Alice: Month Two

Well month two was hard in a different way than month one. I feel like no matter what, with your first child every stage of their life is an adjustment and a learning experience. Unfortunately for Alice and I there was more that went on than just the normal newborn things. She cried A LOT. I seriously could hardly put her down without her crying. My mom would always say that newborns were supposed to mostly just eat, poop, and sleep..sleep a lot. Well Alice did not sleep. I was literally going crazy. I attempted to go back to work when she was only 4 weeks old. I was lucky enough to be able to do it at home but even still that WAS so hard. Word to the wise don't try to come back to work after 4 weeks. It added another element of stress that was unnecessary. At about 6 weeks I started to notice that Alice was looking so skinny still. She was still wearing newborn size clothes...and they weren't even tight on her. She also wasn't pooping EVER and she still was not sleeping much. After many tears my mom came with me to take her to the doctor. They weighed her and she only weighed 8lbs 3oz (she was born at 7lbs 13oz)she was in the tenth percentile and I FREAKED. I told the doctor all of our issues and they recommended supplementing after every feed and me going off dairy in case that was causing problems with the poop. If I was stressed before... this brought it to a new level. I started giving her like 3oz of formula after every feeding and I went off dairy (which was horrible). I honestly didn't see a ton of progression and I was a total nut job. I went to a lactation specialist and truly tried everything I could to keep breast feeding. I cried 24/7 because I felt like if I stopped breast feeding I would be a bad mom, weak, or a quitter. I wanted someone to tell me it was okay...but that's a huge decision to make for yourself and I knew no one was going to tell me what to do. You want what is best for your baby at all times and its literally drilled in your brain that breast feeding is the ONLY way. While I do agree that it is the best option, I'm so grateful it is not the only option. I was finally able to make a decision when my mom suggested letting her eat a full formula bottle and see what happened. First off she took 6 oz! I couldn't believe that pewny little thing could drink that much. The second thing that happened was she slept for SIX hours straight...SIX HOURS!!! I was happy for 45 minutes of sleep and I could not believe it. That night I went home and pumped...I should have been more than engorged since we skipped a full feeding. I pumped for an entire hour and only got 3oz... TOTAL. That was the final straw in making my decision to stop breast feeding. Our lives seriously changed after that. She was a new baby! She NEVER cried and she started taking 3 hour naps and sleeping 5-6 hour stretches at night. She chunked right up and was finally wearing 0-3 month clothes within a week of being formula fed. I felt so relieved and then I felt terrible at the same time because I was basically starving my baby for 7 weeks!! Since then I've gotten a few looks at church when I whip out the bottle (you're just jealous because I don't have to sit in the stinky mother's lounge) and I've actually had a couple people tell me how "sad" it is that I'm not breastfeeding anymore...but I feel great! My baby and I are HAPPY and I feel "sad" for women who judge others for not breastfeeding because you never know why a mother chose formula and I'm sure the decision is never made lightly! Its so hard with babies because its a constant guessing game and you never really know. Looking back now I am grateful I had to go through that hard time because it really taught me to appreciate my sweet baby and it also gave me a TON of compassion for women who go through the same thing or worse. Needless to say the second month was a rough one. If I'm being honest I really can't think of any specific milestones that were met because I was so STRESSED all the time. I'm sure she did something noteworthy in her second month and hopefully she'll forgive me for not remembering the specifics. Lets just say at the end of month 2 she was SLEEPING, not crying, smiling TONS, LOVING bath time, and LOVING formula.