Progress notes
Jul. 2nd, 2005 09:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juthwaraWe've survived our first onslaught of grandparent visitation. My parents were here from Wednesday to Friday and were enchanted with their first grandchild. It was particularly sweet to see my father hold K and whisper sweet nothings to her. I'm so glad that I was able to have a child while he's still lucid enough to appreciate it. K received her worshippers graciously and conveniently decided to save the growth spurt that required constant feeding until they had left. The next bout of grandparents comes next week, with a great-aunt in tow for good measure.
Poor K had to get a shot in the butt this week. There's a measles outbreak in Lafayette at the moment, so everyone who's gone through the local hospital in the past couple weeks has potentially been exposed to it. It's not too much of a worry, since I'm up-to-date on my shots and therefore probably immune to measles, and that immunity will have passed down to K for the next few months. So the shot she got was just an extra precaution, a shot of immune globulin that will boost her immune system to either be resistant to measles or make it not as bad if she does get it. So I'm not terribly worried about measles. I do, however, have quite a few mouth-frothing things to say about parents who are neglectful or selfish enough not to vaccinate their children and thereby put my child at risk (yes, not vaccinating is selfish. When you fail to vaccinate a child on the infinitesimal risk of a bad reaction, you put not only them at a much greater risk of getting a disease that will be far worse, you also put the most vulnerable members of society such as babies, the elderly and people with serious medical conditions at risk for getting a disease they might not be able to fight off. Saying "Screw you and your needs, I'm protecting me and mine" to the rest of society is selfish, no matter how justified you may feel in doing it).
I have to confess, while breastfeeding may be a perfect and harmonious expression of my motherly love, at the moment I mostly find it tedious. It takes forever, it's very isolating because I can't do it around anyone I don't want to get a good eyeful of my nipples (K usually has to spend several minutes latching on and pulling away before she gets down to business, so I can't just throw a blanket over her and hook her up - I need to be able to see her to get her back on), I can't do _anything_ else while I do it except watch tv and most tedious, I'm the only one who can do it. We've had enough latching problems early on that I don't want to give her a bottle, lest getting a food source that's much less effort than the breast cause more problems. But oh, do I want to. In the throes of a 2am hour-and-a-half-long feeding last night, I actually asked![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
longstrider to give her the next feeding, but she wound up sleeping two hours later than I had expected, so by the time she woke up I was so full of milk that if I hadn't fed her, I would have just had to get up to pump anyway, lest I start spraying milk about the bedroom like a lawn sprinkler. So we're still holding strong on the no-bottle front at the moment, but I make no guarantees about tonight.
It's particularly frustrating because in all other ways, she's a remarkably easy baby at the moment (I'm very hesitant to say that, in case she hears and realizes she's supposed to be difficult and fussy). Her general pattern is sleep, eat, get a diaper change, go back to sleep. The only occasions for crying are hunger and dirty diaper/exposed skin. And trust me, I'm not complaining. But it does make it seem doubly unfair that I'm the only one who can answer 75% of her needs.longstrider is happy to change diapers and hold her, but that's all the easy parts. Chances are, if she's crying, I'm the only one who can deal with it. While my parents were here, I was faced with the choice of either taking away their entire reason for visiting for extended periods so I could feed her, or allow her to cry while other people tried to comfort her when I knew very well the only thing that would solve the problem. That was particularly painful because at the moment my hormones make it almost unbearable to hear her cry while other people are holding her.
I know it's going to get better. She'll get bigger and more efficient at eating and need fewer feedings. She'll wake up more and have more social needs that other people can meet. My body will learn how to deal with its milk supply better and I won't be so sore all the time. And I'm committed to doing this, both because it's the best thing for her and because I'm too cheap to buy formula (when we were having problems, I informed K that we could either afford formula or a good college. Breastfeeding means a private liberal arts college, but formula will consign her to state school). But yesterday, when her first growth spurt meant I got up at 7 and spent almost literally the entire day feeding her, it was rather hard to see it.
Poor K had to get a shot in the butt this week. There's a measles outbreak in Lafayette at the moment, so everyone who's gone through the local hospital in the past couple weeks has potentially been exposed to it. It's not too much of a worry, since I'm up-to-date on my shots and therefore probably immune to measles, and that immunity will have passed down to K for the next few months. So the shot she got was just an extra precaution, a shot of immune globulin that will boost her immune system to either be resistant to measles or make it not as bad if she does get it. So I'm not terribly worried about measles. I do, however, have quite a few mouth-frothing things to say about parents who are neglectful or selfish enough not to vaccinate their children and thereby put my child at risk (yes, not vaccinating is selfish. When you fail to vaccinate a child on the infinitesimal risk of a bad reaction, you put not only them at a much greater risk of getting a disease that will be far worse, you also put the most vulnerable members of society such as babies, the elderly and people with serious medical conditions at risk for getting a disease they might not be able to fight off. Saying "Screw you and your needs, I'm protecting me and mine" to the rest of society is selfish, no matter how justified you may feel in doing it).
I have to confess, while breastfeeding may be a perfect and harmonious expression of my motherly love, at the moment I mostly find it tedious. It takes forever, it's very isolating because I can't do it around anyone I don't want to get a good eyeful of my nipples (K usually has to spend several minutes latching on and pulling away before she gets down to business, so I can't just throw a blanket over her and hook her up - I need to be able to see her to get her back on), I can't do _anything_ else while I do it except watch tv and most tedious, I'm the only one who can do it. We've had enough latching problems early on that I don't want to give her a bottle, lest getting a food source that's much less effort than the breast cause more problems. But oh, do I want to. In the throes of a 2am hour-and-a-half-long feeding last night, I actually asked
longstrider to give her the next feeding, but she wound up sleeping two hours later than I had expected, so by the time she woke up I was so full of milk that if I hadn't fed her, I would have just had to get up to pump anyway, lest I start spraying milk about the bedroom like a lawn sprinkler. So we're still holding strong on the no-bottle front at the moment, but I make no guarantees about tonight.It's particularly frustrating because in all other ways, she's a remarkably easy baby at the moment (I'm very hesitant to say that, in case she hears and realizes she's supposed to be difficult and fussy). Her general pattern is sleep, eat, get a diaper change, go back to sleep. The only occasions for crying are hunger and dirty diaper/exposed skin. And trust me, I'm not complaining. But it does make it seem doubly unfair that I'm the only one who can answer 75% of her needs.
longstrider is happy to change diapers and hold her, but that's all the easy parts. Chances are, if she's crying, I'm the only one who can deal with it. While my parents were here, I was faced with the choice of either taking away their entire reason for visiting for extended periods so I could feed her, or allow her to cry while other people tried to comfort her when I knew very well the only thing that would solve the problem. That was particularly painful because at the moment my hormones make it almost unbearable to hear her cry while other people are holding her. I know it's going to get better. She'll get bigger and more efficient at eating and need fewer feedings. She'll wake up more and have more social needs that other people can meet. My body will learn how to deal with its milk supply better and I won't be so sore all the time. And I'm committed to doing this, both because it's the best thing for her and because I'm too cheap to buy formula (when we were having problems, I informed K that we could either afford formula or a good college. Breastfeeding means a private liberal arts college, but formula will consign her to state school). But yesterday, when her first growth spurt meant I got up at 7 and spent almost literally the entire day feeding her, it was rather hard to see it.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-04 02:48 pm (UTC)Once you get latching better, you may be able to walk around some (the mind insisted on walk-nursing sometimes!), and there is also reading or one-handed computing. (I spent some wee hours reading online...)
So, um, holding out hope!
Once you get a little more practice with latching, a bottle might not set you back -- the minx went back and forth with ease. Still, all babies are different, so trust your instincts.