So I was at a baby shower for an "aquaintance" recently and I was reminded how important it is (as a mom... or really, as a woman) to have some girl friends in your life who are a bit ahead of you in whatever stage of life you're in so that they can give you the real scoop. But these have to be real girl friends who will actually tell you the truth, even if it hurts... not the ones who always make you feel good but never tell you when something is wrong. At this baby shower, the girl who was pregnant sat down to start opening gifts and there wasn't one person in the room who jumped up to make the list of who got what or help hand her gifts and take opened gifts to another location to keep them out of the way. And I just thought to myself... wow... that is really sad for her because she's going to need to have someone to call who has been through it once the baby comes. And I have no idea who that person is going to be. I know, I know... as a Christian, I should step up and do the right thing. And, honestly, if she calls, I will help as much as I can. But this girl has burned a lot of bridges with a lot of people, including me... so there is still some resentment there. But I digress...
The point of this post is that girl friends are necessary when you become a mom. I don't care how supportive your family is... you need your girl friends. Especially because your mom and mother-in-law will try to help as much as possible... but you will also inevitably hear the "back when I did this..." comment because things have changed to some extent. And let's be honest... most of our moms were able to stay home as long as they needed to take care of a baby... we were still a single income family kind of country. Those days are long gone and that just isn't possible for everyone. Also... I have noticed (and maybe it's just my mom) that my mom will always say... "well you did it this way when you were a baby." And I'm just like... well, that's great... but this kid is half my husband also so if he did it differently, my kid might be more like him! My mom never likes to hear that.
Anyway... I feel like around week 3 of my daughter's life I needed my girl friends. Week 1 had been smooth - the baby just slept all day anyway and Mark was home with me to help figure out the whole baby thing. Week 2 Mark went back to work but things were still going well. I actually remember foolishly thinking that this wasn't so bad and I didn't know what everyone was complaining about. Then week 3 hit. It started with a growth spurt and after that I think I lost my mind because I don't remember the rest of the week except for that growth spurt (note to self - must have entry on growth spurts... THOSE were a surprise!). And I remember one day in particular when one of my friends just randomly called me to check in after I had just finished calling another friend out of desperation for help. Both calls came minutes apart from each other and I remember that I had this calming feeling when I finally got off the phone because I realized that my kid wasn't abnormal... I just didn't know that this happened and now I knew how to deal with it. So here's the story:
So surprise #1 of motherhood... you know how they tell you that breastmilk is best for your baby and has everything your baby needs for development? Well, that's not really the whole truth. The real truth (that you find out when you meet with the baby nurse AFTER you take the baby home... because they don't even tell you this in the hospital) is that if you exclusively breastfeed, you must also give your baby a vitamin supplement called Tri-Vi-Sol or Poly-Vi-Sol (made by Enfamil). It's specifically because your baby minimally needs Vitamin D and apparently you just don't have enough (although I really wondered - since I drink lots of milk - if that's true for me... but I digress). The Tri-Vi-Sol has vitamins A, C, and D... Poly-Vi-Sol has a whole bunch of other stuff in addition to the A, C, and D. But either way, you're supposed to give one dose a day (I seem to recall... don't quote me on that!) of the vitamin just to make sure that your baby is really getting everything he/she needs. Okay... no problem. We run to the store and pick some up on our way home from the appointment with the baby nurse. So I follow the instructions and give it to my kid. The first time I did it, it was okay... I wasn't good with the dropper yet, so there was a bit of a mess (note... that stuff stains everything and it doesn't come out!!! We still have burp cloths that are permanently stained with Poly Vi-Sol). But I figure all is well. As the weeks go on, it gets worse and worse... now my kid is actively refusing the vitamin and when I do get it in her mouth she screams and spits it all back up along with some milk and God knows what else. I'm just like... okay, it's just medicine... maybe it has a bad taste but I have to keep doing this. But it's just awful. I've come to dread this vitamin and really wonder if it's doing anything for my kid since it seems like she is spitting the whole thing up along with her milk (that I worked so freaking hard to produce for her!!). And now I'm just starting to get bitter. I'm reading online and seeing so many other stories of women who had the same issues with their kids being upset with the vitamin... but no one has any answer as to how to make it better. Mostly just... suck it up and deal. So helpful to a mom who feels like she's on the brink of a nervous breakdown because she's starting to wonder if her kid is somehow malnourished because she can't give her a vitamin!! Enter my girl friends...
Thank God for moms who have been there and know. So I talk to my girl friends and both of them tell me that their kids were the same way and one way you can get out of giving the vitamin is if you give your kid minimally 1 bottle of formula a day. You can also put them in their swing by a window so that they get some good sunlight on them (or, if the weather is nice, just bring them outside) to help with vitamin D production. But the light alone isn't enough... they'd still need either some formula, or the vitamin. Now... this of course goes against the idea of exclusively breastfeeding... so if you won't do it, then you just have to suck it up with the vitamin. But by this point, I had no problem giving my kid some formula. She had already had formula on day one of life because my milk was late coming in... so she was starving. And I just wasn't going to sweat it if my kid had some formula. I needed to do what I needed to do to make sure my kid was getting everything she needed. So formula it was. I gave her a bottle of formula once a day (minimally... more on growth spurt days) and threw that awful vitamin out. No more screaming... no more spitting up purple vitamin everywhere and staining everything. It was so much better. My daughter and I were both so much calmer.
But thank God my friends had told me about that... otherwise, I'd probably still be fighting over a vitamin. Actually, no... what would have happened is that I would have just given up breastmilk all together and moved straight to formula even sooner. (Please note... my kid was formula fed for most of the first year of her life in the end... but that was for other reasons. Needless to say, a vitamin didn't drive us to it in the end.) So that's why I feel like they really need to tell you these things and give you all of the options! I think that if moms knew that giving a bottle of formula a day will negate the need for the vitamin then it would help those of us who have kids who have reactions to the vitamin! And maybe some moms would breastfeed longer, or at least enjoy the feeding process more when you aren't fighting a screaming baby over a vitamin. Who knows?
Obviously this was just one story of why you need good girl friends to give you the scoop. I remember another lovely conversation (the same day) about bleeding nipples. I won't put that in a blog for obvious reasons... it's just one of the "joys" of motherhood. But the real point is that you need to find those girl friends before the kid comes out. Have them tell you what it's really like to give birth and those first weeks of life. Because at some point you are going to think something bad must just be normal and only your girl friends will be able to tell you that it's not and how to fix it. For example, my kid cried a LOT in the first 4 weeks of her life. I thought it was normal... babies cry. Granted, mine seemed to cry all day... but surely that was normal?? Yeah... found out that my kid had a lactose sensitivity - just like her daddy had when he was a baby - so she had to be moved to soy for the first 6 months of life. Of course, the doctor told me I was insane... that wasn't the reason my kid was screaming all the time. What the doctor couldn't explain was why, the minute I put her on soy, the crying stopped and I had a happy baby. Clearly I must have been imagining it all... :P So you need to have friends who can tell you... wow... this kid is crying more than normal... something is wrong. Otherwise, you never realize that your baby just might not follow the books... she may be her own little person with a body that isn't perfectly average. And that's okay. You just need to know.
Anyway... this became a much longer post than I anticipated... sorry! But I hope it helped...
Topics to come:
Growth spurts
Trying not to hate the parent whose kid sleeps through the night on day 1
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