J was born 5/30/24 7lb 13oz.
What a cutie! So much hair! Very serious expression in the beginning, and then just slept the entire first day. Not even opening his eyes to feed. He had a good suck and latched ok initially, but then it seemed like he was too lazy to open his mouth wide.
6/7/24
Taking of J isn't too bad. He sleeps a lot and eats pretty well most of the time by bottle. Trying to increase milk supply by pumping after breastfeeding and when he bottle feeds.
Main issue I have now is nausea, stomach fullness/discomfort, and belching whenever I try to sleep/lie down. I've tried Tums, pepcid, and sleeping with head of bed elevated. After I wake up is the worst. And I get a little better after eating a little bit. When its at its worst, I get these dull colicky contraction-like pains in my epigastric area. It would come every few minutes. Hope its not gallstones. But I also get belching with those pains, so i dont think its gallstones. Fits more with reflux. The contraction-like pain also resolves after a bm. Prob will need an appointment.
Turns out due to constipation. Need more fiber and water! Too backed up. Already taking 1 capful of miralax daily, but will increase to 2.
9d:
Pumping with new lansinoh duo discreet wearable pump has been a game changer. What used to be an hour ordeal now takes 20min bc I can pump 15-20min and then just put it back in the fridge. No need for attaching parts or changing to pumping bra. Don't even use my spectra anymore. My milk has also come in faster. Now pumping 1.5-3oz. And also J is able to take in 2 oz when we did a weighted feed. Supplementing aggressively in the beginning seemed to help.
Also took J out for the first time while dropping W off at school. Everyone was oooing and aaahing about how tiny J was.
14d:
Looks like my bleeding may have stopped! But my bowels are still not really moving. Having to take a lot of miralax. Tried to eran it a bit but then no bm today, so having to take a colace. Still waking up with hungar pains, but not as bad as before. It's tough my mom keeps on offering me soup and very low calorie items with the thought that they are good for recovery, but I keep on worrying about getting hungar pains.
J is doing mostly bf during the day and we give pumped milk during the night. Mom has been so helpful doing the night shift from 9p to 5a. Hard to sleep with j around bc he keeps on making eheh noise during sleep. One time he slept 6 hrs without eating! Almost back to birth weight.
6/14 15 days:
Went to 2 week appointment, yay back to birth weight and beyond: 8lb. Got his nbs, and went home.
6/22/24 3 weeks
Thought bleeding stopped, but still a little spotting restarted...it never ends!
J doesn't seem to be taking much from breastfeeding anymore. He seems really hungry afterwards, but only takes 1oz and falls asleep and then wakes up soon to feed. Sometimes sleeps for a while. Is it because he ate enough or he just got super tired from bf? Hard to say.... maybe do more weighted feeds?
Oh man!!! All I did was go take a shower and then I forgot to tell my parents not to bottle feed him so I can try bf, and I come back and they are feeding him again. Sighs...can't sleep and can't shower ever during the day! After a few min I'm sure it's not gonna seem like such a big deal. 🤦But makes me so stressed, sad, and want to cry right now. Cuz now if he's done eating before I finish pumping, I'm not going to have enough milk got the next feed and will have to bottle feed again. Or at least, that's what my mind is thinking.
I hate pumping. Even with the wearable pump that's a thousand times easier, it's still not fun.
6/24 3 week
I would like to breastfeed if possible, but J doesn't seem to effectively take in milk and just sleep/comfort suck. And gets too tired and just sleep after. Tried doing weighted feeds. At 1.5 weeks it seemed like he got 2 oz after an hour. But now it seems like he only gets 1-1.5 oz. In the morning. Afternoon he refuses to even try to breastfeed and cries until we give a bottle.
Sometimes I feel ok. Sometimes I wanna cry because I just can't seem to bf...I feel so incompetent.
Meanwhile, I domt feel like I can consult lactation bc last time we had seen one and they didn't help much. AB felt traumatized from lactation because W weight got so low, the attempts at latching correctly cause W to cry so hard, and subsequently, me. I'm sure if I mentioned consulting one, AB would refuse immediately.
Also, I think a big part is being a pediatrician makes me feel extra incompetent. I don't think I know of any pediatricians who can't breastfeed. I had come to terms with it last time, and before birth, but I think old feelings creeping up.
6/30/24 1 month
We made it to 1 month! Wow it passed pretty quickly. With my mom's help at night, I got much better sleep and was able to pass the time during feeds, burps, and pumping with Netflix, watching Asian drama, This is Us and How I Met Your Mother.
J can now focus on our face and very infrequently coo. During tummy time he sometimes pushes himself over the boppy, and has turned over too. So far he is a pretty chill baby except for a lot of gas at night that makes it a little hard for him to sleep well. Calms down when we hold him. He is so cuddly I want to hold him all the time. But then don't want to get into a bad habit where he falls asleep only in our arms.
Breastfeeding isn't going very well, but I have gotten over it and come to terms with pumping for a little bit. At least this time pumping is so much easier with the wearable. It's still a little troublesome to being places, but doable and takes less space.
7/19/24 1.5mo
We had our first lunch date out with j To thai bistro. J behaved very well!
Sometimes jay will sleep a very long time now from approx 1 to 7a. He Would eat quite a lot before he goes to sleep around eight or nine. In fact, during the day, he's quite frequently probably because he doesn't eat that much at night. He makes a lot of grunty noises like he has gas at night, time, which makes it a little hard for us to sleep. And sometimes we mistaken the gas sounds for hunger sounds.
There's been a few rare smiles in his sleep. I have yet to see him smile a while awake. He has quite a bit of spit up. And sometimes vomits large amounts, probably because i'm too ambitious in feeding him.
Now, i've leaned pumping to about five times a day. It's definitely much more freeing, So i've been able to go to an astros game, church, take wes to school, etc. However, despite my low expectations for breastfeeding, I still had a period of grieving when it didn't work out.
This article explains very well, why women can be very unrational when it comes to breastfeeding. https://laleche.org.uk/five-ways-help-breastfeeding-doesnt-go-expected/
I still breastfeed about two or three times a day, only for 10-20min. At this point it's just comfort feeding.
7/26/24 almost 2 mo:
Sleep generally pretty good, sleeps 3-5 hours, which allows to do about 1 overnight feed. But sometimes he has a bad night and wakes up frequently. Taking shifts and sleeping in different rooms has helped us with sleep. I take 8p to 1a, drop him off with AB and AB takes care of the rest of the night. Because we both sleep between 8-9p, we generally get enough sleep. But also we can take a nap during the day.
It's good to see back and forth cooing. But he hasn't smiled when awake. He often stares at the ceiling lights and fan.
His feeding: tends to fall asleep and not burp, so it's hard to feed him a lot at once. Usually we give 2 oz increments. And close to night time he may take 2oz every 1 hour.
Wish I read this before W was born! Haha:
... about reality of newborns.
Excuse the language...
https://www.prosperitykitchen.co.uk/life-coaching/the-reality-of-a-new-born-baby/
8/5/24 2mo
I reduced pumping to 4 times a day. Supply dropped, trying to let go. Every time I drop a session I feel a little bad, but tons of relief. So much more time. And more time to cuddle and play with J. Remembering that having more time and less pumping is the best for our family.
Rarely we catch a smile. But he is getting pretty good at cooing back and forth with us. He does some twitching when going to sleep. I think it's benign infantile sleep myoclonus. Will keep an eye on it.
8/8 2.25mo
We are trying to spread out his feeds a bit, instead of every 1.5-2hrs. But he will suck his hands and not eat. And sometimes gag on the bottle nipple. So strange. We decided to try to go back to conotomo since I'm not really bf anymore. Maybe once a day one time. Also strange is he only eats 1.5-2oz during the day, then towards end of the day, he will chug all his quota for the day. Now about 27oz.
Also I'm coming to terms with breastfeeding being bad for W, j, ab, and me. It's bad for everyone. It made my kids undernourished, they didn't latch well, didn't extract milk well, and they were too sleepy. And if anyone asks, did you see a lactation consultant, the answer is yes, and we were traumatized by most of them. W ended up getting jaundice and dropping to 5th percentile. So if anyone says breastfeeding is best, they are lying. Breastfeeding was the worst thing for my kids.
8/19/24 2.5mo
Fortunately, J has been sleeping quite a good amount at night. He goes to sleep around 7 ot 8p, and I do a dream feed around 11:30p, and then ab will feed him around 6am. Sometimes at 6am he's still asleep. He's such a sleepy baby. Ab likes to call him an angel baby. Very different from W who needed constant stimulation, moving him around. J is such a chill baby. Except still has the occasional reflux/vomit at before bedtime at night. I think it's because we are mistaking his sleepy signs for hungar.
I've also moved back to our bedroom and now AB sleeps upstairs. And we usually dont need to take a nap now.
Baby J is holding his head up some when on his tummy. He will smile, but not much social smile. Sometimes.
Tough part has been doing house fixing. Our AC drain pipe got clogged (thus time master), so took a whole morning and we finally got it unclogged with a shop vac. Meanwhile j got so upset cuz we just left him downstairs and he was crying so hard. At least we got it fixed!
8/21/24
Wow, miracle. Baby J slept 11 hours 7:30p to 6a. It's possible we were all too tired and didn't hear him, but AB was awake from 1:30 to 2:30a and didn't hear him. Weird thing is after all that sleep, he didn't even eat that much in the morning. We were expecting him to be wolfing down his bottle. 🤷♀️
9/12/24 3mo and some
Started laughing when AB said "It's time for sleep NOW!" But it was a mixture of hiccuping and laughing. First time laughing awake. It was so cute!!! Got it on video and the interaction w/AB was so cute!
He also sleeps around 8p and wakes up around 6:30-7am. With a dream feed around 10p. But sometimes he only eats 1-2oz.
He likes to eat to sleep...hoping he doesn't get into a bad habit where he needs it.
He has so many conversations now where he says things like ah-ooo.
9/20/24 3.5mo
Rolled from front to back for the first time! It was almost like a fall bc of his heavy head. He also really laughed today. Seems like he will do it when he's extra tired. So cute...
11/11/24 5.5mo
He's pretty good at rolling back to front now. A little trouble going back. But he is content sleeping on his back. I tried giving a little diluted pb and banana. He hasn't figured out how to swallow it... haha. Mostly dribbles out. We are so lazy to start solids.
He really likes to laugh when he is tired. Before he always got the hiccups. He especially laughs when we do peekaboo when he's tired.
He will sleep about every 2-3 hrs, and sometimes sleeps 45min, but sometimes sleeps 2 hrs! He can sleep in the carseat, but doesn't usually tie two sleep cycles together so usually only 45min. He still eats pretty frequently - about every 3 hours. I know we are supposed to eat sleep play, but manh times he eats, plays, eats, and then sleeps. 🤷♀️
It's really amazing having a little human be completely dependent on you. Sooooo sweeeeet. J is such a sweet awake. But I also love holding him when he's asleep. Unlike W, J let's me hold him! What a lovely, sweet, chill baby! Thank you God! Is so fun watching him sleep and laugh and smile and become bigger. Hope this continues... so sad these moments pass so quickly.
We kinda neglected his costume for halloween... but found a small startrek onesie few days later. We also gave him his first haircut today! So much hair...
Still doing dream feeds, but sometimes he doesn't drink any. But it's always so lovely to be able to hold him while he sleeps. Nothing more peaceful or precious. Watching him be in such a content state with his chubby cheeks and limp body. My precious baby!
11/17/24
Baby started babbling a lot. Especially when he's tired.
11/28/24 6mo:
Started having trouble going to sleep. He won't just quietly go to sleep anymore. We probably have to sleep train him. He would be obviously sleepy, but refuse to go to sleep and keep crying and crying.
He is also sometimes getting on his knees in a crawling position. He can sit in tripod for a bit.
So funny: when he laughs too much, he will get hiccups. Just like me!
12/17/24
Baby J crawled for the first time!! Once forward with one leg, and once forward with the other! We were all very excited. He rotates around in a circle very easily.
12/21/24 almost 7mo
Babbling so much now: dididi, mamama, nainainai, ...
First word: "Nana" aka banana. I regret giving him banana. Lol.
1/27/25 8mo
J has been crawling so much. And he tries to stand up now. He'll try to get on anything he can and try to get up with his hands. When we pick him up, he will kick kick kick with his little feet. So cute! Sometimes he's like a little lion trying to tear something with his mouth. He likes trying everything with his mouth. He's talking more now, saying things like mamamama, babababa. And random sounds. When he was just starting to crawl, he was focusing on that and not very social. Now he's more social again.
Ab reminds us it's easy to just try to move on from one day to the next and not enjoy the moment. Today we did so many fun things: we had alone time, we played an escape game online, we cooked yummy salmon and ate it, we played Zelda, hide and seek with W, we watched J laughing and trying to stand. Everyone ate pretty well and enjoyed the food.
5/14/25
Can't believe J is almost a year! People keep asking if we will do anything for his bday, but we feel too tired... maybe something combined with big better W.
Nick name: Belly Button Baby J
2/11/25 8mo
J's eyes remind me of Little tadpoles. And he has such beautiful flowy locks of hair. When he laughs and giggles, it's so much like baby W. So cute.
He learned to drink from straw, so that's nice and convenient!
3/30/25 10mo
Jasper is 10 months old now!! He is cruising some, but doesn't seem to be close to walking yet (W was already walking by now). He's a hefty boy though! Average weight on growth chart, but definitely more than W!
I'm reading Siblings without Rivalry. And I'm learning not to compare like above. Lol. Not putting them in roles. And loving them uniquely.
5/15/25 11.5mo
Still no teeth! He's an avid stair climber, but doesn't know how to climb down.
Occasionally J will say mama or baba here and there...but not consistent and not consistently with the right person. Also no pointing, waving or clapping. But he does bang 2 things together. Loves to hold on to the fake carrot and the fake pizza slice. And the diaper cream.
5/30/25 1 yo!
Made it to 1 year old! We celebrated with grandparents with some muffin and banana bread. He loved them! A friend also got him a little Chantilly cake -so yummy! He ate the strawberry on top!
Now j will say hiiiii. And has a distinct battle cry: oooOOOoooOOOoooo
He will say mama...but seens like just when he wants something. And can kind of give hi five. He likes flipping pages of books and uses his pincer grasp to eat meat -his favorite! He can take a few steps from one furniture to another or to us and hes very good at walking holding on to one hand.
Funny quotes:
AB: He was born with a mullet!
Smiled in his sleep. So cute!
Yw: what is the barrier to giving him a bath? Not enough time awake.
Ab: according to this chart this is his maximum time crying it should be 5 or 6 hours a day.
Yw: He's not even awake that many hours.
Neighbor: Does he have something in his mouth?
Yw: no, he just has big cheeks.
