Week 5 and we are doing AMAZINGLY!
I can't tell you how much I am loving breast feeding! No bottles to clean or formula to mix or water to warm up.
Nothing to pack when we go out except for my really pretty nursing cover by Baby Au Lait.
He is getting more efficient at it too which means we are down to about 10 minutes on each side at a feeding. He still cluster feeds a little bit - but it's mostly in the evenings because he has slept most of the day and spread out his feedings in the morning, so he is playing catch up - which is just fine by me because for the past few days he's only woken up one or 2 times at night.
The most he's awake at night is when he gets up and eats and then stays awake until the next feeding about an hour or so later. Last night, he only woke up at 12:30 and then went right back after one feeding and didn't get up again until 6:30.
(and they say breast fed babies always sleep less - that's a load of crap to get you to use formula)
My new favorite thing to do is to nurse in bed in the mornings. I never got to experience this with Katie and Ben is so good at it now that he latches on his own. It's so nice to just lie there in your sleepy state and not have to really do much but doze here and there while he eats.
The only downside to nursing in bed, is when he spits up and it soaks through the towel you have thoughtfully placed underneath him and still gets on you. For some reason I feel your more vulnerable in the laying down position and it's grosser and harder to clean haha.
I will figure out a method to deal with that soon enough with towels and burp cloths, etc... because the extra few minutes laying in bed and relaxing really does make my morning that much nicer!
So... breastfeeding can be done successfully and babies can sleep at night, and mommy's can sleep at night too! And let me tell you - he's starting to smile - and the smiles he gives me while nursing are some of the greatest I've seen!!
Our only complaint at the moment with breastfeeding is that he is refusing the bottle - we have tried 3 different bottles/nipples on 3 different occasions and he has forcefully rejected all 3.
We will try again this weekend at my moms house as I have a birthday party I really want to go to in the city in May and I want to be able to leave him and go to that!
My next adventure will be cloth diapering as I am going to make the attempt to add some cloth diapers to our repertoire once he stops using like, 15 diapers a day. I figure around 3 - 6 months I will start introducing them and I hope to go about 50/50.
It's the least I can do for the environment - I read somewhere that the average baby goes through between 5 - 8,000 diapers in their lifetime before they are potty trained.. and that's if you potty train them around 3.
3 years - at 365 days = 1,095 days
1095 days * an AVERAGE of 6 diapers a day (could be more or less)
brings you to a WHOPPING 6,570 diapers...
Let's assume you are spending .25 per diaper...
that's $1,642 dollars. (that's if you buy in bulk)
where do they all go?
So, since I will have my very own washing machine full time starting June 1 - I figure I will start
trying to do my part and add some in. I am sure we will enjoy the savings and I will personally feel good about doing a little something for the environment and my baby! Since I'm a full time stay at home mom, I figure every little thing I can do like this helps just a little.
So... I will be sure to post mishaps, reviews and tips in case anyone else is interested.
I'm just sad I didn't do it with Katie because you can use your stash for more than one kid and I would have already had the supplies which would have saved us even MORE money!
I am not pushing cloth diapering as I understand it seems very daunting and most people just don't have the time or energy - that's partly why I want to experience it so that I can help debunk the myths and see if it really is as difficult as people make it out to be.
From what I can tell from my initial research - it sounds like it can be pretty much just as easy as using disposables - just with more laundry to run through the wash every week. There are lots of options and different types of disposables... it's not the white cloth diapers with safety pins image that most of us have in our heads.
I can't tell you how much I am loving breast feeding! No bottles to clean or formula to mix or water to warm up.
Nothing to pack when we go out except for my really pretty nursing cover by Baby Au Lait.
He is getting more efficient at it too which means we are down to about 10 minutes on each side at a feeding. He still cluster feeds a little bit - but it's mostly in the evenings because he has slept most of the day and spread out his feedings in the morning, so he is playing catch up - which is just fine by me because for the past few days he's only woken up one or 2 times at night.
The most he's awake at night is when he gets up and eats and then stays awake until the next feeding about an hour or so later. Last night, he only woke up at 12:30 and then went right back after one feeding and didn't get up again until 6:30.
(and they say breast fed babies always sleep less - that's a load of crap to get you to use formula)
My new favorite thing to do is to nurse in bed in the mornings. I never got to experience this with Katie and Ben is so good at it now that he latches on his own. It's so nice to just lie there in your sleepy state and not have to really do much but doze here and there while he eats.
The only downside to nursing in bed, is when he spits up and it soaks through the towel you have thoughtfully placed underneath him and still gets on you. For some reason I feel your more vulnerable in the laying down position and it's grosser and harder to clean haha.
I will figure out a method to deal with that soon enough with towels and burp cloths, etc... because the extra few minutes laying in bed and relaxing really does make my morning that much nicer!
So... breastfeeding can be done successfully and babies can sleep at night, and mommy's can sleep at night too! And let me tell you - he's starting to smile - and the smiles he gives me while nursing are some of the greatest I've seen!!
Our only complaint at the moment with breastfeeding is that he is refusing the bottle - we have tried 3 different bottles/nipples on 3 different occasions and he has forcefully rejected all 3.
We will try again this weekend at my moms house as I have a birthday party I really want to go to in the city in May and I want to be able to leave him and go to that!
My next adventure will be cloth diapering as I am going to make the attempt to add some cloth diapers to our repertoire once he stops using like, 15 diapers a day. I figure around 3 - 6 months I will start introducing them and I hope to go about 50/50.
It's the least I can do for the environment - I read somewhere that the average baby goes through between 5 - 8,000 diapers in their lifetime before they are potty trained.. and that's if you potty train them around 3.
3 years - at 365 days = 1,095 days
1095 days * an AVERAGE of 6 diapers a day (could be more or less)
brings you to a WHOPPING 6,570 diapers...
Let's assume you are spending .25 per diaper...
that's $1,642 dollars. (that's if you buy in bulk)
where do they all go?
So, since I will have my very own washing machine full time starting June 1 - I figure I will start
trying to do my part and add some in. I am sure we will enjoy the savings and I will personally feel good about doing a little something for the environment and my baby! Since I'm a full time stay at home mom, I figure every little thing I can do like this helps just a little.So... I will be sure to post mishaps, reviews and tips in case anyone else is interested.
I'm just sad I didn't do it with Katie because you can use your stash for more than one kid and I would have already had the supplies which would have saved us even MORE money!
I am not pushing cloth diapering as I understand it seems very daunting and most people just don't have the time or energy - that's partly why I want to experience it so that I can help debunk the myths and see if it really is as difficult as people make it out to be.
From what I can tell from my initial research - it sounds like it can be pretty much just as easy as using disposables - just with more laundry to run through the wash every week. There are lots of options and different types of disposables... it's not the white cloth diapers with safety pins image that most of us have in our heads.
No comments:
Post a Comment