See You Later, Growth Spurt!

Our baby girl is two months old! Wooohoooooo! That ain’t the only reason I’m (virtually) screaming my heart out. I’m ecstatic because we just came out of Audrey’s growth spurt (at least for this month). Whew!

It seems like just a couple of weeks ago when our baby girl was so fragile at 5 pounds 1 ounce, but 3 or 4 growth spurts later, we’ve suddenly (and yes, I do mean suddenly) got this little solid chubby cheek cutie pie. Several times we’ve said throughout the 2 months “she wasn’t that big last night, what happened?!” Growth spurt. That’s what happened. And yes, lots of changes overnight!

A few days ago we noticed how unusually fussy our baby girl was. She was extra clingy and she wanted to feed almost every hour when typically she’d stick to her 2-3 hour feeding schedule. She was also up throughout the night when usually she’s able to sleep through the night except to feed once or twice. My husband and I were getting really frustrated and tired. It was all so unusual. Then my husband said it could be yet another growth spurt.

As soon as we confirmed that it was another growth spurt, things changed. Audrey was still fussy, clingy and unbelievably hungry BUT my husband and I changed. From being frustrated and tired we became extra understanding and caring. Knowing what’s happening helps keep one’s sanity in times like these, don’t you think?

If you’d like to know more about growth spurts, this is site that helped me most:

http://www.whattoexpect.com/first-year/ask-heidi/baby-growth-spurts.aspx

Hope it helps you like it helped us! Happy growing!

From yellow poo to green poo, naku poo!!! :(

You may or may not agree but our baby’s poo is one of our best friends. It’s a huge indicator of what’s happening to their tiny (or not so tiny) bodies. It also says a lot about what’s going on in our milk factory!

Remember baby’s first stool? It was greenish-black, right? That’s called Meconium. It’s their poo from when they were inside our bellies. Then after a few days it transitions to a seedy mustardy-yellow  stool which tells you that baby is eating well and getting enough hindmilk (the high calorie milk we produce around 10 minutes or so into the feeding. Hindmilk is best for the baby’s weight gain, brain development.)

I don’t know about you, but I love seeing how yellow and seedy my daughter’s poo is all the time. This is gonna be a weird analogy, but for me, it’s sort of like a pat on the back. I’ve enjoyed this kind of bliss up until yesterday when I noticed my baby’s poo transition to watery-green. I also noticed that she’s hungry sooner (usually she feeds every 3-3 1/2 hours. Now she’s back to every 2-2 1/2 hours). She’s also been choking frequently, she’s been having gas pains more often and this morning she’s been unusually fussy. I knew something was up and her poo was my ‘strongest evidence.’

Thank God we’re raising kids in this day and age, where information is just a click away! Turns out I’m overproducing milk (which is kinda what I noticed too) and/or there’s a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance.

Since my baby was born, I’ve been feeding her 15-20 minutes per breast (as per doctor’s instructions and its also based on the book babywise). So when its feeding time, I usually set my alarm to 15 minutes then I transfer my baby to the other side to make sure that both breasts are stimulated (to maintain good milk production, according to my lactation consultant). Well, it seems like baby isn’t getting enough hindmilk, because for the past couple of days she lets go of the first breast after about 10 minutes then when she’s ready to feed again after a few minutes, I latch her on to the other side. Wrong move

After doing a bit of reserach, the remedy to this situation is block feeding, which means to nurse only on one breast per feeding, allowing the baby to pull away when she feels she’s gotten enough milk, hopefully equal amounts of foremilk (first 10minutes of feeding) and hindmilk. This also signals the mom’s body to take it easy on the milk production.

I’m gonna try that for a few days and hopefully baby’s poo goes back to mustardy-yellow and I’ll be back to producing just the right amount of milk my baby needs.

If you guys want to read more about this, here are the two sites I got info from:

Green Stools and Gassiness in Baby by Debbi Donovan, a Board Certified Lactation Consultant, as well as a retired La Leche League Leader.
http://www.ivillage.com/green-stools-and-gassiness-baby/6-n-136741

and

An article by La Leche League International
http://www.llli.org/faq/oversupply.html