P.S
I am still hoping to read the words - you have no new posts on your reader. Not anytime soon.. though with girl going to sleep much much easier and earlier, I am able to spend a bit more time on the computer :-).


Dear Paige nominated me to the Versatile Blogger Award (thank-you!). I'm going to be a rules' breaker and not post the rules.. Nor will I nominate any other blogger as I saw this award pass around North and South of the blogosphere (you know, being late does that..). However, if somehow you didn't receive the award (and would like to), please see yourself nominated!

Going with the milk version on this one:

1. I do not like to drink plain cow's milk. Never have. As a child my mum would force me to drink a cup of milk. I remember how I'd go to this friend, and was not allowed to play with her until I drank a cup of milk. But I am a huge fan of milk products, and add something to the cup of milk and I'll drink it away.
2. Breast milk on the other hand.. that's yummy! (of course I tasted it!)
3. Baby was born with breasts and.............. yes, in her first week or two of life she also had milk. Mum didn't but girl did..
4. There was a time in my life where I worked in a kibbutz in the cow's shed milking the cows. We would start our day with a cup of coffee and then proceed to our daily schedule (usually while the early morning milking was still in progress). On occasion when we didn't have milk for our cup of coffee we would take our coffee to where the milking was happening, and squeeze us some nice fresh milk.
5. Though had I known that pumping milk can hurt, don't know if I would have worked there.
6. And not an unknown fact about me, just want to add that there is nothing like doing those very early milkings and seeing the sun rise over the Dead Sea!
7. At one point I wanted to see how my child is on the breast, i.e if she latches properly. So I asked sis #6 to breastfeed her (I also wanted to try and breastfeed her one and a half year old, but well he wouldn't..) Wanted to ask a friend whose baby is exactly two months older than my girl to try and swap, but couldn't get round to asking her. Somehow it seems dirty and unclean and not done to put a stranger baby on your breasts, and not the thing to ask! (oh, and baby latched well).
8. Now that I'm getting to the unspeakable, I will tell you I tasted my milk straight from the source itself. Yes, I can do that! And as I said, it is tasty. I would drink a cup full if I wasn't saving every drop for daughter. And I breastfed myself (and yes, I do mean bring mouth to nipple) to see what and how it is like, and let me tell you, not easy. Did it again the other day when the pumping machine didn't work and she didn't nurse enough during the day and I was painfully full and leaking like mad, so I tried to relieve myself.
9. Wasn't too successful (hard work for too little milk for my big mouth!), so when girl stirred just a little in her sleep, I shoved my breast into her mouth. and oh, what a relief!!
10. 'boob' is a new word for me (I believe I learnt it her in Blogland, I knew the probably old 'bust'), and while I am o.k with using it, and used it while pregnant and all, now when I talk about breastfeeding, it just doesn't feel right..

So there you have it. And since I didn't post the rules, you do not know there were supposed to be only seven. ha!

Big girl

Food and other stuff

Well first of it's not really the 10th of October at 10:10! I am backdating because well I can. And since I didn't even realize this special date until it was gone I'm componsating now :-).
So today is actually Monday the 10th and it's just after 21:00! and I'm not all in tears and baby is asleep. Yes, you read correctly - asleep! And the winner is........... the dummy!


But food was what I wanted to write about, so lets start with food.
It is and was very important for me to breast feed Rolly Polly (see, I'm using her nick :-)) but unfortunatly, as you know, my damn body didn't produse enough milk and so I had to start her on formula. Some thing that was very difficult for me to bear. So difficult and I so don't have milk I saeted taking this pill which while helps, I still need to supplement with formula. And I really don't like giving her formula, can't wait to end it. On Saturday she turns 4 months and I'm hoping* to start her on solids with the aim of reducing and eventuallu eliminating formula (breast milk I hope to continue). And yes, it's going to take some time (not expecting her tomrrow to be formula free..).
I was debating whether to start with ceral or veggies. I do not want to give her bought ceral or to give it in a bottle. And obviously one ceral can be home made, but it sounds to me like a lot of work, so I'm going with veggies. I'm planning on starting with a carrot which I'll steam cook and then mush and give it once a day (when?) for about a week (if all goes well) and then continue to the next vegetable, and so on. And I'm kind of excited about this!

Going back to the sleep issue I had a hard time putting her to sleep, and was so frustrated. And then there was this lecture on babie's sleep I went to, and the lecturer talked about how when you do all those things I've been doing to get baby to sleep, how with time babies become immuned and need a higher level of stimuli to get to sleep and how the process gets longer. She said babies should be dependent on themselves for sleep and not on extrior factors. And she went on about how to do it - first step be near baby, touching him and picking him up when he cries and when calm putting back in bed and so on. Next step you sit further away, etc.
Well first step. To cut things short she would scream and I would go back to old methods of walking/rocking/etc and she would fight so fiercly, and I would crumble and put her on the playing mat wanting to get the hell out of here, and feeling how awful a mother I am and cry and cry and cry.

would. I do hope this narrative remains in the past tense.
So I finally bought a dummy (paccifier) and wow! It took about 45 minutes for her to fall asleep and I haven't shed not one tear! Funny how before giving birth , that was the one issue I was on the fence about. But then I gave birth and suddenly I was so much against it. About a week ago I was trying to figure why I am so much anti, as it is clear that girl loves to suck. I came to realize it was all about my boobs not working but at least able to comfort girl. I am not completly o.k with dummy (as I'm declaring it only for sleep), but it's a start..

And tonight I had a new realization. Sitting near her, watching her fight (you didn't think she went to sleep without a fight, now did you??), and it's not me she's fighting (I'm not holding her). And you know, now I see that it felt like she was fighting me. I know she wasn't, she was not kicking me, but it sure felt so. So dummy to the rescue :-).

P.S
Long post so I'll end here. And yes, should have probaly been called Sleep and pther stuff.

P.P.S
Thanks Dora fopr advice on bath. Tried it, but didn't really help.

P.P.P.S
I am soooo slow on my blog reading. Sorry guys!

* I still need to buy her a spoon plus a net (or whatever it's called) to steam the food)

sleep

Not mine, hers. She is so active and alert, always wants to see and learn about the world around her, and I so love that about her. Curious like her mother :-). But the downside is her not liking to go to sleep. Oh, how she struggles not to go to sleep! Tired and all, she still fights it, like sleep is her enemy (I try and explain to her that sleep is actually one of mums best friends..).

During the day she hardly sleeps (asleep now :-)), but oh the nights.. Well not exactly the nights because she usually (and stressing the 'usually' as last night was an unusuall bad night [probably why she's sleeping now..]) sleeps quite well at night. Ususally she wakes sometime between 3:00 and 5:00, when I nurse her on one side and she goes back to sleep. Then, maybe an hour later again she wakes, so I nurse her on the other side. Third time, if it's still early I try again and nurse her. Sometimes it works, but if not then a bottle and a look at the clock (she usually is down withen two hours later for a morning [and sometimes only] nap). This is from when I discovered I can nurse in bed. Before that, it would be getting out of bed, somtimes trying to nurse, sometimes a bottle, but once we're out of bed, it would take about two hours to get her back to sleep (as opposed to about 20 minutes when nursing in bed, plus I sometimes manage to doze while she sucks).

So it not so much the nights themseleves, but the getting there. As mentioned above, she fights going to sleep. She has a bath at about 21:00, then a bottle of pumped milk and then rocking her and singing to her and walking with her and being nervous at her [which how can your heart not melt when she smiles back at you??] and walking and swinging and singing and rocking and and and.. It will take about an hour and a half (on a good day), two to get her to sleep. 22:30, 23:00 is when she'll finally sleep. But then.. she'll wake every few minutes for another hour or so. These awaknings are easy to handle, as she goes back to sleep quickly, but oh.. getting her down for the night...
Sometimes I'm at wits' end how to get her to sleep because nothing seems to work*. But the only thing that I know will get her to sleep is time. Come eleven o'clock she should be at some stage of sleeping. It is so much easier when you know that you just have to let time pass (though not so easy when holding a ,clearly, very tired baby but who nevertheless fights you!).

I'd love to hear from you mothers how [guess who just woke and who is now typing with two fingers..] you get your little ones to sleep for the night (I don't even try getting her to sleep during the day. If it happens it happens..]. and how you got them to sleep when they were about three months old.

*I do not nurse her to sleep as she will wake the moment I pick her up. I was warned how I shouldn't nurse her to sleep as that will form bad habbits etc. No one ever mentioned I won't be able to do so...
[different when she awakes in the middle of the night, as my breasts then are more a dummy (pacifier) than a milk factory..]