A post about parenting (and doula update)

First, a photo:

I took a bunch of photos of DJ when he's trying to poop. They're funny as a collage; this one is actually cute.

I realize I haven't posted much about the birth; I wrote up the birth story, but I'll have to condense it to post it. Here's an out-of-order post about parenting, so far.

BREAST-FEEDING: DJ latched on perfectly and nursed well right away. For that I'm very grateful. I was a little anxious about my milk coming in, but it did fairly quickly. He soon settled into feeding every two hours (as in, two hours from the start of one feeding to the start of the next). It was stretching out to three hours, and he's gone four hours at night a couple times. J has given him formula three times -- twice so I could sleep through a feeding (though my achy boobs woke me up anyway) and once because I went to my awesome doctor's appointment last week. Logically, I feel perfectly good about formula, but it still gives me a pang to skip a feeding.

I wasn't having good luck with pumping. Someone suggested pumping at the same time every day, an hour after the first morning feeding. OK, but which one counts as the first morning feeding? And they aren't at the same time every day anyway. Twice I have pumped and frozen a 2 oz meal, but these were an hour or so after J fed him formula. I don't know if I can pump without skipping a feeding.

SLEEP/FUSSINESS: He's not getting enough sleep. I took notes for a few days and found he only slept 9-11 hours those days. He should be getting 14-16. He was sleeping pretty well at night (dropping right off between feedings), but (like his mom) not napping well during the day. For about two weeks now, the lack of sleep has made him almost constantly prone to fussiness, and we've had more bad nights than good nights. If he's awake he needs to either be feeding or held and bounced on the exercise ball; otherwise, he's fussing/crying within 15 minutes. And his feeding interval has shrunk back to two hours. He's also stopped using his regular feeding cues and goes straight to shrieking when he's hungry. Dude! We answered those cues! What gives?

He has always made a sport of pooping, with an impressive display of wiggling, grunting, and squeaking. Lately, though, he cries and fusses when he's trying to poop. I thought maybe he was in pain, but if you bounce him, he immediately stops, so I don't think he's in pain. And, when he has slept well for a couple hours, he does the whole pooping song and dance without complaint. The worst is when he's crying while trying to feed (because he's pooping). It tears me up. I can bounce him to stop crying, but it starts again as soon as he's back on the breast and restarts the pooping project.

I think this all stems from inadequate sleep. I canceled a lunch date Friday to focus on getting him to sleep as much as possible during the day. It seemed to help. Today we were out and about, so he didn't get a lot of sleep. We're in for it tonight, I'm sure. I may be naive to think we can "crack the sleep code." I may be expecting too much when he's not even two months old.

CRIB TRAINING: We talked about starting it around the two month mark (April 9), but we may put it off for a couple weeks after that until J wraps up his teaching semester. We want to try the loooonngg sloooowwww "no-cry" style (though I suspect it's really just less crying at any particular time). Summer is a good time to try a few weeks of interminable nighttime soothing, something that would be totally infeasible if we had real jobs.

DEVELOPMENT: He hasn't smiled yet (socially), and that's driving me crazy. But he's good at holding his head up, and he turns towards sounds, and he looks me in the eye often enough to (temporarily) quell my fears that he's on the autism spectrum like so many other little boys I know. We don't really have any games yet. I sing to him (some favorites: Blue Moon, Here Comes the Sun, the soundtrack of Les Miz). He's grown some wonderfully squeezable thunder thighs.

EQUALLY SHARED PARENTING: Texts about shared parenting say it can be difficult for moms to cede the primary parent role. That hasn't been nearly as hard as I feared. I'm definitely more time-on-task with DJ (by virtue of my work leave and breastfeeding) and I'm more into researching things like sleep, but we make decisions together and we don't tell each other what to do.

On the whole, it's going really well. I really enjoy my time with him, and I feel like we're doing a decent job. I've had to remind myself to soak up this phase, because it only happens once. I miss him when I haven't had him in my arms or next to me for a while.

DOULA UPDATE: I emailed her about what I learned from the OB - very neutral tone. I did include a sentence saying, "I sense you are disappointed that I chose the epidural" and reiterated that it was a decision I feel great about. She sent a very gracious response. The upshot is that she copped to being a little disappointed, but explained that she sought to support me in whatever I chose and hoped I felt supported (I did). She thanked me for the info and apologized for being mistaken. I feel good about it. I'll say more about the doula experience when I post the birth story.