6 Things to Keep a Newborn Entertained Visually

They say young babies can only see 8-12 inches away. I think they mean they can only focus 8-12 inches away, but they can see silhouettes farther away. 

1. Fans and Clocks

My baby loves to look at the overhead fans. He started looking at them when he was 4 weeks. Sometimes he’ll be fussy until he sees the fan and puts his attention on it. Clocks are also great entertainment for him. 

Babies' brains do best when looking at high contrasting colors, hence why he likes the dark brown fan and clocks against the white walls.

Here is Samson at 4 days old, his eyes are learning to work together.

2. Pictures

Below is a wall hanging near where I change his diaper that he enjoys looking at. 

3. Bouncy seats

I have a bouncy seat that he likes to sit in. When I first started putting him in the seat at 6 weeks, he avoided looking at the toys hanging in front of him, but at 8 weeks is when he started paying attention to them. 

4. Crib Mobiles

He loves this crib mobile that I attached to a dining chair. He looks at it for a good half an hour and does not get bored. It is not recommended to have a mobile above the crib because the crib is meant for sleeping, not playing. This is Samson at 8 weeks, his eyes can track so well now.

4. Hanging Toys

My mom purchased a toy to hang from his stroller using these wonderful links that entertains him on our morning walks. Having plenty of links is good to make sure the toys hang at an appropriate height and to have one for each toy for convenience. 

5. Mirrors

Mirrors are great to put in front of his face so he can see how adorable of a baby he is :). You can also use this in the car for when you are driving and want to see your baby. 

6. You

Lastly, babies love looking at your face. Especially the first month, that is all they need. 

This is Samson when he was 2 months old.

Every week he gets better and better with focusing and tracking items. 

What toys or things does your baby enjoy looking at? Tell me about it in the comment section below.

4 Reasons I Did Not Sleep at the Hospital After Birth

I had absolutely no expectations for the stay at the hospital after birth. I had read that epidurals make your legs numb, making you not able to walk. I was able to walk, it was just very slow. What I did not know was that you basically do not get any sleep when you're in the hospital.

We were in the hospital for 46 hours and I slept a total of 2 hours during that time. I took a few 5 or 10 minute cat naps and one long hour and a half nap.

1. One of the main causes of lack of sleep was that I had to breastfeed every two hours. The very first time breastfeeding him was great. Then I tried to do it without help, which was a big mistake. It hurt the entire time and because I was doing it wrong, my nipple became one big sore. They had me breastfeed him football style, where he is laying beside me. It forced me to lean forward nursing, which made it impossible for me to fall asleep, which is good. 

2. Another reason for lack of sleep was when we were in the delivery room, the blood pressure monitor went off every 15 minutes, and there was a machine that made a beeping noise when it didn’t get a blood pressure reading because I wasn’t wearing the cuff. We asked a couple times for them to turn it off, but we didn’t get any relief from it until we relocated to the mommy/baby unit 10 hours after Samson’s birth. 

3.  Nurses, the lactation specialist, cafeteria delivery people and random other people for tests or paperwork kept coming in the room what seemed like every hour. Anytime I started to get comfortable, someone came in the room.

4. The final reason I could barely sleep was that I was so attentive to my son that any time he made a noise, I was wondering why. He made tons of noises, still does. One of the things I love about him. I had a hard time letting him stay in the bassinet. You aren’t supposed to sleep with your baby next to you or on you. Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve done both. I made sure there were pillows to soften his fall if he had one and keep him tucked in to ensure that he wouldn't. But that was the only way I was able to sleep for that hour and a half, with my son sleeping right beside me on the bed.

Were you able to get any sleep in the hospital? What was your post birth hospital experience like? Let me know in the comments. 

4 Things that Make Postpartum Difficult

 I had heard postpartum was very challenging. A girl in a Bible study that I was attending in the spring gave birth and was staying home with her new baby. I heard some of the other women saying how she was having a very difficult time. They had suggested she come to the Bible study or go on a walk, basically recommend she get out of the house and see people. 

That kind of scared me. I didn’t know her very well, but she seemed like a strong, confident, smart, and hardworking person. How could postpartum take down a woman like her?

 

I tried to prepare my husband that it would be hard, but I think I was really trying to prepare myself. 

1. Sleep

The first night home, my husband was nice enough to take care of Samson while I slept. I forgot to tell him that Samson needs to eat every two to three hours. I ended up sleeping 5 hours straight, which was totally fine. Samson was still surviving from the buffet in my uterus. 

The pediatrician told me going for a 4 hour stretch was fine at night. I did my best to make that happen. My goal was to get at least 6 hours of sleep for myself during the night. The first couple weeks, it was more like 4-5 hours of total sleep at night. I napped the best I could during the day to make up for lost sleep, but I was still tired.

2. Hormones Another postpartum symptom was I cried a lot. A lot a lot. As I mentioned in the delivery story, I am a crybaby. But this was a whole new level. Anything that made me a teensy bit emotional and I was balling my eyes out. I made sure not to watch any sad movies during that time, only comedies. The changing hormones combined with lack of sleep meant lots of tissue being used. 

 

3. Meals

My mom stayed with me the first week and a half after he was born, which was a life saver. I nursed him and she offered to burp him. One of the best things you can do for a new mom is offer to burp her baby. It gave me a chance to shower, sleep or eat. Those were the only things I did other than take care of my baby the first two weeks. Whenever he was sleeping, I had to decide which one took precedence. I skipped some meals because sleep was more important to me. 

 

If you don’t have someone to prepare meals for you, then you need to prepare some freezer meals before you give birth. There is just no time or energy the first couple weeks to make anything that takes longer than 5 minutes. My mom was such a blessing in that she had dinners for us every night and made some extra for after she left. 

 

4. Weakness I felt so weak that first week. My biceps were incredibly sore. You don’t realize how much you are using your biceps to pull your legs toward you when you’re pushing. Standing up and the first few steps I took were rather painful. I walked slow and not very far for about a week. I don’t know if the pain was because I had an epidural and I had a tear or if it’s normal for all kinds of births. Was it painful for you? 

Thank God babies are so light because carrying a 7 lbs baby was heavy enough. With my son’s first appointment with the pediatrician, I had to go by myself because of COVID. My husband drove me and carried Samson in his car seat to the front door before I had to grab him. I could hardly walk and carry the car seat. Thankfully the medical assistant noticed and offered to carry him for me.

Most of the difficulties with postpartum can be eliminated or lessened if you have someone to help take care of the baby, prepare meals, and be there for you emotionally. All in all, as long as you have someone there to help you, postpartum is likely to not be terrible.

How was your postpartum experience? Was it easier or harder than you thought? Tell me how your initial postpartum period was in the comment section.

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Good and Bad Nurses

I was blessed to have an awesome labor nurse and midwife. I prayed that I would have a midwife deliver my baby rather than a doctor. Midwives spend more time with their patients, they have different ways to provide pain relief, and in the case of a tear, take better care stitching it up. It is is more than a job to them; they truly love taking care of pregnant women. Everyone should have a midwife deliver their babies. 

Within the first hour, the labor nurse, Carmella, helped me breastfeed him for the first time and it was great. I really enjoyed her as my labor nurse. She was very professional and caring. 

Here is Carmella giving Samson his first bath and a little bit of me looking completely exhausted. Video taken 2 hours after birth. 

When her shift ended, Carmella told me, “The next nurse coming in, I like her, she is great to talk to.” I thought that was kind of a strange statement. 

After spending the first hour with her as my nurse, I realized why the other nurse said that. She did not say, “The next nurse is great, she’ll take good care of you and your son,” because she didn’t believe that to be true. 

Looking back, I should have asked for a different nurse. I should have sent my husband to go talk to the charge nurse and ask for a different nurse. If you ever think you have an incompetent nurse, ask for a different one. You are paying money for a service and there is no shame in wanting the best. This nurse was either forgetful or just did not care. 

Because I had an epidural, my legs were fairly numb and I needed help walking to the bathroom. I hit the call button for the nurse and she came and helped me walk there. We realized we needed more pads because I was bleeding quite heavily. 

She left to go grab some and after I was done, she wasn’t in the room anymore to help me walk back. My husband hit the call button, but it still took her 20 minutes to come. I was just sitting on the toilet waiting. 

Later that day, I told her that I was in pain and wanted some ibuprofen. She left to go get it, but didn’t come back for an hour. 

She also had no idea how to help me breastfeed my son. In her defense, she was a labor and delivery nurse and not a postpartum nurse.  Everyone decided to have babies that week and the mommy/baby unit was full. We had to stay in the delivery room for an extra 10 hours. 

When we finally got to the mommy/baby unit, the hospital stay was a lot more comfortable.

Anyone else have a bad experience in the hospital? Or who had an exceptional nurse? Tell me about in the comment section below. 

Birth Story: Delivering

The midwife sat directly in front of me, the nurse was on one side holding my leg and Josh on the other side holding my other leg. 

It took me a while to figure out how to push efficiently and correctly. Oftentimes it was me holding my breath and mainly pushing the veins in my head. The midwife told me I need to push down there or I’ll have bruises on my face the next day. I tried to imagine being constipated and pushing poop out. She told me to pull my chest up towards my legs and tighten my abdomen. It was not easy pushing in the correct way. 

 

Pushing in the beginning didn’t hurt, it just felt like a workout. They had me take a deep breath and hold it for 10 seconds while I pushed as hard as I could. Take a quick deep breath and hold again for 10 seconds and then repeat one more time. For a total of 3 times of pushing before I took a break.

 

The reason for the quick breath before pushing the second and third times is that the baby starts to move out during the push, but will rock back inside afterwards. So you want to avoid that by taking a quick breath to shorten the time of not pushing to get more momentum. 

 

Josh and I have done lots of athletic training and he coached me on how to breath while lifting weights. It felt a lot like that. Every time I pushed, my heart rate shot up to heart rate max. I was sweaty and in between pushing, I felt so exhausted that I could just close my eyes and fall asleep. 

 

At first, the midwife told me when to push. She monitored my contractions screen. “You push when you have contractions,” she said . Towards the end, I started to monitor the screen and pay attention to when the contractions were happening. I made the resting time shorter because I was sick of pushing and I wanted the baby out. 

 

Also, they told me there was another woman giving birth (we could hear her screaming, I did not scream like she did) and they wondered who was to finish first. I am very competitive so I pushed even harder.  She ended up giving birth before me, but I still used it as a way to motivate myself to push harder and longer. 

 

The midwife told me that he was crowning. I thought that meant just like one more big push and he was out. But it seemed like he was crowning for fifteen minutes before he was actually born. 

 

That period of pushing is what makes giving birth notoriously painful. The vaginal opening is stretching to its limit. It was so painful pushing in this last stage, I really had to motivate myself to do it. 

 

I used to train with my dad. Every weekend we biked and ran. These training sessions of biking and running lasted between an hour to an hour and a half. One time we biked 30 miles in 2 hours. There were a bunch of hills at the end and my dad kept telling me it was the last hill, until the next hill showed up. But every time helped me to pedal harder and faster. 

 

It was the same with pushing at the end, I think the midwife was insinuating that it was the last push...until the next one. The last few pushes I tried to push as hard and as long as I could. Then finally he came out. She immediately handed him to me and placed him on my chest. 

 

I thought he was going to cry right away or that she would spank his tushy so that he would cry. But it was actually maybe 30 seconds until he just started crying on his own. 

 

While he was on my chest, I still had the afterbirth. I don’t remember if I had to push or if she just put her hands inside and grabbed it out. I do remember that it was painful, but focusing on my son helped distract me from the pain. 

 

She asked Josh if he wanted to cut the umbilical cord, and he did. He said he thought it was going to feel tough, but it was actually soft and easy to cut. 

 

I had a second degree tear, so the midwife focused on stitching me up, which was also painful. 

 

I was in labor for 11 hours and pushed for an hour and 10 minutes. Through all that pain, I didn’t cry and I didn’t really scream. I made grunting sounds at the very end, but that was it. I was proud of myself for not crying because normally I’m a crybaby, but now that’s Samson’s job. 

Born at 3:55 am, he weighed 8 lbs and measured 19 inches.

Tell me about your children’s births in the comment section. I’m always curious about how it was for other people.

Birth Story: Epidural

Once I got into the labor and delivery room, I told the nurse I wanted an epidural right away. They had to do some labs on me to make sure I was good to go. The labs game came back fine, and we were just waiting on the anesthesia people. 

 

Josh finally got to come inside the hospital at 9:40 pm. They checked my cervix again and I was 7 cm this time, moving along quite quickly. 

 

20 minutes later, the anesthesia team came at 10 pm. They had me stand up, lean my front side over a table and they started poking me. I had contractions during this time, making it even less fun. They asked me what side I felt pain to try to get it in the center as much as possible and it felt like painful bubbles popping in my back. Getting the epidural was way more painful than I thought, but it was still worth it. It didn’t take long for it to kick in.

 

They told me to lay on my left side to get the anesthesia on that side and then my right to get it on that side too. The left side went well and my legs, abdomen and privates were getting numb. I switched to my right side, but baby boy didn’t like it, so I had to switch back to my left. His heart rate slowed down and my blood pressure dropped. Eventually I just laid on my back and it helped to get it to my right side more, but it was never fully there, so I had more feeling on that side. 

 

After I got the epidural, I couldn’t feel the contractions hardly at all. They weren’t as close together as before, which extended the labor. Josh and I were able to relax for a few hours. Josh finished watching Spider-Man on his phone, while I rested my eyes. 

        Photo taken at 1 am

 

Around 2:45 am, I started to feel like I had to poop. I called the nurse in and told her that. She said that was just what she needed to hear. She checked my cervix one more time and said I was complete. I was at 10 cm and she couldn’t feel my cervix at all, meaning it was fully effaced. 

 

She brought in the midwife and off we went to give birth to the baby. 

 
Who else chose to get an epidural? Who chose not to or was unable to get one? What was your reasoning? Tell me about it in the comment section.

Birth Story: Triage

We got to the St Joe’s complex and didn’t see any signs for OB or Labor and Delivery, so Josh dropped me off at the ER. Nearly as soon as I walked in, they got me a wheelchair to sit in. They filled out all the paperwork for me, knowing I wasn’t in any position to do that, except for the pages I signed. 

A nurse pushed me in the wheelchair all around the hospital to the Labor and Delivery Triage. I arrived there at 8:10 pm. I sat in the waiting room for just a minute, signed a few more things, then they got me into triage. They took my vitals and gave me a gown to change into. They hooked me up with monitors for the baby’s heart rate and contractions. 

 

Because of COVID-19, Josh was not able to go inside until I was admitted. He texted me asking what was going on. I was in the middle of texting him back when I had a contraction. He figured it out and texted me to breath.

 

It’s important that your husband, or mom or whoever is with you has learned some breathing techniques. Josh watched a YouTube video right before we left for the hospital and it helped a ton. Not only does the breathing give you something to focus on, it helps you to not tense up which causes more pain. 

 

Side note, I paid for an online birthing class and I did not find it useful whatsoever. It was so boring, my husband didn’t pay attention at all. She also gave bad advice. It ended up being a big waste of money. Birthing classes in person are the only recommendation I give for them. 

 

I was in that triage room by myself for about an hour. The contractions were absolutely terrible. I was squirming around in so much pain. The nurse said that I was where a lot of women envied: 2 minutes between contractions. To me, they were starting to feel like by the time one ended, another started. And I wanted to have a break. My back hurt so much, I couldn’t sit back, but my belly hurt as well, I couldn’t lean forward. There was not any semi-comfortable position, hence all the squirming.

 

She checked my cervix, which was more painful than expected. I was 4 cm dilated, the cervix was thin and the baby was low, stage 1 or 2. She guessed I was going to be admitted, but had to get confirmation from the physician. 

 

I waited just 5 minutes to find out for sure I was being admitted. Then it was another 20 minutes before someone came with a wheelchair to pick me up, at 9:10 pm to take me to the labor and delivery room. All during this time, I had contractions every 2 minutes. But really it just felt like an ongoing contraction. 

 

Here I am when I finally got to the L&D room.

 

Who else gave birth at a big hospital and was in triage for longer than desired? Or whose birth was so quick they skipped triage? Tell me your experiences in the comments below.