Mommy Update

Claire is 8 weeks old. 8 weeks! Can you believe it?!
I’m in the midst of a baby boom amoungst my friends over here, so its pretty much all-baby-all-the-time for me. I try to bring other things into my life, but to be honest, right now it’s mostly baby with some visiting and some crafting thrown in when it fits.
Since it is all about the babes, there is a lot of talk about what this baby and that baby is up to, and what these parents and those parents are doing. Lately there has been a lot of talk of babies moving into their own room. Every time I hear of another baby moving into his own room I wonder if I’m being judged for not even attempting to move my sweet little girl out.

I’ve never been an advocate for co-sleeping, mostly because it scares me and for someone like me, I would feel like I was being suffocated by children. I’m not against it, it just isn’t for my family. Besides, have you ever tried to sleep with a toddler in your bed? It’s torture. They move violently in the night which often ends with someone being kicked in the head. That said, I did want both my babies close to me when they were born. I wanted to be able to check on them often, and for it to be easy to feed them in the middle of night. For us, we have a cradle and glider at the end of the bed, a set up that has been ideal for our family.
Callum often would fall asleep on mine or Steve’s chest and then we’d transfer him to his cradle. During the day, Callum and I would nap together, him all snuggled like a bug on my chest. In the early evenings he snuggled with his Papa. This isn’t something we have been able to do with Claire because when she’s asleep, Callum is not, so her daytime naps are in the swing or playpen and in the early evenings she’s either awake talking to Papa or well, crying.
So at night, if she’s fussy, I just crawl back into bed, snuggle her up under my chin and drift off. She sleeps a good hour longer when she’s snuggled in with us, and we’re all happier getting more sleep. She seems so small and frail, the thought of her sleeping in that gigantic crib is still not on my agenda. Right now our sleep routine is a combination of Claire sleeping on my chest or in the cradle, and we’re slowly working our way up to more cradle time but if we regress one night, so be it.

(Photo by: Fearthainn)
We had our last midwife appointment on Tuesday and Claire weighed just over 10 lbs! I was impressed! Then was told that is a fabulous weight for a 6 week old…
eh, she’s 8 weeks.
Still, she’s gaining, she’s pink, she’s alert. She’s FINE. I, on the other hand, have been suffering with painful boobs the past 8 weeks. I’m almost certain I have some sort of breast infection and nearing the end of my appointment it was clear that my midwives had no intention to do anything about it. They kept saying “they have never heard of that”, so I requested some cream that my sister-in-law spoke of. We have to try SOMETHING because I am tired of being in pain (low grade, but still pain) all the time.
Speaking of breastfeeding, yesterday in Toys-R-Us I fed Claire while walking around (with an appropriate cover, of course). I am SUPER MOMMY. We’ve come a long way, baby.
Steve and I are in some sort of silent showdown with respect to giving her formula. It’s like neither of us wants to be the first and then get blamed for whatever negative side effect that might happen so she’s still solely on breastmilk. I’m borrowing a pump this week, so we’ll see if I can maybe, just maybe, pump enough milk now (I doubt it).

All in all, things are getting easier everyday, and I’m really looking forward to summer showing her pretty little face. She can come out of hiding any day now.