All about breastfeeding - sorry!

Well, I'm home from church still, since Arianna's pediatrician wanted her to stay away from church for 8 weeks just to be safe. I am NOT waiting til she is 2 months old, but I figured I'd give it a few more weeks before we go back. I think we'll start going next week.

I just got out of the shower while Arianna is napping, after 9.5 hours of sleep in a row last night. This girl is incredible! I keep waiting for it to all go down the drain...but it just keeps getting better!

HOWEVER, yesterday was another story. Friday evening Dan and I decided that I would only nurse on one side (which is perfectly pain-free), and pump on the other because it was so sore and not healing. I just couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I didn't see how it would ever start feeling better if I didn't do something drastic. So I started using the free manual pump the hospital gave me. I knew I'd have to nurse on the good side a lot more, to counteract not using both sides. Looking back on it now, I wonder why it didn't occur to me to feed her the pumped milk from a bottle. Lol. Duh. Anyways, she woke up halfway through the night to nurse, presumably because she was only getting half of a feeding each time. We got up Saturday, and I proceeded to continue the pumping on one side, nursing only on the other. I was prepared to nurse more often, and didn't mind doing that. But Arianna decided she was going to scream hysterically. All day. No matter what. I nursed her non-stop. She had recently pooped. She was still having plenty of wet diapers. There were no tags/etc. bothering her from her clothes. She wasn't spitting up, or even having any hiccups. She wasn't hot or cold. She just cried. Dan and I both tried every trick in the books. She refused to nap unless she was nursing or on Dan's lap for about 10 minutes at a time listening to his Christian rock music. It was insane.

Poor Marissa didn't have a good day either, since Dan and I were up to our eyeballs trying to deal with Arianna. Marissa took over an hour to settle down in her bed and stop crying and throwing fits (which is SO not like her - she NEVER gets out of bed, NEVER cries to go to sleep).

It was the worst day and all day I kept thinking HOLY CRAP TWO KIDS. I know Arianna was annoyed because she wasn't getting as much to eat as she was used to, but I thought nursing more often would help. Sometime in the afternoon, I was just so frustrated, and although I knew I certainly wasn't starving her, I felt bad that she thought I was. So I gave in and stopped pumping and just nursed her on the other side. Unfortunately, that didn't really help. She was still grumpy, crying, and inconsolable! Dan and I were all prepared for a horrible night of sleep since it had been such an awful day. I nursed her at 10:30, she fell right asleep, and the next thing I knew, Dan and Marissa were coming in at 8am for me to fix her hair for church!

I don't know what yesterday was all about, but it certainly didn't bother her throughout the night, and today already seems to be going better than I expected. Yesterday was the hardest day yet of parenting two kids. But we worked together, tag-teaming both kids during their times of need. And we survived! Phew!

Well, I hear Arianna waking up from her nap. Time to go snuggle some soft cheeks!