Nursing Necklace Giveaway!

Here is a fantastic giveaway from The Good Letdown. The Good Letdown is a great blog that supports breastfeeding babes and mamas. Check them out and enter the giveaway. If you enter please let me know and let them know that I sent you so that I can get another entry in this contest.

Like I said in my comment to them...the nursing necklace I have right now is too long. The little guy constantly tries to chew it while he's nursing and that does not feel good. Then he chews it while we're just hanging out, and I'm afraid one of the amber beads could pop off and present a choking hazard.

But I love the necklace (pictured above) just as a piece of jewelry!

Nurse In

So next week, May 31 to be exact, there is a nurse-in here in my home state of Connecticut. I really want to go, but it's all the way in Trumbull, which is pretty far from my part of the state.

The thing is, I've wanted to go to a nurse in since before I was even a nursing mother. There are very few things about which I am passionate enough to support through activism. I didn't even do the Great Cloth Diaper Change last month...though I'm sure I changed my fair share of cloth diapers that day.

Anyway, my point is...I'm torn. A mother who was doing the best for her child was made to feel ashamed or embarrassed because some mall security guard wasn't familiar with Connecticut's nursing laws (which, by the way are very mother/child friendly). But on the other hand, it's a pretty far drive and my little nursling hasn't been too fond of the car lately.

I'm on the fence and I think I will stay there until the 31st rolls around and I see how the day plays out. Of course, that is my husband's birthday and I haven't gotten him anything yet and the nurse-in is at a mall...

Sweet Baby Smells

When my baby sleeps, he sweats...especially when he is nursing himself to sleep. He's been sweating more lately; I don't know if it's a growth thing or what.

The thing is, there is nothing better than the smell of my baby when he is sleepy and sweaty.

He smells like a rainy summer day.

I could just lay there next to him and smell him...breathe him in all night long.

Post-partum Bodies

I gained 35 pounds while pregnant.

I was led to believe that through the magic of breastfeeding,, the weight would melt off. I'm here to call BS on that.

I did lose 20 pounds before coming home from the hospital, but I was so insanely swollen that most of that was fluid.

I lost another 3-4 pounds in the first few weeks and have held steady since then.

I am now officially trying to lose weight...excepting the chips and dips I ate last night after wrestling the baby to sleep. Salty snacks are my bugaboo, so I did congratulate myself on the strength I had in throwing out the remainder of the chips and dip this morning. That was doubly hard for me because I hate wasting food...it's the same thing as wasting money, and I am supremely cheap.

At the moment I have about 11-12 pounds to go to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight; my actual goal is to get at least 7 pounds under that weight.

Wish me luck!

I've also worked out for the fourth day in a row. My preferred method of exercise is walking, but it's been gray and rainy all week, so I've doing work out DVDs in my living room.

Prefolds and Covers

I use cloth diapers on my son. I use them for a bunch of reasons, but that's a topic for another post.

The first type I used are called prefolds. These are most like the old school diapers that our mothers and grandmothers used (well, other than flats, but I know nothing about them, so I'm not going to talk about them). Prefolds are a lot simpler than a lot of people realize. You can either fold them around the baby and secure with a snappi or pins (I don't use sharp pointy objects around my baby...I'm all about the snappi) or you can simply trifold the diaper and lay it in the cover.

I like to use the snappi because I feel like it gives a more secure fit and keeps more poo in the diaper and off the cover...especially when you are talking about breastfed poo which is very watery.

I thought I wouldn't like prefolds because of the extra step of needing a cover. But when my boy was a newborn, they were the only cloth diapers that fit his skinny little butt, so I quickly became a fan.

They still work well and I love having a nice big stack of prefolds around. They make fantastic burp cloths. And since it's allergy season and both me and the boy have runny noses, they also make great handkerchiefs.

Questions about prefolds? Post them in the comments. I'm no expert, but I love to help people get started with cloth diapering, so I'll do my best!

Sweet Dreams

My little guy has never been the world's best sleeper. On his first night in the great big world, I slept with him in my arms. I put the hospital bed down as far as I could and cuddled with him all night. I was so tired and I don't think I slept much. I was certain the nurses would yell at me for having the baby in the bed, so I pretended that we had just been nursing every time they came in.

When we got home, it became pretty obvious that he was not going to sleep unless he was in my arms. I was stubbornly against co-sleeping, so every night I would prop myself up with a million pillows and sleep sitting up in bed. Usually around 3 am, I would end up on the couch because it was more comfortable.

After about 2 weeks of that nonsense, I said screw it. I pulled the big blankets and pillows off my side of the bed, laid down with my baby in the crook of my arm and slept. That's how it's been ever since.

After several weeks of trying to wrestle him to sleep night after night, hubby and I started a night time routine. The baby would have a meltdown every evening around 6/6:30. So we started a bath, book and bed routine. Once he got used to it, it worked pretty well. He would be sound asleep by 7/7:30; I would cuddle with him while reading for about an hour or so, then I would be able to sneak away and have some time to myself.

Well, between teething, learning new tricks and a little dose of separation anxiety...it's not working so well these days.

Lately, I'm lucky if he falls asleep anytime close to "bedtime." Even just letting him fall asleep in my lap while we watch TV isn't working anymore. There are too many distractions in the living room.

I try to tell myself that everything is a phase, and we'll get back to a routine soon, but it's becoming hard to believe myself. Someone so sleep deprived is liable to say just about anything.

Fluff Friday at the Cloth Diaper Whisperer

Check out the awesome giveaway at The Cloth Diaper Whisperer!

Click here.