There were a few things I thought I knew about babies:
1. They sleep almost all the time for the first month or two, and
2. They’re latched on to your chest for the rest of the time
My daughter does neither.
Our little bundle of terror is able to ask for the milk (pitch and volume make me want to tear my ears off) but just doesn’t seem to be getting it out. Apparently that’s possible… if your baby is a lazy mothersucker….
She takes a sip or two then falls “asleep”. And by asleep I mean until I gently take her from my nipple. {insert the ‘Wait! I wasn’t done’ cry here} This was our routine all day and night, the first week. Until she began to loose weight and we discovered what the problem was.
A few days in the hospital and a couple of visits to the lactation consultant later our options got reduced to one: bottle feed her, consequently meaning fulltime pumping because: why buy the milk when you are a cow for free! Now emphasize fulltime.FULLTIME. Whenever I’m not pumping, I’m warming a bottle, feeding Hope a bottle or washing the bottles. If you ar wondering why I wasn’t reading your blog, spamming your comment box, there’s why. I ask: Is there life beyond milk? Way to take the natural out of breastfeeding, Hope!
This would not be as much of a problem if it wasn’t for the fact during the day she does.not.sleep. At all.AT ALL. She doesn’t do horizontal, or so I have learned the hard (heartbreaking ‘why the hell aren’t you holding me’ cries) way. Not a problem per se, I love my baby and want to cuddle all day too, except I also have to pump and warm and wash bottles, pick up my son from school, drive him to and from playdates and sports in between.how…how do people manage?
When she’s not sleeping, glued to my chest with the help of a baby carrier, Hope looks around, talks to the african masks on the wall, listens to me and gives me a smile, steals my heart, then fights against her eyes getting heavy and thinks ‘What the hell, I’ll have another bottle’. She gets hungry alright…
I have made a list that keeps me from stuffing her back up my hooha (I don’t care how big she’s gotten, I’ll make it fit.)
Cons:
pumping every 2 hours
Hands dry and itchy from washing up all day
Less time for my son
Deep dark circles under my eyes
Less sleep
Less alcohol
NO SEX
Pros:
She’s so tiny
She looks cute in EVERYTHING
She smiles all the time (well, unless she doesn’t get her way)
She has the best toothless smile since 2002 (when my sons toothless smile was the cutest, duh)
She prefers taking a dump sitting on Hermans lap to mine
She’s probably the baldest baby in our family ever, it makes me giggle every time I look at her
Yeah, so basically she gets away with anything, does practically nothing and even though we’re not having sex because of it, we still forgive her and love her to bits. We should have known this would happen, it’s the same shit my son pulled…..
