Mommy's diary 2

Thank you for all your advice and encouragement on breast feeding last week! I thought I was the rare one who was having the engorgement problem, so it was comforting to know that other people face the same problem as well. You are right, it DID get better. Although it is not completely pain free, I can see the improvement I made in a week. I think my body is adjusting the milk production to the baby's needs, and also the baby is drinking more, which helps a lot. I read about the cabbage leaf thing for engorgement help while I was doing some research online. I've never tried it since it sounds like a lot of work to prepare, but I read about it all over the place. It sounds like of strange to me that such an ancient method helps!

So here is one of my favorite outfits for Sophia from my father-in-law - lion suit! The suit has a tail as well:p
I can't believe how much she's grown in the past two weeks. I can see her getting bigger by the day.

I gained total of 10kg through out my pregnancy. Two days after the delivery, I stepped on a scale at the hospital, and almost screamed, since I only lost 2kg! It was mathematically incorrect - the baby weighted 3.6kg, plus water and placenta (I'm assuming it to be 2-3kg), and I lost twice as much blood than normal during delivery. I was expecting to see 5-7kg weight loss.
But a week after the delivery, I ended up loosing 8kg without doing much - no change in eating or no exercise. Now it's been two weeks, the last 2kg hasn't come out yet. Once I get the doctor's go-ahead, I'm going back to doing a hard work out, so I can fit in to the dress I made for my self for the 1940's swing dress sew-along!

Mommy's diary 1

Good morning all!
So week one of motherhood has been completed, only 50 more years to go :)  A lot has been going on in that area of my life.  Most of what goes on with newborns is interesting only for the parents so I won't bore you all with it.  But there are a couple things which I just have to talk about. 

The first night we brought her home was both exciting and really scary.  We had her at the house and she was sleeping well but the thought kept coming to mind "What if there is a problem"?  I could not sleep at all the first night.  I was constantly listening for her every breath.  Any of you have the same experience?  Thankfully over the next few days that thought subsided so now I can relax and if it weren't for another problem I would be sleeping quite peacefully.

That "other problem" I mentioned is breastfeeding.  I don't know how many of you have experience in this area but I can tell you that it is much more complicated than I thought.  I thought you just put babys mouth in the right place and that was that!  But apparently there are right and wrong ways to feed.  For example the baby must have their mouth not solely on the nipple but around the whole areola or else, like what happened to me, the nipple gets injured.  Because I was "doing it wrong" the first day or 2, I beat my nipples up so bad that I couldn't properly feed for a few days after that.  Another breastfeeding challenge I have encountered is my milk production is too high.  This is not a problem for the baby but for me.  My breasts fill up so quickly that they hurt.  It got so bad I couldn't sleep or eat or anything. I sent Andy on a mission to figure out what was going on, because it did not seem normal for it to hurt that much.  Andy is no doctor but he is a good google monkey and was able to figure out what the problem was.  Apparently because I produce an over abundance of milk I have to breastfeed a little differently.  I have to use one breast at a time so that the baby drains one entirely, gets the proper nutrition and can get my body to respond to the needs of the baby.  When I first started I was alternating between breasts for each feeding.  From what Andy was able to find out, that "normal" way of feeding won't work for me.  I need to have the baby on one breast for a full 15-20 minutes then on the next feeding use the the other side.  Breastfeeding is really complicated.  I had a really easy pregnancy but the delivery and week following is where I have been getting my mothering pains!

Outside of baby stuff, I have a couple photo shoots coming up.  I will start putting together my Carnival line soon and hopefully will be able to start with some new projects.  I wasn't sure how working with the baby would go but so far, it hasn't been too bad. How about you? How do you manage to do things while raising a newborn? Any suggestions?

All for now....time to feed, sew and feed some more!

Made more re-usable nursing pads. I need a lot of those! Tutorial is here.