Ticklish Giggles

I’m Molly Ann. Today I am 3 months old. I’m not sure exactly what that means, except that Mama and Daddy think it’s a pretty big deal. They keep saying that I’m getting to be such a big girl. I guess that’s a good thing. Personally, sometimes I’d prefer to go back inside where it’s dark and warm and quiet.

They make goofy faces at me all the time and talk to me in singy voices. I think it’s hilarious how silly they are. They seem to like when I smile, so I do it more often now.

I can see better these days, so I finally noticed my toes the other day. I’m not sure what to do about them or with them, but they look interesting.

I am super hungry lately. I like to eat anyway, but Mama was cool to let me eat as often as I wanted this weekend. And I didn’t have to eat from that weird, cold, plastic thing that is not my Mama. I mean, I’ll eat from that since it’s sometimes my only option, but I prefer the warmth of being held by my Mama. It makes me all snuggly and sleepy.

Sleep is good. I like to sleep, but mostly only at night when it’s dark and nothing is happening anyway. But there are times when I just can’t stay awake when it’s bright, so I’ll sleep then, too. If Mama or Daddy are holding me I can’t help but fall asleep then - they feel really good.

There’s a little boy here all the time that they call my big brother. He is nice, but he is a bit loud. He asks to hold me all the time and gives me kisses and headbutts and pats my butt. I do not know what the butt patting is all about, but it doesn’t hurt, so whatever. Sometimes he wakes me up when he comes running into the room yelling my name, but that’s OK because I don’t like to miss the action anyway. He likes to play with my blankets and pacis and helps Mama and Daddy to keep me company.

Life is good on the outside, I guess.

I recommended this tool back when I was using it with Jesse and I want to do it here as well. Jaynee had recommended it to me because she used it with her kids.

The Trixie Tracker was designed  by a dad in order to track his new baby’s (Trixie) daily information - sleep, diapers, feedings, etc. It’s great for making sure you’re getting the diaper output expected and to see how sleep patterns emerge. For instance, I’m noticing that Molly Ann has a definite middle of the day nap pattern between 1pm and about 3pm. She’s pretty consistent with her night sleep. I noticed this morning when I logged in the weekend information that she wakes up in the middle of the night about once a week and that it is usually on the weekend. And it confirmed that she’s hit her 3-month growth spurt with the increased feeding times this weekend.

You can also track and keep an inventory of pumped breastmilk/bottles. This is the feature I love the most - rather than dating the containers of milk in my frig/freezer, I just assign an inventory number. The tracker has the date and amount in the inventory. When I use the container I simply retire it from the inventory.

The solid food tracker is helpful, too. You can keep track of each new food added to your child’s diet - that helps with monitoring for allergy or adverse reactions since it’s sometimes hard to know which food might have caused a reaction if your child has a large food repertoire.

I know that it makes it much easier to report my child’s information to their doctor as well.

I think the tracker is totally worth the nominal fee, although there is a free trial version and you can track just diapers for free. If you have a baby and want to keep track of their daily information, I highly recommend this tool.

I think that The Little Miss has hit her 3 month growth spurt - all she wants to do is eat. Fortunately, she hit it on the weekend when The Food Source™ was at home and happy to provide.

She’s a cute thing - very snuggly, very smiley, very easy-going. She hates to sit in a wet diaper for too long and will let you know about her displeasure. She may have a curly tongue like her Mama and Daddy. She still loves to sleep on her belly, but she’s also happy on her side - just as long as she isn’t on her back. She can roll over from her side to her back. She wakes up happy. She seems a bit meh on the pacifier in the past week or so and has spent more time sucking on her fingers lately - really the only time she wants the paci is when she’s swaddled and can’t get her fingers into her mouth.

She enjoys short sits in the bouncer and figured out how the kick the base to make the music play and the lights dance the first time we put her into it. And when I say short sits, I mean short sits. She much prefers to be held than to sit in a lonely chair on her own.

I think she laughed this weekend. I put the Boppy on the floor of her room with her propped in the curve so that I could clean up and also paint a little peg board I want to hang in there. I put a small, colorful toy on the floor in front of her to look at and it wasn’t too long before I heard her funny squeal - she does this sucked in squeal that I think is her early laugh.

She’s awesome.

Just a few things to note:

1. The Milk Band is awesome. There has only been one time that I forgot to flip the band and ended up nursing from the same side twice in a row. Even in the middle of the night I remembered to update the band with the feeding information.

2. After a couple of weeks of random middle of the night feedings, I think Molly Ann has officially worked into  sleeping consistently through the night. Her longest sleep so far is over 9 hours. Love it!

3. She caught her second cold from Jesse this weekend. Fortunately, the miracle medicine of breastmilk saved her from worse misery. Yesterday was her worst day and that only lasted about half the day. She’s still slightly snotty, but she’s her normal happy self today.

4. The pumping is going well. Since I have a better idea of what to expect it is so much less stressful than with Jesse. Milk production is still high, averaging about 12-13 oz each day. She takes the bottles well and nurses equally well.

5. It’s hard to believe she turns 3 months old in a week.

For a while I was wearing this pink and blue silicone bracelet that I got as a freebie from some pregnancy website. I would switch it from wrist to wrist to indicate which side I had last nursed Molly Ann. The problem was that I:

1. Didn’t remember to switch it all the time.

2. Didn’t remember if it meant that that was the side I had just nursed from or needed to nurse from.

When I started pumping it got more confusing so I stopped wearing the bracelet. Then this morning I nursed Molly Ann from the side that I nursed her from before bed last night (she’s back to sleeping through the night, thanks!). Sheesh, it should be this hard!

So imagine my glee when I saw the ad link at the top of my email for MilkBands. Perfect! I just ordered one. In pink, of course.

Warning: The following post includes discussion on The Food Sourceâ„¢.

I’m not sure how permanent this is, but now that I’m back at work and Molly Ann is requiring middle of the night feedings again, I go to bed much earlier. So it looks like this:

6:30pm or so - arrive home from work
7:00pm or so - squat and gobble (eat dinner)
7:30pm or so - nurse Molly Ann
8:30pm or so - go say goodnight to Jesse
9:00pm or so - head to bed with Molly Ann for a nap/cuddle
10:15pm or so - Beau wakes up MA and me for the bedtime snack nursing
11:00pm or so - drift off to sleep, holding MA

For now, the family bed is working and I’m not inclined to change that. Beau said she’s sleeping in the pack-n-play pretty well during the day (although he is wearing her a lot, too) and she napped well in the bassinet this morning after her early feeding. She was waking up in the 2-3am range for almost a week, but slept until 4am this morning. It made squeezing in a nursing session before I left for work a challenge, but we managed and she ate well enough. I’m interested to see if that overnight sleep stretches to longer again - that would be nice and I’d get a couple of hours in the evening to watch a movie or something.

As for The Food Sourceâ„¢, things are going very well on that front. She nurses well, even with the regular introduction of the bottle. And I’m pumping plenty of milk while I’m at work for the following day - I’m averaging nearly 11 oz of pumped milk total each day. It’s such a marked difference from my experience with Jesse where I was lucky to get 5-6 oz of milk total. So with that much bottled milk and 3-4 nursing sessions each day, she’s well fed. I’m thinking her weight gain at her next appointment will be better, too.

Anyway, things are smoothing into a routine now that I’m back at work. I’ll enjoy my weekend without the pump since I’ll be at home from Friday to Monday to nurse Molly Ann. And then we’ll start that all over again next week.

I have one and I’ve tried to use it with Molly Ann a few times. I’ve never felt she was super secure, so I went on the hunt for instructions and found a couple of great videos online. Now, I think that I will use it more.

[UPDATE, a few hours later]: I’ve got MA in the mei-tai and she’s snug as a bug and I feel 100% better about having her in it. The major plus of the mei-tai over the Björn is that she’s much closer to my body so my field of vision over her is better. Also, with her legs tucked she seems happier than when in the Björn. And when I sit, her feet don’t get jammed into my lap - she doesn’t like that when in the Björn either.

I just read Working Without Weaning by Kirsten Berggren and it is excellent. This book is a great resource for working moms who want to continue breast-feeding exclusively. It is well written, in conversational style, and very easy to read. I got through the first half in just a couple of hours. The author gives practical advice for troubles that may come up when mom goes back to work, tips and techniques for improving milk production, and general encouragement to stick to it.

If you are a nursing mother who is going back to work but you want to skip the formula - get this book. I highly recommend it.

What I found interesting as I read it was that she confirmed what I had already started while at the beach. I was nursing and pumping. MA was taking bottles when it was more convenient and I would pump to make up for that lost nursing session. I had an adapter for using the pump in the car, which made things much easier - I could pump on the go and have a bottle for MA when she needed it later.

The pumping also showed that my milk production is in good shape. I’m definitely producing more milk for her than I did for Jesse. I’m hoping to keep that up when I go back to work on Monday. Having two work at home days will help - I’ll nurse her on those days, so I really only have to pump for three work at the office days.