3 Month Update

Little Miss P is 3 months old today. I still can't believe how quickly it has gone by already. Here are some stats...

She was sleeping through the night, 10-12 hours until a few days ago. In the last week we have encountered some serious meltdowns at night. It use to be that we could feed her and put her down and she would fall asleep. But in the past few days we have had some nights where it has been 1-2 hours of trying to get her down. Along with some serious screaming on some nights.

In addition, a few days ago she starting waking up in the middle of the night. This has been compounded with the fact that she also has learn to roll over onto her tummy, and really likes to roll onto her tummy, but then doesn't really like being there and can't get herself back to her back without a lot of effort. So this ends up causing her to wake up and work herself up. We can go in and put her back on her back and put the pacifier in her mouth and she could fall back asleep only to do it again 30 min later.

She really likes to be held sitting up. I really think this is because she has some form of reflux as she spits up A LOT all the time. What is strange though is that she only spits up if she breastfeeds and doesn't after the bottle. But the spit up comes up almost immediately in pure milk form or will come up 30min-2 hours later (multiple times) in curdled form (lovely).

Pooping is still pretty crazy. Lately it has been every 6 days, and a couple weeks ago she went 9 days between poops. I was a little paranoid after 9 days and was planning on calling the doctor but then she finally went. Apparently, this is normal for breastfed babies.

She seems to be growing lots and getting bigger and heavier and starting to get some fat on her, but she is still pretty lean. She smiles a lot and is really a happy baby. She has begun to giggle, but only every now and then and we can't seem to figure out how to make her keep giggling or to get her to start, but it is really funny when she does laugh.

As for me, I have lost all my baby weight plus a couple. I am running quite regularly now, 4-5 times a week, but only 3-4 miles so far. Or I run that far and add in some walking. After going to the psychiatrist, I had some blood work done and a lot of my levels relating to iron were really low, so I started taking an iron supplement. I went to see my general doctor the other day who did another work up and they are still low, so I am now on quadruple the amount of iron I was taking to see if that helps. I have always been borderline anemic, but the levels that I am at now are much lower now. I think this also played a huge factor in my PPD.

Here are some photos of our happy baby and a short video of the roll over (plus the bald spot on the back of her head!):

PPD

Postpartum Depression (aka Post Piper Depression) is a something I have been meaning to post on but just haven't gotten around to it. Most women go through a form of PPD after they have a baby and while I don't think that mine was all that serious, I do want to at least share my story so that others who read my blog don't always think everything is always rainbows.

Around one month after Piper was born is about when things started to go downhill. I think the lack of sleep was the biggest contributor. I already have a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep, I always have. So getting up every few hours at night was really more like staying up all night long because by the time I would fall asleep, she would be up again. I also had some disattachment issues, where I didn't feel connected at all to her and I think staying home by myself was a hard adjustment for me. I would cry sometimes because I was tired, or because she was crying, or just because.

Then I just started crying all the time over my mom. Every time I thought about her I would cry, and I was starting to think about her all the time. I would see a picture of her and start to cry, I would think about what kind of mother I was crying all the time and not feeling connected and feel that I was failing my own mom in some way, which of course would cause me to cry some more.

This all lead me to go see a psychiatrist. I cried through an hour session with her. Where afterwards she gave prescribed some medication for depression as well as some sleeping medication. This was right around 6 weeks postpartum. The depression medication though made me sick so I stopped taking it after a couple days. But the sleep medication was amazing. This was right about the time that Piper started waking up maybe 1-2 times a night, so EZ was taking one of the feedings and I was now getting sleep.

I would say about a week after visiting the psychiatrist, I was feeling better. I had stopped taking the medication for the PPD and was then just taking the sleeping medication. I still have the sleeping pills and I take them now only every now and then when I feel like I really need it.

All being said, I did have a rough few weeks mentally, emotionally, physically. I also really think the lack of sleep played a huge role. After I started sleeping more and feeling better, Piper also started being a little more engaging too and smiling which helped. I can honestly say now that I don't have any feelings of disattachment anymore which makes me feel good.

I know that from my experience this is really nothing compared to other moms who experience PPD sometimes for months and months. But I do feel like at least sharing my story so that others who read this (who haven't gone through pregnancy) have something to look at and realize that it is what it is and feel that if they need help, not be afraid to ask for it. Or just to know that while a lot of times, people says they are doing fine, behind closed doors they could be falling apart and just not want others to see.

Being Mindful

Thanks to my friend Jo for this video. Hopefully it helps everyone that views it in some way.

Pictures

Here are some recent photos:

We are smiling lots and lots now:

We headed up to the mountains with some friends...here is Piper's buddy Claire who is 7 months old:


We really enjoy sitting up and facing out to see everything:


One of my best friends came for a visit for the weekend and she had lots of fun taking photos of Miss P:

Here is a little video of some smiles and giggles: