Saturday 28 February 2009

13 weeks 6 days old - breast feeding thoughts, milestones, and family

I now have 5 bags of at least 5oz of milk in the freezer! One has 5.5oz another has 6oz! I'm trying to get at least 5oz a day but I missed Thursday due to being out all day. Expressing an extra feed a day has made it much easier to feed Robert what he wants! I end up with a lot more milk for him to guzzle than when I wasn't expressing any to save. It does also mean I am engorged most mornings and having to sleep with a towel over my chest (my nursing bras are actually the wrong size - I bought them while I was quite heavily pregnant and now I'm not the band is too big (even on the tightest of 4 settings), and the cups are too small. So I really need to measure myself again and get some new ones. As such if I sleep in them my boobs end up falling out of them and therefore my nipples aren't covered by breast pads and my bra gets soaked full of milk!). But I'd much rather be engorged than not have enough milk!

Robert has been a bit better today teething-wise. He has had his inconsolable moments but they weren't as often nor all day like they were a few days ago. We've got some dentinox gel for his gums and he will readily let you put your finger in, but then licks all the gel off!! And then starts crying again once it's all gone. So I've been giving him calpol too. It says to consult your doctor if you give it to them more than 3 days straight... do you think I should for teething pain? Also I'm quite nervous as to what will happen once his teeth DO make it through the gums. I know plenty of women have breastfed babies with teeth before but I am a bit nervous about a chompy little man! But I will try and persevere, after all it'll be worth it if I manage. If I can't carry on, I'll try and express as much as possible although I fear I may well spend most of the day on the breast and not actually get any rest that way! Hopefully it'll be at an age where I can wean him if it does go that far. Although I would like to breastfeed for a while yet. How far I'm not really sure. I'm a bit squeamish about the idea of me personally breast feeding a small CHILD as opposed to a baby. I do hope I don't offend anyone here, I'm just expressing my opinion about what I would do for my children, and if you breast feed your small children then I am not judging you at all... Anyway, personally having given it a BIT (not much) of thought, I would definitely not breast feed Robert at the age of 4, I probably won't past the age of 3 (near certain), and right now I am thinking 2 is a good cut off point. Or maybe 18 months. I'm not entirely sure yet, I guess I will play it by ear! Maybe by the time Robert gets to 2 years old I will still love breastfeeding him and decide to carry it on! Who knows. I'm not setting anything in stone, but I definitely won't be the woman who's still breast feeding her 7 year old, that's for sure! Lol! That makes me a bit squeamish, but then I saw on youtube another woman basically downright slating this other woman for feeding her 7 year old, and comments saying it's child abuse, blabla. I personally think that's going too far, but anyhow, I don't know how that controversial issue made it in here! Hehe. I will veer away before I do offend anyone mistakenly.

What else? Hmmm. Well I am hoping that it will be very soon that Jonathan and I can go out for the evening, as I now have probably enough milk to last two evenings out in the freezer. But we'll wait a while because the in-laws have only just got back from New Zealand and are jet lagged, so it's not really reasonable to expect them to look after a screaming teething baby when they're so tired themselves. I am looking forward to it immensely though, so much so I might actually get dressed up! Haha! :)

Another thing, is Jonathan has decided to buy a new video camcorder. The other one was basically the cheapest model out there and the quality of it was rather poor, especially so in low light conditions. So he went and spent a rather large amount of money on a good one, and I am actually very impressed with the quality of the movies it captures. As I would expect for that amount of money! He's already got some rather cute videos of Robert playing with a rattle and cooing (not a lot, but occasionally). It will be lovely to get one of our "conversations" and also maybe his second laugh! It's so nice to have these things to capture his early years, the lovely photographs we have, and the videos. Because once it's gone you'll never have those times back. I already look back at videos and photos of him when he was newborn and think wow, he's so lovely and small and adorable. He's still so lovely and small and adorable, but not AS small. But in some ways lovlier and more adorable!

I think he is finally beginning to actually recognise us. This afternoon when he woke up from a nap, I went up to him, and said "Hello little man! Good afternoon!" and he looked at me, and instantly broke into a HUGE grin! I think he's also working out that when I get my boob out it means he's going to get milk too. Last night when he was being grizzly on the bed, I got my boob out, and he looked over, saw it, and immediately rolled onto his side so he was facing me, and opened his mouth, before I'd even got into position next to him! Lately I have been so besotted and delighted with my little man that I grin so much at him to get him to smile back at me that my cheeks ache! I don't often smile that much - infact the only other time I remember my cheeks aching from smiling so much was at my wedding! And now with trying to make my little boy grin at me because I love it so!

We're off to Northampton tomorrow to see the in-laws, as they have Jonathan's sister around as it was her birthday last weekend and she has some presents due from us! And a big slobber from her nephew. Hehe. The teething has made him very slobbery, he slobbers all over our fingers and hands as he desperately rams them into his mouth to chomp on!

I'm hoping that we can get down to Kent sometime soon - maybe next weekend we'll see anyhow, to see my family. Robert has yet to meet any of his great-grandparents, unfortunately he will probably never meet Jonathan's grandma, as she's now in a home (and lives in Bournemouth), his other grandma died in 2003, and his grandfathers before I knew him. My father's parents both died when he was a boy, but he was then raised by his aunt and uncle, who are therefore my grandparents. And there's my mum's mum, who is still quite spritely, or at least I think of her that way even though she's quite frail now, and hopefully she will meet Robert next time we go to Kent. And my grandparents (who live in London) on either the way there or the way back. Probably the way back, as then I can feed Robert just before we head off, and then he hopefully won't want feeding while we're there (don't really know what they'll think of me breast feeding him in front of them!).

I'll be off now anyway, have a great evening!

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