I'm getting this down...sort of!

Motherhood is looking good. Today, I was relaxed all day, and I didn't stress but once! Of course, if you would have talked to me about how I was doing with this motherhood thing even a week ago, I would have probably--embarrassingly--broke down crying (luckily, I was nearly closeted for the first 3 weeks in my apartment--and I have Ahsan to thank for that...) Needless to say, though, I did go through hell and back, and I'll explain a bit about that later.

Be prepared, this is a major momma post! (Still deciding if I want to keep up with the other Bebe-do blog...gawd, I can barely keep up with this one!)

Seriously, though, it's a great feeling to know that I have a few things down pat. First, the breast pumping. Okay, I'll save the details, sauf since day one I've never gotten our little Ayden to latch on, and I blame the hospital for that: every time they brought him in to me to share some R&R, he was full, fat, and fiercely asleep. Dead to the world of the awake! On that front, I have realized that bottle feeding in the first few days of life could seriously pose problems for breast feeding later. Oh, yes it does. I felt guilty at first, but now I have come to terms with the fact that not everything can go as planned! The most important of course, is that this baby gets all the nutrients he needs to grow healthy. I have kellymom.com to thank (and my sis-in-law too, for recommending the site!) for especially supercharging my knowledgeable momma status.

So, now I breast pump, and I'm learning quickly that it's an art! What a pass-time it has become! I now have TWO bottles and have learned to cut down the breast pumping in HALF. Truly amazing. Believe me, 15 minutes breast pumping verses 30 or 40 goes a long way when it comes to taking care of a baby that feeds every 2-3 hours! So I wear, literally, breast pump bottles as often as I feed Ayden. So strange.

Sleep. Yes, tell me about it. There is no such thing as sleeping more than 4 hours straight, when you're a new mom. I think, however, I've found a little secret to getting him to sleep a bit more: since 분유~formula, digests slower than breast milk, I found myself giving Ayden a 60-80ml bottle of formula around the time he normally goes to sleep.. nearly 1:30am. Soon enough, he was sleeping all the way to 6:30 or 7am! Still don't quite like using formula unless we're pressed for time, have to leave, and I don't have enough expressed breastmilk ready.. or EBM. Ah, the acronyms you learn as a new mother!

Now it's time to upload some major Ayden pictures onto my Flikr pages!