Visitors

Let me start off by saying that I am so lucky my in laws are not over bearing! In fact... I'm so lucky to have my mother in law. Today's post is all about having visitors in your home after having the baby. Specifically the in laws. My husband and I had a conversation a few weeks prior to delivery of when we want people to visit. His family lives out of state and my family lives ten minutes down the road. We knew my parents would visit in the hospital but we didn't know when his parents would fly down. My husband was  very adamant that he wanted them to fly down the day after baby W was born. My thoughts? I just pushed a watermelon out of my hoo-ha. Can I enjoy some family time just the 3 of us??? However, I would never ever tell my husband that his parents couldn't come down immediately. My parents were there...isn't it only fair that his be there too? 

Well- I finally got the nerves to tell my husband I want a few days of just us. That also meant my parents weren't allowed to come over either. Guess what... He completely understood. He said that I was the one who was in pain so I got to make that choice. So how did we tell his mom not jump on the first flight? Simple...we asked. We said to her that we wanted some time just the 3 of us. We also wanted to make sure I was out of the hospital so she's not sitting in the hospital all day OR waiting in the house for us to come home. Good thing we did this too because I was in the hospital for four days! I had a traumatic birth and my body needed major repairs. My best friend Ana said "I'm under construction." It was a nice way to put it... I think.

 My mother in law ended up coming in 6 days after he was born. I was so lucky to have her. In the hospital, I slept for a total of ten hours over four days. The first night Baby W was home, I think Wes and I slept for 2 hours in total. We would trade off and on of who would get an extra hour of sleep. When his mom came down, she took baby W and said Ronnie- go to sleep. I got a solid four hours of sleep. She not only let me sleep but she cooked me dinner, did the laundry, and she helped me in and out of the bathroom when needed. (Did I tell you that I had a really traumatic birth???) was I worried about her being over bearing? Nah- not really because she's so easy going anyways. However, I am very big on that I never ever ever ever want people to see me at my worse. Even if I feel terrible- I will try to put on a brave face. I didn't want her seeing my weak side.[not that she would even care] I didn't want her seeing me in pain. Did she end up seeing me in pain? Duh- I popped a kid out 6 days prior. Did I let my pain and my vain stop her from seeing her grandchild? Would I change anything? Probably not. I enjoyed the time that baby W, Wesley and I had together for the first few days. He needed to get to know us and we needed to get to know him. What would I do next time? Probably the exact same thing... 

What would you do if your mother in law asked you? Would you let her come the next day? The next week? The next month? By no means am I anywhere close to knowing what is right and what is wrong. I just knew what was right when it came time for my family.

Dogs and babies...

So today's post is really going to be about introducing a dog to a baby. I purposely bought a dog that was good with kids. I have a Yorkie… and she is 7 

pounds. She is the baby of the family until baby W came along. 

Everyone kept asking how is Penelope going to be with baby W? Our answer was she'll be just fine. Then as we get closer I started to get a little worried. So we decided to do any normal parent would do we decided to torture bug the dog. And I mean it in a loving way. We took all of Baby W's things and assembled them in the house. For example we put his crib up but we let her be involved. Now how can a dog be involved in putting a group together? It's easy we would play with her toys in the babies room. We are playing in there and get her used to that room. We would allow her to smell the pieces of the crib. When we put the sheets on the bed and she smells them when we put in the new glider she played on it. Now I know it sounds a little weird that you let a dog and the babies things but they're going to be exposed to each other their entire life. 

So why not start now? So after that we would go in take those things out that baby W would have and let her smell it. The big one came on we were downstairs and we made his little swingset and we use MamaRoo. We let her sit in the MamaRoo we let her smell the MamaRoo, we let her balance and sit. We pretty much let her get involved with everything that we are doing when it was related to the baby. When I went in to labor, I had my parents go and pick up Penelope. They had her for three days while I was in the hospital. When we finally brought baby W home -we had met my dad outside of my house. The reason why we did this was because it was a neutral ground, and I wanted Penelope to be able to smell baby W. She smelled him while he was in his car seat and then together they walked in. Of course my husband carried the car seat in, and my dad had Penelope and I just pretty much watched the whole thing. We walked in the house and we put baby W right and his MamaRoo  Once we got him in his MamaRoo- Penelope of course jumped right up to look at him. This instantly became of our favorite pictures of Penelope. [See picture above]. After that Penelope wanted nothing to do with baby W. In fact she would go and be with the person who did not have baby W. This lasted a whole four days. She was especially annoyed when she realized he was sleeping in our bedroom.

She was checking on me at 3 am. <3 Look
at those sleepy eyes.

After four-five days passed, Penelope finally got the courage up to smell him. Wes and I stayed away and watched from a distance. She licked his hand and he opened his eyes. He looked at her and then she went to town licking his feet. It took Penelope about a month to start sleeping on my side of the bed again. It also took her only two times to get run over by his stroller for her to realize she can't walk in front of it. 2 months later - Penelope loves baby W. When we aren't looking- she will try to lay on top of him (probably to kiss him to death). 

Did we have some hiccups? Of course...Penelope was the only baby for 3 years. However, I really think she is enjoying baby W. Well...maybe not when he cries at 2 am. Ha! What did we do that would be helpful to you?

1. Introduce the dog to the things that will be in your house.

2. If your dog is afraid of wheels (ours is) then roll the stroller around the house. Don't go around the neighborhood...that's weird. Then people will walk up to you to see the baby and the stroller will be empty.

3. Have them meet outside your house. It's a neutral territory for your dog.

4. Let your dog get the courage to smell and play with the baby. Don't shove the dog onto the baby. The dog could have resentment, or worse anger...

Hopefully this helped you! Did you do anything special with your dog? Leave comments below!

Breastfeeding...the good, the bad, the ugly

Are you thinking about breastfeeding? Let me tell you that in no way am I telling you what to do or am I medically trained. I'm just giving you tips of what I've learned jn hopes that one day it will help you.

The Good...

It's amazing. One of my favorite parts is our bonding time. My husband doesn't get to experience this. I love just being able to look at baby W and know I'm providing for him. Providing for your baby is one of the most satisfying things. I am extremely grateful that I can because I know how hard it is. It's also stressful but it's all worth it. 
I also love that Baby W will hold my hand. At 2 in the morning when I'm exhausted and he's hungry and you just want to sleep---having him hold my hand makes up for the fact that I am going to pass out while breast feeding...
I also love the fact that the first time I saw baby W smile was when he was breastfeeding. Okay...I know, he was probably farting or pooping but it was still a gumless cute smile! <3 (Btw...my munchkin poops 6-10 times a day. When he's eating- he poops during. I know this is weird but it makes me happy that he is pooping because I know he is healthy and his digestive system is working)
I lost so much weight. So my entire pregnancy I only gained 23 lbs. Baby W came out 5 lbs 13 oz. Once I started to breast feed, I lost all but 5 pounds! I truly despise exercising so it worked out really well that the breast feeding helped lose the weight!
  

The Bad...

He will bite you. He's not being vindictive and biting because you are not producing enough milk. Honestly, he only bit me when he was extremely hungry and wanted food immediately. 

Have you heard about the growth spurts? I will blog about that completely a different day. However, let me tell you this- when you are breast feeding and your munchkin goes through a growth spurt and they are feeding every HOUR [but feels like every minute] you will need to persevere and say I will get through this! It's only 24 hours!! I CAN HANDLE THIS! The growth spurts suck but there is great reasoning behind it. They eat every hour so they can get your body to produce the amount of milk needed for them.

Boredom. I know this is selfish of me but I have the slowest eater. He goes so slow that he falls asleep. He also could fall asleep as he's waiting for milk to come in. What do I do while he's breast feeding and my husband is sleeping? I play solitaire. I try not to play with baby W because then it will wake him up and out of his dream feed which is exactly what I don't want.

Are you doing it correctly? I had some complications after the birth and I was in the hospital for one extra day. Because of that I had 14 nurses between me and baby W. Not one nurse said I was nursing baby W correctly. One lady finally told me that I was producing colostrum. [YIPPEE] But one hour lady the next nurse told I would NEVER be able to breast feed. [I cried for an hour]. She said my nipples were "weird" and his palette was far back that he would not be able to latch. She told me I would be exclusively pumping, and I did for almost a week. I give credit to those moms who exclusively pump.  I would pump, and turn around and he would eat. Finally his pediatrician told me about the nipple shields from Medela. Guess what...they worked!I am happy to say that I am up to 5 oz each pump!!! 




Thirsty. I don't know if I'm crazy but I am so thirsty all of the time. I get even thirstier when I am feeding him. I have no idea if it's normal but I drink a ton of water and a ton of gatorade. I also know that in order to make milk you need to drink water or gatorade. Try to cut caffeine out or limit it to a small can. By all means...remember to eat! You will get super dizzy and sick because you're not eating.

When your baby cries...your boobs will feel it before you possibly even hear it. All of the sudden they will feel very tense and you may feel them leaking. If you don't get that baby on or pumping the pain will intensify. 




The ugly...

Your nipples will bleed or crack. I have not had this because I used several things to not allow this. I go to European Wax Center to buy their Slow It Body Wash. It's a hydrating product and it is amazing. Even if you don't get waxed (you can't in your 3rd trimester) you can still use the body wash. This helped me avoid bleeding and cracking along with Earth Mama's Nipple Butter.Click here to buy from Amazon. You can get it form Target, Buy Buy Baby, and Babies R Us.

The judging. I am going to add in there the "mom-shaming." I've been out in public several times and I am a mom that breast feeds and I also supplement. When we were in the hospital, they told me I was not producing colostrum so I had to supplement. Because of that when we are out in public, I am able to give baby W formula or a bottle of breast milk. Do you know that women [yes, plural] have walked past me and made RUDE comments about what I'm doing to my child. Mommy shaming will be brought up in a different post but watch this amazing video by Similac.

Mommy Shaming by Similac






There will be times you will want to cry, scream, stomp your foot and give up! 

Don't! You can do it! Don't be embarrassed, don't think you can't do it. Trust me! You can do it! If you put your mind to it, you will be able to do anything. Will it be stressful? Duh-having a baby is not easy! However, you can do it.




I hope this helps you realize you are not alone when it comes to breast feeding. Do you have any thing you would add to the Good, Bad, and the Ugly list? Leave it below in your comments box!