~I'm one follower away from 200 and a super exciting giveaway! I've ordered the prize and when I showed Zach what I got he said I should keep it for myself...it's that awesome ;) ~
Brittlynn's 6th week of life was from January 10th through January 16th (meaning she turned 6 weeks old on Jan 17th). It's crazy to me how MUCH things change week to week! Again week six had many changes in the life of Miss Britt:
Sleep: I always tend to start with the sleep huh? She started to fall asleep on her own at the start of naps! She'll often do a fussy cry for up to 20 minutes but we've learned it's better just to let her cry it out (cio). She also started sleeping for longer periods at night and would go from 11:30-5:30! I would give her a "snack" at 5:30 then put her back to bed until it was her real wake up time at 7:00. When babies wake that early you have three options: don't feed them and try to hold them off, feed them but put them back to bed, or feed them and keep them up and have that be the start of your day. I chose the second option because my breasts were aching to feed her and, to me, she was too young to force her to wait until 7. Also I wasn't about to start my day that early!!! We do a dream feed at 10:30 and this week she started being tougher to wake up for it. We did use the paci a little more often, especially during the evening nap as that's the hardest nap of the day and if she wakes early from a nap and nothing else works. I still wouldn't consider her a paci baby though. I have a feeling she never will be as she just isn't very good at it haha!
Nursing: While week 5 was a sleep issue week, week 6 was a nursing issue week. Britt had a couple of green poops and when I google searched it, it came up that green poop is often an indicator of a baby who is getting too much foremilk and not enough of the nutritious hind milk. It's called hyperlactation syndrome and here are the symptoms:
- constantly wanting to nurse
- spits up a lot
- fussy
- gassy
- fussy at breast
- diaper rash that won't go away
- very long nurser
- green poop
- quick weight gain
She had all of these symptoms. All day of Jan 11th I thought she was going through a growth spurt because she seemed constantly hungry and was back to nursing for longer than an hour at each feeding. Her spitting up had increased a lot and she was fussy on the breast. She'd come off and fuss then shake her head back and forth and go back on. I wasn't technically diagnosed with hyperlactation syndrome with Kye but I was pretty sure I had it. I had SO much milk. I'd pump
way more than he ate anytime I pumped and I would spray like
crazy whenever I didn't have something against my chest. With Britt, I don't feel like I have as much milk as I did with Kye. I don't leak between feedings and I pump about what she eats. I also don't spray like crazy and I can actually take a shower and not have to RUSH to put something on. So I was confused at how to handle it. Online it said to do something called "block feeding" where you nurse the baby only on one side. This allows them to get a full feeding from that breast and get the hind milk they need then your body will adjust and your milk supply will go down.
Thinking about
decreasing milk supply is MEGA scary. I didn't feel comfortable trying it until I talked to the lactation specialist at the hospital. I called up there on Thursday and she was out of town until Monday. Grrr. So in the meantime I decided to feed her from one breast but pump the other one while she was nursing so my supply would still stay okay. I did this all weekend (and it was BEYOND annoying) to wait for her to get back in town. It was great that I was able to store up extra milk and I did think that was the problem because when I pumped I was getting 4-6 ounces from
one breast.
When Monday came I was so glad to stop the pumping. When I finally got ahold of her we talked for THIRTY minutes and she was ZERO help. ZERO. It was very, very frustrating for me. She didn't offer any advice or any tips or anything. Basically I felt like I was telling her more than she was telling me. After our conversation I was at a loss for what to do and she seemed to think it wasn't a serious thing so I went back to nursing on both sides. She did stop having the green poop and was happier on the breast so I thought maybe just that couple of days of doing that helped balance things out for her. At least that's what I was hoping!!!
When she does take a bottle she drinks 6 ounces which is a LOT to me...isn't it to you? She is already using the bigger size bottles because the little ones only go up to four ounces. I still use the milkies at each feeding. I put it on the side I'm not nursing on and collect that milk. I get a little over two ounces of milk at each feeding. When I posted about milkies the first time I had some comments on them and one of them was from the
babywise blog mom herself! She asked on facebook (yes, we're facebook friends am I not sooo cool??? haha) if I had looked into them because since it collects leaked milk that milk is mostly foremilk and not hind milk. Foremilk is the beginning milk during a feeding and isn't the best part of the milk for the baby. It doesn't have as much nutrients as the hind milk has so if I feed her 6 oz bottles of all the milk I collect from the milkies then wouldn't I basically be giving her a bottle of pure foremilk? That made sense to me and I asked the lactation lady about that too...and
shocker...she hadn't ever even heard of milkies. And was clueless as to if it was okay to give her bottles of it or not. She's rather useless huh???
I decided to still use the milkies but now I keep that milk in the fridge separated from milk I pump. When I go to make a bottle from it or freeze it I mix the two together so she's getting a good blend! It's a little extra work, but I'm all about storing up milk. I still HIGHLY recommend milkies. I have yet to establish any kind of pump schedule and I don't think I'll have to as I have SO much milk already in our deep freezer!!! Such a blessing!!!
I'm much more comfortable nursing now and during this week I moved all my stuff to the living room to nurse at all feedings except the middle of the night one. I'm more comfortable on the couch and I love the natural lighting. I think she stays awake better out there too!
It's interesting how timing works out because it was about this same time with Kye when I started having nursing issues. You can read about them
here and
here.
Schedule: Babywise says that at 5 weeks old babies can begin to transition to eating every 2 1/2 - 3 1/2 hours instead of 2 1/2 - 3 hours. The DAY
Kye turned five weeks old we threw his new schedule at him. With Brittlynn I wasn't in a huge hurry. I felt like she wasn't consistently sleeping through her naps and didn't want to rush her into a new schedule if she wasn't ready for it. At that point we were also doing the cluster feed in the evenings and Hogg says between 6 and 8 weeks old you stop the cluster feeding. I didn't want to change her schedule to 3 1/2 hours then change it again when I dropped the cluster feed so we just waited longer and shifted it all at once. On Friday the 13th she and I picked up Kye from school and ran an errand before hand (her first trip to Target where I had time to only do returns before leaving haha). When we got home she slept mega solid so I just let her sleep and fed her when she woke up at 2. That marked officially moving the schedule ;) Here is her new schedule that she will stay on until she goes to a 4 hour schedule at about 4 months old:
7:00: start of the day, change diaper, eat
8:00-8:30: change diaper, awake time
8:30-10:30: nap
10:30: eat
11:30-12:00: change diaper, awake time
12:00-2:00: nap
2:00: eat
3:00-3:30: change diaper, awake time, special alone time with Mommy while Kye sleeps
3:30-5:00: nap
5:00: eat (I did 3 hours here rather than 3 1/2 because we eat dinner as a family at 6. While this means I can't actually
cook the dinner, we can at least eat it together once Zach cooks it haha)
6:00-6:30: change diaper, awake time, family dinner
6:30-8:00: nap
8:00: awake, bath, ready for bed
8:15-9:15: eat
9:15-10:30: put to sleep straight from eating
10:30-11:30: dream feed (wake her up to feed her then put her right back to bed)
she was waking up around 5:30 for a middle of the night snack then right back to sleep
I like the new schedule better than the old one, although Kye naps from 1-330 so it kinda stinks that she eats RIGHT in the middle of "my time" each day. I don't get much time where they both are sleeping. Only from 1:00-2:00 and that's
if Kye gets to bed right on time for nap (which on school days is hard) and
if Britt sleeps solid from 1-2 which the second half of naps is often tough. Usually I'd have more "me" time in the evenings but by the time Kye gets to bed she's often fussy/in and out of sleep and I typically jump in the shower before her 8:00 feeding then I go to bed at 9:30 to nap before the dream feed. If you're wondering how I get everything done during the day with this schedule and Kye's schedule (which is 7 he's up and eats, 12 is lunch, 1-330 is nap, 6 is dinner, 7 is bath, 730ish is bed)...I'm wondering the same thing haha!
Here is other stuff Britt was up to during this week:
Skin: Her baby acne is starting to clear up. We started to give her a bath every night and I think it made a big difference. She really needed the bath because her hair gets so GREASY if it's not washed every day! So strange!?! Also her shedding skin is
done. I think for real this time!
Picture of the acne (yes, I've edited out of her pictures...it's temporary why have it there?)
Independent Playtime: I couldn't BELIEVE it was already time to start independent playtime!!! She seems to young for it to me but I'm hardcore babywise so we're doing it. It's really not hard to do either. At this age all that independent playtime is is putting her at her playmat for 5-10 minutes at a time and I stay in the room but out of her line of vision. I don't talk to her etc. I just use that time refilling her humidifier and straightening up her room. Right now I don't have a set time I do it each day, I figured I'll get more strict about it when she actually moves to the pack and play for it which I think is at 3 or 4 months old? Not really sure, need to check into that!!!
First independent playtime on Jan 10th
Here is a video of her on the playmat being sweet and reaching for her toys
Tummy Time: Everyone knows the importance of tummy time for your baby. Since babies sleep on their backs they don't get enough time on their stomachs to develop their muscles and such. Plus tummy time helps avoid flat heads and hair loss ;) I'm all about it! I stick her on her tummy for a few minutes several times a day. I don't do anything fancy, I just lay her on a burp rag (because she WILL puke) whenever I need to put her down. With Kye running around and "needing" me all the time it's pretty easy to get in a good bit of tummy time, even with her short awake time lengths.
Here's a video of her doing tummy time
Rolling Over: The BIG milestone happened this week!!! Can you believe it??? Only 5 weeks old! It was on Sunday Jan 15th. Kye spent the night at my mom's the night before so Zach and I were playing with Brittlynn after her first feeding of the day. I went to the bathroom to start getting ready for church and Zach yelled to me "she just rolled over!" I didn't believe him at first! I ran out and she did it THREE more times!!! Zach was excited that he got to see that milestone, I am too. With Britt I feel like he doesn't get to spend NEARLY enough time with her. He is such a wonderful father but he has to help with Kye a lot and doesn't get to help with her as much. So that was a special moment for the two of them. She was cracking us UP with the rolling over. She LOVED it. She'd roll over and have this HUGE grin on her face then you could tell she wanted to do it again and again. It was adorable.
I took a video hoping she'd do it, and she did right away!
Here is the video...only watch for the first roll over because she never does it again ;)
She did it four times in a row then didn't do it again for a couple weeks haha! I tried to do it again with her after her next feeding but she fell asleep right away instead. I guess it wore her out ;)
Bath: This week we started fully submerging her in the bath water. Her first "legit" bath was on Jan 11th. We still did it in the sink but after that moved her into the bathtub. It's just easier in there. Yes, for the first bath Zach made bubbles with her body wash. He did it before I realized it and he didn't know about the whole bubble baths create yeast infections with girls thing. He knows now though ;)
She LOVES her bath time!!!
First bath in the REAL bath tub
I'm glad she's a happy bath baby. Both of our kids have been. I really think it's important to let Zach enjoy that one on one time with the kids so I try to do other things while he gives them their baths. It's not that I don't want to bathe them, it's that I want my children to have quality daddy time. I rarely got that growing up and it's important. I'm glad we do her bath stuff before she eats as I do see the logic in it (wouldn't bathing her wake her up more?) and it seems to be working for us, at least for now!
Warming up by the fire
First Target Outing!
Nursery: We didn't find out what we were having with Kye or Britt. With Kye we did a neutral nursery but I didn't want to have something neutral this time around. So we waited until after she was born. While I'm glad we did this, I don't think I'll do it next time. It's hard to decorate a nursery with a newborn!!! It's going very slowly but this week was exciting as her chair finally came in! I like for each kid to have a chair in their room for us to read bed time stories in with them and I wanted hers to be very girly! I got it from Target online and I LOVE it!!!
She did not want to let go of her rattle ;)
Right after she enjoyed her new chair she had her first big blow out diaper! Glad it didn't get on the chair!!!
Always have to have a couple pictures with Big Brother
Now that she's spitting up more the dogs have taken a big interest in her (why they enjoy eating spit up is a mystery to me!)...Levi is lurking around every corner of her awake time!
ready to pounce at the first sight of puke
How big is Brittlynn?
So big!
During this week in Kye's life I did my first legit weekly post so it'll be easier from here on out to compare them a little!
Here is his week 6 summary!
Postpartum Update: I lost 4.10 lb in my first week on Weight Watchers! I have a little over 6 lb left to lose to be my pre-pregnancy weight! It's tough when first getting back on it but I get SO many points because I'm nursing. It's really the best weight loss program and I love that Zach and I can do it together and that we can eat whatever we want. It's ALL about portion control!!! My bleeding got even less and I was able to start wearing panty liners (it's crazy that I'm STILL having postpartum bleeding 6 weeks out!). My bleeding got less but my female area was painful this week for some reason? It was tender and sore. My weight is not too bad, but I hate seeing my stomach in the mirror and think I look terrible in clothes. It's flabby in the front and my love handles are big. I have to keep reminding myself that I don't have much weight left to lose but my BODY will still take awhile to get back to normal. I'm not going to be all negative town and say it'll never be normal because I thought that last time around and it DID go back...it just took until I quit nursing for that to happen!
Overall this week I was less frustrated as things seemed to be getting on a good routine and she was doing so well. I REALLY enjoy every second with her, my favorite things about her are how much she smiles and the sweet cooing sounds she's constantly making. I just want to squeeze her I love her so much!!!
