My breastfeeding story - part three
This week, my mum read my five-month baby update post, and told me it was 'much better than the one with all those pictures of breast pumps'. So sorry, to anyone who feels similarly - I know the last two posts on my experiences with breastfeeding have been heavy on the TMI factor, feel free to skip if detail of this kind of thing is not for you! I had quite a lot of responses from my last post, but mostly on Facebook (if you're on Facebook and fancy giving me a like, you can do so here!). Some of them made me feel defensive again, and then I had to take some deep breaths and remember that it's me who's being oversensitive and that people (on the whole) mean well. On a similar note, when Daphne was first born and I was still trying my best to breastfeed with little luck, I changed my Facebook profile picture to one of me, Daph and Oli, and in the picture Oli was feeding Daph from a bottle. I got lots of likes (as you do when you put up pictures of your newborn baby, I've been happy to discover!) and comments, but then some random Facebook acquaintance wrote 'Bless. Is that formula she's drinking?' and I burst into ridiculous tears.
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I also felt furious with her for thinking she had any right to comment or ask, and considered writing back that it was none of her bloody business, but instead, I did the rather more kneejerk thing and deleted the comment and removed her as a friend. Such were my levels of sensitivity. The irony was that Daphne was actually drinking expressed milk. Ha.
On a similar note, I remember an innocuous comment on the Whatsapp thread of my NCT group - it seemed my group had universally got the hang of breastfeeding, and there was just one other lady who had had issues with it at the start - it was such a relief not to be the only black sheep. But then she managed to get the hang of it after a week or so, and said something like 'So glad I've managed it, it's SO worth it'. Again, not intended as a dig (it's not all about you Charlotte!) but I couldn't help but take it as yet more criticism and evidence of my failure.
I started to seek out friends who'd had similar issues, and I can't tell you how comforting it was to hear of mates who'd stopped after a month with mastitis, or those who'd hated the whole thing - not that I was pleased that other people were going through what I was going through, but it really stopped me feeling like the Only Person In the World Who Couldn't Breastfeed.
Anyway, I continued to try. I continued to pump as much as humanly possible, but as Daphne got bigger she inevitably got hungrier, and the amount of milk I could express began to fall behind what she needed more and more, meaning she had to have more formula to make up the shortfall. Every day I would pump some milk then sit with Daph and try to get her to latch on with the nipple shield, and I would say only one day in ten did she manage it - most of the time she just screamed and hit me and went purple with rage. I'd try until I felt like my head would explode, before inevitably collapsing into sobs too. It was horrible and worst of all - ruining those precious early days with my baby.
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I decided I needed to up my milk supply, and so I started taking Fenugreek. It's a galactagogue?! For those not in the know - a weird herb that smells of curry and makes you smell of maple syrup (it really does!) but somehow increases the amount of milk you produce. I was taking huge amounts of the stuff in the hope that it would boost my supply, and it did, but only for a day or two. I ate ridiculously expensive 'breastfeeding bars' (which tasted nice but not sure had much impact). I also hired an industrial breast pump - the Medela Symphony - which was a beast of a machine, and bought a hands-free breast pump bra so that I could work both boobs at the same time.
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One day, I went to my parents' for Sunday lunch, and left the funnel part of my portable pump at home. This was probably my lowest point - I was beside myself with anxiety knowing that I wouldn't be able to pump for at least four hours, which meant a) my boobs would be in agony and b) it would reduce my supply the next day. But a teeny tiny part of me was relieved. It meant, for the first time since Chip was born, I could have a nice Sunday lunch with my whole family, and not have to scuttle off and shut myself in a room alone (and away from my lovely baby) for half an hour to pump.
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I continued though, using the monster machine. One day, I noticed that my nipples had started to go white. My boobs also ached unbearably as if they were bruised. I wondered if I was doing them some damage with all this pumping and suction. I googled the white nipple thing and found hundreds of other posts from other pumping mums complaining of the same thing. Apparently it's when the blood supply to your nipple begins to be cut off. It's called NIPPLE BLANCHING. Doesn't sound good does it?
About a week after this, I realised that I was pumping less milk each day, despite pumping just as often. My boobs were giving up on me. It was almost like they were giving me permission to stop - all the advice said 'pump more to increase your supply' but nothing I did made any difference. It started to hurt so much I couldn't bear it. I'd never been more miserable while never being more in love. Just short of six weeks after Daphne was born, I pumped my last bottle of milk - a measly 25ml. I left it on the side in the kitchen and never even bothered to feed it to her. It seemed such a derisory amount now that she was so much bigger and hungrier. In tears, I asked Oli to tip it down the sink.
In a way, my body dictated when I stopped. But my mind started catching up, and the feeling of relief when I finally said to myself 'right, I'm not going to do this anymore' was overwhelming. Now I could sit and cuddle my baby without trying to force her to do something she didn't want to do! Now I no longer had to sit there for hours on end with a machine vibrating away and sucking at my nipples! Now I could wear NORMAL BRAS and normal clothes - daft things that started to help me rebuild my self-esteem.
I couldn't wait to get rid of the huge, ugly industrial pump. I packed away all the things related to breastfeeding - my poor worn out Medela Swing, the bottles, my nipple shields, nipple cups (used to catch leaks - EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS), breast pads, nipple creams, horrible breastfeeding bras. I'd be lying if I said I didn't sob as I did this, but I'd look over at my lovely, happy, healthy baby and keep reminding myself that that was all that mattered. I put the whole experience into a mental box and stuck it in my mental cupboard under the stairs. Something to deal with another day. Now I was going to get on with being a mum.
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And every day, it's been a bit easier. Every day, I've felt a bit happier about it. I spent hours doing research into the benefits of breastfeeding and it's all very inconclusive. There's slight evidence that it stops your baby getting tummy bugs in the first year (most likely because there's more risk of contamination with bottle-fed babies) but all the stuff about them not getting obese, or diabetes or having higher IQs is totally unproven.
Now that Daph is five months old and happy and we're totally into the swing of things with formula - I do wonder if I had another baby whether I would put myself through all the heartache again. I almost feel I'd be afraid to try - for me, breastfeeding = insanity. And now, I have a different perspective on it when I talk to my friends who are breastfeeding and are stuck to their babies 24/7, unable to go out for more than an hour or two without pumping. I feel almost smug and liberated. I love that Oli can feed Daph just as easily as me too.
I read a lot about breastfeeding during my six-week struggle, and there were a few articles that really really helped me. I've linked to them below in case they help you too. I'd also advise you to stay away from bloody KellyMom - for me, it feels like every article is written as if to say there's no other way than the breast. And for anyone who's dealing with a similar situation, there's one piece of advice that I'd like to pass on. I can't remember where I read it now, and it sounds a bit wanky, but it was basically about letting your child choose their own path, and respecting their decisions. In my case, Daphne very definitely 'chose' to be bottle-fed - probably because of her early experiences but still. I had to take myself in hand and ask why exactly I was persisting in trying to force her to do something she didn't want to do - was it mostly for my own self-esteem? In which case, I was failing as a parent anyway.
It was this little kernel of thought that really allowed me to give up. And it's something I'm going to bear in mind as general parenting advice in future too.
The Case Against Breastfeeding - The Atlantic
The Backlash Against Breastfeeding - The Guardian
Why Formula Feeding Was Right for Me - Parenting.com
Five month baby update
It literally feels like only last week I was writing my four-month baby update!
Five months is probably THE best age so far! Daphne is such a sweetheart now - she smiles whenever she sees me or Oli, she laughs so much she squeaks and she's interested in everything. She's also started putting her arms up when she wants to be picked up, which kind of makes me fall to pieces inside. Every now and then I look at her and think she's starting to look like a little girl, instead of a baby. It's quite scary really, and I have to keep telling myself to really pay attention to her every day, and notice everything about her because I can see that before too long she'll be all grown up!
For Christmas, Daphne got given a Fisher Price Jumperoo from her Auntie Soph, and she's currently in it (freeing me up to write this). The music weirdly reminds me of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire but that's no bad thing and it keeps her entertained for ages - I love watching her reaching for things and trying to decide what to do with them (currently this seems to be putting them in her mouth). Her newest favourite hobby, along with trying to eat EVERYTHING, is pulling my hair - and quite often pulling it out (oh and have I mentioned it's falling out anyway, by the BUCKETLOAD? Ugh).
She's not rolling yet but she has started grabbing her toes with her hands and pulling her knees up to her chin, which is really cute - except when you're trying to change her nappy, when it's rather infuriating. Thankfully that's usually Oli's job, heh (we made a pact when she was tiny that I'd do all the night feeds and he'd do the nappies - HIGHLY recommend this tactic, pays off massively when they poo in the night). She's such a little wriggler at the moment and seems to delight in any attention you give her - even things like changing her nappy make her all smiley and happy.
Bad bits about five months? Well, she is still not sleeping through the night - she goes to bed at 6pm then will usually wake at around 10pm, 2am and then 6am. The GOOD thing about this routine is it means we get pretty decent evenings together now - we can actually watch TV (or we could, if I could be bothered) and eat a proper dinner together. I usually spend most of this time catching up on emails or online shopping or aimlessly surfing the internet and losing my mind on Mumsnet etc, but I consider all of these things time well spent. I've tried everything to get her to drop the 2am wake up - I don't really feed her much at night if I can help it as usually she's not actually hungry, but if I don't pick her up then she will cry and work herself up into a massive state. I feel like I've read everything that's ever been written on the subject of getting babies to sleep through and really, I've given up now. I try to sleep when I can (and have been known to fall asleep while putting her to bed, even for her lunchtime nap). It's not too bad, but there are the odd nights (like last night) where she will wake up at 2am and do a massive poo, and then obviously once you've hoiked her off to have her nappy changed, there's no chance of her going back to sleep again for at least two hours. In which case Oli and I both lie there groaning as she happily chats away to herself in her cot. I have never been as tired as I've been over the last month, and I'll definitely write a blog post on the sleep deprivation side of being a mum...
I know we could try letting her cry but, difficult though it is not getting decent sleep, it's not annoying me sufficiently yet. I'm so on the fence about the cry it out thing and really can't decide if it's good for babies in the long run, or neurologically damaging and means they end up in therapy as adults.
We can't get her to nap for longer than 45 minutes either, unless we are in the car - in which case she can sleep for hours. It's so frustrating when you read all these baby schedules that say she should be having an hour and a half's nap at lunchtime - not a chance! 45 minutes after falling asleep she's awake again, and no amount of trying to settle her will get her back to sleep. As a result, she has to have at least four naps a day, or she's a nightmare at bedtime. I'm sure that the nap issues is some way related to her inability to sleep for more than four hours at night but I'm really at a loss as to how to fix it?
Her proper cot arrived today and is sitting downstairs in its box. Lots of my friends who have babies that sleep through have already transitioned them to their own room, but the lazy side of me doesn't want to have to get out of bed in the night to tend to her if she wakes up. ESPECIALLY not in January #chilly. Currently she sleeps in a cot right next to me (the Chicco Next 2 Me) and I can even lie with my head inside her cot and mush my face right up against hers which helps settle her. I often fall asleep in this position. Obviously I couldn't do that if she was in a cot in the other room...
Other weird developments this month: she's started vomiting a lot more. She's never been a sicky baby but in the last month she's had two massive projectile vomiting sessions (always in the middle of the night, always necessitating a complete bedlinen change for both us and her - yay!). It's horrible and she goes completely GREY afterwards, and looks all sad and exhausted. Really worrying. I think both times have been caused by a cold, as she's been coughing up a bit of mucus, and I've been ill for nearly a month now so I'm sure she's got it from me. But she's also been spitting up a lot more after her bottles - not loads, but enough to be annoying. I don't know if I'm feeding her too much or what, but she always seems super hungry and always stops when she's had enough. Honest. (Yes I know she looks a little rotund but I am NOT overfeeding her. HONEST).
I'm not sure if she's teething yet as there are definitely no visible teeth in her mouth, but she has been chewing on things more, drooling and also has bright red cheeks. So I guess she is? The health visitor said it takes ages for the first tooth to come through and that she may be irritable for a long time beforehand, so that's another yay!
In other news, we've started weaning her, and she absolutely loves it - I'll do a separate post on that. It's funny, when I read all these books on weaning and they said 'don't worry if she doesn't eat anything to begin with', 'don't worry if most of the food ends up on the floor' - Daphne has mastered swallowing EVERY. SINGLE. LAST. BITE. And then crying for more. Currently she's had baby rice, carrot, cauliflower, peas and sweet potato and has eaten all of them happily. I think they make a lovely change from her horrible chemical milk. Fingers crossed it means she's going to be a champion eater... after having dealt with a complicated pregnancy, her being born tiny, not being able to breastfeed, months of colic and now her not sleeping through unlike many of her NCT peers, it would be great if just one aspect of parenting came easily... please?!
My breastfeeding story - part two
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Now where was I? I think I left you with me finally being discharged from hospital, with a tiny bottle of formula and no idea how I was going to feed my baby. It sounds selfish, but really all I was focusing on was getting some sleep. HA. The first night, Daph refused to sleep unless she was being held. So Oli got up and held her all night in the living room while I slept. Of course, that meant she didn't feed then either...
The next day is a bit of a blur - we were told that the midwife would be coming to visit us at home at some point, but I had no idea when. I can't even remember now if I tried to breastfeed Daph or not - I probably had a go but I was weirdly focused on trying to get out of the house to go and buy all the things we didn't already have that we suddenly realised we needed. Like enough sleepsuits! I think it was some way of wrestling back control after feeling like I'd lost it completely.
When the midwife arrived, she had a long chat with us and asked how breastfeeding was going. I told her not very well, and she asked me to show her what we were doing. I did so, and Daph screamed and cried as I tried to feed her, beating my boob with her little fists. The midwife (who was lovely but SO young) tried to help me get Daph to latch on for about twenty minutes, before she proclaimed that Daph was a 'reluctant sucker' and gave up. She said she'd book us in for a session with the breastfeeding specialist at the hospital when we went in to have her weighed in a few days' time, and told me to buy a breast pump and express as much as possible to ensure my supply didn't disappear. Oh and to 'keep trying'...
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So that's what we did. We bought a Medela Swing and I set about trying to milk myself like a cow. I got the hang of it quite quickly and was quite impressed when Daph drank what I had produced easily from a bottle. At least she was getting some colostrum, I kept telling myself, cheerleader-fashion. I decided maybe the problem was that she was too small and couldn't yet figure out how to latch on properly. I decided I could just carry on expressing and feeding her from a bottle, and that I wouldn't worry about trying to get her to latch on until she was a bit bigger and stronger. I suppose a bit of my heart had already gone out of the whole thing - watching Daph screaming while I tried to force her to feed was such an unpleasant experience, whereas watching her gulping happily from a bottle made me feel like I was doing something right.
But in the back of my mind, I felt this terrible pressure. IT WAS BEST FOR DAPHNE! If I didn't breastfeed SHE'D BE STUPID AND HAVE ALLERGIES! SHE'D GET TERRIBLE TUMMY UPSETS! SHE'D DEVELOP ASTHMA! EVERYONE I knew seemed to have managed to breastfeed, so why couldn't I? My hormones were all over the place, and when I woke up the next day, I had soaked the bed with milk. This weirdly cheered me up - I figured that now it all seemed to be, er, flowing, so abundantly, I'd be able to feed her easily. But it didn't matter that now she didn't have to work for it, she still HATED anything to do with my boob. Every attempt to feed her resulted in both of us crying - she would put her mouth around my nipple and then just scream in rage and frustration that it wasn't the same as the lovely silicone teat she was now used to.
Friends told me to get in touch with a lactation consultant to get the problem sorted, but if I'm honest, by then I'd had enough of all the advice. I was going insane with everyone telling me something different - spend all day in bed doing skin-to-skin (mentally I really couldn't bear this, I felt desperate to get up and wash), try different positions, different times of day, feed her a bit first so that she wasn't starving, don't feed her first so she doesn't fall asleep... I couldn't take it all in. And lactation consultants weren't cheap. I'd already spent a small fortune on bottles and sterilisers and the breast pump - all things I hadn't bought before as I'd been convinced I wouldn't need them. I'd been awake most of every night googling breastfeeding, and I was driving myself a bit nuts. I decided to wait until we saw the specialist at the hospital before doing anything more.
When we turned up however, it turned out she'd been called away to a home birth, and there was no one else I could see. I asked if we could book another appointment with her, but she was due to go on annual leave the next day (downside of August babies!). I felt very depressed by this - it was like everything was working against us, and all the while I felt this time pressure ticking away in the back of my mind, knowing that the longer we left it, the less likely it was she would ever feed successfully.
In the end, I booked a private (incredibly expensive) lactation consultant. She came over about a week and a half after Daphne was born. She was lovely and supportive but (obviously) VERY pro breastfeeding and to begin with made me feel quite shit about everything I'd been doing. She kept saying 'the main thing is you didn't leave it any longer' and all I felt was more and more pressure. She was impressed I'd kept my supply up through pumping but told me to offer my boobs to Daph EVERY HOUR day and night. She also introduced me to the nipple shield, explaining that Daphne was now completely used to drinking from a bottle and wouldn't like the different feel that a nipple had. She sat with me while we tried to get Daph to latch on using the nipple shield - and I was stunned when it worked like a charm. It was the first positive thing that had happened to me since she'd been born and I was so, so happy. Perhaps the nipple shield was going to solve all our problems.
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But what I hadn't been prepared for with breastfeeding was just how long it all took. As I was expressing at the same time, it felt like I spent my entire day on my backside or in bed, either pumping, or sitting there with a miserable, frustrated baby and a slimy, milk-soaked nipple shield trying to force it into her mouth. My bed and clothing were always damp with milk. Pretty much every day I would burst into tears at some point. All I wanted was for someone to tell me it was OK to stop. But the someone that I wanted to tell me it was OK to stop was me. And I was my own worst enemy.
I'm not a quitter in general - I'm incredibly stubborn and strong-willed when I want to do something. I had always envisaged breastfeeding as all my friends had done - I'd put on my maternal fat stores godammit, and bought a butt-ugly breastfeeding chair! It was going to happen. It HAD to happen.
In the middle of all my investigations and googling, I'd read somewhere that it could take up to 40 days to establish breastfeeding and I clung onto that. Every day I hoped for a breakthrough, but every day it got a little bit harder...
Gosh this is long. I'm sorry. There's so much to say and I can't tell if all this detail is incredibly boring or not. Really, what I wanted to talk about was the emotional side of trying to breastfeed, and giving myself permission to stop, because that's what nearly killed me. So I'll stop now and I'll cover that in part three! Something cheery to look forward to! ;)
My breastfeeding story - part one
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I've put off writing this for so long, because I know how upsetting it will be. But today I had lunch with a friend who has a month-old baby and she was talking about how painful breastfeeding was and it all came flooding back to me. And I thought, I want to write this down because it was such a HUGE thing for me to deal with, and I want any other mum out there having the problems I had to feel they are not alone.
As you may already know if you've read my birth story, Daphne was born in the evening after a three-day labour and five hours of pushing. I had to be put on a syntocinon drip in the end, and I had a catheter and a second degree tear. I lost my voice through screaming (no pain relief!), bruised my forehead against the side of the birthing pool and lost the sensation in the tips of my fingers thanks to squeezing Oli's hands so hard. I hadn't eaten anything other than sweets for 24 hours and hadn't slept for more than an hour for 72 hours*. By the end of my labour, I felt as though I had been in a car crash. I could hardly walk. Physically, I had never felt so terrible. Emotionally however, I was on a massive high. The weirdest thing is, it really was the best experience of my life.
After she was born, and I'd been stitched up (by a trainee, meaning the whole process took AGES - nothing like watching two midwifes poring over your bits, with one of them telling the other to 'do that bit a bit tighter'), I shuffled along for a shower. A shower I actually didn't really want - I would far rather have been sponged down but I was told to go and shower, so I did. I stood hunched over in the shower and bled. A lot. As you do when you've just given birth. The blood pooled all over the floor when I got out and I tried to clean it up with loo roll, but every time I bent over I felt dizzy and sick. It was so hot in that shower and I was still convinced I might die. Or faint at the very least. Anyway, after the shower from hell, I got myself dressed somehow, stuffed a huge maternity pad in my knickers and shuffled back to the room I'd had Daph in. Walking along the corridor, I remember hearing all the women in the other rooms screaming. It was a horrible sound and so strange to think I'd been making those exact noises not long before. I was wheeled in a wheelchair up to the postnatal ward, and all I could think was 'thank god, now I can sleep'.
When Daphne was first born, I had skin to skin with her as requested, and she tried her best to latch on. But we were both knackered, so she didn't quite manage it, and the midwives were preoccupied and no one really thought about me trying to feed her straight away. But she definitely tried, bless her heart.
By the time I was settled into my delightful bed on the postnatal ward, Daphne all swaddled and tucked up in her plastic cot, it was about 11pm. I said goodbye to Oli, who had to get back home to feed the cat, and collapsed into the bed.
Somehow I slept. God knows how given the adrenaline and the racket all the other new babies and mums were making. But I did. For about an hour at least. Around midnight, Oli texted me that he hoped I was sleeping but Daphne had woken up and done her first huge black sticky poo so I was busy trying to change her. My first ever nappy change and I was so tired I was almost delirious. I managed it and was quite chuffed with myself. Again, I assumed now we could sleep.
But at around 3am Daphne woke up again, and this time she was hysterical. I picked her up and tried to comfort her, but it didn't work. All I could think was how tired I was, and why wouldn't she sleep. Stupid, but it never occurred to me that she would be hungry. I don't know why. I feel so ashamed of that now. After 20 mins of hysterical tears, I got up and shuffled through the dark ward to the reception area. I found a midwife. I handed her Daphne and said 'she won't stop crying. I don't know what to do.'
The midwife looked at me and said 'have you fed her?' I shook my head. She gave her back to me and disappeared for a minute. She came back with a tiny bottle of formula, took Daphne back and fed her. I watched as my little girl gulped the milk down and then fell into a satisfied sleep.
I took her back to the ward and watched her sleeping. Then fell asleep myself.
At 6am, I was woken by someone offering me paracetamol. I took it, without wanting it particularly. I wanted sleep more. Then another nurse came round and asked me how my breastfeeding was going. I told her I hadn't done any yet. She looked genuinely concerned, then in a businesslike manner set about trying to get Daphne to latch on. But Daph was having none of it. She actually turned away from my boob. I became fixated on the fact that I smelt of shower gel, and paranoid it meant Daphne didn't recognise me from before when she'd tried to feed. The nurse helped me to hand express some colostrum which we gave to Daphne in a syringe. She threw it all up. The midwife told me to keep trying to latch her on and to express as much as possible.
The rest of that day was a blur of visitors and inspections and checks. Everyone was concerned with how small Daph was - she was only just above the weight at which they keep babies in for glucose testing. The only thing I could focus on was getting her to eat something - anything. Oh and getting out of the hospital so that I could go home and sleep. I had some formula left from the night before which I gave to her, reasoning she'd already had some so a little more was unlikely to hurt. She drank it all and didn't throw up.
At some point I was told that I wouldn't be able to go home because I had yet to successfully breastfeed. I cried. I just wanted to get out of that place so desperately, and back to my own bed. It was so noisy. Then, miraculously, Daphne seemed to latch on a bit. She took a few sucks. God knows if anything came out, but the midwife agreed to let me leave.
I took her home with a bottle of formula 'just in case'. Daphne was so tiny, all I wanted was for her to eat. And that was probably the beginning of the end for us, but I'll stop here until the next post because this is already so long and already I feel so sad remembering it all.
Read part two of my breastfeeding story >
Read part three of my breastfeeding story >
*Just a little caveat: I know most people's labours are pretty horrific, and I'm not trying to say mine was worse than anyone else's. But I didn't quite realise just how physically tired I would be - I was ready for the pain, but not the exhaustion.
Four month baby update
Little Chippy is officially four months old! I can't believe it - where has the time gone?! She is getting more and more adorable by the day - it seems like every morning when she wakes up at the moment she has learnt a new skill. It's amazing - people should definitely talk more about how watching your baby change day by day can blow your mind. I keep remembering that I must film her more too, instead of taking endless pictures, because even when I look back at the short clips from when we first took her home, it's incredible how much she's developed!
Anyway, it's a good job she's so bloody adorable because we are currently in the middle of sleep deprivation hell. It all started just after she'd had her 16 week jabs last week. From about 14 weeks, her colic FINALLY stopped and - praise be - we'd actually started to get her into quite a good routine, which included four naps a day and a sensible bedtime, meaning we had our evenings back. I was starting to feel all smug and relieved that we'd come through the worst of it all and that now we were going to have a smiley happy baby that slept well and gave us little bother. HAHAHAHA.
There's a thing they don't tell you about when you're pregnant - and it's a good job they don't, or you'd never have a baby. It's called the 'four month sleep regression' and is all to do with babies' sleep patterns changing to become more like adults'. Which means they no longer fall straight into a deep sleep, but instead have to go through a lighter phase before falling into a deep sleep. And this lighter phase is super easy for them to wake up from. Also, because of this, it's harder for them to 'link' sleep cycles together and so instead they wake up after each sleep cycle is complete.
Daph's sleep cycles last 40 minutes - you could set your watch by her. And for the last week, pretty much every 40 minutes after she's fallen asleep, she's woken up. Even at 2, 3, 4 and 5 in the morning. IT IS TORTURE.
The only thing that we've found to help us through this phase is having her in the bed with me again. Which is kind of lovely and cuddly and cute but does mean I get terrible backache as I have to kind of cradle her all night, and try not to squash her.
Thankfully (touch wood), she's still managing a long sleep between 9pm - midnight ish, but of course it's difficult for me to force myself to go to bed at 9pm because I'm just longing for some grown-up time where I can watch TV or just waste time on the internet looking at expensive dresses that would no longer suit me...
Anyway. I'm hoping and praying this is just a phase and that she'll grow out of it soon - the alternative doesn't really bear thinking about at the moment!
Other than this, we've noticed that, as she's so much more alert now, she's started to become really fussy when eating - she constantly pulls away from the bottle or pushes it off with her fists, then screams to have it back. All the while her little head is swivelling round trying to take in EVERYTHING that's going on - it's so cute but frustrating too!
She's really really sweet now though and smiles at me every morning when she first wakes up, and has started laughing a lot more - mostly in the evenings when she seems to be in a better mood. Her laugh sounds a bit weird, like an old codger on 40 a day, but it's the most amazing thing ever and keeps making me cry (I'm blaming the lack of sleep for my sappiness levels). She also recognises people now - especially my Mum and sister, and beams at them too. Bless.
She can hold things really well, and will happily bash at everything on her annoying play mat - finally she's actually interested in toys. She can also sit up pretty much unaided. She just can't get herself into that position yet but I don't think it will be too long. She's not great at rolling from front to back yet but she does try - although lately when we do tummy time she seems to be trying to crawl and sort of slides her hands and legs back and forward and gets very very frustrated with herself!
Her newest favourite thing is blowing raspberries - she can do it for hours, and ends up with drool all over her chin. She also still LOVES music, and I sing to her every day, and she's starting to recognise songs she's heard before. Her current favourite track is Feed the Birds from Mary Poppins. 'Eeeaaaarlyyyy each day, to the steps of St Paul's' goes round and round my tired brain. To mix it up a bit this week I've been trying to get her into Christmas tunes and she's rather partial to Wham's Last Christmas now too.
Her eye colour is settling down - and *I think* her eyes are blue! A kind of dark grey-blue, similar to mine, but blue nonetheless. As for her hair, it's still a bit of a mystery - it's almost black at the back but the front is kind of sandy/gingery so who knows what colour it will end up. She had quite a lot of hair at the back of her head when she was born but bits of it have kind of worn off (I think from where she lies in the cot) and so now she has a kind of funny bald ring around the back of her head. She's also got quite yucky cradle cap, but we're leaving it as I don't think that it bothers her.
Finally, I feel I should point out JUST HOW FAT she has got. Look at those thighs!! She's a proper little chubba. Slightly alarming but my mum assures me once she starts crawling she'll slim down a bit!
As for me, I feel pretty much back to normal now. The diet has gone out of the window thanks to Christmas food and shenanigans and will be renewed again in the new year - but I did manage to lose eight pounds which I was quite chuffed with! I still have another 11 to go :/ but I don't think I look too dissimilar to how I used to now. At least, not with clothes on. My stomach has shrunk back quite nicely and really looks the same as before. But all those maternal fat stores ended up on my inner thighs as they are certainly... hefty. A bit like Chip's in fact. Now the challenge is not to PUT ON any weight at Christmas! We shall see...
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The Colic Diaries: Cranial Osteopathy
As anyone who's experienced colic will testify, it drives you to previously unthought-of measures. And in my case, when I started reading forums (I know, tsk) full of mums swearing by something called cranial osteopathy, I decided it was worth a try. Despite my huge scepticism of alternative therapy.
I wish I could explain cranial osteopathy to you, but I still don't fully understand it. It's basically something to do with the way the membranes in your head are aligned (I think! please correct me if I'm wrong!). Apparently when you are born, these get all squashed up and out of place depending on how the labour went, and so lots of babies have issues with their digestion thanks to the membranes compressing the vagus nerve, which has something to do with your stomach. Apologies if this makes no sense at all, but I didn't even do GCSE Biology so I really am out of my comfort zone here. Anyway. Cranial osteopaths work by manipulating a baby's head in order to release these membranes and correct some of the alignment that is out of place thanks to the often-traumatic way a baby is born.
I had a super long labour, as anyone who's had the time and patience to read Daphne's birth story will know. I was actively pushing for nearly three hours, which is definitely over the recommended limit, and I was about ten minutes away from having to have ventouse used on me. So Daphne was certainly stuck in one position for a long time and therefore came out a bit squashed and wonky - something the osteopaths say they can fix.
Anyway, like a proper journalist I did my research, and eventually booked an appointment with an osteopath who works really near me, but also volunteers at The Osteopathic Centre for Children. I wanted someone who specialised in babies, and I found some good reviews for him online. If you want his name, just drop me an email and I'll give it to you - I don't really want to name him on here as I'm not really confident I know enough to 'review' him.
The first appointment was an hour, and the first twenty minutes were spent with me just telling him all about my pregnancy and labour, as well as Daphne's symptoms. The most interesting thing was that when we lay Daphne on the treatment bed, she did her usual jerky twitchy thing, and he asked me if she was always like that when she was lying down. And basically she is - unless she's asleep. I thought all babies jerked their arms and legs back and forth while they were prostrate, but apparently not. He asked me if I'd been stressed during my pregnancy, and I nearly fell off my chair. Suffice to say the latter stages of my pregnancy were some of the most stressful months of my life. He told me that my high cortisol levels during the third trimester had likely made Daphne a very 'wired' baby, whose autonomic response was set to 'Fight', making her ultra-sensitive to stimulation and stress. This was really upsetting, but also very interesting and did ring true.
He also asked if she tended to lean her head in one direction a lot, which she did, and he confirmed the direction without me telling him. He said he could see a few issues with her alignment - mostly that she tended to look to the left, and also that her head was compressed into her shoulders a bit - all related to the way she was born. He said that this is what he could fix with his treatment.
Interestingly, he told me he could NOT fix her colic. He said osteopathy does not treat colic and that it is simply something she would grow out of at around three months, as her brain matures. He asked about her poos, and I said there were often white seedy bits in them, which he said were undigested milk and could indicate a lactose intolerance, which certainly wouldn't help her colic symptoms. All this was very interesting as this has massively improved since we put her on Comfort milk, as I said in my previous post.
He said that the jerky twitchy thing would go away as she got older and realised how much she was loved by us, leading her to feel safer in the world, which made me have a bit of a weep!
As for the alignment issues, he did his treatment (which is the weirdest thing as it looked like he wasn't doing anything - he just sort of placed his fingers gently on various points of her head, neck and stomach) and said she'd probably need two more sessions. Then he sent us on our merry way. I felt a bit ripped off as we'd spent most of the appointment just talking, but we booked in for the following week anyway. Then we took her home. And she was like a new baby!
She slept all day and all evening, and didn't have any colicky symptoms at all that night. She was calm and seemed really... happy. And the next day, I could have sworn that her neck looked a bit longer - I battle daily with trying to remove neck cheese from her neck folds, and it was suddenly much easier to do as she had 'more' neck. I couldn't explain it, but she was definitely different somehow.
However, a few days later, her colic was back with a vengeance. We took her for her second treatment the next week and the same thing happened again - she was a joy after the treatment, then the effects wore off a bit after a day or two. But interestingly, at the second appointment, the osteopath said he didn't need to see her again (despite saying she'd need three sessions in total at the first session), making me less suspicious it was all quackery.
So, my verdict? It is definitely worth looking into cranial osteopathy in general for your baby, but not specifically as a cure for colic. I have a friend who's a paediatric nurse and she's just had a baby too (hello Alice!) and she took her little one to see an cranio specialist even though he wasn't having any specific issues. She's a diehard advocate of it AND a medical professional, so I really do trust her.
I do think there's something in it - and it makes sense that when babies come out of the womb they are all squished up and awkward, which must cause all kinds of little niggles and aches that we aren't privy too. In that instance, it makes sense then that as we grow, we 'grow into' our bodies and stretch out and these aches and pains gradually fade away. So I definitely recommend it if you're a fan of alternative therapy - one thing is for sure, it won't do any harm. And more than anything else, it's just lovely to talk to an expert about your baby for an hour or so! The osteopath was far more knowledgeable than any health visitor we've seen, that's for sure.
Read Part One of The Colic Diaries >
Read Part Two of The Colic Diaries >
THE RIVAL, my novel about career and motherhood, is on sale now. You can find out more about THE RIVAL here, and order here if you want to make my day. UNFOLLOW ME will be published in June.
The Colic Diaries: Colief and Comfort milk
In my last post about colic, I talked about how we found using Infacol and Gripe Water. Once we realised these weren't really touching the sides, we moved onto the big guns. First up, Colief.
Colief is a lactase enzyme that you put into baby's milk (it works with breast milk and formula) to reduce the level of lactose in the milk. It works on the belief that colic is caused by a baby's inability to digest lactose when they are tiny - until they are about three months old and their gut 'matures'. (Nice). Up until then, they get bloating and IBS like symptoms thanks to not being able to digest lactose, and it's this pain that makes them cry. Now, I don't quite now how Colief works for breastfeeding mums, but for us, we simply warmed Daphne's milk and put in four drops of this stuff half an hour before she needed to be fed. The warmth and the half an hour are required in order for the enzyme to do its job. Suffice to say, it was a bit of a faff.
We started using Colief when she was about six weeks old, I think. And we did see a big improvement in her wind - she definitely farted less and was much less 'burpy' after we started using it. We were quite pleased - it seemed to be helping and although she was still crying a lot at night, it was clear she was in much less pain than before.
However, Colief has one big downside - it costs a bloody fortune. It's about £12 for a tiny bottle that lasted just over a week. We asked the GP if she would prescribe it for Daphne, but she refused. I think you can get it on prescription but it depends where you live whether your Primary Care Trust reckons it's a medicine or not.
The other problem with Colief is sometimes we didn't have half an hour's warning before Daph wanted to be fed - and so it was all a bit hit and miss with whether the enzyme actually had time to work. After the occasional bottle left her crying and windy like before, we decided it would be easier and more consistent to move onto Comfort milk.
Comfort milk ostensibly does the same as Colief - it's already had much of the lactose removed, and it's also slightly thicker so it makes it harder for babies to gulp it, which means less wind. It says on the packet that it should only be used under medical advice, but I'm not sure anyone takes much notice of that.
I'd been putting off using Comfort milk, as I said before, because it only comes as a powder, not in ready-made bottles. So we had to start the whole palaver of sterilising the bottles and the powder and making it up with boiling water and leaving it to cool. Hence the acquisition of the wondrous Tommee Tippee Perfect Prep machine - which has done away with all this aggro and made it super easy to use.
The first time we gave Daphne Comfort milk, it was like some kind of magic drug - she fell asleep while drinking it, completely content and with no farting or burping or wriggling about. Sadly, this magic effect wore off after a couple of days, as she got used to the milk, but there's been a 100% improvement in her digestion since we put her on it. In that sense, it's been a bit of a miracle cure for us.
There are some downsides however. It makes Daphne's poo avocado green, which is somewhat alarming, but more upsettingly, her poos now absolutely STINK. To the point that when we change a nappy, we pretty much have to fumigate the room afterwards. But it's a small price to pay for a happier baby.
They say that when a baby reaches 3-4 months, their guts should have matured enough to be able to process lactose more easily, but I'm reluctant to change Daphne's milk again, so we're keeping her on the Comfort milk at least until she's weaned.
Next week, in my final thrilling post about colic, I'll talk about our experience with cranial osteopathy! Something to look forward to folks. The excitement! ;)
Read Part One of The Colic Diaries >
Read Part Three of The Colic Dairies >
THE RIVAL, my novel about career and motherhood, is on sale now. You can find out more about THE RIVAL here, and order here if you want to make my day. UNFOLLOW ME will be published in June.
The Colic Diaries: Infacol and Gripe Water
Hello there! I'm afraid this post will probably only be interesting to you if you have a baby with colic, or if you are about to have a baby and are concerned he/she may get colic. If not, you're probably better off skipping it as it'll be a bit of a snorefest. You have been warned!
However, if your baby has colic, then please let me send you a massive great big bear hug across the internet, and tell you that it's going to be OK. It really is. I promise. And don't worry if you sometimes feel like you want to throw your baby out of a window. Or get in the car and drive a very very long way away from the NEVER ENDING NOISE. It's normal. And you won't (throw the baby out the window, or run away).
I had no idea what colic was until about three days after Daph was born, when I finally had time to rummage through the Bounty pack they give you when you leave hospital. In it was a leaflet all about Infacol, explaining what colic was. I remember reading it and thinking it didn't sound too bad, and that it was good to know there was a 'medicine' that could take care of it. Ha!
Anyway for the first three weeks of her life Daph was pretty much a dream baby - she slept easily and often and although her waking times were unpredictable, she definitely slept well in the evenings, and we actually watched a bit of TV. Then at around three weeks, she started to get grumpy in the evenings. We noticed she was farting a lot, and always had a really tight tummy, but winding her was hard because she was so tiny. After a few days, the grumpiness turned into full-on crying sessions, with the typical arched back and legs they warn you about. It was then that I realised we were one of those 'lucky' one in five parents who have babies with colic.
No one seems to know exactly what colic is, or what causes it. Which seems ridiculous when you think they've been sending men into space since the 1960s. But anyway. Some people think it's related to digestive issues, whereas others say it's more about the baby's brain development - there's even a newish thing called 'the period of purple crying' which is now being touted about to reassure parents (and to stop them throwing their babies out of windows). I have my own theories - but for us, Daph's colic was definitely related to her digestion.
Colic is hideous. Forget waterboarding, stick a prisoner in a room with the soundtrack of a colicky baby's cry and they'd give up their secrets in seconds. Daphne would cry and cry for around three hours every night, every day, starting at about 8pm, without fail. She would cry as though she was in pain, but would have momentary pauses where she'd suddenly be all happy again, before the crying restarted. Nothing we did could stop her crying. Feeding her, bathing her, massaging her, singing to her, bouncing her, rocking her, cuddling her. None of it made any difference. When she was crying she would also fart a lot - as though the farting hurt her. It was pretty horrific - probably the hardest thing I've ever had to cope with.
Anyway, we tried so many things to help her, so I thought I'd do a series of posts about what we tried and what worked. First up: Infacol. This orange-flavoured syrupy substance apparently helps babies bring up wind by binding together all the trapped bubbles of air in their stomachs and making them easier to burp up in one go. It was the first thing we tried, and we used it religiously before every feed for two months. Did it help? I don't know. We spoke to our GP about it and she said that its real value is in calming the parents down as they believe they are doing something to help. She seemed very dismissive of it. We stopped using it after about eight weeks and I can't say that it made any difference when we gave it up. But by then, she was bigger and found burping easier. Daphne definitely liked it/the taste - and it always helped calm her down when we pipetted it into her mouth. So in that sense, I guess it had a soothing effect and was of some benefit.
As for Gripe Water - people have sworn by this for years. We only tried it a few times, mostly after she'd eaten and was screaming with wind, and again, it had the magical effect of distracting her for a few minutes. But otherwise, I think it did less than Infacol. It's also a pain in the arse to administer as it doesn't come with any kind of dropper device so you have to try to give it to the baby on a spoon, but it's ridiculously sticky and goes everywhere. In the good old days when we were kids it had alcohol in it, and so it basically got your baby so drunk she feel asleep. Not sure why they had to take the alcohol out but probably something to do with the WHO or the EU spoiling everyone's fun. Only kidding. Anyway I actually have half a bottle of it left so that shows you how little use it was for us.
If you have a baby with colic, I think both Gripe Water and Infacol are worth a try, but I do think what's more important is trying to work out why your baby is crying. If it's this 'period of purple crying' thing, then these are unlikely to have any effect, and really, you just have to ride it out (although I will say that not enough is said about overstimulating babies - why don't they warn you that tiny babies' brains can hardly cope with anything?!). However if it's a more obvious digestion issue, then they may help. But what helped us more with that was Colief, of which I'll write more in the next post...
Read Part Two of The Colic Diaries >
Read Part Three of The Colic Dairies >
THE RIVAL, my novel about career and motherhood, is on sale now. You can find out more about THE RIVAL here, and order here if you want to make my day. UNFOLLOW ME will be published in June.
Review: Tommee Tippee Perfect Prep machine
When we first realised that Chip was likely to be formula-fed, we decided that powdered formula was far too much of a terrifying faff, and so we just bought the ready-mixed stuff, which is sterile and super easy to use. But then as Chip's digestive woes progressed (she's lactose intolerant and normal baby milk gives her a bad tummy), we decided to switch to Comfort Milk
So what does it do? It basically makes making bottles up super easy - you fill it with cold tap water (which it handily filters with its built-in filter), select the quantity of feed you are making up from the large, idiot-proof dial, and stick a bottle underneath it. When it first arrived, Oli thought that it actually mixed the powder into the water for you, but alas, you have to do that yourself. You put a bottle under the dispenser, press the button once, and it releases a spurt of hot (not boiling water), which you then spoon your formula powder into. Give the bottle a quick shake, and then put it back under the dispenser, whereupon it finishes the bottle by filling it with the remainder of the water. The second lot of water is at a cooler temperature, so that the bottle is ready to drink straight away (no more trying to cool it down under a cold tap as you have to do if you make it up manually). The first lot of water is hot enough to kill any bacteria that might be present in the milk powder, so there are no worries about that.
As I said, Oli was not very impressed when it first arrived as he basically couldn't see much of a benefit versus using boiling water from the kettle. But I think he's been won over. This really is a super easy way of making up bottles and SO quick. They say it takes two minutes from start to finish - I've never timed it but it sounds about right. You can make bottles in advance to store straight away in the fridge too, if you're going out later (I know the official guidelines are to make each feed up as it's needed but the NHS seems to think it's OK to store them so long as you 'flash cool' them straight after making). It also works with any bottles, not just Tommee Tippee ones.
I'm so in love with it, in fact, that I'm considering lugging it to my parents' when we go and stay with them at Christmas - can't really imagine being without it now!
It's not cheap, but I got mine on Amazon and at the moment Tommee Tippee
So, it's not quite as exciting as a Nespresso machine
Some thoughts on baby books
I read a blog post the other day - at 4am, because 4am is the only time I manage to do much reading, as it's when Daph wakes for her (one-and-only now thank god!) night feed. And it struck a chord with me. It was a tongue-in-cheek post all about baby sleep advice - a collation of 'expert' opinions on how to get your baby into good sleep habits. It basically proved how ridiculous all the advice is, as it's all so conflicting and contradictory. You can read the original post here.
When Daph was born, I spent every waking hour devouring baby books in the hope of finding some magic kernel of info that would transform my confused newborn, who didn't seem to have a clue what a schedule was or how to stick to it, into a 'perfect baby'. I've read them all. From the strict Gina Ford
And let's not get started on Your Baby Week By Week
Anyway, I've read them all, I've digested them all, I've tried (some of) their tactics and I have come to a conclusion. Which I will share with you, in case you're pregnant or have just taken home your first terrifying bundle, because I think maybe it will help. It's simple...
Your baby will do what he/she wants to do. Whether or not you read the baby books.
Some babies are 'perfect' and sleep through the night at six weeks. Some babies breastfeed without any effort. Some babies only cry when they need something.
And other babies... other babies never sleep through the night - at least not until they're officially considered toddlers. Other babies think breasts are the most revolting feeding device known to mankind (that would be my little Daphne). Others cry at the drop of a hat, because they can, and because they feel like it.
When your friend tells you that her baby slept through the night at six weeks, naps like clockwork and wakes without complaint, and attributes it to Gina Ford, I say this: your friend was lucky. They got an 'easy' baby that likes routine.
I personally don't believe that baby books offer the first-time mother much, apart from reassurance and some ideas that MAY or MAY NOT help. I worry that the pressure of trying to stick to prescriptive advice just heaps more stress on new mothers (and fathers). There's no 'one size fits all' solution to looking your baby.
The things that have worked for us, if 'working' is the right word, are the things that have been instinctual. Like us realising that the one place that calms her down is her changing mat, and that (for whatever reason) putting her there when she has a meltdown immediately chills her out and stops the screaming. And realising that, despite the 'official' advice that she should always wear one more layer than us, Daphne is a warm baby who sweats and goes red when we truss her up in cardigans. And that Daphne will go to sleep perfectly well in her cot at night, but only if I'm in the bed next to her, because she doesn't want to be alone. And that that's fine, because she's only three months old and why the hell should she be left alone if it scares her?
There's SO MUCH truth in the saying: 'the trouble with babies is that they haven't read the books'. So by all means, read them, and if their methods feel right and work for you, that's great, but if not, don't beat yourself up thinking you have somehow failed. Your time might be better spent trusting your instincts, and listening to your baby, and TRULY BELIEVING that the best parents for your baby are you, and that the way you like to do things is the RIGHT way.