FINALLY!

FINALLY! FIRST BIRTHDAY!
We made it. All of us. We made it through the first year! We survived the lack of sleep and innumerable added responsibilities. Baby survived first-time parents without succumbing to SIDS, neglect, serious illness, or injury. We threw a big party. He wasn’t thrilled about all the strangers, but, let’s face it, the party was for us. To prove it we got a keg of beer.

Although the party was really for us and he won’t remember it, he was the star! Despite his newly-acquired stranger anxiety, we attempted to pass him around. He was pretty grumpy until cake time. We should have started with cake! My mom made him a whole wheat and honey (just old enough for honey now!) so there would at least be some nutritional value and let him have at it. What a mess!

I have chosen the one year milestone to wean off breastfeeding. I was most anxious to stop pumping during my work day. A week before his birthday I cut out one of the two times I pumped at work and had my husband supplement the feedings at home with whole, organic, vitamin-D fortified cow’s milk after checking with our doctor. We’re giving it in a bottle as he hasn’t quite mastered the sippy cup. The week after his birthday I cut out the other one. Now I am free to enjoy my lunch breaks again at the gym, with friends, or whatever I want!

I went through some debate as to whether to continue the other 3 feedings for a while. Even past a year, the added immunities of breastfeeding are beneficial. We have been trying to get him to eat more solid food though, and once I started doing the “dinner” feeding after solids instead of before, it sort of merged with the nighttime feeding. So I started giving him milk in a sippy cup with dinner and we are down to two breastfeedings a day. After Saturday night at the neighbor’s house when I had to say no to a second glass of wine, I started thinking twice is too much.

Last night, I began topping off the nighttime feeding with a bottle of warm cow’s milk afterwards. With my production going down, I wanted to be sure he got enough before bed to encourage sleep. By the end of the week we should be down to just the early morning feeding. I’m not sure how long we will continue that one as for us that will be the hardest to give up. The fact is cutting out that feeding will mean I have to get out of bed and make a bottle sometime between 4 and 5:30 am. He usually wakes to nurse (already in bed with us because of nighttime crying) and goes right back to sleep at this point and I sure don’t want to get up! And any wine the night before is out of my system by morning. We’ll see – I will keep posting as we go. For now I am taking the weaning process one feeding at a time, a week at a time, without thinking too much about the ones still left.

MY LABOR STORY

If my baby just turned 1, you can guess what I was doing at this time last year! I delivered 5 days late, which was my plan to get some extra time off work. On my due date, a Friday, I went to the gym and took and aerobic/weight class, keeping the weights light of course. On Monday, I went to the gym again and to a meeting with a business contact for my writing. I had been bugging my husband to go to Babies R Us to spend our gift cards and complete our baby necessities collection. He promised we would go Tuesday. Then our couple-friends showed up with their kid, planning to stay the evening and overnight. My husband wanted to cancel the Babies R Us trip, but I insisted we had to go that day. They joked about me going into labor, but I was adamant about it not happening when people were staying at my house. I’d rather we were alone all week just in case, but the man is my husband’s best friend and I have trouble saying “no.”

We were late getting on the road to Babies R Us, which isn’t very close to us, and got stuck in rush-hour traffic. It took us 45 minutes to get there, only to discover I had forgotten the gift cards. I was very upset with myself, but did the shopping anyway. We had the store hold the cart, drove all the way home to get the cards, and back out to get the merchandise. It was a long, stressful afternoon.

That night I fixed us each healthy chicken salads, with special toppings for each person. I was quite distraught after the meal when I realized I had mixed up the salads and the wrong person got the wrong topping, but they didn’t say anything and ate it anyway! I had been having Braxton Hicks contractions all day, but then that had been going on for a couple of weeks. I finally made it to bed late and stressed.

About 1am I started having more regular contractions and as much as I hated to admit it I was in labor with guests in the next room. I dutifully followed the labor class instructions to continue trying to sleep. By 5am I was pretty sure they were coming every 10 minutes and toyed with getting up and around and trying to eat some breakfast. Not wanting to labor in front of friends combined with the coziness of bed kept me trying to sleep. By 7am I couldn’t sleep anymore, and got up to use the bathroom. When I sat up I felt water moisten my pajama pants, and when I went to toilet I lost the mucus plug. I didn’t see it, thank goodness for my blindness without contacts, but relied on hubby’s description. I promptly called Kaiser. When I described what I thought was the water breaking – wet with streaks of blood, the nurse said, no, your water didn’t break, it’s just the mucus plug. I told her I wasn’t sure about the contraction timing because I had been sleeping but I thought they were about 10 minutes apart for a few hours. Clock it for an hour, she said, and call back.

I never did this before, so I did what she said. The contractions immediately came 3 minutes apart from the moment I hung up with the nurse (aka after my water broke, because it did!), but I waited the hour anyway. I hid from our guests in my room, showering, attempting to eat cereal (I was really worried about them not letting me eat for days of hospital labor I’d read about), applying make-up seated at the floor length mirror because I couldn’t stand up. Even when I called back and she said come in, I wasn’t that rushed, letting my husband feed the cats and check in with the neighbors because all the classes said first babies come really slow.

By the time I got to the hospital, I was so disoriented from pain I could not walk or put on my own hospital gown. I immediately began inquiring about my planned epidural. When the nurses alluded to the possibility that I was too progressed and it might be too late, I freaked. I need it! I pleaded. One nurse was very reassuring. “We’ll work towards that,” she said. There was something profoundly calming in her soft brown eyes. She was the only one there who could get me to focus and breath through contractions. My husband asked about getting the bag and birthing ball out of the car. They laughed and told him not to worry; I was way past needing that. Oh my God.

But God bless Kaiser, they put a rush on things and got my epidural in the nick of time! Once applied, it slowed down the labor and allowed me to relax for a couple of hours. This was a good thing, because I was strep B positive and would have had to stay in the hospital longer after delivery if antibiotics were not given time to work. It was also I good thing because I don’t think I could have handled a natural delivery. I’m into nature – I use cloth diapers for goodness sake – but forget that! I read up on it, and the risks sounded extremely minimal given the benefit. The only negative side effect I had was one of my legs got a little too numb and I had to be careful of it falling off the bed.

Once it was time to push, I was able to just focus on what I needed to do without worrying about pain. They were going to break my water, but surprise surprise, no water left to break. Told you so! I tried very hard to push exactly when told because I wanted it to go well and not risk a c-section. 25 minutes later they handed me my little bundle. I think my husband was overwhelmed but I was still on auto-pilot, a place I think I stayed for the first three months.

Overall, the labor went really well and I was happy with my decision to get the epidural, and to keep everyone but hubby and hospital staff out of the room until baby had arrived. I could have done without the small tear that needed stitches, but it healed quickly, leaving me none of the labor horror stories that had me scared the last 9 months. The hospital stay was a blur of learning to breastfeed and care for my newborn, with a flurry of nurses and paperwork and checkups. We went home the next evening to a clean house thanks to my mom, who was there to welcome us but left us to a peaceful house by nightfall.

Sleeping arrangements at 11 months; Prego woes last year

We’re counting down the final month of babyhood, and I still have to keep reminding myself to listen to my baby and myself before the advice of books and friends or relatives. For the last 11 months, every time I go against my gut and try to do what I’m told I “should,” it bites me in the butt. Or my baby’s butt, as the case may be. Like last year, when I thought I “should” pump every day of my maternity leave even though I hated it, and ended up causing overproduction and a drop in my baby’s weight gain. Don’t get me wrong, listening to guidance can be crucially helpful, but it’s important to balance the influx of “advice” with your unique needs. Every baby and every parent is different. That’s why I’m trying not to stress about our current sleeping arrangements.

We have shared a room with our son since day 1. We have another bedroom that he will move into when the time is right. When is that time? I don’t know, but it’s not now. The room is on the opposite side of the house and we just aren’t comfortable with him being so far away at this point. Until recently, he always slept in his own bassinette or crib. Co-sleeping would have made my life easier in the beginning when he woke up a lot at night, but we were fearful of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome – one possible cause being suffocation). Plus, I used to fall asleep if I tried to nurse him lying down. He started sleeping through the night at 5 months and there was no longer an issue. Even if he did wake up, I would pop a binky in his mouth and he’d go back out! It was bliss. Was.

Now, not so much bliss. Not only does he wake up screaming almost every night, but he won’t be consoled without cuddles. I need to sleep. He’s growing out of the riskiest SIDS stage. So in our bed with us he goes for the rest of the night. I was always opposed to letting him cry-it-out in his crib. Before now I was never tested on this opposition. Now I think that’s the only way he would stay in his bed all night, but I still don’t have the heart for it. We started to try one night and within minutes he was screaming so hard he threw up. Everyone tells me just to get through it. If we decide to try letting him cry, he would have to move into his own room first, that’s for sure. For my family, neither one of those things are happening anytime soon. (I feel obligated to note, since I brought up cry-it-out, that letting a baby cry himself to sleep is never appropriate for very young babies – under 4 or 6 months. During this stage you’re just going to have to deal with nighttime waking.)


For now, what’s working for my family is a hybrid co-sleeping arrangement. The baby will fall asleep in his own crib if he can see Mama. So he stays up, being held by Dad while Mom gets ready, until Mom goes to bed. If I leave his sight after laying him down the screaming begins and if it does, it may not stop and we may have to co-sleep all night. Then when he wakes up crying in the middle of the night, which happens at random times, he comes to bed with us so we can all keep sleeping. Makes the early morning feeding easier too, since I can stay awake during feedings lying down now. Once in a while we hit a fluke and he doesn’t wake until morning. I’m fine with the arrangement, baby’s fine, and hubby’s fine. We recognize that we may be setting our selves up for problems later, but sometimes you just have to do what works and let things work themselves out.

A YEAR AGO TODAY

This time last year, I was finally on maternity leave. Being able to relax and sleep in alleviated much of the discomfort and fatigue I had been feeling for the last few months. I had already had my baby shower, which was fun though a bit stressful leading up to it as my family and friends are all hypersensitive manics and were trying to work together. I love them and am eternally grateful to all of them though! It was a great shower. I got so much great stuff, including all the money I needed for a set of cloth diapers. I had also already moved – yes, we had to move when I was 8 months pregnant. Our lease was up, and to our surprise the landlord wasn’t renewing because he was selling! Aggghhh! But it all worked out. I was watching TV in my new house and riding the light rail to the gym. It is possibly the most relaxing time in my life.

There was only one week I couldn’t relax. In my ninth month, the doctor became concerned about a lump that had developed under my arm. They had to do a biopsy, which they said had the risk of inducing labor, caused pain in my arm for a few days, and forced me not to move my arm around much and take it easy for several days. This was rather upsetting to me for several reasons. First, hello! What’s the lump? Do I have cancer? Am I going to orphan my new baby? Second, I already felt disabled by the pregnancy and being further in pain and inhibited from normal activity really got me down. I really freaked out when I couldn’t do my little workouts!

By the end of the week all was well, except for the ever-enlarging lump in my stomach.

(really, is it possible to BE that big?)

The lump under my arm turned out to be breast tissue that was enlarged due to the pregnancy. Everything was fine and I was back in the gym. I even worked out on my due date! The baby was 5 days late, and I was lifting light weights in the gym every other day until 2 days before he was born. I would have been in the gym that 5th day had I not been in the hospital delivering. But that’s a story for the next blog.

Cloth Diapers and Prenatal Classes

THE LAST 10 MONTHS

My son turns 10 months this week! It's also our 10th month of adventures in cloth diapering. We don’t use cloth diapers 100% of the time, but I hope the times we do help offset my little one’s precious baby carbon footprint. Before he was born I purchased 6 “Bummi” wraps (must-haves) and 2 sizes of unbleached, pre-folded, cloth diapers from www.clothdiaper.com. The website was recommended to me by a Babies R Us employee in response to my shock that the only cloth diapers carried in the store were really only suitable as burp rags. The diapers from this site are comparably priced and of fantastic quality – drastically better than you can find in stores.

At 10 months, he’s finally big enough for the next size cloth diapers I’ve had packed away all his life. I pulled them out of storage a couple of weeks ago to put them through a few wash cycles, an important step to fluff them up prior to use. The way to wash cloth diapers, new or soiled, is in hot water with “clean and clear” detergent, white vinegar in the rinse cycle, with a second rinse. If possible, it’s best to line dry once you’re using them because the sun acts as a disinfectant. It also acts as a bleach – I was amazed to find the stool stains I’d been machine drying for 2 months disappeared the first time I line-dried. The small diapers that hung on the line all summer are visibly whiter than the new ones.

We started with disposable diapers his first week of life, as the doctor felt disposables would protect the circumcision better. After that, we switched to cloth during the day and disposables at night (so that if by chance he was only wet, I didn’t have to add disruption to a time I wanted him to sleep). The cloth diapers were a breeze the first 4 months – in fact, I found them easier than disposables. As a breastfed baby, he had a lot of little stools all day that were as liquid as any diaper-filler. The liquidity eliminated the need for toilet pre-rinsing, the most unpleasant part of cloth diapering. The only advantage of cloth diapers over disposables is their absorbency, requiring less wet diaper changes, and the poop frequency at this young age eliminated this advantage. Poops have to be changed to matter what!

In those early days, the cloth diapers came in handy when his diaper rash got out of control. There were a few days he had to go without a diaper to allow air to dry the rash, so having the cloths to lay open underneath and over him saved us allot of mess. Now he wears the “Bummi” wrap over the diaper, keeping the wetness inside and keeping the diaper on without pins, but for the first couple months, he wore the diaper by itself because he was too small for the “Bummi.”

It wasn’t bad though – there are stretchy-plastic-ace-bandage-clip-style alternatives to pins and the diaper only soaked through occasionally. It was best to wrap him in a blanket if holding him for extended periods. Ah, the newborn days. How times have changed!

There was a short period the cloth diapers were a bit of a bear – I refer to this as the “pudding poop” stage. Luckily it only lasted a month or two, or I’m not sure we’d still be so eco-friendly. It started when he began solid foods. The stools became less frequent, but much, much, much larger with a consistency of, well, pudding. Eewww! This required the dreaded toilet pre-rinse before the washer could handle the mess. I hated this part, holding the diaper over the toilet at arms-reach between 2 fingers and swirling, just hoping the stools would break free without having to dip low enough to feel moisture on my fingertips.

Thank goodness that did not last! Very soon his stool became a harder mass that plops right off the diaper into the toilet, leaving nothing behind that the washer can’t handle. It’s easy to save the planet again! He does require more frequent changing at this stage than he would in disposables because, as I mentioned, disposables are more absorbent so wet cloth diapers require more attention. So he is still in disposables all night, or for long car rides, but I’m committed to cloth during the day. Day in and day out, my motivation stems from my desire to live green. When we go out or to friends’ houses, I must admit I do it to impress. But perhaps the best reason to cloth diaper is they’re so cute on baby!


THIS TIME LAST YEAR

I was doing research on cloth diapers at this time last year. What else was I going to do all day at work? I sure couldn’t think about work with baby-planning on my mind. But it wasn’t just baby on the brain that was making work difficult. I was getting pretty uncomfortable and feeling more tired than I ever. I was ready to be home on leave, and was just counting the days while I got everything prepared at work and at home. One preparation I wish I’d given more attention to was signing up for classes at the hospital. Kaiser offers many free classes, some of which we took and some I wish we would have.

My husband and I took several classes together. We took Preparing for Childbirth, the only one that cost money. Although I was a little disappointed with our instructor, it was a worthwhile class. I loved the Newborn Care class. It was extremely informative with an awesome instructor who was into cloth diapers! She showed me how to make pre-folds easy to put on baby. We also took a hospital tour, which made me much more comfortable on delivery day.

I wish I would have signed up for the breastfeeding class and the baby safety/CPR class. We ended up having to move unexpectedly in my 8th month, so I was busy and thought I could take these two classes after the baby was born. How little did I know about being busy! Baby care leaves time for nothing, let me repeat, NOTHING else, during the first 2 months at least. We didn’t end up taking CPR until he was 4 months old. We never took the breastfeeding class and I think it would have saved me some heartache. I advise every pregnant woman to be completely prepared for baby’s arrival long before the due date.

The one bright spot of this month last year was a pregnancy photo shoot. My little sister is a professional photographer, so I got this wonderful gift at no cost! She does fine work and can be found at www.zoedesignandphoto.com.

TIS THE SEASON

TIS THE SEASON TO PLAY

The ninth month is all about toys for my baby, especially since he turned nine months in December. His first Christmas was stuffed to the brim with toys that sing, flash, or stack, and books, which he thinks are toys too. Mom’s favorite new toys are the functional ones – the foam puzzle mat and the plastic book.

We have hardwood floors, so we cheated a little and opened his first Christmas gift early in December. It was a foam A-B-C floor puzzle mat. Now he has a place to play with all the other toys without getting hurt. He likes sitting up, but still topples after a while. Even on a throw rug with mom sitting nearby, the second I turned my head was the one he would fall and “bump” – his head would hit the floor with a thud and he would start crying. With the puzzle mat the tumbles are harmless. Playtime is a lot more fun without tears!

The plastic book prevents pain as well. He has a bit of eczema behind his knees, and every time I change his diaper he grabs the back of his legs and digs in until blood flows. He got a cute Curious George plastic book for Christmas that we keep at the changing table for him to play with. Not only can he turn the plastic pages himself or chew on the without ruining them, it gives him something to do that takes both hands so none are free to scratch with. His legs are looking much better, not to mention his pants now that there’s no blood on them!

We went all out for baby’s first Christmas – got a live Douglas Fir, decked the house out, and invited all the family to our house. I thought we would be more excited about Christmas than him at this age, but he was actually really into opening all the presents. There were three rounds of gift-opening between all the families, and he got excited for each and every box and bow.

The books were the biggest hits with him – both Grandmas came through with these. My mom got him his first baby Bible and some others with cardboard pages. My husband’s mom got him another Curious George book, which we video-taped her reading to him so he can see her more often (on TV at least) since she lives out of town.

PREGNANCY HOLIDAY BLUES

Maybe it was because I knew we’d have to go all out this year, but last year during my pregnancy I just wasn’t into Christmas. Before baby, we didn’t usually get a live tree or host Christmas at our house, but last year I didn’t even bother with the fake tree. Gifts were almost entirely out, with the few purchased going only to the nieces and nephews. Adults were out. Could have been the weight of recession bearing down on everyone that lent to this mood, or maybe it was just the weight of my belly getting me down. I felt huge at this point, and on top of letting go of my pre-pregnancy weight without being sure of returning to it, I had to finally remove my naval ring without knowing whether it would go back in afterwards.

I had talked to the doctor about it early on. She OK’d me leaving the ring in as long as it had room to move, but made me promise to remove it once the skin was stretched taught. It would have to come out for delivery no matter what so as not to be in the way of monitoring or an emergency C-Section if needed. It was time for it to go. I put it away and hoped the hole would not close.

The good new is it didn’t! After the baby was born I was able to slip it right back in, and the hole didn’t stay all stretched out as it had become. It looks exactly like before. The weight didn’t stick around either – I was back to my pre-pregnancy weight by the time the baby was 4 months. Of course, some of that is back on now because I had to start eating more fat to enrich my milk when the baby started having trouble gaining weight, but that’s for another blog entry. I may not have the abs of my youth right now, but at least I’ve got the piercing!

Happy Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was the best I’ve ever had, all because of my little guy. There’s something infinitely special about roast turkey and gravy when it’s the first time in your life you’ve tried it! I fed my 8-month-old Thanksgiving Dinner with the rest of the family, and am changing the way I look at baby-feeding. I’ve chucked all the books and advice (for the most part), and taken a cue from Thanksgiving to start enjoying meals with baby.

On Thanksgiving, Grandma spared the added salt and we ground up turkey with gravy for baby, and fed along with mashed green beans, yams, and potatoes. We even cheated a little by offering a few bites of pumpkin pie filling. Hey, it’s a holiday! He absolutely loved all of it.

With so many foods now part of his diet, and after the success of the Thanksgiving meal, I am starting to feed him more of what we are eating. When I make him his own food, I tend to end up feeding him separately and he always wants a few more bites of what we have when we’re eating. It only makes sense to start combining meal preparations. Plus, when I can get my husband to eat at a normal meal time, it feels so nice for us all to sit around the table for a family meal.

Also, I’ve decided to return to following his cues for what and when to feed more than the books and doctors. I fed on demand when he was breastfeeding exclusively, but since adding solids it has become more confusing as I try to follow feeding guidelines. Other than remembering foods to avoid, I’m chucking all the rules. The biggest reason being that so many are conflicting – The What to Expect book, his doctor, and the nutritionalist all say we should always give him solid food before milk now that he’s 8 months, whereas the lactation consultant and the Le Leche League website all say always give milk first. I’ve been really stressed about it. But no more!

I know my baby best and he and I both know what he needs. I know he needs milk and that he won’t drink much if I always feed solids first. I also know that breakfast has to be really late after the morning milk feeding to get him to drink more milk. So, I’m giving him breakfast of solids earlier and with a little milk after, but we’re sticking to milk first for both other solid meals. And perhaps the hardest thing for me to realize – we don’t have to do it the same every day! Saturday we were going out to breakfast and I wanted him to eat with us, but he was hungry before we left. So I deviated from my new plan to feed solids first at breakfast, and breastfed him to hold him over till we got there. Amazingly enough, the world did not come to a screeching halt. If there’s one thing being a mother has taught me it’s to be flexible.

A YEAR AGO TODAY
Last thanksgiving I was 5 months pregnant. We traveled down the coast and celebrated with my sisters and my mother, then with my aunt, my cousin, and my father. At the start of the month, I told my dad on the phone I wasn’t showing that much. Then, the week before the holiday, my belly suddenly ballooned. I thought I was really looking pregnant, though looking back at the picture perhaps I could have just passed for chubby. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t getting stranger comments yet.

As a perpetual dieter prior to conception, I was very excited to be pregnant for the holidays because I had permission to eat more! Maybe that’s why my belly kept ballooning into December. The first week of December I was in considerable pain from the new weight. It felt like cramps and I thought something was wrong. I went to the doctor and she said it was just muscle and ligament pain from my new, forward-heavy body balance. She recommended a maternity girdle.

I had never heard of such a thing, but the girls at Motherhood knew exactly what I was talking about. It was like an elastic belt to be worn under my clothes. It fit on the under side of my belly protrusion and wrapped around my lower back. What a relief! It supported my stomach, alleviating the cramps. As a bonus, it took some strain off my lower back too. I would wear it all day at work and during workouts, then take it off for relaxing (relaxing? Am I spelling that right? It’s hard to remember now what that means!) in the evening and sleeping.

The maternity girdle goes on the list right after sparkling mineral water for pregnancy must-haves that weren’t in the book.

Now: Development Milestones, Then: Ultrasounds

DEVELOPMENT WORRIES

I believe in my heart that he is a perfectly normal, healthy baby. His little smile, his perfectly round angel face, the way I can swear his gibberish sounds like “I love you.” But it’s so hard not to worry.

No one ever told me becoming a parent came with endless paranoia. It started the day I brought him home, partly because I wasn’t exactly sure how to take care of him. Then, when I finally had myself convinced the things I thought were wrong were all in my head, my anxiety over his small size was confirmed when his weight gain dropped off in July. He went from gaining 6+ ounces per week to 1 once per week. Then last month, the development experts decided he is a bit behind on his large motor skills. At 6 ½ months the most he could do was roll over 1 way occasionally and sit with support. No crawling, cruising, rolling both ways, or sitting alone.

Since July we have been in for weight checks every 3-4 weeks. I started eating more fatty foods, we added solid food to his diet, and fortified the expressed bottles he was receiving with formula (under the doctor’s supervision for quantity). He was doing better come September, but still lagging. We met with a nutritionalist who helped us with the quantity of fat (yes, butter and veggie oil) to add to his solid food. Finally, at the weight check last week, the little scale meter had good news. He’s up to 14 pounds, 6 ounces at 7 ½ months. That’s a gain of over 3 ounces per week since September! I knew he was doing better because he’s almost too big for the 3-6 size sleepers now.

The weekend after my call with the development specialist, he was suddenly able to sit without support too!

It was very exciting. We continue to work with him in our play, placing him in a seated position for practice while he examines blocks or presses buttons on a toy that lights up. We move him around from sitting, to all fours (which he still needs help with), or standing. We have gradually been able to help him stand while holding on to a chair now, as long as we’re there to catch him when he falls.

My anxieties have eased considerably in the last month, due partly to the fact that he has made such great progress, and party to the fact that I finally admitted half of my anxiety was irrational, and getting worse instead of better. I have late-onset postpartum depression. I contacted my doctor, and she, along with our pediatrician and the physiologist, decided I need medicine and assured me that Zoloft is safe for breastfeeding. Now that I am being treated, I feel much better and am able to be there for my son to help him with his development. Turns out studies show terrible developmental outcomes for children whose mothers have untreated depression, especially for little boys.

Some anxiety about your child’s health and development is perfectly normal. So how do you know when you need to seek help, for you or your child? If you really stop and think, you know. I knew my child was behind in weight gain before they told me. I knew he was not growing out of his clothes as fast, and I knew he was colicky for a reason when I was having undiagnosed over-production of milk. If I would have listened to my instincts, we could have caught it sooner. And I know he is fine now with his development, because he is moving forward, making progress in all areas, and is a very happy baby these days! It just may not be on the same timeline as all the other babies. I knew my own stress and sadness for having to go back to work and over his weight gain was normal too, but I also knew it wasn’t normal two months later to feel worse and sad all the time even when the situation was getting better.

The key is to act upon what you know. Stop worrying and enjoy your baby, but don’t ignore a problem with your child or yourself. And if you’re not sure, ask your doctor. In most cases, it will ease your fears. And if something is wrong it’s better to catch it sooner than later.

A YEAR AGO: ULTRASOUND TIME!

Not much earlier than this time last year was a very exciting time for tracking his development during pregnancy. It was finally time for the big ultrasound! We’d had a “little” one before in the doctor’s office, just to see the heartbeat, but this one would be able to see allot more, hopefully including the sex. We were very nervous… even then we had fears about normal development, and we wanted badly to know the sex. My husband has always wanted a son, and though we would have both been happy with a daughter, I wanted a son too because I didn’t want my husband to ask for another child later on!

The procedure went beautifully. He looked perfect as the nurse pointed out features like feet, arms, and face. He even waved to us on the screen! She confirmed the due date based on his size, told us everything looked normal, and asked if there was anything else we wanted to see.

Well, yes, we said. Is it a boy or girl!?! She tried to show us, but we had no idea what we were looking at. After much suspense, she finally let us know. It’s a boy! My husband cried. Before returning to work after the appointment, we sat outside the hospital for at least 20 minutes calling everyone we knew.

When I saw that little boy on the ultrasound, and was able to call him by name, it was the first time he seemed real to me.

Exercise

POST-PARTUMN EXERCISE

The month-birthdays continue, with 7 months rolling by last weekend. He now stays awake for 2-3 hours at a time and is eating less frequently (every 3-4 hours) during the day. It is becoming easier to include him in many daily activities like shopping, visiting friends, and working out, because his awake-without-crying time is progressively longer. This is especially nice for my daily work-outs.

Exercise is so important. It is crucial to the health and well-being of your entire family. It is especially important for women in the months following pregnancy to avoid those pregnancy pounds becoming permanent, and to help with mood and energy. In addition, children who grow up in active families are much more likely to develop healthy lifestyles later. I could go on and on listing the benefits of exercise, but most of us already know them. But with the added stress of a baby for a working mother, where does one find the time to exercise? The name of the game is multi-tasking. I exercise while I commute or spend time with my son.

I get my cardio by riding my bike to work every day. It’s about a 15 minute ride each way, so I there’s 30 minutes of daily cardio without even thinking about it. Walking is great exercise too, but I live just a bit far from work to make that practical. Live to far to bike or walk to work? Consider parking or getting off transit further away from work to get in some walking. If you’re not pumping at lunch like I am, lunch breaks can also be used for a quick jog or 30 minutes at a nearby gym. On the weekends, take to the outdoors with baby in a jogging stroller. You will both benefit from the fresh air and change of scenery.

With cardio under my belt for the day, my next concern is toning. Before baby, I went to the gym 3 times a week after work. Even on maternity leave, I left him with hubby to go twice a week. But now I want to spend those precious non-work hours with my son. He grows too fast for me to miss an extra hour a day. My second day back to work, I called to place my gym membership on hold and went out to buy a set of barbells. For half an hour 3 or 4 times a week, baby and I work out together!

I hold him and lift him while I do step-aerobics and light toning to warm up.

He’s a great extra little weight for lounges and squats.

He loves to sit on my belly when I do crunches,

and to lay on the mat while I do push-ups over him.

I count out loud and he really gets to cracking up at me! Most of the time anyway – last week my hair scared him. I was doing push-ups over him when I caught him staring at the pony tail atop my head. I could see from my shadow it was sticking out in all directions. So I shook my head, thinking I’d get a laugh. But a look of horror came over the poor thing’s face and he started crying! We had to take a break for that one. Other than that, it’s been all fun and games for him.

When I want to lift a few weights, I put him in an activity saucer nearby so he can still see me, but far enough to be out of danger if I drop a weight. Not that I’m planning on dropping them, but you never know. He is usually pretty content there while I finish up. When he was younger it was a bouncy seat instead and I had to keep things short, but now I can usually even pass him off to hubby and grab a quick shower before he starts getting fussy!

There’s other ways to work out with baby too, this is just what works for me. Like Pilates or yoga? There’s videos available that incorporate baby into the moves. It’s all about being creative. Exercising with baby is a great way to bond and gets you both off to a good healthy-lifestyle start. With all these ideas for post-partum exercise, there’s no more excuses. Get moving!

EXERCISE WHILE PREGNANT

I credit my quick delivery to maintaining my exercise routine throughout my pregnancy. I mean the entire pregnancy – I was lifting weights at the gym on my due date, a Friday, then again 2 days later on Monday before delivering on Wednesday! The doctor OK’d doing everything I did prior to pregnancy with a couple of modifications – from the start, she said not to life anything heavier than 25 pounds, and after 4 months no lying flat on my back. She even said crunches were OK “as long as they were comfortable.”

I’m not sure crunches are ever “comfortable,” but it was about this time last year they stopped being whatever the more appropriate word there would be. I was about 4 months, so stopped lying flat on my back for things like chest presses too. I used to love to take a class that incorporated weight training, cardio and core called “SET” at 24 hour fitness. I made modifications and substitutions when the rest of the class did things I couldn’t.

When they did crunches, I did other things for my core like get on my hands and knees and stretch and retract opposite legs and arms, or (also on hands and knees) alternating arching my back up and relaxing it. For chest presses, I removed one side of the risers under our step so I was at an angle, or I did girl-push-ups. Although they weren’t off-limits, I had a hard time with lounges because of pain in my hips, so I just did more squats during this time. Squats are great during pregnancy because they exercise the same muscles you will need for delivery. Those and kegels, but I generally didn’t do those in SET class. I topped it all off with a pregnancy yoga tape at home once a week.

I got some weird looks when I was at the gym. Many people are under the mis-conception it is bad to exercise during pregnancy. I learned to ignore them. I knew I was not doing anything my doctor had not approved, and that exercise would make me feel better now as well as make delivery and recovery easier.