Forest at Seven Weeks

Every week that goes by I get just a teensy bit more sad. The dude continues to grow like a weed, making me wonder just when these leaps and bounds of poundage are going to slow down. This morning at my final Wednesday morning breastfeeding group that I will attend before heading back to work next week, I weighed Forest before feeding him and he was 13 lbs 7.6 ounces, which is about a pound more than he was last week! He has his 8 week pediatrician appointment tomorrow and I was expecting him to just be near 13 lbs, not over and beyond it! We keep telling Leo that he’s not going to be the ‘big’ brother much longer, that Forest is going to outgrow him weight wise very soon. All of this growth makes me happy that he’s getting enough to eat, that some of the frustrating aspects of breastfeeding as worthwhile. I’m actually getting sad to not be breastfeeding him during the day when I go back to work because I’ll be missing that time with him, seeing his cute, sleepy smiles when he gets drowsy, or the wide blue eyes he gives me when he first latches, the ‘Yum, Mom’ look!

Yesterday I did a test bottle day with him. I don’t know if I will do another day or not before Chris’ mom arrives next Monday, because he took the bottle from me like a champ and it actually made me sad not to be breastfeeding him. I knew going into that the bottle during the day test was only going to work on the bottle aspect of things and not on the comfort/getting to sleep aspect, because giving him a pacifier when I’m right there really only works for me if we’re in the car. If there’s a boob available he wants me, usually. Everyone at the breastfeeding group says that other methods of comfort will work for other caretakers when I’m not around and not to stress over it. I’m just worried I’ll be getting calls from my MIL and my mom about what to do when he’s in a state of crying that nothing seems to soothe. Luckily that doesn’t happen frequently but it does happen. Usually it’s a: check diaper, b: feed baby, c: re-check diaper, or d: overly tired and he needs distracted until he can figure out to go to sleep.

The one big thing that happened this week was he choked in his sleep. It almost put me off breastfeeding, it was that scary. It was early evening and Chris had ran out to do an errand so I was home alone. Forest had a meal and had put himself to sleep while eating, delatching and giving me his happy and full face while settling into my arm. I looked at him and he was happy and chilled out, breathing and all. I went back to watching tv for a few minutes and then looked back down at his stomach and waited for him to breathe. When he’s sleeping, as most people do, his respiration slows. I thought I had caught him in a lull and noticed he was taking a awhile to breathe and then looked at his face. Just as I did that he woke himself up choking. Immediately I threw him on shoulders and gave him a couple of hard pats on the back, pulled him back off so I could see his face and he was panicked and trying to cough. Instead of his usual going back to breathing fairly easily he went into several lapses of not breathing and then me patting him and getting him to cough, then I got up and starting walking with him and repeated this for much longer than I normally do. Finally he started breathing consistently but it just took a lot longer to get to that consistent breathing than his normal choking while eating issues. Needless to say for a few days I watched him like a hawk and then I tried to unlatch him myself when I noticed he slowed his sucking while dozing off. This was hard because he would often wake up when I did this and I’d have to relatch him and repeat getting him back to sleep. Right now I’m letting him doze a little bit more and making sure he swallows when I see him unlatch. I also returned to my leaning back while breastfeeding him technique. I’d eased up on that because he hadn’t seemed to choke as much.

Anyway, I did some reading about babies choking on breastmilk while sleeping and there just isn’t a ton of information about it. I saw tons of stuff about bottles and formula fed babies but not as much on breastmilk. However, one thing that I did see mentioned was reflux and when I talked to the lacatation consultant and the other ladies at the breastfeeding group this morning, they echoed that it could be silent reflux. I was planning on mentioning the choking issue to the pediatrician tomorrow anyway but I will definitely be asking about it being reflux as well. Gah, it was awful, y’all.

(Edit later ’cause I can never get a post up on a time these days: Pediatrician agreed that it sounded like reflux and as we continued talking and telling her how he doesn’t breathe for a few seconds during his episodes she gave us a prescription for Zantac and I’m also avoiding dairy for awhile. I hope we can straighten this out! Poor kid also had his two month shots this morning—boy, that was awful! Medicine and shots…it’ll be a sleepy day or two for him!)

Let’s see, what other big things for this week that didn’t involve choking….we went out last Wednesday as it is our usual eating out night, and I successfully breastfed him in public at Olive Garden while eating. Luckily I’d chowed on most of my food before he whined to eat, but I was able to feed him discreetly and still shove a few more bites in my mouth while I was at it. Another day we went out for a grocery trip and he woke up midway through so I had to change him and of course he wanted food so he ate half of his meal at the Starbucks area in the front of Kroger, finishing up the other half in the car a bit later.

Oh, I guess I do have something to ask of other parents….so, Forest goes to bed somewhere between 9:30 and 11 on any given day. I see on some blogs/forums people getting their baby’s to sleep at 7 or 8 pm every night with them waking up for their first feeding anywhere from 11pm to midnight. Part of me likes this idea of an earlier bedtime because I could have some ‘me’ time in the evening but the other part of me likes the going to bed right around when I do because his first feeding isn’t until 1 or 2am, and if he sleeps well after that he might wake up again only around 5:30 or 6am which would be ok for a work schedule perspective. (This doesn’t always happen, sometime he wakes up an hour after I put him down at his 1 or 2 am feeding and then again two hours later.) I also see people talking about ‘dream feeding’ (feeding them while still sleeping—don’t think my kid would do this!) their kid at 11pm to get them through the night better. Anyway, if Forest takes an evening nap he isn’t down but an hour, maybe two max—so, how are people getting their baby’s to sleep from 7-midnight straight? Honestly, I’d much prefer the long sleep to be right after I get to bed. I mean, I don’t plan on changing this routine up at the moment, but as he gets older I just wondered how much easier it would be to move his bed time back an hour. As it is right now he can take 30 minutes to an hour to put to sleep every night. It isn’t bothersome at the moment, but I know Chris and I both are going to want some downtime in the evenings when we’re both back at work. I guess we’ll just see how to adapt to a new schedule next week.

I have some other stuff that pertains to him but is more about me that I will write about on my postpartum review here in a few days. I’ve started writing it up but it will take a few more days to write it all out. As usual, here’s photos from this week:

He’s starting to hold things a little bit better—he definitely knows how to grab hair!

Because he is not always happy!