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whitewriterWendy's been real good, sleeping in 3-4 hour stretches (and that's not counting feed and play time).
So I had an actual to do list for tomorrow which went to total shit.
In my opinion she sleeps great at night. Might wake up at midnight or 2am for a feed. Then isn't too difficult to get back to her cot, then gets up around 4 or 5am, and settles not too difficult letting me have breakfast at a normal time of 0600 with Pete before he goes to work.
So I started on my to do list which included impregnating a bunch of clothes including those for the wedding that's on Sunday said to be held in a large grassy field.
With this in the news and me being a mosqito magnet - you can understand why I'm super super paranoid about taking her to a (some property where they can have a budget wedding) where there are "no mossies" (if there's 1 it will find me) -so I've also treated my dress for the day too. I've got a limited wardrobe at the moment with the exclusive breastfeeding (yes! I'm doing it! - no expressed milk or bottles since ... a week now - so good) meaning whatever I wear needs to allow for boobs to be on tap. I'm also fatter... too many nuts I think. I was staying up late with the baby and getting hungry, so I thought nuts is a great snack...-- that's so far cut back a lot -- I wonder how long it will last. I was telling Yanny in the early days, right when I think I'm at my limit : Wendy gives me a break and I can push through.
Anyhow. So yesterday, Baby had the 5am feed and I had breakfast at 6am and my nipple pores are flowing and I had at least 5 hours sleep overnight (pretty good) so I start preparing to treat all the clothes with This amazing stuff that I had used when I visited South America during Zika virus days in 2015. I had phoned
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<lj-cut text="Yesterday was interesting.">
Wendy's been real good, sleeping in 3-4 hour stretches (and that's not counting feed and play time).
So I had an actual to do list for tomorrow which went to total shit.
In my opinion she sleeps great at night. Might wake up at midnight or 2am for a feed. Then isn't too difficult to get back to her cot, then gets up around 4 or 5am, and settles not too difficult letting me have breakfast at a normal time of 0600 with Pete before he goes to work.
So I started on my to do list which included impregnating a bunch of clothes including those for the wedding that's on Sunday said to be held in a large grassy field.
With <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-12/victorian-baby-infected-with-japanese-encephalitis/100904440">this in the news</a> and me being a mosqito magnet - you can understand why I'm super super paranoid about taking her to a (some property where they can have a budget wedding) where there are "no mossies" (if there's 1 it will find me) -so I've also treated my dress for the day too. I've got a limited wardrobe at the moment with the exclusive breastfeeding (yes! I'm doing it! - no expressed milk or bottles since ... a week now - so good) meaning whatever I wear needs to allow for boobs to be on tap. I'm also fatter... too many nuts I think. I was staying up late with the baby and getting hungry, so I thought nuts is a great snack...-- that's so far cut back a lot -- I wonder how long it will last. I was telling Yanny in the early days, right when I think I'm at my limit : Wendy gives me a break and I can push through.
Anyhow. So yesterday, Baby had the 5am feed and I had breakfast at 6am and my nipple pores are flowing and I had at least 5 hours sleep overnight (pretty good) so I start preparing to treat all the clothes with <a href="https://www.paddypallin.com.au/equip-debugger-anti-insect-permethrin.html"> This amazing stuff </a> that I had used when I visited South America during Zika virus days in 2015. I had phoned <a href="https://www.seslhd.health.nsw.gov.au/royal-hospital-for-women/services-clinics/directory/mothersafe> These people </a> They're an A+ resource and they answered my question so far -- apparently, they've had a lot of phone calls about the same stuff.
Unsurprising. Considering you can't exactly use bug spray around a newborn. I didn't ask them about Deet. That stuff is pretty strong on the skin though so I'd be reluctant.
Treating the clothes is time consuming and smelly. You need to prepare the surface you will lay it on. Prepare and plan the clothes you want to treat, then prioritise them in the order they'll go in the bucket - incase you run out of liquid. The instructions say only x amount of clothes and then to throw away the liquid in the bin after but... I'm too stingy for that. I'll treat enough material that every bit of water is soaked up entirely.
Then you lay out the items in the shade, in the flat, and hope they dry (they never do ) and then after about 12 hours of them laying on the floor, wet, I'll give up and hang them in the shade. The sun degrades the chemicals in the cloth making them less effective, hence why they should be in the shade.
6 months mosquito protection.
So I was doing this. And I was about 90% done of stage one, and Wendy was up for Breakfast - She ate, but was so clingy and whining I wondered if she was still hungry. Nope. Not. So I thought I'd go and get an errand done. Get out of the house, take her with me, -- she usually seems to go along with short trips okay - settles in a manner that is wide eyed and goes along with it. She's that age where she knows no better yet.
I get out of the house, she's in the moby sling and she's whining. But I figure push through - and in the back lane I bump into a neighbor 2 houses down. I introduce Wendy, and he congratulates us. He's pretty ecstatic that we had a kid. Heh we've joined the club.
I get to the car and it's a bloody nightmare.
All 4 windows are down.
It's El Nina in Sydney this year, it's been raining every day ...
the car is wet, and there's *mosquitoes everywhere* (kid you not).
wtf.
Then I realise, on monday (3 days back) my mum had taken something out of the car to put in her car - and she didn't wait for us to help her. And this VW has a thing on the key fob that if you press it a certain way without realising (or even, on purpose) all the windows can go down at once.
What a dumb feature. Anyways. but if you don't know it exists then you don't realise it's a thing. But one day I went down to DB for some reason and got talking to Phi who is into cars who showed me this feature on the keyfob for VW's that not even Pete knows - but I knew. Anyways.
So now I've got a whining baby, a car I can't use - that is sopping wet on the seats and floor - I go back to the house carrying the item I wanted to get replaced at Clark rubber (which now, I can't get done -- should have done it before she was born--) and I head back to phone Pete while I brain storm, how the hell were all the windows down?!
Then I realised.
Kid needs attention however, and she demands every last minute of the next 3 hours of attention. Not wanting to sleep. Constantly wanting to feed -- it's a cluster morning. By the time my mum comes, its 13:00 and I've finally gotten her down.
I explain to my mum we had a shit morning, and by the way, did she realise the car windows were down when she last left the car? (no). Mum asks if I've had lunch (well no because the baby was clustering).
She proceeds to tell me (for the 50th time) that the baby is like that because she didn't drink enough and how can she drink enough if I haven't had lunch.
... this turns my mood extra sour.
It's not an in equals out proposition, and nutrition whilst important actually has been found to have very little bearing on the quality and quantity of a mother's milk.
I was a formula baby. I go on to tell my mum that risk of SIDs is increased by 2.6x in formula fed infants and that I'm not giving her any formula just to shut up the kid. And that Babies cry for all sorts of reasons unrelated to milk.
Meanwhile, I have toxic clothes hanging out the front that my mother's then gone and shoved aside without gloves (dude, ask... she has issues asking it seems). The car is still wet and I need to fix it --at some stage during the morning I managed to move it around to the front and have all the doors and windows open (whilst it sits on a public street because we don't have a carport or garage) all day. Luckily - this area is decent, or no one noticed - and we leave nothing much in the car. The car was still there and no one had deficated in the car (like what had happened in my parents area when I was about 8 -- they promptly sold the (very good) car soon after - one way to teach my Dad to lock the car...
So the car doesn't function, the baby is dead to the world, I eat lunch and go for a nap. At 17:00 she must have stirred. The thing with babies - is that they often stir in their sleep, and sometimes, it means they're about to wake, and sometimes if you leave them they'll sleep another 2 hours (kid you not) - she's slept 2 hours already and I've slept for 1. My mum barges in the room, declares the kid is awake/hungry- she's set up the bathtub (earlier I did mention to her I wanted to bathe Wendy when she woke up)- picks up wendy, speaks in a super loud voice (to Westerners it would be akin to yelling) and says YOU WANT NAN NAN? (aka. "tits" in Haka Chinese as my mum crudely explained) BATH FIRST!
She takes the kid to the kitchen. I follow behind wearily - complaining - she's still asleep - we had a huge morning - she's super tired -
and despite my mums carrying on, Wendy didn't wake up.
My mum set her down next to the bath tub and stared at the baby for 5 mins. Wendy didn't stir.
My mum picked Wendy back up, still asleep. My mum's like ok I'll put her back in the cot and see if she wakes back up.
Nope.
Remains asleep (seriously).
I go back to bed (but it's so hard to go back to sleep once you've woken) and my mum decides to go home.
I told her, Wendy tends to be more awake in the morning - but I can't predict when she'll cluster (although morning and late evening seems to be a trend). Mornings I handle with going somewhere. Afternoons I just bear it -- with a style of holding her that she seems to like. Throw on something to watch or listen to and just cuddle.
By the time Pete comes home, my mum is leaving having not had the chance to change any nappies or see Wendy awake because, well, she's been asleep. And considering I fed her before I ate lunch, there's no reason to bear that milk pre meal or after meal has any difference. If I eat a carrot while I breastfeed her, the milk won't have extra beta carotene in it ... if you know what I mean.
Pete finally comes home from work, after my mother's gone home (usually the two cross paths but I think my mum was sick of waiting for Wendy to wake up, and I was grouchy because she'd said things about my milk again that are really unsupportive). Old asians (and even young ones) and breastmilk, you'd think they'd have cottoned on to its benefits by now. The damage that was done in the 40s- 80s to the old ways seem to have been ingrained.
Wendy has a terrible bath - the water is cooled and although I've added in 2 x boiled kettle loads of hot water, apparently 34 degrees is not enough and she cries.
We feed. She has a really minor clingy time from 1930 till approx 2100 and eventually, after some persistence (and giving up on the patting her to sleep inside her cot and swinging and singing her to sleep while I watch Uncle Roger roast people on youtube) she's down at the super early time of 21:45. Giving me ample time to soak my white spotted nipple and go to bed.
Bad day over.
</lj-cut>
Lesson number 1 in midwifery. Never make negative comments about a woman's milk. Unless your an LC or a woman presents with severe hypoplastic breasts bilaterally. Like I've told my mum countless times now. The moment a woman doubts her milk, is the moment she will not make enough for her baby. Regardless of the truth of the matter.
Wendy's been real good, sleeping in 3-4 hour stretches (and that's not counting feed and play time).
So I had an actual to do list for tomorrow which went to total shit.
In my opinion she sleeps great at night. Might wake up at midnight or 2am for a feed. Then isn't too difficult to get back to her cot, then gets up around 4 or 5am, and settles not too difficult letting me have breakfast at a normal time of 0600 with Pete before he goes to work.
So I started on my to do list which included impregnating a bunch of clothes including those for the wedding that's on Sunday said to be held in a large grassy field.
With <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-12/victorian-baby-infected-with-japanese-encephalitis/100904440">this in the news</a> and me being a mosqito magnet - you can understand why I'm super super paranoid about taking her to a (some property where they can have a budget wedding) where there are "no mossies" (if there's 1 it will find me) -so I've also treated my dress for the day too. I've got a limited wardrobe at the moment with the exclusive breastfeeding (yes! I'm doing it! - no expressed milk or bottles since ... a week now - so good) meaning whatever I wear needs to allow for boobs to be on tap. I'm also fatter... too many nuts I think. I was staying up late with the baby and getting hungry, so I thought nuts is a great snack...-- that's so far cut back a lot -- I wonder how long it will last. I was telling Yanny in the early days, right when I think I'm at my limit : Wendy gives me a break and I can push through.
Anyhow. So yesterday, Baby had the 5am feed and I had breakfast at 6am and my nipple pores are flowing and I had at least 5 hours sleep overnight (pretty good) so I start preparing to treat all the clothes with <a href="https://www.paddypallin.com.au/equip-debugger-anti-insect-permethrin.html"> This amazing stuff </a> that I had used when I visited South America during Zika virus days in 2015. I had phoned <a href="https://www.seslhd.health.nsw.gov.au/royal-hospital-for-women/services-clinics/directory/mothersafe> These people </a> They're an A+ resource and they answered my question so far -- apparently, they've had a lot of phone calls about the same stuff.
Unsurprising. Considering you can't exactly use bug spray around a newborn. I didn't ask them about Deet. That stuff is pretty strong on the skin though so I'd be reluctant.
Treating the clothes is time consuming and smelly. You need to prepare the surface you will lay it on. Prepare and plan the clothes you want to treat, then prioritise them in the order they'll go in the bucket - incase you run out of liquid. The instructions say only x amount of clothes and then to throw away the liquid in the bin after but... I'm too stingy for that. I'll treat enough material that every bit of water is soaked up entirely.
Then you lay out the items in the shade, in the flat, and hope they dry (they never do ) and then after about 12 hours of them laying on the floor, wet, I'll give up and hang them in the shade. The sun degrades the chemicals in the cloth making them less effective, hence why they should be in the shade.
6 months mosquito protection.
So I was doing this. And I was about 90% done of stage one, and Wendy was up for Breakfast - She ate, but was so clingy and whining I wondered if she was still hungry. Nope. Not. So I thought I'd go and get an errand done. Get out of the house, take her with me, -- she usually seems to go along with short trips okay - settles in a manner that is wide eyed and goes along with it. She's that age where she knows no better yet.
I get out of the house, she's in the moby sling and she's whining. But I figure push through - and in the back lane I bump into a neighbor 2 houses down. I introduce Wendy, and he congratulates us. He's pretty ecstatic that we had a kid. Heh we've joined the club.
I get to the car and it's a bloody nightmare.
All 4 windows are down.
It's El Nina in Sydney this year, it's been raining every day ...
the car is wet, and there's *mosquitoes everywhere* (kid you not).
wtf.
Then I realise, on monday (3 days back) my mum had taken something out of the car to put in her car - and she didn't wait for us to help her. And this VW has a thing on the key fob that if you press it a certain way without realising (or even, on purpose) all the windows can go down at once.
What a dumb feature. Anyways. but if you don't know it exists then you don't realise it's a thing. But one day I went down to DB for some reason and got talking to Phi who is into cars who showed me this feature on the keyfob for VW's that not even Pete knows - but I knew. Anyways.
So now I've got a whining baby, a car I can't use - that is sopping wet on the seats and floor - I go back to the house carrying the item I wanted to get replaced at Clark rubber (which now, I can't get done -- should have done it before she was born--) and I head back to phone Pete while I brain storm, how the hell were all the windows down?!
Then I realised.
Kid needs attention however, and she demands every last minute of the next 3 hours of attention. Not wanting to sleep. Constantly wanting to feed -- it's a cluster morning. By the time my mum comes, its 13:00 and I've finally gotten her down.
I explain to my mum we had a shit morning, and by the way, did she realise the car windows were down when she last left the car? (no). Mum asks if I've had lunch (well no because the baby was clustering).
She proceeds to tell me (for the 50th time) that the baby is like that because she didn't drink enough and how can she drink enough if I haven't had lunch.
... this turns my mood extra sour.
It's not an in equals out proposition, and nutrition whilst important actually has been found to have very little bearing on the quality and quantity of a mother's milk.
I was a formula baby. I go on to tell my mum that risk of SIDs is increased by 2.6x in formula fed infants and that I'm not giving her any formula just to shut up the kid. And that Babies cry for all sorts of reasons unrelated to milk.
Meanwhile, I have toxic clothes hanging out the front that my mother's then gone and shoved aside without gloves (dude, ask... she has issues asking it seems). The car is still wet and I need to fix it --at some stage during the morning I managed to move it around to the front and have all the doors and windows open (whilst it sits on a public street because we don't have a carport or garage) all day. Luckily - this area is decent, or no one noticed - and we leave nothing much in the car. The car was still there and no one had deficated in the car (like what had happened in my parents area when I was about 8 -- they promptly sold the (very good) car soon after - one way to teach my Dad to lock the car...
So the car doesn't function, the baby is dead to the world, I eat lunch and go for a nap. At 17:00 she must have stirred. The thing with babies - is that they often stir in their sleep, and sometimes, it means they're about to wake, and sometimes if you leave them they'll sleep another 2 hours (kid you not) - she's slept 2 hours already and I've slept for 1. My mum barges in the room, declares the kid is awake/hungry- she's set up the bathtub (earlier I did mention to her I wanted to bathe Wendy when she woke up)- picks up wendy, speaks in a super loud voice (to Westerners it would be akin to yelling) and says YOU WANT NAN NAN? (aka. "tits" in Haka Chinese as my mum crudely explained) BATH FIRST!
She takes the kid to the kitchen. I follow behind wearily - complaining - she's still asleep - we had a huge morning - she's super tired -
and despite my mums carrying on, Wendy didn't wake up.
My mum set her down next to the bath tub and stared at the baby for 5 mins. Wendy didn't stir.
My mum picked Wendy back up, still asleep. My mum's like ok I'll put her back in the cot and see if she wakes back up.
Nope.
Remains asleep (seriously).
I go back to bed (but it's so hard to go back to sleep once you've woken) and my mum decides to go home.
I told her, Wendy tends to be more awake in the morning - but I can't predict when she'll cluster (although morning and late evening seems to be a trend). Mornings I handle with going somewhere. Afternoons I just bear it -- with a style of holding her that she seems to like. Throw on something to watch or listen to and just cuddle.
By the time Pete comes home, my mum is leaving having not had the chance to change any nappies or see Wendy awake because, well, she's been asleep. And considering I fed her before I ate lunch, there's no reason to bear that milk pre meal or after meal has any difference. If I eat a carrot while I breastfeed her, the milk won't have extra beta carotene in it ... if you know what I mean.
Pete finally comes home from work, after my mother's gone home (usually the two cross paths but I think my mum was sick of waiting for Wendy to wake up, and I was grouchy because she'd said things about my milk again that are really unsupportive). Old asians (and even young ones) and breastmilk, you'd think they'd have cottoned on to its benefits by now. The damage that was done in the 40s- 80s to the old ways seem to have been ingrained.
Wendy has a terrible bath - the water is cooled and although I've added in 2 x boiled kettle loads of hot water, apparently 34 degrees is not enough and she cries.
We feed. She has a really minor clingy time from 1930 till approx 2100 and eventually, after some persistence (and giving up on the patting her to sleep inside her cot and swinging and singing her to sleep while I watch Uncle Roger roast people on youtube) she's down at the super early time of 21:45. Giving me ample time to soak my white spotted nipple and go to bed.
Bad day over.
</lj-cut>
Lesson number 1 in midwifery. Never make negative comments about a woman's milk. Unless your an LC or a woman presents with severe hypoplastic breasts bilaterally. Like I've told my mum countless times now. The moment a woman doubts her milk, is the moment she will not make enough for her baby. Regardless of the truth of the matter.
