Three Months into Motherhood
I know that I’m rather beside myself that I’m already into three months of being a mommy! I cannot believe it. To be honest, it still feels like it was just yesterday that we were coming home from the hospital.
It may be flying by, but that certainly doesn’t mean that it has been uneventful!
Month One
Recovery period for Mommy and learning period for baby! Seriously, my baby girl had to learn so much from how to eat to how to sleep. For very instinctual actions, they don’t come naturally to babies. No one really tells you that either! XD;; Family life was super busy as our baby girl was born ten days before Christmas. It became an awesome excuse for family to visit and meet our new little bundle of love.
I had a case of mastitis around New Years Eve which was so not fun, but we took care of it right away. Thankfully, I recovered pretty quickly although the damage to my nipples was pretty bad. They were so split, it looked like someone had been trying to cut them off…Sorry for the graphic detail, but it was really so painful, but it has healed up quite nicely now.
Major bonus to getting this infection was that this prompted me to take visiting my lactation consultant seriously and I discovered that my little girl had what was called a posterior tongue tie. Turns out it was a factor for my infection and breastfeeding pains. The trick was finding a doctor whom would take my consultant’s assessment seriously.
It was really a struggle to find a doctor. Because of how funky insurance is with a newborn, our health insurance kept insisting we needed a referral from the pediatrician that such a procedure was needed. It was hard to convince our pediatrician that the tongue tie she had was severely affecting her feeding habits and weight gain. Because it was a posterior tie, it wasn’t really visible like more common ties so she refused to even give suggestions. Her solution was to supplement, much to my disappointment. Thankfully, the list of names that my lactation consultant gave me had not only pediatric specialists, but also a pediatric dentist. Now, it was no longer under the health insurance. It was under dental and if he assessed that she did indeed have a tie, he could gave the referral himself and the dental insurance would cover it!
Month Two
We were in luck as far as getting that tongue tie looked at. Dr. Yazdi, a pediatric dentist actually specializing in ties. He discovered our poor baby had not only the tongue tie that our lactation consultant found, but also a severe lip tie! @__@ He took care of them both right before the two month mark and she was fully healed up by the end of February.
This second month both us and baby learned to travel together. We did a lot of traveling. Which I personally think is great exposure at this age. We plan to travel a lot with this little adventurer so it’s important that she gets comfortable with these trips. We’ve started off with short ones no more than two or three hours and making stops whenever we need to for diaper changes and feedings.
We ended the month with our two month shots. She was miserable and mom’s and dad’s hearts were breaking, but afterwards didn’t seem to affect her too much which is great. We also got the ok from our lactation consultant to ease up on the supplementing as her weight gain was finally looking to be in a good place!
Month Three
She’s already turning from tummy to back, which is making tummy time an interesting battle. She’s deciding she’s done being on her tummy since she’s learned to roll out of it. but she can lift her head quite high. We also finally invested in a floor gym which she absolutely adores, meaning she doesn’t spend the entire day in my arms like she was previously. Also, at three months, she’s now completely sleeping through the night! I know I’ve heard the stories of lack-of-sleep is part of the “gifts” of parenthood, but this little one really hasn’t seemed to affect our sleep or been cause for lack there of. Since day one she’s only been waking up two or three times and through month two, it was maybe once or twice. Now we’re working on getting her to sleep in her cradle since she has slept best through co-sleeping. Night time has not been so successful, but I’ve gotten her to nap in it during the day,
It hasn’t been perfect and there has definitely been a mix of joyful moments and frustrations, but I am definitely loving this parenting.