No Internet!!!

I know I haven't posted anything in a long time and that's because our internet went out at our house!  So I stopped by the daycare to check on everything we have online and I just wanted to put something on here so everyone knows I haven't stopped posting...but it will be a few days before I'm able to get back on here again.  So bear with me because I have so much to post!  :)

Bye Bye Boobies

Last Monday was the last time I nursed Korbyn.  She's still getting breast milk because I'm pumping but no more boob time.  From day one I never felt like I got the hang of breastfeeding, and I know it takes some time for any mom to get comfortable with it, but I never felt any improvement.  I would get frustrated because I never knew how much she was getting so I never knew if she stopped nursing because she was just tired and fell asleep or was she really full?  And it was still so painful for me.  I know it's not supposed to be painful at all which means she just may have never learned to latch on properly, but how in the world am I supposed to know what to look for and how to correct it if she was?!  Yes, I could have gone to a lactation consultant and tried to have it all figured out but who has the time or money for it...not me! 

Last Monday I got a clogged milk duct, ouch.  I was reading on the internet on some ways to help clear it and I had been toying with the idea of giving up breastfeeding for a while and just pump and give formula.  And I came across a lactation consultant's website and I was reading her page and she was so adamant about breastfeeding (of course she should be), but it was like she was yelling at moms who didn't strictly breastfeed and they were depriving their children of bonding and nourishment...of course I started crying because I just felt so lost.  I immediately felt extremely guilty for even having thought about stopping nursing and giving her formula.  So I kept researching on ways to get rid of a clogged milk duct, then it hit me.  This is my baby.  If I want to stop nursing her I can, and I shouldn't feel guilty about it.  Why should I dread having to feed my baby?  I'm in pain, she never seems satisfied, I don't know how much she is getting, I'm never sure if she's really full or not and the list goes on!  So right then and there I decided that I was going to continue to pump and feed her breastmilk along with formula and our lives have been so much easier since.  It is amazing how little I'm stressed out now.  I've decided that I'm just going to alternate every feeding between formula and breastmilk.  Now I know that if she doesn't finish her bottle and she dozes off, that she's probably going to wake up and be hungry.  I feel like a light switch has been turned on for the both of us.

So of course I then started thinking about the added expense of formula, but I think I have a plan :)  I'm starting work back in January and the daycare is on the State Food Program.  We are required to offer parents of infants our brand of formula (Parent's Choice), and they can choose to use ours or provide their own.  So I figured if she is on formula during the day at daycare then I'll still give her the breastmilk in the evening at home leaving us with minimal costs towards formula!  We went out and bought a container of the same kind of formula that the daycare uses and thankfully she likes it and even spits up significantly less than the Similac and Enfamil, how that happened I have no idea!  So our new feeding ritual is working wonderfully right now, and I hope it continues to!

Crib

Look where she's sleeping!!!  And yes, I'm still too nervous for her to sleep without that thing that prevents her from rolling because she can and WILL roll to her side when she starts kicking and can't get back.  From day one she has slept in her swing about 3 feet away from our bed, this wasn't our original plan.  We wanted her to start off in her crib from the beginning but that first night we put her in it we just couldn't leave her.  She was completely fine, we weren't.  She was swaddled in a blanket and sound asleep but I was so nervous that I wouldn't be able to hear her if something were to happen.  Well, it started getting to the point where she wouldn't stay asleep in her swing without the swinging motion on, the "wave" noises on and she had better be completely asleep or she would wake up the minute you put her in it and Colton and I were having to tip toe around and whisper in our room whenever she was in there, remember we didn't get the infant who can sleep through anything :)  I knew we were digging ourselves into a huge hole if we kept this up.  So Monday I decided it was time to start putting her in her crib every time she went to sleep.  I knew it wasn't going to be easy but I told myself that I better get her used to it before I go back to work and in the long run it will benefit her and us.  So needless to say, Monday was a struggle.  I started her off on her first nap and she hasn't been in her swing since!  She was very persistent but so was mommy, and mommy will ALWAYS win...HA!  I almost wanted to give up a couple of times because she just was not having it, and I think she's too young to let her cry it out still.  I tried turning on a cd that I bought before she was even born to help calm her, I did that a couple of times and it seemed to help but then I started thinking every time she goes to sleep she's going to want that cd playing and she'll never learn to calm herself down!  So that plan was out the window.  So I just made sure that she was calm and almost asleep and then I would lay her down and that was it.  She has put herself to sleep in it a couple times already but she's not quite there yet, but we're working on it!