Courthouse field trip!

Yesterday I packed up the boys and took them to the courthouse! I got a ticket back in December when we visited a state park.  I had an annual pass for national parks and thought state parks were included.  Turns out they aren't and I got a $99 ticket. Lame! So I fought it and said it was an honest mistake and we've since purchased a state park pass, it won't happen again... and oh, um could you please just waive this ticket please,  your honor? He reduced it to $70 which still sucked but was better than the full amount.  Thankfully, Max was very well behaved and quiet in the courtroom and Ben nursed happily in my Boba carrier. He fussed a few times and I just had to get him latched back on and he was content.  Never thought I'd breastfeed my baby while pleading my case to the judge, but hey, baby was hungry and by golly, baby was going to eat.  Happy Baby Happy Mommy...especially in a quiet courtroom.

Breastfeeding, sleeping and the pumpkin patch

It's been over a whole month since I last posted?  Oops! I'm going to try to get this posted before Max wakes up from his nap. We'll see how I do...

Max turned 4 months old on Monday! He had his 4 month check up today and weighed around 12.5 lbs (they weighed him in kilograms, so I don't know how much he weighed today, but yesterday he weighed 12.5 lbs) and he's 26 1/4 inches! He got his immunizations and he did much better than he did last time. Thankfully. I cried right along with him when he got his shots last time, but this time, he just did a little cry for a few seconds and then was a big boy about it. They did make him very sleep though and he's taken a few naps, which is very rare for him. 

The doctor said he's growing great and made the comment on how mature he looks for a baby his age. He said he looks like he could have a real conversation with Max. haha I've had a few other people tell me he looks mature or very much like a boy, whereas some babies apparently don't. Ha. IL've got a manly man of a baby boy, I suppose. 

So, onto breastfeeding. For whatever reason, my milk supply dropped significantly at the beginning of October. Like, I felt like I was drying up completely. Max was starving and I had to go through the 10 or so bags of frozen milk I had in the freezer to keep him happy, and even then, he was still hungry. I spent many evenings crying, right along with him because I was mad at my body for not making the milk that he so badly wanted and needed. I tried fenugreetk, two different kinds of mothers milk tea, lactation cookies, and Dairy Queen pills on Etsy. Nothing increased my milk enough to make my baby happy.

I still go to the breastfeeding class on post each week, and he pretty much stayed the same weight for the whole month of October, between 12.2 and 12.5 lbs. Last week, the doctor suggested I talk to a lactation consultant about why he wasn't gaining weight. So I did. My body just slowed down the milk making process for whatever reason and the LC gave me a prescription to Reglan which helps my body make more milk. There are side effects, as with any medicine, but I have yet to see them, thankfully. Severe facial twitches, depression and exhaustion are the main side effects. The facial twitches are permanent too, even after you stop taking the medication. But I really really really really want to only breastfeed him, so I'm taking the pills. Luckily, it's only a 13 day course of taking the medicine and after I'm done with the course, my milk supply should keep up. I started it last Wednesday and by Sunday, I saw an increase in my  milk. My boobs are getting full in about 2-3 hours, whereas before, it was a good 6-7 hours before they'd feel full. I'm so thankful for the lactation consultants and all of their knowledge and help that they've given me. Max was a great nurser from the beginning, and nursing was very easy for both of us. So it was a big surprise, and not a good one, when I started having these problems. Yesterday I went to the class to get him weighed and he weighed 12.5 lbs when we got to class, and then I fed him on both sides and the weighed him again. In 12 minutes of eating, he gained 5 oz! This was A LOT considering the last few times I weighed, fed and re-weighed him, it was 2 to 2.5 oz. He's eating so much better and getting a full little belly. And this means he's sleeping better too.

Since the day we brought him home from the hospital, he'd been sleeping in the basinette attached to the pack-n-play in our room. He outgrew that in early October (well, if we're being honest here, probably at the end of September, but he was just so cozy in it and slept well that I didn't want to transition him to a different bed! But when his little toes were poking over the edge, I knew I needed to change it up for his safety). So we removed the basinette and he slept in the pack-n-play in our room. He slept absolutely horribly. He'd wake up every hour to hour and a half and be wide awake. I know it takes a few weeks to adjust to a new sleeping environment so I was trying to be patient, but it was difficult because I was exhausted. On Halloween, I spent a good portion of the day thinking about if it'd be a good idea to just take the plunge and put him in his crib for the night. I didn't want him down the hall from me (he's so little!!) but I did think he'd sleep better. I talked to Seth about it that night and he, of course, was like, Lets do it!! It's easier for the guys, I think, to say lets do it to major changes like that. Anyways, we did it and Max slept WONDERFULLY!! He slept for about 4-5 hours, then I fed him and he slept for another 4-5 hours. Tonight will be one week since he's been sleeping in his crib! He's growing up! I do still bring him into our room and nurse him in bed though, then back to his crib he goes. This morning, he was in his crib babbling/talking for a good 30 minutes! It was sooo cute. I had time to shower, do my hair, get dinner in the crockpot and a few minutes at the computer. 

Now, for a few pictures. We went to the pumpkin patch a few weekends ago and did the corn maze, pumpkin slinging and picked out our pumpkins. Max slept through the whole corn maze (this was the first time he was in his big boy stroller and he seemed to enjoy it based on how much he slept in it).

testing it out at home...patrick approves of the stroller too

rainbow when we got to the pumpkin patch!

sleeeeepy! 

unhappy i woke him up

very unhappy

hey ladies

hard life of a baby

I feel like this post was all over the place, and I'm not going to re-read it and re-write it before I publish it! Max is waking up now...good timing...and we're going to take a little walk to the mail box and then we'll play and wait patiently for daddy to get home from work :)

Updates

Max is already a month old! Well, over a month old now. I realized I never put his birth stats on my last post. Whoops! He was 7 lbs and 4 oz and 19.25 inches long. :)

He's gaining weight like a champ; last Thursday, he weighed in at 9.47 lbs and was about 22 inches. I go to a breast feeding class on post each week and he gets weighed. I go mostly to hang out with other moms (we all whip out our boobs and breast feed our kids and chat). There's a lactation consultant and pediatrician there to talk to if we need/want to also. It's at the hospital where he was born and then we go buy a coffee and visit Seth at work for a little bit. It's something for me to look forward to each week (him getting weighed and see how much he's growing) and it gets us out of the house.

Feeding and sleeping has been going well for the most part. Here's a look at our typical day:

Wake up between 7-9, eat off and on until about noon with about a 30 minute nap once or twice in the morning.
Lunch between 12-1 and then he takes about a 4 hour nap. Sometimes I nap with him if I'm tired.
He wakes up around 5-6, eats again and then dozes off and on.
Around 8 or so, we start the "bed time" routine, because he eats off and on from about 8-10. I'm not going to lie: It's sort of frustrating that he eats off and on for so long because feeding him takes forever. I feel bad for saying that, but it's the honest truth. When he's not eating, we just cuddle, so I can't complain too much. Thankfully, the middle of the night feedings aren't nearly as long!

Max is a really good sleeper the majority of the time. He usually sleeps for 3-4 hours at a time (he has since we brought him home). Last night was awesome. He went to bed at 10:30 and slept till 2:56. I fed him and changed him (a routine we have down to 30-45 minutes in the middle of the night) and then he slept till about 6:45. He ate again (another 30 minutes) and we fell back to sleep until 9:26! I got up and showered and by the time I got out, he was waking up. He ate off and on until about 11:30 and he's been asleep since about noon.

Breast feeding has been easy for the most part. I got chapped nipples a few days after we got home from the hospital, but I went to the breast feeding class and got some good advice from the lactation consultant and it's been smooth sailing ever since. She also gave us a manual breast pump and I just recently got up the nerve to use it. OMG. I'm in love with it. It is so easy to use, and it takes less than 10 minutes to produce a 4 oz bottle. Since Max is a cluster feeder, a bottle will be very handy to have on hand when we have to get out the door in a hurry. I still nurse him 95% of the time; it's just the last few days, he's had one bottle per day. And it's usually Seth who feeds him the bottle; I'm glad that they're getting that experience too. The first bottle Seth gave Max, Max kept starting at him, giving him a look like, "who are you? You're not the normal face I see when I eat!" But he didn't care too much because he chugged that bottle. It was really cute.

Over the weekend, we went to test drive a new/used car (that's a whole different post). Max was getting hungry but I had my breast pump, so as we were driving around this quaint little town, I started pumping milk (while silently saying a prayer we didn't get stopped at a light next to some young guy in a huge lifted truck who could look into our windows). We pulled into a Bank of America parking lot and Seth proceeded to 'milk' me, as we call it. A few minutes later, we were in a little cafe, sharing a banana split and feeding Max. (That cute little cafe also didn't have a baby friendly changing table, so I changed him in the booth we were sitting in. A mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do!) 

Seth's parents and grandma came to visit us last week and we had a few day trips. We went to the ocean and went to Pikes Place. While we were at the ocean, we stopped for lunch at a sit down restaurant and Max was hungry so I fed him. I got my cover out, attempted to feed him and he was thrashing his head all around, screaming his head off and it was not going well. (Might I add that he always latches on fairly quickly and never throws his head around or wails while he nurses!) So I decided to take him out to the car and feed him there, thinking he didn't like the cover. Honest to God, he gave me a smirk as we were sitting down in the car (like a 'ha ha mom, I rule you now' kind of smirk) and latched on in no time, didn't cry and ate till his little heart was content. The following day at Pikes Place, I fed him at another restaurant and he was good to go under the little cover. Go figure. But at times like the first restaurant, it would have been so handy to be able to pump a bottle real quick and feed it to him.

Overall things are going very well. I have my post partum appointment next week and will get cleared to go back to work. My employer won't allow me to start working until I get a doctor's note. (Because we all know it's so strenuous to walk down the stairs and sit at a computer and answer emails and I clearly need a doctor's note for this). I am nervous how it's going to go with Max and how I'll get work done, but we'll figure it out. We got a baby carrier (courtesy of Seth's grandma!) and I think I'll be using that a lot. Max is a snuggler and I think I'll be able to put him in that after he eats and he can nap and I can work and we both get our cuddle time.

We had professional newborn pictures taken a few weeks ago and here are a few of my favorites: