This journal is becoming incresingly bosom-centric. I don't know if I should apologise about that.
The baby is lovely and I am in love with him (except between the hours of 3-7am when my feelings can be significantly more colourful and interwoven with things like anger/irritation/resentment) because you know, the fact that he doesn't sleep on command is clearly a sign of a malign intelligence working to persecute me.
Breastfeeding Pros and Cons
The Good Stuff
* The baby is developing beautifully and is becoming ever more chubby.
* It's nice knowing I am giving him tailor-made nutriotion and my immunity.
* The weight loss is nothing short of remarkable. Each day when I wake up I can practically see where a section of my thigh has been transplanted onto his.
* Jiggled right breastfeeding still allows me to do other things - like read a novel (my top parenting tip: baby's body makes a useful bookrest)
*Z who famously used to think that eating three meals a day is a sign of spiritual weakness and female caprice can now be heard saying things like: "Here! Have another slice of cheese pie!" or "Would you like more clotted cream with your scones my dear?"
The Bad Stuff
*My Breasts Before were a lovely, manageable C-Cup. I liked it that way. Now since their indenturement to a greedy infant they have shot up to an F cup. F! I have industrial-strength breasts.
* Which are much heavier and more painful that I am used to and require industrial strength scaffolding and bras to be tamed and restrained. Pretty lacy underthings how I miss you!
*Sleeping on my front is impossible. Sleeping on my side is fairly tricky too.
* Engorgement bloody hurts. Sometimes it hurts so much that I like to reverse roles and wake up the baby to feed.
*You know what else hurts? Blocked milk ducts and sore, cracked nipples.
* Being called upon way too many times a day (often in the middle of particularly delicious REM sleep) to offer up sustenance. Listening to the ear-piercing screaming when sustenance not immediately available. Worse, being the only one who can provide this service. In fact counting down (25!) like a condemened woman the number of nights until people who are not me can start taking on some of the feeding responsibilities and plugging up the child with bottles.
* Being the slave of someone the size of a breadbin. This is not edifying. Particularly in the early hours of the night. TO illustrate, here is a sample of things I could be heard saying in the past week somewhere in the region of 5am:
"You can't be hungry AGAIN."
"Oww, easy you little piranha."
"Why do you hate me, why?"
"No! No more food for you! Enough with the tallness and the rapid development! Someone will love you even if you stay small."
"How much immunity do you really need?"
"Why, why, why?"
"I am almost certain you will be my only child."
Thanks to a heady emotional cocktail of grief and sleep deprivation most days melancholy is not far behind. Occasionally even when the baby is sleeping I feel too emotionally and physically worn down to sleep myself (it feels pointless if the baby is only going to wake me up half an hour later; of course this is nearly always the time when baby chooses to sleep for a several-hour stretch).
The wanting of the feeds an hour apart was completely killing me, and so after three nights of that malarkey Z and I took the advice of paediatricians (favourite quote: "Breasts are not toys for children!") and have stopped giving in to the baby's demands in order to push feeding times at least two hours apart. Predictably there was a lot of screaming from the milk junky, but it worked, and that nervous breakdown I was having has been postponed.
It is gruelling stuff and I spend most of my days feeling like a gang of hostile individuals has given me a kicking. But I hold on to the thought that it will get better. And that we are unimaginably lucky to have this healthy, thriving child whose inheritance of my appetite is probably some sort of karmic payback. Or a black magic spell cast by my mother, incidentally whose chortling over the phone I did not feel contained the right notes of sympathy.
On that note Matei's father is an easygoing, cheerful, amiable sort of person. The person most likely to say: "Whatever you want to do is fine!" and "What do you think?" and "Sure, let's do that!" On the other hand Matei's mother is an intense and wilfull woman often motivated by irrational pride and defiance. Now, let us make an educated guess which of them it looks like their child takes after more, in the soul?
Breastfeeding Pros and Cons
The Good Stuff
* The baby is developing beautifully and is becoming ever more chubby.
* It's nice knowing I am giving him tailor-made nutriotion and my immunity.
* The weight loss is nothing short of remarkable. Each day when I wake up I can practically see where a section of my thigh has been transplanted onto his.
* Jiggled right breastfeeding still allows me to do other things - like read a novel (my top parenting tip: baby's body makes a useful bookrest)
*Z who famously used to think that eating three meals a day is a sign of spiritual weakness and female caprice can now be heard saying things like: "Here! Have another slice of cheese pie!" or "Would you like more clotted cream with your scones my dear?"
The Bad Stuff
*My Breasts Before were a lovely, manageable C-Cup. I liked it that way. Now since their indenturement to a greedy infant they have shot up to an F cup. F! I have industrial-strength breasts.
* Which are much heavier and more painful that I am used to and require industrial strength scaffolding and bras to be tamed and restrained. Pretty lacy underthings how I miss you!
*Sleeping on my front is impossible. Sleeping on my side is fairly tricky too.
* Engorgement bloody hurts. Sometimes it hurts so much that I like to reverse roles and wake up the baby to feed.
*You know what else hurts? Blocked milk ducts and sore, cracked nipples.
* Being called upon way too many times a day (often in the middle of particularly delicious REM sleep) to offer up sustenance. Listening to the ear-piercing screaming when sustenance not immediately available. Worse, being the only one who can provide this service. In fact counting down (25!) like a condemened woman the number of nights until people who are not me can start taking on some of the feeding responsibilities and plugging up the child with bottles.
* Being the slave of someone the size of a breadbin. This is not edifying. Particularly in the early hours of the night. TO illustrate, here is a sample of things I could be heard saying in the past week somewhere in the region of 5am:
"You can't be hungry AGAIN."
"Oww, easy you little piranha."
"Why do you hate me, why?"
"No! No more food for you! Enough with the tallness and the rapid development! Someone will love you even if you stay small."
"How much immunity do you really need?"
"Why, why, why?"
"I am almost certain you will be my only child."
Thanks to a heady emotional cocktail of grief and sleep deprivation most days melancholy is not far behind. Occasionally even when the baby is sleeping I feel too emotionally and physically worn down to sleep myself (it feels pointless if the baby is only going to wake me up half an hour later; of course this is nearly always the time when baby chooses to sleep for a several-hour stretch).
The wanting of the feeds an hour apart was completely killing me, and so after three nights of that malarkey Z and I took the advice of paediatricians (favourite quote: "Breasts are not toys for children!") and have stopped giving in to the baby's demands in order to push feeding times at least two hours apart. Predictably there was a lot of screaming from the milk junky, but it worked, and that nervous breakdown I was having has been postponed.
It is gruelling stuff and I spend most of my days feeling like a gang of hostile individuals has given me a kicking. But I hold on to the thought that it will get better. And that we are unimaginably lucky to have this healthy, thriving child whose inheritance of my appetite is probably some sort of karmic payback. Or a black magic spell cast by my mother, incidentally whose chortling over the phone I did not feel contained the right notes of sympathy.
On that note Matei's father is an easygoing, cheerful, amiable sort of person. The person most likely to say: "Whatever you want to do is fine!" and "What do you think?" and "Sure, let's do that!" On the other hand Matei's mother is an intense and wilfull woman often motivated by irrational pride and defiance. Now, let us make an educated guess which of them it looks like their child takes after more, in the soul?