Caroline: Week 2

Our second week home with our sweet girl has been wonderful. We took Caroline to her 2-week checkup and learned that she’s already gained back what she’d lost in the hospital; she’s 8 lbs, 2 oz already. I know I sound like such a mom to be so thrilled by this, but when you’re breastfeeding, weight gain is such a victory since it’s difficult to always tell if your baby is truly getting enough.

I wasn’t too concerned because Caroline nurses and sleeps like a dream and has all the diapers to go with it — but the 4 and 5 hour stretches of napping can be worrisome when you haven’t had quite that same easy experience with your first child.

Something I’ve taken more to heart this time around than I did with Emilia was to really take care of myself and remember that the exhaustion, sleeplessness, nursing around the clock and general confinement to the house will not last forever. I tend to be a “go-go, get stuff done, always busy” type of person. Not because I’m Type-A and have a list of chores to attend, but rather, I have a million creative pursuits and project and interests that I want to devote attention to, so it’s hard to make myself lay down to nap when both kids are sleeping (I KNOW. I’ll stop bragging). But the difference since I’ve done just that has been incredible. There was one afternoon last week when I honestly didn’t think I’d survive the day if I couldn’t lay down and not nurse for an hour. I took a Motrin, applied some APNO, popped the Lansinoh gel soothies from the fridge and slapped them on, and lay down in my cool, dark bedroom. I remember thinking that our sheets had never felt softer or my pillow more comfortable and this wave of relief washed over me to finally not be upright. Post-delivery recovery is no joke.

Without oversharing, my recovery finally took a turn for the better around day 10. Until then, I was basically hobbling around the hose, gingerly sitting on a boppy and trying not to wince with every latch on my left side which was pretty severely damaged while in the hospital, before we had C’s tongue tie diagnosed. Something I have to mention for posterity: At our two-week check-up, when I mentioned to my dear, beloved male pediatrician that we’d gone ahead with the frenectomy, he matter-of-factly replied that it’s a very controversial procedure still and that it’s not certain that they’re really necessary. This is the same man who advised me to use Neosporin instead of APNO when I called to ask for a prescription to be sent in as soon as I left the hospital without it because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to survive another latch without it. Further, this is the same doctor who recommended I nurse through the “toe-curling” pain if I could tolerate it with my first daughter.

I’m laughing as I describe all this now because I actually do love this pediatrician, but it’s amazing to me that so many health care providers can still not be in a place where they know how to truly support breastfeeding mothers. I make it a point to nurse in front of as many people as possible and I’m really vocal about what it’s like and how much I struggled with my first child. Breastfeeding is painted as this beautiful, instinctual thing your baby just knows how to do, but this couldn’t be farther from the truth. More on that in another post though.

Anyways, to get back to our second week home with Caroline, her two-week checkup went really well. The pediatrician joked: What are you feeding her?! when he heard her incredible weight-gain and commended me for my nursing. He also joked that we shouldn’t brag to friends and family about how fortunate we are with her stretches of sleep. She only wakes once per night around 3 or 4 for a quick nurse before giving us another 2-3 hour stretch of sleep and it doing great sleeping in the rock and play beside our bed. It’s not ever turned on to rock! This is a huge win as far as helping us get a leg up on sleep training her for the crib in a month or two. Made that mistake with E and we will not be repeating that this time. We’ve learned.

Something else I implemented while still in the hospital was the use of white noise. We didn’t know nearly enough about infant sleep our first time around, so we’re utilizing ALL the tricks. White noise has been amazingly useful in helping stretch Caroline’s sleep cycles. I also read something really useful in a packet I got while still in the hospital: it advised to not move your baby from the breast (or from a snuggled position on your chest, rather) until about 15-20 minutes after she’d popped off the breast and fallen asleep. Infants enter a light, dreaming stage of sleep (REM sleep) first before moving into the deeper phase of sleep for the next 30 or so minutes. So if you move the infant too soon, she’ll likely wake before getting into that deeper sleep. I can promise you, this works and is probably the reason we got some rest before we left the hospital. And things have only improved and stretched into longer resting periods since we’ve gotten home.

In the second week, nursing also took an improved turn with far less pain at latching and Caroline definitely improved, skill wise, as far as her ability to nurse. I received excellent refresh tips in the hospital from Mickey about holding her in cross-cradle (I’d forgotten how important it was to have both an arm and leg sitting on top of my supporting arm as I hold her, and to mirror the same below my arm, with my supporting hand resting gently right on her upper back). I do find it’s still so hard to make myself rouse her to continue nursing after she dozes off while nursing, but I try to remind myself that shorter, less filling nursing periods only result in more frequent wake-ups, so it’s better to just get a really great feeding in than letting her graze on me, on and off for hours with light snoozing in between.

Only toward the end of this second week did I realize I might be suffering from something called overactive letdown. When C nurses, she gulps and wheezes and often seems like she is practically choking the milk down. Initially, I thought she was just a really fast, effective nurser, but since I’ve started to research, I think what we’re experiencing is more aligned to overactive letdown which may also be related to oversupply.

She’s also incredibly “burpy” and spits up more than Emilia ever did which is another symptom. I eventually just packed the burp cloths away for Emilia because she never needed them! Initially, I assumed my milk supply was still adapting to and I might need to pump a bit if she slept too long between feedings, but I’m starting to wonder if this might require some professional guidance since incorrectly managing overactive letdown, or introducing a bottle too soon as a result of it, can lead to nursing strikes, nipple confusion and self-weaning too soon. I also read that babies whose moms have overactive letdown often don’t nurse for comfort, which just about broke my heart. Some of the best memories I have of nursing Emilia were just that — when she’d nurse just to be comforted, snuggled into me, calm and cozy.

I absolutely abhor pumping since it requires so much stuff. I have to make sure everything is washed and sterilized and then, as if that’s not enough of a pain, I have to make sure I time when I pump so it’s an hour before or after a feeding so I’m not caught dry when she’s hungry. Also, timing it just based on time of day is huge since production is so much better in the AM hours. I’ve definitely noticed this one — on the fourth of July, after not eating much all day and having ONE glass of Sangria, I was nearly not producing by about 9 PM. That was a brutal evening and not something I’ll make the mistake of doing again anytime soon. We ended up giving two bottles and I ate and drank as much as I could late in the night in the hope of stimulating production. I keep reminding myself to just keep putting her to the breast as much as I can these first few weeks so my supply is well-established. I don’t want to encourage her to overstimulate production, but one of the biggest reasons women struggle with supply is because they don’t know that the window just for developing your future supply is really determined in these first few weeks home with your baby. The past few morning for example, I’ve woken at 3, 4 and 5 am, painfully engorged. I should have gotten up and pumped to take the edge off, but it’s such a fine line since you don’t want to actually stimulate production. (Do I sound like a lactation consultant yet? Because I’ve read and studied this to the point that I feel like I may as well be. I swear, new moms should be given week-long, intensive training in breastfeeding because the sad, 2-hour class I took where I was shown two “holds” and taught about the importance of a “deep latch” doesn’t even BEGIN to cover what I’d later be Googling at 2 AM.

Things like “overactive letdown” and “nursing strikes” begin to enter the new breastfeeding moms vocabulary by about month three when it’s your first, and by then, you’re so on your own. If I hadn’t been in an excellent mom’s group and been active in The Leaky Book breastfeeding support group on Facebook, I don’t know that I’d have survived nearly 22 months of nursing with Emilia.

But, I digress. Again.

Caroline is nearly ready for size 1 diapers and I’m finding some of the newborn onesies are already getting a bit snug, so baby girl is definitely growing well. From day one in the hospital, she’s had excellent neck strength, often holding her head up to look up at me while she’s belly down and snuggled on my chest. She’s also able to turn her head from side to side while on her tummy for tummy time. During her wakeful periods, I love to watch her eyes track me as I slowly move my face side to side above hers. We do a lot of singing and chatting and she always pays rapt attention — very much like her sister. So far, smilies have only come as she’s drifting off after a good nursing, but they still make me melt. I can’t wait for the real thing around 6-weeks. Her little fingers and toes just slay me as well, they’re so long and delicate — even her nail beds. I’m thrilled to report that she definitely takes after me in this respect, and not her dad. Although I wouldn’t call my fingers or toes long, unlike her sister who inherited daddy’s boxy little “hobbit feet” as we lovingly refer to them, Caroline’s feet are very slender.

We were lucky to celebrate Caroline’s 2-week birthday on the 4th of July, and hosted a very, very casual get together with my family in our backyard. It was really fun and nice to celebrate with everyone and I was especially excited to be able to stage a holiday-themed weekly photo shoot. They’re a lot of work, but I’m determined to keep up with them since I gave up so early when I attempted to do them for Emilia. Fingers crossed.