Stunted Weight Gain

 I made a mistake.  

During Samson’s 20 week ultrasound he was in the 13th percentile. The midwife said that Josh and I are not the biggest people, therefore our baby is most likely small due to genetics. 

 

At Samson’s first month appointment he was in the 28th percentile for weight. Then at his 2 month appointment he jumped up to the 55th percentile. I bought the book Moms on Call and it recommended sleep training around 8 weeks as long as your baby is growing well. By all accounts, he was. Around 10 weeks old, I sleep-trained him to sleep through the night, which only took 3 nights for him to start sleeping 11+ hours in a row. It was such a relief. 

 

55th Percentile Chubs

Two and a half months of not being able to sleep longer than 4 or 5 hours in a row is taxing. It amazes me that people do it for a year or more. 

 

I was pretty strict with the Moms on Call schedule, sometimes too strict. My son had some bad days and it was not my first instinct to breastfeed him, but it should have been. 

The Moms on Call schedule may work great for some babies, but it did not for mine. He was crying a lot because, little did I know, he was starving. Starting at two and a half months he slept through the night and I nursed him every three hours during the day. Then I dropped it down to every four hours when he started solids at 4 months, like  Moms on Call recommended. I felt like that was not enough, so I squeezed in an extra feeding. If he woke up early, I nursed him then too. 

 

Everything seemed to be going great. Samson slept well at night and took good naps during the day. He was rolling over no problem, hitting all the milestones. He smiled a lot and was happy and playful. 

 

We got to his 4 month appointment and he was in the 7th percentile. From 55th to 7th percentile is quite a drop. The pediatrician wanted a weight check in two weeks, at which he was in the 4th percentile. The crazy thing is that he looked normal, looked healthy, he did not look especially small.

4th Percentile 4 Month Old

She gave me some Enfamil formula to supplement the breastfeeding. I tried to give it to him, but he didn’t like it. It smelled sour. I figured I wouldn’t like it either. I tried Similac instead and it smells sweet, much more enticing to drink. I was unable to get him to drink very much from a bottle, so I only used it to make his baby cereal.

 

The pediatrician requested labs to see if there was an issue with his thyroid. Thankfully, they came back normal. It was weird seeing blood being drawn from my baby, but he did great. The lab tech thought Samson had a haircut, his hair looked too perfect (and short).

The pediatrician also gave us a referral for a GI doctor, which took five weeks before we got the appointment.

 

The GI doctor said the reason he was not gaining weight well was because he is not getting enough calories. Then he gave me Duocal powder to put in Samson’s solid food to add more calories. He told me to try different bottles to supplement one to two ounces of formula after nursing. He also said to nurse him every three hours, including at night...dang it. No more sleep for Mama. 

 

The first two nights, I woke up every 4 hours at night to nurse him. But as I became more tired, my body decided sleep was more important than waking up to my alarm. I set my alarm to the highest volume and put it right next to my head, yet I still slept right through it. I am one of the hardest sleepers you will ever meet. My baby, however, wakes me up if he makes a sound. So does my husband when he opens up a loud crinkly wrapper in the middle of the night. 

 

I kept setting my alarms for the middle of the night, but after a few days of not waking up to them, I gave up on feeding Samson at night. He was so tired in the middle of the night, he didn't eat much anyway. I did wake him up for a late night snack though. 

 

"I want to sleep, Mom!"

Samson had his six month pediatrician appointment just a week after I changed his feeding schedule. He had bumped up to the 5th percentile. Because he was gaining more, I figured it would be fine continuing to not feed in the middle of the night. Two weeks after that appointment, he had a follow up with the GI doctor and a dietitian. He jumped up to the 7th percentile and they agreed that he was fine to not wake to feed in the middle of the night. Thank God. 

 

I’ve learned to take it easy on the scheduling. If Samson needs to be nursed every two hours instead of three, I don’t deny him. If he needs to be breastfed to sleep, I’ll do it. If I need to hold him in my lap for an hour so he can get a good nap, I set other tasks aside. As my introduction says, I am learning through trial and error.

Breastfeeding 3-6 Months

Now that I’ve been breastfeeding for several months, things have changed and I’m more relaxed when breastfeeding. I used to write down what time I started and on what side, mainly so that I remembered which side to start on. I’ve noticed that I have more supply on my right side, no matter how hard I try to increase it on my left side. My son just prefers that side and it seems that the right nipple is a better fit for nursing. I just always start on my left side now so that I don’t have to keep track of which side to start on.

Samson is a very aware baby, he gets easily distracted while he is nursing. Whenever my husband (or dog) enters the room, Samson unlatches so he can see what is going on. He is always very happy to see Dad (and his dog).  

His thumb is also a distraction. Samson worked hard the first few months of his life to be able to suck his thumb. Now that he can easily get his thumb in his mouth, he likes to squeeze it in while he is nursing. 

My milk has been well established and my son is sleeping through the night. I don’t have to use nursing pads anymore. I had no idea that it would be just a phase, but am glad that it was. 

There have been a couple times I was engorged, meaning my son did not empty the milk out of my breast. It’s rather painful and not that easy to empty. The other day it happened while we were out shopping.  As I carried Samson, he was leaning against the breast that was engorged and it felt bruised. Once we got home, I nursed him, but he wasn’t taking it until I forced him to.

I had this same issue a couple months ago, but Samson was sleeping and I did not want to wake him up. Consequently, I pumped. I couldn’t empty myself well enough while pumping. As a result, my husband soaked a washcloth in warm water and laid it on the top half of my breast. Next he massaged my breast to help me get the milk out while I held the breast pump in place. The process took about 20 minutes, but it was well worth the effort. 

I followed the Moms on Call schedule during this time. The schedule for the two months to four months age was basically to nurse every three hours during the day. They recommend starting solids at four months (pediatricians typically recommend starting at six months) and to only nurse every four hours during the day. I enjoyed having those schedules because they helped me stay sane and not feel completely lost in constant breastfeeding. Unfortunately, these schedules did not work out for my son and I do not recommend them. 

I recently changed the schedule again, which I will talk about in my next blog and why I do not recommend the Moms on Call schedules.

Did you choose to feed on demand or on a schedule? Let me know in the comments what worked best for you and your child.

Breastfeeding 0-3 Months

 This is what I experienced during the first 3 or so months of my son’s life; they are just my experiences and not necessarily true for every woman. 

Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning. My son started fussing and I assumed I needed to nurse him. It definitely did not hurt to nurse him when he was fussy, but it was beginning to stress me out because I felt like I constantly nursed him all day. This is called cluster feeding, which happens to increase milk supply, and the next thing you know your breasts can’t stay in your bra anymore. They feel like they weigh an extra 20 pounds...each. Don’t worry, this doesn’t last forever. 

One thing important to remember throughout your breastfeeding journey is that nothing stays the same forever. For me, at least, it is easy to think that the way things are is how it’s always going to be, and it definitely is not true the first couple months. Things change a lot; they get better. Both you and your baby are learning how to do it efficiently and once you get it down, it is great.

One normal breastfeeding session includes both breasts. The first few days I only breastfed on my left side because my right nipple was sore and cracked. The lactation specialist asked me if I wanted to switch sides and I said, “I’ve been doing it on the left side and it’s working pretty well.” She didn’t explain that you need to use both sides, otherwise you become lopsided, get mastitis, or possibly the side you neglect stops producing. It wasn’t until I got home from the hospital that my mom explained it to me. This may seem obvious to most people, but keep in mind I had been awake for basically 60 hours. I did not get much, if any, sleep in the hospital.  This seems to be a common experience.

I always use a Boppy pillow when nursing, it is super comfortable. An extra cover helps because it is likely to get milk, spit up, pee and poop on it.

While I was in the hospital, after my nipple was cracked, the nurse suggested I use the football hold to nurse him. I later found out that they tell women to do the football hold because it helps them not fall asleep while nursing. It is definitely not the most comfortable position.  She also gave me nipple shields to protect me from my son damaging the one good nipple I had left. I asked her how long I would need to use them and she said a couple weeks. I found out later, they often hand out nipple shields because sometimes they just don’t know how to help women get their babies to latch properly. I have since learned that the best strategy is to put as much of the breast in the baby’s mouth as possible. You do not want them to actually have the nipple touching their lips, it should be entirely inside their mouth. They had a lactation specialist at the hospital, but she was rather busy and I felt like I didn’t get as much help as I needed. 

Once supply has been established, which is after a week or so, during the night, if you aren’t wearing nursing pads, you might soak your bra, shirt, and sheets through. It is unbelievable how much I leaked. At that point, it felt more like spilling than leaking. Sometimes, I did not place the nursing pad just right or it moved during the night and I woke up to wet sheets. Full disclosure: I sleep on my stomach. Not sure what would have happened if I slept on my back.

I knew my lactating was established when milk came squirting out as I was nursing; it is very strange to watch. Sometimes it continued to leak after the baby unlatched. One time after I worked out, I was still wearing a sports bra and forgot to put nursing pads in my bra.  I nursed my son on my left side and my right side started leaking onto my shirt. 

When I talked to lactation specialists, they asked me about my letdown, if it was forceful or slow. I had no idea what that meant. Letdown just means when the milk comes out. Forceful letdown is when it comes out quickly, which sometimes can cause your baby to choke on the milk. Slow letdown is when the baby has to put in a lot of effort to get the milk to come out.

Green poop means too much fore milk and not enough hind milk, also known as oversupply. A few months ago I had an oversupply, which meant that nearly all the milk my son was consuming was mostly water and he wasn’t getting enough fat and protein-filled milk. The lactation specialist gave me a website that explained how to reduce my supply. It was basically to nurse on one side at a time for 3 hours and then switch to the other side for 3 hours. The website said it can take up to two weeks to happen and that’s exactly how long it took. I knew it was resolved when his poop was orange and no longer green.

As I learned when I took my son to the ER, sore and cracked nipples can bleed and your child might take in some blood. It’s important to let the nipples air dry. It is recommended to use lanolin cream, but it made it harder to keep my nipples dry, considering I don’t normally walk around topless. Fortunately, I live in a dry climate and it takes only a couple minutes or less for them to dry, and that is about all the patience my son and I have anyway.

How were your experiences nursing those first couple months?

3 Ways COVID Affected Perinatal Experiences

 COVID-19 caused some changes when it came to my perinatal period. 

 

1. Job

I lost my job in March at Eldora Ski Resort in Colorado, where I was a cashier, but it was only supposed to last another month. That was a little upsetting, but not devastating. 

 

My husband and I made some last minute decisions and moved back to Phoenix at the end of April, which worked out well because I was able to work for DoorDash and GrubHub. 

 

Actually because of Covid, I did really well. It also helped being 7-9 months pregnant delivering food because people saw me and gave me bigger tips. One time I delivered Walmart groceries to a guy and he tipped me $50. 

I made an average of $25 an hour during those couple months before I gave birth. Restaurants were not open to dine-in and people were scared to leave their homes, it worked perfectly for the food delivery companies.

 

This is what I looked like when I delivered food to people.

2. Labor

A downside of COVID happened when I went into labor. Josh dropped me off at the ER entrance and they told him that he had to wait until I was admitted to come with me. It was an hour and a half to two hours that he was sitting in the car waiting to come in. 

 

I was in triage for at least an hour by myself having contractions every two minutes. There was no one there to help me focus on breathing and give me emotional support. It was a very lonely and challenging hour. Go to this post for the full birth story. 

 

You can see that I was happy to be in the labor and delivery room finally.

3. Appointments

 

I have had appointments that were supposed to be over the phone, but I was able to be seen in person for a couple of them. My postpartum appointment was going to be over the phone, but that didn’t make sense to me because I had a tear and I wanted to make sure it was healed correctly.

 

I drove down to the clinic and they called me right as I was arriving. I told the doctor I was already there and she asked if I wanted to be seen in person. I had to wait an extra 45 minutes, but it was nice to have full confidence that everything was healed.

 

At my son’s circumcision appointment, I noticed he wasn’t gaining weight like I thought he should. They suggested I see a lactation specialist. I called a lady that my OB recommended, but she said she wasn’t doing in-person appointments. 

This was taken right after we got home from that appointment; doctor's appointments always knock him out.

 

I started crying over the phone. I had been up since 3 am and was tired (before I read these books about sleep training) and I was nervous about my ability to provide what he needed to grow. She was so kind and offered to come to the house pro bono. Now I have her cell number and can text her all my many random questions regarding breastfeeding.

How has the Corona Virus affected your life? Tell me about it in the comments.

4 Ways to Shop with a Newborn

Because newborns cannot sit up yet, you need to be creative in how you take your baby with you shopping. 

1. Baby Shopping Cart Hammock

The one I use the most is this baby shopping cart hammock. If you use this link, you can get 10% off any Binxy Baby products. It clips onto the shopping cart and fits most carts. It is a little slanted because of how the carts are made, but it doesn’t seem to bother my son.

Here he is at the beginning shopping trip.

Here he is at the end, sound asleep. 

He'll probably outgrow it by the time he is 4 months, but he should be able to sit up by then and be able to graduate into sitting in the cart seat.

2. Car Seat in Cart

Second option I use the most, at this stage at least, is to put his car seat in the cart, as long as I do not need to buy much. As you can see it takes up most of the cart, unless you go to Costco, those carts are huge. This does eliminate (some) people from commenting on your baby if you are trying to avoid that. 

3. Stroller

Third way is to keep him in his stroller. If you have an infant car seat stroller combo, it makes it easy to not have to take him out of the car seat, which works with the shopping cart method as well. This works well to shop for small or few items.

Obviously, this was not when I went shopping. It was during one of our early morning walks. 

4. Wear Your Baby

The final way to take baby with you, that is not ideal for places where it is especially hot, like Arizona, is to wear the baby in a baby carrier. When your baby is really little, it’s best if they face you. 

This was my first trip leaving the house with my new baby, walking to the mailbox. 

I have taken him in this Infantino Carrier to dollar tree, which was successful minus the poopy part. He pooped and it did not stay in his diaper completely. 

I also did this at Hobby Lobby, but he started screaming because it was too hot. It was 110 degrees that day, not smart on my part. I carried him on my shoulder the rest of the shopping excursion.

When they are able to hold their head up well, facing outward is good if you want them awake.

You can also use a wrap like this one or I have another carrier that is just as versatile, but feels more like a backpack and is sturdier, probably better for hiking. 

Wearing your baby as much as possible in the first few months is recommended by pediatricians, such as author of Happiest Baby on the Block, which I reviewed in this blog post. 

I would love to carry my baby more, but unfortunately this past summer has been all kinds of record breaking hot, with over 50 days of 110 degrees or more.

What is your preferred way to bring your baby shopping with you? Let me know in the comment section.

This blog post contains affiliate links. If you click and buy, you do not pay more, but I get a commission.

Newborn Faces

Check out my son's many faces from when he was 5 weeks old. The first 7 pictures were all taken within seconds of each other, and the last 3 within seconds of each other. Write the number of the picture and give me your best comment. Best comment wins a virtual high-five. :)

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ER Visit

We had our first (and hopefully only) ER visit August 30th, when Samson was nine weeks old. I had just finished breastfeeding him and picked him up on my shoulder to burp him and immediately he spit up and the coloring looked weird. I took him and the burp rag off my shoulder to assess the coloring. There was blood in the spit up.

 

Because it was a Sunday, I called the on-call pediatrician. 

 

Pediatrician: What’s going on?

Me: My son is vomiting blood. 

Pediatrician: When did this start?

Me: 20 minutes ago. 

Pediatrician: Has it stopped?

Me: No.

Pediatrician: That is a 911 call. 

Me: Ok, thank you, bye.

 

Immediately I started crying. Fortunately my dad, the voice of reason, was there and said, “How about you drive to the Phoenix Children’s Hospital? If you’re going to an ER, might as well be the best one.” 

 

So my mom drove, while I sat in the back with Samson. He wasn’t crying, and didn’t act like he was in pain. We got there and they told me to put the car seat in the red wagon and my backpack behind it. She rolled him inside to the check-in area and they got my information.

Then I turned around and the nurse asked me some questions, got his vitals and weight and height. 

 

Then we walked down a couple long hallways to the patient room. I told the nurse what was going on, showed her the picture of his spit up and she asked if I had a sore or cracked nipple. I told her that I do and she said that he probably was swallowing some of my blood and it irritated his stomach. She said that is what she thinks and the doctor will come in to verify. He came in 10 minutes later and agreed that it was my blood. 

 

When I was on my way to the hospital, my husband, Josh, looked it up and read the same thing the doctor said; he called me on the phone and told me that. But I didn’t believe him. I thought that if I was bleeding, I would see it. 

 

My husband has never gone to school for anything medical, but he is smart. He tends to be right about this kind of stuff. He, honestly, has done a better job diagnosing or treating things than trained professionals. 

 

Nearly 4 years after my car accident I was still taking Zoloft and Concerta, which is similar to Ritalin.  Josh thought I would be better off without them. I talked to my psychiatrist about it and she agreed. She recommended a medically approved way to wean off the pills, but when I tried it that way I wasn’t able to follow through and ended up back on the pills. Josh had me do it a better way. It took a couple months to completely wean off them, but it was a smooth transition and I haven’t felt like I even had a brain injury since then. 

Back to the ER story. Samson did not act like he was in pain; he didn’t hardly cry and he was even smiling at the nurses. They were probably wondering why I was even there, but they didn’t give me any grief or think I was crazy for bringing him in. If he had been crying, I would not have been so calm and anxiety-free. 

We were in the ER for about an hour and a half, and after spitting up blood a few more times he fell asleep. Every time, it was a different person that came into the room. The ER was slow on that Sunday evening; they were all taking turns getting to see the cutest baby on the floor.

We got home and he was not spitting up blood anymore and I made sure to take better care of myself so that I can take better care of my child.

I thank God that it was not serious, and pray that I never have to return.

Have you had any scares that seemed a lot more serious than they actually were?