I remember in those first few days, sitting on the sofa, telling mum and dad with confidence that I could easily handle this parenting lark. I didn’t understand what the big deal was, people had made out it was somewhat different. I remember questioning the comments that had been passed before I left work such as
“You’ll be too busy to miss us”
or
“Parenting is a bigger job than the one you have now!”
I mean, how wrong they were. Their children must have been devil children. This was EASY! All she does is eat and sleep, maybe with the occasional poop, which although looking like tar, had no bad odour or sickly texture to it. I could do this; no, actually, I was made for this…
It hit me like a tonne truck. Days 3 through to day 10 were a living nightmare. How on earth could something so small produce such awful smells and hideous sights not to mention such loud screams! Surely someone had stolen my child and left me with someone else’s! This couldn’t be right, it was so easy a few days ago!
All of a sudden, my gorgeous calm and content baby girl was now a ‘milk guzzling’ bottomless pit, who cried whenever she came of the breast, wanting more… ‘MORE” Like any new mother I took to the Internet and called upon the support of the local Breast Feeding Support Worker; surely this wasn’t normal? Turns out it was, it’s called a growth spurt, and since our beautiful bundle was so tiny, it would seem for the next 4 weeks, she would be on a constant growth spurt!
Along the way, we’ve hit many a stumbling block;
- Colic
- Green ‘seaweed looking poops’
- Sudden fussiness and frustration when in mid feed
- Slow and minimal weight gainall of these, led to the biggest question;
- To combine or not to combine
with each one, we’ve taken on as much advice as possible, tried many a method, but most importantly, we’ve tackled them head on, together as a team. Without Gavin, I know it would have been 10 times harder and worst-case scenario, I’d have been found by now rocking in a darkened corner of the house, nursing a bottle (of formula of course!)
The research shows that colic starts from week 2 and begins early evening. Our gorgeous little one likes to break all of the rules and her colic started at day one. We tried Infacol and Colief and have never looked back.
The seaweed poops have been explained as bile and are normal in those so young, although it still remains a worry that she’s not taking on as much of the hind milk that she should be, since she keeps falling asleep at the breast and being so fussy in feeding. We’re going to keep an eye on these in future.
The Fussiness and frustration we’ve yet to understand, going with my maternal instinct I feel that my breasts aren’t producing enough milk to meet her demand, or it’s not as ‘filling’ as it should be. This could explain why she is never leaving my breast, not even for 5 minutes, not even to sleep!
When weighed within the first few weeks, she seemed to be doing really well; she hadn’t lost much of her birth weight, then regained it quite quickly. However, in the few weeks to follow, her weight gain slowed to 3oz in 2 weeks. All in all, a lot of different reasons to consider the big final question…to combine formula and breast-feeding or not? We decided to give it a go, supplementing one feed with a few ounces of formula. We watched her as she took her first bottle, me with tears in my eyes, feeling like a ‘failure’. She was content. For the first time, I’d finally seen my baby happy, quiet and observant. She sat silent, taking in the world around her, happy as can be. Not only this, but she then gained 4oz in 4 days…normal weight gain! Finally! Formula and breast milk for us was the way forward. We now supplement breast-feeding 3 times a day and again, we’ve never looked back!
Getting to grips with the sudden HUGE lifestyle change takes a while. We’re now one month in and still I get confused over what each cry means, nervous over leaving the house with her on my own or I neglect to think of the simplest of things like a dirty nappy when her cry is bouncing off the walls, until I’ve exhausted all other avenues. However, the sleepless nights are getting easier to deal with (ish) until you hit a wall of exhaustion. Her crying gets easier to manage (I’m no longer crying alongside her every time), when you look at it as her only means of communication rather than an “I hate you, I’m so unhappy, You’re the worst mommy in the world” type of cry.
Parenting is one STEEP learning curve, however, each and every day gets a little bit easier than the day before and each day you’re reminded just how worth it the hard times are!
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