Attached parenting………Do you know what it means?

Posted on May 21, 2009 by zlatavaskova — Leave a comment

Holaaaaaaa dear friends and parents

I have just passed two very crying days of my son. He is turning 3 months and it seems to be that he has common colic period again present. What to do….it is not topic I wanted to talk about in this post. But the colic issue will bring me to the point.

I had again strong discussion with my husband about spoiling and not spoiling our kid by carrying him when he cries…….the question was whether he cries only when not being carried or because he is in pain. But you should hear his cry…………I think that in some moments the sound went to 1000 MHz and we could not hear voice of each other. So in this case my arms are always open for my son because I know how much he suffer. But there are moments when I think that he is playing with us. You know the time when you are playing with him, he is smiling and U just want to go on toilet or to coock and I used to put him into his craddle and he starts to cry…………..this moment is my NO WAY time. But since I am person which believes strongly in attache dparenting I pick my son and and try to calm him down again and again and again …………… 🙂 and U know “again”.

But in fact what attached parenting means not only for me but for thousands of parents is simple. We do believe that the infant (kid) can not be spoiled in the age of O-1 year and that by crying he is anouncing us some of his need so the way to calm him down is to carry him and share the love with him as much as possible. And the carrying and sleeping with the baby in the bed does not mean only be close to him but according to latest researches it shoes that the baby is in this way buiding stronger link with us as parents, that he will have stronger selfesteem and his character will be based on love and mutual touch with us as parents.

Here is beautiful article: Let the little one be your guide……you can learn a little more about this topic

I love this idea and I do not blame my little when he starts to demand attention. Because as I can see now he is already soo curious person, his eyes I “eating” every stimulous which is given to him and no wonder that he does not like just lying in the bed. He loves to move and see the worl………so till he will not be able to move by himself I will help him to explore the world around him through my arms and my legs…………..and to be honest. His smile is killing me, so when he smile at me I would do first and last for him so few hours of carying per day is the smallest things I can do for him. And I believe that every hour spend with him will be paid back in the future.

Soooooooooo carry carry carry and be attached 🙂 and not touched by the tireness and others saying that you should not carry your baby that much

Hugs
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Tagged with: attached parenting, baby cry, calm down baby, infants, Parenting
Posted in Parenting

Did you forget scarf or carrier for your baby at home……there is simple tip to replace it

Posted on May 15, 2009 by zlatavaskova — Leave a comment

Hi dears,

last time I was writing a bit about travelling and how important is to be prepared for your journey. But we will never be prepared for everything I guess or sometimes I am carrying too many things at once in my head that I used to forget some little details. So what happened in this time was that even I am aware that my son is curious a lot and he does not want to staz in the trolley for longer time and either me or my husband have to carry him in our arms, we forgot to take with us our scarf.

The thing was that time of curiousness came pretty soon and our darling was crying in the trolley and he was shouting at us something…………”what the hell you are doing there, you can watch around and I can see maximum blue sky with coulds and from time to time tree leafs and I want to see what is happening out there alsooooooo””…..so what happened was that Carlos took Edie into his arms and he started to smile and his head was turning all the way around like little owl. His eyes were widely opened and he was soo happy to see the world around. But int he meanwhile (learn that Edie has already more than 5 Kg) Carlos arms were becoming tired and I wanted to help him to solve this problem. So I took one of the white scarfs which we had in case that Edie will be drilling and dropping salivas and I tighet it around them……………..and It worked out and Edie could happily chew Carlos shoulder and keep wathich around and Carlos could relax his hands……..so if the case of emmergency appear also during your trip just try this. It should help you too.

Just do it! 🙂
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Tagged with: baby carrier, Parenting, tips, travelling, travelling with kids
Posted in Kids accessories, Parenting

Travelling with kids (infant) is exciting but you have to be prepared :)

Posted on May 12, 2009 by zlatavaskova — 2 Comments

Travellig…………my desire and personal passion 🙂

I love travellig and nothing can stop me from this. I remember when I was pregnant I thought that I will not be able to travel at least first 3-4 months. That to go somewhere with little angel (learn that my son has 2 months) will be impossible because he is too little and fragile.BUT I was WRONG! I imagined that I will be able to “travel” with the trollye maximum in near neighborough and no longer than 2 hours as used to be recomended because you could overstimulate your baby………….what the heck :). ……..I do not believe in this. Allways depends on the conditions and health and mood of your baby. Trip can be either fun or desaster 🙂

Our family passion for travelling was increasing with the time spend at home and my travelling shoes same as my husband’s once became impatient and we decided to explore more of Czech Republic. We did consider that our baby is still small and we could hear from most of the people around us……….ohhhh he is sooo little, he is soo cute…….when carying our dalring in our arms because he was crying when lyingn in the trolley. I like that even sometimes moms from already more “experienced generation” where whatching us like we would torture our darling.

But you know………….Edie our son enjoyed the journey and as we can see he such curious baby and wants to see the world so staying at home will not bring his sences eny extra development opportunity . No other stimulous will attract his brain. And we as carying parents would never do something whould could harm our son.

I am not saying that Edie did not cry during the whole journey. He is not such a baby which would just sleep 20 hours per day and calmly lying in the trolley, but he would cry anyway at home too so you just have to prepare yourself that babies cry and more accurate is to find the reason why they cry. We knew that he suffered from gasses so he would be sad anyway and cried even staying at home and the situation would not much improved.

The important thing is that you as parent are psychically prepared and that you will not be stressed when your baby will start to cry. Because it will pass soon and than all family can enjoy again. And in the end I was really happy that we travelled becaue Edie’s eyes were shining and he was sleeping whole nigh like angel :).

So good luck with your family travelling 🙂
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Tagged with: czech castles, kids, Parenting, travelling, travelling with kids
Posted in Parenting

Mother’s day

Posted on May 10, 2009 by zlatavaskova — Leave a comment

Today is such a beautiful day, it is not only because sky is blue like from paintings and sun is shining. This day is really special for special women……….because it is MOTHER’S DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was just wondering what makes the mothers day special and what makes from ordinary women extraordianry persons. And it is exactly the most treasurous things in our lifes……….KIDS (happy babies). And I am not talking only about the natural birth givers. I believe that if guy would have this opportunity to give a birth some of them would be even better “mothers” than we are. But fortunatelly nature gave this huge gift only to our hands and I have to say that this day started to have for me another dimension since this year, because I becae nother too.

I think that in nowadays not so many youngsters appreciate their mothers as they would deserve. In the era of rush, materialism and spoiliness and lack of family time and general sharing. The value of mothers is dissappearing. I am not saying that all of the mothers are like that. I would even say that the current conditions are even pushing some of us to be like that.

I would only with to all moms to spend this day in peacefull and loving day with their kids. To hold them more than usually, to kiss them softly and hug them tenderly. To let them know about our love. And vise versa to remind all young population and even “experienced” parents to share their thoughts with their parents and show them their love and share their feelings which can deepen their relationship. In general the only think which matters in our life is STRONG FAMILY because no matter what is happening in our lifes the mother hug is always here for us.

Wish you moms all the best…………enjoy this day……..I am going for picknick with my closest, to enjoy sun with my son and husband and our common family time.

Hugs

Tagged with: kids, love, mother's day, Parenting, raising kids, respect, women
Posted in Parenting

Breastfeeding (nursing) tips

Posted on May 5, 2009 by zlatavaskova — Leave a comment

My dear friends,

today I would like to share some ideas and also learnings which I got after two months of nursing.

Sometimes I had doubts whether I have enough milk, because my darling was crying more and I did not want to use artificial powder milk and then I heard from my mom (who anyway was not nursing me and have no experience with that)………..”my dear you have probably weak milk”…… and then I started to search more and I asked a lactation specialist and also our pediatrician and even other moms how this works. Is it possible, that I do have “weak milk”?. The answer was NO. There does not exist such a weak or strong milk. There is only one type of milk, although I have to confess that I had experienced that if I eat properly, it means a lot and especially meat, eggs and milk products, my breast became full of milk faster and I could see that my darling needs less effort to drink it out and he is happier and fully satisfied.

So I now know that the myth of such a “weak milk” isn’t true but the quality (or better say, quantity) of milk depends on your dietary habits.

Another concern of mine was whether the structure of my diet influenced the creation of gases of my baby. Because my son do suffer quite a lot of gases.

The answer is, not really. I recognized that if I will not eat properly with a large variety of dishes my son will not have all needed vitamins in his milk and anyway he used to have gases no matter what I ate. I asked also my closest once whether it is normal and they said that it is. It seems that specially guys do suffer from gases more than girls so the most important is to let my baby burp after every drink, even he falls asleep because otherwise the gases get accumulated and then he suffers much more. You should hear his scream if I let him sleep and did not let him burp after the nursing.

I was also looking for the things which should help to boost my milk production since I am not any milk factory. I do not have leasking problems like other moms. I do not have to wear nursing pads in my bra……… actually I do not wear a bra, (I hate that feeling of being tied 🙂 )so I was not sure whether I do have enough milk for my son. But as I see that he is growing and even putting weight I do not have this concern any more.

What I can strongly recommend for increasing nursing capacity is drinking tea for nursing mothers, there are various brands and today I also found syrup for making refreshing drinks. I like their taste and it helps to boost milk production and also reduce gases creation.

Another important fact is the demand of my baby. Sometimes he is asking for more drink specially after I am exercising and playing with him, then he gets more thirsty afterwards. And really important is to consider the so called periods of “fast growing” when is the baby much more hungry. It is 3rd and 6th week and than 3rd and 6 th month. In that time baby will be like vampire. He will try to drink everything what you will have available. For example Edie grown in his 3rd and 4th week 5 cm and put nearly 1 kg

So as I learned the most important is:

to keep a proper diet
to rest as much as possible
to drink nursing teas
to give your baby as many times milk as is asking for (do not be miss leaded wit his cry for tiredness or desire to play)
to consider the fast growing periods in the babies development and his higher demand

Good luck?
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Tagged with: baby, breastfeeding, growing, milk, nursing
Posted in breastfeeding

How to play and teach your baby?

Posted on April 25, 2009 by zlatavaskova — Leave a comment

Hi prodigies, playfull miracles 🙂

Play is the chief way that infants learn how to move, communicate, socialize, and understand their surroundings. And during the first month of life, your baby will learn by interacting with you. One of the first things your baby will learn is to associate the feel of your touch, the sound of your voice, and the sight of your face with getting his or her needs for comfort and food met. You can encourage your newborn to learn by stimulating your newborn’s senses in positive ways — with smiles, smoothing sounds, and gentle caresses.

I bet that most of you my dear friends when playing with your kids were thinking which game is suitable for my little one. Do I do right things? Is this or that game accurate for this age?

I have heard from my mum when playing with my 1-2 month old son that thing I try to do is too much, that I should let him sleep and let him entertain by himself…………..but it did not work out. My son is not that kind of baby who sleeps 20 hours per day………..no way…………He wants to play, he wants to have fun, he wants to explore.

Due the fact that my baby is asking for attention nearly all the time, except nursing time 🙂 I was curious about different ways of entertainment for him and which kind of games and toys are accurate for his age…………and actually we should not limit our babies by age but we should more observe how they are behaving and what they are asking for. So I am trying to play with my little angel not only regarding to his age but also with practices for older babies. And it is curious that he likes that also.

I would like to share with you now some links as inspiration what to consider when playing with your infants.

Vision Games

A newborn baby can only focus about 8 to 10 inches from his face and many newborn babies are also cross-eyed. Don’t worry, in most cases this will pass naturally.You can help your baby to use his eyes by moving a finger or object slowly from side to side in front of his eyes. A black and white patterned object may also be interesting to look at and follow. Newborn babies have a hard time distinguishing other colors. But go slowly, if you move the object too fast, your baby will not be able to follow it.To practice the combination of seeing and hearing, you can pick or make up a small rhyme or song that you use every time you play this vision game with your baby. Since babies are routine lovers, he may soon recognize the situation and appreciate it even more. The ability of your baby to read, learn how to concentrate and enjoy is hidden in the everyday practice and proper tool to use. We started to practice with Edie flash card show with black and white pictures specially designed for infant. And we can really see how much he is enjoying………. he is smiling on the pictures, his eyes are widely open and he calms down always when he is getting impatience. He simply enjoys. In this way I can recommend you a lot all the products which are advertised on BrillKids.com there are not just products for sale but also free softwares to be used for you and your baby to enjoy playing and learning at once.

Imitation

Something fascinating about newborn babies is that they can imitate. Pick a moment when your baby is alert and content. Lift him or her up close to your face (since a newborn baby’s vision is poor) slowly stick your tongue out. Keep it out for a while and then start all over. If you give your baby enough time, chances are he’ll stick his tongue out as well. He might first look away, as if concentrating on the task, then look back at you and start imitating. You can do different faces also in the position he or she prefer. You will see that the infant will start to smile. We tried that with Carlos and Edie was laughing on him and me. It is a magical moment when you can see your baby smile and laugh and feeling happy.

Hearing Games

Your baby is likely to at least recognize mom’s voice from the time before being born. If dad and siblings spoke a lot and close to mom’s belly, you child might also recognize their voices. Hearing any of you talk or sing and at the same time look into your eyes is fun for a newborn baby. Within a month or two, he’ll start showing his appreciation by smiling back and even start “talking” to you. Talking to your baby will also make him feel safe despite his new, strange surroundings outside the uterus. What we proved as beneficial is also listening different kind of music, from soothing one when Edie is tired (we have classical music such as Mozart or Vivaldi for kids CD……….. you can actually download also some free classical music from Munchking download)

Bonding Games

Rock your baby and sing a gentle lullaby. Even take your top off to allow skin contact. Newborn infants have a well developed smell and a sensitive skin, so being close to you, hearing your voice and smell MOM (or dad!), is heaven! And it can ended up like this 🙂 The most important is that you will find his position. Our son Edie loves the most position on his belly. Maybe because this position prevent him from gas pain and because in his 2 month age he started to produce lot of salivas he is not choking.

Exercising

Your baby will love also moving as itself and practicing his muscles will become his daily joy. I try to encourage Edie to crawl as soon as possible to be able to explore he world around him on his own, so I do simply exercising with him on daily basis always few minutes after each nursing. In this early age you can exercise your baby mostly by placing him on his belly and letting him crawl with your help. Since they have still imprinted the kicking reflex he will try to kick into your hands and he will slide on his belly forward. Try to keep his hands aside of his body so that he can lift his head. Another good exercise is on the gym ball, place your baby on his belly (never on his back in this age!) and hold his hands and let him lift his head. You can also swing a little the ball from side to side.

Baby-Pushups: Place the infant on his stomach across your legs while in a sitting position. With his knees on one of your legs and his hands on the other, this builds balance and strength, and teaches him to hold his weight with his hands. This is a new and interesting vantage point for him and encourages him to move his head and neck.

Good luck with your playing………I will be really happy if you have any other games to share here with me please let me know…….I am playfull prodigy also but also my imagination has its limits…….so more brains know more 🙂
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Tagged with: games, infants, kids, Parenting, playing
Posted in Education

Lets be “Environmentally friendly” :)

Posted on April 18, 2009 by zlatavaskova — Leave a comment

My dear friends

I bet that most of you were thinking when changing diapers of your baby, when washing his clothes, when eating different meals how your behavior is affecting the environment.

I have to confess that I am thinking all the time and that’s why I would like to share with you few suggestions how to behave more environmentally friendly towards the nature when performing daily activities. Because how we behave now will effect our kids and if we want them to enjoy our planet as much as we do now we should think in future generations. Which legacy we will pass to them?

What we used to do with my husband:

Regarding to changing diapers………..I know that every baby is able to spend about 12 dippers per day, which makes about an 84 diapers per week etc. So what we applied to safe their expenditure is that we put a handkerchief into the diaper so especially when the baby is little and only suffer from gases and make small poo you do not have to change the whole diaper. What is important you can use this method only when you know that you are able to change the dipper immediately to prevent any rush.
There also exist fabric ecological diapers, which are washable, only thing is their price and in the end also the care which you have to invest in their washing and drying. At the end I do not see much saving result but there remain the main ecological one. There is no more waist like in case of paper dippers. In my home country you can have a look on the web page of E-shop Brana k detem which offers the most widest assortment of ecological things for kids (BIO clothes, cosmetics, toys etc.)
If you are planning how much clothes do you have to buy for your darling, then consider that your baby will not get much dirty but you can spend most of the clothes by lack of your skills…………especially mums who has sons can expect that their darlings will pee over themselves every time you open the diaper. So you are either fast or you will need to change not only diaper but also clothes. So I would recommend you to have about 10-15 peaces of clothes to change in order if not washing every day. For environmental approach washing you can have a look for Ulrich company which is producing ecological products for cleaning and washing. Another good page for those who are interested as I do in this topic I can recommend Eco washing page (only in Czech but you can use Google translator :)).
A dirt made by your darling can be washed easily without any previous pre-washing if you put immediately the dirty clothes into a bin with cold water and let it rest there till you have time to wash his clothes. In my case it stayed there nearly the whole day, I accumulate peace by peace within 1 or 2 days and then I do the washing. The “dirty business” is soft after the water bath so it is cleaned easily in the washing machine later.
If you have just few peaces of clothes then do not use washing machine every day……………I prefer hand-washing, it is faster, cheaper and environmentally friendlier.
FOOD is chapter by itself but in short I would say that the best diet for mum and baby is the home grown veggies and fruits, of course I know that not everybody has this opportunity so that’s why especially for families living in the city is great to find shops where is available home farmed food or at least natural shops or shops which offer Bio food which is certified and proofed to be chemical less. Because everything what we will eat will affect our babies when nursing. In this case there is a new book I have seen and got inspired Bio&Kid (Bio&Dite) which is offering guidance to healthy dietary habits. And I saw that our home market started to be more and more focused on the environmentally friendly planting and production of BIO food. One good example is a pure Czech company GOLDIM s.r.o. which provides food in Bio quality for babies.

I would like to share with you also some interesting adds, news and videos which I found regarding to ecological life style and environmentaly friendly thinking:

I kept searching for some nice and educative adds and I found this video how to “Raising an eco-friendly family” you can find in this video few tips from mom and author Helen Coronato about raising your kids in an eco-friendly environment.
There are plenty of stuff regarding to this topic, what I would love to share. Here is also another video which talks about “THE STORY OF THE STUFF” with Annie Leonard, the expert in international sustainability and environmental issues, in general and how we cope and behave towards the nature. This video makes me think in general how to do things differently regarding to the nature.
You can also count your eco foot print – the metric that allows us to calculate human pressure on the planet and come up with facts, such as: If everyone lived the lifestyle of the average American we would need five planets.

Tagged with: behavior, cleaning, clothes, detergent, diapers, environment, washing
Posted in Parenting

Fathers hug…..

Posted on April 12, 2009 by zlatavaskova — Leave a comment

I am going to talk about the most treasures hug in the world…………..FATHERS HUG

And do you wonder why? Because this magical hug means that:

our son stops crying and falls asleep 🙂
mother became calmer after the sleepless night

My son reached 7 weeks of his age. In those weeks we came through different periods of his development. I have to confess that he is changing every day and thanks to this fact I was not able to apply a single pattern for his behavior. But little by little I start to understand more clearly his signals. But what I want to point out here in this post is a simple fact about our small baby, who became the sunshine of our life, that he is already aware of who is mother and who is father. We have endless amount of proofs that he is able to distinguish between the two of us clearly. And what I was wondering which stimulus are given to him, that he is able to recognize his parents in this early age.

What I can say from my own experience is that he is definitely able to feel that “MUM” means “MILK” and DADDY not. He knows that if he is hungry that he will get milk from me and also if there is something what is making him sad or tired that my breast is the “harbor” which will always calm him down. But I also I realized that he is able to simply abuse my nipples whenever he feels like chewing something and he hates the dummy, so the only thing to chew is my nipple and as a bonus he knows that he will get some milk shake 🙂

So what we discovered with his father is that if he start to be impatient because of being tired or overstimulated, then a good calming process is either simple fathers swinging hugs or a combination of fathers arms together with jumping movement on the gym ball…………….. I can ensure you that your baby will fall a sleep immediately.

Sometimes I could stand on my head and do whatever I could to calm our son down, but nothing worked. Sometimes I think he is trying to proof my patience and also how much cry I can stand till I will offer him my “milk bar”. But in fathers hands he does not smell milk and he feels comfortable and safe so he usually falls a sleep easily and fast.

So my advise is that if you are sure that your baby is feeded, that his dipper was changed, that he is comfortable with teperature, that he does not suffer from gases but he is still crying then put him into the arms of father and let them for a “man to man” talk 🙂

Tagged with: Edie
Posted in Parenting

Breastfeeding – intimite moment

Posted on March 18, 2009 by zlatavaskova — 7 Comments

My dear friends,

I just got free hands to share with you few lines about breastfeeding. This special moment which connects mothers with their babies, since they do not have any more their belly cordon physically available. So I consider breastfeeding as one of the invisible tight among mum and baby.

I have learned few things regarding to this topic, and since they were crucial for me to understand for successful breastfeeding I hope that they will help you too.

When you breastfeed:

Find a good position in which you can stay at least 30-45 minutes (sitting, lying).
Always the baby has to go to you, do not bend your back……. I did that and within one week I got a strong back pain and my back would look like bow………. not nice and painful
Your baby should be fed as many times per day as he/she asks for….. it means every hour if asks, this is min. interval for breastfeeding (so the model situation can look like………you are breastfeeding your baby for 45 min – max. time and then you let him/her to rest for 15 min) and if he/she asks again you can start the whole process again 🙂 so you will breastfeed about 12-15 times per day, sometimes more.
In the beginning you should feed from both breasts in one time, because your milk is not milk yet (it is called colostrum – it has yellowish color like melted butter, it is full fat and full energetic “drink”) and also you will feel lot of tensions in your breast so release possible pain. After the week or more it is individual start to breastfeed always only from one breast in one feeding session, because now you have already full milk which contains more liquid front milk and more fatty and energetic back milk. So you have to give a time to your baby to be able to drink both kinds of milk. If your baby will drink only front milk because you will be changing your breast it can cause colic to him/her.
I made the mistake, because at the hospital they told me that I should keep an interval of 2-3 hours between feeding, but my baby was crying because of hunger/thirst……… now I know……… something different is if your baby is tiny and is not asking for food……… then you have to wake him up to feed him and let him to put some weight. The interval then is 2-3 hours and over night max. 4 hours
Do not give your baby anything else than milk, he/she does not need water or tea if he is thirsty. Do you remember that you have front and back milk. So basically front milk is for thirst and back milk is for hunger. So the result is that your baby does not need anything else than your milk.
If the baby is falling asleep, just softly caress him behind his ear or under the chin….. it will stimulate him and he will start to drink, but also let him rest, this sucking is for him quite hard work.
When you breastfeed, keep in mind that kids should feel comfortable also, when you hold him in your arms the baby should have in one line his ear, arm and hip.

There are also endless amount of videos shoving how you should offer your breast and different positions used (have a look for breastfeeding tips). So feel free to have look on youtube or other pages. For Slavic languages reader I can recommend the Lactation league website.

My son is waking up so maybe some other things will come later 🙂

Yeah I fed him, our session took about 45 min, but now if you could see his smile saying “I am full”, I would eat him 🙂 if I could.

I just remember that to this topic belongs also beginning of lactation. Because the birth of my son was done through C-cut at the end, obviously my lactation started a bit later, since the hormones which started the process were produced a bit later. Because I did not know this information I got scared at the beginning, because usually lactation starts within three days after labor day. And surprising for me was also fact that babies do not have to eat for 3 days anything because they have still some “food storage” from uterus and their prenatal time. It is totally normal if new born baby used to loose about 10-15% of their weight after they are born. We as mums do not have to be worry at all. Edie had 3130 g when he was born and after 5 days when doctors send us home he had 2880 g. So he lost about 200 g and I was told that if he lost more it would have been normal. This case is specially in breastfed babies.

But I wanted to tell you something about lactation. As I mentioned above I started to be worry that it will not come. In the Czech Republic, my home country, is common practice, that after mum delivers, they bring the baby within 30 min after the labor. This early and short period of time is important for start up of the lactation process. The baby started to suck and even I did not have any milk that time it was clear signal to my body that the lactation process should start. And really in 4 days it started. Specifically over night from 3rd to 4th day. I started to feel that my breast is hurting, getting tense and becoming bigger. My ordinary size was something between “nothing and something”, we call it size “A” but in that time my breast grown into the size between B and C………… surprise I got boobs 🙂 and also it was full of milk.

In this case is really important to have baby near by you and started to breastfeed as fast as possible, because it is one of the ways how to release the pain which appear. What you have to do with your hard breast is to make it softer for your baby, especially area around your nipple otherwise baby will not be able to suck the milk. You can manage by preheating your breast by solar light or warm towel which you will apply at least for 15 min before you start to breastfeed and you can either use your hand or milk extractor/pumps to take some milk out. This process is not pleasant believe me. But on the other hand is much better to heat your breast, to extract some milk, even your breast hurt, because then you will release pain from produced milk and also you will avoid fever from stacked milk in your breast. Fortunately I did not experienced that, but my room mate did and it was not pleasant to see her. She got 39°C and in the same time she had to take care about baby. So If I can advice you, resist the pain and uncomfortable for few days because then the production of milk will calm down to the amount which your baby needs and your breast will not hurt any more.

So when you are at home from the hospital, just take your time and if you know that you should breastfeed at 5am just rather wake up at 4am, take warm shower, make massage to your breast, start to pump your nipples and prepare your breast for your baby.

I hope that these paragraphs did not sound scary, I just wanted to support you, when you will feel some uncomfort. But believe me it will last only few days and thanks to hormones which are produced since you deliver and your mums love you can manage everything…….. simply hold on and be strong!

Tagged with: breastfeeding
Posted in breastfeeding

Labor – the Day of new life

Posted on March 3, 2009 by zlatavaskova — 2 Comments

Labor is THE hard work…………. nobody can say that is not……….. but at the end of this job you can expect the highest remuneration in your life 🙂

new-life

The story of one belly which is not a belly any more:

My dear friends, many of you were asking how was the labor day, how I felt and how did we manage. So I decided to write about this great and exciting day which definitely changed my life at the end.

You might not now but my labor day was set up on 11st of February 2009 and I was praying that Edie will not come earlier, because I had my graduation examination in my university on the 26th of January. So what was happening in the meanwhile was that I was caressing my belly and persuading Edie to stay……….. so he was probably that used to it that he really stayed as long as it was possible. So doctors decided that it is already time for him to be born , since I was already over carrying about 12 days.

I was asked to come to hospital on 22nd of February to be tested under the Oxytocyn (hormone which is used for induction and causes the contraction of the uterus). I was connected to cardio-tocograph and tested how the uterus works and how Edie is reacting. I must say that this test was not unpleasant, except the fact that I had to sit on the chair at least 20-30 minutes and waited. During this test and with oxytocyn in my blood Edie started to move and my uterus reacted in a way that I started to have contractions every 10 minutes. And actually I finally realized what a CONTRACTION really is. Easily described it is a contraction of uterus muscles which causes the feelings of having a hard belly. Try to imagine that you did at least 60 pushups in 1 minute and then you will feel that your belly is tense. I felt that my belly is doing push ups without any effort and when doctors observed Edie how he was behaving they were satisfied. They said that I am ready to deliver next day without any problem.

I was happy to hear that news and went back to my room in the hospital. Carlosek was the whole day with me so I had a calm feeling in my heart and mind and I believed that everything will be fine and that next day I will labor my baby. I was sharing my room with another 3 ladies. One was a young girl from Indian origins who actually had the opposite issue. She was kept in hospital, because her baby wanted to be born already but she was only in 35th week, so doctors tried to keep the baby insight the belly till 38th week to be sure that all organs had developed correctly. The other girl have been already waiting for delivery for 2 days, and that night she was having contractions every few minutes, she was making this silent groaning noise like when somebody is teasing you. She tried to be calm and fight against the pain by walking and calling to her family and husband. The third one was there only for observation purposes, nothing special.

I tried to fall a sleep but unfortunately the silent groaning was keeping me awake. I started to think how it might feel to have stronger contractions and there were many thoughts running through my head. But I felt pretty good. Even I had contractions every 10 min and I was waiting whether the oxytocyn test will not induce already labor, I was still calm and I was enjoying every moment…… I got finally tired and thanks to my good sleeping habits I fall asleep and woke up at 6 am the other day.

I went to the delivery room and they gave me 2 suppositories to open my body for labor and told me to come at 9 for another one. At 8 came Carlosek because he wanted to share every possible moment with me during the labor day. Thanks to the suppositories I started to have contractions every 5 minutes and they were also stronger. At 9 I came to the delivery room again to get another suppositories with hormones to push Edie and start up the labor process. Thanks to this step I got contractions every minute, it started to be much more intense and I would call that pain and feelings like stronger menstruation problems. I did not feel this movie pain where the women is screaming like being tortured. The pain was bearable and I was still smiling. After I had contractions every minute I moved with Carlosek to one of the delivery rooms. They connected me to cardio-tocograh and were they could observe how is Edie reacting to the contractions. But as I said he really did not want to go out of my belly, so even they gave me hormones he did not want to move out. At 11 am the doctor came and broke my fetus water. She took a big scissors and did the cut into the uterus. I got afraid a bit when I saw them but I did not feel anything. Only water started to run out of my body. She said that it was roily, so the possibility for natural delivery was shortened because if Edie would have drank that water during the labor process he could have poison himself, and it was something I really did not wanted. During the time considering that I had contraction every minute since 9am I was becoming tired. I was half minute sleeping and half minute breathing through the contractions. They were becoming stronger and I was happy that Carlosek was with me, holding my hand, playing nice music and talking to me. Doctors were getting desperate, because Edie was not reacting well on the hormones and he was either moving too much or sleeping and he was not moving down to the labor roads. Time was passing and I was more and more in tense and I went to the bathtub to relax a bit. I poured hot water over my body and Carlosek gave me massage on my back. But at the end it did not release the pain much, but only temporary. At 1pm the doctor decided that I should get another portion of oxytocyn to push baby out of my body. She said that I will have stronger contractions but not that often. But I would not agree. The pain was increasing, the contractions were stronger but kept still 1 min interval. I was getting really tired and everybody was waiting for the head physician. He finally came at 1:30 when I did have strong contractions but Edie was still too far a way from labor roads. Than I got suggested to go for a C-cut, otherwise it could have been harmful for Edie to wait longer. I decided for him to be better off of course so at the end I had to accept the C-cut, even I did not want it at the beginning……… but every mother would do the best for her baby. Then it was a matter of few minutes, I had to sign a necessary papers to agree to go for the cut and then I was transported into the surgery place.

I do not remember what happened later, because I got whole body anesthesia and at 13:43 Edie was born. Carlosek had to stay out of the surgery place and he received Edie after he was born. Then he came with him into my room where I was transported after the delivery. They told him that I will be sleeping at least 2 hours but I woke up 30 min after the surgery. I wanted to see my son. Carlosek went for him and brought him to me. When I saw him for first time I wanted to cry. The hormones caused that I was soooooo happy that he is healthy, beautiful and I will always remember his new born smell. I tried to moved but it was too painful, because of the surgery but soon I forgot all the pains because I had my baby in my arms. As used to be said. The labor is a hard work but definitely is worth it and within few days I became fit and back in good conditions. Actually before I delivered I had 65 Kg and after delivery 58. Now I am already in my second week and I lost another 2 kgs since I am breastfeeding.

I believe that every women is strong enough to overcome any bad feelings. the labor day is only a matter of psychics, because if you feel great and you accept that this day is special then we can not have any bigger obstacles with delivering our babies. And the feeling after is the most exciting time I have ever experienced. I am actually still wondering how the belly became the baby and that this small miracle is unbelieveble.

Tagged with: delivering, giving birth, labor, pregnancy
Posted in Parenting