naturally, the other aspirator was taken to daycare (and left there) so we didn't have anything over the weekend that worked. We have three other bulb aspirators in the house but the tips are so large that we can't get them in his nose. I know that's the point, but not going into the nose defeats the purpose entirely. Anyway, thank goodness for returns. If you decide to get an electric aspirator, beware the BeBe Sounds NasalClear.

THE ELECTRIC ASPIRATOR HAS ARRIVED

I ordered a Bebe electric aspirator from Target. I didn’t realize it, but this model also plays music! OMG, I can now suck out my kid’s nose peacefully to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

Okay, not quite. I was actually a little disappointed. The suction just isn’t strong enough to clear The Baby’s nose any more efficiently than a manual bulb aspirator. The Baby’s cold is going away and his snot isn’t the prolific runny kind, it’s the gunky stuff -- so I’m still holding out some hope. It does work, I was just hoping for quicker results!

When I first used it on him, he was actually quite curious. As a baby, he likes things that vibrate and make noise (he’s fascinated by a electric toothbrushes, razors and that type of thing). I got the thing up his nose and he was relatively still. “Wow!” I thought. And then SHNNNNNUCK, I found a pocket of snot and The Baby went into hysterics drowning out both Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and my husband screaming from the sidelines, “Hold his hands down, hold his hands!” Speaking of my husband, he likes it. It’s a gadget-y guy thing. He actually seems to get the thing to work better than I do. I’m serious.


From the Pump Room:
This has nothing to do with pumping, but this is what I was thinking about today in the pump room. As parents, especially first-timers, we get all sorts of things that we either can’t use or we can only use for a limited time. Here are few suggestions for extending the life of some things that you have laying around.

Receiving blankets --can’t use all 500 of them? They make great dust clothes.

Lanisol--great for the dry patches on my feet. How sexy. I also got a tip from someone on The Nest that lanolin works well to soothe rashes around a baby’s mouth.

Pacifier tether --put a toy on it instead (many infant toys have rings to attach them to carseats and strollers anyway) while shopping to keep dear child occupied and from throwing it on the ground and either a) giving you the cute uh-oh face, b) screaming, or c) losing said toy. For the record, I like the uh-oh face, but only the first three times.

Boppy --The Baby sits up on his own now, but still falls over… usually backwards. We put the Boppy pillow around his hips. It’s nice because it doesn’t touch him, but it’s there if he falls over.

That’s all I can think of off hand. Anyone have anything to add --any secondary uses for electric aspirators? (just kidding)