Little cosmic jokes, and gratitude

I. Note to babies born with head hair: if your parents are clumsy enough to trigger the Moro reflex during a handoff, it's just never a good idea to grab your own hair. Try for Mommy's hair, or for Daddy's shirt, or something. Not your own hair. If you do end up grabbing your own hair, please, please, please let go.

II. So, I can find things to worry about on my own, too. I worry sometimes that Tabby isn't making as much eye contact with me as she does with other people; mostly I blame my huge glasses, but... so, this afternoon, when she pulled off after a moderately long feed, and was sitting peacefully, she turned the fulll force of her tiny little gaze on me and I was overcome, absolutely overcome by sappiness and joy and all that. Kissed her little forehead and cooed back.

And then she went a little cross-eyed, and I heard some quiet little plorps. Yes, readers, she was producing her first poop since THURSDAY. Just two hours after I'd broken the advice moratorium and called the pediatrician's office—the nurse recommended cutting back on dairy (a stab in the heart!) and calling again if she still hadn't pooped by tomorrow.

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Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone for your sympathy and for your "been there, and my baby did that too!" responses to my last post. There are many ways for things to turn out okay in the end. Yes, when I can stand it, I'll go back to kellymom. (And Moxie, you'll be glad to know that the only oatmeal we had around was a Bob's Red Mill mix with flaxseed, too!)

I'm still watching the clock, mostly because I'm worried I'm lazy and because Beaker is trying perhaps a little too hard to protect me from the baby's demands at times. But we've hit some weird rhythm where she sleeps a long time at night, feeds deep then goes back to sleep for a couple of hours, cluster feeds, long nap, cluster feeds, and gradually settles towards evening. I'm still pumping at 4 am, and Beaker has been giving her an ounce or so (in a Dr. Brown's bottle—we couldn't take the syringes anymore) late in the cluster feeds. She takes the EBM about half the time. She's making lots and lots of wet diapers. Weight gain? I may go to LC5's group on Wednesday, or I may give it a miss. But her little cheeks seem chubbier.

My current worry, now that the poop issue has been resolved (for the day, at least): asymmetry of production, of suck time, of size. Sigh. But I think I need a bit more of a breather before hitting the books, even, again.

Comments

[Becca]

My oldest pooped about every eight days when she was a baby. When it got to day seven, my husband, the babysitter, and I would eagerly hand her off to each other, hoping that the poop would arrive on someone else's shift, as it was usually colossal (this was when she was a few months, but still, the point is that all babies are different). As I'm sure a zillion people have said in response to your last poop, if she's gaining, you're fine. Just do what works for you and her.

[Leslie]

I had actually forgotten how erratically my son pooped as an infant until everyone else posted - and he would go so long that we occasionally resorted to glycerin suppositories or taking a rectal temp - just enough stimulation to help get things moving. 10 years later it's a blur!

there are lots of folk who would kill to have a small baby on the kind of schedule you're describing. and being lopsided is an inevitable side effect of breastfeeding. It'll get better as you both get more experienced. The fact that most of us don't naturally hang around with lots of other breastfeeding moms before we start doing so ourselves really makes getting started harder than it ought to be. You're doing great!

[Moxie]

Asymmetry is completely normal. I used to think that there must be something about either my production or the taste of my milk that was affected by the fact that I'm overwhelmingly right-handed. I thought that I either produced less on the right side, or it tasted more like dark meat, because El Chico preferred my left breast almost from the get-go. Not so much that I had a canteloupe on the left and a plum on the right, but the preference was definitely there (as was the asymmetry of size).

However, El Pequeno prefers the right side. Does he like gamier tasting milk? (I imagine it must have more flavor because I work much harder on that side in daily living.) Is he just trying to freak me out? (That might also explain why he won't take a bottle, despite our having tried consistently and with a million different types from weeks 2.5 through 9.) And why do I care? (That's the real question.)

Oh, and of course Tabby doesn't eat the same amount every time. That would be like eating a TV dinner for every single meal. Blech. Sometimes you want to have a light snack, and sometimes you want to tuck in and have a real meal. Sometimes you want toast with peanut butter, and sometimes you just want a handful of baby carrots and sometimes you want turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, green salad, and two kinds of pie.

This is absolutely the kind of stuff nursing mothers muse about in the middle of the night. (Who could come up with "my right side must taste like dark meat" during daylight hours?) But it should be musing, not concern, because a lot of this is like a Thermos--you don't know how it works, it just does.

(Her tiny hand! Her tiny head! All that hair!)

[Ally]

Jamie doesn't prefer one side or another, but my left breast has always been the overproducer. It's bigger and leakier and always "on" (letdown, schmetdown). (From Moxie's post yesterday, I now know that's because the muscles are loose. You learn something new every day!) FWIW.

Honestly, it sounds like everything is going well. And the back of her head is just darling!

[Emma also Jane]

Hey Emma, I'm glad to see that you seem a little more relaxed. Babies poo when the mood takes them, and as so many others have said, breastfed babies poo anywhere from every nappy (sorry diaper) to every two weeks, whether they need to or not. Here in Australia, they tell you only to worry about the number of wet nappies, not dirty ones. As for side preferences -- my fourth, Mick, had such a marked preference for the right side that we came to call my left breast the vinegar tit. He would only take it half asleep in the middle of the night, and only then if he couldn't manoevre me to get at the other one. The next baby, Lillian, seems to have no preference at all. Weird.
I'm glad you got one of those focused gaze moments. Remember babies can love you up, and poo at the same time. Multitasking, I believe it's called. You'll both get *so* good at it!

Be well

[nate]

Chubby cheeks made me think of this: some babies (like mine) just never get that "fat baby" look. I remember reading Dr. Sears when she was about 6 weeks old, and he mentioned that some babies just put all their first growth into height/length, not weight. He calls them "banana-types."

Babies, unfortunately (or fortunately) are NOT all alike. This is why I found other moms to be my best resource, far more than any LC, midwife, doula, or ped. The health care providers tend to be focussed around statistical averages, whereas I think moms tend to focus on the stories (quantitative vs. qualitative data, if you will...).

So happy to hear that you're feeling better. And OH! that hair! Those little fingers! I loved the Moro reflex...

[Cecily]

That is one cute baby head.

[cass]

What Cecily said. I've got nothing on the BF front, but that's a lovely head. And all that hair!

[Mommyprof]

Nursing is hard and I think too many experts weighing in makes it harder. Offspring was a cluster feeder like that at times...if there was nothing left for her to get, sometimes I would give her a pacifier, but hold her against me tight, which calmed her down. This only lasted a week or two and she would never take a pacifier after that. If Tabby is gaining weight, you are doing a great job. It's an act of faith, but keep telling yourself that.

[elisabeth]

Years away from nursing I STILL consider myself "left breasted" I always had a better supply and size difference in my left breast.

[Thistles]

When I get frustrated about the breastfeeding and is she getting enough, etc. I just remember that SOMEHOW women did this and continue to do this all over the world without advice or pediatricians or lactation consultants. Tabby will do what she needs to do to get enough. Babies are a lot smarter than we give them credit for! My 11-week-old daughter does that hair grabbing thing too! She came out with a full-on hairstyle and still has it. Now that she's got a little better control of her hands she tends to stroke her own hair instead of clutching it in a death grip. And damn that Tabby has a gorgeous head!

[Di]

So I'm going to de-lurk and ad my two cents too.

First, I believe assymetry is the norm, not the exception. Second, my second pooped about every four days or so. For nearly six months until I started giving him some whole-fat yogurt. He didn't gain much wait, my doctor was worried, and then it turned out that was his normal. And so with my daughter, who has behaved the very same way, my doctor was oh, well, that's just the way your babies do it. No problem. So, you're normal, your baby is normal--and how can anything she does be anything but normal for her, really?

As for the feeding, well, she takes comfort in the nursing and in you. Can you shift her so she takes comfort in other things. Yeah. Do you want to? Well, that's entirely up to you. The hard part is if she cries because if you're like me, you go into full-sap meltdown and cannot resist her. But in the end, you love her, and you are being a good mom, and what else is there?

Also, there's a supplementary feeding system you can get from Medela. It looks like a baby bottle with a long soft tube out the top that looks like a piece of vermicelli. If you pump, and want to feed back, you can tape it to your breast and give extra milk while she's nursing, and (the reason I really mention it), Beaker can tape it to his finger and she'll nurse off the finger. It helps prevent nipple confusion, and at least my kids took to it better than any sort of bottle, dropper, syringe, or you name it. I can tell you that when we used it, my husband was soooooo relieved because it just made it so much easier for him to help.

Congratulations. (And I had three or four lactation consultants, so all my sympathies there).

[Thistles]

Oh yes. We used that vermicelli Medela supplemental feeding system for the first week or so. Niblet retained her birth weight (5lbs 11oz) and adapted to the breast easily.

[Jody]

Ack! Little baby head! Little Baby Fist! Total baby meltdown!

Too charmed by all things baby to write anything more. Except: still asymmetrical after all these years.

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