We can't believe our Summer is almost over. Jason returns to real work. Ava is 6 weeks old on Friday. The weather is turning slightly cooler. Leaves are starting to turn and soon Colorado will be a mass of red, yellow, and orange Aspen leaves. Rachel knows her birthday is coming up (in 'Tober) and is starting to dress her dolls in ski clothes and slide them down imaginary hills. We haven't told her yet that we didn't buy ski passes for this coming Winter...
Here are a few thoughts about things going on with Ava, and the dynamics in our changed family of four.
DIAPERS
We put Rachel in cloth diapers when she was 8 pounds, which was 2 weeks old. Her belly button had just healed, and we were thrilled with the cloth Bum Genius diapers that grew with her as she got bigger. We recently switched Rachel to night time 'pull ups' for night time potty training and Ava now has all the cloth hand-me-downs. Ava weighed 8 lbs, 13 oz. at birth and as soon as her belly button healed we tried the cloth diapers. They leaked. We waited a few days and tried them again. They leaked. In Virginia we tried again and had leaking problems. We returned to disposable diapers and continued to be shocked as how much garbage (trash, to all my fellow Americans) that generated. Now we are at home and determined to make cloth work. We have a few other cloth options that we have been given and they are a bit better. This last week things are improving and I feel confident that we will be able to make cloth work out well... but I'm not thrilled with them like we were with Rachel.
So... why do we have leaking problems with Ava and not Rachel? Ava is less fussy so perhaps we changed Rachel more often? Are the diapers so well used that they aren't as absorbent? Has Rachel worn them as she got bigger and stretched them slightly, so they don't go as small? Is Ava's long body just a different shape and it doesn't work as well for her? Do they have different 'styles' of making a mess? This sounds crazy, but Rachel and Ava do seem to mess up different areas of the diaper. Rachel never, ever had an 'up the back' explosion. Ava has already had several - regardless of the clothing or diaper. I always thought it was weird that other babies did this and Rachel never did.
Anyway, we hope things improve here as Ava grows and we will have less leaking issues. For now, we are using disposables at night and cloth during the day when we are at our own house.
NURSING AND SLEEPING SCHEDULES
Ava is all over the place and doesn't have any kind of routine during the day. Sometimes she's very alert for most of the day, nursing every hour and sleeping for 30-60 min here and there. Other days she's zonked out most of the time and hardly eats. Generally Ava will be in night time mode from 9pm until 7am. She will wake up to feed every three hours or so, and settles very easily with milk and often doesn't need changing or soothing in any other way.
Example:
Ava goes to sleep at 9pm. I feed her at 10pm and then go to sleep myself. She'll wake at 1:30pm, I will be with her until 2:15am, then sleep until 4:30am and then be with her until 5:30am, then Rachel will wake up and I'll send her to Daddy and I'll doze with Ava until about 7am.
I consider this a very good schedule. I think I will need to start establishing feeding times and napping times a bit better during the day, for my sake. Then I could know to leave Ava with someone else and go out without worrying as much, and know how much milk to leave in a bottle if I go out longer than 30 min.
Nursing is much, much better that it was with Rachel. I found the first week uncomfortable and since then things have been getting easier. The difficulty this time is Rachel slamming into me or snuggling into my chair with us or me trying to nurse while walking around and getting Rachel dressed. With Rachel I was in tears of pain while nursing at 7 weeks post partum, and didn't enjoy the experience at all until about 9-10 weeks. I think there are several reasons for this, but I would like to encourage any mom that it is easier!
MY OWN EXERCISE
As a PT, I have my own beliefs about women exercising after childbirth. I believe most women are stupid and go back to too much exercise too quickly and end up having problems later that are much trickier down the road.
When I had Rachel, it took me a week to be able to walk down the street and back. I started walk/jogging at 6 weeks because that's about how long I felt like I needed and, as a PT, 6 weeks is a magic amount of time during which most acute injuries heal enough to start stressing the area.
When I had Ava, I could walk down the street and back the day after I had her. At 3 weeks I started some very cautious jogging. Because we had access to Grandma, I started walk/jogging a little more in Virginia. I feel horribly out of shape and can now walk/jog for a total of 40 minutes with 30 minutes of it be jogging. But mentally and physically it feels great to get out and do it.
I have only had a chance to swim lengths 2 times, but I have had no concerns with my body since 3.5 weeks post partum in the pool. Except my left shoulder is sore with some impingement from carrying Ava and nursing in weird positions and reaching back to help the kids while in the car on our road trip. It is improving but I don't want to push it swimming.
I have been on my bike twice. 15km seems way longer than it should! My bike needs tuning very badly as my chain keeps falling off and changing gears is a challenge. Last week I rode around our neighborhood, and I was intimidated and nervous. I thought "I would love road biking if it never rained, there was never car traffic, there wasn't gravel or holes or huge bumps, there were no cattle guards, there were no sharp corners, and no screaming descents." In other words, I could grow to like longer rides on smooth paved paths without cars and gentle rolling hills or flat land. Well... on Sunday I rode the bike path from Frisco to Copper in Summit County. It took me over an hour but I LOVED it. I can't wait to do it again after I get my bike tuned.
Abs. Jason's sister Karen is doing an awesome ab challenge right now and Jason is attempting to do it too. Although, as a PT, I don't believe people should bother with crunches 90% of the time, as an athlete, I think they are fun. And they make me feel good. But I am resisting the urge to do the challenge. It's definitely not ok for women post partum to kill their abs with head lifting exercises until their abdominals have fully healed from childbirth. Thankfully, I didn't have much abdominal splitting and I will be able to do some soon. Maybe I'll start the challenge in November.
In terms of getting back into shape, losing weight, and fitting into my clothes again - I have a very long way to go. My initial fitness goals are: jog a continuous 30 min safely, bike for an hour safely (check!), and swim a continuous 500m safely. I want to join Masters swimming in the fall and join a group spin class twice per week. I see Sept as a new beginning time for new routines and a great time to get right into the swing of routines.
MENTAL HEALTH
Up until this week, I have been spoiled. Both girls have been great. The delivery was great. Jason has been off school. We've had a lot of family help. But having both girls on my own for full days without help... ?>! That's scary. I did it Saturday while Jason was out running and after 5 hours I was crying and felt like a terrible mother as I yelled at Rachel. Today I did it much more successfully as both girls seemed to have better days and I had a decent night last night. The hardest things for me are:
- Sitting still while nursing Ava and not rushing her and being ok with it. I sit there and think of many things I could do if I could just move around. I don't feel like I'm doing anything productive. And if Rachel needs me while I'm nursing, I have to make some decisions about how to proceed and it is a tough balance. I have to constantly remind myself, even while playing some silly game on my phone while I'm nursing to entertain myself, that I am doing something productive and sitting still to calmly feed my child is a valid thing.
- I am attached to Ava and only have as much freedom from her as her feeding schedule will allow. I can go out for a run if I have someone else to watch the girls only if I've just fed Ava. And then I feel comfortable that she could make it for an hour (longer in the middle of the day, maybe not an hour in the evening) before things might completely break down. This will change if I start pumping and storing milk but I haven't figured out when to pump yet.
- I am still watching others around me exercise like crazy while, for me, an easy flat hour on the bike or a 20 min slow jog is still a challenge. It's hard for me to feel confident if I don't feel strong and fit.
- Hours and hours can go by and I don't feel like I do anything. I can look back at my whole day and feel like I got nothing accomplished. I might have fed Ava for 120 minutes and changed 3 diapers and made Rachel 2 meals and cleaned up 7 toys and played 3 games and sang 20 songs and read 10 books. I might not have had time to eat or brush my own teeth. But it doesn't feel like I was doing anything. It is hard to be satisfied with that. It's a very strange kind of 'busy'.
WHAT NOW?
From now until Sept 3rd, things will continue to be nothing like routine. Next week I will take the girls to BC to see all my family and friends on the west coast. Jason will spend these two weeks getting organized with the start of school and trying to get as much altitude, hill training, and mileage as he can. He has a big race at the end of Sept. The girls come back homeSept 3rd... and then life should settle into a routine of a real stay-at-home-mom lifestyle with a busy working dad and two growing girls.
Before we go to Canada, though, we still have an adventure or two. More to come!
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