Our Routine

I've been meaning to write about the sleeping and eating routine that we've adopted since I went back to work. So here goes:

Our day usually starts sometime between 3am and 4:30am. Either she'll wake us up sometime in there and want to eat, or she'll sleep through and I'll wake up to my alarm at 4:30am. Usually, even if she hasn't been forcefully demanding food at that point, she'll have been at least periodically waking up and fussing and then going back to sleep. So if she's slept through until 4:30, we go ahead and feed her at that time anyway. It's nice to feed her when she's not totally hungry and freaking out.

Ben and Greta before the sun comes up. 

This early-morning feeding is one that Ben gives to Greta from a bottle. This became our habit when we were living with Ben's parents because when we were on a schedule and waking her up to eat, they would often take the late night and early morning feedings so that we could get some more rest. I'd get up and pump and then go right back to sleep, instead of nursing (which still can take a very long time). It worked well for us then and it's continuing to work well for us now. The nice thing is that because it's been longer since her last feeding, my supply is usually bigger. So I can produce enough for two feedings during one pumping session at that time. It's a nice little safety net to be able to get an extra bottle's worth of milk each day. I know that many breastfeeding sources say that if you are pumping and working, you should nurse your baby at all other times. But I like the way that things are going and I'd like to keep it up.

So I get up and get a snack and a tall glass of water and heat up a hot pack to help get my breasts fully drained. I pump for 20-30 minutes while Ben gets Greta changed and gives her the bottle that we prepared the night before. Then usually he snuggles Greta back to sleep and when I'm done pumping I empty the dishwasher of the pump and bottle parts from the previous evening. I pump three times while at work and I don't have the time to wash or rinse the supplies in-between pump times, so I just bring three full sets of pump parts and then wash them all in the dishwasher overnight. It means some extra time loading and unloading the dishwasher, as well as some time spent on shaking and wiping the water off of the clean parts when they come out of the dishwasher in the morning, but it's still less of a hassle than standing at the sink and washing everything by hand. Plus, I can pre-assemble just about everything ahead of time and put it into my pump bag ready to go. If I have enough time, I also make up the next couple bottles that she'll have while I'm at work and empty the rest of the dishwasher so that it's ready to be filled throughout the day.

Then I usually get dressed for the day, make my lunch, finish packing up the pump and supplies, and eat one more breakfast snack before I leave for work. I leave at 6:30am.

When I get to work, I go up to the "pumping room" (really just a bathroom that is no longer used) and set up the pump and my supplies. Then I check the clock and see if I have enough time to get some caffeine before I start teaching. (So far, I've managed to get out for a caffeinated beverage everyday that I've been back at work -- bad for my wallet, but great for my sanity!)

Then, at 7:10am, I start teaching my Geometry class. I teach for an hour and then go up to pump during the schoolwide advisory time. This is my most constrained pump time of the day. The bell for the end of my Geometry class rings at 8:10 and I have to be back in the classroom at 8:35. I take the elevator up to the "pump room" so that I can avoid going up three flights of stairs amidst the hubub of passing time. Then I hurriedly take down the front of my nursing tank or bra and put on the hands-free bustier right over it. I put the flanges through the holes in the bustier and check that the nipples are centered by using a handheld mirror. Then I attach a pre-assembled set-up (the connector, valve, membrane and bottle) to each side and start the pump.

At 8:30, I turn off the pump, remove the hands-free bustier, and blot the milk off of myself. Then I carefully remove all the pieces except the bottles and put them in a gallon bag that I use to bring the used parts home. If the pump session has been productive, I will have about 2 ounces in each bottle. I carefully pour the contents of one bottle into the other, so that I have one empty bottle (to be put in the gallon bag and washed later) and one 4 ounce bottle of breastmilk. I cap that bottle and put it in my little cooler.

Then I do one final check to make sure that my shirt is not still up around my chest and go back down to my classroom.

When the lunch bell rings three hours later, I head back up to the pump room and repeat the process -- the differences being that at this pump session I have a buddy (another lactating teacher whose daughter is older and so she only needs to pump once a day) in the pumping room with me, and I also am eating my lunch while I pump. I have 40 minutes for lunch, so it's a little less stressed, but because I often have to heat up my lunch before going up to the pump room, it can still be a bit of a strain to be back in time for my next class.

Then I have three more hours of teaching before the end of the schoolday. Right away when the bell rings, I go up and do another pumping. If it's a day when I have a meeting afterschool, then this last pumping is also very rushed because I am trying to get to the meeting 10 minutes late instead of 20 minutes late. If it's a day when I don't have a meeting, then I can take my time, but I try not to dawdle because I want to get stuff done so I can get home to my baby. I try to get as much done as I can before 5:15pm, so that when I go home at 5:30pm, I can just commit to family time.

What's Greta been doing all this time? That varies a lot. Usually after I am done pumping in the morning, she will snuggle with Ben until she's ready to eat again (usually sometime between 8 and 9am). If Ben's parents will be watching her for the day, then they come over around 9am and Ben gets ready and goes in to work. She's not on any particular schedule yet. Whomever is watching her will feed her about every 3 hours and fit in naps and tummy time and strolls whenever it seems to make sense. Throughout her day, she ends up taking about the same amount as what I've pumped during my three pumping sessions at work.

Playdate!

When I get home, we check in about how long ago she ate last (usually sometime between 2:00 and 3:30) and make plans for when I'll nurse her next. I nurse her and we do her meds sometime between 5:30-7pm, just depending on how things shake out. We try to aim for her meds being as close to 6pm as possible. We used to be more stressed about not feeding her until she'd had her meds because we were so afraid she'd spit them up. But now that we're a little more comfortable, we've found that it often goes better if I nurse her on one side to make sure she's calm and maybe a little "milk-drunk." Then we do the meds and then I offer the second side.

Ben and I squeeze in dinner for ourselves sometime in there -- sometimes before I nurse her and sometimes after . . . sometimes during, if dinner is a food that can be eaten with one hand and is unlikely to spill on the baby (or, at least, is not going to hurt the baby if it does). Around 8pm, I usually jump in the shower while she chills on the playmat or Ben snuggles her. When I get out of my shower, she's usually ready to nurse one more time before bed.

Sometime in the evening, one of us will make up the bottle for the next morning's 4:30am feeding (and, if there are more clean bottles available, the next feeding or two) and load the dishwasher with all the pump parts and bottles. We only have three bottles that we rotate through, so usually one of them will be clean (from being handwashed at some point in the day) and can be used for the 4:30am feeding, and the rest will go into the dishwasher. Yes, we wish our dishwasher had two top racks! Gone are the days when we'd put soup bowls or glassware up on the top -- everything that gets top-rack treatment nowadays is stuff that is "top rack only."

After she nurses again, Ben swaddles her up, puts a cap on her head if it's chilly, and brings her up to the co-sleeper that's attached to our bed. I brush my teeth, start the dishwasher if it isn't already running, and get into bed too. Ben sometimes stays up later, but bedtime for me and Greta is usually sometime between 10-11pm.

And then at 4:30am we start the whole thing over again!

2 Month Update

Two months old! Already a sixth of the way through her first year!

If you think she looks mischievous here, you should have seen the time she winked at my nipple while taking a break from nursing. 

I'm never quite sure what to record in monthly updates. What will I be struggling to remember in a few months? What will I find important?

For now, I'm just going to write some basic facts as well as some stream-of-consciousness thoughts on how we're doing.

Two days ago was Greta's 2 month appointment. She got her first round of immunizations and handled them like a champ -- which is to say they were no fun for anyone, but they were over quite fast and she calmed down well. We mostly talked to her doctor about feeding and general health. She had been on a pooping strike for 4 days (which finally ended yesterday and she's been back to her usual pooping self ever since), so we discussed our concerns around that. We probably should have been grateful for the easy diaper changes, since we weren't worried about her not getting enough food. Her growth has been good -- 23 inches long, 15.25" head circumference and 10 pounds, 3 oz in weight.  I'm still waiting for the day when I can say that she's heavier than the birthweight of anyone I've heard of, but for now, we're all just happy with her growth trajectory. She's now in Size 1 diapers, which we appreciate because they're the cheapest size.

Overall, she just seems to be growing out of the newborn phase and into the baby phase pretty rapidly now. When I hold her up on my shoulder, I don't feel like I have to support her neck and body nearly as much as I used to -- she holds her head up with greater and greater control. She had always been pretty strong and willing to demonstrate her strength while being held on a shoulder -- but in a "here, let me freak you out by pushing off of your shoulder and throwing my head this way and that" sort of way. Now, she seems to have a more grown-up posture when she's held upright. And when she does tip backwards into our arms or face-plant into someone's chest, it seems to be more intentional (that she's straining to examine the light fixtures above her, or she's snuggling up with her Papa) rather than accidental. She still hates tummy time, but she's getting better at it little by little.

As usual, she kicks like crazy when she's on her back, but she's also occasionally stretched out her legs and let them rest like that -- which is strange, because I'm so used to seeing her either kicking or with her knees drawn up in a fetal position. She looks so grown up when she stretches them out and keeps them that way! She's also started to spend more time on her back looking straight up -- with her head centered at the mid-line rather than looking off to one side. This makes me very happy because when we'd put her in her crib I'd have to orient her so that she was parallel to the "short sides" of the crib so that she could look at the cool high-contrast mobile that we have above the head of her crib. Otherwise, if I positioned her so that she was parallel to the long-sides of the crib and had her head directly under the mobile, she wouldn't be able to hold her head so that she could see directly above her very well, so she'd miss out on the mobile entirely. She's getting long enough now that we might need to change her orientation so that she's directly under the mobile, so I am glad that she's ready to hold her head in a position that will allow her to see it.

When we put her down on the activity mat on her back, she has been very happy to look up at the dangling toys. I can't really figure out what it is that she enjoys so much, since she's not quite "playing" with them yet, but she seems exceedingly happy. Occasionally, she has started to bat at the toys with a bit more purpose (instead of waving her arms around, the way that she did initially), and the other day I watched as she grabbed the hanging monkey by the hand and gripped it tightly as she swung her arm back and forth. It was kind of awesome.

It's interesting to think about baby milestones -- smiling, cooing, holding her head at the mid-line of her body, grabbing a monkey, batting at items . . . I don't think that she's doing anything unusual, but it's still a total novelty to me to witness each thing for the first time. There's a dark side to milestone-watching, though. Earlier this week, I watched an informational video about normal vs. abnormal development for a 2-month old. Greta appeared most similar to the "normal" baby in all areas except tummy time. I became pretty anxious that I wasn't giving her enough opportunities to use her arms and elbows to pull herself up (since she normally does her "tummy time" on a person's chest while she's being held -- and pushing against a soft parent chest isn't quite the same as pushing against a thin quilt on the floor). What made it worse was that the video discussed the importance of pediatricians listening to parent concerns about milestones in order to diagnose developmental problems that require early intervention. So then I felt as though I had been doing something wrong by blissfully living in ignorance of what my child should be doing at each age, and just delighting in whatever she does do.

Also in the past week, I looked up the 2-month update of the son of some dear friends of ours whose blog was the inspiration for this one. (If they're reading this, I'm sure they know who they are.) I felt a pretty strong pang of jealousy and just a little hint of worry as I read about him rolling over. I remember the post from way back when, but when I read it the first time, I didn't really know that it was unusual for a baby to roll over at 2 months. For a couple days this past week, I would furrow my brow at Greta and wonder if there was something I should be doing to "get her" to roll over. Then I remembered that having a baby that can roll over comes with it's own safety challenges, and that I should really be cherishing every moment of limited mobility that she has left in her.

So that's the goal now, just to cherish each stage for what it is. If she progresses quickly, then that's awesome and exciting. If she progresses more slowly, then that's just more time to enjoy babyhood.

To wrap up, here are a few of the things that Greta has been up to this past month.

Lots of baths -- as a result of lots of messes. 

Playdates with Asher.

Her first stroll in her neighborhood -- including her first trip to the library!

A visit from Aunt Elisabeth

Her first visit to the Science Museum of Minnesota . . .

 . . . including the Wonder Years child development exhibit.

Celebrating the legalization of same-sex marriage in Minnesota . . . 

. . . and her two month birthday!

Stay tuned for future updates! I'm hoping that they will get more frequent as we're slowly gaining back some free time!

Celebrations

There are many things to celebrate right around now.

1. I have successfully survived my first week back at work. It was far from easy, but I made it through unscathed. Oddly enough, even though I am only getting about 4-5 hours of sleep per 24 hour period, I feel more rested than I would have expected. I think a big part of it is that I am not trying to go back to sleep after she wakes up to eat. Instead, I just start getting ready for my day. The way I see it, if she gets up at 3 or 4am, and I have to be up at 5am anyway, I may as well just stay up and run the risk of getting to work early -- where I can start crossing things off my to-do list -- rather than trying to sleep again. Otherwise, what happens is that I end up just barely falling asleep when I'm yanked from it by an alarm. It's hard enough to wake up at 3am and I think it would be even harder to have to do it all over again an hour after I've fallen asleep. Anyway, I've basically been running on adrenaline and caffeine most of the time, but somehow it seems to be working. The pumping schedule is going well too.

2. Friday was also Greta's first visit to my school. I just took a walk down there for the school's annual Farmer's Market. I enjoyed the walk and the opportunity to show Greta off to a few students, parents and colleagues. Greta enjoyed a nap in her stroller.

3. Friday was my 29th birthday. Birthdays are just lots of awesome fun.

4. On Monday, Greta will be 8 weeks old and then next weekend it's her 2-month birthday! I can't believe how fast she's growing and changing.

5. Sunday is Mother's Day. It's crazy to think that I am going to celebrate this Mother's Day as an actual mother. I am feeling so much love for my own mother and appreciative of all that she has done for me. I am also feeling grateful for all the mother-figures in my life -- the family friends and extended family who have made me feel so cared for throughout my pregnancy and Greta's entrance into the world.

I'm just feeling tons of love and excitement. Greta is so wonderful and I'm starting to really enjoy the privilege of being her mama!