revival

yes, dear readers (few of you as there might be!). i'm back! darling evie has finally more or less settled into a regular sleeping and feeding pattern, which means that i can finally plan my activities during the day.

evie turned a month old yesterday. it's been the busiest month of my life! i think i've never slept so little in my life as well!

when we first brought evie home, she slept all the time except for feeding times. which came at intervals of about 1-2 hours all round the clock. which meant that we got to sleep in half hour blocks. only thing was that hubby got to roll back over to go back to sleep but i didn't since i was the only one with the boobs to feed her. we hadn't gotten around to setting up a schedule for hubby to feed her from the bottle as my milk production wasn't up to scratch yet and i was barely making enough for her.

the first few days, poor evie lost some weight as my body got adjusted to making milk for her. i wasn't producing enough, so she was using up some of the fats she'd accumulated. when she started getting hungry a couple of days after she was born, i still wasn't being a good enough cow and that was the first of the sleepless nights. everytime she got hungry i had to feed her constantly switching nipples as the boobs ran dry frequently. she got angry and i got sore and cracked nipples.

the milk sorted itself out fairly quickly and hunger wasn't an issue with her anymore. she started putting on a lot of weight and i could see the rolls of fat developing on her arms, legs and chin. plump babies are cute, in my opinion, but i've seen several obese ones which are downright scary. no way am i letting evie go beyond cute-fat.

while i started producing enough milk to keep her happy, the cracked and sore nipples almost made me give up breastfeeding altogether. it was so painful for awhile that everytime she latched on, i'd start crying. rubbing olive oil on between feedings helped somewhat and expressing milk hurt a lot less than feeding her directly so i started alternating between feeding her expressed milk and from the nipple. didn't dare switch totally to the bottle though in case she started getting "nipple confusion". glad to say that after about 3 weeks of suffering and gritting my teeth through feedings, my nipples have toughened up and i do enjoy the time i spend with her while feeding.

she's also developed a rather convenient sleeping schedule. at first she slept all the time except between feedings. now she spends some of the day awake and the length of time between feedings are longer so it doesn't feel like she's permanently attached to me.

more on evie in subsequent posts with accompanying photos!