Giggly baby, grumpy mommy

It’s 1:30 AM, and where is Tristan?   He’s in his crib flailing his little puntypaws at the mobile above his head! He’s yet to sleep in the crib for more than about an hour, but I’m so glad he’s amused by the mobile. We have about an hour to kill before he’s going to want food, so I don’t want to go to sleep yet, especially since his ass seems to be wide awake. I might try to nap in this chaise lounge until he starts getting fussy. We somehow failed to keep him awake for most of the evening, hence this lovely spurt of energy. He’s so cute when he’s amused, but I want to get some sleep! I’m already on overnight baby duty during the week, and I don’t really get to begin overnight yet. Sigh..

Size 2 diapers.. level up!

We opened our ginormous box of size 2 diapers today (12-18 pounds, for those of you who don’t have to think about diaper fit) and they seem to fit Tristan well. He’s officially up a category! I don’t think we spoke of it, but he was in size 1s (8-14 pounds) from birth, skipping the newborn (up to 10 pounds) size. That being said, we have an almost full package of newborn size that we won’t be needing – package is open as I think we used one or two of them but the diapers are still good, of course – anyone need them or know someone who needs them?

Feeding progress

(This post will contain breastfeeding related information – skip it if you’re all skeeved out by that.)

We’re still feeding Tristan by way of me (almost) exclusively pumping and then feeding the milk by bottle. He’s still taking around 4 oz. per feeding every 3 hours or so – sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, but usually spot on. From what we understand, that amount is supposed to stay fairly constant for a few months, too.

Pumping has been far more tolerable – my supply is established so it doesn’t require so much time sitting attached to the moo machine to feed the kid. I’d say I now am spending 2 hours per day in 3 sessions, and that has provided plenty of Dragon Quest IV time – I’m getting close to beating the game and will need another game soon! Anyway, that’s quite an improvement over the beginning where I was spending close to 5 hours a day expressing as close to every feeding as I could finagle. Now it’s once upon waking where I usually get about 18 oz., once sometime in the middle of the day where I get 5-10 oz., and once upon retiring which nets maybe 5 oz. total (but I do it so I won’t be completely leaking in the morning). The right side outproduces the left almost 2 to 1, and I’m a little concerned that there may be lopsidedness in my future. Whenever I put Tristan up to the breast, I start with the left to try to stimulate more supply on that side, but it’s not really doing much.. it seems like that was established by some early favortism prior to pumping and even before the milk came in.

We’re still opting to pump and bottle feed to measure what he’s consuming. Also, it does help in trying to establish a schedule, although I’m sure that plenty of pure-breastfeeding types managed scheduling just fine. I’m still keeping ahead of Tristan’s eating habits and freezing about 5 oz. every other day. I think that Tristan may end up being the type to be permanently attached to my boob if we weren’t able to feed him a little bit faster than that, though. Whenever I do breastfeed him, he never is satisfied and we end up breaking out the bottle anyway – or it’s just a snack after a bottle when he wants a little more and we don’t feel like preparing and warming a bottle. I’ve taken to preparing feedings ahead of time so that they’re just grab and go from the fridge, and we have a ghetto-fabulous bottle warmer on each floor now to get that just-refrigerated chill out of them.

We haven’t supplemented with formula in quite some time now. Of course, we now have one wasted canister of powdered formula and quite a handful of prepared formula bottles mostly meant for being out and about. He also hasn’t fountain-vomited since we quit with the formula. Of course, it kind of sucks because he will eventually need to be on formula of some sort – the breastfeeding thing will be a success if we make it to 6 months, and cow’s milk is not advised for kids under a year old, so something will need to fill the gap unless I end up marathon-pumping – and that will depend on a few factors.

Coincidence

James and I were sitting on the couch, splitting a can of ginger ale. Tristan was lying face down on my stomach, half asleep. This may be hard to picture, but our couch is a recliner so it does make sense.

We were passing the can back and forth and Tristan extended his arms as babies tend to. I remarked that he must’ve wanted some of the soda. James told him that we’d just finished the can. Tristan busted out screaming at that moment.

Little punkass.