Chez Moi

Maybe you can guess my top activity of the moment from the title. Go on, take a guess. A quick glance across my recent posts and this seems to be a recurring theme. A fact that seems to have occurred to the jobless bots out there as ‘breast’ seems to have replaced ‘deepa venkat’ and ‘pamela anderson’ as the top reasons people stumble on to this blog. Any day now, I might even get my own troll!

Anyhoo, the feeding saga continues. As with most things we have good days and bad nights. Am getting used to being bleary eyed all day long and keep hoping that the panda eyed look will be declared The look, this autumn.

Whilst I was fretting and fuming about the drama surrounding the whole feeding issue, I got some super advice from a midwife and my health visitor. As they spoke much sense, I have to chronicle it here for posterity - for those mums waging a war with it as well as for my own doped up self.

So here they are - things you did not know about breastfeeding:

• You lactate better at night. Five words I never thought would issue from my fingers - or keyboard, take your pick. But there you go. Apparently you do. Which is why it, even if your little bundle of terror wakes you up for the fifth time in three hours, it makes sense to go with the flow as guess what, the flow will continue to flow. (Can you guess I am sleep deprived?)
• Another advantage of b/feeding at night is you secrete a sleepy hormone that makes it easy (Well, ish!) for you to go back to sleep after the deed is done. Which ain’t possible after mixing up formula, so they tell us. But what is the fun in going off to sleep easy with or without the aid of sleepy hormones only to wake up in thirty minutes, you ask. Good q.
• For all of you hapless mums tormented by Evil Mother-in-laws who nag you about not producing enough milk to feed half the city - worry not. The answer is right in you. Drink copious amounts of fluids as without that, you won’t make enough ‘foremilk’, the watery milk that comes first - this quenches the baby’s thirst and makes them weeing and pooing a’plenty. Joy! Next, eat five smaller meals if you cannot face three square ones. Do not skip breakfast ever! Cos no food for mum = no milk for baby. Capice? Third, and sock this to the outlaws, you need plenty of rest to keep churning out the milk - else all the calories you put in you will burn and there won’t be any fatty milk for the little one. So grab some shut eye, why don’t you?
• If your infant is wailing non-stop, check the top three steps listed above - did you drink enough water? eat loads? didn’t hurry about the place? If the answer to any of the question is no, smack yourself silly and remedy the situ pronto.
• Last but def not the least, repeat this to yourself “this too shall pass”. If the sight of hubby snoring away when you are stuck with the bubba chewing your tits off, then take wise Dipali’s suggestion and jab him with the nappy pin. Or aim a hefty kick at his backside (mentally!) and ask him to burp the baby. Babies can smell your milk (duh!) and keep asking for more even when their tummies are full. Get the dad to burp the baby and kill two birds with one stone.

So my ickle baby is two weeks old today. Unbelievable! She so doesn’t seem like the baby we brought home from hospital on 15th September. She has become darker and for a while, tinier. Shrunk in size, somehow. But for the past two days, she is slowly starting feel less like a  tiny mite. I am still scared shitless of dropping her or not being careful enough with her delicate neck.

So what have I learnt about my daughter in the past two weeks?

One - she is wide awake for a newborn. That same evening of her birth, she drew gasps from everyone by being open-eyed and staring at everyone. As the days go on, she is staying awake for longer and seems to want to drink everything in.

Two - her brother’s her favourite person already. She turns her head to follow his progress around a room. Her eyes open wide like saucers when he comes into her line of vision. When he’s home, she prefers to sleep in the living room, amidst the din he creates rather than in the quiet confines of her room.

Three - She has started experimenting with her cries already. There’s the eyes closed tight, face becoming red bellow for food, the impatient growling as she unsuccessfully roots and there are the smaller plaintive cries, to tell us she is awake and would some one get her NOW.

Four - She makes such faces when she’s asleep! You can see her eyeballs moving under her closed lids, eyebrows raising and falling and mouth moving soundlessly as she carries on some imaginary conversation in her sleep. She also smiles a lot to herself, has even giggled once or twice, much to her brother’s wonder.

Five - She shows such anger already! When she’s hungry, her arms start flailing like windmills on overdrive, knocking over anything that’s in the way. When she’s wearing mittens, she looks like a boxer getting ready to punch the opponent’s lights out.

Her brother’s already started pestering me when she will crawl / walk / talk. Talk about a pair of impatient siblings!

P: Mummy, what is nipple cream?

One of the top reasons any parent gives for going in for child #2 is for the child to have siblings and to understand and appreciate the bond. Spouse, friends, other family members are all fine but a sibling has a special place in one’s life indeed. After all, there’s no one else who shares the same background as you, who can understand where you might be coming from, considering theirs is the same.

I had longed for my son to have a sibling of his own. When he was around three, the way he used to interact with a friend’s daughter, who’s exactly a year younger than him used to fill my friend and I with this glow. Barely a foot himself, he used to guide her tricycle with a hand behind her seat and another one holding on to her handle bars. It made both of us go “awww!” and the friend to state “oh he’d make a fantastic big brother, di!” I agreed with her whole-heartedly.

P is such a sensitive, protective soul, the absolute best big brother material.

And in one week, I have seen instances of it that has made my heart sing and had my friend not in Chennai now, would make her say “I told you so” with much glee.

So we wanted to go for a walk on Sunday afternoon, to enjoy some rare end summer sun. “Let’s get her buggy out and we can all go for a walk, P - you can even ride your bicycle if you want!” suggested I. But no. “No mummy, let’s not do that, all my older friends will be playing and they might harm the baby!”, says my baby!!

The other night, he was watching telly while the baby was lying next to him staring at nothing in particular. Or so we’d thought. P looked at her and decided she was watching telly too, which was a big no no. Before any of us realised what was happening, he took off at a rapid clip, went to the crib, selected one of the brightly coloured animal toys and plonked it next to her, away from the telly, thus distracting her! Clever boy or what?

Then last night during dinner, he was sitting on the sofa and the baby was on awake, right next to him. Suddenly, there was a squeal! “Mummy look, the baby smiled at me. Look she is smiling at me!” Sure enough, she had a dopey grin on her face but her brother sported a bigger one.

Let’s hope this mutual love lasts.

…. two lots of 2.5 hours of sleep,

interspersed with,

… two lots of marathon feeding sessions,

that lasted for 2 hours each time

including three nappy changes.

All conducted to the background score of ‘Snoring in E Major’, rendered by Hubby.

Misanthropic is too mild a term to describe my current status.