It's a good time to be reading The Happiest Baby on the Block since we've had a bit of a leap up in the time spent crying around here. I've been familiar with the "4th trimester" idea and the 5 S's (though I could only ever come up with 4 at a time before now) but it's good to flesh out that knowledge by actually reading the book.
Our particular problem seems to be related to milk, though, not generic baby fussiness. I decided I was sick of pumping after every feed so weaned myself off it, only pumping when I was desperate or wanting to go for a run without the full weight of the udders. Within 24-36 hours I was reliably more comfortable and Fiona was reliably crying. Doh! She was wanting to eat every 2 hours around the clock. Unsustainable. Hmm...
Our solution, which seems to be working, is to feed for longer. She'll fall asleep a couple times and I'll watch Wimbledon or read SCotUS opinions (what a week!) and feed her some more when she stirs. I had been spending 30-40 minutes feeding her and now I spend an hour but she can make it 3-5 hours again. I figure (read: desperately hope) that she'll get more efficient soon and get more milk in less time. For now, I'm appreciating the snuggly time.
Two days ago we ended up in Volunteer Park (incidentally the setting for Elliott's and my first date) for a feed under a huge maple.
On the walk back we used some gravel paths with the stroller. Heh heh. I don't think this captures adequately the beauty of her jiggling jowls and über-alert eyes that had me cracking up.
We may have missed the full drama of the contrast, but here we tried to photograph Fiona with standard items that may be present in the Mizrahi household in order to compare the disparate sizes of our babies from 3,000 miles away. Tuna fish, wiffleball, DVD, Bananagrams. From the look on her face this looks like it was one of her hungry times...
While the three of us sit on the couch for dinner with Newshour or the above DVD we've been doing air and tummy time on the changing pad. Here she is under one of the wonderful blankets made for me by my great-grandmother, Randy.
I swear, she usually loves tummy-time.
We're getting a lot more of this beautiful eye-contact.
Cozy.
xoxo, Liz
1 comment:
OH MY LORD I DIDN'T GET IT. There's a chance I'm suffering from a case of nursing brain. I thought you were telling me you tried to watch the fourth season of AD and she wouldn't let you! I thought the bananagrams were in there as a "there's always money in the banana stand" reference. I didn't even see the tuna and wiffle ball! Tomorrow we shall have a photo shoot! IT'S ON!
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