Lots of good changes made last week in week 7 of Morgan's life. It was freeing in alot of ways for me, allowing the scheduling aspect to fizzle and just enjoy her and let her lead the way. With friends in town and a few meals out, I'd say we did OK. Lots of visitors, extra commotion, and Morgan rolled with it. In fact, it wasn't even a big deal to her. Babies, I'm telling you---I can't believe how resiliant and adaptable they are. I'm still a huge ball of tired but you know what? I'm managing and it's all a very good lesson in rolling with the punches.
Week 8: Nurse on-demand. Do away with the iPhone baby tracker app. Be OK with leaving her (even if she won't take a bottle.)
While we gave up on the napping schedule, I was still trying to hold strong to the nursing every 2.5-3hrs or so. Partially because I didnt want Morgan associating nursing with falling asleep and getting into a rut with that, and partially because I dont want to feel like a dairy cow. But here's what I've come to realize, Morgan still doesn't do anything consistantly. And I have to be OK with that. A fast eater, she will sometimes nurse for 5min and push away as if to say "you put that thing back in my face I swear to god I'll lose my sh*t" and other times I look at the clock and think there's no way she just nursed for 15-20min (that is a loonnnngg time for my speed nurser daughter.) Until this morning, I was timing every feeding of hers, clocking every diaper, and noting every nap time...SINCE SHE'S BEEN BORN. Yes, for 8 weeks around the clock I was glued to the Baby Connect app in a fierce way. And if the doctor asked me how many times she nursed a day I could not only tell her the count but also the average time, the longest interval btwn feeds, and every other metric you could possibly imagine. This satisfied me in a number of self-controlling ways but was again, becoming way too stressful as I worried my heart out if she seemed to not follow suit from previous days (because I could check and confirm and not have to rely on my mush of a brain right now.) But today? It's gone. No more Baby Connect. And I'm telling you, I feel better already. Mama needs a haircut in the most desperate of ways and tomorrow I'll be leaving her for a bit to take care of these split ends and tattered locks. She'll take the bottle if she's hungry enough and if she doesn't, ah well. She wont die. If she screams the whole time I'm gone (which I highly doubt, she's more of a fusser), she'll survive :)
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to this week's episode of Girls and my frozen york peppermint patty (apparently this pregnancy craving has become permenant...)