We're alive, I swear!

My my, its been so super long since I posted. I had written a post nearly too months ago that I never published, and did just now (see below). I never went back to finish it, so I'll just pick up here with updates.

1. I am back at work. Have been back since Emilia turned 12 weeks old. It was way easier to come back to work this time around than with Gabriella. I think having been through it before and knowing how things will be helps so much.
2. After about 2 months of sheer hell with Emilia, she is rapidly becoming one of the happiest babies ever. This child is smiling most of the time she is awake. She has an adorable husky laugh too!
3. Gabriella is almost fully potty trained and is getting eager to start interacting with her sister more now. Emilia loves giving her big sister smiles too! (although I must say, I get the most :))

I think that's pretty much the major stuff. The holidays were really nice. My family came in from CA and were able to spend a week with us which was lovely. Unfortunately they brought the stomach flu with them. It hit Gabriella first, then me, then simultaneously Chris, and both my ILs. See, they watched the kids while I was tied to the toilet and got it from Gabriella since her diarrhea lingered on for 5 days (it was beyond vile).

I have been working with Emilia on sleep training for over a month now. By sleep training I don't mean full on CIO - but just letting her fuss in intervals. There were days from 4-7 weeks where all she wanted to do was be held to sleep. It was a total nightmare. I would spend hours a day in a darkened room rocking her and holding her while she slept. It was absolutely miserable. I decided I couldn't live like that anymore (and it was exacerbating my PPD). So I started letting her do some very light CIO and she responded very well to it. We then moved her out of our room into her room. She was still sleeping in the bouncer till right before the new year, but I made the switch to her crib and she has been there ever since. Next step was weaning her off the swaddle. About the same time we moved her into her crib she started becoming extremely irritable with the swaddle, but she still needed it to sleep her long stretches. We finally just started weaning her off the swaddle about 4 days ago. So far so good.

I also let her CIO for bedtime now if needed, but she's really been doing quite well compared to before. She is definitely learning how to self soothe and if she is able to put herself to sleep, she sleeps long, better, and wakes up cooing and happy. My favorite kind of baby :)

About my PPD - I'm feeling great these days. I am on medication and it helped me so much. I feel normal and am enjoying my children.

In terms of the pumping, I decided to stop shortly after my post below. I was dumping so much milk b/c of my imbalance that I decided it wasn't worth it anymore. Emilia did ok on regular cows milk formula but since she was still extremely fussy we decided to switch to soy and she's done great on it. Thankfully I did not get mastitis this time around either.

So yeah - things are great here. We have our challenging moments no doubt, but overall life is good. Now that I've caught up with what's been going on I'll be posting more regularly. I need and want to chronicle all of Emilia's going on's too!

Here's my cupcake this morning!

Coming out of the fog - 12/3/11

It's been quite some time since my last post and I promise it hasn't been without good reason. Things have been pretty rough here in our house with Miss Emilia who has reflux and colic. Rather than draw out all the details, I'll just list out what's been going on:

• I stopped exclusively breastfeeding and started pumping after Emilia's reflux started really kicking in and her shortened feeding times caused a second foremilk-hindmilk imbalance. I have been pumping for 2 weeks now. Initially the pumping corrected the imbalance right away, but it came back as I am still producing too much foremilk for her little tummy. Right now the only remedy is to remove the foremilk once it separates out from the hindmilk. I don't know how long my supply will be able to keep up with her demand, but we'll plug away until we can't anymore. Probably about 6 more weeks or so.
• From 5 weeks to a little past 6 weeks, Emilia has been unbelievably difficult. Not sleeping well, screaming. OMG things have been better these past 2 days, but wow, I still can't believe I'm alive after all of it. I know we'll still have some bad days and moments, but I hope we are on the upswing and her sleeping is starting to regularize a bit.
• Emilia gave mama her 1st smile on Thanksgiving she also rolled over from tummy to back during tummy time at about 5 weeks. Hasn't done it since but it was amazing to see that so early, even if it was on accident.
• Gabriella has been a typical 2.5 yr old. Very bratty and very demanding of my attention since I've had my hands really full with Emilia. I hope that as Emilia outgrows her fussiness that I'll be able to spend more time with her. Right now I feel like all we do is put movies on for her and I hate that.
• I have post partum depression.