I think I've been beaten...

There haven't been a whole lot of things in my life that I've done and have just sucked at... except for a few video games... my first marriage... I don't draw very well... (I'm sure my friends can think of a few other things I've done and sucked at - so I'll leave that for the comments section) :)
But parenting has left me completely baffled...
I mean, save from the easy aspects - clothing, diapering, general feeding - those have been fairly easy. So if I leave it at that, I could say I haven't totally sucked at this - my kid's still breathing, has grown quite a bit, and he's got clothes...
But the rest has just kicked my a$$.
Like, I don't know why Dax isn't sleeping at night... he was up every hour last night, but finally got about 2 hours straight between 5 and 7... We've tried a bedtime routine - a bath, then reading, singing, rocking, etc... no dice. And it's not that it just started to not work - it's NEVER worked. He's only slept more than 2 hours straight as many nights as I can count on my fingers... flukes, really.
He's pretty easy to get back to sleep - I rock him and pat his back, and he usually crashes out within 5-10 minutes, but sometimes even that doesn't work, and he just gets frenzied.
Breastfeeding has just served to give me more guilt - everyone says that he must not be eating enough in the day to sleep well at night... But I feed this kid every three hours, for at least 30 minutes, and I've even incorporated three solid food meals into the day on top of those feedings...
My mother in law saw him yawn the other day, and told ME that he was tired - but honest to God, when I try to put him down for a nap when I see him yawn, he rolls around and plays and screams in his crib for 20 minutes before I pull him out...
He'll take a quick catnap after he's dome nursing, but if I lay him in his crib, he instantly wakes up (or WILL wake up within 15 minutes).

So I'm trying something new.
Today I'm pumping only, and feeding by bottle, so I can get a measurement of exactly how much he IS eating during the day. I missed this morning already (I was so tired at 8, I laid down with him this morning, and he ate for nearly an hour because I was too tired to get out of bed once one half-hour had gone by).
But he took a bottle today at lunch, and I measured that he had 7.5 ounces...
and he still won't take a nap - I hear him playing in his crib, which is now turning to whining...
I better go get him.
Anyway - if anyone has any good advice for measuring feedings, how much a 10 month old SHOULD be eating at this point - I'd be grateful. Also - tell me what kind of nap routines seemed to have worked for you so far... I'm at a total loss.

I'm just hoping that the sleep will come as a byproduct of eating more than enough during the day... but I'm pretty skeptical at this point.

Regression, cha cha cha!

The last week has been a nightmare... Dax has been waking up at night every two to three hours for at least 7 days. It was really bad in the beginning (he would wake up screaming, and nothing could calm him down - not even mommy!), and has gotten a little better - he only woke up twice last night and the night before...
A million things go through your mind when this happens...
Is he eating enough?
Is he sleeping enough during the day?
Did I eat something that's made him not well?
Is it teething?
Just a growth spurt?

He did grow two new teeth over the weekend, which I attribute this other regressive item to: he doesn't want any solid foods lately - taking us back to strictly breastfeeding for now... I tried to bring lunch back into the picture yesterday, and he just wasn't having it. He ate a few crunchy star things, though... (I know some people call those crap - and I'm sure there's nothing dietarily redeeming about them, but they get his fingers grabbing food and getting it to his mouth - so I really don't care)

But we're still waking up at night...
Now my other problem is this - the only thing that seems to calm him down is nursing... which gets us caught back up in the loop of waking up to nurse back to sleep, not because he's hungry...

And. He bit me yesterday. So hard, it drew blood (but I didn't know it yet). I pulled him off fast, and put him on the floor with his toys, and decided to pump the rest of the time, but when I pulled the pump off when I was finished, the milk was pink, and there was blood in the pump, and running down my stomach... sweet.
Gotta love that.
I rushed to the internet to see if blood would hurt him if he drank it, and apparently not, but it's still kind of gross...
anyway.

What do you do??
I guess you do what works - that's my new M.O.
I can't listen to anyone tell me he has to cry it out, when I know that he never cries, so it's important when he does. Especially when he's screaming. And choking. And vomiting because he's crying so hard.
I will say that I'm so tired, I'm mentally ready to let him cry it out... but it's so so sad. He's hurting, or something...

I think we just need to get out of the house more, but it's so hard, when it's freaking cold out... I probably should buy him a bunting thing, and take him out with a face mask on anyway... :) at least we'd both see something other than the inside of our house...
We went shopping yesterday after he bit me, and I brought a bottle of formula with us instead (I can't seem to keep breastmilk in stock around here), and he ate it when he got hungry enough... so looks like we might be substituting some meals with that... Weaning? maybe...

Anyhoo - just had to write this out before a month passed, and I forgot about this - I'll have to give some advice to my daughter-in-law one day, I imagine, and she might appreciate this...
:)

Hi, I starve my kid. Nice to meet you...

Yeah. So. Took Dax to the doctor yesterday to check his ears - we thought he might have an ear infection. Poor kid. He's been swiping at his ears for the past few days on and off (none at all yesterday, but we kept the appointment anyway).
So I get him in there, and the first thing we do is weigh him.
He weighs no more, and no less than the last time we were in there, which was about 5 weeks ago!
I was proud.
And here's why.
I had discovered a brilliancy in some "helpful information" that I had passed on to a girlfriend of mine regarding breastfeeding (poor girl). I had rambled on about why you should only feed your kid from one breast at a time, because the hind milk is what keeps babies happy longer - why give them just fore-milk when you can give them the richness of fatty love??
So I had a flash of realization.
If my kid is so HUGE, and he's sleeping through the night.... you guessed it... Why don't I switch him from one breast to the other while I'm feeding him??
I came up with the "2% Diet Plan" for him - giving him only 10-15 minutes of one breast and then switching him to the other until he was done, and I'd pull him off after 30 minutes, if he hadn't finished before then.
30 minutes had to be enough, right?
Hrm.
The doctor came in to the room with us, and said something nice about how he was sitting up so well, and then jumped right to the page that had his weight.
"He only weigh 18 pound...? He weigh 18 pound at LAST appointment... that was... a month ago! Really... almost 6 weeks ago!"
(she says it like this though: "..at LAST aponty-ment... dat was amont-ago! almos 6 weeks!")
So I told her my grand scheme... and she made clicking noises with her mouth (Dax is making sounds very similar to this these days, only a lot cuter).
We talked about how he's not rolling over yet (and she made a crack about me carrying him everywhere - which I don't! I play a lot on the floor with him, nearly every time he wakes up from a nap we play on the floor!), and she checked his ears (and took a whole lot of ear wax out of them for me), and he sat up some more for her.
Then she says,"So, no. You needa give him the fool [full] breast - he need all da good HIend millk. Next time I see him, I want him to be 20 pound! You got a lot o-feeding to do!" and as she walked out the door, she played with Dax and made him giggle,"You leetle cutie, mommy not feeding you enough, you tell her you need da fool breast, huh? You want the good stuff!", and she closed the door.
So great.
I've been starving him.
You'd never guess it though, to look at him...
:)
hehehehe

Priorities...

I'm writing this with Dax attached to my boob...
and I was just thinking about whether it was more important that I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or brush my teeth when he gets done and sleeps for 15 minutes... I've eaten some today, but I didn't brush my teeth yesterday...
forget about a shower (I usually brush my teeth in the shower)
it's funny though, because I shower, and then put junk in my hair to make it look like I haven't - to make it look like it does right now... thank God for deodorant and baby wipes, is all I have to say...

I think I'm going to try to cram in a sandwich and teeth... we'll see what happens...

New Mommy Milestone!

I woke up yesterday, to Dax whimpering and beginning to cry at about 4:15am... so I brought him to bed with me for a snack.
Now, if you're breastfeeding, and it's early morning/late night, and you're tired, I think the number one way to do it is lying down on your side. I honestly hadn't tried it until about two days before this - and I have to say it's fantastic. Baby can find you, you're right there, and you can lay your head down... (I fell asleep the second time I did this, and woke to find Dax still attached and dreaming about eating, I presume - he was still working his mouth, but the sheets were wet underneath our little join)
So anyway. I think this position is great - and if you fall asleep, you fall asleep... no big deal.
But I was laying there in bed yesterday morning, and Dax had just finished eating (he pulls away, with a very full-looking, satisfied milk-face, pursed lips meaning he can eat no more), and I rolled him a bit more onto his back, and then snuggled him. We both slept for about three hours before he woke up again.
It was so lovely.

It was too lovely. Danger Will! I thought...
If it felt this good to snuggle with my baby in bed... chances were good I'd do it all the time... and then I'd have a toddler in bed with us, maybe even a teenager, if I wasn't careful!!

So it just so happened that yesterday I was feeling good (when I finally got out of bed around noon), and thought that I'd tidy up the baby's room (gifts had been slowly sifting in, and placed on the big chair and ottoman, laundry had been done, but hadn't been put away, etc...). Perfect time to test out his crib, right? :)
I laid him gently in his crib after I had fed him and diapered him, and he stayed asleep, through my bustling and rustling around in his room - that's so great, I thought!
I did this the entire day, including through the evening, and even through the night.
He went four hours between a feeding the first evening bedtime lay-down, and three hours the next! (see you later, two-hour feeding schedule!)

I woke up at 6 this morning to him wiggling and making his morning sounds (about to be crying-for-food sounds), and I realized how incredible the night had been - I got a few hours of sleep in a row! He slept well! The baby monitor had worked! The crib rocked!
But the realization hit me, as I heard my husband say - Wow! Only four weeks old, and he's already grown up!

So I snuggled him into bed with me for a morning feeding and nap.
:)