Nursing/Milk Supply/Nap and Nighttime Routine

We are in a good routine now of Greta and Georgie waking up around 630 in the morning, which is really early, but we try to push it later and we just can't seem to make them sleep later. And since they're in the same room now, when one gets up, pretty much the other one wakes up to. But got a nurses first thing in the morning, then she goes down for her first nap around two hours after she wakes up usually give or take. Then after that nap she eats by nursing, then I feed her solids, then I usually wait a little while and change her diaper. Then she goes down for her second nap around 2 1/2 hours after that nap ends. She usually naps for around an hour and 15 minutes, give or take. That is, for her morning as well as her mid day nap. Then she eats again after that nap nursing, then solids, wait a little while and change her diaper. Then she usually goes down for her last nap around three hours after that second nap. It usually falls somewhere between 430 and 530 – when she goes down. That nap is usually only half an hour and sustains her until a fairly late bedtime for her age. But we have to continue the three naps for now, if we want to keep putting them to bed around the same time. We usually end up putting them down sometime between 745 and 830. It doesn't always work out, and sometimes we have to put Georgie down first and wait till he falls asleep and then put her down and very occasionally, sometimes The opposite. It's probably not an early enough bedtime for her, and she should probably only be doing two naps at this point, but it works for our family. As far as my milk supply, it has definitely continued to slow, but sustain her okay for now. I decided to get on the domperidone again (I was on it a couple months ago too - it's only a two week supply), to try to build up my supply and possibly pump and stores time. But I haven't really been able to pump much more than she needs, so we'll see how it goes when I stop. I also just started my period for the first time, and that can impact milk supply drastically, so I'm glad that I am on the domperidone right now. An interesting and ironic thing is that I started the Arbonne 20 day cleanse on May 19 and just about four days later I started my first period, and about a week and a half later I got my first cold of the season. I still have it and it is a decent one – meaning I'm usually able to kick it but I haven't really been able to kick this one. Anyway, our routine right now is; George gets Georgie changed into his pajamas and greets to him while I get Greta changed into her jammies or just change her diaper, and nursed her one last time, as well as give her a 2 to 2 1/2 ounce bottle, after I nurse her, but in the last few days I have discontinued giving her the bottle, and she's still sleeping through the night. The reason I have not discontinued giving her the bottle was because I thought that was sustaining her, but once we really trained her to sleep the night, she's been okay without it. I just make sure I give her lots of solids for dinner. Oh yeah – we do the same routine after her last nap - I nursed her, usually, and then we eat dinner together and I give her her dinner solid thing. It's usually not too long after that that we start the timer Tina Niners her again, with what little I still have. For a couple months I really was freaking out about my low milk supply, but she is getting old enough now and eating more and more solids to where it is not as big of a deal but I don't produce very much. I think ideally she should probably be getting more breast milk/formula, but hope you're doing seems to be working and we haven't had to spend the money on formula which is been nice. I do still have a few more bags of pumped milk stored in the freezer that does not contain Gary, from the first time I took domperidone. I am really just trying to hang on until she turns one, and then we can supplement her with an alternative milk (possibly not cow's if she does have a milk intolerance). Him not totally opposed to supplementing her with the Dairy Free formula right now, except that I do sometimes feel like she really kind of starts preferring the bottle over the breast, when I'm giving her more bottles. And I don't want her to wean herself entirely from nursing, because I still have at least something to offer her. Plus, breastmilk is always better than formula no matter what, and they do have some, so we figure it's almost a wash between buying formula and buying the $68 domperidone every two weeks, or maybe just once to month, because I think I can float it for two weeks out of the month without the domperidone.

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Gretta's First Tooth!!!

she got her fist tooth break through today!!! She's almost 9 1/2 months! It's (HER) bottom left tooth!

Gretta Winter 2013/14

Blowing bubbles
Longer naps
Rolled over three times (and both ways!) from her belly to her back on 12/1.
Sucking on fingers
Sticking out tip of her tongue
Eyes smiling behind her Binky
Lifting her head up and doing 'crunches'
Toe tourniquet :( ER on Christmas
Nickname 'beautiful angel love precious pretty princess'!
She's been actually LOOKING at and noticing toys and people's faces, and
starting to reach for toys and grasp them
Diaper rash AGAIN. She gets it fairly bad.
Her skin didn't like something about AZ (water, climate?)
She sits up really pretty good on her own (around 5 months), but we always put
support behind her bc she still falls over easily
Seems to have fallen into SOMEWHAT of a consistent nap schedule of a long
morning nap 1.5-3 hrs then two short (30-40 min) naps in the afternoon. We
USUALLY get her to bed between 7 and 8. This still varies quite a bit sometimes
though.

Gretta Moves to Nursery!

We put Greta in the nursery in her crib with Georgie at night for the first time last night. They made it! Georgie of course was horsing around and hit his top lip on his upper tooth and blood a little bit and we had to bring him into the family room while he cried, but that actually gave Gretta A chance to fall asleep. Then he was pretty quiet after that and went to sleep. It's only been one night, but my hopes are high. And, Greta woke at her normal 6:30 AM times that she had been waking, but then she actually went back to sleep for another hour, and it was probably because it is darker in there than it is in the front room where she's been sleeping in the pack and play. That has worked well for us for a couple months, but it was starting to be really bright in that room because of the long days, and since she had been sleeping for the night for two weeks minus a couple nights, we decided it was probably time to move her into the nursery. Hopefully it will continue to go okay, and their bedtimes will lineup. Bedtime for both of them is generally around 8 o'clock, that is very general though. And it only works if credit does three naps still. So that is what works for our family, though it is getting a lot more difficult because of how late it is staying so late. Hopefully will make it through the summer! And on top of that, Georgie has been taking a long time to fall asleep at nights, so we are hoping that he can at least stay quiet even though he's not falling asleep (he's been having issues with being afraid of the dark and occasionally noises). But we are hoping that since Gretta is in the room with him now, that might ease some of his fears.

Gretta Sleeps Through Night!

She randomly slept through the night last night for the first time!!! (Hadn't even come close!). I did everything exactly the same tonight, in her routine, so we'll see if she sleeps through the night or not again. Probably not. But we were really excited anyway. Right now I come in the morning because she doesn't completely empty me, and sometimes I will come about an hour after a feeding during the day too. By the night time, I have enough milk to make at least one bottle 2.5 ounces, and we offer that to her after she nurses before bedtime. Sometimes she'll take some of it, and sometimes she won't. Also, she has really been starting to eat quite a bit lately. When we first gave her solids, she wasn't really quite sure about them, and I think she is pretty sensitive to texture. She likes them pretty puréed up. She seems to like the saltier foods maybe A little better. I usually try to nurse her and then feed her right after that, and give her some sips of water out of her camelback throughout eating. She really likes her Camelback and water. My milk hasn't been super awesome, but it has been enough for her, so I'm okay with that. I thought about cleaning her since she's almost 9 months old, and there would be a lot of advantages to that, including being able to eat dairy again. But when I read up on it, I decided to go ahead and nursed her to a year. We still have not had to supplement with any formula, and I've been able to build up a decent stash of pumped milk that is non-dairy. We've done cry it out with her a fair bit, and it works really pretty good for her. The night before last we actually let her cry for about an hour and a half when she woke up for her second feeding, which I knew that she wasn't hungry for. Yes, she sometimes still does two night feedings. Very frustrating – she has pretty much done one to two feedings a night since birth, going through different phases where she would do two feedings for a while and then she would just do one feeding for a while, for whatever reason she has been inconsistent and hasn't consistently prompt that second feeding. I know a lot of it was because of her rash and then my clogged duct, thus less milk, and so she probably really did need to eat because she was hungry. But now that she is eating quite a bit of solids, and my milk seems to be fairly decent, I am feeling more comfortable with trying to get her to sleep tonight through the cry it out method. I've been getting free baby food at some of my Mops meetings, at the giveaway table, and our Cuisinart has been broken, so I really haven't made much homemade food. So I've basically been giving her whatever I get for free, which lately has been a lot of fruits. I did buy her some baby food that has beef, turkey, or chicken in it as well as other vegetables or wheat cereal mixed in with it, and we never really gave Georgie meet from what I can remember. So she is probably getting better protein than Georgie did, and she seems to like it.

Georgie and Dark

Is now afraid of the dark and has a harder time falling asleep at night (bc of it?). We leave his door cracked.