The Scream That Brought Me To My Knees

Yesterday I woke up to a squirmy baby, trying to push out his morning poop. I picked him up, sat him on my lap and pushed his knees up to help him out. Within minutes we had a big explosion. The poop was all over his footie and onesie. His dad took him from me and began to change him. I insisted that we wash him with water. I proceeded to do what I do at least three or four times a day and I washed his cute little tush in the bathroom sink. He then began to scream, the way an adult would scream if he/she discovered a bloody murder scene.

I didn’t know what set him off or how I could stop it. I quickly handed him over to his dad. Now I was hysterically crying. What did I do to my baby to make him scream that way? I checked the water to see if it had gotten too hot. But it hadn’t.

His scream was so loud that his grandfather came running downstairs, thinking the baby must have fallen and gotten seriously injured. By the time he got to our room, the baby was cooing and laughing and I was on the floor crying. I still have no idea what made him scream that way. I suspect maybe my rings or bracelet accidentally pinched him. I took off all my jewelry and vowed to never wear it again. And then I proceeded to cry for another two hours.

I never, ever want to hear that scream again.

I was a mess most of the day, replaying the incident in my head over and over again trying to figure out what happened. To make me feel better, my mother in law sat me down and told me stories of what she went through with her three boys. She warned me that there will be many other times that I will feel like it’s the end of the world.

One summer her three young boys had just finished swimming at a swimming club. She was getting them dressed but she realized that all their clean underwear were now wet. Left with no choice, she had to dress them up with out their undies until they got home. As she zipped up the jeans of one of the boys, the zipper caught his wee-wee. And his scream could be heard for miles. She was in the south of France, where there is no 911 emergency center. So she had to free his wee-wee herself. Within a few seconds she was able to unzip the jeans. He survived. He is now all grown up and the incident is nothing more than a crazy story. I admire my mother-in-law’s nerves. I would have passed out. I don’t know how I’m going to survive this motherhood experience.

Our babies are the most important people to us in the world. And just the thought that we could do anything to hurt them is unfathomable. But we will make mistakes and that’s why, I believe, God protects them from our shortcomings. I just don’t know if I can ever forgive myself for making him scream like he did, even though I still don’t know what set him off.

Moms, have you been through similar situations?

Traveling With A Nine Week Old

Happy Thanksgiving weekend. Sorry for the delay in my posting. We’ve been traveling and spending time with family, which brings me to my next post.

Yes, the entire row of stuff in the photo above belongs to us. That, my friends, is what happens when you fly with an infant for the first time. That doesn’t even include the bags we checked in or our stroller. But don’t panic new moms, I had to pack a lot because we were headed to California for a month long stay with our family. I was already exhausted by the time we got through security. That, by the way, took us 30 minutes. I don’t mean we were waiting in line for that long. I mean it took us 30 minutes to get all our stuff through the scanner. All my breast milk bottles and formula bottles had to be checked by some little machine. Our stroller was taken to a secret location to be tested. And they checked my hands for chemicals because I was carrying the baby in a sling that didn’t go through a scanner. I guess I should be grateful they didn’t make me put my baby through the luggage scanner with my shoes. Oh the joys of traveling in the U.S.

We eventually made it to the gate and I had to find a secluded area to pump. Already two and a half hours had passed since my last pumping session in the back of a taxi van. Don’t worry, I used a breast feeding cover. Luckily, my husband and nanny are both traveling with us, so my baby had plenty of people to take care of him while I went to make him dinner.

It may have been our first trip, but I already learned from the experience. So here are a few tips.

1) If you are traveling somewhere where you will be driving you’ll have to take the carseat along. After the hassle we experienced trying to get the carseat through security, I recommend that you check it in with your luggage. It’s $35 worth spending.

2) Bring a sling. Not only is it an easy way to carry the baby through the airport, it is also useful on the plane for when the baby gets cranky and needs to be lulled to sleep.

3) Changing the baby on the plane can be complicated. There are changing tables in the bathrooms, but as you can imagine, they are small. The ones in the back were the largest on our JetBlue flight. Take a few wipes and clean up the area first. It’s not the most comfortable experience for you or the baby. But it is better than trying to do it in your seat and risk spraying your neighbors, especially if you have a boy.

4) Dress your baby in layers. It’s cold in the airport and on the plane.

Moms, what other tips do you have. I hear traveling with kids only gets more complicated as they grow.

– East Coast Mama

Sleeping Like A Baby?

It’s clear to me that the person who came up with the term “sleeping like a baby,” never actually had a baby.  For the first few weeks, most babies do not sleep for more than four hours at a time.  That’s the absolute maximum!    My baby was no different in the first 6 weeks of his life.  But things have dramatically improved in the last week or so.  In my last post, Tired, I mentioned that my baby was sleeping 5-7 consecutive hours a night.  For those who are not yet moms, that is quite an accomplishment for a little 2 month old.  Other new moms have been asking me what I’ve done to get him to do that.  Partly, I think it’s because my son is just like his father, who loves sleep about as much as he loves me.  But I also believe the key is putting the baby on a bedtime routine.

Every night he gets a bath and a massage at around 8 PM.  Then he gets his last bottle of the night.  And at around 9 or 9:30 PM he falls asleep and stays asleep until around 2 AM.  He wakes up to eat and then goes back to sleep for a couple more hours.  On the days we give him his bath earlier, he ends up going to sleep earlier and staying up most of the night.  That leads me to believe that it’s the routine that determines his sleep cycle.  We also make sure to swaddle our little one very tightly and turn on some white noise for the first hour of his slumber.  Believe me, I know how precious sleep is to new moms and dads.  I hope this helps.

-East Coast Mama

Tired

When you have a baby, people are always eager to find out how you’re doing. For me, it’s a very simple answer. I’m tired. The irony is, I have, quite possibly, the sweetest baby in the world. He only cries if he’s hungry, in pain or needs to sleep. And actually, my two-month old has been sleeping between 5-7 consecutive hours a night. It’s a dream for every mother of an infant. And yet, I never manage to even come close to that amount of sleep. Why? Because I am exclusively pumping.

When my little one was born he latched on right away and did it so well that he left my nipples bleeding. I had to give myself a break and give him the bottle while I healed. And since my little baby is a little genius, he quickly figured out the bottle was a much faster, more satisfying way to get milk. Since then he screams every time I time to get him to breastfeed. Knowing how healthy breast milk is for him, I have insisted on pumping and feeding. This means, I have to pump every 2-3 hours. Most of my day is spent walking around with strange contraptions attached to my breasts as I get milked like a cow. My entire day is planned around when I need to pump. My goal is to get my little one to six months on my breast milk. Right now, it’s perfectly doable. But soon, I’ll be heading back to work (something that’s already giving me nightmares). I don’t exactly work in the most mommy and kid friendly environment. I hope my milk regulates in the next month so that I can pump less but not lose my supply. There’s nothing like mama’s milk and I hope I can keep him on it as long as possible. He’s worth every drop, even if it does leave me so completely exhausted.

-EAST COAST MAMA

REAL MOMS OF OC AND DC

We are two sisters who married two brothers and just a few years later, ended up having two baby boys just one month apart. No, it wasn’t planned. And yes, it created a logistical nightmare for the family. One of us lives on the East Coast, the other on the West Coast. One of us works full time, the other is a freelance writer. One of us has full-time help, the other is trying to do it on her own, with a lot of help from grandma. Our lives are very different but we are embarking on the great adventure of motherhood together. This is our real account of what happens when the human desire to procreate becomes a reality.

Our posts may be short, because let’s face it, we rarely have time to shower these days. But we’ve learned the most from the experiences of other moms and hope that this blog will give other moms a real perspective on motherhood and all it’s glory. It really is the best thing that could have happened to all of us. But as with all things in life, all things worth having are worth many sacrifices. We would also love input from other mamas out there trying to keep their head above water. We hope you’ll follow us often and let us know what you think.