New Feeding Regime

We have a regime.

In this regime, we prioritise Ivy's milk intake and my poor nipples. It goes like this:

* During the day I express and we feed both babies the expressed milk in bottles. This gives my nipples a rest.

* At night I breastfeed both babies. This is supposedly easier that bottles (no bottle-preparing and -washing = more sleep).

However, we also decided that it was a good idea to offer Ivy a bottle after each breastfeed, just in case she would take a little extra. But at night she is so very very sleeepy that she will not countenance the suggestion. Many wasted little bottles so far, and not much sleep.

I plan to persist with this for a week, to give it a chance to work. Ivy

LC Visit Today!

Jane the Darebin-funded lactation consultant is coming again today. We'll look at:

Hazel's noisy suck - she clicks and splats when the flow is high. hurts.
Ivy's weight gain - not that much of it.
My nipple pain.

Not sure how much of this we can deal with today - I spose it depends on who is ready to feed when Jane visits.

Ivy's Feeding Weirdness ctd

Poor ol Ivy is a bit challenging to feed. She is very interested in everything around her, and doesn't like to stay quiet and still while on the breast. I think being held close is a bit stressful for her too.

As a result I'm expressing and bottle feeding for the moment. sigh

Also she is not gaining as much weight as she might be. 50g in ten days... She'll be wighed again in a couple of weeks to see if the bottle feeding regime is working better for her.

It's all a bit upsetting. I think I need help from Jane the LC to work out what I could do differently.

Health Insurance Is Weird

Talking to someone from my health insurance about how much more I can claim on osteopathy, and the person on the phone had never heard of it.

Weird.

Ivy's Feeding Upsets - Solved! (Mostly)

It's not food intolerance, and it's not reflux.

At her checkup a few weeks ago, the paediatrician suggested that her late-in-the-feed upsets might be heartburn. To deal with that, we tried giving Ivy a dose of Losec every day. It didn't seem to do anything.

At about the same time, I was posting questions on the Australian Breastfeeding Association forum. This forum is full of Austrlian women chatting about breastfeeding. I staretd out asking for opinions on whether Ivy's behaviour fitted the pattern of food intolerance or reflux, and I got lots of interesting answers, but nothing particularly convincing. Then I looked in the "Breast Refusal" section.

In this section, other women described their babies doing eactly what Ivy does. They discovered that their babies were simply extremely fast feeders, who got annoyed when they were still on the breast once they had finished!

So it turns out that Ivy can happily drain my breast in five minutes, and is then completely over the idea of feeding. None of this "non-nutritive sucking" for her!

She now sometimes cries a little at the end of a feed, but nothing like before. We are all a lot happier!

Ivy Has Feeding Iss-Yews

Poor mite.

Every now and then (maybe once in every five feeds), Ivy gets all upset and is really hard to feed.

This happens with breast-feeding, feeding expressed milk in a bottle, and feeding formula in a bottle. It can start at any point in the feed.

Here is what she does:

1. Starts wiggling a lot and thrashing arms and legs.
2. Comes off the nipple or bottle with a cry and grimace.
3. Tries to get back on desperately, with a high-speed rooting action.
4. Attaches successfully.
5. Takes one or two sucks, then makes another grimace, and appears to gag.

Return to step 1!

The only way to feed her through this is to allow her to do it in tiny steps. usually the feed ends early though because she is so upset.

After a session like this, whe might or might not settle to sleep easily. often she is fine.

We've been told it might be reflux, but she is happy sleeping on a flat mattress, and it makes no difference what position she is fed in. i tried breast-feeding her vertically with no change.

It could also be a food intolerance, but why would it only happen at some feeds?

Any ideas?

Hazel Did Not Sleep

And now I have red-rimmed eyes.

She did not settle well after the 5pm feed, and kinda lay there with wide eyes. I went to bed at 7, but she was jumping around and making lots of noise, so I got her up and fed her at 7.30. No luck, she still did not settle. Tried patting, rocking, walking, loud womb noises CD. Trudi came in to see who was crying (just Hazel, not me, but it was touch and go).

Another feed at 10, and then she went to sleep for six hours - her longest yet!

Ivy also slept for six hours last night, but they were out of synch, so I still got up every three hours and had only about three hours sleep.

Still, it bodes well, no?

Crappy nap

As opposed to a Power Nap. Crappy Napping is what I do.

I'm supposed to have day-time naps so I can do the night shift without turning into a harridan with no milk supply. Often, though, I lie there in bed in the daytime composing blog posts in my head and worrying about the ant plague in the letterbox rather than sleeping. Grr.

Eyes burning, I try to listen to my relaxation stuff on the little ipod, mentally gritting my teeth. No fun at all!

But the babies are wonderful, and everyone is very helpful. Mum is here now, trying to settle Hazel, who is not happy with her own bum.

Twin Feeders, ACTIVATE

Jane the Lactation Consultant came again today. It's a great job title. I think it translates to Boob Enthusiast and Expert.

This time I admitted defeat regarding the enormous foam twin-feeding platform that we were so keen on. It's vast and very firm, and it's beyond me at the moment. Maybe later once I'm more practised with feeding them together.

Today Jane helped me feed them both while sitting up in bed surrounded by piles of pillows. It went fine. I can't believe I get to say that! Trudi helped by bringing me Ivy once Hazel was getting into it, and then by shifting Ivy around on her pile of pillows until we were all settled. Now she's out buying more pillows.

Hungry again. "They" say that breastfeeding is not an excuse to say "Eating for two!" while eating the whole pavlova, but I am a bit militant about my meals. I like them early and often, and enormous too please.

Jane thinks that Ivy's end-of feed fussiness might be due to a food intolerance (perhaps juice or wheat). We're going to keep my diet the same for a few days to see if she continues with the fussiness, and then start doing the food-elimint\ation thing if we need to.

Ivy and Hazel

Well I didn't manage to blog at all during the pregnancy.

It went fine.

Now we have two lovely girls - Ivy and Hazel Ersvaer. They were born on 13 October 2008, at 38 weeks and 2 days, by planned caesarian section.

Lots of photos at our website oceanbug.

Trudi's mum has been living with us since before they were born, and tomorrow she is returning home to Merimbula for a few weeks to recharge her batteries. She's been a dynamo of housework (she is an Enjo addict so the place is sparkling) and baby-work.

I am breastfeeding, and also expressing and feeding by bottle, and also supplementing with formula. eventually i want to be able to breastfeed solely, both at the same time. Ambitious I know, but so much simple than other options.

Also, I want to get into using the cloth nappies I bought. Also babywearing. All useful things that take time to get into.

Time now to go feed Hazel!

Misty night

Last night Big Fish and I went outside to the car. We'd been inside since nightfall, with the heater on and the blinds down. I'd left my laptop in the car, and she wanted to measure up the garage (as you do).

The light in the backyard illuminated swirling clouds of mist: tiny droplets drifting about in a barely perceptible breeze. The cats were strangely keen to go outside, and came back later puffed up and starred with mist-drops. Maybe they see drifting cat-shapes on misty nights.

Hungry again

Two pieces of toast with seedy mustard, parmesan cheese, and tomatoes and red capsicum from the garden. This was a small pre-lunch snack. I need more IMMEDIATELY.

A loris - and a slow one at that

Are there any fast lorises? Wikipedia says that there are some non-slow ones: I'm not one of them though.

I'm eighteen weeks pregnant with twins, and I'm getting slower every day. I haven't gained much weight, but my goodness has my belly popped out.

As I write this, I am getting steadily colder. I turned off the heater because I should go outside to do some gardening. Minke the cat is sitting under the desk lamp, in her tiny cat-sauna, dreaming overheated cat dreams.

The garden really does need attention. The quince tree had codlin moth this year, and I need to clean up the skanky disappointing quince carcasses. I plan to try some messy home remedies to stop the moths.

Also I should harvest the pumpkins and clean up the vines, which will give some room to put in silver beet. I can't get enough green leafy stuff right now! Also sugar snap peas.

Now I'm inspired to get into the garden. Maybe the cat will come too if I turn off the lamp.